#25 Marketing Strategies That Actually Grow Construction Businesses

Are your marketing efforts actually bringing in new business, or are they just a time-consuming guessing game? In this episode, Mason Brady sits down with Perryn Olson, a fractional CMO and construction marketing expert, to break down what really works for contractors and construction firms.

They discuss:

✅ Why "just posting on social media" isn’t a marketing strategy
✅ How to identify your ideal customer profile (ICP) and target the right clients
✅ The biggest mistakes construction companies make with marketing—and how to avoid them
✅ How to position your brand for long-term success
✅ Why marketing isn’t just for your marketing department—it’s a company-wide effort.

Connect with Perryn:

 🔗 LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/perryn/
 🌎 Website: https://altcmo.net/

Connect with Mason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/masonbrady/

Visit BradyCFO: https://www.bradycfo.com/

If you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to rate, review, and of course, SUBSCRIBE!

LEAVE SOME FEEDBACK: If you enjoyed the series, please rate and review!

Have a business growth question you'd like Mason to cover in an upcoming episode? Email: info@bradycfo.com

Transcript

welcome back everybody to another episode of brewing business with Brady and today's guest is Perrin Olson. And we're so excited to have you Perrin. Thanks for being on the show today. Awesome.

Perryn Olson (08:01.218)
Yeah, thanks for the invite, Mason.

Mason Brady (08:03.26)
Well, yeah, this is obviously is Brady CFO and I do feel like this is the first episode of the year where both myself as host and the guests, we are wearing sweaters so you can obviously tell what season we're in. So this is good that we have finally hit cold weather in these Gulf Coast states, right? That Perrin's over there in New Orleans and I'm in Houston. So yeah, finally we hit some cold weather, right Perrin?

Perryn Olson (08:14.574)
you

Perryn Olson (08:26.03)
Yeah, I intentionally wore a sweater for you today. was like, we're going to know when we recorded this thing.

Mason Brady (08:28.082)
Yeah, parents actually sweating profusely underneath that sweater. As am I. But yeah, it literally just turned cold the other day. That it was a warm summer day in Houston until, yeah, just a couple of days before Christmas. So yeah, well, obviously this is brewing business with Brady, Perrin, that I got my coffee in hand here. Yeah, what are you enjoying first thing in the morning here? There you go.

Perryn Olson (08:34.19)
you

Perryn Olson (08:55.67)
ice water, nothing fun, not a coffee drinker. So yeah, have my ice water until about mid afternoon. I'll crack a Coke Zero, cherry Coke Zero at that.

Mason Brady (08:57.532)
Yeah.

Mason Brady (09:04.478)
Fair enough. Yeah, no, it's been really interesting to hear what everybody starts their morning with that I've heard more newer stuff like AG1, it's supposed to be like a greens, like dried greens probiotic or prebiotic drink. And then I brought that up with somebody the other day and they're like, yeah, do you know the difference between prebiotics and probiotics? I said, I didn't even realize they were two different, like I didn't know that there were two different words there. And I still don't understand the difference, but.

Perryn Olson (09:28.44)
Guys.

Mason Brady (09:33.98)
It's pretty incredible what people are drinking in the morning now.

Perryn Olson (09:37.036)
yeah. And I used to work at an agency that we had espresso and stuff. Most team members would have three espressos before lunch, sometimes before 10 AM. And so quarter of the afternoon they were dead. They were so hyped up on caffeine in the morning. They were kind of knocking off in the afternoon. So they got up to a hundred dollar challenge of having me drink coffee and I still didn't do it.

Mason Brady (09:55.262)
there. Fair enough. Fair enough that yeah, you're healthier than the rest of us then. So well, yeah, you know, I'm really excited to have you on the show today, Perrin, that I, know, obviously, you focus a lot on marketing for construction companies, right? That you are an expert in marketing for construction companies and marketing.

Perryn Olson (09:59.406)
you

Mason Brady (10:17.854)
You know, I love this because, you know, what they teach in marketing is that you should be niched, right? That you should have a particular focus and you should have a particular target market, understand that. And to make your messaging very bold and clear for that target market. And so the fact that, you know, I, I've seen with different marketing agencies or fractional CMOs, cetera. yeah, it's broad, right? And I'm like, you know, when I see that, I'm like, you're not even drinking your own Kool-Aid here. Right. and,

You but you particularly focus with construction industries. And so this is just wonderful because yeah, I, you know, we see it a lot that, you know, these construction business owners, you know, they go about, you know, starting their companies. They were working for another company as a project manager. They go about starting their company and they're able to get their licenses and bid on some jobs. But then the idea is, is how do you continue to grow that that, you know, that owner can't be.

doing all the estimating themselves. They can't be out to market themselves. They have a company to run. And so they've got to figure out a marketing plan, right? They've got to figure out who they are and who they're targeting. And so really even we've seen that a lot of construction companies, miss the mark when aligning marketing with their business goals that you go on the website and it's not clear like who are these people and who do they want to work with? And what are the biggest mistakes you've personally seen?

And how can these construction companies, how can they resolve them?

Perryn Olson (11:42.222)
It is you don't have to necessarily niche down in construction so much, but you still need to pick a few market sectors you want to work in or types of buildings or size of buildings, things like that. And some of that's natural. Just what kind of equipment you have. If you only have a lift that goes 40 feet in the air, you can only do certain size buildings. So some of that is very natural. essentially, the biggest issue as an instruction is they're chasing work. have no chance of winning.

