The Story
SilverWolf Consulting is a construction firm located in American Fork, Utah. With 30 years of experience, they specialize in on-demand estimating services in the Intermountain West region, with a reach extending across the country. Primarily focused on demolition, excavation, and concrete projects over the past decade, Silverwolf has enjoyed phenomenal growth in the Salt Lake City region in recent years. As a result, Silverwolf has gained a sizable clientele of smaller companies looking to up their bidding game to the next level.
The Challenge
Gary Coletti, Silverwolf’s Owner and Operations Manager, is no stranger to “kitchen table” estimating. As a part of the industry since before construction estimating software was widely available, Gary was on the ground floor for the move to a more spreadsheet based system. As software has gotten progressively more advanced, and as new companies are founded, Gary learned to recognize the pitfalls these newer companies may find themselves in when looking for software solutions to their estimating problems.
“I've been estimating for almost 30 years now. I was one of the earlier adopters in this region when [estimating software] started coming out, and I started incorporating Excel. Then from Excel we started building macro-enabled Excel spreadsheets, and started getting more and more complex. As you build into that, unfortunately the problem that is encountered is there is an awful lot of double entry that occurs. That's where your errors happen, and it starts compounding itself as it goes.”
“As the years progressed, I started looking for more efficient methods to do both estimating and takeoffs for our projects. Initially, I started out with a digitizer paired with Excel, a lot of the clients I had I would be able to plug in the digitizer software to their Excel formulas so that we could build from there. That can only achieve a certain level before you start having issues with data breaking down–it becomes data intensive.”
Previous solutions
As SilverWolf’s clients grew, Gary expanded into using an Excel-derived software called Sigma. Offering more complex computing options than standard or macro-enabled Excel, Sigma remains a popular choice in the European market. Moving forward, problems began to arise in Sigma as well. This happened especially when the prebuilt formulas were edited to the user’s preferences. This led to consistent data errors and required time consuming audits in order to locate the problem.
“We moved on, we had a few other softwares we worked with. Ultimately, I settled with B2W. My first experience with B2W was with a concrete company, and building their database inside B2W. It's a complex software to use. It's a good software, but I would not say it's the most user-friendly software. It does have a learning curve to it.”
“I worked with HCSS as well, and while it seemed to have a little bit of an easier user interface, its data maintenance on the other hand seemed to be a little more complex. When we did yearly software updates for our databases, it got kind of cumbersome.”
“One of the problems I had with Bid2Win is that it has a very high price point to enter into, and then its maintenance is at a very high price point. From there I started looking for other software, and that's when I came across SharpeSoft, that ticked off every box that I had.”
Getting in contact
In search of a software that could accomplish the level of detail Gary wanted to achieve for his clients, while maintaining a price point suitable for entry, Gary reached out to his support network. PlanSwift, the digitizing software Gary was familiar with, had had a few different employees leave and start their own companies in the past. It was through them and a web search that eventually put Gary in contact with SharpeSoft.
Interaction with SharpeSoft
“When I came into SharpeSoft, and I reached out to William and I talked to him initially about it, I was really impressed that he wasn't so much interested in selling me the product as he was trying to understand what I needed.”
“Most of the time when I deal with the software, the companies are more likely to say ‘this is what our software has, this is what's driven, this is what we're going to do for you, where can I sign you up for.’ William was not that way, he asked what we were looking for, and then presented to me a product that is uniquely suited to what I'm after.”
How has SharpeSoft Helped?
“A lot of the software that exists out there exists where you can only have one company using that software, and that database is built for that company. What I liked about SharpeSoft, for me as a consultant, is the option to have multiple companies.”
Many estimating software currently on the market allow for only a single company per database. With the SharpeSoft Estimator, users aren’t limited in any way by the number of companies achievable on one database. Have one company that does concrete, and another that does excavation? The Estimator can accommodate all of the various prices, pieces of equipment, and labor groups in a single program.
“Instead of having multiple spreadsheets and multiple programs, I actually have all of that in SharpeSoft. Not only can I find everything easily, but also clients can find everything in one source. A lot of people I work with aren't very tech savvy, so making it user friendly, easy, and a one-stop shop for all of the things that you need for estimating is a huge bonus.”
Would you recommend SharpeSoft to others?
I actively recommend SharpeSoft to others.
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