How TopBuilder Helped Hatzel & Buehler Increase Their Bid Rate by 28%

Among tight margins, competitive timelines, and high-volume opportunities, managing the bid process can feel like a full-time job (or several!). But in commercial construction, success comes down to the bids you win. Or, more accurately, the systems and strategy behind your bidding that help you increase your bid rate. 

For companies juggling hundreds of bids a month, the risks of inefficiency add up quickly: missed deadlines, manual errors, and stalled growth. And when you consider that, according to Procore,a 5:1 bid-to-win ratio is considered a reasonable benchmark in the industry, it’s clear how much is at stake. That means for every five bids submitted, winning just one is standard. High-performing contractors aim to do even better, striving for ratios of 4:1 or lower.

To hit and even better those numbers, you need more than spreadsheets and manual tracking – you need a system designed to streamline every step of the bidding process. That’s exactly why Hatzel & Buehler, one of the nation’s top electrical subcontractors, made the switch to TopBuilder. And their success is a playbook worth following. 

Spoiler: they increased bid win rate by 28%, reduced turnaround time by six days, and saw estimator satisfaction climb to 92%!

The Bid Tracking Bottleneck

With nine divisions, Hatzel & Buehler needed a better way to manage their growing volume and bid complexity. 

What worked for them to that point was no longer keeping up – a challenge many contractors face as they scale. It’s common for internal tools or legacy systems to become inadequate as a business grows. If your team is starting to feel the strain, you’re not alone.

At Hatzel & Buehler, their legacy system had become more of a bottleneck than a solution. They were up against:

• Inefficiency: Slow processes cost them time and impacted their ability to respond quickly to bid invitations.
• Siloed Systems: Their bid tracking tool didn’t integrate with their ERP (Spectrum by Viewpoint), meaning estimators had to jump between systems and re-enter data.
• Limited Flexibility: The system couldn’t adapt to evolving workflows or handle hundreds of bids in parallel.
• Poor Usability: Estimators found it difficult to use, leading to frustration, delayed onboarding, and inconsistent processes.

If you’ve ever found yourself asking, “Is our current process holding us back?”, you’re in the same boat as many scaling companies. Fortunately, there’s a better way forward.

 For Hatzel & Buehler, they needed a platform that could scale with them without adding administrative overhead or complicating workflows. 

So, they turned to TopBuilder. 

The Solution: A Bid Management Platform Built for Contractors

Unlike generic software or homegrown systems, TopBuilder is purpose-built for construction bidding. The platform delivered what their legacy tool couldn’t: an intuitive, centralized bid management system that works the way contractors work.

With TopBuilder’s bid management software, Hatzel & Buehler was able to:

• Standardize bidding processes across all nine divisions, so everyone followed the same system, deadlines were clear, and nothing slipped through the cracks.
  
• Integrate their ERP and other systems, eliminating duplicate data entry and giving their team real-time access to job details and project timelines.
• Streamline communication, ensuring estimators, project managers, and division leaders stayed aligned and informed throughout the bidding cycle.
  
• Get up and running fast, thanks to TopBuilder’s construction-focused onboarding and responsive support team, who helped tailor the platform to meet their exact needs.

As Lorraine Stevens, Financial Systems Manager at Hatzel & Buehler, said: “TopBuilder’s Bid Management Software provides our organization with a resource to ensure that all nine of our divisions are aware of invitations to bid and are meeting bidding deadlines.”

Faster Bids, Higher Wins and Happier Estimators

The impact of switching to TopBuilder was felt quickly across Hatzel & Buehler’s organization. What started as a solution for bid tracking evolved into a business driver that improved speed, collaboration, and overall win rates.

Their bid win rate jumped by 28%. With more efficient processes and clearer visibility into their pipeline, their team was able to focus on the right opportunities and submit better bids, faster.

Speaking of speed: bids now go out an average of six days faster. For a company that handles hundreds of bids every month, this time savings is game-changing. It reduces risk of missed deadlines while also giving estimators time to be more strategic and less reactive.

And it didn’t go unnoticed internally. Ninety-two percent of Hatzel & Buehler’s estimators reported increased satisfaction with the bid process after the switch because, with better tools, they were able to do their jobs more efficiently with less busywork. 

The Takeaway: If You Want To Increase Bid Rate, Start With Better Systems

Submitting more proposals isn’t always the answer, especially if they’re rushed, repetitive, or unaligned to your strengths. Success in construction bidding means submitting the right bids. Faster, more professionally, and more consistently than the competition. 

That’s where TopBuilder makes the difference.

By giving your team the tools to focus on strategy instead of scrambling with spreadsheets, TopBuilder helps you shift from reactive to proactive bidding:

• Bid scoring tools that help you prioritize high-margin, high-probability work
• CRM and email marketing integrations to follow up with the right contacts at the right time
• Professional proposal templates and document management that speed up quoting and maintain consistency
• Business intelligence dashboards to monitor performance and track your bid win rate over time

TopBuilder isn’t just a system for tracking bids: It’s a smarter way to grow. Connect with our team to increase your bid rate and build a more strategic bidding process.