Landscape industry distributors, in addition to selling equipment and products, also offer bid and takeoff services to help their customers with irrigation, landscape, nursery, outdoor lighting, site furnishings and stormwater/drainage jobs. These services also can be another avenue for contractors to find and bid on work.
Erik Acker, director of project services at SiteOne Landscape Supply, explains that SiteOne’s program, Project Services, is an online portal where contractors can bid commercial work.
The program is free to join and helps connect contractors with new construction opportunities, cloud-based landscape and irrigation material takeoffs, customized bid creation, and request-for-quotes submission and tracking.
A contractor signs up for an account and can upload his or her own project in order to form a bid or search for new construction projects.
After a contractor submits a project for bid on the Project Services platform, SiteOne then performs a design and/or material takeoff using proprietary software. When the material takeoff is complete, the system notifies the contractor that his or her bid is ready. From there, customers can hand their materials list to a SiteOne associate who can help them place a supplies order.
“We’ve tried to automate as much of the process as possible,” Acker says.
Commercial landscape contractors rely heavily on bidding tools to help expedite work. Acker says that SiteOne’s Project Services tool offers features, automation and usability to help contractors grow their businesses.
Added value
At a February SiteOne University event in Westlake, Ohio, Project Services Manager Jeff Lovell mentioned additional capabilities available to users.
“Sometimes we do head spot designs for irrigation, and if you get the job, we can go back and do a finished design, so that you have construction documents,” he explains, adding that contractors can then give those plans to installers to complete the job. “We’re not in the design business,” he says, “but we like to be involved where we can to raise the level of the industry and help people out.”
Traffic has picked up on the SiteOne client portal as more people are spending time at home and working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, Acker says.
“If contractors are sitting at home, we’re seeing more projects that they’re trying to bid,” Acker says. “We haven’t seen a slow down with COVID-19, at least on the bidding side … a lot of guys are looking for opportunities when the coronavirus is done.”
