Bid list

What is a bid list?

A bid list is the list of projects a company is pricing, with due dates, owners and status. It shows every open invitation to bid, who is estimating it, which GC or owner it goes to, and whether it was submitted, won, lost or declined. The term also describes the other side of the table: an owner's or GC's list of invited bidders.

Why it matters to a revenue leader

For a project contractor, the bid list is the pipeline. It shows how estimating capacity is being spent and whether the team is chasing the right work. Construction business coach George Hedley urges contractors to track bid results by customer, project type, size and location, which only works when the bid list records those fields. For a revenue leader, the useful signal is in the patterns: which GCs invite often but rarely award, which project types win, and which bids were decided without follow-up.

A mechanical contractor's bid list shows 46 open bids. Eighteen are for one GC who has awarded the company one job in two years. The revenue leader shifts estimating time from that GC to negotiated work with existing service customers, where the team wins far more often.