A week or two ago our Permit Department entered approximately 1,400 permits for that week. A number we have not seen in about seven or eight years. Whether those numbers hold up on an ongoing basis or not, I can’t tell you for sure, but what it does do is to remind me that when we are most busy, we tend to also have the most blind spots. You see it in the frantic pace many of our members keep up and the issues we see in marketing. Not enough of our members are broadening their base at the moment as they seek to collect the low hanging fruit first with the resources they have on hand. I hear over and over again, how difficult it is to get someone on the phone or in person. You have got to ask the question; is the right information getting to the top and then acted on?

Hands down, the issue I hear about the most is the lack of qualified subs and sometimes even reliable suppliers. This last downturn effectively burned our seed corn and there is not enough good people left in the business or thinking about getting back into the business. This is going to come back to haunt our industry, make no mistake about it. But, what can you do? First, like anyone who has had problems with sobriety…recognize the problem. Next, get involved with your industry leaders and associations and formulate solutions jointly. Individually, realize that a portion of your company’s time needs to be devoted to outreach to technical schools and encouraging startups with offers of work. Create financial incentives reserved for actions and activities you want to encourage. Take some risks and put your company out there as encouraging growth in all the support industries. Mentor young subs and even suppliers; yes, all this is possible and necessary! Most importantly, we must paint the picture that the construction industry is a viable career opportunity. Keep in mind that we are always competing for talent; our industry has not done a good enough job of recognizing that we are in competition with many other industries; often times, less cyclical and reliable than our own.

I do a lot of volunteer work where I live. I say this only to make a point. Frequently, I’ll be at this or that group, meet where there is a call for help and I frequently see mostly the same people. It’s a big well, but too few meet the challenge to show the flag and promote our cause. Someone said to me the other day words to the affect that there was not enough giveback to the industry and community we live in. Not everyone has the time to meet every need, every call for help. However, in the case of your own industry, the rewards of participating are more than just emotional. If we don’t encourage and help create the necessary infrastructure four things are likely to happen:

The prices we pay for services will rise faster than the market’s ability to absorb that increase
Our schedules will slip
Our profits will be less
The control of our future will be more tenuous
None of these four predictions are good for your business. I hope you agree that the rewards from encouraging new subs and suppliers are manifest. And, for entrenched subs and suppliers, this is also a good thing as a healthy market is more likely to be prolonged and the pool of qualified individuals for you to hire will be enlarged. Ultimately, the best market is one where there are a balanced number of buyers and sellers. Always remember that the ability of our customers to pay for our services is mostly inelastic. We must strive to deliver high quality product at the lowest prices that service our required profit margins.

The first step of building a list of opportunities is prospecting where opportunities may lay. Prospecting enables you to simplify your B2B lead generation efforts by narrowing down where there may be project work and where there may be quality business leads. Contrary to popular belief, prospecting is not building an extensive list of business names and key decision makers to ask if they have construction opportunities available. Prospecting requires a lot of legwork to uncover what businesses have construction plans and layouts in place. It requires knowing where to get this information and when it would be appropriate for your marketing and sales team to reach out to discuss a potential partnership.

Without proper market research data, your B2B lead generations are just guesswork. Market research data refers to gathering information about prospective customers, competitors, and trends in the region where you’re looking to generate business. Like prospecting, market research requires a lot of additional time and resources to gather quality leads. Through market research, your construction company has the opportunity to:

Find new business
Determine the success of past projects
Gain insight on competitors
Set sustainable sales goals
Prepare for future growth
2. QUALIFY B2B LEADS
The occasional project work doesn’t make for a quality business lead. For a lead to be qualified, the prospective company needs to meet your business criteria, and you need to be a good fit for their business as well. Following poor leads can result in more project work for when things come up, but it may not lead to a great business opportunity.

Understanding lead quality is vital to generating sustainable business growth for your construction company. Without lead qualification processes, you risk lukewarm sales results that waste employee and company time and financial resources.

