5 Mistakes to Avoid When Chasing Negotiated Work (So You Can Win More Of It)

Today's Highlights:

• The Goal: Help you win more negotiated work.

• There are 5 mistakes I have seen Contractors and Subs make that impact their ability to negotiate work.

• Whether you're a Project Engineer, PM, Estimator, or Executive, you should understand how to build relationships and negotiate work! It will make you indispensable.

A lot of Project Managers and Executives ask me:

“How do I negotiate work for my company?”

Because it’s clear to them that negotiated work is more profitable, less stressful, and generally less of a grind than low-bid work.

But they don’t know how to go about winning it. In other words, they have good intentions but no idea where to start. And when they do start, they aren’t confident in what they’re doing.

Fortunately, there’s some good news: winning negotiated work is simple if you know the mistakes to avoid.

So today I am sharing 5 mistakes that most GCs and Subs make while building partnerships that hold them back from winning negotiated work.

If you avoid them, you give yourself a chance to stand out from the masses and build partnerships that lead to negotiating your own work.

Here are the 5 mistakes:

Mistake #1: Focusing on yourself, not the client

So many Contractors go into client meetings and talk about themselves for 60 minutes.

You can literally watch the clients’ eyes gloss over as they realize they shouldn’t have taken the meeting.

One of my coaches always reminds me to do the exact opposite:

Make it about THEIR stuff, not YOUR stuff.

• Don’t go in telling them you want to win work.

• Don’t go in telling them you want to negotiate projects.

Go in and ask them about their goals, initiatives, and how they measure success.

• Be genuinely interested.

• Show them you care.

Then suggest ways your company can help.

Bad partners focus on getting what they want.

Great partners focus on getting their clients what they want.

And funny enough, that ends up working out for them too.

Mistake #2: Talking down your competition

There’s one salesman -- we'll call him Steve -- who used to come in my office 2x per year and spend 45 minutes explaining a list of 97 reasons why his competition’s product was awful and a terrible choice.

I always just sat there in awe.

But Steve taught me a powerful lesson: talking down your competition makes YOU look bad.

Construction is a small industry.

In all likelihood, someone from your client has a positive experience with your competition. So when you talk down on them you actually reduce your own credibility. You look like you’ll say anything to make a sale! And if you’ll say anything, then how can they trust you?

So instead of talking down on your competition, say this:

“I’m not sure how our competition would handle this. I know they do a lot of good work with a lot of good companies, so something must be working! But what works for us here at Company X is focusing on the mission of the project. We find when we do that, we are highly efficient and good partners. We control what we can control.”

In short: Don't be like Steve.

Mistake #3: Focusing on WHAT you do, rather than WHY you do it

If you’ve never read Simon Sinek’s Start With Why, I highly recommend it.

In it, Sinek explains that the most successful companies “start with why” — that is, they start everything they do, including their sales pitches, with their mission.

Most Contractors start with WHAT. And they say things like:

“We are a drywall contractor. We put a lot of men on site and blow out a lot of areas at once. We have great tools and equipment. We can get the job done.”

Important no doubt, but what makes this drywall contractor stand out from any other?

Not much, right?

Why?

Because every drywall contractor does those things!

So you’ve accidentally turned yourself into a commodity.

But when you start with WHY, you separate yourself immediately by proudly stating WHY you are in business.

Contractors that start with WHY say things like:

“We believe in making the construction industry a better place. We want our teams to love coming into work every day. We do this by actively communicating and focusing on your needs. This makes us a great drywall Contractor.”

People love partnering with companies with a strong sense of WHY. It gives them purpose.

So if you want to negotiate work?

Don’t start with WHAT.

Start with WHY instead.

Mistake #4: Committing to too many partners at once

In order to negotiate work, you’re going to need to bid a lot of projects, review a lot DD documents, provide a lot of feedback, and go to a lot of design meetings.

This is what partners do!

So be careful not to commit to too many partners at once. You won’t be able to meet the needs of each one and before you know it, you’ll be underperforming for all of them.

Pick a key 2-4 clients that you would like to prioritize.

Then grow from there.

Mistake #5: Over-promising on your capabilities

Damn it’s tempting to go into a client’s office and promise them the world.

• “Yes we can do that! Our estimating team is great and efficient so bidding all those projects will be no problem.”

• “Oh- and yes we can project manage all of that at once! No problem! We’re great, remember? We can do anything!”

• “Our field crews are insanely good. We never have a problem manning jobs! Don’t even worry about it.”

This all may feel good to say, but it is HIGHLY unrealistic.

Everyone makes mistakes, especially in Construction.

So don’t over-promise what you can do.

Be willing to say:

• “I like that idea, but we’d rather focus on these 2 projects and give you 100% effort than work on all 4 and only give you 60% effort on each.”

You’d be shocked how much this will mean to your clients.

Over-promising is a big mistake that gets a lot of Contractors in trouble.

Instead, give realistic expectations and then do everything in your power to over-deliver.

People will trust you way more if you can pull it off.

Spark Notes:

Negotiated work is the future of construction.

If GCs and Subs can avoid these mistakes, they give themselves a much better chance to build partnerships that allow them to negotiate work.

These things take time so don’t get discouraged if it takes 1-2 years to get results.

But that’s more reason to get started as soon as possible.

Go out on Monday and set up that meeting you’ve been thinking about, avoid these 5 mistakes, and let me know how you do.