Construction businesses are great at creating. Their passions undoubtedly lie in completing projects and dedicating themselves to their work. But, as a result, their construction sales pipelines can easily fall by the wayside. However, a strong pipeline increases your chances of winning business, allowing you to keep doing the work you’re best at. Not only that but focusing some effort on sales can also lead to higher-margin contracts.

In this article, we’re discussing how to build a sales pipeline for you and your sales team.

How to Build a Sales Pipeline from Scratch

Before building your own construction sales pipelines, it’s vital first to understand your business’s financial needs. Determine how much money you will need to earn monthly and annually to grow your construction company and hit your goals. Next, construction businesses should determine their focus on projects and potential customers. Which tasks do they specialize in? What expertise do they offer, and where can they showcase the most references and experience so far?

A lack of focus is present in companies that do any job of any size – having a specific focus on one or two project types allows businesses to develop a steady sales pipeline.

To find your focus, ask yourself:

• Which customers might help you develop ongoing and high-margin work?
• What job sizes are the most profitable for your team to complete and suit your expertise best?
• What work is your company renowned for in your area?
• Which locations can you cater to most effectively?
• Do insurance limitations bind you?

Once you know whom to target, it will be easier to identify and contact customers. First, put together a list of existing customers and those you’d like to work with in the future.
Include new market targets, repeat customers, and your most loyal customers.

Optimize Your Website

Once your construction company has determined a key focus, have this reflected on your website. Clients interact with websites to determine if your company has a good reputation, provides relevant expertise, and suits their project requirements. A good construction company website should include information about the company, its services, previous customer testimonials, a client list, expertise and specialties, and several lead generation opportunities.

They also introduce key team members with their resumes. Construction websites similarly benefit from a clear focus so customers can immediately see what they offer.
Setting correct expectations and competitive advantages on your website ensures you attract the target market for your sales pipelines.

Schedule Sales Activities

With a customer target list, construction businesses can now tailor their sales activities and sales pitch. It can help start with the customers you already know to make it easier to acquire new projects. Develop a general plan for how to get repeat customers to hire you again.

Sales activities can include games, lunches, outings, mailings, gifts, sales presentations, social media contests, and more. It would be best if you aimed to launch your sales activity at least three times a year for each of your prospects.

Build a Referral Sales Program

Whenever you complete a project or get in touch with your most loyal customers, it’s important to seek references actively. Your existing contacts can create more leads for you by recommending your construction services to other clients. If you get a positive referral, you can thank that customer with a gift, message, or discount.

Invest in a CRM

Successful construction businesses often invest a large amount of their time refining their sales pipeline and keeping track of their leads. If you don’t have time for that, you might lose out on sales.
Investing in a CRM (customer relationship management system) allows construction companies to cut down on managing all their prospects.
A CRM keeps track of your list of existing and desired future contacts. CRMs also can notify you when a lead is likely to be receptive to an offer.
It will also remind you of scheduled activities to not forget to get in touch with any of your leads.

Use Lead-Development Tools to Fill Your CRM

Your CRM removes the need for tedious paperwork when it comes to adding and tracking clients. Construction businesses can therefore focus on finding relevant projects and adding contact details to their list. Lead-Development tools like Construct-A-Lead allow construction companies to identify new projects in their industry. With advanced search options, you can find public or private facilities that suit your customer profile.

You can also look for available tasks in a specific state or city and see public projects for particular companies. Each project provides contact information for lead decision-makers. So you can quickly fill your CRM with the most relevant data.

Source Project Information to Make More Successful Bids

Another crucial step to a successful pipeline is to include research in the process. The more you know about the requirements of a construction project, the more prepared you will be to develop a compelling bid. Collect as much information on construction projects as you can. This allows you to target your bids more successfully and make an educated decision on which projects suit your team. That way, you can maximize your time and talent.

For 37% of marketers, prospecting new clients is the most significant hurdle.
You can cut down on time spent researching by making use of construction project databases. For example, Construct-A-Lead provides info on all large-scale commercial construction buildings, with detailed reports available 24/7. Reports update in real-time, so you can stay up-to-date with all the projects you’re looking to bid on. In addition, all details are carefully researched and verified, so you can rely on the information for your project bids.

Do You Now Know How to Build a Strong Sales Pipeline?

Having read this blog post, we hope you now have a better idea of building a sales pipeline. A significant sales pipeline allows you to focus on what you do best: Construction. With the right tools, you can reduce the time and effort it takes to attract, contact and nurture leads and projects.

It’s vital to have a good CRM in place to track all your contact information and regularly reach out to your clients. But it would help if you also had a lead database to source new projects and identify opportunities in your industry. Construct-A-Lead is the leading software for growing construction businesses. The tool helps you identify new leads and provides real-time contact and project information within your CRM. Sign up today to start developing your sales pipeline!