I find quoting one of the hardest things to do. I thought with my years of experience, it would be easy to figure out how long it takes to run a given part, but no way!
I recently started to get tired of just "making ends meet", and decided there's no use in doing this if I'm not making some money that I can set aside and allow it to pile up. So, the next quote that came along, I started quoting my usual way, then jacked it up about 30%. It was about a 20 job pile that I quoted that way. I didn't get one single job from it.
The next batch I quoted, I did the same thing because I was busy, and didn't need the work anyway. I got every job in the batch.
These two examples were both from the same company, too. How the heck am I supposed to get a feel for that? I was told by the customer how much cheaper the competition was, so I know they're watching the pricing. If both were quoted at the same rate, why did I get one batch, but not the other?
I simply give up on trying to figure it out. From now on, I have to "not give a crap" if I get jobs or not. I'm just quoting them for what I want to make, not what I think will get the job.