They're killing themselves and it takes time to put together an estimate. It takes time to put together a proposal. takes time just interacting with the client. So just doing the shotgun approaches, I'm going to try to go win, you know, a hundred projects. How are you going to do that? know, so one of the analogies I've given people kind of opened up their eyes is, know, essential and marketer proposal coordinator would have 2000 hours a year, 40 hours a week, 52, 50 weeks a year. Would you rather them spend a hundred hours on 20 proposals?

or a hundred or 20 hours on a hundred proposals, which one do you think they're going to have a better chance of winning? And almost everyone I've ever asked this question to, including a room of CEOs, including a room of CFOs in construction, they're always like, if they spend a hundred hours on 20 proposals, they should have a higher likely of winning them. So I'm like, correct. But you're telling them to go chase 200 proposals. So, you know, let's stop and think about this math. So one of the things I've pulled from the tech sector is called account-based marketing. And one of the big things of that is called.

The ideal client profile or ICP is the acronym you hear in marketing. And it starts with who's your ideal client. And I love the word ideal because it's who's the ideal, not who can we work with? Yeah, we can figure anything out. Like I work in construction, but if somebody calls me up and says, Hey, I have really this and somebody I know I might work with them if they're out of my market. But, who really liked to bring in the operations people on this is who are the clients you really don't like?

Let's put them as negative points. Who are the people you really like? we really like healthcare. Why? it's because of this and this. Great. Let's add some extra points to there. And you build out a score sheet and essentially it's your first go-no-go. Like in construction, we're very familiar with the go-no-go in proposals. Let's do that to what clients we want to chase. So I just kind of call it the client go-no-go. So do we want to talk to them? And the technical marketing term would be the ideal client profile. And it is a score sheet.

Perryn Olson (14:01.88)
So you can put in the firmographics of this company, where they're located, their ownership, what market sector, what size buildings they normally do, things like that, kind of fill out this whole thing. And the more categories you have, the more precise you get and literally draws a line. Is this a client we should go after? And if you're scoring 20 points out of 20, okay, this is a top prospect. We need to go at them hard. They're scoring five out of 20. Well, no, we don't need to waste our time. We're not going to win a job with them either. So having a new client profile does a few things.

You're, you're maximizing your business development efforts. You're maximizing your chance of winning the project. So your hit rate goes up and also you're making operations really happy. Cause one of the worst things I think sales and marketing can ever do is bring in bad sales. You know, you're bringing one that's essentially is just that square peg and around hole and this operations like who, why are we doing this? And I think every contractor has worked a job. Like how did we get here? I was talking to somebody the other day, actually they're talking about like during COVID everyone was kind of going through and trying to bid everything.

And they said, so then it took almost two to three years essentially to kind of get through all that junk that they won and worked through those jobs and everyone was miserable. And then you had a lot of people changing jobs post COVID, partly because were taking, the companies are taking on jobs. had new business doing. And, you know, so now we're kind of getting to this point where like we're starting to hit our rhythm and we're getting jobs that we really should be working.

Mason Brady (15:25.16)
How, what do you say to the owners of construction companies? Cause especially I would say, you know, if they're generally newer, right? That I've even experienced in building a business that sometimes every once in while you take a flyer project or a client, right? And then you figure out that was fun and that was great. You know, and, and that was an awesome experience and we need to do more of that, but that was.

generally out of our wheelhouse, but we figured out we can do that and we need to do more of that. And what would you say to those that I'd probably say like, you know, five, you know, maybe their age of their business is maybe five years or younger that, you know, they've had some of those come across and they're thinking to themselves, what if we miss some of those by being too targeted? What if we missed that? What's your response to that?

Perryn Olson (16:14.67)
Yeah. I think you should still experiment. You know, I think in marketing and every marketing plan I have, there's, know, here's some things that I think will really work. There's some things that, you know, they might be cost-effective and get a couple of leads and here's some stuff that is purely experimental. And I think you can do the same thing with projects. mean, things move. If you only did multifamily, you're going to take a hit right now because, or you've only did offices, right? You know, pre-COVID, you only did office buildings right now. You're killed. So.

Most construction companies, don't really recommend doing just one sector. I need to do at least a few.

Mason Brady (16:50.374)
that ice cold water coming in there. Yep. Good. Well, yeah, I agree with that. And I mean, diversification is important, right? I think, you know, communicating to your team too that, hey, this is a bit experimental. We don't know. And I think being transparent with your team that, like you said, otherwise your operations team is going to be sitting there thinking to themselves, why are we doing this if you're gung ho on it?

Perryn Olson (16:52.002)
Yeah, allergies are killing me right now. It's also that I'm here, it's allergy season.

Mason Brady (17:19.504)
If you get to also tell them that, Hey, we don't quite know about this, but it seems like a neat opportunity. Let's give it a try. And then as a team, we can determine whether this becomes a part of our go or no go going forward. Then, yeah, then it feels like you can get the buy-in to it. Right. And especially if you can express that, you know, this is the potential opportunity here and we can build something bigger. If we figure this out, I found that, the buy-in works then as long as you know that, and you give them an opportunity to also say, yeah.

Let's determine after this though if this should be go or no go going forward, right?

Perryn Olson (17:52.206)
Yeah. Well, and sometimes you just have to connect the dots for yourself and for the client, for the team. Like, you know, I was working with a contractor in Texas that they also were chasing a big bio lab and I'm like, you've never done a lab. They're like, we've done 30 labs in high school, colleges already. Like this is, we know exactly what to do. We know exactly what the gas lines to run in the architect, like it was a design bill. They knew exactly what architect they were going to partner with because they'd done all these in the school, but in their portfolio, they're all tagged as schools.

you higher ed, know, K through 12, things like that. They're not tagged as science lab, but it's a small piece. Well, they've also done a lot of stadiums in that they've done a lot of, you know, basketball courts and state auditorium. So they were like, once they were kind of broke apart their schools, they were, we've got a lot of expertise in these other things. There's kind of a legendary story through, SMPS is the marketing and business development group for the build industry. as far as goes, there was a contractor who was trying to win a job.

