A relationship program is a written plan for staying in front of the people who decide whether you're invited, shortlisted and called back. It replaces "we should catch up with them sometime" with a named list, a reason to make contact each quarter, and a record of what happened. It's the least glamorous service we run and often the most valuable.
What the service is
The short answer: we help you identify the 30 to 60 people who influence most of your work, sort them by influence and warmth, and keep regular, useful contact with each.
Those people usually fall into four groups:
- GC and CM estimators who build bid lists
- GC project managers and superintendents who decide whether they want you on the next job
- Owners, owners' representatives and facility managers in institutional and commercial buildings
- Consultants' contract administrators who see your submittals and close-out documents
Each group wants something different. Estimators want reliable numbers and complete scope. Superintendents want a foreman who shows up and a clean close-out. Facility managers want service response and documentation they can hand to an auditor.
Who it's for
Firms where the top two or three relationships produce most of the invitations, or where the founder holds them personally. It also suits companies going through a succession, where key accounts need to transfer to the next generation of managers before the founder steps back. If that's your situation, the group's exit and succession brand BizSell.ca works alongside Sedighi.ca on the ownership side.
What's included
- A contact map: names, roles, firms, last contact, warmth, and which of your people owns each relationship
- A quarterly contact calendar with a reason for every touch: a project completion note, a sector update, a site visit, a lunch-and-learn
- Post-project follow-up: a short close-out summary sent to the GC PM and the owner within a few weeks of substantial completion, with photos and a request for feedback
- Lunch-and-learn material your PMs can present, built around topics such as commissioning lessons or retrofit sequencing in occupied buildings
- Copy and layout for project-completion emails and LinkedIn posts, sent within CASL-compliant consent
- A quarterly review of who's gone quiet and why
Timeline
| Period | Work |
|---|---|
| Weeks 1–3 | Interviews with owners, estimators and PMs; build the contact map from emails, bid logs and memory |
| Weeks 4–6 | Agree owners for each relationship; write the first quarter's calendar and templates |
| Month 2–3 | First round of contact; first post-project summaries go out |
| Quarterly | Review warmth, invitations and gaps; refresh the calendar |
How results are measured
Three numbers. The count of distinct contacts who sent an invitation, a referral or a service call in the last 12 months. The share of invitations coming from your top two sources (you want it falling). And the number of contacts with no touch in 90 days (you want it near zero).
Here's a worked example. A firm whose top two GCs send 60% of 45 invitations a year gets 27 invitations from them. If one of those GCs loses its chief estimator and stops inviting, the firm could lose 13 or so invitations overnight. Spreading the base so no single GC exceeds 20% removes that cliff.
Your PMs and superintendents carry half of these relationships without realising it. Giving them a two-line note to send after a good site meeting costs nothing and gets noticed.
Mistakes to avoid
- Only calling when you need work. Contact in a slow month looks like desperation; contact in a busy month looks like a partner.
- Generic mass emails. A superintendent who sees "Dear Valued Partner" deletes it.
- Ignoring the owner side. Owners often have a say in who's invited back, especially on institutional work.
- No feedback loop. Ask why you lost. Many GCs will tell you if you ask politely and soon.
Your project pages make these conversations easier; see portfolio and safety pages. To start, call, text or email, or check what plans cost on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
Isn't this just what our owner does over lunch?
Partly, and that's the risk. When relationships live in one head, they leave with that person. We keep the lunches and add a list, a calendar and a record, so the next estimator or PM can pick them up.
Do you contact GCs on our behalf?
We prepare the material and the schedule, and we can send approved messages from your systems where consent allows. Introductions and site visits work far better coming from your people, so we set those up for them.
Which CRM do we need?
Whatever your team will actually open. A shared spreadsheet beats an expensive CRM nobody updates. If you already pay for one, we'll use it.
How do you handle owners as opposed to GCs?
Owners and facility managers care about uptime, service response and lifecycle cost; GCs care about price, schedule and paperwork. They get different content and different timing.