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Science Of Successfully Growing Your Construction Company

– Contributed content –

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20 March 2018. For those who haven’t a clue, science can almost always throw up the answers you are looking for. However, most people think scientific answers come in the form of test tube results or algorithms or years and years of research, which is why they don’t think science can be applicable to their business or industry.

But that isn’t the case.

Scientific proof can simply mean looking at what highly successful people have in common, which begs the question: what are the habits of those highly successful in the construction industry?

Well, to help you answer this question and adapt your approach to success, we have recently spoken to numerous construction company owners, including some former finalists of the Contractor Of The Year Award, allowing us to gain a pretty good understanding of what makes a successful contractor.

And so, without further ado, here are the habits every aspiring thought-leader needs to mix into their foundations and then build from:

  1. It all starts with top talent

Having an eye for the best talent out there or knowing how to find them is one of the most key components to running a successful construction business. Now you may think this is a relatively simple issue to overcome; it’s just a matter of putting an ad in the paper and having a rigorous interview process to weed out those that fall short of your stands. However, this leaves you open to a lot of trial and error – it leaves you open to risk – and that won’t work in an industry where reputation is everything. Instead, the best weapon you have in your arsenal in your current employees. These people are perfectly positioned to put the word out when you’re hiring, not only because they will have networked throughout their careers, but because they will know what makes a skilled tradesman in their practice. With layoffs commonplace in this industry, they will know which competitors tradesmen are worth going after. Like we said, building a great team is a true skill.

  1. Take care of your team

Building a great team is only part of the battle; you also need to keep your great team happy, something all successful contractors know. However, that doesn’t just mean paying them the wage they deserve. It could mean offering them a 30-hour online training course with americansafetycouncil.com/content/osha-30, making sure you offer them the very highest safety standards to work under, listen to their ideas and act on their feedback and, of course, provide them with an attractive career path, one that leads to a supervisory role. It could also mean giving them the best tools to work with, educating them on new methods and techniques and ensure you offer flexibility where it’s plausible. We know that the construction industry is not your average nine to five job, but that doesn’t mean it is any less important to go above and beyond for your team.

  1. Manage your business, lead your team

This is one of the distinctions that kept cropping up with the successful leaders we spoke to, each contractor explaining there is a difference between leading your employees and managing them. The reason for this is relatively simple: tradesman in the construction industry have obtained and developed a specific skill, and that is something they take immense pride in. It’s their identity for a huge part of their life. It doesn’t matter if they are a contractor, joiner, electrician, architect, plumber, kitchen fitter or digger driver; they all take pride in their ability. As such, they want to be lead. They don’t want to have every aspect of their responsibility managed – that will make them think you don’t have any confidence in their ability or the job they are doing. So, lead them, let them take charge of the roles you give them and leave them to prove you right.

  1. Invest in your business as often as possible

The age-old adage is right, “you need to spend money to make money”. You need to invest in your operation in order to win more business. Of course, you already knew this. What you might not know, however, is where you should be investing. Well, those faces behind the biggest success stories in construction explained that you should be investing in everything from state-of-the-art equipment to technology that promotes remote working and collaboration. The reason these two came up the most is simple: we live in the technological age, and it is transforming the construction industry faster than you may know.

Of course, these aren’t the only places you should be reinvesting your profits. Training your employees so that you have a more productive and efficient workforce was a popular choice, as was embracing modern marketing strategies to promote your operation. However, the last one to keep getting a nod was all about embracing environmentally-friendly practices. That means how you conserve water, how you limit waste, how you recycle, the materials you use and the renewable energy sources you specialize in.

  1. Know your unique selling point

Most construction companies start off by throwing you know what at the walls and seeing what sticks, and it makes sense. It is a way of testing the market and seeing where you should focus your efforts. However, branding yourself a good all-round general contracting firm will only get you so far. Instead, you should focus on a niche and start building a brand where you are the best in the industry. It could be that you specialise in new builds like Daco Construction, or perhaps your main business comes from hotel renovations, or maybe it is modest extensions that you are most handy at. Whatever it is, finding a niche market, specialising in a specific industry and playing to your strengths can really set you apart from your competitors and see you get called in for a lot more jobs than if you opt to be seen as an all-rounder.

Like we said, there is a science to assessing any business, it is just a matter of finding the angle and, in this case, looking at the habits of successful thought-leaders is one of the best ways to grow your operations.

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