How can a construction company make a presentation and not sell the business in a panic attack?

Imagine: you get the chance you've been waiting for all your life. This could be a tender for hundreds of millions or a large investor. But you haven’t yet had time to estimate your profit when the customer writes: “Drop off the presentation.” And then panic begins: someone is trying to pull up information in the “Docs_for_Client_final_version_6_NEW” folder, someone is collecting slides from photo reports about last year’s construction, where half the screen is covered by the foreman’s hand, and 45 out of 60 frames are out of focus. 

At 10:47 pm the designer gets the message: “Make it expensive!”, the marketer comes up with 14 offer options on the go, which there is no time to coordinate, and the accountant drinks valerian and suggests hiring a freelancer.

Even if you have experience since the 90s and really cool objects, you can lose to a startup because they showed a presentation and you didn’t. This is an opportunity to quickly, briefly and clearly explain why your prices are higher, your deadlines are longer, and why they choose you and not Arsen’s team. In the construction industry, decisions are not made based on emotions, only on the basis of exact numbers and guarantees. 

A good presentation works without you: while you are pouring the foundation of a new facility or stuck in a traffic jam on the Moscow Ring Road, it is shown at the customer’s board of directors. A bad one can ruin the deal despite the fact that you are head and shoulders above the competition. The article, without tediousness and unnecessary fluff, told how to assemble slides into a turnkey document, from the title page to the conclusion.

Why does a construction company need a presentation?

You can have a website, a brand book, a Zen channel and even stories where hot topless builders lay bricks under a lo-fi beat, but when you make personal contact with a client or participate in a tender, you need a presentation. And here's why:

1. The purpose of the site is to tell everyone about you. The presentation is created for the client.
   The site may contain the history of the company, a wholesale and retail catalogue, publications in the media and a foreman’s blog about funny incidents at the sites. The presentation is assembled for a specific purpose: to sell a service, justify the advantages, surprise with the volume of construction over the past year. It is read at the time of decision making.
   
   
2. The landing page cannot be opened without Wi-Fi. This can be a problem when, at a business meeting, the Internet suddenly disappears, instead of numbers and graphs, you are standing in front of a client with “No connection” on the screen and frantically trying to remember how many houses were rented and which of them had panoramic windows. The presentation is always available: on a call, in print, in the TG channel, even on an airplane, the client can open and flip through the PDF or PPT.
   
   
3. Social networks provide coverage, and the presentation will become an argument in your favor.
   The customer will not look at the rails if he is choosing between three contractors. To decide, he needs simple and understandable answers: the conditions are better here, the guarantee is longer here, art objects are made here. And for this, it’s easier and more convenient to deliver a presentation where all your advantages are listed on 10–15 slides.
   
   
4. The brand book talks about style, the presentation talks about benefits.
   You can perfectly develop the brand image, choose fonts and logo, color palette and create such visuals that any of them can be analyzed in design courses. But until you show how many cubic meters of concrete you pour per month, how thick the walls are at the sites, and how long it takes to deliver the houses, you won’t get hooked.
   
   
5. The presentation closes the deal. This is the final argument that can be shown both in the tender application and at the management meeting. It is enough to hand over the presentation to a manager or partner, and then it will go around the offices without you. The truth is, if it's done poorly, you'll lose your chance and won't even know it.

Now let's go through the structure of the construction company's presentation: where to start and how to finish so that the client signs the contract.

Preparatory stage

A one-size-fits-all approach rarely works in construction presentations. You can’t create one slide show and send it to everyone; you need to understand who you are addressing and for what purpose. Here is a list of questions to answer before you open PowerPoint:

1. Who is this presentation for? There will be one slides and texts for the tender, and different ones for partners at the exhibition. The government customer will wait for the clause about licenses and verification in accordance with GOST. A private investor is interested in the timing, profit and reliability of the developer. The developer needs to show the process: technique, materials and how you lay brick on brick.
   
   
2. What do you want to receive? Sign a contract, find an investor, get an advance? Try to formulate your goal in one sentence, this will make it easier for you to build a structure and select visuals and infographics. You formulate the goal for yourself or for the agency, so you don’t have to choose too many words: “Convince the customer that we are the cheapest contractor for the construction of a shopping center in Surgut and we work without mistakes.”
   
   
3. What wow points do you have? While your competitor is telling you that he is a reliable developer, you are showing:

• a house that took 47 days to build from foundation pit to occupancy;
• comparison before and after finishing;
• case “we came to a vacant lot with construction waste - now there is a park with a fountain and installations.”

Tip: collect such facts, figures, photos and videos in a separate folder, then it will be easy for you to repackage them for the client or request.

