10 Ways to Increase Sales in a Construction Business

In today’s construction market, it's not enough to assume that your company’s track record and reputation will speak for itself. Buyers are sophisticated and informed, and the industry marketplace is intensely competitive. Construction businesses that meet these challenges with a specific, reliable and repeatable sales plan will be more successful in increasing their sales and getting more customers. In this article, we offer a step by step plan for optimizing your construction sales funnel to learn how to increase sales for your construction business.

Click on a link below to jump straight to the section you’re most interested in:

• Market Size for Construction Projects
• Common Sales Challenges in the Construction Industry
• How to Optimize Your Construction Sales Funnel Step-by-Step
• Increase Sales for Your Construction Business with Houzz Pro

Market Size for Construction Projects

When determining how to increase sales for your construction business, it’s helpful to start by understanding the market size. The construction industry in the U.S. is vast and offers abundant opportunities in both residential and commercial sectors. 

• It represents about 4.3% of the country's GDP, employing about 7.5 million people, or 4.8% of America's workforce. 
• The market size is valued at about $1.4 trillion and in 2021, more than 1.3 million new housing units were completed, an increase from 2020 with single-family homes leading the way.  
• In 2020, $813 billion was spent on residential construction, which was an increase from the year before of 12% while commercial construction decreased slightly as pandemic challenges mounted.

Common Sales Challenges in the Construction Industry

As every construction pro knows, the industry also presents obstacles, especially when you are trying to optimize your construction sales funnel. These factors include:

• Steep competition: With so many construction companies in the U.S., homeowners have plenty of choices. Competing on price alone is difficult, making offering competitive value a more effective strategy.  And, with decision times and planning spreading over months, even years, for home construction or major renovations, businesses need to show the value they offer over the long haul.
• Expensive overhead, especially for employee talent: A total of 88% of contractors report difficulty finding skilled workers and retaining them. To draw a talented pool of workers, companies are often forced to pay higher wages and risk missing deadlines because of labor shortages. 
• Low profit margins: The talent crush cuts into already low profit margins in the industry. With fixed costs and overhead, increasing profit depends on generating more revenue. 
• Supply chain challenges: While some prices have stabilized since spikes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain delays continue to contribute to construction delays and price fluctuations. 

How to Optimize Your Construction Sales Funnel Step-by-Step

Attracting more customers to a construction business does not start or end with making a sale. In fact, customer satisfaction and retention are the best friends of sales! Working to assure that your customers are satisfied throughout the life of the project and long after they are living in their newly constructed or renovated home makes retention easier. Past customers will become repeat clients and referrals for future ones. It is less costly to retain customers than to find new ones and so the people you are building for today will help you build your company tomorrow. 

Here’s a 10 step guide for businesses to follow to optimize their construction sales funnel through a tried-and-true sales and marketing process:

1. Define Your Audience - and Make Sure You Understand Them!

• Define: It is impossible to find your ideal client if you cannot describe who they are. Provide crystal clear clarity on the type of services you offer and then consider the type of customers who are seeking them. Consider other targets too such as geographical location, and income of your ideal clients. Research this by using social media, looking at the clients of your competitors, reading statistics-based reports published by industry experts and more.
• Understand: After you have defined and refined who your audience is, learn their struggles and motivations. What are they seeking from the person they entrust with their home’s construction work? What are they most worried about? Is it cost, the longevity of the materials they pick? What mistakes do they fear they will make? A couple seeking the construction of a new luxury home, for example, will be expecting a customized, personalized experience  that is more intense and over an extended period of time than a family hiring your company for a bathroom renovation. 

2. Own Your Value and Differentiators

• Differentiate: When the customer asks “why you?”, it's important to be prepared to talk about what value your business brings them - and will put you a step ahead of your competitors. It's not enough to say that you have been in business for 10 years and have an excellent track record; clients want to know how you stand out from the others in order to meet their specific needs over the lifetime of the construction project.
• Get Specific: Just as you wrote down the attributes of your audience, list the specifics of what you can offer them. What is your competitive edge? How does it solve the concerns and struggles of your potential clients? 
• Hone an Elevator Pitch: Yes - that old saying about elevator pitches still holds true for your construction business! Craft a pitch that focuses on your identified benefits. Make it short and concise enough that you can recite it before the elevator reaches the top floor - even if it's a five-story parking garage. 

