Get out your protractors, and sharpen your pencils!

[scorpion 0]

Our sales person comes back from a lead on a Day Care Center.

 

They have allready received a quote for 24 cameras with card access for tracking parents with individual id numbers for 10K.

 

24 channel means that I have to stack an 8 channel on to a 16 channel to be real low budget.

 

I am not familiar with this bid as I type this post. Most day cares around here are mom and pop, and they cannot rub two nickels together if they tried.

 

This sounds like one of the national chains as the building is under construction.

 

We were told that they have received a bid for everything installed at $10k

 

WHAT??

 

Must be trunk thumper with cheapo china cards thrown in to a Dell $500.00

computer, or something.

 

I can retail one door access at $1000.00, and I might be able to retail 24 cameras, and a 24 channel DVR system at $8,500.00. I have not included labor.

 

Can any of you retail the above for $10K ???

If you can do this would you be kind enough to let me know what equipment you are using to smash a low bid?

 

I cannot see how to do this, and make any money. By the time I pay the sales guy his cut, and the installers their cut, and then I turn around, and match the social security, and the ect, and then figure what the van is worth for a day plus fuel it appears that I make nothing. Hmmm.

 

Interesting bid!!

 

I think I will walk away with this one, and let the Day Care call when all hell breaks lose, and they need a real tech for repair, and support.

 

Thanks

[VST_Man 1]

Scorp, if they are willing to tell you then they should be able to back it up with the actual written bid. If they refuse, they are lying and trying.

 

I've had some say they can.......and the ones who are honest have the bid inhand ready to give to you. The others? I submitted my bid despite.

 

money is money and you should submit a barebone system. Leave out anything that maybe a "duh" and spell out the qty by line number so they can't say "it should be included.

 

Don't hate da player, hate da game.......

[sviviani 0]

I'm with VST, sell them on you and the quality of product and service over the other bid. I get alot of these and bid them anyway, half the people get scared by the number and run, the other half want to know why you are so much higher, you show them what you offer over the other guy using no name brand and you get the job.

[scorpion 0]

I thought maybe there was a new system that was out on the market that had an entry level price tag that I was not aware of.

 

Thanks for the info!

[slowforthecones 0]

suppose you can get one of those made in china $200 video cards into a $1000 dell.

[zmxtech 0]

I get this same lame spiel all the time "but joes pluming can do for less..." or "we have a quote for blah blah...."

And I say do you want a cheap system or a good system !

 

When the police turn up wanting a picture of the 'perp' do you want to look like an chump or look good with a Hi-res photo.....?

 

simple as that !

[slowforthecones 0]

I'll word it like this.... years ago when i first started in CCTV..the only names around I installed were pelco, philips (bosch), samsung, panasonic, sanyo, sensormatic. Now days with a lot of no brand equipment from asia is available, often these nobrand cameras and dvrs can perform just as good if not better than the name brands.

 

When you get a brand name product, you pay for the support and warranty. I installed a 32 camera system previously at a large resturant/bar using off brand cameras and a off brand dvr card into a nice dell rack mount unit. including the wire/j-boxes and minor conduit/wire mold some areas. Total cost for hardware itself was $5500. Labor was $6000, labor was 130 units (hrs).

[slowforthecones 0]

So without seeing the RFPs / bid quote request docs for your day care center..I can't get the scope, difficulty of job and camera/dvr capability requirements..wire run lengths and etc.

 

often times customers do tell me I know someone that can do it for less. Then I simply give them two prices... one for name brand equip, one for off-brand equip. I do tell them that off brand equip comes with a very limited warranty.

 

Then if they still want to low ball a ridulous amount of money, then I suggest to them to use their cheaper vendor. I do say i'm always available for repairs or if something doesnt work out with your other vendor.

[scorpion 0]

The day care gave us the brush off.

 

We took too long to get a quote back to them so "they went with someone else"!

 

Too bad! I did not want to do a multi platform project for that price.

 

Do not get me wrong. I will do a cheap bid in this economy just "to make a buck", but I am not going out on a limb with the liability where children are involved. I see too much coming back in my lap down the road.

 

I believe they were quoting a fictious price to see what they could get.

 

I think they all ready had a "vendor" that is pre arranged through the franchisor.

 

The sales guy is mad at me. Too bad. He is only thinking about his commision. If I take back his commision for a liability then I wonder if he would change his mind?

[slowforthecones 0]

Time to get a new sales guy?

 

If you are the business owner, doesnt this sales guy work for you or under comission? You as a biz owner and installer have the right to accept/deny or bid any job anyprice you feel is profitable/worthwhile for you to do. If this job has a lot of possibly open ended liabilities... probably best to pass it up if not much profit can be made.

 

Sales guys are a bunch of schmucks period.

[rajaymor 0]

The day care gave us the brush off.

 

The sales guy is mad at me. Too bad. He is only thinking about his commision. If I take back his commision for a liability then I wonder if he would change his mind?

 

That's kind of odd.... I work as a salesman, and I only make a percentage of the -profit- from any given job.

Clearly, you would not have made a profit if you proceeded with this job, therefore he wouldn't have made much commission anyway??

 

Even then, the fact that he could not pick up that this job seemed a little dodgy (all that for $10k, well, ok in US dollars it might be possible, but in Aussie dollars that is getting pretty unrealistic) if he couldn't get the specs on the other quote to do a comparison, that's HIS problem, not yours!!

 

hmm, sorry, I may have ranted here... but bad sales people annoy me!!

[HeadsUp 0]

take the cream , ignore the rubbish.

 

you are better to stay at home and clean up your truck than to run around doing a budget job for nothing

 

the headache isnt worth it.

 

 

 

i have heard the same game before too , Joe-who-doesnt-exist-said-he-will-do-it-cheaper

 

 

quote to make a living or dont bother.

 

there is better customers around

 

 

ps , as far as profit is concerned , once we have good products sourced , buying in bulk does help with discount

 

i have suppliers i have dealth with for years , i always pay them on delivery and they give me better pricing , people appreciate it when you dont make them wait 30 days for their money.