Mason Brady (18:22.494)
Got it. Yep.

Perryn Olson (18:50.892)
big luxury hotel in Hawaii. They'd never built in Hawaii. They've never built a hotel. And the, but they realized we've a lot of office buildings. They built a lot of apartments. They built a lot of prisons. They built a lot of hospitals, but all for those things have been common is small rooms, multi rooms. So they essentially pitched that we built a lot of multi rooms. Yes, we've never built a hotel, but we built all these other things and we're experts at this and this, and they showed their schedules and explain this.

Mason Brady (19:09.022)
Yep. Yep.

Perryn Olson (19:21.034)
And since we want to do this because we want to plant a flag and this is a new market sector we want to go after because we see all this. We want to grow in Hawaii and all these things. It went so well, not only did they win, the selection committee walked out and told the other two contractors sitting in the waiting room to leave. That's why it's a bit of a legendary story, because it was just this one is connecting the dots, but also we just tell your story and connect and not just answer the questions, you know, and more check the boxes.

Mason Brady (19:37.758)
Wow.

Perryn Olson (19:49.486)
that you hear a lot in selection committees, but actually have some passion to show some guts. you know, it's a story, I forgot the details of what exact firms it was, but this is a story I heard 10 years ago and it's always stuck with me of, how do you just sometimes, how do you go to a transcendential market that doesn't quite make sense because you're looking for lot of hotels, but everything else lines up. It's very similar.

Mason Brady (20:14.472)
Yeah. No, I think of the example, like within, you know, our CFO business, like, yeah, we work with a lot of agribusiness clients, but there's the saying that goes that you don't make your money on the farm. You make your money in the shed. so if anybody want to, you know, farmers are land rich, cash poor. So if you actually want to make some margin in business, you had to be vertically integrated. And that means you have to run a package shed to run your products through process them.

And then even then oftentimes you have to run the logistics and transportation to get the final retailer. so, yeah, when, when people, because we have such a strong agribusiness presence too, when people say, can you do manufacturing? It's like, yeah. And we go backwards in front of that too. You know, and so go ahead. Yeah.

Perryn Olson (20:56.526)
Well, and this is what's cool about niching. I never would have thought to talk about this with you is I have a client that's actually launching an app for farmers about how to drain their farms with data. And I never would have thought to talk to you about that. You could actually be a great influencer for that market and be a reseller for them. And never would have dreamed of doing that because I never knew that was an opportunity, you something that you've done a lot of. And that's one of those things about niching is like I meet some people like, you're in construction. I don't have any client. I don't know any construction. Okay.

But man, six months from now, a year or two from now, and they're like, Hey, my client needs help in marketing with construction. You're the first person I thought of. like, yeah. So sometimes it is a waiting game and, and that is a little hard to construction. You obviously have, you know, keep the machine going, keep the people employed and stuff. We're going to avoid furloughs. And that's why you want to have multiple market sectors where you don't want to do every market sector. of the things I hate when I go to a contractor site, architects, engineers as well. And, know, you look at them in practice areas or the market sectors and it's like a list of 15.

Mason Brady (21:33.074)
Yep. Yeah.

Perryn Olson (21:56.995)
And they're called specialties. Unless you're massive, you do not specialize in 15 market sectors. It's also fun when you go look at some of these market sectors, there's like one project. Okay, let's get realistic here. There's very few companies that can actually be a specialist in every one of those. And generally they're just the massive companies everybody knows. They're on the top of those.

Mason Brady (22:19.57)
And can't help but think like, I mean, just even some of the wording and the messaging around that could just be so simplified. Like you pick the top three of those that you are specialized in and you say that that we specialize in these, but we also do serve these other segments, right? Like, but you say that you specialize. I, I think to this whole thing that plants your flag. but you know, the reality is, is people will remember that, you know, Hey, you are the expert in this, but that's not going to stop them from saying. Yeah, I know that you're the expert in this.

Perryn Olson (22:33.601)
Ew.

Mason Brady (22:48.552)
But can you also do this, right? Can you do this other thing? That's not going to stop. I've never heard of somebody that's planted their flag and said that they didn't get opportunities in other segments. It's just they became known as this one thing and that was memorable. And so it actually got them more business, but they didn't get the other ancillary, like, you know, random stuff still coming in, right? It just, made them more focused, right? Yeah.

Perryn Olson (23:10.35)
Yeah. As of this week, half of my clients, my fractional clients are tech, but they're serving the construction industry. They're hiring me because I know the contractors and I know the space and you know, one of them is not a contractor built company. It's, it's, you know, a manager consultant that started a tech software, really robust software. And she's kind of overdoing some of the things that she doesn't know the ins and outs. And she's actually looking at hiring a contractor on staff to be the contractor on staff next year.

Mason Brady (23:16.05)
Yeah. The construction. Yep.

Perryn Olson (23:40.014)
the help with that internal piece. But that's one of the main reasons they hired us instead of a marketing firm that just does software, is because we know that audience. And it's been interesting to see if, like wait, I kind of turned on LinkedIn, also, and half my clients are tech.

