While not all-inclusive, the following five tips can help your business get on a faster track of growth by expanding your client base significantly:

1.      Find Your Niche Markets

When it comes to expanding your client base, it is imperative that you identify your niche markets. This requires great passion, interest, and a combination of skills. Begin by asking yourself: What markets would be a fit for your business? Do you have personal interest? Do you have personal experience in handling clients in this niche?

Focusing on an industry will allow you to target customers who have actual interests in receiving your products and services. It will further enable you to tailor your marketing efforts to get customers to interact with you. At the same time, it will allow you to check out competitors already dominating the market. This gives you a chance to understand their strategies, while customizing your own for maximum results.

2.      Get to Know Your Clients/Prospects

Understanding your clients’ needs, demands, and requirements is crucial for figuring out what they require. It gives you improved insights into your audience’s mind and enables you to develop services that are aimed at pleasing your target clients. Gaining knowledge regarding your prospects also helps you stand out from your competitors, as you know their preferences.

This gives you the ability of telling them when certain things are coming or when they might require a specific product/service. In simple worlds, it enables you to personalize your marketing messages. Subsequently, you can feel assured to receive an improvement in conversions and sales.

3.      Offer Great Customer Service

As mentioned earlier, customers are the lifeblood of your business. If they buy your services, only then can your business survive. In order to get them involved into buying your offerings, you need to provide top-level customer service. This keeps your existing customers content and forces them on coming back, promoting repeat business.

At the same time, it increases the chances of your repeat customers to refer your business to other prospects. This not only has a positive impact on your customer base, but also promotes loyalty. If you really take customer feedback seriously and communicate with them to improve your services, you can feel assured to see your customer number grow as a result.

4.      Make Use of Social Media

This may sound a bit cliché, but it is important that you adopt social media marketing in your business strategy. Without a social media presence, it can almost be impossible for customers to get to know YOU. Over the past few years, social media has revolutionized the way businesses and customers have conversations and share information. Using this important tool can help you get insights into your audience.

So, do not hesitate on creating profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other networks. Which ones work for you will depend on your business, the way you like communicating and the way your audience likes to be approached. Regardless of which networks you choose though, it is vital that you stay genuine and original in your communications. Show your audience that you’re different and can go the extra mile in providing them top service.

5.      Dispel Distrust

Customer confusion, indifference, skepticism, and indecisiveness are the top sales killers in the business world. It’s up to you to portray an image of excellent customer service, dependability, quality, and experience to win prospects/clients confidence.

Communicate solid reasons and advantages for them to do business with you, and overcome potential feelings of distrust by offering references, customer testimonials, guarantees of satisfaction, and by joining well-known and respected organizations like the Industry Associations, Better Business Bureau, and Chambers of Commerce.

In addition, use integrated marketing to penetrate awareness of your target audience. The more “ways” the public gets to know about you, the better chances you have to achieve brand credibility and recognition – both of which are crucial for expanding your customer base.

Last, but not the least, as you try out new approaches for expanding your client base, be sure to monitor which sources offer the most value, where your customers come from, and what product they like most to refine your approach, or scale up activities that can help in growing your client base further.

Handling Difficult Clients

It is quite easy to say, “We exist to serve and please our customers”. At first, winning a tender and commencing a project seems like an exciting challenge to overcome. However, what you should know is that clients come in all types of varieties. Some are cooperative, others have unrealistic demands that coerce us to get things done their way. If the difficulties continue, dealing with the client can become frustrating and tedious. We may be left with submitting or defying their wants.

During these times, stress levels rocket up, and work onsite goes down. So, how can we handle difficult clients? Effective client management requires keen knowledge of sales tactics and psychological traits, which sway the relationship in your favour by building mutual understanding, trust and respect. As Yoda (master of mind-tricks in “Star Wars”) would say, “A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.” Look at these tips below to deal/handle difficult clients and maintain retention.

Set the Right Mood and Attitude

The old adage, “the client is always right”, even if they are indeed wrong still rings true. This is because clients are the core of every business. Without them, your business can’t operate. Therefore, no matter what the situation is, you should maintain respect and remain professional. Bear in mind that emotional intelligence can be used for calming the storm with irate clients.

If you respond with anger and hostility, don’t expect understanding and friendliness in return. As a result, always try to select your words carefully, refrain from finger pointing/name calling, avoid writing/saying anything that can be used against you, and maintain a professional tone, while also being assertive. Learn how to calm them down when they feel they have been wronged.

Use the Non-Sale Approach

If you are dealing directly with difficult clients, make sure that you aren’t being too pushy. If you allow your desire to make money eclipse the value of a project you are delivering, chances are you will never be able to retain clients. Never make prospective clients feel suckered, pressured, or rushed into signing something. Instead, opt for a tactic known as the “non-sale” approach.

Build the client’s trust by your sales pitch for the project or variation and hold off on additional expenditures. Your words should make clients feel they need the product, without actually saying they need it. This approach is a good way to show a prospect you have their best interest in mind, without forcing them into unwillingly proceeding. If they proceed with their own choice, it’s even better for YOU.

Conflict Resolution

Some clients place intense demands on you and the project team, because they have invested heavily in the company’s services and require high-quality support and service. Others just want to simply see how much they can get out of a company. When evaluating how to handle a client situation and avoid conflict, determine if the customer is simply being opportunistic or has a long-time value.

Act according to the customers’ worth. If the customer is being pushing too hard, calmly state what the normal policies are and ask whether they are interested or not. If the customer is worth a lot, do everything in your power to make sure they are satisfied. Regardless of the situation and client type though, it’s essential that you take each concern seriously. Learn to listen and deal with problems right away to avoid further misunderstandings and promote damage control.

