RapidBid is a great solution for painting and decorating professionals who want to simplify their estimating process using digital tools. After all, there are few aspects of our lives that haven’t been made easier through technology over the years. Why should your work be any different?
“I have a mate who is an electrical contractor and he was telling me that he spent three weeks pricing a $200,000 job by hand. I told him that with my estimating and PDF take off software, I started a $700,000 job yesterday and finished it today!”
Ashley AJDR
“As much as I would hate to help any of my competitors, I have to completely endorse RapidBid in all that it offers for a business. Our quotation rate has increased from 50 to over 200 quotations per month.”
On Tap Plumbing
“RapidBid is a lifesaver. It’s so easy to use, I just open the drawings and within minutes I have scaled, marked and priced up all my materials and labour. It has increased the speed that we can win work four times over, at least.”
AL Contract Services
“At last, take-offs for the 21st century! After years spent marking up drawings with highlighters and producing takeoff sheets, this is a revolution in estimating. Just can’t live without it – I now takeoff five projects in the time it used to take to do just one.”
MJL Contracts
“Now, overall from top to bottom, RapidBid’s software saves me about 70% of my time, and that makes an amazing difference. Quotes that took me five days before now take me less than two days, and I’ve only been estimating since January.”
JKM Contracts
“I work as an estimator Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5, and your software and support is first class. I can takeoff and price well over 10 drawings in less than an hour, this used to take me half a day before! I just love how simple it is.”
Wiltons
We used to do takeoffs with a scale ruler and a pencil which was very time consuming, and now we have a much quicker takeoff time. We only spend around 1 or 2 hours doing takeoffs with RapidBid’s software and before it used to take us about 5 or 6 hours.
AG Contracting
“We used to have a three or four-process estimate which was over-complicated, but now we have a simple, one-process estimate. We definitely recommend!”
Pure Services Group
“Time saving is the biggest advantage for us by far. RapidBid saved us about 80% of our time and increased our productivity 50%.”
Environ Group
“Our monthly quotation output has increased from 60 to in excess of 180 quotations per month. That is a staggering 300% increase.”
D. R. Matthews
There’s no need to throw your time and money away before you’ve even started your work. That’s effectively what thousands of painters do every day when they sit down at their desks with a stack of drawings and start tediously measuring areas.
The take-off is the part of the planning process that takes most painters the longest, so we’ll tackle that first. How RapidBid helps is to provide a digital platform that replaces your desk. Instead of clearing the required space to lay out sheets of paper, you can simply browse, preview and open the digital copies. It’s easy to check which files you actually need as you go along, thanks to the preview feature in the program.
The next element in your manual take-off would usually be categorised as stationery; the pens, pencils, highlighters, rulers, compasses, protractors and everything else you use to mark up drawings and note the numbers you need. Obviously the goal here is usually to calculate the areas you’ll need to paint, as accurately and quickly as possible. As you know, it’s rarely as quick as easy as you hope at the beginning.
RapidBid replaces those items with virtual tools on your computer screen. Every action you’d normally need to take on paper can be achieved on the screen instead. Drawing and tracing over areas, taking measurements, identifying different symbols and so on can all be done much faster with a few clicks.
This means you’ll have a very quick and easy record of the numbers you need to produce an estimate, so once you’ve clicked through your take-off in record time, you’ll be able to calculate the quantities of supplies you’ll need and all the other details. The whole process is made more efficient wherever possible thanks to our intuitive program.
Although RapidBid is a single platform used by contractors in all kinds of specialised areas, different people will get a little more use out of certain tools. In the case of painters, we highly recommend the following features in particular based on what our users find most useful.
Easily measuring areas in just a few clicks, using a set of digital tools, is a huge advantage. This is probably one of the essential tools you’ll find most useful as a painter, so you can establish the size of the walls, ceilings and other surface areas you’ll need to cover.
You’ll also be able to increase your accuracy by taking advantage of your computer’s processing power. Mathematical calculations are easy for a program! Humans, on the other hand, can make mistakes that have consequences. Inaccurate estimates could lead to you wasting money on materials or being unable to finish your job on time.
RapidBid reduces this risk with its precise, instant calculations. It also minimises the need for you to duplicate your efforts wherever possible, so numbers from one step are taken through to the next step automatically. This further reduces that chance that you’ll end up with calculation mistakes in your final estimate.
The main reason we created RapidBid was to give contractors the chance to improve their businesses and capitalise on their own potential. We don’t believe that the benefits of using estimating software should be restricted to certain trades, or businesses with a huge amount of money to invest in IT systems.
If your operation is currently a small one, and your short term goal is simply to ensure you’re able to stay in business and make a modest profit, then RapidBid can definitely help you. It’s a small investment in terms of money and time to learn a new way of working. In very little time, you’ll be able to complete all your projects faster and start seeing the benefits.
If you already have your sights set on higher or faster growth, then that’s even better. Lowering your turnaround time unlocks so many potential benefits and opportunities to grow. Using software that’s both reliable and intuitive also makes it easier for you to expand your team by taking on new employees and training them up quickly. The possibilities are endless.
The point is to save you time and money. What you do with that time and money is up to you. If you want to, you take advantage of your increased capacity and take on more jobs. You might want to be even more strategic and put more of your efforts into building relationships with customers and being very selective, identifying the types of projects that are likely to make you more money and only going for those.
Alternatively, you might choose to spend your extra time getting a well-earned rest, which might leave you feeling refreshed and ready to take on new challenges. RapidBid can give you that opportunity, especially if you feel like deadlines are a constant worry and you’re fed up with the pressure of preparing estimates whenever you aren’t working on site.
Because the problem of wasted time is one shared by countless contractors globally, we made sure our software was as flexible as possible. It’s already being used around the world right now, but we wanted to make sure our instincts were right.
That’s why we asked a US-based team of academic researchers to put RapidBid to the test, giving the program and some basic training to a group of test subjects. All of those subjects were real contractors who needed a faster solution to help them with their estimates, because they (understandably) weren’t satisfied with the traditional approach.
The subjects were hoping for a better solution, and we were hoping to get some useful feedback about our software. In the end, it worked out great for everyone. The researchers found that the vast majority of participants were able to work a lot faster using the system than they had been able to previously. The users loved it, and were able to save well over three quarters of their time on average while being confident about the accuracy of their results.
We understand that without seeing the software, you can’t be sure it will suit you and you might not be able to visualise the workflow. That’s why our next step is to organise a free, one-to-one demo for you.
We’ll talk you through how the software is normally used, what the tools do and how to use them. By the end of our quick demonstration, you’ll have a much better understanding of how the technology works. You’ll also be able to ask us anything you’re curious about.
As a professional painter and an expert in your field, you shouldn’t be held back when it comes to growing your business. We’ll help you establish how RapidBid could fit in with your business, and advise you on what option might suit you best.
There’s no obligation to go ahead, so we’ll leave that up to you. It’s a completely free demo with no strings attached. Just get in touch and select your preferred day and time by clicking the button.