When qualifying leads, you must have a good understanding of what kind of business you’d like to generate. Some construction companies thrive on project work, which is great for them; however, every company’s business goals are different. If there’s a specific type of construction opportunity you’d like to target, qualifying leads enables you to get the business you want.

3. PRIORITIZE B2B DATA CLEANSING
Once you build a list of business opportunities and qualify leads, it’s crucial to ensure all of your customer data and project information is accurate and reliable. Gathering as much information as possible about the prospective company, project, and key decision maker ensures you’re up to date with the process.

Even after you clean data, you must update lead information, as it may change over time. Without nurturing the lead with the data you’ve gathered, you risk missing out on potential business opportunities because you weren’t up to date with the timeline.

High data quality is essential for your sales team because it enables them to have all the latest information about the business opportunity and ensures they get in touch with the correct key decision maker for the job. When your sales rep actively participates in data cleansing services, they reduce the risk of a nurtured lead falling through the cracks. In addition, they have the opportunity to understand where the key decision maker is in the purchasing decision process and can uncover any pain points that they may have.

Business Facts contains a list of hundreds of up-to-date sales leads each week. These businesses are companies that may be growing, moving, or expanding their operations. In addition, the weekly report also notes changes in business licenses, ownership, relocations, lease ending dates, and other related business information.

These reports include detailed information such as the:

Company name
Address
Phone number
Fax number
Industry
Number of employees
Company establishment year
SIC codes
Contact names
And more
Business Facts is a crucial component of your construction company’s B2B lead generation strategy. These reports advise you of important business changes to anticipated construction projects; they allow you to contact the necessary project manager or other decision makers for the job.
A COMPANY’S LEAD GENERATION SOLUTION REFLECTS THEIR SALES OUTCOME
Lead generation requires a significant amount of strategy from your sales team. Although it takes a lot of time and planning, an efficient approach positively impacts your company’s sales outcome. In addition to Business Facts, here are some ways your company can optimize its lead generation strategy:

IDENTIFY LEAD QUALIFICATIONS
Lead generation isn’t about finding a lot of business leads; it’s about securing the right ones. Lead qualification is about discovering construction projects that provide your business with a reasonable ROI with the potential of doing business again in the future.

DEVELOP MARKET RESEARCH DATA
Market research is the process of gathering data about your potential customers, competitors, and the region you serve. Market research enables you to find new business, set sales goals, and plan for future growth.

HOW TO PROSPECT EFFECTIVELY FOR BUSINESS GROWTH
Many companies have the wrong interpretation of “prospecting” because they believe it’s developing a list of every company in the area and asking if they have any construction projects on the horizon. While this may be true for companies who don’t understand an effective sales strategy, prospecting is much more than “list building.”

The prospecting process is identifying potential opportunities in the market with companies you’d like to partner with. Here are some prospecting methods to help you effectively generate B2B sales leads:

ENVISION YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER
Like we touched on earlier, not every business opportunity is a quality business opportunity. Envisioning your ideal customer allows you to narrow down the number of prospects in your sales pipeline so you can target the type of projects you want for your business.

DETERMINE HOW YOU PLAN ON CONTACTING THEM
There are several ways sales reps can get in touch with potential customers. In our 35 years of business, we’ve recognized that cold calling is the most effective method if you want to set appointments with prospective companies. Cold calling allows you to talk directly with a decision maker and understand their project needs and potential pain points.

MAKE YOUR SALES PITCH RELEVANT
Adding value to your sales pitch is always ideal because it allows the prospect to understand your company better. However, it’s important to make sure the information you’re providing them is relevant to their wants and needs. There’s no benefit to pitch a product or service they have no interest in learning more about.

SEND PERSONALIZED EMAILS
Emails alone don’t stand as an effective lead generation and appointment setting strategy. However, when paired with cold calling practices, they can provide a significant amount of value. It enables the prospect to take a look at your website and digital content on their own time.