3. Create & Implement a Sales Process Routine

At this point, we hope that you see the benefits of having a sales process in place that everyone on your team can turn to and follow while landing new projects. This will help give everyone on the team the confidence they need in the field to make more sales and assure your sales process is consistent and effective throughout your business. 

• Outline the plan step by step from acquiring initial, qualified leads to project completion. Create a list of questions you frequently face while meeting with clients. 
• Make time in your meetings to collect feedback from your team members on what should be incorporated into your sales process.
• Share the sales process with your team and make it readily available to review and refer back to before every meeting they have with a potential client.

4. Make Feedback Part of Your Sales Process

• Clients: Happy customers are some of the best salespeople on your team. Develop a way to collect testimonials and client reviews. Post them prominently on your website, and pull out the ones most relevant to your potential client to review during initial meetings with them. Consider customer surveys to start collecting a batch of data over the long run that will help with your sales process. 
• Team: Don’t stay wedded to a sales process that is falling short of your goals. Provide a platform for your team to provide feedback on what is working and where the plan needs improvement.
• Data: Leverage reporting tools that track the success of your sales process as well as illuminate opportunities where you could better strengthen your sales margins.

5. Implement a Strategic Marketing Plan 

The 2022 Salsify Consumer Research Survey showed how much customers value trust over low prices when making purchasing decisions: a total of 46% of U.S. respondents say they're willing to pay more for brands they trust. 

• Brand Your Construction Company: Branding creates a distinct identity in the minds of your potential and existing clients. This means setting both a visual tone, and a tone of voice in your public-facing materials — marketing, communications, presentations — as well as within your company, reflecting your values and goals. Learn more about the importance of investing in branding in our guide covering 14 Top Tips for Branding a Construction Company.  
• Make Marketing Consistent: It's not enough to send out the occasional email or brochure to attract enough leads to grow your construction firm. Consistency matters if you are to keep your company on the minds of clients and potential ones. Decide on the cadence and delivery method, and type of communications you will use in your marketing. This can include email marketing, social media, blogs or even podcasts to share relevant tips, testimonials, announcements and more with your contacts.
• Create & Segment a Contact List: Comb through your lists of past clients, subcontractors, industry organizations and others to create your marketing contact list. Organize and segment the list so you are sending the right information to the right people.

6. Get in Front of the Right Customers

• Website: Online shopping is today’s norm, so having a strong online presence is crucial to building a successful construction business. Your website should look as professional as your construction work and feature beautiful photographs of past projects and the services you offer. Websites that are SEO-optimized are more effective in reaching target audiences. Making it mobile-friendly means you will get more eyes on it from the busy people making buying decisions. A safe and secure site is essential to avoid costly breaches. Keep reading to get inspiration for your construction website.
• Leverage Social Media: With so many social media platforms available, find one or two that you feel comfortable posting on regularly to keep your business in the forefront of followers and attract new clients. Readers love before and after project photos. A construction tip of the week or a company announcement are all good fodder for social channels. As former clients, team members and other industry related people like and share your posts, you reach new audiences.  
• Advertising: You can get creative with your advertising, with a variety of options available at every cost category. As always, consider your target audience and where they are spending their time and getting their information. Then, seek out those advertising opportunities. Explore our Guide to Construction Advertising to learn more.
• Lead Generator: Ideal leads typically don't come for free, and some construction companies invest in a lead generator service to help them find the right clients. These generators can help you fine-tune your searches to find new leads in your area. Get more tips for generating construction leads in our next article.

7. Nail Initial Client Touchpoints

• Initial Discovery: As you know, not all leads are created equal and the sooner you recognize when a client is not the right fit, the more time and energy you have for finding the right ones. Qualify leads during your first touchpoint by asking specific questions. Have a list of questions ready that have helped in the past and don’t be afraid to probe with relevant questions. Understanding their type of project, timeline, budget, urgency, commitment to the project and how many other construction companies they are in touch with can help gauge the fit. 
• First meeting: More is at stake in the first real meeting once you have qualified a lead because this is where you make your first impression and the answers to your questions can help you know what to emphasize when creating your estimate. It is a place to ask deeper questions to more fully understand what your potential client is seeking. Ask about their pain points and then explain how your company solves for them. What will be the deciding factors for them in choosing someone to take on their construction project?  

