Woods Electric
My dad and I took over a company in 1975 that was going out of business. We kept his three electricians and the small ground of customers and grew the business from three men to our current status, 50 electricians. For years, we did service work on a T&M basis. In about 1992, I saw the need to expand and that required us to bid work to general contractors.
I attended a trade show in Las Vegas in 1996 with the sole purpose of buying an electrical estimating software program. We had The Estimation Program, but we couldn’t get the support that we required. Plus it was very expensive and didn’t seem to help. I went to all of the estimating vendors at the show and told each one that I didn’t care about seeing their same demonstration that they had done hundreds of times. In fact, I told them I wanted to bid a job that I verbally described — my office. One vendor couldn’t do 4 receptacles, 1 switch, 4 2×4 light fixtures, a small row of track lighting and a telephone outlet. Brian (Hoffelder, Vision’s Training Expert and Software Development Manager) worked up the job for me in no time and I was convinced.
We have been to a couple of (Vision’s) classes and all are great. Since I am certainly not a computer guy, I wanted something simple and easy! The next day, I had the program up and running.
How We're Benefiting from EBM Now
We use it everyday and win jobs constantly. We do mostly hospital work and with EPIC and Electrical Bid Manager, we have become very successful with the bidding. We have four people that use the software, three of us daily and one shares when he needs it. It is a great tool!
Our Advice for Estimators Seeking Software
EBM is easy, it is thorough, and the support is great. When we call with a question, we get a very quick response. We highly recommend using this electrical estimating software.