With over a quarter of a million firms, construction is a crowded industry. So your best route to success is to specialise.
Aim to become a bigger fish in a smaller pond, rather than a small fish in a large and crowded pond.
Developing a clear business focus means working out where you’re at your best. A few simple questions will get you started:
- What are you good at?
- What are your proven strengths?
- What are your ‘perceived’ strengths (i.e. what do other people think you are good at?)
You’re now refining your business around its biggest strengths, but don’t forget to look into what you want as well. Make sure you’re specialising around work you like doing and that turns a decent profit.
- What kind of work do you like doing?
- What kind of work has the best margins?
A good strategy — and a major part of the differentiation that we’ll come to later — is to grow to be recognised as an expert in a chosen field.
Once you have worked out what and where your best business is, then work out where that business is going to come from. This is essential to the work of marketing. A clear business focus — knowing what kind of business you really want — will make it easier to develop a cost-effective marketing strategy. It will point to the right markets for your skills, and highlight the marketing tools that you need to break into that market.
