What goes through a strata committee's head when they read your quote

I sat on a strata committee for nine years, including four as treasurer. I have read several hundred remediation quotes. I have approved about a third of them. What I am about to tell you, no marketing team for any construction company has ever told me, but every quote that won me over had it.

01They open three things, in this order

Cover page. Total. Terms. In that order. The line items get a skim only if the total looks wrong. If the cover page does not look professional, half the committee has mentally moved on before the second page loads.

This is not unfair. The committee has three quotes to compare and a Wednesday night to do it in. They are not estimators. They are looking for signals that you are competent before they invest reading attention in your detail.

02They compare on three axes

• Total price. Mandatory. If you are 30 percent above the median, you need to explain why on page one.
• Trust signals. HIA or MBA membership, named insurance, references from a building they have heard of.
• Responsiveness. How quickly the quote came back. How quickly you replied to the building manager. Whether you came on-site for a measure or quoted off photos alone.

The price is the loudest signal but it is not the only one. A committee will pay 8 percent more for the builder who replied first, came on-site, and sent a tidy cover letter. We did it routinely.

03There is always a treasurer who reads line items

I was that treasurer. Across the table on every committee I served, there was always one of me. We compare your unit rates to last year's job. We notice when a "rectification" line is suspiciously round. We Google "AS 3740 waterproofing" mid-meeting, on phones, under the table.

You do not need to win the treasurer. You need to give them no easy reason to argue. A unit-rate logic line ("waterproofing membrane Bostik 7000 on primed substrate, 12m² at $190 inc. perimeter fillets") tells the treasurer that you know what you are charging for. It also gives them something concrete to defend at the AGM when an owner asks why you got the job.

04There is always a defensive one who reads risk

On every committee, there is one resident who read about a remediation in the SMH that went wrong. They are anxious. They are not unreasonable, they are just scared. Your risk register is for them.

A scope that names risks, even mundane ones, calms the defensive resident down faster than any sales prose ever has. "Asbestos suspected in soffit lining. To be tested before works commence. If positive, removal by a licensed asbestos removalist as a scope variation." That sentence does more work in a committee meeting than ten pages of company history.

05The committee defends their choice at the AGM

This is the bit nobody talks about. The committee that approves your quote has to defend it to forty owners six months later, when the levy notice arrives. The good quote is not the one that won the committee. The good quote is the one that lets the committee win the AGM.

Make their defence easy. Cover page that looks competent. Total broken down by trade. Risk register that explains what could go wrong. A page that explains why you. The committee photocopies your quote pack and hands it round the room. If it explains itself, the AGM moves on. If it does not, the committee spends six months apologising for picking you.