Don’t know much about the residential market.
However I do know about commercial work and GCs are always on the look out for small contractors who can get work done for a good price. If you get about 5 or 6 small retail jobs under your belt, you will get your name on some bidder’s lists and then start to grow your business a bit at a time.
Service work in between the contract work is good, but it’s not your bread and butter in the commercial end. Taking on a $15K build out and doing the job for $10k after you paid your own labor is were the money is. They don’t all turn out like that, but enough of them do to make them worth the chase.
If you do enough small retail build outs and remodels and your name will get around, do them fast and keep the GCs happy and your name will get around in a good way.
I do not advertise at all, and only put my name on the trucks because it’s the law. Don’t have a yellow page add, but I am in the white pages. 100% of my work is from referral and being put on bidder’s lists and my other two estimations and I turn down about ½ of the jobs we are asked to bid on.
Work on getting your name to the people you want to work for, and then do a good job. Good contractors are a commodity and once you prove you are one, they work will come to you.
While you are building up your business, do service for malls and retail outlet property managers, and do it well for a reasonable price, they will also refer work your way. Sometimes the first people a GC will ask about contractors is the maintenance staff or property manager of a mall or strip center, so make sure they have some cards to hand out. People are funny, they want to hire somebody they either know or comes with a recommendation, keep that in mind with everyone you deal with.
Last edited by ITO; 05/29/07 03:11 PM.
