How To Grow a Construction Company: 13 Tips To Help Your Business Succeed
You’ve spent months getting your construction company off the ground. Countless hours drafting bids, outlining your business plan, hiring, and jumping from project to project.
With all the time you spend managing your construction company, it’s become almost impossible to focus on growth — you just don’t have the time.
How do you take your business to the next level without letting current projects fall through the cracks?
Read on to learn 12 tips and strategies that will show you how to grow a construction company.
- CM Fusion: Project Management Software That Gives You More Time To Focus on Growing Your Construction Company
- 12 Strategies for Successful Construction Company Growth
- CM Fusion Wants To Help Your Construction Company Grow
CM Fusion: Project Management Software That Gives You More Time To Focus on Growing Your Construction Company
A business owner growing their construction company is the ultimate multitasker. If that’s you, you likely wear the hat of a project manager, bookkeeper, and five more all at the same time.
Growing a construction business is not a 9-5 job, but construction management software like CM Fusion can help take some stress away by giving you your time back.
Forget spending hours doing bookkeeping, driving around to check on the status of jobs, or drafting up bid after bid. CM Fusion’s project management software gives your company a centralized and secure database for all your construction-related information, like:
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Budgets
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Work schedules; and
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Quality control information
With CM Fusion, you can see …
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What’s going on at each job
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The subcontractors assigned to each project; and
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Any outstanding bid requests
… all in one place.
And you can use the time you save to focus on growing your business.
12 Strategies for Successful Construction Company Growth
#1: Create a Construction Business Plan
Creating a solid business plan is a key component in learning how to grow a construction company.
Depending on how long it’s been since you started your construction company, it could be about time to update (or draft up) your business plan.
Take time to review and update your plan to reflect your company’s:
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Goals — Think of both mid-term (within 6 months-1 year from now), and long-term (5-10 years) goals.
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Values — Integrity, honesty, accountability, safety, and quality are values worthy of inclusion in your construction company’s business plan.
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Policies — Creating an employee policy handbook, credit policy, collection policy, and lien and notice policy can help protect your company both financially and legally.
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Expected growth in net profit margins — What projects and upgrades need to be secured and completed to sustain growth?
Strong policies and forecasting can help ensure your team deals with less guesswork and creates fewer opportunities for mistakes, errors, and oversight.
Once you have a strong business plan created, be sure to reference and make any necessary adjustments every few months. Reviewing it often can help keep your construction company on track and on target to meet your set goals.
#2: Invest in Sales and Marketing
Sales and marketing are two sides of the same coin when it comes to growing your construction company. Both strategies have the goal of converting prospective clients into paying clients — the only difference is in how they get the job done.
When you’re focused on growth, investing in sales and marketing can have a big impact on lead generation and revenue.
You’ll want your sales and marketing teams to:
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Know your target clientele and what they want.
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Set achievable goals and KPIs.
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Gather client testimonials and promote referrals.
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Work to build your brand image via social media channels and your construction company’s website.
With sales and marketing working cohesively, your company’s reach and recognizability will grow both in your industry’s network and online.
#3: Build Your Organizational Structure
With confusion comes chaos — and chaos leads to oversight, miscommunication, and mistakes.
An organizational structure is essential to mitigate the chance of error and create more accountability within your construction company.
You’ll want to clearly outline:
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Each position’s role and responsibilities within your construction company.
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How and when they’re expected to communicate with other internal teams.
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How each position contributes to the business and how their success will be measured.
As a business owner, the organizational structure can also help you:
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Measure how much ROI each position generates
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Improve operating efficiency; and
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Increase communication
#4: Take Time To Hire the Right Team Members
Building a company doesn’t happen overnight, and neither does recruiting the right team.
Investing in — and retaining — solid employees are two of the most important strategies when growing your construction company.
Especially in today’s construction world, keeping the number of projects you have even with the workforce to complete them (and vice versa) can feel like a never-ending balancing act.
Before you launch recruiting efforts, reference your business plan and make sure you have a pulse on what key hires you’ll need to hit your goals. The last thing you want is to grow too quickly and have to resort to layoffs.
Once it’s time to start recruiting, define:
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The roles that will need to be filled and your ideal recruiting to onboarding timeline.
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How you’ll attract talent.
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Your company’s onboarding plan.
Taking the time to recruit and onboard new employees with intention can ultimately lead to …
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Reduced turnover
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Higher engagement and job satisfaction; and
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Long-term employee tenure
… which can result in sustained growth for your construction company.
#5: Attend Networking Events
Brand recognition is a major factor in growing your construction company and acquiring new clients.
Networking events can help you spread the word about your construction company in the community, build up your client base, and add to your professional network.
Consider attending:
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Charity golf tournaments
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Fundraisers
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Open houses
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Galas or luncheons
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Industry associations; or
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City council meetings
Professionals and clients alike tend to recommend those they know (or have worked with before), which means the wider your network, the more organic leads you’ll see.
