Most construction work is won through relationships that started years ago. Outbound is how you start the next ten. We reach general contractors, developers and facilities teams with a specific, relevant reason to talk before the next bid list is drawn up.
Hi Dana,
The permit for the cold storage building on Elliot Road went through last week, and the award to Corvane was in the Business Journal the week before, so I am guessing the sub bid list is being drawn up now.
We did the refrigeration piping and insulation on a 180,000 square foot cold storage box in Tolleson last year, finished eleven days ahead of the GC's schedule, and the same crew is free for a Q1 start.
Would it be useful if I sent our sub package over before the list closes, or is fifteen minutes on a call easier?
[Your name]
Most subcontractors and specialty trades win work from the same four or five general contractors they have worked with for years, plus whatever arrives through the plan room. That ceiling is real. A GC's preconstruction team draws up its bid list from the subs it already knows, and by the time the invitation to bid hits the plan room, the estimators you are competing against have already walked the site with the project manager. Growing means getting onto new bid lists, and nobody sends out an invitation for that.
When a contractor tries outbound in-house it is usually the office manager sending a capabilities statement to every GC in the county, which reads like a line card and gets filed with the others. Preconstruction managers do not need another prequal packet. They need a sub who knows about their project. Run properly, the email goes out when the permit is filed or the award appears in the trade press, names the job, and offers one comparable project you finished on schedule. That is a conversation, not a submittal.
Construction buyers reply to specifics. An email that names the project, the location and what you did on something comparable gets read; anything general gets deleted. Every email we send here names a project.
We build the list from projects, not from company directories. Permits, planning approvals, plan room listings, and award announcements in ENR and the regional business journals tell us which GCs and developers have work coming in your territory. We take the preconstruction manager, project executive or estimator on that job, and exclude any GC you already bid to or hold a subcontract with.
Before writing, our copywriters look at the project: what has been permitted, the square footage and use, who the architect is, whether the GC has announced a groundbreaking date, and what else that contractor has in the pipeline. They also check your recent jobs for the closest comparable by type and size, so the email can point at one project you finished that looks like theirs.
Construction emails fail when they read like a capabilities statement. Ours name the project, the scope you would bid, and one comparable job with a schedule outcome, under 120 words. No safety ratings, no bonding capacity and no certifications, because those belong in the prequal packet, not the first email. It closes with a short call or an offer to send your sub package before the list closes.
We time sends to the project, not the calendar: after the permit or award, and before the bid date. Volume drops in late December and at the summer build peak when superintendents are on site all day. We send Tuesday to Thursday mornings from dedicated domains warmed for three to four weeks, so your firm's domain never touches cold email, and follow-ups stop the moment anyone replies.
Replies from preconstruction teams are usually a request for your prequal or a note to bid a specific package, and they land in the portal sorted into interested, not now and out of office. You send the packet or take the call within a day. Every two weeks we look at which project types, scopes and territories are drawing replies and shift the list towards them.
It names the project, the street and the two public events, permit and award, that put the job at bid-list stage, so the preconstruction manager knows in one line it is not a blast. The proof is one comparable job with a schedule outcome and a crew that is available. It leaves out bonding, EMR and certifications, which belong in the prequal.
The plan room is where the invitation goes once the bid list exists. The email gets you onto the list before that. Preconstruction managers and project executives read short emails that name a job they are actively planning, because a sub with a comparable project and an available crew is useful to them. Generic capabilities emails get deleted, which is why we do not send them.
Yes. Territory is the first filter on a construction list, because a project outside your travel range is not a lead. We build from permits and awards within the counties you name, and if you have a different range for different scopes, say service work versus new build, we run those as separate lists.
Start so the campaign is live about eight weeks before your buyers draw up bid lists, which for most regions means launching in late winter for the spring and summer build season. Setup and warm-up take three to four weeks, so a January start puts researched emails in front of preconstruction teams in March. Service and retrofit trades can run year round.