4 Reasons to Make Marketing a Continual Part of Your Contracting Business
Other than the basics of what they need to know to become licensed contractors in the state of California, one thing that we try to impress upon our students (and new professionals entering the field) is that most things in your contracting business are best handled gradually
That’s especially true with marketing, where making a small, continual effort is a lot easier – and more effective – than occasionally trying to do a big push or promotion is. That is, sending out a handful of fliers each week, following up with old clients on a consistent basis, and placing small ads even when you don’t think you need them is a smart long-term strategy… suddenly making a big marketing push when you need new projects isn’t.
To understand why, here are four reasons to make continual marketing a part of your contracting business:
1. Continual marketing helps you avoid slow times. A classic mistake in contracting, and in business in general, is to wait until the last minute to start marketing. That’s a bad idea, because it means you’re going to have lots of downtime between projects.
2. It’s easier to raise your fees for construction projects when you are always marketing. This works for two reasons: For one thing, you feel more confident when you have lots of work already on the calendar. And for another, it’s hard to raise prices on existing customers, so you might need to find new ones if you want to raise your fees or bid on larger projects.
3. You never know when you’ll need some new customers or clients. Even your best customers can go out of business, have a nephew that gets into contracting, or decide to move on for some other reason. By continually marketing your business, you are protected if you suddenly lose an important client.
4. By marketing consistently, you’ll get better results and value for your money. The more often people hear about you and your business, the more comfortable they feel hiring you (if only because continual marketing makes you seem more stable and successful). So, when you do lots of marketing, it increases the long-term impact and gives you more value for your dollar.
Once you master continual marketing in your contracting business, you’ll probably discover that you’ll have less stress and more money to go around. Be sure to spend some of it on your education, and check back often to see our schedule of upcoming CSLS courses!