Mason Brady (23:57.182)
So I, I'm interested, you know, kind of expanding from here, cause we've talked about the ideal client profile. We've talked about developing this strategy, right? But the reality is, is that the owners of construction companies have to have a team that helps them. and you know, what I've seen in construction industries, but other, you know, I would say, you know, trades and other, you know, other similar industries is what happens is they think.

Perryn Olson (24:03.96)
Uh-uh.

Mason Brady (24:28.006)
marketing is social media and I'm gonna, and I think even one of your partners posted about on LinkedIn and I loved it and I've heard this from you as well that yeah, they hire a recent college graduate and throw them in charge of the marketing department and the focus is on social media and just posting things and I think you and I both know that especially from this whole topic of I understand your ideal client profile, targeting them, that doesn't work. Getting the fresh college graduate that

you know, can make pretty designs and all that stuff. Like that's not marketing. And so, you know, given that that's the approach of some, you know, business owners, what would you, what would you go about fixing about that? Like what's some of the first things that you would, you would dive in and say, no, let's do this instead.

Perryn Olson (25:13.23)
Yeah. I mean, that's about 5 % of marketing. and what I tried to remember, like it was a MEP engineering principle. I was talking to you while back. I'd done the strategy for a while and they'd hired and the person didn't work out and they're like, look, I just don't want to hire a person at all. They're gonna spend all their time on social media. I'm like, okay, your firm's 75 years old. Social media is about 10. What do you think marketers did before social media? And then he kind of rattled off because I wouldn't give him the answers.

Mason Brady (25:15.666)
Yeah.

Perryn Olson (25:42.846)
And like that's part of marketing plus these other things. And it's, actually one of the issues with marketing now is like, what is considered marketing has grown so significantly. Like your world has grown more just because of risk. Like, but there's true principles of accounting is still the same as probably was a hundred years. I'm sure I'm wrong, but it hasn't grown. It's only like marketing is literally like we've invented whole new channels and

But also the bar has raised on what proposal should look like. I was on a webinar the other day about how proposals need to look like magazines. And I was like, that was something I was trying to do 10 years ago. we, know, with certain things that you could do then that you can't, you couldn't do then that you can do now. And people talk about video inserts in proposals. You're like, holy crap, this is a different level. No, but going back to your core question of, know, what do you do with this kind of young, naive college grad attorney marketing is one is you.

Mason Brady (26:24.36)
Yeah. Yep.

Perryn Olson (26:34.158)
I have to give them the strategy, give them the playbook. And this is actually where fractionals I find fit really well. most, most people kind of think if I'm coming as a fraction, I want to replace the in-house marketing. Like, no, I don't want to do the day to day. I don't want to do the social media. and there's certain things that helps to have somebody just walk in the halls and hearing those things. And you're not going to get that with an outside consultant because I can't walk the halls of all my clients every day. and so you pair them with an experienced person.

like a fractional CMO or, you know, there's, there's other avenues as well, but obviously this is one of the most familiar with, and I help with the strategy and the mentorship and that leadership. And I'm also helping the CEO, the CFO, you you're the two people that one those two would be in charge of marketing, but they don't know shit about marketing. So you really have the blinding of the mind of it or young college graduate that might have a marketing degree. Guess what they don't teach in marketing class.

Mason Brady (27:28.328)
how to make the strategy. Yeah, yeah.

Perryn Olson (27:28.878)
Well, how do I construction marketing? They'll teach you the textbook, how to do marketing strategy and you'll have to fill it. it's, I've had a social media coordinator actually one time it's like, I gave a marketing strategy and she's like, you're missing this and this. like, those don't apply to B2B, but she'd only been taught essentially consumer marketing. And, and I'm just like, yeah, you're naive. Good person could execute really well. It's how it just didn't have the background of construction. So you pair that, you know,

the abilities there and it's a good pairing of, you know, and this is easy to kind of make a decision as you're, are you going to hire more of a seasoned marketing director with somebody who's got 10, 15 years experience that can do a little strategy, maybe not company leadership and vision, but can do the marketing strategy and then, can get down in the weeds and do the social posts and, you know, the promotion line and stuff, or do you hire very young and then balance that with a fractional.

No, but the biggest issue I find is just the blind lead, the blind, where the CFO, CEO that don't know much about marketing and that they're hiring somebody and they kind of say, here, we're a hundred million dollar trade contractor, when it's more business. just, and then they wonder why that person falls, you know, leaves after a year and a half. Cause they're just, they're frustrated. They generally are told no a lot. and it's really, it comes down to there's no strategy. or one of the issues we've had with clients coming on board is they're, they're kind of used to that mentality.

And we're like, look, we're a growth focused company. We're going to focus on things that are really going to change your bottom line, change your top line. I don't really care about the soccer jerseys right now. And that's actually a conversation we're having this week with a client. like, I don't care about putting your logo on the soccer jerseys. Yes. Is that part of the plan that we're going to do sponsorships in local community? Yes. But do you need a CMO to do that for you? No. So like, let's find a different way to do that. find out the company that prints the shirts will gladly make a logo, put your logo on it for free.

So it's sometimes it's just a mindset shift. If somebody just wants to offload that task to the marketing department, if we're the only ones there, because they don't have anyone in the house, we do get some of that stuff. And we've got a delivery team to help us with some of that, but our goal is to stay high level. It's a very growth focused and it's it's interesting. We people come to us and like, yeah, we're stagnant for five years. And it's because they're focused on those little things. They're not focused on the big strategy. They're not worried about tackling a new market sector or new geography. They're not worried about servicing their own clients.

Perryn Olson (29:52.162)
They're so focused on these little like pissant things essentially.

