How Paul Built Relationships Between His Clients and Engineers Before Even Meeting In His Construction Business.
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Mentioned in this video:
• Ideal Clients
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Introduce yourself and your Construction business.
I'm Paul from Blue Shield Fire Protection.
I run a fire protection company.
Primarily we install fire protection systems to domestic, residential and commercial properties.
That might include anything from a full fire sprinkler system in a commercial building.
We also install sprinkler systems to domestic and residential properties.
We carry out full fire alarm installations and right down to fire risk assessments for commercial and residential properties.
WHAT CHALLENGES DO YOU FACE DAY TO DAY IN YOUR CONSTRUCTION BUSINESS?
We have to be very reactive.
We have to send our projects engineers to site to try and assess the risk and issues and work out a solution on the fly at very short notice.
Because we can't have our engineers standing around on site not installing our systems.
That's quite a common problem, issues with materials.
Trying to get our materials onto site.
In this day and age a lot of the sites have to have booking slots for our materials.
So trying to physically get the materials onto site can be an issue.
Trying to navigate it all, as some of our work is in the city as well.
Trying to get our materials into London and onsite can be quite a challenge.
There's multiple sites this is happening to, it's not just one site.
We have maybe 20, 25, 30 sites on the go at any one time.
So this is not just an isolated incident.
This might be on 2, 3, 4 sites a day where we have these issues.
We have to be, as a business, very reactive and try and overcome the situations at very short notice, because time is money.
DESCRIBE HOW IT FEELS TO RUN A BUSY CONSTRUCTION BUSINESS?
It can be very, very challenging.
There's a lot going on and not only do you have your site related issues with your engineers, but also yourself.
You almost become a bit of an agony aunt to be honest.
To try and deal with people with issues and issues that occur on site.
But more importantly, it's trying to keep everyone safe as well.
Because we are in construction.
Health and safety is our main priority.
Trying to keep our engineers safe so that they can go home safely every evening.
We have to carry out our health and safety paperwork that all needs to be up to date and that requires a site visit from our engineers to go to sites.
So there's a lot happening.
There's a lot happening in the business. There's a lot happening on site. A lot happening in the office.
It's tough sometimes.
I suppose the other issue would be my phone is always on.
So my wife hates me because I'm constantly answering the phone at seven, eight, nine o'clock at night!
But that's just part and parcel of what I do, and what we do.
We have a lot of engineers that can be working night shifts so you have to be on call, and you have to deal with these situations as and when needed.
So you have to be very reactive.
But, don't get me wrong.
It's all I've ever done and I'm passionate about the industry, which is great.
I still love what I do.
I get out of bed in the morning and every job is completely different.
One minute we might be working in a tall skyscraper in the city.
The next minute we might be doing a government building or a warehouse or a shop unit or a coffee shop.
It’s great and I do enjoy it.
BRAND & MARKETING. WHAT WERE YOU STRUGGLING WITH IN YOUR CONSTRUCTION BUSINESS?
We haven't really done much marketing and a lot of our work was return business.
So companies that we worked for previously that we've carried out work for would come back.
But that can have issues.
It's not sustainable.
If there's an issue with you know, the Construction industry say for instance, we need to be looking to other fields, and we hadn't been doing any type of marketing whatsoever.
It was completely off the radar for us as such.
So, having Marshmallow come in and do a full review of our marketing was amazing.
We went through a whole process, which really opened my eyes to how important marketing is for a construction business.
WHERE DID WE START WITH YOUR BRAND AND MARKETING?
As a business, we didn't really know where to start with marketing.
It's quite a mine field and trying to do it on your own - I wouldn’t recommend whatsoever!
So we were at a bit of a stumbling block as to how, as a business, we would get involved with marketing, and just where to start from.
We employed Marshmallow and it was an absolute breath of fresh air.
We carried out an Ideal Client Workshop, which was fantastic.
It really gets you to understand who your ideal clients are and where you should be targeting your marketing.
It really helped us understand the whole process of brand and marketing from start to finish.
SO IDEAL CLIENT WORKSHOP DONE.
WHAT WAS THE NEXT STEP?
After the Ideal Client Workshop, we were shown some team profile cards that had been created for another business.
I wanted to implement that into our business.
We have approximately 23 site staff.
So to build that relationship with our clients and our site engineers was something that I felt we needed to do.
And what better way to do that than with a team profile card.
Marshmallow showed us these team profile cards and it has a picture of the engineer in question.
It has their likes, their dislikes, their qualifications.
To send out as part of our health and safety paperwork to our clients, which really builds that relationship straight away with any client, because they can see the picture of their engineer.
They can see their qualifications.
They know a little bit about him as well so they're building a relationship straight away, which I felt was amazing and would really benefit our business before the engineers even got to site.
The team profile cards that Marshmallow created were a great asset to us.
WHY DO YOU THINK IT’S IMPORTANT TO GET YOUR BRANDING SPOT ON FOR A CONSTRUCTION BUSINESS?
When working with Marshmallow, what becomes apparent is trying to zone in on certain parts of your business, to be able to promote that to our client.
We understood how to pinpoint elements of our business and how to market that, to be able to grow that side of the business.
So when we carried out the initial Ideal Client Workshop, for instance, we understood that we wouldn't be marketing on Facebook or Instagram for instance.
However, LinkedIn would be an amazing platform for us to be able to market our business for the clients that we were trying to go after.
You understand straight, how to market your business and in what direction you need to go, which ultimately makes you understand that part of the business in greater detail.
THOUGHTS ON OUR QUALITY OF WORK AND SERVICE FOR CONSTRUCTION BRAND AND MARKETING?
The quality of the work produced by Marshmallow was amazing.
From the original get-go with the team profile cards, the turnaround time was brilliant.
We never had to chase.
Everything was delivered on time and as promised.
Communication was brilliant.
We were always kept up to date with the status of the project of where we were, when we'd be expecting certain elements back and they were an absolute pleasure to deal with.
A very, very professional company, very slick.
The level of detail in all the products and services that we received were second to none.
WOULD YOU RECOMMEND MARSHMALLOW TO OTHER TRADE & CONSTRUCTION BUSINESSES?
Being in the trades and construction industry we loved working with Marshmallow.
I would highly recommend Marshmallow for any businesses in the sector.
Simply for the fact of, if you wanted to grow your business, then it is a one stop shop for being able to communicate with your clients, because ultimately that's what marketing is.
Marketing gives you that platform to be able to communicate with your clients so that they understand what you do.
Anyone that wanted to improve their brand and, and built relationships with their clients, I would highly recommend Marshmallow.
It is a simple process.
They take all of the pain out of marketing and they deal with it from start to finish.
So I would highly recommend Marshmallow to anyone in the Trade or Construction wanting to grow their business.
LET’S SUM UP. WORDS TO DESCRIBE MARSHMALLOW…
⭐️ No corporate bollocks.
⭐️ Completely stress-free.
⭐️ Amazing to deal with.
⭐️ No bullshit.
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