Bidding is half measuring and half selling. Contractors who treat it as either pure math or pure schmooze lose to the ones who do both well. This is the repeatable process.
Show up on time, dressed cleanly, with a notebook. Walk the job with the customer. Ask what's driving the project, what they've tried before, and what their timeline looks like. Take photos. The customer is buying you, not just your number.
Write down exactly what's included and what's not. List exclusions explicitly. Vague scope ('refresh the kitchen') is how disputes start. Tight scope ('replace cabinets, paint walls; does not include flooring, electrical, plumbing') protects both sides.
Measure everything you'll need to price: square footage, linear feet, units, fixture counts. Be conservative — running short mid-job costs more than ordering a little extra. Use a takeoff tool (including FieldKrew's roofing takeoff) when one exists for your trade.
Material cost + labor (at burdened rate) + sub costs + overhead allocation + profit. Don't fold overhead and profit into the same number — you'll quietly underprice the profit half. Most residential trades target 30-50% gross margin.
A clean, itemized written quote with photos of similar work and a one-paragraph 'why us' beats a number scribbled on a business card every time. Customers compare on more than price.
Quotes get won on the second or third touch, not the first. Send a polite check-in 3 days after sending the quote, and another a week later. Automated quote-followup software (FieldKrew has this built in) does it without you remembering.
20-40% is the residential range. Contractors with strong presentation, tight follow-up, and trust signals (reviews, photos, referrals) cluster at the top of that range.
Quick estimates (single-day jobs) can be priced on the spot. Anything multi-day deserves a proper quote — going home to think through scope and materials nearly always produces a more accurate and more defensible number.