In addition, decide right away how the presentation will be used. If this is auxiliary material for a personal speech, you can simply make short abstracts and tips for the speaker + visualization. If you send the file via email and instant messengers, the slides should be as self-contained as possible.

Presentation structure

There is no presentation without structure, just like construction without a project. If the idea doesn’t work, start with a “problem-solution” diagram or use neural networks to structure the existing information and pack it into the most suitable format. And then proceed according to our plan, it is easy to adapt it to the tender, to partners, and even to the courier, if he suddenly wants to give you a million.

1. Title slide
   

   You can’t go anywhere without it, but “Presentation of the company StroyProfMonolit 2008” remained somewhere in the 2000s. In addition to the name, it is worth indicating here:

   • a short headline with a USP, for example, “An honest contractor for developers”, “A new level of comfort in country life”;
   • subtitle with explanation: “56 objects in 8 regions, 100% delivery on time”, “Ready-made cottages in high-tech style on the first line of the Gulf of Finland”;
   • visual that matches the intent.

   Read more about how to make a title page, in a separate article.

2. Who are you and what are you cool about?
   

   This is a self-presentation where you need to list your advantages, but please, without “we are a dynamically developing company.” Set yourself apart from your competitors with facts and figures:

   • how many years on the market;
   • how many facilities were built;
   • who they worked with (logos, if possible);
   • What is your specialization (residential complexes, commerce, utilities, anything).

3. What is included in the services
   

   Here, too, we need specifics. “We build turnkey houses” is already a cliché, tell us what you do, for example, design and project approval, excavation and monolithic work, technical supervision, environmental monitoring, and so on. It’s good if you can give exact deadlines, for example, “three days after signing the contract, we go to the site with the equipment.”

4. How do you solve customer pain?
   

   The most powerful argument in your favor, every company will praise itself, but not only everyone will talk honestly about problems and ways to solve them. Here you can indicate, for example, that the customer can monitor the progress of construction of the project through a mobile application, that the estimate is fixed at the time of signing the contract and prices do not change.

5. Portfolio
   

   Here you show the best objects, but not only in the form of beautiful photographs. Tell the story: what the customer came with, what was done, what obstacles they encountered, what the result is in numbers: deadlines, space, savings, etc. Don’t be afraid to say that the project was complex; on the contrary, your experience in solving non-standard situations gives +100500 to your expertise. You can add a QR code to a video tour of the property.

6. Reviews and partners
   

   Choose live reviews, where the client does not limit himself to “everything is great, thank you, I will contact you again,” but says the facts: “the project was completed two weeks ahead of schedule,” “they saved the budget,” “they fit into the style of the historical district.” If possible, publish the logos of those you worked with - even if it’s just a housing office.

7. Working conditions
   

   Terms, payment, guarantees, discounts for prepayment, the possibility of installments and credit, NDA and so on, all this should be listed here.

8. Contacts
   

   Minimum required: contact phone number and office address. But it’s better to expand the information, indicate the name of the contact person (manager Anastasia will answer your questions), add e-mail, instant messengers and social networks, as well as a link to the calculator and the brief form.

We wrote about how to finish a presentation correctly in last article.

Important: if the presentation is not for a construction company, but for a specific project, we describe it specifically.

Visual design

Slides are read like posts on social networks: title + visual, and the rest of the text is only viewed if nothing else catches your attention. Bold Minimalism is in fashion now: large typography, calm colors and the “one slide – one thought” rule. Use thin lines and add more space between elements. Fonts are sans serif, large, of varying weights. Infographics, yes, but they should be clear at first glance, no confusing charts and graphs without captions. Use animation and transitions where they better convey the idea. In addition to the standard slideshow, consider a vertically scrolling presentation like on social networks - this is a good option for zoomers, and it is also convenient to view on a smartphone.

It’s better not to use stock photos: if you are involved in a million-dollar deal, order a professional photo shoot of finished objects and backstage: how and what you work with.

Technical aspects

If you send a presentation by mail, via instant messenger, or attach it to a tender, it is better to save it as a PDF. It will open on any device, from a smartphone to a PC, will not require updating Office, and the slides will remain as you intended. However, in this version there will be no gifs and animations. Optimal weight: up to 15 MB so it doesn’t take forever to load: use PDF compression tools.

If you publish on a website or demonstrate in person, choose the PPSX format or export to video. Then all the moving elements will work as they should.

Make a separate version without animation and with printed margins: many companies, especially government ones, still prefer to work with printed materials, don’t make them disappointed.

Cases and examples

You can see examples of sales presentations in our portfolio. For example, here is an elegant piece in the minimalist style for NF Group:

And here is luxury, gold and Art Deco motifs for an elite penthouse in the Mirax Park residential complex:

Do you want the same? We are waiting for yours ordering a sales presentation. We will package the project so that people will want it before you announce the price.