In residential construction, “we just need more leads” is still one of the most common sentences you hear.

It makes sense. When a builder has wages to cover, supervisors to keep busy, and a pipeline that feels a bit shaky, the instinct is to chase volume. More enquiries. More quotes. More jobs.

But on today’s episode of The Good Builder Podcast, Az and Drew from Increase Construction made a blunt point that cuts through the noise:

You can absolutely flood your inbox with leads. That does not mean you are building a healthier business.

What builders often need is not more work. It is the right work, at the right margin, with the right team behind it.

And that starts in a place many builders avoid because it feels uncomfortable: picking a number and telling the truth about what it will take to hit it.

The real problem isn’t a lack of opportunity

Aaron put it plainly. Builders and construction businesses are surrounded by opportunity, but not every opportunity is a good one.

Plenty of builders have lived the same cycle:

• Marketing ramps up
• Enquiries surge
• Quoting becomes a full-time job
• The team gets stretched
• Projects drift, quality slips, stress spikes
• The month ends and you feel drained
• You look back and wonder how you worked so hard but moved so little

Drew sees this constantly across different corners of the industry, including the insurance building space, which he describes as hectic.

The bigger issue, he says, is that many builders have never been shown how to decide what work they should be doing in the first place. They are busy. They are capable. But they are not always intentional.

Start with the revenue target, not the marketing tool

A big theme of the conversation was how often builders get sold a “widget”.

A widget might be:

• a software platform
• Facebook ads
• Google ads
• SEO
• a new CRM
• a lead-gen service

None of these are automatically bad. The problem is when the solution is picked before the business has even defined the goal.

Drew’s starting point is simple: set the revenue target for the next 12 months.

What do you want to make?

What did you make last year?

What is the gap?

When he asks builders that question, he often sees an immediate shift. The body relaxes. The stress reduces. Because now the business has a destination, not just motion.

From there, the conversation becomes more practical:

• If the work is already coming in, the job is operational: can you deliver it without breaking the team?
• If the work is not coming in, the job is commercial: how do we generate enquiries, and more importantly, better enquiries?

Either way, the target turns the business into something you can steer.

Growth has a lifecycle, and it keeps coming back

One of Drew’s more useful ideas is the “lifecycle” builders move through as they grow.

It often looks like this:

1. You need leads
2. You need better leads and faster close rates
3. You need staff and trades to deliver the work
4. You stabilise
5. You grow again, and the cycle repeats

Drew’s point is that this never really ends if you want to keep growing. Even big operators find themselves back at recruitment, procurement, and capacity challenges because the market keeps moving and the business keeps evolving.

The difference between businesses that grow cleanly and businesses that grow painfully is whether they are addressing the right constraint at the right time.

“Marketing for sales” is only half the story

A moment that will land with a lot of builders was the discussion about marketing budgets.

Aaron reflected on a common mistake from the agency world: pushing marketing hard to generate leads, without any real plan to resource and fulfil the work properly.

Drew reframed it in a way that builders can actually use:

Don’t just think of marketing as marketing for the sale. Think of marketing for people too.

In plain terms, many builders treat marketing like it exists only to win work. But in a tight labour market, marketing can also be used to attract:

• site supervisors
• estimators
• carpenters
• subcontractors
• key office roles
• long-term trade partners

When you market consistently and credibly, the business becomes more visible. That visibility can bring enquiries, but it can also bring talent and supply chain relationships.

This is especially relevant to larger builders. Drew said that at a certain level, bigger businesses usually have lead management and process more dialled in. What they often struggle with is finding the right trades and people, particularly in regional locations, and especially when the best operators are too busy to respond to cold outreach.

His view is that the game changes when you create systems that make those people come to you.

Positioning isn’t fluff, it’s what wins the better jobs

“Positioning” can sound like marketing jargon, but Drew’s examples were very grounded.

He described a Melbourne builder who found him through a previous podcast. Victoria is slower, the builder has future tenders coming, and there is a gap to bridge.

The builder’s challenge was not workmanship. It was differentiation in a competitive quoting environment where prospects were collecting four or five quotes.

Drew’s advice was simple:

• Create a capability statement that actually tells the story properly
• Add a short video over the top of tenders and quotes
• Make it easier for the client to trust you without a long meeting

He predicted the builder would start hearing a phrase that every builder wants to hear:

“You weren’t the lowest price, but we’re going with you.”

