I will say that at times, I made more money by not working. In other words, I have been under bid so low that I made more money doing nothing than the winner of the bid made. ie Engineers estimate $1,200,000. My bid and one other were within $4,000 at $1,400,000. The winning bid was $896,000. I did not build $500,000 gross profit into my bid. Therefore, I know that I made more money than the winning bidder simply by setting on my porch doing nothing.
There has always been an idiot out there that knows how to do the work and often good at his trade. BUT he has no business sense what so ever. Then he thinks he can do the work cheaper than an experienced contractor. So he under bids a job and goes broke because he has no idea of how much capital it takes to start up a business and run it successfully. We think good, he is gone and we won't have to bid against him again. But the problem is that there is always another idiots out there that will bid and accept a job below cost.