Mason Brady (29:56.734)
I'm interested too, because I've loved that overview of the reality that it's not just about sponsorship on a jersey. It's not just about social media, like just posting a bunch. There has to be a plan behind it. And if you're getting a recent college grad, there's an element of there has to be deployment. There has to be implementation. But there still has to be thought and a strategy behind it to try to get the best ROI. And that's where

That's where you all can come in. I'm interested though, because I, you some of the marketing channels themselves, right? Like social media is one. And I think a lot of people think like, that's the top one. And I think that they miss so many opportunities. Like it was, it was actually really interesting. You know, again, the definition of marketing and then how it blends with sales too, right? You know, and defining the separation between those two, but yeah, I'm interested like,

Outside of social media posting, going and doing a sponsorship of a kids sports team, what are the things that you feel like are just so clear and easy for construction companies that they should be doing that they're not doing?

Perryn Olson (31:09.934)
A couple of things is just good search engine optimization or SEO because what happens even if get a referral, takes it, one of your clients takes the time to refer you 92 % of the time. And that's a stat that Hinge Marketing has been tracking for years. People are going to go look you up on your website. So they're going to able to find you and they're not going to, nobody's going to refer you with your exact domain name. They're going to give you your company name and usually use an abbreviated version of that.

So they got to go find you. But it also, it's a big thing about talent acquisition is you got to have a good web presence because that's where most everyone's going to go look at you. And it's an issue I've had in the industry since I started two decades ago was, you know, I'd have these old timers kind of tell them, we don't sell buildings off our website. I'm like, yeah, but you lose them. You know, you're losing that opportunity because they go to your website like, no, these people aren't qualified and they make this snap judgment. And you don't believe me. Look how we, we buy, you know,

How do you buy a TV? How do you buy a car? You do this research, you go online, you go click through 20 websites, interviews. Like you think people aren't doing that for a multi-million dollar project? You're wrong. But yeah.

Mason Brady (32:14.718)
I'm sorry, I just have to emphasize, I love that phrase that, because I think that there's so much truth in that that you may not win them on your website, but you'll lose them on your website.

Perryn Olson (32:24.192)
You totally will lose them. Well, you think of how people buy is you go Google a term and you go through and you open up 10, 12 tabs and you literally go through. Nope, nope, nope. There's stats out there. So you have seven seconds to capture somebody's attention and get them to stay now for a minute and a half. And then if you get them for a minute and a half, now you're trying to get them to five. Like it's, there's these kinds of steps. you need that top piece, that picture, that headline needs to grab them enough to say, I know what I'm talking about. I'm the person you're looking for. And that's it.

Mason Brady (32:52.764)
And I can't help but think how many times I've gone to a janky website and thought, man, if this is what their website looks like, I can't trust their service delivery. it's like they built this in the 90s and they are gonna be so antiquated in their approach. This just doesn't make sense, no way. So I love that.

Perryn Olson (33:03.448)
Right.

Perryn Olson (33:15.938)
Well, and it's one of the biggest, most impactful changes ever made to a contractor was actually free. I went to visit a client. Addison was one of these, fly in the night before, spend the day with them and get to know them and then come back and finish the marketing strategy. And when I was there, I walked in with a colleague. We're in suits. We asked to meet with the CEO of the company. And we obviously had an appointment and the lady at the front desk was so rude. Like extremely rude. like, we're not homeless people knocking on the door asking for food. You know, I'm literally.

I have a scheduled appointment. I'm very professional addressed. I'm meeting with your boss, your boss's boss. And so when the CEO came out and right before that I was like, Hey, hold on a second. And I just had to listen to this person, greet people at the front door, answer the phone. And she sounded like a mean version of Roz from Monsters Inc. Like, personality, but she's mean on top of that. And I'm like, you just need to get her off the phone.

Mason Brady (34:02.054)
No, man.

Perryn Olson (34:09.89)
Don't fire her. She's obviously, she'd been at the company for decades and stuff, but like she's, she's miserable for whatever reason. She doesn't want to be there or that's just her personality, whatever it is. Like move her somewhere behind the scenes, put someone else who's friendly there. Cause this is your director of first impressions. If I walk in the front door, if I call you on the phone, that's your first impression. We literally changed that thing. Like he changed it that week. He took our advice and made sense. And he's like instantly, all of they started getting leads. It's like.

What did we do? We didn't stop scaring away the leads. So to go back to your initial question though, about the kind of the untapped things, there's no silver bullet for anyone. You know, there's always some new tech I'll try to try out and, you know, hope that's the new silver bullet for the year. But the thing it really goes back to is what's your ideal client profile? Where are they? You know, if you're going to, if you're going to focus on medical office buildings, where are the people that are buying medical office buildings? Well, let's go to the physicians. If you go to the, the,

the American Marketing Association, is that where your office is? Or do you need to hang out with the residents? You got to find out where that audience is. I knew a contractor that spent a lot of time with the local tech incubator. He's like, is one of these days, one of these companies is going to move big and they're going to take us and we're going to build their headquarters. He planted a lot of seeds and he was a seasoned business owner. He was also learning. I'm a construction company. I'm learning from essentially tech startups.

and how they operate. And he really refined his own, like he kind of took what they were listening to from their speakers and stuff like that and really brought it themselves. you know, there's, there's no one thing. The one thing I find is fine. Define your audience, go where they're at.

Mason Brady (35:47.39)
Yeah, no, I think my dad is a West Coast marketing manager for an ag chemical company. He has absolutely no influence in the website whatsoever, has never touched it. This is a 75 year old man and he is the marketing manager. And I remember growing up, I was always stoked we'd get donuts on the way before school. You know why we went to the donut shop? That's where the farmers were.

