Selling Speed

No, this article this isn’t about smuggling drugs inside construction trailers.

It is about emphasizing to customers how much faster they can be in business when they choose to use factory built construction instead of conventional site construction. Many clients assume that the only significant benefit to factory built is reduced cost.

As modular building construction has grown in popularity, factory built buildings have become increasingly more sophisticated due to customer demand and/or entrepreneurial manufacturers who offer more design-oriented options versus the original factory-built cookie-cutter buildings of yesterday.

All-steel construction, concrete floors, brick, block and/or stucco exterior finishes, high quality commercial plumbing and electrical fixtures, and Grade 1 commercial doors and windows all make for buildings that are identical to site built. In many cases this has caused the price of a modular building to be the same as site built or, in some situations, even more. The customer who was originally drawn to our industry, attracted by the desire to spend less, has now lost that motivation.

Our customers have all heard the adage “Time is Money”, and they all believe it. Modular construction speeds up the process like no other but many customers just don’t understand this until they see the results for themselves. The benefits of accelerated construction to the owner include:

• More rapid return on investment
• Shorter interim/construction financing
• Less site disruption

With conventional construction, the project can’t begin until all zoning approvals, design review, and site permits are in place. The site is graded, pad prepped, underground utilities are installed, foundation/floor slab is poured, and only now can construction of the walls and structure begin. This requires an eight-month construction schedule.
Factory built construction allows us concurrent construction of the factory component, while prepping the site and building the foundation. This eliminates the need to wait for construction of the foundation to be completed in order to build the structure. In many jurisdictions the factory built construction of the project can commence prior to any site permitting being complete. Consequently this allows for the most accelerated schedule, since the factory construction time typically takes longer than the foundation site preparation.

To illustrate this more clearly, let’s consider a project my company, Modular Technology, completed last summer. A local school district had made a commitment to replace all existing doublewide portable classroom buildings with “permanent” facilities. By this they meant a building that would look exactly like the existing ten-year-old main school building. The problem was, that due to increased enrollment, they could not lose the ten classrooms that the portables housed. They required more space now, but could not sacrifice the existing space, or the time that it would take to pull it all together. The new construction had to be on top of the existing portable site and when the next school year began, the ten classrooms needed to be ready for teachers.

Summer break began in late May, and the new building needed to be occupied no later than mid July. The site work could not commence until school was out, which only gave us a little more than a month and a half to complete a 12,500 sq. ft. building with a brick exterior and concrete slab floor. Using conventional site construction techniques this would have been impossible, but with the advent of factory construction, this clearly posed no problem. The greatly reduced time on site sold this project. The foundation was completed June 10th, the module pieces were craned into place by the 12th, and we still had a month left over to complete finishes.
In earlier discussions with the school district and their architect, it was the graphic time line, that depicted the realities of build time and savings by concurrent construction, that made them believers.

Once you get the contract the fun starts. That is, if you are able to utilize the speed that your factory can produce. A clear understanding of the local jurisdictional requirements and time to get permits will assure that you’re not left holding modules off site instead of delivering them as soon as they are completed. Having a team of architectural and civil consultants that appreciate the accelerated schedule is mandatory.

The best sales tool you have is the wherewithal to get the job done, and done quickly. Make no mistake, though time is money, speed does not always mean quality. Offer quick results on quality work ahead of your client’s expectations, and speed will sell itself. Some of my best praises are heard being sung by the client who needed that school, and learned how quickly his problems could be solved.

Be sure to stay one step ahead of your clients by recognizing that a company that says they can do something, and a company that delivers that something ahead of schedule, are two totally different things.