Hosed

Today I lost a job and I have to tell you that I got temporarily angry about.

I lose jobs all the time for various reasons and over the last couple of years it is all about cost. Clients could care less about good work, reputation and loyalty and that's okay. They'll be back.

In the case of today however I almost nuked out.

I bid a project recently that requires an ALTA and a re-plat. This project is 4 lots, 1 with a big custom home on 1 lot.

In 2006 my company did a topo on the 4 lots and later on staked the house so I was able to give a really good price for the ALTA.

I bid this project at $1800 for the ALTA and $2500 for the plat. These are very good prices and some may consider them to low, which I actually do but I have sharpened my pencil like everyone else.

I am a huge believer in the follow up call. I start with a call the next day or even the same to make sure that the contract was received and then I call every 48 hours for a status until I get an answer. PR is important and people will remember how eager one is to work for them.

I did my diligent Monday follow up today and my client told me that I had been beat so bad the he would have been embarrassed to call and ask if I could match. He was having a very hard time understanding how the guy could do it for these prices but his client went with it.

The other surveyor bid it as such, $1000 for an ALTA on 4 lots that he has never been to and $1200 for the plat.

To this I say "hey genius" you could have bid it 1.5 times and still got it. You totally screwed yourself and created more long term damage to surveying.

Guys like you are the reason that surveying is having such a hard time becoming the profession that most want it to be.

My cost was cheap, but this is ridiculous. Based on how long it would take me to do this job I figured this person will actually pay out of his own pocket before this is done.

I hope you are a follower of this blog and are actually brave enough to leave a comment.

Until there is a basic price structure in place and we are all working on quality and service and reputation as opposed to cost, surveying will never be a profession. We have to start acting like pros and start realizing the importance of getting paid a professional rate.

People that run on a fear factor and do jobs for super cheap are killing us and have zero regard for the overall big picture. They do sub-par work and continue to give us a bad name.

I know that they will one day weed themselves out, but right now it is hard to swallow. Sometimes anyway.

So I'll just move on to the next project which will most likely be better. Usually when a door closes another one opens and things turn out great.