How Contractors Can Win More Bids

I am not an estimator, and I will not tell you how to price a job. What I know is selling.

Before healthcare staffing, I spent ten years in restaurants and beverage, ending as head of sales and marketing for a brewery. I carried cases into stores, worked with distributors and store managers, and asked buyers for shelf space they did not have to give me. Today I am President and COO of Uniti Med and GQR Healthcare and COO of Nebula, and we grew Uniti Med’s core brand 10x by getting a few sales habits right and repeating them.

When I spoke to insulation contractors at the MICA Fall Business Meetings, the tasks members brought into the room were the same ones I hear from every sales team: the follow-ups that never get written, the proposal that takes three hours, the customer who went quiet. A bid is a sale. Here is how I would help a contractor win more of them.

Why do contractors lose bids they should win?

Usually not on price alone. Bids are lost because the proposal went out and nothing followed it, because the customer had a concern nobody asked about, or because the contractor never found out who was really making the decision. Price is the reason the customer gives, because it is the easiest one to say.

That is good news. Price is hard to change without hurting your margin. Follow-up, questions and a clear next step cost almost nothing.

How should contractors follow up on a bid?

Persistently, and with something useful each time. The story I tell most often on stage comes from my brewery days. We were in every major store in our market except the biggest retailer in the country. Every store manager told me the same thing: it was not up to them, and one buyer decided. So I called that buyer. When he did not answer, I called again, and again. I will admit I even found out where he worked out, hoping to run into him.

Eventually he picked up. He told me I was persistent, and then asked whether I knew how many products were in his stores and whether he personally buys the paper clips. To him, my beer was a paper clip. One more item in a building full of items.

I told him the truth as I saw it. His stores did not carry us, we were a top seller in our category, every competitor of his stocked us, and our customers were loyal enough to drive to a competitor to buy it and do the rest of their shopping while they were there. He told me to get him our best sellers, in every store, and he wanted a display.

Two lessons for contractors. First, persistence. If I had stopped after the third unanswered call, where most people stop, there would have been no conversation. Second, persistence only got me on the phone. What got me the order was showing him what it cost him to keep saying no.

For a contractor, that turns into a simple follow-up rhythm. Call two days after the bid goes out to confirm they have it and ask what questions came up. Follow up again at a week with something useful: a photo of similar work, a schedule option, an answer to a question they had. Keep going until you get a yes, a no or a date. A clear no is worth more than a bid sitting in silence, because it frees you to chase the next one.

How do you answer “your price is too high”?

Treat it as the customer still talking to you, not a wall you have to knock down. A customer who objects is still in the conversation. The one who goes quiet is the one to worry about. I teach a five-step method for this called LAARC:

Listen. Let them finish. Do not start defending the number halfway through the sentence.

Acknowledge. “That is a fair thing to raise. It is a real investment.” You are not agreeing the price is wrong. You are agreeing the concern is real.

Ask. Find the actual concern. “Too high compared to another bid, or higher than you planned to spend?” Those are two different problems with two different answers.

Respond. Answer what they actually said. If another bid is lower, walk through what is and is not in each scope. If it is over budget, talk about phasing or options.

Confirm. “Does that answer it, or is there something else on your mind?” Do not move on until the concern is settled.

A discount answers none of those questions. It just teaches the customer that your first number was not real. There is more on this in How to Handle Price Objections Without Discounting and in my article Nobody Wants to Be Overcome.

How do you know what a bid needs to close?

I think of a signed contract like a combination lock with five tumblers. That is the idea behind the LOCKS framework. Before a customer says yes, five things have to be true for them:

Love the product. They like the approach, the materials and the scope you proposed.

Own belief. They believe it will actually work for their building, their home or their schedule.

Confidence in you. They trust you and your crew to show up, do it right and stand behind it.

Kickoff plan. They can picture what happens the moment they sign: start date, who calls them, what the first week looks like.

Stakes. They understand what it costs them to wait or do nothing, the way the buyer finally saw what it cost him not to carry our beer.

Line up four and the lock stays shut. When a bid stalls, go down the list and ask which tumbler has not turned. Most of the time it is the kickoff plan or the stakes, and both are fixable with one honest conversation.

Can AI help contractors write proposals faster?

Yes, and speed matters. The contractor whose proposal arrives first, clear and complete, often sets the standard the others get measured against. AI tools any shop can afford will turn site notes into a clean scope description, draft the cover letter, write the follow-up messages for the rhythm above, and summarize a long spec. You still check every number. You just stop starting from a blank page.

I walk through the practical side in AI for Contractors: Proposals, Follow-Ups, and Hiring. It is also the heart of Take Back Your Time with AI, the working session I presented at MICA and present at the NFBA Conference & Expo in February 2027, where builders bring the tasks they would rather not do and leave with them handled.

Where should a contractor start?

Open your list of bids from the last 60 days and count the ones where you have not heard back and have not followed up. For most contractors that number is uncomfortable, and every one of them is work sitting on the table. Call them this week. Then use the five-question check on the next bid before it goes out. For more on the sales side, see How to Increase Sales: An Operator’s Playbook.