Construction start up (house extensions etc) - advice wanted

[Sarmies]

Hey everyone,

In a nutshell
My father and I are looking to start a construction venture in the North West UK.

We would primarilly like to focus on bigger jobs within our scope - such as house extensions, loft conversions, even new builds for private customers. Basically jobs that could tide us over for a good few months at a time, rather than competing for little day by day jobs.

If you would like to know a little about our background first, I've included that at the bottom of this post - but for now I'll get straight into details.

The current issue
We have no strategy on how to best initially offer our services out to the public, so the initial bit of knowledge I'm hoping to gain here, is - What strategies can we use to get our first customer and job?

Why we have this issue
I'm currently a HGV driver. I have zero experience to draw from in terms of sourcing building jobs.

Although my Dad is a builder, he hasn't been a "customer builder" for around 20 years. 'Big jobs' and projects (of the type we are looking for) that he has undertaken since then have either been for himself, friends or for family members - they have basically found their way to him, rather than him going looking for them. On top of this, he has spent the majority of these 20 years outside of the UK, in both Spain and Romania.

Back when my Dad did do big customer jobs in the UK, he never really had to advertise to get them. He was a plasterer by trade, and all of his "big building jobs" were pretty much either picked up whilst he was already on a job for a customer, or through word of mouth from other customers he had done big jobs for.

Basically - it's like starting afresh with zero contacts, zero previous customers and no real idea of how to enter the market to get new ones.

Why are we looking for big jobs, instead of little ones and then building from there?
We want to start with a big job because my Dad currently mainly resides in Romania in a house he has built over the past 4 or so years. He does have a small place he rents from a friend here in the UK, but spends very little time here. In a nutshell, if we can get any job that is big enough, he can committ to leaving Romania and spending a prolonged period in the UK. Starting with small jobs isn't a viable strategy.

Why do we want to go into this venture?
My Dad has built his house in Romania, and has basically used up almost all savings he had to complete the project. He is now at a point where his project is completed, and he does not have much to do.

For myself, as mentioned, I'm a HGV driver. The money isn't that great, times are hard, and for me, the job satisfaction is quite low. It's a lonely job! In the past, I've always been at my happiest when I've been on site, working with my hands and being active - and working with my Dad is just an extra happiness bonus. The skills I've picked up with him along the way have been fantastic, but I've got so much more I could learn from him and personally, I would like to carry on the family tradition of competent builders and hopefully pass some skills on to my kids some day.

My Dads' primary medium to long term goal is to use his skills to build up a kitty again that would allow him to purchase some more land in Romania, and build some more houses with the aim of selling.

My primary goal is a change of career to one that I enjoy and offers a little more prosperity, and to hopefully pick up the further skills and experience required to one day be able to do this off my own back.

We both graft hard, long hours when we are on site. We really enjoy working with each other, make a great team, and can help eachother get closer to our individual goals. It's a win win.

Ideas of customer accuisition so far
- MyBuilder.com
We have signed up to this website and been approved to 'express interest' in jobs. The downside to this avenue is that:
• A lot of the 'job requests' posted by potential customers offer little to no information about what the job requirements actually are, and a large proprtion of them seem to be looking for advice to decide whether they actually want the job doing
• To get the customers contact details (and pursue more info), you have to "express interest" in the job. If the customer shortlists you, then you get their contact details
• The above two points wouldn't be so bad, but if a customer shortlists you, you immediately have to pay a fee (seems to be around £50 on average) to MyBuilder - which seems a bit harsh just to get a phone number of someone offering little to no info about the job up front
• Trustpilot reviews seem great from the customer side, but not from the contractor side

- Facebook
Not much to say on this one, but another potential avenue could be just posting our services up on facebook groups to see what comes back.

Other than the above two, nothing else springs to mind - so if anyone with modern experience could offer further suggestions, it would be appreciated!