#6: Streamline Communication Within Your Company
Utilizing construction project management software can be extremely effective in streamlining communication within your construction company.
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Project owners
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Project managers
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General contractors
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Subcontractors
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Specialty contractors; and
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Architects
… alike can use the software to understand the basics of managing a construction project from start to finish.
CM Fusion can help business owners, contractors, project owners, and more:
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Communicate with clients and subcontractors.
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Review daily field reports to see who is on-site reporting that day, so you can skip the time onsite and spend your day meeting with potential customers.
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Stay up-to-date with changes or updates to the project.
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Track timelines, budgets, and resources.
CM Fusion’s software can help construction business owners save time and money while ensuring that their team can complete projects on time and within budget.
Used as a data analysis tool, business owners can use CM Fusion to help make informed decisions about future projects.
Plan, track, and manage projects with ease with CM Fusion.
#7: Put Quality First
We shared earlier that quality made for an excellent company value in a business plan.
Here’s how you can put that part of your construction company’s business plan into action:
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Investing in better materials may cost more money, but you get what you pay for.
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Using the right materials will make your work stand out and help you build a solid reputation — people will know you don’t cut corners.
Quality can also refer to how you execute designs, not just the materials used. Prioritizing quality can go a long way in showing current and potential clients that your work is worth the price.
#8: Make Sure Your Website Is Reaching Potential Customers
The easier your company is to find (and remember) the more success you’ll have in translating prospective clients into active clients.
A successful online presence for your construction company means implementing digital growth strategies like:
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Search engine optimization (SEO) — If it’s within your budget, hire an SEO growth company to implement strategies that will boost the organic rankings of your website on popular search engines like Google.
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Content marketing — Flesh out your website with timely and relevant blog posts that can be shared as content on your social media accounts.
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Advertising — Consider tasking your marketing team with creating Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, or Facebook Ads.
#9: Use Technology To Make Your Construction Company More Efficient
Making the switch to apps and technology is one of the easiest ways to increase efficiency during a construction company’s growing phase.
From accounting to document management to industry-specific software, there are plenty of tech options that can help your team improve productivity and reduce overhead expenses.
Project management software like CM Fusion can help you manage your company's construction projects more efficiently and focus on growth, thanks to extensive features like:
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Submittals
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Scheduling
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RFI tracking
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Project tasking
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Cost tracking
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Time tracking
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RFP management
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Daily field reports
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Image management
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Change orders; and
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Document management
Budget forecasting plays a large role in growing your construction company — and the more bids you send, the better chance you'll have to secure the job.
General contractors can create their bids directly in CM Fusion. The software:
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Allows you to assess whether you want to submit a bid.
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Shows you how much you can bid for.
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Lets you send the bid out to all the necessary tradespeople.
Need to adjust to a current bid? GCs can make those changes in CM Fusion, too.
#10: Utilize Social Media
A lot of construction companies still do things the old-fashioned way. Making sure your company has a strong presence on social media can give you an edge.
This means creating (or updating) accounts on platforms like:
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LinkedIn
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Facebook
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Instagram
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Twitter; and
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YouTube
Ensure your construction company’s website is fully launched and if you don’t yet have these accounts, set them up to link back to your website.
Share your company’s relevant and timely blog posts on social media and use your platforms as a catalyst to engage with fellow industry professionals and your audience.
#11: Provide First-Rate Customer Service
We previously touched on the importance of both written client testimonials and word-of-mouth referrals — both of which typically only are shared when the client experience is exceptional.
But customer service goes beyond the client; Project managers, subcontractors, architects, and other vendors in the construction industry will share their experiences working with your construction company, too.
Prioritizing a customer-first value for your company can help build a positive reputation and ultimately lead to growth.
#12: Show Off Your Work
Whether it’s by …
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Sharing reviews and testimonials of past customers
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Having a photo gallery on your website
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Featuring case studies; or
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Posting “before and after” photos on social media
… let potential customers know they’re getting quality when they hire your construction company.
These examples are proof of client satisfaction, which can go a long way in gaining the trust of potential customers and helping close bids.
CM Fusion Wants To Help Your Construction Company Grow
Whether you’re just starting or are looking to grow your construction business into an eight-figure company, CM Fusion can help you get there.
Our construction management software can help growing construction companies function more efficiently by allowing business owners to stay connected to their companies thanks to real-time updates on:
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Project status
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Communication between team members; and
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Resource tracking
Sign up for your free 30-day trial and learn how easy it is to use CM Fusion today.
Try CM Fusion, risk free for 30 Days – Your first project is FREE!
If you are trying to figure out where to look now, our company CM Fusion offers a free version of Construction Project Management Software. Not to mention, our customers brag about it’s ease of use, so you should be able to sign up and start managing your projects in minutes.