Construction Contractor: Drowning in the abyss of AI consumers

A few thoughts from a GC's perspective..

First, I'd stop competing with the people undercutting you on Facebook. Most of those customers are shopping purely on price, and somebody will always be willing to do it cheaper.

I'd focus on building relationships with smaller and mid-sized GCs instead.

A lot of contractors already have their preferred framing crew, drywall crew, painter, etc. But workloads change, projects get delayed, crews get overloaded, and people move on. If you're consistently visible and stay top of mind, eventually opportunities come up.

Instagram has honestly been surprisingly effective for this. Some of our best subcontractors came from Instagram, not because they were actively selling, but because we kept seeing their work, their professionalism, and their consistency.

I'd also look at lead-generation platforms like RenoAssistance, Houzz, BuildZoom, Angi, Thumbtack, and local builder associations depending on your area. Some are better than others, but they can help bridge gaps while you're rebuilding direct relationships.

One thing I would be careful about though: "we do everything from form to finish" can sometimes make it harder for people to know exactly what to call you for. Sometimes being known as the go-to company for a few specific things creates more opportunities than trying to be everything to everyone.

You've already built a company with 6-10 people before. That's proof that you know how to do it. The challenge now is rebuilding the pipeline, not proving you can perform the work.

I’m in a similar situation honestly. Facebook is pretty much flooded with lowballers. I have turned to creating my own website and focusing on generating traffic organically. After I’m happy with the design and confident in the process my customers will be going through, I’ll start implementing paid ads. It’s a long process, but I think it is the right approach. If you do have a website, you might want to look into what changes you need to make to start generating a flow of customers. If you don’t already have a website and google business profile. I’d suggest you get that started yesterday..

So these jobs might be smaller than what you are looking for since we do handyman, but we are setup as Home Depot Pros and it is basically free referrals. You start and account with them and get 2,000 in points that are for "lead spend". Every dollar you spend at home depot gives you 2 points.  Then you get to pick services you like to preform and when a customer wants help with a job, the lead goes out and you contact them. We have had success with that in terms of customer conversion where you go back multiple times for different jobs. 

I just think that may help you get by especially if you do not want to shell out money for like Angies list ,which is okay but a little worse of a value proposition in my estimation.