In my post about learning to destroy your competition, I detailed the importance of cutting ties with your direct, local competitors.  It’s vital, however, to recognize that this ONLY applies to them.  In almost every other scenario, it’s in your best interest to seek out and build solid, reciprocal relationships with as many people and business owners as possible.

For example, if you specialize in Las Vegas air conditioning repair, look to establish relationships with Vegas-based appliance repair, plumbing, and painting companies.  Ask for their construction business cards and give them a handful of yours.  You’d be surprised by how often homeowners will group several different home improvement projects together, and when they ask the guy fixing the leaky pipe under the sink if he knows of any good AC repair companies, odds are good that he’ll tell them about you.  He’ll do this not because he’s a nice guy, but because he knows that by sending you business, you’ll probably send him some down the road.

You’d also be wise to join as many local clubs and business organizations as possible to further spread the reach of your contact network.  Become a member of the Better Business Bureau.  Join your area’s chamber of commerce.  Become a sponsor for a fundraiser or youth athletic team.  If the numbers make sense for your business, join a contractor referral network.  The bottom line is that you need to get your name out there and build as many business relationships as you can.   You want the customers that result from networking because they’ll have a certain amount of trust in you right off the bat, they’ll be less likely to balk at your pricing, and, best of all, they’ll come with no acquisition cost.  I don’t know about you, but I’ll take free construction leads any time I can get them!

The relative lowering of your advertising costs is in fact the greatest benefit of building long-term relationships in your city.  You’ll always need to spend money on marketing, but with each successive year the customers will come to you in greater and greater numbers due to your efforts in networking, fostering business relationships, and performing quality work.

Even if you already know how to become a contractor, you’ll also need to learn how to be a good communicator.  If you’re naturally shy and don’t like to talk to people, now is the time to try to improve yourself in this area, because your more gregarious, talkative, and assertive competitor could quickly leave you in the dust when it comes to establishing a network of lucrative relationships.

Once you’ve learned how to become a contractor and then put in a few months of hard work you might start to have a few doubts or frustrations, so I present to you an analogy that might help.  I think we’ve all had that favorite sports team that was short on talent but positively brimming over with persistence and tenacity.  A few Duke basketball clubs come to mind.  It’s the kind of group that will drive other teams nuts because while they might fall behind by a few points they refuse to roll over and die.  They hang around and keep fighting, just waiting for that opportunity to spring when the more talented team gets lazy or frustrated or allows an open window.  As soon as the other team starts to crack, they’ll take advantage and bust the game wide open, usually leaving their more talented opponents in the dust.  More often than not these kinds of teams are highly successful, and occasionally, with a little luck, they are champions.

Your fledgling business needs to be just as tenacious, just as persistent, and just as patient.  In the early stages you’re sure to have setbacks.  Startup costs will be more than you’d planned, getting systems in place will be a hassle, you’ll have few references and contacts, and there could be added stress on your home life with you pulling 60-hour weeks on your business.  The novelty of owning your own business will quickly wear off and you might even occasionally doubt your ability to pull it off, but the trick is in finding a way to weather all the storms and tough it out.

It might take six months or it might take a year, but eventually that rickety vehicle that is your business will start to run smoother, the wheels will begin to turn more easily, and the competition will come into view directly ahead of you.  As time goes by it will generally get easier as you learn the business, start to build a customer base, and work on solidifying a reputation in your city.  And if you stick with it long enough you’ll start to be given huge opportunities to propel your business past the competition.  It could be a large contract from the city, or a big write-up in the local paper, or a scandal in your competitor’s business, but eventually that day will come when your persistence will be rewarded by a huge leap forward for your business.  Often times you won’t see them coming, but they WILL come, and only if you’re still in the game can you take advantage of them.

Most people will fall behind early and give up like a team of undisciplined punks, but if you have the fire in your belly to keep pushing forward you’ll eventually come across big opportunities to exploit and destroy your competition.  You don’t have to be super-talented or a genius to go big with your business.  You just have to stick around long enough to see your competitors throw in the towel.