Perryn Olson (36:12.738)
Thank

Mason Brady (36:14.524)
they were getting their morning coffee and donuts, right? And he knew that that's where they were. And so he'd stop in and say hello and just, you know, friendly hello and talk with them and chat with them a bit. And same thing, you know, he, you know, he's in California and, you know, you have to get in order to be a, what's called a pest control advisor. Like you have to go through CPE credits. Like you have to get, you know, additional training every year. And so he just, he hosts some of those training courses and he knows that these are the people that are going to make recommendations to the farmers.

Perryn Olson (36:17.944)
Yeah.

Mason Brady (36:44.402)
on what to apply. so, yeah, he wants to be front and center and he knows that this is where they're hanging out. So I'm gonna go there. The guy has, does nothing on LinkedIn, has no influence on the website. He's just going where they hang out, right? And I, to your point, it's, you know, where does your ideal, it's so important to have that ICP, the ideal customer profile, to define that and then to ask the question, where are they? And I need to spend time there.

Perryn Olson (37:10.478)
Yeah. And sometimes your ideal client profile actually starts with who you don't want. When I first started getting into construction, it started with my boss went to a conference called Mind Your Own Business, best conferences, like names ever. So I named it. And it was really focusing on niche. This was 20 something years ago. And she first told me, I'm like, you're crazy. And then literally, I'm like, this makes a lot of sense. Cause one of the things we were struggling with was we had so many clients in different industries and like,

Mason Brady (37:21.682)
Good day, bro.

Perryn Olson (37:37.792)
We literally got invited to like four different holiday parties on the same night. We're just like, how do we go? Like, some of clients are like, I need you go to my industry association so you can learn more about my industry. And I'm like, we can't like just, that's not possible. So I really is kind of just kind of a play a little bit more defense. And so what we started with actually was, okay, believe in niche. Okay. I get the value of niching. We can come more of an expert. I was in my mid twenties and I could accelerate my career faster if I niche down. Cause I need to know less about more.

more about one thing instead of a bunch of stuff about little things. so we actually, first thing we did is just get rid of the ones we didn't like lawyers. We didn't like doctors. It just was not fitting in our culture, you know, and every time we made that exception, it bit us in the ass. just, but we had, was like five or six contractors at that point. So it was like, what's all five of them? Like, Hey, is there a need for a construction marketer? And they're like, yes, absolutely. Like, is there a need outside of this market? Like, absolutely.

And we went at it and it was interesting as I kind of grew more of a national presence. I learned that there's a lot of AEC marketers and so architect, interior and contractors. But most of them were very focused on architects. Couple did a little engineering, none of them focused on construction. So I was just like, all right, I'm just construction. Forget the AEC marketer. So like where a lot of people in my space are AEC marketing firms or AEC marketers. I'm construction. And really think about construction. It's extremely broad. When you really dig into what I'm doing.

And, know, there's general contractors, there's contract, there's what? 50 different trades. And then there's suppliers and building products and stuff. And I've the whole tech side of things. And, know, there's a guy I've met on LinkedIn. He only does helical pile marketing. That's it. That's niche. And I know, and I walk into a contractor, I know the space, I know the terms, I know what they're talking about. And I feel like I'm already 70 % of the way there. And in some markets like Texas, Louisiana, so I essentially 80 % of the way, I know the players. This dude.

Mason Brady (39:17.854)
Yeah. Yes.

Perryn Olson (39:33.548)
walks in, he's probably 95 % of the marketing plan figured out. He's just got to kind of figure out their local buyers, their local personality, things like that. But I'm like, man, like we've talked about bringing on our team and they're like, then we needed some very specific clients. And I've actually worked in that space a little and I didn't realize probably going against that guy. So I thought I was niche, you know, and he's super niche.

Mason Brady (39:45.768)
Yes.

Mason Brady (39:49.234)
Yup.

Yep. We kind of, yeah, as we begin kind of wrapping up here, Perrin, that, you know, we've talked a lot about marketing, you know, in different tactics of, you know, one, and tactics is wrong word, right? You have to build your high level strategy, and then you have to implement a plan and the idea of going where your ideal customer profile is. And that is not necessarily always digital, right? Everybody thinks digital, but...

you know, you ultimately want to hang out where ideal customer profile is and spend time there and develop those relationships there. And, you know, a lot of what we're talking about as a part of marketing is this like, it's this new business development, right? It's getting these new clients and yeah, that's important, but what would you say marketing's role is in fostering existing relationships and helping to cultivate additional sales from existing relationships that have already been made?

Perryn Olson (40:46.894)
So one of the biggest audiences, the forgotten audience, feel like most people forget is the internal audience. And that's actually your talent, your existing talent. And then the next one is your current clients, because almost every marketer is focused on net new. And that's great. And in construction, you're not worried about churn as much because it's project-based, but you'll see if you look at it, you might work with one developer that's multiple projects. Or if you're a trade, you work with a couple of GCs. The trade GC relationship is really interesting. I made a chart one time.

If you pick up one GC a quarter for five years and you get one project a quarter for each of those GCs as you go, at end of five years, it's like 200 projects a quarter. I mean, it's insane, the compound effort of just adding one GC a quarter and not a month, a quarter, like, that's doable. You're going to talk about getting four projects a year as a trade contractor. Like their marketing plan is a lot easier because it's very clear defined audience.

