6 Tips for Selling Work (and how to make more money)
Have you ever been around someone who was fantastic at selling construction projects?
I can think of one person in particular—a VP at a successful Contractor in Maryland—who knows exactly what questions to ask to put himself in a position to cut a deal before jobs are awarded.
He makes it look effortless as he seemingly knows exactly what to say to make the client feel comfortable about scope while simultaneously extracting key information to understand where he needs to be on price. It’s really impressive.
I sometimes wonder if people realize just how valuable of a skillet this is. Organizations heavily base their strategic decisions on their current pipeline and backlog, so being able to influence both means you are directly impacting the future of the business. Owners value the ability to “get work” (and pay handsomely for it, by the way).
But, people get busy, so executing AND selling is hard to do. For those that have figure it out, I’ve noticed they’ve overcome a few key hurdles preventing them from going out and getting work. If you’re someone who wants to add selling to your repertoire—and subsequently make more money and be more valuable to your organization—then let’s talk about what you need to do.
Challenges:
There are 6 primary challenges I’ve seen the top performers overcome again and again.
You don’t win a lot. Unless you’re doing a lot of small, service-type contracts, in construction, you’re not going to “win” many projects every year. For large GCs, you may be responsible for 1 to 3 wins per year. At a large sub, that number may be 6 to 15. If you’re only going to feel successful 6 out of 365 days per year, I can guarantee you’ll get discouraged and give up, so you must change your definition of success. Don’t measure it based on winning all the time, but rather by sticking with executing on the leading indicators that lead to sales: getting meetings, taking people to lunch, stopping by client offices, submitting proposals, getting scope reviews, etc. It’s a small mindset change that yields huge results.
You don’t have time. Of course you don’t have time to sell—this is construction and you’re busy! But you can’t let that stop you. You just have to get really good at leveraging your time wisely to be able to fit in both doing AND selling. Most people are available from 8 am to 5 pm. If you want to get on their radar, then you need to maximize the amount of time you spend selling during those hours. This may mean doing emails at night, or getting keep operational tasks done before 8 am. The hours are there, the question is whether you are using them to work on the right stuff.
Relationships take time to mature. It can be discouraging to spend time building and nurturing relationships without knowing if/when they will ever pay off in the form of winning work. This one is simple though: just go out and make friends. When you shift your mindset from using people to get work to wanting to be their friend, you won’t ever feel like you’re wasting time again. Yes, it will still take time, but it will be an enjoyable experience for you and the client, and it will mature into doing business together if and when the time is right.
Rejection is scary. Who the heck likes losing? Not many construction professionals I know. But the ones are crushing sales don’t care about rejection. In fact, they recognize that doing NOTHING is actually the same as being rejected by EVERYONE. So, at least by going out and working on making relationships and winning work, they are winning sometimes. And that’s enough to keep them going. In short, you can’t win without some losing, so stop letting that hold you back.
Other people won’t make time. Especially since COVID, I increasingly hear gripes that, “No one is willing to meet any more!” Actually, what I think is going on is people are still more than willing to meet, but they’re being much more selective in who they do it with. They’re protecting their time from the typical “salesperson” and spending it with people who actually show they care. So, be creative in the types of initial meetings you pursue: get really good at hosting a 30-minute zoom call, schedule virtual coffee or lunch breaks, call people randomly without seeing them in person. Build a relationship based on trust, and each time, ask if you can set up a next step to meet in person. As long as you keep demonstrating that you care, people will be willing to meet with you.
“Selling” isn’t your job. If you haven’t figured it out by now, “selling” is everyone’s job. Without (profitable) sales, construction companies can’t survive. So, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to provide value if you think your job isn’t to sell. You can always contribute, and I guarantee your owner and executive teams will notice.
If you really want to make yourself indispensable, then get really good at doing AND selling. It’s an uncommon skillset that will set you up for accelerated career success. Go get it, and good luck.
Spark Notes:
Redefine success by focusing on steps that lead to sales, not just the final win.
Maximize your time effectively by prioritizing selling efforts during business hours.
Build genuine relationships by making friends, not just business contacts.
Embrace rejection as a natural part of the process to keep moving forward.
