Your reputation is the key to getting new business in. People who have heard of you will make their decision of whether or not to hire you based on your reputation. If someone hasn’t heard of you, you can bet that they are going to go online and research your company before making a decision. Even during the bidding process, having the lowest prices doesn’t determine whether you are going to get the job or not. You have to consider that people are more interested in the work being done safely, correctly and on time and are willing to pay a little bit more to ensure that.
What if there’s a project you took on years ago and the results weren’t that great. You were younger, you made an error because of inexperience, you had a client with unrealistic expectations or something else came up that hurt your reputation. How do you fix that and get more business coming in?
Promote Yourself
If the only people talking about you are other people, then you have no control over what they are saying. You need to get out there, talk about the things you are doing, what projects you have completed where the customer was very happy with your work. Post stuff online as well as most of the research done about your company is going to be done online. Find sites that are saying less than favorable things about you and see if you can get them to remove that information.
Hire Good Subcontractors
Believe it or not, your subcontractors can go a long way in helping you improve your reputation. For example, you hire a crane rental company to get the job done. They do a great job and your client is happy that they trusted you with the project. It seems simple but it’s a big step in getting people to say more positive things about you. Another example is if your subcontractors like working with you. They are probably asked by builders if they would recommend someone to take on a project they do not have time to do. Your sub can recommend you to that builder and tell them that you do high-quality work at a fair price.
Just because you’ve had steady work coming in doesn’t mean that you should ignore building your brand and strengthening your reputation. The stronger your reputation, the more work you will have and the more you can charge for your services. Again, people are willing to pay more if they know it means you are going to do a great job and can be relied on. If you are competing with a handful of companies for the same project, it’s your reputation, as well as your pricing, that is going to influence whether or not you get the job.
