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You and your spouse have just recently bought a new home. You invested your time and money in a place you hope to either raise a family or a place to simply live comfortably and well into your twilight years. There would be necessary repairs and certainly a need to update the different rooms within, whether that be building a sun room off the back of the kitchen or turning an unfinished basement into a giant recreation room for you and your visiting friends. Whatever the case may be, finding a good contractor for this kind of work can be tough, what with all of the contracting options available out there. Some companies have made their names by providing specialized work over the years, the company name becoming synonymous with that particular industry. There are, however, well-qualified, professional outliers who do solo contract work and just haven’t solidified their business name in the mind of the public yet. These individuals have to do their own leg-work in order to build their brand. They promote themselves in any way possible, either walking through neighborhoods and leaving business cards in mailboxes or relying on word of mouth from past clients. While a good way to reach a large number of people, this isn’t terribly efficient, which is why contractor leads are so important to the contractors themselves. Thanks to the widespread use of the internet, and the ease with which information can be passed through email and various other social networking platforms, finding a dependable, high-quality contractor in your area is easier now more than ever. Much like the proliferation of independent contractors branching off from the big name businesses, the number of sites dedicated to helping you find a specific contractor has ballooned in the last several years. While customers seek out contractors, the contractors are looking for work, so the relationship through these service sites becomes symbiotic, allowing both parties to find each other relatively quickly. Where the customer has the most amount of the buying power in this situation, the contractor often has to follow up on as many as a hundred leads given by the search site in the hopes of gaining some kind of work. Out of that batch of leads, maybe only five become customers paying for work, if the contractor is lucky. Oftentimes, the solo contractor may not be the best at upselling their product or services, rendering them unable to acquire new clients. The benefit of these service sites is that reviews and comments can be left online permanently for future clients to peruse and read through, helping the customer determine if the contractor is worth looking into for home improvement or repair work. This is leaps and bounds better at reaching a potential client pool than spending every afternoon walking through neighborhoods distributing flyers or business cards to every home. The leads provided through these customer/client service sites are only as good as the contractor’s ambition. If a contractor gets ten leads, but only calls back on five of them (and even then, several days after the leads were given), the likelihood of gaining new business diminishes considerably. Potential customers are often seeking contractor work for specific projects to be done in a specific amount of time, so staying on top of these contractor leads is key for the contractor looking to drum up business. In order to be successful and continue building a client base, it’s important for the contractor to not only provide quality work for clients found through contractor leads, but they need to follow up with past clients as well in order to check up on the quality of their work. Is the work still holding up to the customer’s satisfaction? Is there something else the contractor can provide the client weeks later in order to make sure the job is fully completed? These are all necessary things to consider for a contractor striking out on their own.
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