Underbid Nightmare

In this business, our accurate estimates are crucial. We do our best to give quotes that accurately reflect how much it will cost to grind based on the size and quantity of your stumps. Sometimes it’s more guesstimating than estimating. Stumps can be strangely shaped, tall, rotted, or hard as a rock; it’s not hard to imagine we don’t get it right every time. Unfortunately, an accurate bid can be the difference between getting and losing the job. We’d rather underbid than over; we do offer the best price after all, and we do our best to match our competition.

Sometimes though, we get it so wrong that it’s frustrating. We don’t increase our bids after we’ve made them unless we break or chip teeth on the job. I took a job over the phone since it was farther from our house than I was willing to travel just for the bid. He sent me several pictures but it was hard to tell how big these stumps were. He gave me measurements but people rarely include how big the actual root ball is. He had 10 stumps all 4 to 6 feet in diameter he said. I told him I’d do it for less than $1500 dollars. Ecstatically, he accepted my offer.

Upon arriving at his homestead 2 hours away, I found that not one stump was less than 6 feet wide at the base and 1 to 2 feet tall. Some were as big as 8 feet across. I had never seen so many huge stumps in one place. This was when I was still running my 35 hp grinder. I could have easily charged twice as much, but I bit my tongue. I got to work and began chomping away. Little by little, the stumps disappeared. He was kind enough to push the chips away with a tractor so I wouldn’t miss anything. It took some time, but I was making progress.

I was planning a night out with my wife, but that was looking less and less like a possibility. She called near 3 pm to see how it was going and I told here it wasn’t looking good for tonight. My customer saw me on the phone and asked me if everything was ok. I explained my intention to take my wife out on a date. He must have been intrigued by that: right then he pulled out $100 and handed it to me and told me to do something nice with her.

Had I known just how big these stumps were, I would’ve gotten there at first light. After hours of grinding, it was dark and I was out of time. I loaded it up and took off feeling somewhat defeated.

I returned the following week to finish up. It only took a couple more hours. My customer was pleased with my work effort and impressed by my little machine. It took some time, but it got the job done. I’m thankful now that I have my 60hp machine.

It’s customers like this that make this job so fun. He was a good guy and it was a pleasure doing business with him. Not only did he help me with the job, but he gave me a generous tip. It’s stuff like this that makes me feel a lot better about an underbid job.