What if there was a way to get more project leads, in less time, so you can bid more jobs and land more contracts?
Most contractors are relying on “word-of-mouth” referrals to grow their business. They are literally leaving it up to chance whether someone recommends them or not.
While I’ve written plenty of articles on getting more construction leads, in this post I wanted to show you the specific construction bidding websites you can use to actively grow your construction business and streamline your lead generation process.
We specialize in estimating for busy contractors, so once you implement some of the strategies I’m about to share with you below and you need help estimating, we can help. Learn more about our estimating service for Contractors and Subcontractors.
1. Lead Generation Services – iambuilders.com
Part of the services I AM Builders offers our clients is researching and finding projects.
Our team has helped tons of contractors find (and win) commercial and residential jobs. We have access to multiple national databases where we can research upcoming projects for you, as well as assist you with construction marketing strategies through our consultation calls.
As an estimating company, we’ve talk to so many clients and have noticed the biggest issue they always have is a lack of time to find projects and estimate them.
There are lots of great lead platforms out there (which we’ll discuss in the next few sections), but they often require expensive annual contracts and demand hours of your time in order to find a few good projects, so if you’re short on time, schedule a call with us about our lead generation services.
2. Building Connected – buildingconnected.com
Building Connected is extremely useful for commercial General Contractors and Subcontractors. Keep track of all your bids and search for new opportunities using one of the best databases out there for construction projects.
You can get an account for free as a contractor. You’re going to get invited to projects in your local area by developers and General Contractors.
Normally you would have to manually call GCs or developers and you’re not sure what jobs you’re going to be getting, but with Building Connected you’ll be receiving great job opportunities that you can bid on and continue to grow your construction business.
3. Home Advisor – homeadvisor.com
For residential contractors, HomeAdvisor is a must. I actually used to use this platform when I was on the contractor side of things and was just learning how to find construction jobs many years ago. You’ll have access to hundreds of leads per month if you’re able to afford them.
HomeAdvisor uses online marketing and TV commercials to get homeowners who might be looking for home improvement projects to sign up or call in to get connected with a contractor in their area.
For example, if a homeowner wants to remodel their house, they might go to Google and type “contractors in Miami” and most likely HomeAdvisor will show up ready to collect a potential lead.
Look, I just did the search and I was actually surprised, they were the first ad to pop up:
Once they collect the lead and the homeowner enters all the information for their project, they immediately send it out to multiple contractors on their platform. You set a budget and they feed you home improvement projects.
In my time using it, there are a few tips I picked up on that I’ll share with you.
1. Call the homeowner immediately: They will be sending out the leads to multiple contractors so you need to be the first to book an appointment.
2. Pick specific zip codes: Not all areas are created equal. This isn’t really advertised, but if you call the customer service, you can select only the zip codes in “higher-end” areas. Go to Zillow.com and search for your area and find the specific zip codes where the houses are the most expensive.
These homeowners will be the best clients because they are not so motivated by price, but more on quality. If you leave the service area open to your entire city, you’re going to get calls from low-income areas where there will be a ton of competition and you’ll need to be super cheap to get the jobs.
If you have a budget, apply it strategically.
3. Pick the most profitable project types: HomeAdvisor will give you a list to check off the boxes of the types of projects to match you with. But just, because you can paint one room, it doesn’t mean you should check off the box for “Painting 1-2 Bedrooms”.
Pick the higher value options. For example, paint exteriors and interiors of houses 5 bedrooms +. Pick new construction of 3000 SF+, etc. You have a limited budget so pick the best projects for you only.
4. Dispute bad leads: Most contractors don’t know this, but you can dispute bad leads and get a credit. Some leads will come in that aren’t the homeowner, or they aren’t really looking they just wanted to ask some questions. You don’t need to pay for these leads. You can dispute it online or call it in.
4. The Blue Book – thebluebook.com
The Blue Book is another platform where contractors post their projects and you can get email invitations.
I’ve gotten feedback that this works great mostly for Subcontractors.