REGULARLY FOLLOW-UP
Sales reps often get told “no” more than they get told “yes.” Most of the time, the timing of the call isn’t right, and the prospect needs a few more weeks or months before getting into details about the scope of the project. Regularly following up via phone call or email is an effective way to nurture the relationship and assure the prospect that you haven’t forgotten about their potential partnership.

DEC INTERNATIONAL IS YOUR PARTNER IN MARKET RESEARCH
Conducting market research lays the foundation for a productive B2B lead generation strategy. DEC International is a lead generation service provider that works with construction companies like yours in the Atlanta market to help them optimize their sales process and generate new business opportunities. We’ll help you scope out the market and develop an effective sales pipeline with all the most up-to-date and relevant information.

Once we gather all the necessary details about your prospects, market, and competitors, business growth is in your hands. You can take this information to your sales team and start reaching out to prospective customers. Give us a phone call today to start maximizing your business’s potential.

Business Facts is an incredibly useful report that points businesses to opportunities occurring presently throughout the metro Atlanta area. Information included in our reports includes the name of the business, complete contact information including address and highest ranking individual at that location, the kind of use the facility will be used for, i.e. office, manufacturing, distribution, etc. number of employees and the reason for inclusion into Business Facts.

A wide range of businesses use Business Facts including those that market to other businesses and have a need to find opportunities at the earliest possible stage when “first mover advantage” comes into play. Business Facts information is displayed on our easy to use and lighting fast website. Typical users are directory companies, ticket sales, credit card processors, office machines, banks and many more.

Are you looking for a place to start when finding new restaurant leads? Here are three helpful methods you can use.

1. USE ZONING INFORMATION TO ANTICIPATE NEW RESTAURANT CONSTRUCTION
New restaurants aren’t built in a day. Sometimes, it takes years to create new spaces for restaurants to expand into, and this journey officially begins with zoning. You can’t just pick a plot of land to build a restaurant and start pouring the foundation—your city has to decide if that location is suitable for food service and approve a zoning application.

A zoning approval means that a new restaurant construction project is in the works, and the development company will be looking for bids shortly. For construction companies, this is an excellent opportunity to start researching the project and preparing a proposal. While product and service providers may have to wait a few years to begin pursuing prospects after learning about a new zoning application, they can still keep these future opportunities on their radar.

If you’re not sure how to find or interpret zoning information, DEC International can help. We contact various sources around Georgia and compile both private and public records related to planning and zoning. Once a week, you receive a report in your inbox summarizing recent activity in the area that helps you find projects, identify commercial construction opportunities, and prepare for construction bids.

2. RELY ON MARKET INTELLIGENCE TO FIND UPCOMING RESTAURANTS
When you see a new restaurant opening announced in the news, that most likely means it’s too late to pursue a partnership. To beat out your competition, you need to know about potential opportunities before anyone else does.

Getting this intel requires substantial research. You have to know when businesses change their status, plan an expansion, register their company, and obtain new licenses. Some of this data is publicly available, but you need connections to obtain certain critical information. No amount of in-house research will get you the data that networking provides.

At DEC International, finding information is what we do. We use hundreds of sources, from news outlets to local companies, to learn about future restaurants in Atlanta as soon as the planning process begins. We share that information with your company so you can use it to introduce new leads to your pipeline.

For example, a commercial cleaning company can use our restaurant openings report to contact new sales leads and submit a proposal for a partnership. Additionally, restaurant supply providers can introduce themselves to restaurant managers before they purchase kitchen supplies, appliances, and table settings. Your company could win a restaurant’s business before they even start looking for providers.

3. BECOME A LEAD DATABASE MEMBER
One of the easiest ways to find construction leads or commercial job leads is to purchase access to a lead database. These lists give general contractors, service providers, and other B2B businesses access to information about specific projects or restaurants. Because you don’t have to research, compile, or verify any information, purchasing lead lists from a third-party provider can save you countless hours.

