Most of the jobs, come either from referrals or from relationships.
The best way to start out to start getting invited to bid on projects, is to start calling on your local general contractors and getting information on how to get onto their bidders list.
They will ask for information about your company, insurance, bonding, previous experience, etc. Soon afterwards you should start seeing results. To keep you bidding and looking for more work, this can be done but your front desk person or a competent person that can understand what you do and talk intelligently.
One thing I used to do as a marketing manager for a company, was to make a route where I visited GC's offices about every 2 weeks or once a month depending on the work load. See what they are bidding on, there is a lot of stuff that was out there that you may never see. As the old saying goes, early bird catches the worm. It was amazing how much handshake work you can get from it.
Also if you have a contact at company, ask them to pass your information on to the other estimators in their offices. You may even set up a meeting to see if you can meet them all at one time.
Just a couple of tips.
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