Little bit of background (if it helps!)
My father has roughly 50 years of experience in construction, starting work with his father (also a builder) in his early teens, and continuing throughout the years (with several year gaps filled in with other ventures) right up until his most recent project (building his own house in Romania).

I'm 36, and I'd say I have around 8 total years experience of working on site myself. All with my father from my early to late teens, and then joining him on the odd jobs throughout the years, with the most recent one being 2 years ago which was a complete terraced house gutting and renovation for a family member, which took 3 months.

My Dads trade was always a plasterer, but he really always has been a jack of all trades, and honestly, extremely competent in all aspects of building. He has several complete house builds under his belt, all done heading up small teams (half a dozen at most on his biggest project which was 3 simultaneous house builds back in 2001). The houses he has built have all been to a really high standard, whilst also incorporating unique aspects like indoor heated swimming pools.

As well as the above, he has countless loft conversions / extensions / gutting out renovations under his belt from customers over the years. All this to say that, experience or competence on the job is 100% not an issue.

Any and all input appreciated - even more so if you happen to be looking to get an extension on your house in the North West! haha!

 

[fisicx]

Hi @Sarmies and welcome to UKBF

The chances of you and your Father getting a big job here in the UK is virtually nil. There is lots of work for contractors (we have a bunch of them building a house next door) but the project belongs to a developer.

If he has been the project lead on major builds and renovations then he should have a decent portfolio to publish on a website (with loads of pictures). He will also need a Google business profile. And he needs to be here in the UK to carry out assessments.

That being said, it's usually property developers who will run the project and they will have their preferred contractors. Your dad needs to start schmoozing the right people - which may well require some investment.

 

[Sarmies]

Cheers for the rey @fisicx

Just to be clear, when I say big job, I mean that relative to us as a small 2 man starting team with additional help drafted in as required. So a big job for us would be a house renovation, extension, loft conversions etc. More along the lines of jobs for private/invidual home owners rather than looking to land a multi-house build project!

Is it that these days, even jobs of this scale are given to contractors directly from developers?

 

[Mark T Jones]

It's very much a 'who you know' business - as the one based in the UK, you need to be getting out in your community getting known.

Pubs - go where trades go, mix and learn pick up bits of work to get up to speed.

Business networking events. Despite the name, trades tend to pick up work.

Other local communities.

 

[fisicx]

Is it that these days, even jobs of this scale are given to contractors directly from developers?

A lot of the time yes.

If you needed someone to do an extension on your house where would you look? How would you find a shortlist of builders who could quote? How would you then assess if they were suitable, trustworthy and had necessary experience?

£50 on mybuilder is nothing. It's a fraction of the costs you will need to invest to get noticed. Get a GBP set up, the same with a website and start touting for work. Spending £5K to find the first customers would be a small investment. But your Dad needs to be here in the UK to do the quotes. And you will need to team up with a local architect to get the plans drawn up and approved. Your Dad will also need the appropriate certification to do all the work (eg gas and electrics).

 

[Socio South West]

The sort of jobs you are looking at - probably sub £100k - are not large in building terms.

Your likely source of opportunities to quote initially is going to be local Facebook groups where there are frequently people asking for local builders for various projects. However, many will also ask for recommendations - until you have a couple of jobs under your belt you will struggle on that one.
Architects and Drawing technicians can also be a good source of enquiries, but again you will need to establish a reputation to draw on that resource.

Whatever you do, don't follow the example of one local idiot and underquote... start the job and then put the screws on the client to pay more by means of threatening text messages and intimidation. In this case the local Facebook groups have spread the word and effectively run him out of town as far as any more work is concerned.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Whilst I understand your aversion to small jobs, they are the only way you can establish a reputation and portfolio. Just like a major electronics company would not hire a driver to deliver £100k plus of equipment to someone without a background

You need to put yourselves out and about as others have suggested, advertise in all local press and on the web etc

It's ok saying you will hire others in to help, but how many sub contracteors do you know and do they have a track record

Either commit full time or give up the idea

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

I do understand the chicken & egg situation but as mentioned above you really need to start showcasing your work. Whether you have enough recent work to display is the question. And I wouldn't, personally, include building a house in Romania in that. I'd want to see local jobs done in my local area.

