Four Things You Can Do Today To Increase Your Closing Ratio

Guest Contributor: Followup CRM

The average closing ratio, or win rate, in the construction industry is below 10% —meaning there’s a lot of activity going on but not a lot of contracts being won. And when there’s a lot of time wasted on bidding and no new contracts to show for it, it can feel like pushing a boulder up a hill.

To win more jobs you will need to do more bids. But rather than increasing your bidding activity by adding headcount, you should increase the quality of your bids to instantly increase your closing ratio.

Here are four things you can do now to increase your closing ratio:

1. Define your ideal client.

Most contractors think this is a really basic principle, but many of the later dysfunctions you may encounter in your business start right here. Some companies try to decide whether to specialize on residential or commercial jobs, but many perform a split of both. Many also tend to bid on anything they get a chance to.

By identifying your ideal client and having the discipline to bid on only the kind of work your business performs well, you can target only those clients that are a good fit for you. This allows you to position yourself as a high-end provider in the market because you exclusively serve a particular kind of client. With this expertise, your closing ratio will increase because you’ll be the premier company to work with for that type of client.

2. Qualify your opportunities.

Once you’ve defined who your ideal client is, you can start to become more selective with the jobs you choose to bid. Qualifying your opportunities in this manner allows you to channel your company resources toward only those that you’re more likely to win because you’re bidding to your ideal client profile. This allows you to filter out clients that aren’t a good fit without having to waste company resources.

3. Track lead source trends.

Tracking where your leads come from is it necessary practice to understand what marketing activities are contributing to the bottom line. This could be as simple as notating where this bid came from or how the lead heard about your business.

Once you’ve identified the source of your leads and bids you can track pipeline and closing ratios to see which one of these opportunities convert into a contract. After getting these insights into high converting lead sources, you can double down on those marketing activities.

For example, if you find leads are coming from referrals from current clients, you may be able to cut some spending to other marketing efforts. If customer experience is the most important marketing activity at your company, you may be able to reallocate those dollars to make sure your customers have a five-star experience when working with you — which in turn leads to more referrals and more new customers.

4. High-quality partners

In the construction industry, relationships are everything. Having a high quality partner network simplifies the buying experience for customers. When one construction company refers another construction company for a different service, closing ratios with those types of referrals are about 80% above industry average.

For example, if a roofing company is doing a roof replacement and has a high-quality HVAC partner, they can work together to refer and share clients. Having these high-quality partners increases your closing ratio because customers will take their recommendation of a trusted partner.

About Followup CRM:

Followup CRM is a Construction CRM that providesa simple, user-friendly, tracking solution geared towards increasing sales revenues. Followup CRM helps users track and convert leads, grow an unlimited database of contacts, analyze real-time dashboard reports, properly communicate with your team, and so much more. For more information, visit www.followupcrm.com.