For as long as the population around the world continues to grow, there will always be a market for the construction sector. If you are indeed in this sector, with your very own construction business, you already know this. However, there are many ups and downs to contend with, one of which is perhaps a particularly dry spell throughout the sector, where jobs are few and far between. So, if and when this happens, ensure to be prepared to look around the core construction industry and implement some smart peripheral ways to boost your construction business’s revenue.
“Open Consulting”
Landing the major contracts in the construction industry is all about the experience behind your business, as a matter of official and verifiable records. So the advice of taking the open consulting route to boost revenues also applies to new construction businesses seeking to grab their piece of the market.
Open consulting is when you go out into the public and identify projects to take on, which you don’t necessarily want to complete physically. You then identify problems around those potential projects and solve them via the “soft approach.” Basically you just publish content around how you would go about solving those problems or how you would tackle those projects, using your professional viewpoint. This is how you establish authority and build up a portfolio without actually having to physically do any work, which would of course be welcomed should it arise.
It’s not very difficult to monetise expert content through channels such as PPC advertising, sponsored video tutorials, etc. Any revenue that is generated in this way should be channelled via the usual accounting structures, so the Construction Accountants you use would be briefed to include these revenues in your books.
That’s how you create a good track-record during times when physical work is particularly difficult to come by.
Pursue R&D Funding and Projects
Even if you don’t ultimately get the Research and Development funding, use the process of applying for it and trying to ensure eligibility as part of the information-gathering process which forms part of your open-consulting exploits, as explored above. Otherwise R&D funding can not only plug the gaps when revenue runs dry, but can also set your construction business up for life and repeat contracts.
Peripheral Technical Markets
While you should make sure you personally focus on the core operations of construction, it won’t hurt to collaborate with technical professionals to form partnerships around servicing peripheral markets. How about sponsoring someone to complete a real estate course and then join your sales team, for instance?
You could perhaps have someone trained as a software developer, who will then work alongside an architect to perhaps create something like building visualization and construction simulation software?
You might also want to invest in newer technologies such as construction logistics software and the like. Training your employees to use this software could be beneficial not only from a business efficiency standpoint, but might also help you expand the field of your business beyond just construction, and into perhaps, property development solutions for other construction companies.
Wrap-Up
So, while the actual construction will continue to be at the core of your business operations, these explored options aren’t too far off from the construction business to totally disrupt proceedings, but they can come into play to account for those dry spells which are notoriously part of the construction industry in general.