Moving to Commercial Construction with Cost Estimating CD-ROM

While the business of residential construction is rewarding and can yield a good living, it's very competitive and highly dependent on local economic conditions. That's why the author of this book turned to commercial work. A single job can keep you and your crews busy for a year or more.

Though there is higher risk involved in commercial construction, there are greater challenges and higher profit as well. And, as long as you are going to expend the energy, why not take your profit percentage out of $2,000,000 rather than $200,000? But there's a lot to learn, and plenty of room for mistakes.

But as you'll be shown in this book, there are guidelines to follow to help ensure your success. Moving to Commercial Construction offers the residential general contractor, subcontractor, material supplier and designer a practical guide to making this complicated but rewarding move.

In simple language, it explains practically everything you need to know, providing detailed guidelines for:

• Deciding the size and scope of your commercial business
• Getting through the submittal and shop drawing process
• Utilizing networks, services and organizations to find commercial work
• Working with owners, architects, subs, suppliers and your own employees
• Understanding the complexities of the commercial bid process
• Controlling your business and construction costs
• Organizing sub and supplier bids
• Marketing tools, trade shows, customer presentations and advertising
• Compiling an accurate estimate and presenting a bid
• Local and governmental requirements affecting your business

It takes you step-by-step through the process of setting up a successful commercial company, with special emphasis on the intricacies of:

• Commercial estimating and bidding
• Value engineering
• Maintaining a profitable jobsite
• Keeping a stable work force
• Developing and maintaining successful business relationships
• Promoting your business

There's also a chapter on the design-build and partnering business concepts and their advantage over the competitive bid process. Includes a CD-ROM with a 300-page database of cost estimates, National Estimator, an estimating program that makes it easy to use these costs, an interactive tutorial, software to convert estimates into invoices and export to QuickBooks Pro, and blank copies of the forms in the book formatted for Windows and Mac.