Why Construction Sales are Won (or Lost) After the First Contact
If you’re in the construction business and you’re only following up once or twice with a prospect before giving up, you’re basically leaving cash on the table—and your competitors are most likely picking up that deal, leaving you to continually spend money on more advertising.
Here are the cold, hard numbers:
- Only 2% of sales are made on the first or second contact.
- A staggering 80% of sales require 5 to 12 follow-ups.
- Yet, 44% of salespeople give up after just one follow-up.
Let that sink in.
Construction Leads Are Hot—But Only for a Minute
Responding to a lead within five minutes makes you 100 times more likely to close the deal. Yes, that is correct. In today’s world, people have a very short attention span. Here you spend advertising dollars to drive traffic to your site, and people fill out a form on your website. If they don’t hear from you quickly, they are going to the next person, and hardly remember who you are.
Wait, just one day? Your odds drop by 11%. After five days? You only have a 24% chance of getting a response.
In construction, timing is everything. The buyer’s urgency is real, but it’s also fleeting. They’re excited now about their dream of building that garage, barndominium, or post-frame barn. Wait too long, and the only thing they’re building is a relationship with your competition.
The “Ghost Town” Effect
The CSM Synergy report nails it in Chapter 6: “Ghost Town Leads.”
Many construction business owners rely on word-of-mouth. When referrals dry up? So does their pipeline. And when that lead comes in from Google or Facebook, they treat it like a lottery ticket—”Maybe it pans out, maybe it doesn’t.”
But the businesses that scale reliably follow up like pros. They don’t hope for the best. They build a process.
First One In Wins 35-50% of the Time
That’s right. Up to half of all deals go to the business that follows up first. Not the cheapest. Not the slickest website. The fastest.
Speed kills doubt. Persistence kills objections. Most prospects say no four times before they say yes. Your job is to stay in the game long enough to win.
The Follow-Up Fix for Builders
Want to stop the feast-or-famine cycle? Here’s your blueprint:
- Follow up 5 to 12 times. Email, call, text, send a photo of a similar build. Mix it up.
- Do it fast. Aim to follow up within 5 minutes of a new inquiry.
- Automate where possible. Use a CRM or even a simple reminder app to track every lead.
- Make it personal. Refer to their project by name: “About your 3-car garage on Maple Street…”
- Keep your energy up. The sale you close on call #7 pays for the six “nos” before it.
Bottom Line
Follow-up isn’t annoying. It’s professional. It’s how serious builders separate themselves from the rest of the crowd.
If you want to win more construction jobs, stay top-of-mind, and never run out of work again, don’t just chase new leads. Work the ones you’ve already got.
Because the real money is not in your marketing. It’s in your follow-up.