That’s not magic. That is trust, presented clearly, in a market where most competitors still send a plain email with an attachment and hope for the best.

Aaron backed it up with a practical example from outside construction: a UK solar company that sent a quick phone video with their quotes, explaining what they recommended and why, and saw a major improvement in conversions.

The lesson is straightforward: if the quote is a commodity, you compete on price. If the quote feels personal and high-care, you compete on confidence.

The “video layer” is becoming a competitive advantage

A major thread through the episode was Drew’s belief that video is now one of the simplest levers builders can pull.

Not for slick brand ads. For everyday business.

Examples discussed included:

• sending a Loom video with a tender
• recording Zoom meetings and sending a link back with notes
• video intros for recruitment ads, especially for senior roles
• using video to reduce the time wasted in early sales conversations

Drew’s view is that people can tolerate average video quality, but they will not tolerate bad audio. If builders are going to try this, the first step is not buying fancy gear. It is making sure the sound is clear.

The bigger point is that video reduces friction. It creates a sense of connection without requiring a site visit or a long phone call. It also helps decision-makers shortlist faster, which is especially valuable when you are dealing with time-poor construction managers, owners, and executives.

Brand story starts with a phone, not a workshop

When the conversation moved to “brand story”, Drew kept it practical.

He is not trying to run deep brand strategy sessions like a specialist agency might. His goal is to help builders articulate, in plain language:

• why they exist
• who they serve
• what outcomes they deliver
• what they want to be known for

His method is straightforward: voice note it.

Go for a walk, speak into the phone, send the audio. Turn it into words. Shape it into the top section of a capability statement, website copy, or internal message.

For builders who struggle to “write marketing”, this matters. Speaking is often easier than typing. And the moment a builder can explain their value in their own words, everything else gets easier: sales, hiring, culture, and consistency.

Consistency is not a content plan, it is diary discipline

When Aaron asked about consistency, Drew’s answer wasn’t “post every day”.

It was time management.

Pick one or two channels. Commit to them. Put it in the diary. Do it even when you are tired.

He admitted he still feels the pressure of it, and that the hardest part is always starting. But he also made a point many builders will respect:

If you leave marketing until Friday afternoon, you will skip it, justify it, and wonder why nothing changes.

Consistency is a leadership behaviour before it is a marketing strategy.

Growth comes with visibility, and visibility comes with a target on your back

One of the more honest parts of the episode was the acknowledgement that greater visibility can attract criticism.

When builders become more active online, they can start receiving negative comments or reviews, sometimes unfair, sometimes petty.

Drew’s approach is calm:

• be factual
• address what matters
• don’t spiral
• don’t treat one comment like it ends your career

Aaron’s point was that this used to feel terrifying for businesses. Now it is simply part of being visible, and the businesses that grow learn how to handle it without losing their heads.

Real-world outcomes: what “right work” can unlock

The episode included examples of what happens when builders get clear on profitable work and build the systems to support it.

One example Drew shared was a regional builder who evolved from a small operation to taking over a licence for a volume builder brand expanding into Queensland. The shift involved:

• refining marketing and branding
• removing less profitable work
• strengthening leadership and operational confidence
• building the ability to backfill trades and staff

Another example involved venture capital-backed businesses under growth pressure, where expansion decisions require fast recruitment and strong internal capability messaging.

These stories weren’t presented as hype. They were used to show what becomes possible when a builder stops chasing every job and starts building toward a defined target with the right resourcing plan behind it.

The core advice: pick a number and commit to it

The final takeaway from Drew was simple, and it is likely the most useful part of the entire episode:

Pick a number.

Not “we want to grow”. Not “we might hire a supervisor”. Not “we should do more marketing”.

A number.

A revenue target, or a clear jobs target if job size is consistent.

Because when you pick a number, you remove the escape hatch. You also remove the blame game.

From there, you can work backwards:

• What margins do we need?
• What jobs fit those margins?
• What team capacity is required?
• What lead sources match those jobs?
• What systems do we need to hire and retain the right people?

That is how builders move from being busy to being intentional.

And that is how they start getting the right work, not just more work.

Learn more about Drew and the team at Increase Construction here.