In brief:
- Handbook challenge searches price extra in money and time than maximum contractors understand.
- Personal business tasks now make up greater than part of U.S. business building paintings.
- Virtual gear like ConstructConnect® Venture Intelligence let you get entry to extra alternatives, together with private and non-private nonresidential tasks.
- Switching from guide to virtual searches can save contractors as much as $31,000 consistent with 12 months.
Manually looking out via public challenge listings would possibly look like some way to economize. However if truth be told, it’s costing you each in time and overlooked alternatives. In 2025, with non-public business tasks on the upward push, depending on guide searches may harm your enterprise.
The Hidden Price of Handbook Venture Seek
Simply since the knowledge is public doesn’t suggest it is loose. Looking via listings takes time, and in building, time is cash.
How A lot Time Are You In point of fact Spending?
On reasonable, a mid-sized contractor in most cases spends 9-14 hours a week on guide searches. In response to nationwide pay averages, a contractor’s absolutely pressured salary is roughly $60/hour. Over a 12 months, this guide seek procedure prices $31,000 consistent with worker, consistent with 12 months. This provides as much as over $93,000 once a year for groups of 3 contractors which is greater than the annual rate for top-tier challenge intelligence tool.
And it’s now not almost about greenbacks. Each hour you spend digging for leads is an hour you’re now not bidding on new paintings, following up with shoppers, or managing lively tasks. It’s possible you’ll suppose you’re saving cash by way of sticking to guide strategies, nevertheless it’s in reality costing you giant time.
Use this calculator to test how a lot challenge seek is costing your enterprise.
The Upward push of Personal Initiatives
Public tasks might appear ample, however they now constitute a shrinking percentage of the full marketplace.
In keeping with the U.S. Census Bureau, non-public, invitation-only tasks have grown during the last 5 years and now constitute 60% of all business building tasks within the U.S.
That is in step with ConstructConnect’s Put-in-Position Development Forecast Record. Michael Guckes, Leader Economist, experiences, “Personal sector task is expected to handily outperform its public sector identical in keeping with forecasted 5-year compounded annual progress charges (CAGR) via 2029. The 5-year CAGR for general non-public building at 4.6% is greater than double that of its public sector identical at 2.0%.”
Contractors who nonetheless depend only on public knowledge are lacking out on greater than part of these days’s doable alternatives, particularly in infrastructure tasks, which make up a rising percentage of these days’s marketplace.
Virtual Gear: To find Higher Initiatives, Quicker
Switching to virtual gear like ConstructConnect® Venture Intelligence (CCPI) isn’t almost about saving time. It’s about staying aggressive in these days’s marketplace.
1. Get right of entry to a Broader Marketplace
With platforms like CCPI, you get get entry to to the private and non-private markets. This implies you’re now not lacking out on alternatives just because they weren’t indexed publicly.
- Earlier than: Looking throughout SAM.gov, state e-procurement, and different portals to piece in combination public knowledge.
- After: One dashboard with the whole lot you want, from IIJA-funded federal paintings to non-public building. In ConstructConnect® Venture Intelligence, you’ll be able to filter out by way of industry, challenge class, sector, and extra (see beneath).


2. Save Time and Keep Forward
Virtual gear minimize your weekly challenge seek time, liberating up contractors to concentrate on methods that win bids. Matt Trewet, Mechanical Estimating Supervisor at The Waldinger Company stocks his revel in
[ConstructConnect Project Intelligence] has been an enormous timesaver for us. It lets in us to reply to a couple of normal contractors, stay observe of normal contractors during the bid forums.”
As highlighted in Profitable the AI Race: The us’s AI Motion Plan, AI-powered infrastructure tasks are rushing up building with sooner allows and more effective processes. The use of virtual gear, contractors can briefly in finding and bid on those tasks and keep forward in a fast-changing marketplace.
3. Make Smarter Trade Selections
Information-driven gear supply deeper insights into challenge scopes, proprietor histories, and aggressive landscapes. Those platforms ship:
- AI chance flags for high-abandonment tasks
- Proprietor histories and low-bid ratios
- Integration with takeoff and estimating gear
For instance, the PHX-13 challenge by way of Aligned Information Facilities in Glendale, Arizona, demonstrates how non-public infrastructure tasks are riding progress. The ability’s use of renewable power and complex cooling generation aligns with sustainability traits, making it a precious alternative. By means of leveraging those insights, contractors can focal point on tasks like PHX-13 that experience decrease dangers and better probabilities of good fortune.
4. See a True Go back on Funding
If a platform removes a median of $31,000 in annual prices for staff engaging in searches for a building company and offers get entry to to only one further profitable challenge, the funding in generation can pay for itself a number of instances over. In comparison to the hidden price of inefficiency and overlooked alternatives, the selection is apparent.
Takeaway: Do not Possibility Being Left In the back of
In these days’s marketplace, guide searches aren’t saving you cash. They’re costing you time, alternatives, and progress.
Making an investment in virtual gear like ConstructConnect® Venture Intelligence offers you the ability to:
- Win hours again by way of decreasing guide searches.
- Get right of entry to high-growth non-public tasks that competition aren’t seeing.
- Bid smarter and strengthen your win charges.
Time is your most beneficial useful resource. Don’t waste it chasing “loose” knowledge that comes at a excessive price.
Need to Get started Profitable Extra Initiatives?
Obtain our loose information, The Contractor’s Information to Discovering Higher Initiatives, Quicker, to be told how virtual gear can become your challenge discovery procedure.