8. Build the Estimate

Congratulations! A potential client has given you the green light to present them with an estimate, often considered the most onerous and crucial part of the construction business. Creating and delivering a professional, accurate and digestible estimate as quickly as possible increases the chances that your client will say yes. 

• Be Simple, but Detailed: Homeowners typically prefer not to be overwhelmed with overly complex in-the-weeds details, but they still want to know as much as possible about salient details, such as how their project will look and how much it will cost. Here are some ways to strike the balance between keeping proposal language simple, but also being detailed and transparent:

1. Takeoff Software: Many construction pros opt for takeoff software because they can accurately measure and markup plans on screen more quickly instead of relying on Excel spreadsheets and manual takeoffs. Learn how to do construction takeoffs next.
2. Visualization Tools: Help your clients see what their new home or renovated room will look like with visualization tools such as AI, AR and other software available. These tools make a plan as close to the real thing as possible.
3. Portfolio of Past Projects: Photographs and videos of past projects help build trust and credibility because clients can see with their own eyes real life homes and imagine the same for themselves. Have a ready, updated and easily shareable online portfolio available so that you can show them the projects that are especially relevant to theirs, and they can review more closely on their own. 

Keep reading for more on crafting the perfect construction estimate.

9. Follow up (again and again) 

• Just Be There: Following up with potential clients while balancing in-progress projects is not easy but don’t be that construction company: The one that does not show up on time. Checking back with clients regularly and when you say you will during the sales process signals to them that you will be reliable and responsive. 
• Consider CRM Software: You are busy. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software can make it easier to schedule and follow up as the sales timeline progresses toward sign off. You can manage leads through one system and move them from stage to stage so you know when to follow up. 

10. Nurture Relationships From the Start 

• Listen: It is less expensive to work existing leads than to find new ones so nurture them, knowing that it can take a long time for homeowners to decide to move forward on their project. Respond quickly, hear what potential clients are saying and their concerns and explain how you can address them.  
• Start a Referral Program: Past clients are your best advertisers so do whatever you can to harness that power. Consider creating a referral program that offers an incentive such as a discount or gift card for every qualified lead a past or current client sends you. 

Increase Sales for Your Construction Business with Houzz Pro

Houzz Pro helps pros optimize their construction sales funnel every step along the way. Here are some key ways Houzz Pro can help answer the question, “how do I get customers for my construction business?”

Create a Sales Process

Houzz Pro is an all-in-one software management solution for construction companies, home builders, and general contractors; industry pros can run their business from end-to-end with a single tool.

Get in Front of the Right Customers

• Website: Houzz Pro builds custom websites for construction pros that are SEO-optimized, visually stunning, safe and secure. 
• Lead Generation: Generating leads is easier with the Houzz Pro. With exclusive access to tons of homeowners plus a suite of modern tools, Houzz Pro  helps you find the best construction leads.  
• Online Presence: Clients looking for inspiration come to Houzz and the construction pros who have Houzz Pro Premium Profiles on Houzz make it easy for them to connect with professionals in their area.  
• Targeted Advertising Houzz Pro is the #1 website and app for renovating homeowners. With targeted local advertising for construction through Houzz Pro, you can reach more of the clients you are looking for.  

Build a Winning Estimate

• Takeoffs: Houzz Pro’s construction takeoffs improve the accuracy and transparency of your estimates and help you build and deliver them up to 10 times faster. 
• Winning Estimates: With our construction estimating software, you do not have to rebuild your estimates every time because templates, local cost data and measure-anything tools are available at your fingertips. Houzz Pro estimates save time to get bids in fast. 
• Visualization Tools: Houzz Pro’s 3D floor plans help clients envision what their new home will look like with life-sized walkthroughs and more. 

Follow up Again...and Again

• Nurture Leads: Houzz Pro’s built-in construction CRM makes following up fast and easy. Manage new inquiries from wherever they come from. Track and monitor the leads you get from email, phone calls, referrals, ads, your Houzz directory listing and more. 

Learn how Houzz Pro can help you figure out how to increase sales for your construction business by trying out the all-in-one management software. Once you’ve mastered the art of finding new leads, we can also help you learn how to make your construction business more profitable. Sign up for your free trial here.