JSU / Playbooks / Commercial Construction
How to price your Construction sales bottleneck
Run the same math as the JSU Bottleneck Index on your own Construction numbers in three steps.
The Commercial Construction bottleneck prices a single question: what does it cost you per year to be slow and unfocused at first contact? For a typical firm it is around $960,000.
The formula
Annual bottleneck = average deal value × winnable deals lost per quarter × 4. For Commercial Construction, that is $240,000 × 1 × 4 = $960,000.
Run it on your real numbers
The published figure is representative. Take your own average deal and your honest quarterly loss to slow and generic follow-up. Long bid cycles; the list closes early.
- Zoning approval or financing closing signals a project
- A GC wins an award and assembles subs
- An owner's facility hits an age or compliance trigger
- A competitor's project stumbles publicly
Then decide if it's worth closing
Once you have your number, compare it to the cost of fixing speed and aim at first contact. In commercial construction, the leak is almost always the larger figure.
Remember what each variable really represents. The $240,000 is one construction relationship walking out the door. The 1 losses a quarter are not no-fits; they are deals you could have won had you reached the buyer inside the 3 business days window. Multiply by four and you have a full year of revenue that went to whoever simply answered first. That is the figure to price your fix against.
The bottleneck is rarely effort. It is speed and aim at the first touch.
Why is the window three days when the project takes a year?
Because the bid list closes early. The real window is shortlist formation, not response time. The engine puts you in front of the owner before the list is written.
Which signals predict a project before the RFP?
Permits, zoning approvals, financing closings, and GC award announcements. All four precede the formal bid by weeks.
Does it work for subs as well as GCs?
Yes. Subs win by reaching the awarded GC first; GCs win by reaching the owner first. Same engine, different first call.