So you just finished a job for a very nice customer who treated you graciously, paid you promptly, and raved about the quality of your work.  He or she is the kind of person that you’d like to do business with again, but the great work you performed is just about all you can do to assure they’ll call you back next time they have a need, right?  Wrongo, buddy!

For starters, you should promptly send them a thank you letter, no matter how many times you said “thank you” to their face.  It amazes me how few contractors actually do this.  People LOVE getting thank you letters in the mail!  It makes them feel like you truly appreciated them because you took the extra time to express your gratitude on paper.  Some people will feel slighted if you DON’T send a thank you card, especially if it was a major remodel or project.  How would you feel if you spent $35,000 on something and received absolutely no kind of thank you in the mail whatsoever?  It may sound petty, but the fact that they didn’t receive a card or note from you might make them feel unappreciated enough to take their business someplace else the next time they need major work done around their house.  Are you willing to lose a several thousand dollar job down the road from a great customer just because you were too cheap or busy to print out and mail a simple “thank you”?  If you’re not the articulate type, have your wife/husband or secretary type it up for you and just sign it at the bottom; it’s better than nothing at all!  Included with the letter should be a few more construction business cards that they can hand out to friends.  Some contractors will even send a gift to big-project customers, and I’ll leave that up to your personal preferences, but it should be self-evident that the “louder” your thank you, the better your chances of repeat business.

You should also make a constant effort to stay on previous customers’ minds, because you’ll find that doing so is much cheaper than acquiring new ones.  The cheapest method is to keep a database of client email addresses so that you can send them a quarterly newsletter via the internet.  Each “e-newsletter” should contain updates about new services you might offer, new skills or equipment you might have acquired, and/or special coupons or discounts for repeat customers.  What matters most is not what is in the newsletter, but simply that you send it.  Staying on your customer’s mind is vitally important, and might help to accelerate that home improvement job that they really want to do but keep putting off.  For those that don’t want to give their email out, just mail the newsletter to them.  Yes, it’s an added cost for you, but it’s a heckuva lot cheaper than trying to win a brand new customer.  And keep in mind that even though they might not need your services again down the road, your diligence in staying on their radar will encourage them to talk up your business to their friends and family who do have a need, resulting in lots of free construction leads.  Say it with me: “referrals, referrals, referrals”.  Becoming a contractor that makes real money involves marketing savvy and tenaciousness.  You must learn to be aggressive.

Of course all of this is meaningless if you perform lousy workmanship, but even fast-growing and successful businesses that provide a quality product can substantially accelerate their growth and profits by simply taking these few extra steps to show appreciation and to occasionally remind the customer just how happy they were with your work.

Sometimes I see a scenario where a small business owner in the home service industry feels that he or she must maintain good relationships with their local competitors so that they can help each other grow, share trade information, and pass off extra work.  If you want a business that is stagnant or grows only as fast as the market expands, then I guess this is the way to go.  But if your goal is to grow rapidly and to take market share (as your goal should be), then you must learn to be more ruthless.  After all, did you become a contractor to make friends or to make money?

Your competitor is the enemy.  They should be treated as such.  I’m not saying to bad-mouth them or lie about them to potential customers.  I’m not saying to sabotage their business with unscrupulous methods.  I AM saying that the quality of your work, the excellency of your customer service, and the effectiveness of your marketing must all be so overwhelming that they are tools to rocket your business and bury your rivals.  Do you really think they would shed a tear if you went out of business?  They are plotting against you every day, and if they are not then someday their business will die.

We live in a capitalist society, and business is war.  The sooner you can learn to embrace this concept, the better.  By all means, be a nice guy “off the field”.  Character is important.  But when you “step between the lines” that guy in the other jersey is the only obstacle to your ultimate success and domination.  You have a duty to yourself and your employees to crush him, to decimate him, to run up the score on him.  Otherwise your business is an exercise in futility, and your future could be one of uncertainty.  Cut your ties with your competitors.  They are holding you back, or worse yet, they are preparing to take your down while you sleep.