 by Stephen S. Saucerman
Back Cover
While the business of residential construction is rewarding and can yield a good living, it’s very competitive and highly dependent on local economic conditions. You often have to take any new job you can find just to stay in business, and deal with nagging homeowners, while watching your profit go down the drain. Sometimes the effort isn’t worth the money.
That’s why the author of this book turned to commercial work. A single job can keep you and your crews busy for a year or more. Though there is higher risk involved in commercial construction, there are greater challenges and higher profit as well. And, as long as you are going to expend the energy, why not take your profit percentage out of $2,000,000 rather than $200,000? But there’s a lot to learn, and plenty of room for mistakes. But as you’ll be shown here, there are guidelines to follow to help ensure your success.
If you’re considering making the jump from residential to commercial contracting, this is the book you need. It offers the residential general contractor, subcontractor, material supplier and designer a practical guide to making this complicated but rewarding move. In simple language, it explains practically everything you need to know, providing detailed guidelines for:
- deciding the size and scope of your commercial business
| - getting through the submittal and shop drawing process
| - utilizing networks, services and organizations to find commercial work
| - working with owners, architects, subs, suppliers and your own employees
| - understanding the complexities of the commercial bid process
| - controlling your business and construction costs
| - organizing sub and supplier bids
| - marketing tools, trade shows, customer presentations and advertising
| - compiling an accurate estimate and presenting a bid
| - local and governmental requirements affecting your business
| Moving to Commercial Construction is a complete commercial construction business reference. It takes you step-by-step through the process of setting up a successful commercial company, with special emphasis on the intricacies of commercial estimating and bidding, value engineering, maintaining a profitable jobsite, keeping a stable work force, developing and maintaining successful business relationships, and promoting your business. There’s also a chapter on the design/build and partnering business concepts and their advantage over the competitive bid process.
 Includes a CD-ROM with a 300-page database of cost estimates. National Estimator, an estimating program that makes it easy to use these costs, an interactive tutorial, software to convert estimates into invoices and export to QuickBooks Pro, and blank copies of the forms in the book formatted for Windows and Mac. | 
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The Author
Stephan S. Saucerman is a commercial construction estimator and project manager for Gilbank Construction, Inc. in Wisconsin, where he estimates and manages projects that have ranged from hospitals and office buildings to $8,000,000 multiple-unit housing tracts and commercial interior renovations as high as $9,000,000.  He also teaches building construction technology part-time, at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Illinois, and is a regular writer/contributor for over 40 building industry publications in the U.S. and around the world. His career in the construction industry started a quarter century ago in building material sales, then onto architectural drafting, residential home building, and finally the move to commercial construction. He is a frequent speaker at seminars, building-industry conventions, and expos on a variety of construction-related topics.
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