How to Track Opportunities with Multiple Bidders - iDeal Sales CRM for Construction

How to track opportunities with multiple bidders presents a challenge in industries like construction. Handling multiple bids for one opportunity is not only difficult, but also a time-consuming and error-prone process. And very few software solutions actually solve it out of the box. They usually require costly customizations to address the 1 opportunity-multiple clients relationship in the construction sales pipeline.

Watch a video tutorial on how to track opportunities with multiple bidders

Enter the opportunity
Add all clients and contacts to the opportunity
Create proposals for all the clients; you can create multiple proposals at once
Send and track your proposals; you can see when a client receives or opens them
Your bid board & calendar show you what you need to bid or follow-up on and when
Follow up to find out which client was awarded the job
Then focus on follow-up with the awarded client to win the job
Mark the opportunity as won, attach relevant documents, and hand it over to the project team!

The Construction Bidding Process for Multiple Bidders

In the construction industry, multiple bids, contractors and a single job are a common occurrence. For example, let’s say you are a contractor, you learn about a new project or a building. You receive invitations from multiple general contractors (GCs) to bid that project. Or you are a general contractor, and you receive multiple invitations to bid (ITBs) from building developers or owners.

Opportunities with Multiple Bidders in Construction

It is a challenge to create all those proposals and send them on time. Then you have to track the status of each bid for this one opportunity until you find out which client got the job. And your work is not done yet. Now you have to keep following up with the awarded client to make sure you beat your own competition for the job. That’s a lot of tracking and following up for each opportunity!

The Process to Track opportunities with multiple bidders in construction

Tools That Track Multiple Bids for One Opportunity

Now, of course you could can track opportunities with multiple bidders with an Excel Spreadsheet, but it is time consuming. It becomes difficult to manage when more people are involved. Also, an Excel spreadsheet doesn’t send you notifications or contain all the data you need. It is not a great reporting tool either, to name but a few drawbacks.

So, how else can you track opportunities with multiple bidders to maximize your chances of winning a project? The best way to track opportunities/quotes for multiple bidders for the same project is with sales management or CRM software. That is why we developed a tool specifically for that purpose.

Whatever tool you decide on, bidding in the construction industry a certain process. You create a record of the opportunity, attach all the clients (e.g. GCs), generate the proposals for each client you got an ITB from, and send out the proposals. And then you follow-up and follow-up some more!

The iDeal Solution for Handling Multiple Bids within One Opportunity

iDeal CRM is able to track opportunities with multiple bidders easily and clearly. That allows estimators and business developers to focus on winning the job instead of tracking the bids! Or manually drafting proposals and emailing them to each bidder for the project!

So, let’s head over to iDeal CRM. As far as sales management software goes, iDeal CRM gears itself towards construction companies across the world. Yet other industries can use it as well.

The navigation is user-friendly. For construction there are top-navigation tabs for Opportunities, Calendars, Companies, Contacts, and Reports. For each opportunity there is a visual pipeline with multiple stages to track multiple bids for one opportunity. And you can customize the pipeline to fit the sales process at your organization. Watch this video tutorial to see how.

Create and track opportunities with multiple bidders effectively to maximize your chances to win a job:

Use prepopulated proposal templates or upload your own
Send multiple proposals with three clicks
Receive notifications when a clients opens your proposal
Set follow-up reminders
Automate follow-up
No need to make notes, the system does it for you, for example, when you send an email
View a note on the client, opportunity, and contact level
Leverage metrics to plan resources
Add any drawings, specs, or other information to the opportunity

Cut manual tasks. Save time and money. And gain complete visibility into the opportunity from start to finish. What’s there not to like?

iDeal CRM Features to Track Opportunities with Multiple Bidders

You can get started with iDeal CRM for free. No credit card is required, so you can register an account and start tracking multiple bids for one opportunity immediately. Give it a try!

Conclusion on How to Track Opportunities with Multiple Bidders

In conclusion, we hope we have demonstrated to you how to track opportunities with multiple bidders. We also hope that you arrived at the conclusion that the best way to track multiple bids for one opportunity is to do it with a sales management software.

And as far as sales management software goes, iDeal CRM gears itself only towards construction companies. And it works for construction companies across the world. Still, you can use it for other industries as well. You can create an account and try it out for free. No credit card is required, so you can register an account and start track multiple bids for one opportunity right away. Wishing you more leads, clients, and jobs!