DEC International’s Business Facts Product is a verified list containing hundreds of new restaurant leads in and around Atlanta. Our researchers validate every piece of information included in the list, such as company names, addresses, phone numbers, employee counts, years in business, key contacts, and more. All you have to do is sort the list to display new restaurant leads and reach out to the opportunities you’re interested in. Check out how it works in our video demo.

GET COMMERCIAL JOB LEADS FROM DEC INTERNATIONAL
As a business working with the restaurant industry, you know how quickly things can change. One of your clients can pack a dining room one day and shut their doors for good a few months later. With so much volatility within the industry, you always need a new opportunity waiting, and DEC International can help.

With the increase in urbanization and the general need for housing, commercial and residential construction is a profitable resource, making these leads valuable to any construction business.

SINGLE-FAMILY COMMERCIAL AND RESIDENTIAL LEADS
Single-family homes are freestanding buildings that don’t share walls or space with another building and hold one family. Single-family construction leads are related to building or renovating one-family projects. This type of construction is popular in suburban areas in Georgia.

MULTI-FAMILY PROJECT LEADS
Multi-family residences are buildings that house more than one family and include duplexes and apartment buildings. Multi-family project leads relate to construction projects either building or reconstructing these two types of buildings. Construction of multi-family projects is popular in the city of Atlanta.

BENEFITS OF GATHERING COMMERCIAL AND RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTION PROJECT LEADS
Generating commercial and residential construction project leads improves your construction company’s efficiency and productivity—but doing it yourself takes away from the time you spend with your existing clients.

By outsourcing your single and multi-family construction leads, you can focus on building strong relationships with your customers and improving other aspects of your business like the construction process.

NO MORE TIME-CONSUMING RESEARCH
Creating your own commercial and residential construction leads takes in-depth research on the market and can easily take months. Sometimes by the time you’re done researching, the research is no longer accurate or relevant, as housing trends change quickly.

You can hire lead-generation companies like DEC International to produce single or multi-family construction leads for your business. Lead providers spend time researching housing trends and the buyer market to ensure your construction leads are as strong as possible and consistently produce revenue for your company.

Lead providers are experts in consumer research and have access to technology that your company might not have. By eliminating the need to research your own commercial and residential construction leads, you allow your business to strengthen existing customer relationships.

HIGHER-QUALITY LEADS
It’s not impossible to generate good leads for commercial and residential construction on your own, but they won’t be as quality, as construction businesses can’t access the same single and multi-family housing data as a lead list provider.

Construction lead providers produce higher-quality leads because they typically have technology that categorizes leads by relevance.

When you develop your own commercial and residential leads for construction, you’re less likely to find the same leads an outsourced company would find because you don’t have the same advanced resources. Outsourced leads have a higher success rate, meaning you generate a higher profit per lead.

ORGANIZED LEAD DATA
You could lose leads when you don’t use an outsourced lead generator. Commercial construction companies have a lot on their plate as is, organizing suppliers, schedules, and projects, so tracking leads isn’t necessarily a top priority.

The lack of lead organization causes lead losses. When you let an outsourced provider generate your single and multi-family construction leads, they organize those leads for you, so you know which leads were successful and unsuccessful and which leads produced the most revenue.

By keeping your outsourced commercial and residential leads organized, an outsourced lead generator takes unnecessary stress off your team. You don’t have to worry about losing leads or accidentally following old, unsuccessful leads when you have the help of an outsourced company.

HOW CAN I ACCESS SINGLE AND MULTI-FAMILY CONSTRUCTION LEADS IN ATLANTA?
If you want high-quality single and multi-family construction leads in Georgia, DEC International is the right place for you. We have over 25 years of experience generating leads for construction companies and helping businesses prosper.

Single and multifamily construction in Atlanta is on the rise and becoming increasingly competitive. You need a lead provider you can trust. At DEC International, we do lead research for you and deliver it in a timely manner. We also offer you information that might not be public knowledge yet so you can stay one step ahead of your competitors.