Commercial HVAC unsold estimates: how to follow up proposals that stalled

One property management agreement filed with the SEC shows the shape. The manager prepares a capital and operating budget each calendar year for the owner to approve; capital spending outside the approved budget needs a revised budget sent to the owner for approval, unless it is below a set share of the total budget or is needed to prevent injury, significant damage or a legal violation; and capital improvement contracts above $100,000 are awarded from at least two written bids unless the owner waives that. That is one agreement for one mall in Honolulu, not a rule for every building, but it shows why a manager who liked your proposal may still need a revised budget, an owner’s signature or a second bid before a purchase order exists.

The kind of work matters too. Under the IRS’s tangible property rules, the HVAC system is one of the building systems looked at on its own, and replacing a major component of it can be an improvement that is capitalized, while routine repair generally is not; the IRS says the answer always depends on the facts. You do not need to know how the owner’s accountant will treat your proposal, only that a replacement may be waiting for a capital budget set once a year while a repair can come from this month’s operating budget. Ask which budget the work will come out of.

Who approves what differs between a property manager working for an owner, an in-house facility team with its own budget and a multi-site operator buying from a head office, so ask rather than assume.

Sources: Property Management Agreement, Waianae Mall, filed with the SEC as Exhibit 10.4 (2010) (§5.1 budgets, §5.2 budget revisions and permitted expenditures, §7.2 capital expenditures and competitive bidding) · IRS, Tangible Property Final Regulations (both checked November 6, 2026). This is not tax or legal advice; how a cost is treated is for the building owner and their accountant.

• Who approves it, and above what amount? Ask the person you are meeting whether they can approve the work themselves, and if not, who does and when that person reviews proposals.
• Which budget will pay for it? Operating or capital, this year or next, and when the next budget is set. A proposal that misses the budget deadline can wait a year for reasons that have nothing to do with you.
• What does it take to become a vendor? Many commercial buyers need paperwork before they can issue a purchase order: a Form W-9, a certificate of insurance, a vendor portal registration, their own contract. Ask what theirs is and send it with the proposal, not after the approval.
• Is anyone else bidding? If so, ask when the award is made and whether every bidder is pricing the same scope.
• When should we speak next? Agree a date before you leave, tied to their approval meeting or budget deadline, so the first follow-up is expected rather than a chase.
• Put a validity date on the price. Say in the proposal how long the price holds and that it will be requoted after that. It gives the buyer a reason to act and gives you a clean reason to write again.
• Separate what is urgent from what is recommended. When a proposal covers several items, especially a list of repairs found on a maintenance visit, pricing them as separate lines can let the manager approve what is within their limit now and take the rest upward. How you package it is your estimator’s decision.

On the paperwork: the IRS describes Form W-9 as the way you provide your correct taxpayer identification number to someone who must file an information return. A certificate of insurance, issued by your insurer or broker, shows coverage in force at a point in time and only for the policy period it lists; the buyer who asks for it is the certificate holder, and some contracts also require the buyer to be listed as an additional insured. Check that the one a buyer has on file has not expired before a large approval lands.

Sources: IRS, About Form W-9 · Travelers, Certificate of insurance (an insurer’s explainer; both checked November 6, 2026). What your own policy covers, and what a buyer’s contract requires, are questions for your broker.

If you do not know which row a proposal belongs in, that is the first follow-up: ask. “Is this waiting on approval, on the budget, or on something from us?” is a question a busy manager can answer in one line, and the answer tells you what to send next.

A proposal that belongs to everybody gets followed up by nobody. Write one name against every open proposal, and split the work by what each person can actually answer:

• The estimator or salesperson who wrote the proposal owns scope, price, requotes and rebids, because they can answer questions about all of them.
• The office owns vendor setup: the W-9, certificates of insurance, portal registrations and the buyer’s contract paperwork. None of it needs a salesperson, and all of it can hold up an approved job.
• The service manager owns repairs found on maintenance visits, working from the technician’s notes, so the follow-up carries what was seen rather than a generic reminder.
• The owner or general manager steps in only for exceptions: a price change, a payment term the buyer wants to negotiate, or a relationship that matters beyond this one job.

Repairs found during maintenance visits are where this often breaks down, because the person who found the problem is not a salesperson and the person who sells is not on site. If recurring agreements are a large part of your work, the agreement types commercial buyers are offered are in how to get commercial HVAC maintenance contracts.

A list of proposals with a sent date tells you how much is open. A list with the stall reason tells you what to fix. For each open proposal, keep:

• the date sent, the amount, and the date the price holds to;
• who approves it, and which budget it comes from, if you know;
• the stall reason, chosen from a short fixed list like the table above, not free text;
• the next action, its date, and the one person who owns it;
• the outcome, won, lost or closed, and the reason the buyer gave, in their words.

After a few months the reasons start to repeat, and each points at its own fix. If most proposals stall at approval, the proposal may need a summary page an owner can read in a minute. If they stall on paperwork, send it with the proposal. If they stall on budget, ask about the budget cycle at the site visit. If you keep losing rebids, it may be worth asking whether those jobs were worth bidding at all; which commercial HVAC jobs are worth pursuing is a checklist for that decision, including how vendors get approved at an account.

A price cut is the reflex when a proposal goes quiet, and on a commercial job it rarely touches the reason. A lower number does not move an owner’s approval meeting, finish a vendor registration or bring next year’s budget forward. It can teach a buyer that waiting pays, and it resets what they expect from you on the next job.

There are honest reasons for a number to change: the scope changed, the buyer chose a different option, the validity date passed and your costs moved. When that happens, say so in writing, with the new date. What you charge is your decision; the point is that the follow-up should answer the obstacle the buyer actually has.

This example is for one stall: the manager is in favor, but the work is above what they can approve. The message gives the manager something to forward and asks one question.

Every bracket is something the writer must know to be true before sending, which is why the questions at the site visit matter. The postal address and the opt-out line are there on purpose. The FTC’s guide to the CAN-SPAM Act says the law makes no exception for business-to-business email, and it reads the category of transactional messages narrowly: messages about a transaction the recipient has already agreed to. A proposal the buyer has not yet accepted is simplest to treat as a commercial message. The guide also lists a clear disclosure that the message is an advertisement (the law allows leeway in how), and it requires opt-outs to be honored within 10 business days. The rest of what a commercial email should carry is in writing a commercial HVAC cold email.

Source: FTC, CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business (checked November 6, 2026). This is not legal advice.

A closed proposal can be reopened. Put the reason and the next sensible date on it — the next budget cycle, the next maintenance visit, the end of the current contractor’s term if the buyer mentioned one — and write at that date with something new, not the same proposal again.

If anyone asks you to stop writing, stop, and record it so nobody on your team writes again either. No follow-up routine can promise an approval, and none should be run as if it could.

Every source linked on this page was opened and read on November 6, 2026, and each is cited only for what it says. The stall reasons, the table, the checklists and the example email are practical advice, not measured results. This page publishes no measured results or survey figures, because we have none we could stand behind.