- Communication is critical
- Build a strong track record by growing your availability and continuing to learn in your trade
- Offer competitive guarantees
- Always focus on the overall experience
Contractors provide valuable work to businesses and individuals in a variety of spaces. It’s a viable way to make a great living, but it’s a competitive field. If you want to stand out as one of the best, you need ways to separate yourself.
By all means, providing higher quality work than the competition is a great way to achieve that separation, but how can you demonstrate that to your clients? How can you show that you offer something special?
Below are five tactics that can help you rise above the crowd and represent yourself as a top contractor, regardless of your specific trade.
Communication
Strong communication easily separates the best from the rest across contracting disciplines. Communication can fit into two broad categories: professionals and customers.
Good communication with fellow professionals helps you meet timelines, secure materials and tools, and work functionally — especially on complicated projects.
Consider a residential housing build. In order to complete the overall project, contractors across industries have to coordinate their efforts in order to succeed. Plumbers, framers, roofers, electricians, and more work on the single home, in a particular order. If any one contractor fails to communicate, they can delay everyone else, hurting the reputations of everyone involved.
Proactive communication ensures you are on the same page with fellow contractors. The same applies to suppliers, vendors, and other third parties coordinating on any of your projects.
Customer communication often looks different but is arguably more important. Great contractors convey information to customers in order to set clear expectations and live up to them.
As an example, a customer may not understand why certain steps are necessary for a project. A good contractor can explain the necessity in terms the customer understands, eliminating frustration from such kinds of misunderstandings.
Clear communication in terms of schedules, costs, and other aspects of the project are just as important. If you need several months of wiggle room because you’re at the mercy of the weather, make sure the customer understands that. And, remember the old adage: under promise and overdeliver.
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Track Record
Clear communication can help you build a strong track record of success. If you set up timelines clearly with proper expectations, you should be able to meet those expectations. That means you can build a portfolio of projects finished on time.
The same goes for costs, complications, and other elements of your work. With clear communication and proper expectations, you can consistently deliver on your promises, building that reputation.
Your track record provides concrete evidence of your ability to deliver results. The record shows that your solutions work properly and last. The quality is high, prices are competitive, and you are a contractor worthy of high demand.
This covers your interactions with customers — keeping promises, garnering positive reviews, and building trust. It also covers professional interactions in your space. The electrician who shows up on time is going to get more construction gigs than the one who proves unreliable. You get the idea.
Guarantees
When you develop a strong track record, you can expand on it with strong guarantees. Now, you should never make promises or guarantees you cannot reliably keep. That’s a recipe for failure.
But, as you build your reputation, you should be able to determine what promises fit your business. A contractor with stronger guarantees can often win projects over their competitors.
The important thing here is that you’re willing to commit your promises into legally binding contracts. You can make guarantees on your work, and that further builds confidence in your work. You may need to pair your guarantees with appropriate insurance provisions, bonds, or other resources that help protect you in unfortunate cases.
You may also want to consider legal counsel to ensure your guarantees don’t put you at unexpected risk.
With that caution in mind, if you can commit strong promises to writing, you can separate yourself from other contractors.
Continued Development
A skilled worker is never done learning — whether you are day laboring or running large operations. New technologies and techniques are developed every day. The best contractors consistently spare the time and effort needed to learn what is new and how they can keep up with changes in their industry.
An asphalt company that stops learning won’t get the contract when an engineer shows up with a new plan to pave roads — especially if they’re using innovative bridge designs or construction techniques.
You can never stop learning, growing, and improving.
Availability
Lastly, you’re only the best contractor if you can actually do the job. This is not to suggest that you should artificially open up your schedule in order to bid on new jobs. Instead, you should labor to grow your availability with your demand. If your reputation makes you a hot commodity in your area, you may need to take on additional help to expand your availability and keep up with that reputation.
More important is the idea of geographical availability. Admittedly, this does not apply universally to all contractors. Businesses focusing on road construction or government buildings need to broaden their operational footprint in order to be at their best.
This often means learning additional regulations and requirements to work in multiple states and on different kinds of projects. It’s a lot of work, but if you want to be a top contractor instead of just a good one, these are the kinds of commitments needed.
It’s All About the Experience
You can distill all of these ideas into one unified concept: the experience. If you’re widely available and easy to hire, that starts a good experience. When you back it with strong promises and clear communication, that positive experience grows. When you have the knowledge and experience to provide excellent work, living up to your reputation, you complete the strong experience, and your customers are happy.
From roofing to a sealcoat company, this approach can help you build a brand that places you in the echelon of top contractors.
Author’s Bio:
Judd Burdon is the president and founder of Asphalt Kingdom. He began his journey in asphalt maintenance before launching his own successful business in Canada. After selling that business and relocating to Anguilla, he started Asphalt Kingdom, which has become a leading supplier of asphalt equipment.
