Win the work buyers pay more for, before you sell.
Martin Dugan helps you win more recurring testing, maintenance and framework work in the years before a sale: the turnover that is still there after completion.
Part of the Reads Pre-Sale Programme. Led by Martin Dugan, Head of Deal Origination.
Why the mix of work matters to a buyer.
Demand is not the question in this sector; electrification is taking care of that. The question a buyer asks is how much of your work comes back every year without being won again.
Project turnover on its own has never commanded a premium. Buyers pay for certificated recurring work: EICR and fixed wire testing on a cycle, planned maintenance contracts, repeat commercial clients and places on public sector frameworks.
Regulation keeps adding to that recurring base. GOV.UK guidance sets five-yearly EICRs for privately rented homes and extends the requirement to social housing, which is the kind of cycle a testing book is built on. EV charge points and battery storage add to it too, once there is an installed base to maintain.
What growth marketing involves.
Choosing the work to grow
Start from what a buyer will value in your area: more testing and inspection, more planned maintenance, more commercial clients, or a route onto a framework.
Finding who buys it
Research into the landlords, property managers, facilities teams and main contractors who buy that work, so effort goes where the recurring income is.
Quiet, direct approaches
Approaches made patiently and without pressure, aimed at conversations that lead to contracts.
Contracts that renew
Testing cycles and planned maintenance come first, because buyers price a renewing contract very differently from a one-off job.
Who leads growth marketing.
Martin Dugan, Head of Deal Origination
Martin's main job is finding owners who are weighing up a sale before they go looking for an adviser. He also leads growth marketing, a Reads service that applies the same research, careful targeting and patient direct approaches to winning the recurring contracts and commercial clients a buyer pays more for.
Where this sits in the programme.
Growth marketing does most of its work three to four years out, when there is still time for new contracts to renew and show up in the accounts a buyer reviews.
See every stage of the programme · Next: Improving business value
Talk to us about the work you want more of.
A confidential conversation is enough to see which kinds of work would matter most to a buyer of your business.