With the exception of our friends in Melbourne who are locked down, everyone is busy, aren’t they? All my clients are busy, customer confidence rebounded pretty well and the trades and construction industries seem okay at this moment.

My point is – make hay while the sun is shining. This grant is free money for the construction industry and it’s only available until Christmas.

At least, at the moment, that’s it’s end-point. One of my clients called me today (a builder) and said “I’ve just landed another job. I’m gonna be so busy. I want to talk to you about how I grow my capacity”.

We talked about that and made some plans, but he dropped an intriguing comment “It’s that HomeBuilder grant. Everyone’s going mental”.

Now the grant is quite specific in how it gets applied and you’ve probably already gone through all your open quotes to check if your customers are eligible for it. 

If you haven’t, you probably should.

Not just your open jobs either – go back through all of this year’s jobs and ask if the project has come back to life since you last spoke – either because of the grant or because they feel like it’s okay to spend (or invest) now.

Recommended Reading: How To Nurture Trade Business Leads?

Now, I’m thinking primarily of project trades here – builders and renovators, pool builders, landscapers, bathroom and kitchen renovators.

But not just residential trades – businesses are renovating too. Pubs are renovating and restaurants – they want to capture more than their share of our spend, now that we’re out and about. Your previous enquiries are often a goldmine and there’s some free money around.

Get your share while it’s going.

If it gives you a capacity issue, you’ll be able to deal with it. In fact, that’s a good problem to have. There are many ways to manage it, from negotiating start dates with your customers to subcontracting. 

If you do what I said and you get really busy, call me and say, “This is your fault, Jon” and I’ll spend an hour with you free of charge to think through your options. Do this, go through your old quotes and call the customers. 

I can almost hear you thinking “I don’t want to do that, it sounds a bit desperate” but man up. It’s part of your responsibility as the salesperson – I’ve written videos about the importance of following up and how, if a project does come back to life, being the one on the phone early is going to help your chances of winning the job. 

Maintenance trades – if you have some quotes that you might consider projects, you get stuck in. And for your more regular work (maintenance work) think about stepping up your marketing – the demand is up for that work too. 

Look at your ad spend, make more calls. Step on the gas a bit harder.

As ever, this is part of putting structure and systems in place to grow your business properly. If you want help with that you know what to do. Book yourself a 10-minute chat with me and we’ll talk about business coaching or book yourself on the next Tools Down Workshop and learn the framework.