With the building and construction industry experiencing a surge for the first time in a decade, now is the time to maximize the fact that people are finally seeing their disposable income increase and are willing to put some money back into their biggest investment – their homes. If you want to beat the competition and build a successful business, now is the time.
The way to get ahead is by not being the “two more weeks” contractor who is always behind schedule and over budget. To make it to the top of your business, plan ahead, anticipate the hiccups that you are likely to experience, and go by Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong, will. If you want to be a successful Winnipeg renovation contractor, these are the musts to satisfy your clients and build a rapport within your community.
Never overpromise
The problem that most contractors run into is overpromising their clients by underestimating. When you are in the contracting business, things will always go awry. What with having to schedule various subcontractors, order products that might be backordered or generally have things pop up that you simply can’t plan for, if you over promise or create unrealistic deadlines, you might get the job – but you won’t make the client happy.
If you don’t want to deal with bad referrals and promises not kept, then don’t overestimate what you can and cannot do. Even if you think that you can get things done quickly, it is always better to overestimate the time it will take and then make your customers pleasantly surprised when you are ahead of schedule than angry if you fall behind.
Don’t forget that it takes advertising and marketing
The problem that most contractors run into is that it is a feast or famine business. If you spend all your time getting projects done and not lining up the next, then you are going to complete one and have downtime between jobs where you aren’t making money.
That not only will decrease your overall earnings annually, but it also means you run the risk of losing the best subcontractors who want to be busy all the time. If you can’t go from one project to the next, then you are going to be burning resources during the downtime.
It might behoove you to hire an outsourcing company to do some small marketing tweaks to gain your business exposure. Social media marketing is virtually free, and although word of mouth is key, you can gain a whole new niche market if you start to put advertising in the right place. If you want to keep the jobs coming instead of going from one to finding the following, hire a marketing agency to help you get work. You also might want to consider hiring a person who is delegated to selling your construction company. They can help by making sales appointments so that you can focus on the current job and making it go off without a hitch. That will help you create a good reputation in the community instead of running yourself thin. At some point, if you don’t start to delegate things, something is going to get lost. Marketing shouldn’t be that thing, or you are going to be chasing one job after another – which is a waste of valuable time.
Hire the right talent
That old phrase “Good help is hard to find” persists for a reason: it is true. It isn’t easy to find professionals who will care as much about your business as you do, but if you are going to get your business to the next level, you have to.
Offer people incentives and pay a little more. The small perks that you can offer will give the client a better impression, ensure that you get the help that really helps, and save you from high turnover rates that can equal inconsistency for your customers and delayed projects.
The construction business is experiencing a surge. If you want to get in while the getting is good and build a successful business, then you might have to stop thinking like a contractor and think more like a business manager. If you can’t, then hire the right person to help out.
