Home Contractors: Create strong relationships with your dealers & win

In the small world of home contracting and home services, strong businesses are still built on strong relationships. While a company's relationships with its clients, employees, and subcontractors are all key, support and respect at the dealer/distributor level may just be the most important. This partnership can offer some hefty rewards if fostered properly—or some hard blows if not. 

For many remodeling contractors, material providers often play whipping boy for all things that go wrong on a job site and are rarely praised when things go well. And while this may be a result of the cut-throat, face-paced world of contracting today, avoiding this trap offers huge benefits that will pay dividends for years to come. Let's look at 3 major benefits of creating a strong relationship with your building material suppliers. 

INCREASED EFFICIENCY

Any remodeling contractor will tell you, field productivity is crucial to maintaining healthy margins and driving business growth. And because the coordination of materials needed on a project is a huge element of job site efficiency, working with a supplier you know you can trust is super important. As they say, the measure of a business is really understood when things go wrong and a quick solution is needed. This could not be any more true in the world of home contracting. Trust me, the 10 cents/sq.ft. you saved by going to that other dealer is not enough to cover the lost production when the wrong material gets delivered to the job site. Stay loyal and build relationships with your local supplier.

COMPETITIVE EDGE

A few times a year, those great projects come along that, in order to close the sale, you just need a little wiggle room. If you have a strong dealer relationship in place and you pay your bills on time, chances are good you will be given that much needed discount. This edge could be the difference of a closing or losing a few really large jobs a year. That's a lot of money at stake. 

Learn more about setting yourself apart from the competition here

LEAD GENERATION

While most contractors operate without a showroom storefront, established dealers generally do not. Homeowners looking to touch and feel the product options they are considering will often visit their local dealer/showroom. Because these dealers don't install the products they sell, in order to complete the sale, they need to have a contractor referral program. Loyal contractors can receive a huge amount of leads from their dealer which is a win-win for everyone involved. Don't waste this potential lead generating tool because you slosh all around town with every order. Loyalty matters and you should be rewarded. 

Learn how to increase your leads with this FREE GUIDE.