My friend is in exactly this line or work, all building & maintenance but generally actively avoids smaller jobs like bits of decorating or fitting kitchens - he does a lot of extensions, loft conversions, building summer houses/garden offices, full house refurbs etc. Has also built full houses and managed the projects for those. He gets all his work through word of mouth and Facebook - every job he is on he posts before and after pictures or often on bigger jobs will post a few updates as the job goes on over several weeks. But that said, he's got more than 20 years experience behind him in the local area. Not to mention a distinctive bright orange van that's all signwritten up and he uses this very well as advertising. It's spotted out and about locally and he always makes sure it appears somewhere in his facebook posts where he can.

I would suggest this is the way to go, and perhaps really put the feelers out with friends and family to see if you can pick up some initial jobs, whatever it may be. Start to get them posted, make sure you get customer feedback after the job, plenty of before & after pictures etc.

Also, you could try contacting your local press (whereabouts in the North West are you?) to announce the new business, and use the Romania angle as a positive which may make the story interesting for them - but spin it carefully. Perhaps say your dad moved to Romania and built a house there - he "wanted a challenge" or "fancied a change of pace" or something similar but then highlight that he's bringing his skills back to the UK. "An opportunity to go into business with my Son was too good to miss" or "I always said I would do 3-5 years abroad for the experience but knew the UK would always be my home", something along those lines. It will highlight the fact that your dad is capable of building a house and also advertise the business. But what you absolutely do NOT want to do is make it appear like your dad is just going to jet over here and there to half -heartedly throw an extension together before disappearing back to Romania with some money in his pocket until it runs out again. And certainly don't highlight that he wants to do this to build more houses in Romania eventually - tell the story that he is coming back to set up a local family firm with his son.

 

[Sarmies]

Thanks @fisicx @Mark T Jones @Socio South West @Chris Ashdown @BusterBloodvessel for all taking the time to reply - appreciated!

@fisicx I do agree that £50 isn't a high price to pay over the course of things if you can get a good lead. Also found another site (MyJobQuote) that works in a similar way, so will consider these a viable strategy.

And yep, my Dad would definitely have to be the ones doing the quotes for sure. The current plan is that I look for leads, and if something looks promising, he would fly over and we would go from there.

For an architect, my Landlord is a semi-retired one, so have a potential way into that side of things there. For gas and electric work my Dad does still have reliable contacts available for these - the most recent use of them being in the renovation we did a few years back for my Brother, so no issues on that front.

@BusterBloodvessel yep, in terms of recent work to showcase, it's a struggle. My Dad has never really taken before/after pictures of jobs he has done. Seeing as the last full house renovation we did was for a family member, I got in touch with them and they did thankfully take a load of pictures of the process. They are going to see if they still have them, so hopefully we get something useful back from that!

And we are located in St Helens - sort of right between Liverpool and Manchester.

---

Cheers again people for taking time out of your day to respond. For now, I'm going to try and assemble a portfolio as best as I can, and put some feelers out on facebook groups to see what we get back.

If anyone has any further thoughts or advice on anything from this thread, I'm all ears.

 

[fisicx]

And yep, my Dad would definitely have to be the ones doing the quotes for sure. The current plan is that I look for leads, and if something looks promising, he would fly over and we would go from there.

He would be back and forwards all the time. Last time we needed a building quote it took a number of visits to get confirmation on materials, costs, timescales then umpteen discussion about the fine details. He used to pop over on his way home from work to clarify things. The whole process took about a month before we could finalise everything.

Then your dad would need to sort out all the materials and delivery. This isn't a quick process as he may need to use different suppliers. And then contact various agencies to get the surveys done, hire plant and sort out all the subbies. And the job might not even get started for a couple of months.

Its not just fly over, do the quote and go back home. He really needs to be here in the UK full time.