Are you starting a construction business? Are you trying to grow your existing business?
There’s an endless supply of detailed construction business plan templates out there and most of them seem to emphasize small things like licensing, insurance, and other complex administrative stuff, rather than what’s most important, which is sales.
By the end of this post, however, you will see that your “plan” doesn’t have to be a professional work of art, but is actually much simpler than you might think…
Strategy #1: How to Generate Unlimited Leads
What if I told you that there’s a way to consistently get 50-70 leads every week for you to choose from?
For contractors who rely on word of mouth, these numbers seem impossible, but that right there is the flaw with getting your leads from referrals only.
Although referrals are good in that they have a higher chance of closing the sale, they can’t be controlled or scaled and that’s bad news if you want to grow your construction business.
Instead, what you want to do is have a system of in-bound leads, whether that means getting invited to bid on jobs every week, or actively pursuing new jobs.
Whatever method you choose, you want to imagine as if you are feeding your business’ lead machine because this will be the “engine” that drives all of your sales.
After all, construction businesses’ growth mostly depends on how many leads they are getting and how fast they are processing them into jobs.
But, isn’t making a good lead machine hard? Not at all. The answer is lead generating platforms
Lead generating platforms connect clients with general contractors and connect general contractors with subcontractors. It is essentially an online, local network of jobs in your area.
On the commercial side, sites like the Blue Book Network and the Dodge Construction Network are great options that offer batches of dozens of leads every week.
On the residential side, there are platforms like Home Advisor, Houzz, and even Google Ads
Pro Tip
In residential construction, most clients find contractors on internet searches or general directories. In that case, a good Google Ads campaign and a landing page can go far.
Strategy #2: How to bid jobs FAST
Earlier, we mentioned how construction businesses’ growth mostly depends on how many leads they are getting and how fast they are processing them into jobs.
Now that we’ve understood how to get more leads, let’s learn what to do with them…
The Law of Large Numbers in Construction
In construction, the closing rate of bids is around 10%.
The reason for this small rate is because construction is competitive. Although there’s big construction management companies and general contractors out there, most jobs rely on lots of subcontractors for the actual work.
All of this means that, as a contractor, you have to bid as much as possible if you want to make good returns. Like what we said earlier, getting lots of leads will help you bid more, and cherry pick the best jobs.
So what’s stopping contractors from bidding more jobs? TIME
Between “fighting fires” during the day and visiting clients and job sites, most contractors have very little time to estimate their own bids.
In fact, one contractor I know (Maverick Construction) told me how, before we started providing him estimating services, he was only able to bid 5 jobs per month.
This number isn’t uncommon for most contractors, but the problem is, how can we possibly grow our business like this if the law of large numbers is true? You can’t.
Why you should Outsource your Estimating
So, we’ve covered why contractors are missing out by estimating their own bids; that leaves us with two options:
To start estimating more bids you can either 1) hire an in-house estimator or 2) outsource your estimating to a third party firm.
The problem with hiring an in-house estimator is that it will come with more overhead costs.
A personal estimator would most likely work on a salary and for most small contractors, there’s not enough business coming in to pay these costs every month.
What happens if one month only pulls in a few jobs? Clearly, outsourcing your estimating is the ideal solution for small contractors.
On-Demand Estimating Service Advantages:
- Does not require payroll, employees, or software
- Gives you the power of an entire department
- Increases the amount of jobs you can bid
Strategy #3: How to Close More Sales
Now, there are many contractors that apply the two previously mentioned strategies, but there’s ONE strategy so many miss that’s wrecking their business.
The biggest mistake that contractors make is that they put in all the work hunting for leads and bidding the jobs, but the moment a bid is sent, they don’t do any follow-up with their clients.
Following up with the clients you send bids to can single handedly win you the job because of one principle in psychology…
In psychology, the Mere Exposure Effect is the principle that people gain a preference for things they are familiar with.
What does this mean for your sales? The more you make contact with your clients, the more likely they’ll choose you for the job.
Pro Tip
Invest in face-to-face contact
To gain exposure, you have to interact with your clients at 4 “touch points”:
- Phone Calls
- Text Messages
- Visits
You don’t have to be a stalker… but a few regular check-ups can go a long way and even mean the difference between you winning the job or not.
If you are able to get closer with the project management, you can even come out of the project with more jobs lined up!
The Secret to 10X your Construction Business
If you are interested in growing your construction business, I’ve prepared a short training video for you that you can watch for FREE:
In this training, I will show you how you can put your estimating on autopilot and boost your sales to 10X your business in 90 days; step-by-step with a simple copy and paste formula!