They put you on a database based on your category where they rank you based on your subscription. They have multiple tiers and range from $150/mo to about $800/mo. The higher your subscription, the higher in the list you’ll be.
For example, I just pulled this list from Los Angeles for Drywall contractors:
When General Contractors are looking for subcontractors, one way is by going through this list and calling each company, or checking off those boxes and mass-sending them a project.
The other way is creating a project and inviting all nearby Subcontractors to bid. As a Subcontractor, you’ll get an email invitation to bid on a project.
I highly recommend before bidding for a new company, that you call to introduce yourself and speak to the General Contractor’s estimator. It will help your closing rates tremendously if you can call and visit.
The other part of the platform is Bidscope where you can research the current projects, very similar to the other platforms.
Pro Tip: If you’re a General Contractor and you need Subs, the GC side of The Bluebook is called One Team. Go to Oneteam.build and call to create an account. From there you can post your project and invite Subcontractors.
5. Dodge – construction.com
Dodge has been around for over a hundred years and is trusted by the government for its data for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reporting which gives economists the ability to make predictions in the market.
They have a large database of projects including both Government and Private jobs. They have a variety of lead products, but I’ve used the Global Network and it’s the most complete out of all of them.
As a General Contractor and construction estimator, I recommend you pursue projects as the General Contractor and as a Subcontractor. We call it the Two-Tier Bid Strategy. Contact the owner and try to set up a meeting to bid the entire job, and contact all bidders to try to bid as a Subcontractor.
Like this, you multiply your chances of winning a project by 10x.
Conclusion
If you really want to grow your construction business, overload your company with contracts, and win more construction bids, you first have to develop a lead generation strategy.
Most contractors are way too busy to do it themselves which is why I AM Builders gives clients and future clients expert consulting on how as a bonus when working with us. If you have a team and you want to do it yourself, sign up for a lead platform, and start bidding.
And by the way, if you need estimating services, we can estimate your entire project for you. Just give us a call or send over your plans through email.
What if there was a way to get more project leads, in less time, so you can bid more jobs and land more contracts?
Most contractors are relying on “word-of-mouth” referrals to grow their business. They are literally leaving it up to chance whether someone recommends them or not.
While I’ve written plenty of articles on getting more construction leads, in this post I wanted to show you the specific construction bidding websites you can use to actively grow your construction business and streamline your lead generation process.
We specialize in estimating for busy contractors, so once you implement some of the strategies I’m about to share with you below and you need help estimating, we can help. Learn more about our estimating service for Contractors and Subcontractors.
1. Lead Generation Services – iambuilders.com
Part of the services I AM Builders offers our clients is researching and finding projects.
Our team has helped tons of contractors find (and win) commercial and residential jobs. We have access to multiple national databases where we can research upcoming projects for you, as well as assist you with construction marketing strategies through our consultation calls.
As an estimating company, we’ve talk to so many clients and have noticed the biggest issue they always have is a lack of time to find projects and estimate them.
There are lots of great lead platforms out there (which we’ll discuss in the next few sections), but they often require expensive annual contracts and demand hours of your time in order to find a few good projects, so if you’re short on time, schedule a call with us about our lead generation services.
2. Building Connected – buildingconnected.com
Building Connected is extremely useful for commercial General Contractors and Subcontractors. Keep track of all your bids and search for new opportunities using one of the best databases out there for construction projects.
You can get an account for free as a contractor. You’re going to get invited to projects in your local area by developers and General Contractors.
Normally you would have to manually call GCs or developers and you’re not sure what jobs you’re going to be getting, but with Building Connected you’ll be receiving great job opportunities that you can bid on and continue to grow your construction business.
3. Home Advisor – homeadvisor.com
For residential contractors, HomeAdvisor is a must. I actually used to use this platform when I was on the contractor side of things and was just learning how to find construction jobs many years ago. You’ll have access to hundreds of leads per month if you’re able to afford them.
