Marketing in your construction business is a combination of everything you do, yes it is your website, the advertising you do, the networking, all the stuff you do online such as your social media marketing and your brand.
It should also include everything after you've had that call and gone to look at the job to do a quote.
It is the way you are with the customer at the initial survey, it how you present the quote and how you communicate with that potential customer after - do you call to follow up see that they've got the quote? (there are ways of knowing that they have got the quote - but that's another post) do you ask them if they have any questions? If they say they've had a better quote at this point, because you've called it's possible you could still win the business. Do you keep in contact after you've finished the job? if you don't you're potentially losing out on future work for them or getting a referral and imagine if they referred you to a friend and it became a big commercial job.
Marketing is all about your pricing too and I don't mean you have to be the cheapest, you just have to be the best and offer the most for their money, we call that value, despite what most people think people do not buy on price alone it's not their first concern, if that were true we'd all be driving around in a Dacia Sanderos and wearing clothes from Primark. (sorry if you drive a Sanderos and wear clothes from Primark, there is nothing wrong with that).
Something that will make you stand out is if you offer guarantees, like my 'Money where my mouth is Guarantee' that states if I don't get a return on
Marketing is also about how you interact with your employees or subcontractors to get the best out of them, what do they get when they perform well?
You know there is an old saying that 'you get what you look for or focus on most' so if you look for the bad in people you'll certainly find it.
I once heard of a local electrical company that had tracking devices fitted to all the vans without his employees knowing, So he knew when they weren't where they were supposed to be, however as he hadn't told them he couldn't confront them as it's illegal to have them fitted and not tell the staff.
Now how this works is that when he would then see the particular employees he would be mistrustful of them and have to keep his knowledge inside, what happens is, he would be thinking about this and his body language would be giving off little signals that were mostly un-perceivable, the employees would then subconsciously pick up.
They would un-be-known to them, not like their boss and probably not be sure of why, they would then not work at their full potential and when they could, skive off.This is called a self fulfilling prophecy (A bit like the papers have done with recessions) the boss got what he was looking for!
So how do you treat the people working for you?, how about looking for the good stuff and rewarding them, it'll be cheaper than the cost of fitting tracking devices. Do you have a referral scheme in place? so they can get commission for bringing in work rather than doing it as a private job?
What about what you do for other businesses and the community do you actively look for business for other business people you're connected with? not just in another trade but all industry's and do you look for ways to help out in the community? too, you know if you help enough people get what they want you will automatically get what you want.
When I work with my clients, I look at the whole business marketing, because if one part of the marketing isn't working well, it's pointless doing anything else!
To your success
Paul Jennings
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