Get His Price in Writing Before You Bid Her Roof

The problem in one breath

You bid the roof in March off a number you carried in your head. She sits on it, signs in June, and the shingle moved up in between. Her page didn't move. The whole jump came out of your job.

Why it happens

Nobody asks how long a price is good for. It feels like asking a question you should already know the answer to. So the bid gets built off last month's invoice or off what a bundle cost the last time you thought about it, and then the job waits — on her mortgage company, on a color pick, on a month of rain. The number ages in a drawer. On the day you finally roll you buy at today's cost and you bill at March's, and the difference is your money, not hers.

The play

1. Bid off a written quote with a date on it. Not the price in your head, not last month's invoice. Ask your rep for the quote in writing on the products the takeoff calls for, and staple it to the job file. A dated piece of paper is the only thing that tells you later whether the number you bid was ever real.

2. Ask the rep two questions and write the answers on the quote itself. How long is this good for. And what happens to my price if it moves before I take delivery. Those two answers turn a quote into something you can plan around. What his paper actually promises is set by his company's terms and your account agreement, so get his answer in writing and read your own paperwork before you count on it.

3. When you hear an increase is coming, you have three honest moves and one bad one. Lock the price if he'll hold it. Buy ahead onto a job you've already sold — only if the cash is genuinely sitting there (Module 6, Play 12). Never out of the winter reserve. That money is next winter's payroll, already handled (Module 6, Play 11) — you draw it down in the slow months on purpose, and it was never buying money. Or price around it: carry the new cost on every bid going out. The bad move is bidding like nothing changed and hoping.

4. The pre-bid challenge already asks this — start answering it honestly. The card you read before a bid goes out (Module 6, Play 4) carries the line is the price we bid this at still good on the day we roll? It's sitting there waiting on the quote in the folder. Answer it off the date on that paper, not off what you remember paying. Ten seconds on a card you already read, and no second checklist to build.

5. Put a matching term on your own side. Your price is good for a stated number of days, said out loud at the kitchen table and written on the page she signs (Module 6, Play 18). Pick a window you can actually buy inside of. Careful: this is not the decking or second-layer unit prices, which you set before the season off your own cost math (Module 6, Play 17) and which don't float job to job.

6. When it moves anyway, sort it honestly. If the scope changed — more sheets, another layer — that's a change order, and it's priced off those same pre-set numbers. If the scope didn't change and the cost did, that's your margin, and it lands as the price miss in Play 2.

Do this this week

Call your rep once and ask the two questions on every open quote you're still bidding off. Write his answers on each page before you hang up.

The tool

The price-hold ask is the script, and it's short on purpose. Read the two questions the way they're written — they're not a negotiation, they're a fact you need. Then fill the four blanks under them while he's still on the phone, because a remembered answer is worth nothing in June. Keep the card in the folder with the quote. When you build the bid, the good-through date tells you whether to bid off that number or go get a fresh one, and the after-it-moves answer tells you what you're exposed to if she takes eight weeks to sign. Ask a second supplier the same two questions and you'll learn which branch actually holds a price.

THE PRICE-HOLD ASK — two questions before you bid off his number

Say it plain, on the phone or at the counter:

  "Before I bid this - how long is this price good for?"

  "And if it moves before I take delivery, what happens to
   my price? Do I pay the new one, or does this quote hold?"

Then write it down, on the quote, while he is talking.

  Supplier / branch: _______________  Rep: ________________
  Quote date: ____________  Quote or reference #: _________
  Products quoted: ______________________________________

  1. Good through (date he said): ________________________
  2. If it moves before delivery: ________________________
     ____________________________________________________
  3. What he needs from me to hold it (deposit? PO? order
     by a date?): ________________________________________
  4. Who told me, and when: ______________ on ____________

  Our price to her is good for ______ days. On the page? [ ]

His answer is his company's terms, not a rule of the trade.
Get it in writing and read your account paperwork.

If your crew is 1099

Nothing to adjust — buying material is the owner's and the office's side of the house. The one place it touches a sub crew is when he supplies the material himself: then his price is his problem, and what he supplies against what you supply is already settled line by line on the job ticket (Module 12, Play 2).

One more thing: this play is how we run a shop — it's not legal advice. Rules change by state and by contract, so before you act on the legal-sounding parts, run them past your own attorney or accountant. It's your business, and what you do with any of this is your call and your responsibility.