In my experience, custom builders traditionally are busiest with sales and marketing efforts in the spring and fall. These six or seven months can determine your success for the entire year.
But what can you do to maximize the off seasons of winter and summer, those months when perhaps you’re not as focused on promoting your business? Here are eight things you should do during the relatively quiet period at the end of the year to prepare for the busy times that lie just around the corner.
- Fortify alliances. Check with your vendors, suppliers, trade contractors, banker, insurance specialist, and others to find out how things have been going. Do they need you to do something better? Do you need them to do something different? Make sure they understand that a busy work period is about to hit. Are they ready?
- Look at collateral material. Do you need to update that brochure you’ve been using for five years? Could you use some fresh business cards? How old are the job photos you have been bragging about? Reinvigorate your marketing. Spend a couple hundred dollars and buy some coffee mugs with your company name on them. Or better yet, invest in getting a company logo designed.
- Re-examine goals. Take an honest look at what you really want to accomplish by the end of 2004; are you currently on target? Factor in the amount of time you want to dedicate to your family, to the community, to your philanthropic causes, and get a real assessment of the amount of work you want.
- Examine your sales force. Take a look at your sales. How did you obtain your customers this year? Through referrals? Direct marketing? Model homes? Media? Knowing exactly how your customers find you will help you determine how to get more of them.
- Check your pricing structure. Ask vendors to verify prices for the remainder of the year. Make deals now because when you are rolling out bid after bid next spring, you won’t have the time to work on your pricing structure.
- Analyze last year’s marketing. What kind of marketing campaign did you have last December or January? Did it work? How could it work better? History provides good lessons. Take a look at your marketing history from last year.
- Clean up the loose ends. Do you have your client testimonials and customer satisfaction surveys in one place? Do you have all of your warranty issues resolved or at least scheduled to be resolved? Do you have the financial paperwork of your completed projects cleaned up?
- Educate yourself. Even with your hectic schedule, read at least two books a month for inspiration. CDs, tapes, books, and continuing education programs keep you sharp. The biggest benefit that you get from educational material is that it continues to generate fresh ideas. In order to stay ahead of the game, you have to stay educated.
Like many sports, the game of sales can be won in the off season. So get in shape now for the busy spring season that lies just a few months away.
Paul Montelongo has been a builder for more than 23 years and is a nationally recognized speaker and consultant to the construction industry. Visit Paul at www.contractorofchoice.com.
