Book More Work This Month: 16 Proven Strategies to Get Projects Fast

You’re building your business for the long term, but let’s face it:

Sometimes you need to bring money in fast.

Every leader of a construction, fabrication, or engineering company knows how a gap in projects means a gap in cash flow. It could be a slow season, a soft market, or just the randomness of running a business in the real world. 

Whatever the underlying cause, you need to find enough work to keep your people busy and keep payroll covered.

These gaps can be really stressful.

But after working with over 100 companies in the building industries we’ve seen the strategies that actually work to get projects fast and boost cash flow. We highlighted the best of them below.

These are tried-and-true basics that apply to virtually any business. 

Most or all of them will be reminders of things you already know. But when you’re in the pressure cooker of a cash crunch, sometimes one little reminder is exactly what you need to find your way out.

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The Low-Hanging Fruit: 16 Places Where Projects and Cash Might be Waiting for You

The low-hanging fruit is often the first to get picked.

So odds are you’re already doing a lot of these. Keep an eye out for one or two that might have fallen off your radar recently.

Often that’s where the magic is.

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Make an Offer to Existing Leads

This is so basic, you’d be surprised how often smart business owners forget to do it. When you’re making an offer, remember to make it specific. This isn’t, “Hey, check out our services.” This is, “Get a new backyard shed built to your specifications this weekend.”

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Promote Your Top Seller

When you need to bring in money fast, it’s often best to focus on the bread-and-butter. Put other content and offers on the back burner for a week and promote your top-selling offer across all channels.

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Send a Prospecting Letter

Mail works. Make or buy a list of top prospects and send them a letter describing exactly how you can solve their headaches or give them something they wish they had. Make sure the letter has a specific call to action, so they know for sure what the next step is.

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Reactivate Past Clients

Your past clients have the clearest idea of how you can solve their problems, so they’re often the easiest to get new business from. Depending on your business and communications systems, this might look like personal phone calls, a series of email blasts, or anything in between.

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Ask for Referrals

Even if they’re not ready to work with you again, past clients are often your best source of future clients. But it’s not their job to be thinking of you. But instead of asking “if” they know anyone who would benefit from your work, ask “Who do you know that would…?” It helps surface more ideas. And if you have an incentive you can offer them for their referrals, it’s even more effective.

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Follow Up with Old Leads

It’s in the nature of business to be forward looking. But that often means folks who got in touch a month, six months, a year ago fall off your radar. Round up a list of old leads and get back in touch with them.

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Do a Seasonal Promotion

You don’t have to be a seasonal business for this one to work for you. It’s essentially an excuse to make a great offer to your existing leads and clients. The key here is to focus on the offer. The more irresistible you can make it, the more effective the promotion will be.

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Do a 24-Hour Sale

This one’s been tried and tested across industries for decades. Often it works best with a dose of honesty. “We’ve got an unexpected gap between projects and want to keep busy, which means you can get some work knocked out for a serious discount…” Be very clear about what you’re offering.

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Do More of What Worked in the Past

It’s weirdly easy to forget what’s worked before, especially in the heat of what’s happening now. Get one or two other members of your team and note down everything that’s worked to bring in business. Chances are you’ll find something you can do again.

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Reduce the Risk

Every step someone takes on the path to becoming a client involves risk. They risk their time, their stress, and ultimately their money in order to do business with you. You can reduce the risk through things like free consultations and money back guarantees. Choose one thing you can do to significantly reduce their risk, then tell them about it.

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Upsell Current Clients

The clients you’re doing projects for right now, or that you’re about to begin with, have already said yes. Which makes them much more likely to say yes again. Consider the overlap of these two things: what would make their project even more exciting for them; and what would be efficient for you to add on since you’re already working with them.

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Collect Accounts Receivable

Nobody likes doing collections. But often there are thousands or tens of thousands of dollars just waiting for someone to get persistent and make the phone calls. If you’re heading into a cash crunch, don’t sleep on your receivables.

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Host an Event with Complimentary Businesses

Often the best way to find new clients is through other businesses that overlap with yours. For a contractor doing renovations, that might be an interior designer. For a fabricator it might be a packaging company. Two things to keep in mind here. First, choose a partner that already has a following of their own. Second, design the event to help your ideal customer meet a significant need, and to be fun and appealing to attend.

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Intensify Your Current Offers

Offers look more attractive when they: are limited or scarce, have an urgent time frame, have a high perceived value, give more immediate results, have a low risk to the buyer, and cost less up front. Apply some of these to your best offers and tell your people about it.

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Offer VIP Days

This applies mostly to service-based businesses, but it can be a great, high-margin sale that takes very little prework. The idea is simple. Someone books you or one of your employees for a full day to do everything you can get done in that day. For example, a carpenter might offer a VIP day of handyman services, so a homeowner can finally get all those little projects done in a single day. Price it as a premium service.

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Let Folks Know You Have a Last-Minute Opening

Sometimes it’s as simple as this. When people have to plan projects months in advance they get less immediate gratification. But when you say, “I have an opening tomorrow,” they know they’ll get what they need right away.

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How to Ensure More Consistent Projects with Fewer Gaps to Fill

You’ve probably heard the adage: “If you have to sell, your marketing isn’t working.”

Of course we all have to hustle and sell sometimes. But good marketing works by bringing you more qualified leads who are ready to do business with you, with a minimum of selling.

That’s what we do for contractors, material suppliers, fabricators, engineers, and designers throughout the building industry. We design and execute a marketing plan that gets you more clients more consistently, so you can stop scrambling for business and do the work you do best.

If you’re ready to invest in that kind of marketing, click here to get in touch.

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Written by Rusty George with zero help from Artificial Intelligence.

Rusty George leads a branding, website design and marketing agency serving Seattle and Tacoma area construction companies, subcontractors, engineering and architecture firms, material fabricators and suppliers. His goal is to help the building industry become more attractive to the skilled workforce of the future.

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