How to sell to Heads of Sales at Construction companies
Heads of Sales in the construction industry focus on increasing project win rates. They respond to outreach that shows a clear understanding of project timelines and labor challenges specific to construction. Highlighting how your solution can streamline bidding processes or improve contractor management will capture their attention and prompt a response.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 564 construction company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- labor shortages on job sites
- inefficient bidding processes
- high turnover of contractors
- delays in project timelines
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent project completions
Use construction industry databases to filter for companies that have recently completed large projects. This indicates they may be looking to expand or take on new contracts. Targeting these companies can lead to discussions about scaling their sales efforts.
- 02
Research labor shortages in targeted companies
Investigate if the companies you identified are facing labor shortages, a common pain point in construction. Reference specific projects where they may have struggled to find skilled workers. This shows you understand their operational challenges and sets the stage for your solution.
- 03
Highlight bidding inefficiencies
Craft your message to address common inefficiencies in their bidding process. For example, mention how your solution can reduce the time spent on bid submissions. This speaks directly to their pain of losing contracts due to slow responses.
- 04
Propose a solution for contractor management
Suggest a meeting to discuss how your approach can enhance their contractor management. Use specific examples of how other construction firms have improved their contractor relationships and project outcomes. This makes the value of a call clear.
- 05
Follow up on project forecasts
Send a follow-up email referencing upcoming projects in their pipeline. Ask if they have the resources to meet those demands. This shows you are engaged and aware of their business needs, increasing the likelihood of securing a meeting.
Can construction companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 564 construction companies, sampled evenly across company sizes, to see how many authenticate their own email. It matters in both directions: a domain that does not authenticate is a domain whose team is used to mail going missing — and if your own domain is in the gap, yours is the mail going missing.
Publishes a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject — the domain actually asks receivers to act on failures.
The gap is the finding: 19.2% of 1–10-person companies against 73% of the largest — 54 points apart. Small companies are where the unauthenticated domains are, and small companies are who most cold outreach is aimed at.
Where does your domain sit?
Same three lookups, run live against your domain. Nothing is stored and nothing is emailed to you.
How this was measured
Company domains were sampled within employee-count bands, then queried over public DNS for SPF (TXT at the apex), DMARC (TXT at _dmarc.) and MX. One domain per company, deduplicated. Anyone can reproduce any single row of this with dig.
DKIM is deliberately absent. A DKIM key lives under a selector that cannot be enumerated from outside the domain, so a company with flawless DKIM under a name we did not guess would be counted as having none. That would measure our guess list, not the industry.
Domains with no MX record are excluded rather than counted as failures — parked and redirect-only domains would otherwise drag every figure down and make the result an artefact of the sample.
Sampled within bands, so this describes the population of companies, not of employees: a 10-person company counts once, as does a 10,000-person one. Each band is at least 60 domains; bands below that are not published. Figures are percentages of the sample, not of the whole industry, and we publish no company names — only counts.
Measured 2026-09-03. Re-measured monthly.
The full census across every industry — sortable, with sample sizes, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Subject lines that fit
- Streamlining your bidding process
- Addressing labor shortages
- Improving contractor management
Questions
- Why do heads of sales in construction ignore outreach about software?
- Heads of Sales often receive numerous outreach messages that lack specificity to their unique challenges. If the outreach does not address concrete issues like labor shortages or bidding inefficiencies, it risks being overlooked as irrelevant.
- What factors influence a construction sales leader's decision-making?
- Construction sales leaders prioritize factors such as project timelines, labor availability, and cost efficiencies. They are influenced by how well solutions can address these factors and improve their competitive edge in bidding for projects.
- How can I get a construction sales leader's attention?
- Demonstrating a clear understanding of their operational challenges, like managing contractor relationships or responding to labor shortages, can capture their attention. Tailoring your message to reflect their specific pain points is crucial for engagement.
- What common objections do construction sales leaders have?
- Common objections include concerns about the implementation time of new solutions, skepticism about ROI, and the potential disruption to ongoing projects. Addressing these objections with clear, relevant examples can help mitigate their concerns.
Or have it run itself
SoloRiff does every step above on its own — finds the companies, finds the people, writes each of them individually, and handles the replies. Drop your URL and watch it work before you sign up for anything.
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