Author Archives: admin

Sales is the front line of your business and a skill you should always be improving. If you want to stay in business, you need to learn how to close sales, especially the tough ones.

Your customers should be your top priority. If they aren’t, it’ll catch up with you and the consequences will be reflected in your financials. Closing a tough sale isn’t easy, but it’s possible if you focus on building trust and alleviating your customers’ five biggest fears.

A project portfolio should be viewed as a marketing tool that exists to help you win more business. It’s a chance for you to showcase your best work and provide real-world examples to potential customers.

Similar to a job interview, you want to prove that you’re capable of solving construction challenges and problems in a timely manner. There’s no reason to slop something together overnight. Take your time and do it right. See tips for creating the perfect contractor’s project portfolio and get motivated to start working on yours today.

The fact is that consumers are putting more faith in fellow consumers and less faith in actual companies. What this means is customer reviews and referrals are more powerful than ever before, including their ability to serve as a marketing tool for small businesses.

The ability of customer reviews to persuade another isn’t fabricated, there are hard facts behind the influence they have on purchasing habits. In this article, I’ll discuss why you need customer reviews, how they affect the bottom line and best practices for managing them.

Looking to become more in-tune with the happenings of the construction industry? Email newsletters are great because they’re filled with relevant content topics and are delivered to your inbox in seconds. They’re typically free of charge and an easy way to keep up to speed with what’s going on in your industry or trade.

As a business owner and leader, you should be expanding your industry knowledge and challenging yourself daily. Don’t know where to start? Here are five construction email newsletters that you should consider subscribing to.

It’s nice to find new customers who are interested in your product. It makes you feel like you’re doing something right. While gaining new customers is exciting, it doesn’t compare to how good it feels turning customers into loyal buyers.

Customer retention is one area of sales that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. I would argue that some business owners don’t fully recognize the importance of customer retention and how it impacts the bottom line. See why focusing on customer retention is key to your company’s stability and success.

Construction is slowly becoming a greener and more sustainable industry due to advances in technology and the adoption of more eco-friendly building practices. All buildings and homes have an impact on their surrounding environment, so it’s important to keep moving in a direction that keeps damage, pollution, and waste to a minimum.

Creating awareness for environmentally-friendly processes is half the battle toward cleaning up and saving our planet. The more service professionals who support green construction, the better chance it’ll have at becoming an industry best practice. Fortunately, there are four ways green construction is already making an impact on homes and businesses around the globe.

As a business owner, it’s easy to get caught up in what the other guys are doing. While it’s smart to know what the competition is up to, it’s also important you don’t spend all of your time trying to keep up and as a consequence, lose yourself in the shuffle.

There’s something special about a business that’s able to harness the power of being different. Many customers’ value companies who aren’t afraid to stand apart from the crowd. They appreciate firms who deliver products and services that are made just for them. Businesses thrive when they stay true to themselves and clearly communicate a unique story and vision. As Dr. Seuss once said, “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

Many professionals often dread networking events. However, making connections and having a successful business can sometimes be one in the same. Here’s the thing, to truly perfect the art of networking and making connections, you have to practice everyday. Whether that’s talking to coworkers for a few minutes or working on your elevator pitch, be sure to find the best way to market your qualities. The key to a great business connection is sharing what you do and the goals of your company and listening to what your connection does. From there, you can figure out how both your similarities can benefit each party. Try to attend as many networking events to get a ton of practice.

While there is no way to guarantee payment on the projects you work on, it’s essential to pay attention to details that can help make this process easier and/or faster. Keeping accurate records and documentation in regards to what is expected of your company is vital. Get your clients to sign off on every step, especially that of changed orders. Make it clear that additional work not specified on the signed contract might cost more money.

Unfortunately, getting a customer to pay you is no easy feat. However, completing these six steps when you don’t receive payment can help in reducing the stress factor of it all.

Winning new business, customer retention and staying ahead of the competition are important benchmarks for any business. It’s not magic. Reaching these goals takes dedication, hard work and a deep understanding of current business and industry trends.

Information is power and becoming an expert in your trade will increase your credibility and help you gain more referrals. Below, you’ll find five books that we think every contractor should read.