And basically if you do good work, they're going to hire you again. And you're generally trying to get in with one GC and it's kind of work laterally across the other PMs, the estimators, pre-con, things like that. where is marketing where sales? So one is sales support. We need the sales flyers, the trade show, the website, all those things are kind of supporting things and helping with some of the playbooks of what to talk about. But then sales has to take it and tweak it and kind of craft it.

The, definition of what's the different between sales marketing is marketing is one to many, like we're the global holistic, you know, messenger and sales is one on one. You know, we're the one having this one-on-one conversation with a client or, you know, obviously sometimes it's a group of people, but it's your, why one company to your one company generally. And you're that hand to hand combat is what some people will say sales is. And in marketing is the artillery, essentially shooting from the back. Like you want to go, you know, there's a lot of veterans in construction.

And so that's kind of just, there's a lot of sales support and it dumbfounded me early in my career. And it really stumped me for a while was when I started seeing in sales marketing, not getting along. I mean, I started seeing clients I was working with, like the issue was, like, they're sabotaging each other. Not just they don't like each other, they're sabotaging each other. Like I found out a marketer one time changed the number on a proposal right before it out. It will intentionally lose a project. I'm like, what?

Mason Brady (42:45.246)
Yeah.

Mason Brady (43:13.201)
Perryn Olson (43:14.028)
Yeah, obviously that person was gone very quickly. you know, but it's, you know, the other side is if you train the, the, the team, and one of the things I'm actually working on is some toolbox talks for the field team and how do they fit in the marketing? Cause most people kind of forget about their influence in marketing. And yes, they're not doing the hand to hand combat. They're not doing the artillery side of thing, but they're still representing the company and you know, how the job site looks.

Mason Brady (43:15.676)
Yeah. Yes, please.

Perryn Olson (43:41.07)
You know, how they act when they're wearing, you know, the shirts, the safety vest, the hard hats at lunch, you know, how they drive with a company truck. Like I, there's a horse drive, a buddy of mine called me one day at an event. He'd been working on a deal for like three years. It was literally going to set his like decade. was this massive opportunity and they were going, the day they're going to bid and select his, had all this influencers. He knew everyone to do and his client champion had put his proposal back when he had binders on top of the stack.

CEO walked in furious and said, whatever we do, we're never hiring this Daniel expletives everywhere. Is this damn construction company and the champion literally had to take their binder and move it to the bottom. And when the CEO was going through the proposals of literally took their binder through it against the wall. It's like, we're never hiring. told you. Because on the way there, the CEO got a one finger salute from one of their employees and a company truck. And that spoke volumes to the company culture. And he's like, I'm never.

Mason Brady (44:27.164)
Why did they do that?

Perryn Olson (44:40.27)
So this business developer had been working years on this. This was literally a game changer for the company and for him and the marketing. I mean, this company probably spent 30, $40,000 on this pursuit in the end when you put in all the time and stuff like that, the be interrupted by a field worker or essentially in a, in a truck with, you know, one figure salute. So I've always told the operations team, whether it's instruction, engineering, things that like you guys still have to do good work. You're the defense.

Defense wins championships. If we bring in all the work and we're losing and pissing people off, but you guys can't do good work, we're never going to go anywhere. We're going to shrink and die. We're not going to grow. So at very least, I you guys to play good defense. But also remember you're wearing the team uniform. Literally when you're in a truck, literally when you're in safety, it's even if you take it off. And this is something that when I went to high school, they told us if we get in a fight in the mall and we're in school uniform, we're going to get trouble. Even if not and people know we're associated with that school, we're going to get trouble. And it's like.

And I didn't understand it, but now as a brand marketer, I'm like, cause we're part affiliated with the brand. You know, it's you're part of that. And so if you act up, you know, cause if something happens, you potentially on the front page of these, you know, the student at this school did this thing and you're like, okay, go get it.

Mason Brady (45:54.034)
No, no, I, that makes me think like, yeah, back when I was in high school, I had the privilege and the blessing to, my church actually put me through a private Christian high school. like they sponsor me through and I had my school t-shirt on and, but my brother, my older brother was getting married and, I went to the local drug store to get him like, you know, a marriage night gift, right. And I won't go into detail, but got him a marriage night gift. And I remember.

the person in front of line looked at my shirt, looked at what I was buying and looked at my age and said, you know, they give those out at public school for free. And, and I mean, he was just, he was pissed, you know, and I mean, cause he could see what I was supposed to be representing and that, and that's the prime example. It's just, you know, that idea that if you're part of a company, right, that you have to carry that brand forward. But I think what I'm getting out of this, right, is you have to have a strategy, but

Perryn Olson (46:35.342)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mason Brady (46:53.98)
it has to permeate your entire company. can't, and that's what we talked about, right? Like it can't just be the focus. You can't just hire a college grad and say, that's our marketing department and that's their focus. It has to permeate the entire company culture in order for it to be successful, right?

Perryn Olson (47:13.144)
Well, and for the GCs, you know, you also have to worry about your subs, right? Cause who gets in trouble when they act up, you know, if something goes wrong with the job site, it's the GCs fault. So like I actually had a GC I worked with, we built out a code of conduct on the job site. And that was part of the contract, the agreement that they made with their trade partners that you follow your people will follow this. And a lot of them, you you've got a few of them. like, Hey, we ain't ever doing that. And they went to like, well, just read it. It's fair. And, but then they, so some of them are actually like, can we borrow that?

And can we make that our own? so they had to decorate their own culture. And that was part of their own employee contract.

