Construction Success Requires Partnerships Not Just Materials

Yesterday, I had a very stimulating discussion with Luca Evangelista from @Volvo Construction Equipment, hosted by Valerio Giunta at the AAAgents page #Talk, about the impact of servitization on sales organizations. It is a highly relevant topic and, in my view, still underexplored from both theoretical and research perspectives, especially when we consider its organizational implications for sales. As companies move from selling products to providing integrated solutions and services, the sales process becomes significantly more complex. This complexity has a direct consequence: servitized selling increasingly requires specialized teams, bringing together different expertise, roles, and perspectives around the customer. Luca Evangelista highlighted a point that I found particularly interesting: technical and commercial competencies are necessary, but they are not enough. A key success factor is to build, beforehand, a #common #language and a #shared set of values among the people involved. As selling increasingly becomes a team effort involving salespeople, service experts, technical specialists, and other functions, alignment cannot be taken for granted. Different professional backgrounds bring different ways of interpreting customers, value, priorities, and even what “selling” means. A fascinating research area, with many questions still to explore—as my friends Ali Anwar, PhD, Colleen McClure, Ph.D., Deva Rangarajan, and Christian Kowalkowski already know very well! Here the talk https://lnkd.in/dabrz9Hs

Traditional pipeline calculations cannot be fully applied to the construction sales sector For example, a 300,000€ deal with a 50 percent win probability usually forecasts to 150,000€. This works well when each sales stage reliably tells you how likely a deal is to close. In project-based sales, however, this often does not work. Consider two deals both listed as "quote submitted."  ➡️ In one case, your product has been part of the project specifications since the early planning stages. ➡️ In the other, the tender documents arrived three weeks ago from a general contractor who also sent them to four other suppliers.  Both deals sit in the same stage, have the same value, and would be treated the same way in a standard forecast, yet their real chances of closing are very different. Sales teams that adapt to this often add the phase in which they first got involved in the project. Tracking that through phases like Planning, Specification, Tender and Award gives you enough detail. They then look at win rates by entry point rather than by sales stage. Most teams are surprised by the difference they find. Win rates are commonly three or four times higher for the earliest entry points than for the latest. Since this comes straight from their own deals, it makes a far stronger case for getting involved earlier than any general presentation could. If you've looked at your own pipeline data on this, I'd be interested to hear what came out. #sales #construction #projectsales #BuildingRadar

Something I keep noticing working on construction projects as the years go by is the timelines are getting tighter, but the expectations around finish quality aren't moving at all, everyone wants everything yesterday. Clients want the same standard of specification work, delivered faster. That's pushing more of the value into the early conversations and getting in the door before anyone else, because there's less room later in the process to catch a mismatch between what was specified and what was actually needed. If you're working in specification-driven sales, are you seeing the same squeeze?

Building true trust in commercial roofing isn't about the hard sell, it's about real communication. Let’s be honest: sales has a reputation problem. People are used to slick pitches, buzzwords, and pressure tactics. But trying to "wow" a client with fancy jargon rarely works, being genuine, honest, and real does. Here’s a reality of our industry: many business and facility owners don't know the ins and outs of commercial roofing membranes, flashings, or slope specs. And that’s completely okay! But when faced with hyper-technical pitchmen, many will just smile and nod so they don't feel belittled. Our job as sales professionals isn't to talk over anyone's head. It’s to: •Adapt to every person’s style so they feel comfortable asking real questions. •Break down complex field details into clear, fully descriptive explanations. •Ensure they understand the big picture, from immediate repairs to long-term property protection and ROI. When you trade sales tactics for authentic guidance, you stop being just another contractor and start becoming a trusted partner. 💬 How do you break down complex industry specs for your clients? Drop your thoughts below! 👇 #CommercialRoofing #B2BSales #AuthenticSales #RoofingContractor #PropertyManagement #SalesStrategy #ClientRelationships #BuildTrust

Register here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gt3_Q2kn Stop chasing prospects. Stop competing on price. Start selling with a system. Construction sales don’t have to mean endless quoting, discounting, and chasing clients. This one-day intensive workshop gives contractors, estimators, project managers, business developers, and sales professionals a practical system to win more work while protecting margins. Construction Sales: Selling Beyond Price and Chasing Prospects will help you: 🔹 Qualify opportunities earlier and focus on real buyers 🔹 Build trust and lead stronger sales conversations 🔹 Navigate budget and decision-making with confidence 🔹 Set clear expectations and reduce misunderstandings 🔹 Protect your margins without relying on discounts 🔹 Close more work with a practical, no-pressure approach

