Getting the most out of your trades is one the key factors that separates successful General Contractors from the rest. In the preconstruction phase, this means getting them to engage with your tender invites, so that they provide you a quote on closing day.

Here are three simple tips for encouraging your trades to participate in your tender invitations:

1) Send Targeted Email and Fax Notifications
Based on our research, the highest response rate is achieved when relevant trades are notified about upcoming tenders (through email and fax). Expecting trades to check your website on their own leads to lower response rates, yet many general contractors continue this practice out of convenience.

2) Remove all barriers to access
Based on our experience in developing Swiftender, we’ve seen that there is a direct link between information accessibility and trade response rates. Intuitively, the easier you make it for your trades to access your latest specs, drawings and addendum documents, the more who will keep up and provide a quote on closing day. Password protecting your content and creating login accounts for your trades may be good for security, but it’s harmful to response rates.

3) Maintain an accurate tradelist
Using a traditional spreadsheet, it’s almost impossible to maintain a healthy, updated trades list. Based on our on-boarding process where we integrate spreadsheets of trades into Swiftender, we’ve found that approximately 25% of the entries are outdated or incomplete. This means that a great deal of trades don’t even get the opportunity to provide a quote!