Are you starting a construction business? Are you trying to grow your existing business?
There’s an endless supply of detailed construction business plan templates out there and most of them seem to emphasize small things like licensing, insurance, and other complex administrative stuff, rather than what’s most important, which is sales.
By the end of this post, however, you will see that your “plan” doesn’t have to be a professional work of art, but is actually much simpler than you might think…
Strategy #1: How to Generate Unlimited Leads
What if I told you that there’s a way to consistently get 50-70 leads every week for you to choose from?
For contractors who rely on word of mouth, these numbers seem impossible, but that right there is the flaw with getting your leads from referrals only.
Although referrals are good in that they have a higher chance of closing the sale, they can’t be controlled or scaled and that’s bad news if you want to grow your construction business.
Instead, what you want to do is have a system of in-bound leads, whether that means getting invited to bid on jobs every week, or actively pursuing new jobs.
Whatever method you choose, you want to imagine as if you are feeding your business’ lead machine because this will be the “engine” that drives all of your sales.
After all, construction businesses’ growth mostly depends on how many leads they are getting and how fast they are processing them into jobs.
But, isn’t making a good lead machine hard? Not at all. The answer is lead generating platforms
Lead generating platforms connect clients with general contractors and connect general contractors with subcontractors. It is essentially an online, local network of jobs in your area.
On the commercial side, sites like the Blue Book Network and the Dodge Construction Network are great options that offer batches of dozens of leads every week.
On the residential side, there are platforms like Home Advisor, Houzz, and even Google Ads
Pro Tip
In residential construction, most clients find contractors on internet searches or general directories. In that case, a good Google Ads campaign and a landing page can go far.
Strategy #2: How to bid jobs FAST
Earlier, we mentioned how construction businesses’ growth mostly depends on how many leads they are getting and how fast they are processing them into jobs.
Now that we’ve understood how to get more leads, let’s learn what to do with them…
The Law of Large Numbers in Construction
In construction, the closing rate of bids is around 10%.
The reason for this small rate is because construction is competitive. Although there’s big construction management companies and general contractors out there, most jobs rely on lots of subcontractors for the actual work.
All of this means that, as a contractor, you have to bid as much as possible if you want to make good returns. Like what we said earlier, getting lots of leads will help you bid more, and cherry pick the best jobs.
So what’s stopping contractors from bidding more jobs? TIME
Between “fighting fires” during the day and visiting clients and job sites, most contractors have very little time to estimate their own bids.
In fact, one contractor I know (Maverick Construction) told me how, before we started providing him estimating services, he was only able to bid 5 jobs per month.
This number isn’t uncommon for most contractors, but the problem is, how can we possibly grow our business like this if the law of large numbers is true? You can’t.
Why you should Outsource your Estimating
So, we’ve covered why contractors are missing out by estimating their own bids; that leaves us with two options:
To start estimating more bids you can either 1) hire an in-house estimator or 2) outsource your estimating to a third party firm.
The problem with hiring an in-house estimator is that it will come with more overhead costs.
A personal estimator would most likely work on a salary and for most small contractors, there’s not enough business coming in to pay these costs every month.
What happens if one month only pulls in a few jobs? Clearly, outsourcing your estimating is the ideal solution for small contractors.
On-Demand Estimating Service Advantages:
- Does not require payroll, employees, or software
- Gives you the power of an entire department
- Increases the amount of jobs you can bid
Strategy #3: How to Close More Sales
Now, there are many contractors that apply the two previously mentioned strategies, but there’s ONE strategy so many miss that’s wrecking their business.
The biggest mistake that contractors make is that they put in all the work hunting for leads and bidding the jobs, but the moment a bid is sent, they don’t do any follow-up with their clients.
Following up with the clients you send bids to can single handedly win you the job because of one principle in psychology…
In psychology, the Mere Exposure Effect is the principle that people gain a preference for things they are familiar with.
What does this mean for your sales? The more you make contact with your clients, the more likely they’ll choose you for the job.
Pro Tip
Invest in face-to-face contact
To gain exposure, you have to interact with your clients at 4 “touch points”:
- Phone Calls
- Text Messages
- Visits
You don’t have to be a stalker… but a few regular check-ups can go a long way and even mean the difference between you winning the job or not.
If you are able to get closer with the project management, you can even come out of the project with more jobs lined up!
The Secret to 10X your Construction Business
If you are interested in growing your construction business, I’ve prepared a short training video for you that you can watch for FREE:
In this training, I will show you how you can put your estimating on autopilot and boost your sales to 10X your business in 90 days; step-by-step with a simple copy and paste formula!
