A Guerrilla Marketing Strategy for Contractors

Contractors that want to avoid competing solely on price must learn to focus on delivering greater value for their clients. One of the most effective marketing techniques for the Guerrilla Contractor is to deliver seminars to their prospects on how the prospect can improve its bottom line by either decreasing expenses, increasing revenue, doing things faster or a combination of the three.

Peter Drucker has said that the two primary function of any business are marketing and innovation. The seminar offers the Guerrilla Contractor the opportunity to do both. The very act of giving the seminar is a marketing effort, but more importantly it offers the Guerrilla Contractor the opportunity to demonstrate the value it can deliver to the client.

The construction cost of a building represents only about 10 percent of the total lifetime cost of a building. Therefore, instead of only attempting to reduce construction costs, the Guerrilla Contractor also focuses on improving the remaining 90 percent because it offers greater potential. In essence, the Guerrilla Contractor is converting the cost related to the contractor’s services from an expense that prospects generally buy based on low price to an investment where they buy based on the best value. 

To establish the value, the Guerrilla Contractor must demonstrate in its seminar how the right materials and/or equipment can reduce the client’s maintenance costs, lower the client’s energy costs, or extend the life of the building. When these cost saving are applied over the life of the building, they can exceed the total costs for the contractor’s services. Therefore, the cost of the Guerrilla Contractor is converted from an expense to an investment that is measured based on return to the client, instead of which contractor is cheaper.

By Ted Garrison Founder of New Construction Strategies