Identify Profitable Targets To Win More Work!
If you were the owner of a NFL football team, your number one goal would be to fill the seats every week. To sell seats takes a multiple approach. You must put a winning product on the field and you must sell seats to many different type of fans. Seats don’t sell themselves. It takes a huge effort to create sellouts at profitable ticket prices.
Ten years ago, you didn’t have to sell very hard to keep profitable construction work and revenue flowing into your company. If your price was competitive enough, you put an average team out in the field, called the usual plays, and used a simple business strategy your customers would keep coming back for more. And because business was plentiful, margins were higher, and competition was lower than it is now, you didn’t have to try to win over many new customers to keep busy and make a nice profit. As work was steady, you stayed focused on doing the same type of projects for the same type of customers, and your business still grew. Because there was enough work, you also didn’t have to try different or new types of projects, services, customers, or contract delivery methods. In fact, many contractors even prided themselves as specialists in a focused type of niche.
Fast forward to today, it’s harder to fill seats with high paying construction customers who don’t demand more services for less money. Doing quality work with an experienced team doesn’t matter much as your competition basically provides the same services you do at low prices. During the slowdown, you cut your overhead and reduced your expenses as much as possible to survive. This now causes stress as your workload increases, customers require more services, and prices are too cheap to increase your markup. The outdated strategy of waiting for calls from your same old customers to bid their same type of work now doesn’t give you enough business at the same profit margin. So what must you now do to win the new game of contracting?
You’ve got to win more work at higher margins. By continuing to do business like you did in the past and using your old strategy to bid more of the same type of work won’t achieve your goals. For example, to keep revenue and jobs flowing in, many focused on only building housing tracts, or shopping centers, or industrial parks, or custom homes, or office building interiors. Some focused on building for general contractors, developers, or home builders. Some expanded and did more than one type of project. But, most didn’t crossover into totally different or diverse types of projects or customer types who seemed too difficult or more risky. And offering an ongoing service component to their revenue stream wasn’t even considered as they were too busy to mess with little jobs.
Multiple streams of income sells more seats!
A diverse business plan includes at least two types of revenue streams with multiple types of projects and customers. Here is a partial list of the unlimited revenue and business opportunities contractors have to choose from:
Multiple Revenue Streams Of Opportunities
1. Contracts & Bids
Private Construction
Retail shopping centers
National chain stores
Industrial buildings
Manufacturing & factories
Metal buildings
Office buildings
Banks
Medical buildings
Hospitals
Self storage
Renovations
Interior Improvements
Utility Company Projects
Housing Tracts
Custom homes
Residential remodeling
Residential home upgrades
Residential replacement work
Site improvements
Public Works Construction
Schools
Offices
Hospitals
Facilities
Roads & highways
Transportation projects
Sewer & water projects
Storm drain systems
Plants
2. Service Work & Ongoing Accounts
Ongoing Monthly Or Annual Accounts
Property management
HVAC maintenance
Electrical maintenance
Plumbing maintenance
Landscape maintenance
Site service & management
Spring & winterization
Light bulb replacement
Roof service
Road and drainage repair work
Generator service
Energy management & controls
Repairs & Service To Fix Broken Components
Plumbing & mechanical repairs & upgrades
Window replacement
Tenant improvements
Tenant relocation
Carpet and flooring service
Building damage repair
Clean-up and debris removal
Who do you want to sell tickets to?
In order for a professional football team to sell tickets, they start with a list of targeted customers they want to go after. By determining exact targets to aim at, you can develop an attack plan to win more work. For sure, you can’t be successful by bidding any customer that offers you a set of plans against every other contractor who wants to bid. To create an effective sales program starts with determining what you want to accomplish. A football team wants to first sell their expensive private boxes, then to high-end season ticket holders, groups, individual season ticket holders, multiple game plans, and lastly individual game tickets.
Start with a focused multiple approach. You already have a list of past customers and project types you have completed. In a tighter economy, those same targets are not enough. You MUST decide to diversify, attack, and seek business in multiple revenue streams. From each revenue stream, select at least one or two new customer and project types you want to attack. From the list above, choose new project and customer types you will attack over the next year to grow your business with diverse types of higher margin and steady paying customers.
Create a target customer list
Create and complete a customer target list you will attack. Start by identifying your existing, repeat, and past customers. Sort them by revenue stream and customer type. For each customer type, you need a minimum of at least 6 existing and 6 new customer targets to go after per customer and project type. Use this sample chart to develop your project and customer target list.
Contracts & Bids
Current Customer Targets | New Customer Targets |
- | - |
- | - |
- | - |
Current Project Types | New Project Types |
- | - |
- | - |
- | - |
Service Work & Ongoing Accounts
Current Customer Targets | New Customer Targets |
- | - |
- | - |
- | - |
Current Service Work | New Service Work |
- | - |
- | - |
- | - |
After determining what type of projects and customers you want to attack, develop specific goals for each customer and project type:
Sample Customer target list chart:
Project & Customer Goals
Project Types | Customer Targets | # Targets To Attack |
Shopping Centers | Current Customer Targets | 6 |
New Customer Targets | 10 | |
Banks | Current Customer Targets | 5 |
New Customer Targets | 12 | |
New Project Types | Customer Targets | |
Army Corp Work | New Customers Targets | 4 |
Hospitals & Medical | New Customers Targets | 10 |
Corporate Facilities | New Customers Targets | 10 |
Service Work Goals
Service Work | Customer Targets | |
Building Repairs | Current Customer Targets | 0 |
New Customer Targets | 15 | |
Annual Maintenance | Current Customer Targets | 0 |
New Customer Targets | 15 |
New customer targets are not hard to find. For example, if you want to target hospital and medical construction, do a Google search for hospitals and medical complexes in your market area. Call each one of them and ask for the manager in charge of facility construction, maintenance, improvements, or remodeling. With diligence, you can find the right person to call on at every hospital and medical facility. Get started on your new and improved revenue and profit enhancement program by identifying the new projects and customers you can attack and build a more profitable business with.