How I increased a drylining companies monthly total quote value by 696% I have recently finished a 5-month project working for a Drylining company. They are an established business, with a good reputation and a large database of existing clients. But they were struggling to generate enquiries, therefore had minimal projects to quote and this meant they had no projects to convert into orders. In March they only generated 5 enquiries, quoted 3 projects, worth a total value of £758K. So we need to generate more enquiries. Most construction companies, think the answer is to pull up a list of 100 new companies to target. But that is slow, time consuming, hard work and provides limited success. Instead, we did the opposite and targeted the clients already on their database. We reviewed the clients they had worked with previously, reconnected with them and understood potential opportunities moving forwards.   Off the back of this we identified clients worth keeping in touch with and implemented an account management plan.   I will let the results from August show how well this strategy has performed: -         Enquiries generated – 26 – up from 5 -         Projects Quoted – 21 – up from 3 -         Total monthly quote value - £6.04M – up form £758K In total across the 5-month period, we generated 108 enquiries, quoted 80 projects, with a total quote value of £18.9M. They are now in a strong position to start securing projects. They currently have £15M in quotes outstanding, which includes £5M of client secured projects. How would your business benefit from results like this?

Terram® has announced the appointment of James White and Adam Carlin MRailEI to key account roles, strengthening its commercial capability across the civil engineering and rail infrastructure sectors. James White joins Terram® as Key Account Manager for geotextiles in the South of England. #railnews #railways #ukrail #rail #geotextiles https://lnkd.in/e9tzwfqx

BUILDING MORE THAN STRUCTURES (Part 1): CONSTRUCTION IS ABOUT BUILDING MORE THAN STRUCTURES. I've spent my entire life around construction. Over the years, I've learned something that has become one of the most important principles of my career: The best projects aren't built on materials alone. They're built on relationships. A few years ago, I was recruited by a large metal manufacturing company to work inside sales for its commercial division, supporting general contractors. Eventually, I was given a struggling sales territory. Before making my first sales call, I pulled the sales and shipping reports. The numbers weren't good. The territory had declined steadily and was eventually producing approximately $5,000 per month. I could have started calling customers and trying to sell. Instead, I started asking questions. I visited one of the area's largest contractors—the same contractor that had started sending its business to the competition. I introduced myself personally and asked if I could take them to lunch. A few days later, I sat down with their team and asked: "Why did you start giving your business to our competition?" Their answer had very little to do with price. Phone calls weren't being returned. Follow-ups weren't happening. Quotes weren't being delivered in a timely manner. They simply weren't receiving the level of customer service they expected. So I asked for an opportunity to prove myself. Then I went to work. I returned calls. I followed up. I delivered quotes when I said I would. I stayed late in motel rooms preparing proposals. I made myself available when customers needed something. I wasn't just trying to win an order. I was trying to earn their trust. #Construction #ConstructionLeadership #ProjectManagement #Leadership #CustomerService #RelationshipBuilding #ConstructionManagement #LeadershipMatters

The best technical salespeople don't start with the product. They start with the problem. In construction, clients rarely need a product in isolation. They need a solution to a challenge. How do we achieve the required strength? How do we improve constructability? How do we reduce project risk? How do we improve productivity? How do we get better value from materials? This is where engineering meets commercial strategy. My journey across roads, buildings, infrastructure, Readymix, Precast and Building Solutions has taught me that the strongest customer relationships are built by understanding the problem first, then creating the right technical and commercial solution. Technical sales is not about selling more products. It's about solving better problems. Engineering creates understanding. Commercial strategy creates opportunity. Innovation creates value. That's the intersection I'm continuing to build my career around. #Engineering #TechnicalSales #BusinessDevelopment #CommercialStrategy #Construction #Infrastructure #Innovation #SustainableConstruction

I’ve noticed something interesting while working with U.S. construction companies: Sometimes the problem isn’t getting more leads. It’s what happens to the leads you already have. You can have marketing generating inquiries every week. But if those leads sit for hours—or days—before someone calls… If estimates go out and nobody follows up… If there’s no clear ownership of the sales pipeline… Then asking marketing to “bring in more leads” may not solve the problem. You may just be putting more opportunities into the same broken process. Before increasing the marketing budget, I’d want to know: How many leads came in? How many were contacted? How quickly? How many booked an appointment? How many received an estimate? How many were followed up? And how many actually signed? More leads can increase opportunity. They can’t fix poor follow-up. Sometimes the first place to look isn't at the top of the funnel. It's at what happens after the lead comes in. #CaliforniaContractors #CaliforniaConstruction #BayAreaContractors #GeneralContractor #ConstructionBusiness #ContractorMarketing #LeadGeneration #ConstructionSales