How Union Electrical Contractors Evaluate and Bid Commercial Jobs: A Contractor’s Inside View

In this article:

• How contractors find jobs worth bidding and which ones they skip
• What happens at a job site walkthrough and why it matters
• Why drawing quality shapes whether a contractor bids at all
• The value engineering conversation that happens more than most realize
• What this means for specifiers, GCs, and facility managers working with electrical contractors

There is a common assumption among people who specify or procure electrical work: that the contractor’s role is to receive the plans, price the work, and show up. Talk to Michelle Mance for a few minutes, and that picture gets considerably more complicated.

Mance owns Total Electric, Inc., a union electrical contractor based in the Chicago area with over 25 years in business and a client list that includes Nestle, Kellogg’s, the University of Chicago, and Chase Bank. She started as an electrical apprentice at 27, co-founded her company while still completing her apprenticeship, and has been navigating the commercial and industrial electrical market ever since. The way she describes the bidding and project development process is worth understanding for anyone on the other side of that table.

Not Every Job Is Worth Bidding

Mance’s firm does not pursue every available opportunity. She operates within a select circle of general contractors she knows well and has worked with repeatedly. That network, built over decades, is the front door to nearly everything her company bids.

“We kind of have our in-house guys who we bid for.”

There are platforms that aggregate bid invitations from GCs across the market. She mentions Plan Bid as one example. She is deliberate about which of those she engages with. Her concern is straightforward: with an unfamiliar GC, she does not know their payment history, their reputation on the street, or how they manage their subs. In a business where labor costs are fixed and project margins are already tight, a slow-paying or poorly organized GC can do real financial damage to a subcontractor.

That selectivity is a calibrated business decision, not a limitation. Contractors who take every available bid spread themselves thin and sometimes win work they cannot execute well. Mance’s approach keeps her firm focused on the relationships and project types where Total Electric is at its best.

When a job does come in through one of her established GC relationships, the first step is getting eyes on the drawings. From there, the decision to bid depends on a converging set of factors: the quality of the plans, how busy her crews are at that moment, whether the scope fits the firm’s area of strength, and whether there is anything about the project conditions that signals a bad fit.

“If I’m busy, I may not take these jobs because they’re a little more complicated. If I’m slow, I might take them.”

There is no single formula. It is a judgment call made every time, informed by experience.

What a Job Site Walkthrough Actually Involves

When a GC hosts a site walkthrough as part of the bidding process, Mance goes. The walkthrough is not a formality. It is a critical step in the estimation process, and if a contractor skips it, the consequences fall entirely on them.

“You go to the job, you look at the job, you have to make sure that you know what you’re doing. If you miss anything, you were at that job site — so it’s your responsibility.”

Plans and drawings communicate a lot, but they do not communicate everything. Existing conditions, site access constraints, clearance issues, the actual location of existing systems — these are things you see with your eyes on the ground. A contractor who bids from drawings alone and then runs into a field condition the drawings did not reflect has no one to blame. The walkthrough is where that risk gets managed.

Walkthroughs are also where relationships form. When the GC, the engineer, the architect, and multiple subs are all on the same site at the same time, there is an informal vetting process happening. Contractors who ask sharp questions, demonstrate knowledge of the project conditions, and handle themselves professionally get remembered. That impression carries forward into future work.

Why Drawing Quality Changes Everything

In an ideal world, every project comes with a complete, fully coordinated drawing set before bidding opens. Mance is candid about how often that actually happens.

“Complete drives are hard to get. You can’t find them anymore.”

Fifty percent drawings, or preliminary sets, have become increasingly common on commercial projects. A contractor bidding off incomplete documents is taking on scope risk. If something important is missing from the plans, discovering it after award means either absorbing the cost or having a difficult conversation with the GC about a change order.

Mance handles this situationally. With GCs she knows and trusts, she will work through incomplete drawings, understanding that there is give and take in the relationship over time. With GCs she does not have that history with, she is more likely to pass.

There is also a more involved version of this dynamic, one where the contractor is asked to help develop the project scope itself. When preliminary drawings come out and a GC asks a contractor to provide input on how to approach the electrical scope, that contractor is effectively providing engineering value in exchange for a better shot at being awarded the work. It happens more than most on the design side realize, and experienced contractors understand how to navigate it.

The Value Engineering Conversation

One aspect of the contractor’s role that surprises many on the design and specification side is how common value engineering requests have become. When a project bids over budget, the owner or GC often turns to the subs and asks: what can we change to bring the cost down while preserving the function?

“They ask for value engineering all the time to cut costs. That way that contractor could come in with a lower price and present their value engineer to get their foot in the door better.”

This is a legitimate part of the commercial construction process and a competitive tool. A contractor who can identify a genuinely equivalent approach at lower cost creates real value for the project. One who cannot, or who is not confident enough to engage in that conversation, misses an opportunity.

Mance’s firm has the estimating and engineering background to participate in that conversation. She has seen it evolve over her career. Where value engineering used to be uncommon, it is now a regular part of the bidding landscape, in part because competition for projects has intensified and GCs are increasingly looking for contractors who bring something beyond a price number.

What This Means for Specifiers and Facility Managers

For anyone who designs, specifies, or procures electrical work on commercial and institutional projects, the picture Mance describes is worth understanding. The contractors showing up to your walkthroughs are not blank slates waiting to receive instructions. They are evaluating fit, forming opinions about the project team, and deciding whether this is work they want.

That same evaluation happens around the products that appear in project specifications. An experienced contractor looks at a spec product and thinks about installation logistics, field fit, and whether the documentation is clear enough to price accurately. Products that install cleanly, arrive with good support materials, and perform reliably in the field get recommended. Products that create field problems get remembered for the wrong reasons.

At Pedoc Power Solutions, we design our outdoor power pedestals with field installation in mind. Direct bury and surface mount configurations with clear rough-in dimensions, UL 1773 listing, NEMA 3R wet location rating, and a stainless steel construction that holds up through the kinds of site conditions commercial contractors deal with regularly. When an estimator is pricing a project and a foreman is in the field, we want those interactions with our product to be straightforward.

Mance built her business on repeat work and word-of-mouth referrals. She did not get there through advertising. She got there by doing good work, being straightforward to deal with, and understanding her clients’ needs well enough to consistently deliver.

“Word of mouth on the street — if you do well, they’ll come to you.”

That principle applies equally to the products that contractors install and the manufacturers who stand behind them.