Mason Brady (47:45.455)
lol

Yep. Yep. It's, it's just to this point, like you have to find the ways to enforce it. Right. But I mean, you have to set the expectations upfront that your team members and your vendor partners, your supply chain partners, like this is our expectation. And I think it comes down, at least I found that when you're vocal about who you are and your values and that, mean, leading with those values and being vocal about them and letting the world know them.

It can be hard, right? Because people are going to call you out if you aren't aligned with those values. But it is like, it is an easier way to disseminate amongst the team that this is what we're about and you need to live these out too, right? And you have to emphasize them.

Perryn Olson (48:31.394)
Yeah, core values should want to attract the right people and turn away the wrong people. but it also should, it should empower your people and make decisions when it's not in the handbook. I don't know what to do in this situation, but my, our core values, it says we're going to do the right thing to our customers, even if it's unprofitable company. So when I, we review this as a company, I'm not going to get fired because I actually follow the core values versus the other way around. I should get fired if I did, you know, shortcut at something.

and did fall into core value. It's like core value should be a fireball offense.

Mason Brady (49:04.902)
Absolutely. Well, Baron, I'm so grateful to have you on the show today that, you know, for our audience, talk through, you know, identifying that ideal customer profile, identifying who you really want to work with that go, no go, you know, then spending time where they're at, whatever channel that may be, but where they're at, but then permeating that entire strategy throughout the entire company culture, because you could spend a whole lot of time in marketing and sales, but

If you get that one PM or that one member on your team that gives that person a terrible or gives that company a terrible experience, all those efforts and all those dollars are wasted. And so there are some key takeaways for construction business owners here, construction companies, but is there anything else you'd like to leave our audience that, hey, this is one thing that if I could solidify today that I want them to walk away with?

Perryn Olson (49:58.882)
Don't try to follow everyone else. mean, we talk about brand differentiation. It doesn't mean your brand is unique from everyone out there in the world, but it should mean if I put you up against three competitors, there's something unique from you. So it's not just a good thing or it's safer to actually have some personality. If you look at the celebrities we celebrate, they generally are unique, not one amongst the millions. So use that when you're trying to be kind of faded to the background.

Mason Brady (50:21.192)
Yep. Yeah. Yep.

Mason Brady (50:27.784)
Yeah, that Lady Gaga with the meat suit, right? Yeah, right? Yep, certainly do. Well, thank you so much, Baron, for being on the show with us today. I really love these highlighted examples for the audience. And yeah, I just really appreciate having you. So, you know, we're probably obviously going to release this after Christmas, but I do hope you have a wonderful Christmas nonetheless. And thank the good Lord for some colder weather for both of us on these Gulf Coast states.

Perryn Olson (50:30.414)
That's a bit extreme, but you remembered it.

Perryn Olson (50:54.722)
Yeah.

Mason Brady (50:57.202)
Yeah, thank you so much, Perrin. Really appreciate having you.

Perryn Olson (50:59.628)
I enjoyed the conversation as well. Thanks so much, Mason.

Mason Brady (51:02.108)
Awesome. So yeah, from here, Brian, that obviously went much technically better. And yeah, absolutely, we nailed it that time. from here, yeah, I'm gonna have you exit and then I'm gonna do this intro. But yeah, that was great. And kind of same routine that we went through that I foresee this being released in February, either probably mid-February or so, because we do have a bit of a backlog. And so I see it being released then.

Yeah, brother, I'm going to follow up with you in regards to those seminar talks, those quarterly talks. So yeah. Awesome. Thank you, Baron. Appreciate it, brother. Have a Merry Christmas, okay? Yep. See you.

Perryn Olson (51:36.824)
Yeah, sounds good. All right, take care. You as well. Thank you. Bye.

Mason Brady (51:52.698)
All right. One sec, Cindy.

Do you struggle with marketing as a construction company? What is marketing? What should you be doing? Why aren't all your social media posts actually drumming up any new business for you? Is this the pain point? Is this something that you're struggling with today as the owner of a construction company? Well, today's guest, Parent Olson of Alt CMO, he is a fractional CMO.

specific to the construction industry. He is an expert in construction marketing and he is a growth driven marketer, meaning that he's not going to come up with some pretty design, pretty website design for your company and call that marketing. The intention is, is putting new revenue on the board for your construction company. And that is what parent helps specialize in is ultimately to get that ideal customer profile.

the projects that you really want and the clients that you really want and get them coming to you. So if this is something that you're struggling with, we are so excited for you to listen to Perrin today and his insights on developing a marketing strategy, implementing it and spending time in the right places with your customers and permeating it so that everybody in your organization is actually living out your marketing strategy. That is not an isolated effort by just your marketing team, but

everybody in your company is actually living out this strategy so you have the greatest chance of success. So we are so excited to have you. Let's dive in.

Mason Brady (53:32.956)
All right. Yeah, so, so you can cut some of that. And don't forget to rate us on your favorite platform. We're available on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. Your support helps us brew more great episodes. Didn't you like that? Stay with us at the end of episode and we'll have a great giveaway for coffee lovers. So for anybody that has stayed with us until the end of the show here, we do have one of these great Brady CFO mugs. If you

comments, construction on one of the major podcast platforms or YouTube. And if you are one of those ones that comments construction, you will be entered into a giveaway to receive one of these mugs directly to you. So one of these wonderful Brady CFO, these are, these are Arctic mugs, R T I C. they are based out of Katie, Katie, Texas. They're a wonderful Yeti competitor, but, great, great mugs. so yeah, make sure that you comment construction on your favorite podcast platform or YouTube.

and you'll be entered in a giveaway to get one of these delivered directly to you. So thank you all for listening. Thanks. Bye.