To improve your marketing efforts, focus on these three aspects of your company:
Customer-centric Construction
The customer is the vehicle to success for both the project and the organization as a whole, and the first step to providing a customer-centric construction project is creating a stable foundation for the relationship. This is accomplished by defining what is important to the customer.
Project Vision
Creating a vision to manage toward is essential. John Kotter discusses the power of vision in his book “Leading Change.” He explains that in many cases, the reason firms fail is that they “underestimate the power of vision.” For example, misalignment of vision at a corporate level can send a convoluted message to the entire firm. A firm can say they are seeking to grow at a modest level of five percent annually but aggressively pursue new accounts, achieving a growth rate of 20 percent. This inconsistency conveys that the firm has little regard for the big picture and has little credence in the other components that make up their strategic plan.
Feedback
A discussion of marketing would be remiss without a discussion of customers and their perceptions of the project team. Individual feedback is a crucial part of developing and honing skills. Feedback is not always flattering, of course, and there may be a tendency to avoid any discussion that is expected to be uncomfortable. Contractors should remember that regardless of whether the feedback is positive or negative, the perception remains. Those who choose to confront it and use the criticism to improve the way they work have the potential to retain top customers longer and please more customers in the future.
