Maybe you’re relatively new in the construction business and want to expand your client base or you’ve been in the industry for a while and looking for the opportunity to increase your revenue. Either way, you want to take a strategic approach in order to evaluate your current business, determine its ideal future, and create a smart roadmap to help you get there.
In this article, we’ll give you 13 tips to make sure you’re setting yourself up for success.
1. Evaluate where you are now
In order to make a proper plan for growing your construction business, you need to take a moment to assess the way your business operates now.
Here are a few places to look:
∙ Your books/financials
∙ Rating and review websites
∙ Employee and customer records
∙ Interviews with current employees and customers
Questions to be asking while you’re looking at things like:
∙ How steady is your income?
∙ How much of your construction business comes from repeat customers?
∙ How much of your business is from referrals/word-of-mouth?
∙ How well are you being rated? What are the main complaints you receive?
∙ How stable is your workforce? Do you have a lot of turnovers? If you do, what’s the main reason employees quit?
What you’re looking for is to identify areas of improvement. As an example, you might discover that your main customer complaint is related to poor interactions with your front office. So, providing your current admin staff training to improve customer service may go a long way toward helping you improve those ratings.
If you’re looking to grow your business, fixing anything about your business that’s currently keeping you from reaching its fullest potential is the first thing you need to do. Not only will this automatically improve your business, but it will also create a much more stable foundation for your business’ growth.
2. Create a strong workforce
Make sure you’re hiring people who are good at what they do, know their stuff, and are reliable. These people can absolutely make or break your business. Once you have them, make sure you can keep them by creating a system that promotes and rewards them for their dedication to perform well on the job.
3. Understand the difference between management and leadership
Nobody wants to feel micromanaged as it can leave employees feeling disparaged or incompetent. However, that’s exactly how some managers behave. The business may need to be managed, but what people need is a leader that inspires them to work hard toward their goals and trusts them to do the rest.
4. You have to spend money to make money
Growing your business as a builder requires a long-term view. This means investing time and money to make sure you’re prepared for the future. This could involve things like:
∙ Regular maintenance and upgrade of equipment
∙ Purchasing newer technology to give your business an edge
∙ Strategic marketing
∙ Training and growing your employees
5. Don’t get carried away
Don’t get so excited about growing your business that you take on any new business that comes along. The key part of growth is growing your profits. So, make sure a new business aligns with that goal by paying attention to the profitability of each new opportunity.
6. Spread the word
Enthusiastic customers raving about your business is just about the best way to guarantee yourself more business. It’s also one of the easiest and cheapest ways to market. Hence, make sure you gently encourage your customers to review your products and services and tell their friends!
While employing your resources to any construction site, you must consider using shade cloth to cover the premises. Since fencewrap does shade cloth printing, you don’t have to go anywhere else if you wish to advertise your construction business, which is the best way to tell the by-passers that you do exist in the market
7. Be active in your community
Networking in your industry can be just as important as marketing to your customers, so take a look at the available trade associations in your area. These associations may help you reach a broader customer base and even identify partners and vendors.
Another way to get yourself out there is to give back. Not only will this help you reach more people, but you’ll also impress them with your willingness to volunteer your services to do well.
8. Stand by your work
When construction companies try to grow their business by cutting costs, either by buying cheaper materials or trying to speed up the job, they’re also reducing the quality of the work they do. More often than not, this ends up reducing their profits over time.
Like we said before, satisfied customers spreading the word is the best way to generate new leads, so you want to make sure everything you do is high quality and built to last. Your reputation is on the line, so make every job count.
9. Be willing to go with the flow
Business in the construction industry ebbs and flows based on a lot of factors that are beyond your control. This means that you need to go with the flow, adapting to those ever-changing conditions.
Stubbornly staying the course in the face of clear evidence that it’s not working is a lot harder to survive than finding a way to adapt.
10. Make your clients happy
We’ve said it a few times now, but we’ll say it again. Satisfied customers spreading the word is the best way to generate new leads. So, make sure you do everything you can to leave every customer satisfied.
This isn’t just about doing quality work and it doesn’t mean giving in to their every request along the way. Rather, it means being flexible and openly communicating with your customers every step of the way.
11. Never stop hustling
Continually growing your business means always seeking out new opportunities to generate new contacts. Make sure you always set aside time to chat with folks who may have some inside knowledge about upcoming projects. This network could include prior customers, architects, realtors, or other industry experts.
12. Make decisions right the first time
When you choose to grow your business, you’ll have to make a lot of decisions about the exact path you’ll take, the projects you’ll take on, where to focus your investments, and so on. The more time you take to consider the various possible outcomes of each of your decisions, not just your gut feeling, but with real data and research, the more likely you will be to choose paths that set you up for success. Don’t let anyone rush your process.
13. Building your business means making people happy
Choose your niche and make sure you can honestly market yourself as an expert in it. Find customers and projects that will serve this purpose and focus on leaving them satisfied, not just by the product but by the process, too. Making the customers the priority will significantly increase your revenue and drive up your profits. Build a quality team that believes in this vision and provides them with the support they need to do their jobs well.
Do you think you can prioritize happy customers? Give it a try and you might just see your profits grow! Thanks to Fencewrap for consulting
