Industry
Construction companies
Your business is delivering works on time. Your commercial difficulty lies elsewhere: keeping a steady flow of opportunities while your management team is absorbed by live sites.
- A workload smoothed across several quarters
- Operations detected before the tender stage
- Less dependence on long-standing clients
Business development that stops the moment sites restart
Most contracting firms do not lack commercial ability; they lack continuity.
When the order book is full, prospecting stops. Six months later, several sites finish at once and leave a gap nothing has prepared for. This cycle is the single largest source of earnings instability, ahead of pricing.
There is also a positioning effect: when the firm is only consulted at tender stage, it enters a framework already defined by others. The technical variants that would make a difference are no longer admissible and the conversation narrows to price.
Our work therefore consists in installing commercial activity that does not depend on your site managers' availability, and in moving upstream in the project calendar so that you are present before competitive selection begins.
Who this approach is for
Programmes differ noticeably with the size and organisation of the firm.
Structural works firms
Companies of 20 to 200 people relying on a small number of clients and general contractors. The issue: widen the number of reachable buyers.
Finishing trades
Technical or finishing packages, usually consulted late. The issue: become known to general contractors before they issue tenders.
Multi-trade firms
Companies able to carry several packages, a capability their contacts rarely perceive because they file them under one speciality.
Regional subsidiaries
Local operations of a larger group with limited commercial autonomy. The issue: build local standing distinct from the parent company.
Why the problem persists
The imbalance between delivery and development is not an isolated organisational flaw: it follows from the structure of the trade, where profitability is decided on site and attention naturally goes where risk is immediate.
- 01
Business development has no owner
It is shared between the director, the business manager and sometimes the site manager. What belongs to everyone is steered by no one.
- 02
Project information circulates upstream, out of reach
Decisions are taken during programming and design, before contracting firms are approached.
- 03
Relationships are not maintained between projects
A satisfied client who hears nothing for eighteen months will consult the firm they heard from recently.
The concrete obstacles we address
Arriving too late in the cycle
We look for upstream signals — planning applications, announced schemes, site extensions — to open the relationship before the tender phase.
A message built around resources
Brochures list equipment and headcount. We reframe the offer around the risk your firm removes for the client: delay, coordination, remedial work.
An unclear geographic footprint
We define an economically coherent operating area rather than scattering effort on sites whose travel absorbs the margin.
Unstructured follow-up
We install a documented contact rhythm where every exchange leaves a record the next person can use.
How we work with a contracting firm
We start from the projects actually won over the past two years: where they came from, their margin, how the contact was made. This reading almost always reveals a client profile that is more profitable than the rest and rarely pursued deliberately.
The programme is then built around that profile, with a deliberately modest contact volume at the outset so messages can be tested before scaling.
Targeting based on margin, not volume
We set aside segments whose history shows they consume more time than they return.
A named counterpart
Technical director, works manager, programme director: the role to reach is defined before the first contact.
Continuity independent of your workload
Prospecting continues through your busiest periods, which removes the cyclical effect.
How a typical programme runs
The real calendar depends on the length of your cycles; the sequence stays the same.
- 01
Portfolio analysis
Review of won and lost work, identification of profitable segments and recurring reasons for failure.
- 02
Target definition
Geographic area, building types, project size, decision-making role.
- 03
Message construction
The offer framed around the risks you remove, validated with your business managers.
- 04
Detection and qualification
Operations identified and their maturity checked before anything is handed over.
- 05
Introduction
Connection with the relevant counterpart, with context passed to your team.
- 06
Review and adjustment
Periodic review of field feedback and correction of targeting criteria.
No volume commitment is made before the qualification phase: criteria stabilise through contact with the market.
What changes in your organisation
A more readable order book
Visibility on coming months makes hiring and equipment decisions less uncertain.
Fewer decisions taken under pressure
Several live opportunities let you decline a poorly calibrated project without putting the business at risk.
A consistent message
Your business managers defend the same proposition whoever they meet.
Commercial memory
Exchange history stops disappearing when someone leaves.
Common mistakes in this sector
Subscribing to more tender platforms
Tender volume rises, selectivity falls and estimating time grows while the win rate declines.
Hiring a salesperson with no groundwork
Without a defined target or a tested argument, the hire absorbs twelve to eighteen months before any measurable result.
Bidding for everything out of fear of the gap
Projects accepted by default occupy the teams exactly when a better opportunity appears.
Services involved first
Outsourced prospecting
Keeps opportunity search running through heavy production periods.
Business introduction
Opens relationships with clients and general contractors outside your current network.
Lead generation
Feeds the pipeline with qualified enquiries against criteria agreed with you.
Related objectives
Frequently asked questions
Let's talk about your order book
An initial conversation lets us review recent projects and identify where the commercial bottleneck actually sits.
Explore further
Related stakeholders
- General contractors
Your most frequent clients and how they select.
- Subcontractors
The delivery chain downstream of your own packages.