Never Apologize

Some difficult clients do all their research before considering an attack on company services. While most don’t agree with this premise, “sorry” will only make you look weak. Apologizing also gives the client an upper hand and puts you on the defensive. It’s best not to backpedal and if your company has indeed made a mistake, instead of saying “I’m greatly sorry for the inconvenience caused” try this “it’s unfortunate that you had to deal with this”.

You can further go on saying, “My team is aware of the problem and how it’s affected your business. We thank you for your understand and patience, while we resolve the matter.” The use of words like “unfortunate”, “understanding”, and “patience” typically plant a psychological seed in the clients mind. Therefore, using these words can reverse the tension, even if the client hasn’t really been understanding and patient.

Recognize a Personality Conflict

There are some days where the shit hits the ceiling and you can’t really find a way to work with a specific client, regardless of how hard you’ve tried. The best solution is to recognize the conflict in personality and find another member of your staff to assign to the client. Preferably, ask the client who they’d consider handling their account.

Therefore, now that you are familiar with the tips mentioned above, handling difficult clients will not be a problem.

When a Builder collapses it usually take subbies by surprise for 2 reasons;

• 1- the builder is using them for credit and keeps it in the dark
• 2- builder believes they can survive the cash flow crisis and return to normal trading.

Subcontractors need to keep tabs of warning signs by monitoring productivity of the builder’s projects, being prudent with their payment terms and examining fluctuations in the cost.

The key warning signs that a builder is in distress:

• Turnover of Project management staff.
• Longer delay in payments- usually with the builder’s excuse they are expecting “a large payment at the end of next month”.
• Slow projects falling well behind construction programs and head contract obligations.
• Dissatisfied project clients.
• No clear answer forms the builder for payment queries.

So given the rate of Building company failures, what can subbies do to avoid going down the same path.
Don’t double specialize:

1. Ask for help.
Too often, Subcontractors stubbornly cling to the notion that they have all the answers and that the competition is their enemy. The best way for Subcontractors to find answers to improve their business is to become actively involved in their local and national Subcontractors associations. Some of the benefits of include advocacy, education, networking and joint marketing resources. Forums like the subcontractor’s alliance provides a huge network of building industry professionals, which means the ability to tap into shared knowledge is immense.

2. De-risk the contract.
The purpose of builder’s contracts is to deliver the works at any cost, and Subcontractors are being penny wise and pound foolish when they try to work around them and avoid the commission fee because Realtors will often bypass the builder’s properties when showing prospective clients homes to sell. It is wise to use Realtors because they are professional at marketing and sales, provide better access to pre-qualified clients and can help to manage client expectations.

3. Set realistic expectations.
To remedy this, subbies must make it clear to their builders that they are in charge of the project. The customer must make selections on time, be able to afford what they want, and must not attempt to supervise subcontractors or suppliers. The builder must communicate to the client that changes to the job require time and money, that delays during construction are common and that workers will not necessarily be on the job eight hours every day. Let the client know there could be bumps in the road but that they will be happy in their home when they move in.

4. Don’t ignore customer service.
Those who ignore this item because there is no money in it, or because they are too busy, do so at their own peril. Good customer service is essential, and the best way to provide it is to see issues from the customer’s perspective. Subcontractors who have a willingness to exceed customer expectations and to do what is promised often reap great rewards through word-of-mouth referrals.

5. Price for profit.
Subcontractors often fail to price their projects properly due to competition, market conditions, inaccurate estimating and pressure from builders. As a result, their cash flow becomes critical and they try to compensate by increasing volume. To fix this problem, Subcontractors should better manage their employees and suppliers, tighten financial controls and reporting, and develop a pricing approach based not just on cost but also on location.

6. The business of Sub Contracting…. WTF?
Question: Why are you in business?
Answer: for wages or profit?

It may sound trivial, but many subbies I know turnover $3m to $5m but only make wages from their business. That is a lot of risk for little reward.
but If you don’t put a plan in writing it can guarantee you won’t reach your goals. Subcontractors should update their business plans on an annual basis.

7. Manage conflict effectively.
Too often, Subcontractors do not recognise the pressures on the project management during construction and are not committed to the milestones with them. Most builder/subby conflicts arise from disagreements about what was promised and what was delivered. Clear and concise wording of the contract; a complete set of plans and specifications; and good documentation of all communication are essential.

8. Don’t take on the Builder from hell.
A true builder from hell often displays wild mood swings; obsesses over minor details; invites conflict; demands perfection but is not willing to pay for it; creates problems for subcontractors; berates, belittles and badmouths the everyone onsite; refuses to pay until sued; and is never happy. To avoid this situation, Subcontractors should go with their gut feeling when the do a ost tender/ pre award interview with the builder, evaluate their personalities and traits, take note of their past performance and observe who will be project manager and project team – which can be a warning sign.

9. Deeds of Release – Don’t buy into the verbal arguments.
Often when builders are finalising the last payment to subcontracts, the builders will demand the subcontractor sign a deed of release for less than the final claim.
The conversation will go:
“we have reviewed the subcontract agreement and believe that you delay us by 2 weeks, under clause 31.1 we are deducting the final payment of $xxxx, because of you delaying the project.. You need to sign the Deed of Release today- telling us you agree, otherwise we are in dispute and you can fight us in court.”

the ability for a builder to charge for LD’s is more difficult the it appears, much of the case law in this area indicates LD’s are not chargeable unless the builder was charged LD’s by the client, even then the builder has to apportion the correct amount to your specific work.