Trouble Getting Started

KBN

Recently Started My Business As A G.c. Thought I Would Start A Side Business As A Finish Carpentry Sub. Would Appreciate Any Pointers To Landing Some Work In This Particular Area Of Construction. We're Located In The Dallas Area With A Lot Of New Housing Being Built. Have Sent Out Price List With S.f. & L.f. Prices To A Number Of Well Know Contractors. Have Gotten No Response.

Help.

joasis

What I would look for is the smaller builders, or GC/builders doing a house at a time, or maybe ask around the lumber yards to see if there are smaller guys out there that hire finish guys....after you get one job in, the word will slowly get out.

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Cole

Are you not staying busy enough with the GC work?

Trim Carpentry in this area is tough, most builders have used the ones they have for a long time.

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AtlanticWBConst

I agree with this point.
If you see a job going up...stop in and ask around, leave a card with the super. . Sometimes a GC or developer will hire several finish subs just to keep up with schedules.

Also, get some advertising.

Some of the supply houses have bulletin boards that subs can post on for free. There are web sites where you can post for free.
Get in the yellow pages. Big Hint. Try using an "A" in the beginning ot your business name. Why?
We are listed under the first word in our Company name "Atlantic"....We have gotten alot of 'first' phone calls from people because the phone book is listed alphabetically .

Years ago we decided to get out of doing only 'one phase' of construction as subcontractors.
So we went and got all our licensing.... to GC and to expand. It took about 2 years to get really rolling and about 2 more years to have more work than we could handle. What I'm trying to say is that it does take a little time.

On the hiring side:
I will say that we will dump a sub. in a second - if he is unreliable and unprofessional regardless of how good his work is.
Once we find a sub that is really good, we will keep calling him back, and help get his name out there... (give him mounds of referrals) ...

There are alot of GC's out there that are unhappy with who they have as a sub. So keep trying to show that you are the one they'll be happy with...

- my 2 cents

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- Build Well -

Sellncars

Hello guys,

I live in Upstate NY around the Binghamton area. This area was hit extremely hard by a flood just 2 weeks ago. The news just said that the people affected they are having a hard time finding contractors to do the rebuilding. Anyone that is looking for some major work should look into it. FEMA says that each person needs 3 estimates to turn in.

Sorry if I'm in the wrong section.

Sellncars