HomeAdvisor uses online marketing and TV commercials to get homeowners who might be looking for home improvement projects to sign up or call in to get connected with a contractor in their area.
For example, if a homeowner wants to remodel their house, they might go to Google and type “contractors in Miami” and most likely HomeAdvisor will show up ready to collect a potential lead.
Look, I just did the search and I was actually surprised, they were the first ad to pop up:
Once they collect the lead and the homeowner enters all the information for their project, they immediately send it out to multiple contractors on their platform. You set a budget and they feed you home improvement projects.
In my time using it, there are a few tips I picked up on that I’ll share with you.
1. Call the homeowner immediately: They will be sending out the leads to multiple contractors so you need to be the first to book an appointment.
2. Pick specific zip codes: Not all areas are created equal. This isn’t really advertised, but if you call the customer service, you can select only the zip codes in “higher-end” areas. Go to Zillow.com and search for your area and find the specific zip codes where the houses are the most expensive.
These homeowners will be the best clients because they are not so motivated by price, but more on quality. If you leave the service area open to your entire city, you’re going to get calls from low-income areas where there will be a ton of competition and you’ll need to be super cheap to get the jobs.
If you have a budget, apply it strategically.
3. Pick the most profitable project types: HomeAdvisor will give you a list to check off the boxes of the types of projects to match you with. But just, because you can paint one room, it doesn’t mean you should check off the box for “Painting 1-2 Bedrooms”.
Pick the higher value options. For example, paint exteriors and interiors of houses 5 bedrooms +. Pick new construction of 3000 SF+, etc. You have a limited budget so pick the best projects for you only.
4. Dispute bad leads: Most contractors don’t know this, but you can dispute bad leads and get a credit. Some leads will come in that aren’t the homeowner, or they aren’t really looking they just wanted to ask some questions. You don’t need to pay for these leads. You can dispute it online or call it in.
4. The Blue Book – thebluebook.com
The Blue Book is another platform where contractors post their projects and you can get email invitations.
I’ve gotten feedback that this works great mostly for Subcontractors.
They put you on a database based on your category where they rank you based on your subscription. They have multiple tiers and range from $150/mo to about $800/mo. The higher your subscription, the higher in the list you’ll be.
For example, I just pulled this list from Los Angeles for Drywall contractors:
When General Contractors are looking for subcontractors, one way is by going through this list and calling each company, or checking off those boxes and mass-sending them a project.
The other way is creating a project and inviting all nearby Subcontractors to bid. As a Subcontractor, you’ll get an email invitation to bid on a project.
I highly recommend before bidding for a new company, that you call to introduce yourself and speak to the General Contractor’s estimator. It will help your closing rates tremendously if you can call and visit.
The other part of the platform is Bidscope where you can research the current projects, very similar to the other platforms.
Pro Tip: If you’re a General Contractor and you need Subs, the GC side of The Bluebook is called One Team. Go to Oneteam.build and call to create an account. From there you can post your project and invite Subcontractors.
5. Dodge – construction.com
Dodge has been around for over a hundred years and is trusted by the government for its data for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reporting which gives economists the ability to make predictions in the market.
They have a large database of projects including both Government and Private jobs. They have a variety of lead products, but I’ve used the Global Network and it’s the most complete out of all of them.
As a General Contractor and construction estimator, I recommend you pursue projects as the General Contractor and as a Subcontractor. We call it the Two-Tier Bid Strategy. Contact the owner and try to set up a meeting to bid the entire job, and contact all bidders to try to bid as a Subcontractor.
Like this, you multiply your chances of winning a project by 10x.
Conclusion
If you really want to grow your construction business, overload your company with contracts, and win more construction bids, you first have to develop a lead generation strategy.
Most contractors are way too busy to do it themselves which is why I AM Builders gives clients and future clients expert consulting on how as a bonus when working with us. If you have a team and you want to do it yourself, sign up for a lead platform, and start bidding.
And by the way, if you need estimating services, we can estimate your entire project for you. Just give us a call or send over your plans through email.
