Key Takeaways

• Finding and qualifying for work takes longer than it should. Teams often spend hours chasing incomplete information before making a decision.
• Relying on referrals and inbound opportunities limits visibility. When those channels slow down, so does the pipeline.
• More listings do not improve results. Without context, teams waste time deciding what to pursue.
• Early access to project details helps teams move faster. Clear scope, requirements, and value support quicker decisions.
• Access to the right contact speeds everything up. Targeted outreach leads to better conversations and faster progress.

Finding new work is necessary for contractors, but it's rarely their preferred task.

Time goes to scanning bid boards, chasing referrals, and following incomplete leads. Often, you only discover a project's fit after investing valuable time, which may be wasted if the opportunity is gone or not worthwhile.

For many contractors and suppliers, buyer-initiated opportunities and referrals continue to be important sources of new business. While strong relationships remain critical, relying too heavily on them can pose risks. Key contacts change roles, priorities shift, budgets tighten, and opportunities can disappear with little warning. When that happens, future revenue can quickly become uncertain.

Adding to the challenge, market conditions remain unpredictable. With 25% of projects cancelled and 29% delayed, contractors and suppliers are under increasing pressure to build a more resilient pipeline and identify new opportunities before they need them.

As we explore solutions, remember: It's not just about finding more opportunities—it's about finding the right opportunities, faster.

The time problem is real

The traditional ways of finding projects have not changed much, even as expectations have.

While referrals and warm contacts still reign supreme, contractors often rely on a patchwork of systems, bid boards, spreadsheets, and emails to identify new opportunities. Each source offers a piece of the picture, but rarely the full view. That fragmentation creates inefficiencies and makes it difficult to maintain a consistent view of available work.

When you look at a typical workflow, the delays are easy to spot:

• Find a project listing with limited detail
• Search for more context across other channels
• Try to identify who owns the project
• Reach out without knowing if it is the right person
• Wait for a response before deciding if it is worth pursuing

Each step adds friction. More importantly, each step adds time.

Our recommendation:
Regularly review how your team discovers and qualifies opportunities. If project information is spread across multiple sources or requires significant manual research, it may be time to adopt a streamlined approach for greater visibility into available work.

More listings do not solve the problem

At first glance, more opportunities seem helpful. In practice, they can complicate things. Teams often spend as much time figuring out what to pursue as they do finding work.

Even when options are available, teams often struggle to decide which projects deserve attention first. Without context, valuable time is spent qualifying work that ultimately isn't a fit.

Our recommendation:
Focus on projects that match your team's capabilities, timeline, and margin goals. Evaluate each alignment opportunity rather than pursuing everything.

That requires answering a few simple questions quickly:

• Is the scope aligned with the work we do?
• Is the contract size worth the effort?
• Are there requirements we can review? Can we meet them?
• Is this the right client for us to build a relationship with?

If those answers take too long to find, teams either miss out or waste time pursuing the wrong projects.

Visibility and Access: Turning Opportunities into Action

Finding a project is only half the challenge. Teams also need information to quickly decide whether it's worth pursuing—and who to contact next.

When contractors see project scope, requirements, and contract value upfront, they can make faster decisions and focus on opportunities that align with their strengths. Better information reduces the time required to qualify projects and helps teams prioritize efficiently.

Just as important is access to the right contact. Without it, outreach can be slow, generic, and easily overlooked. When contractors have both project context and a direct path to the relevant decision-maker, conversations become more targeted, relationships develop faster, and opportunities move forward more quickly.

Our recommendation:
To build a stronger, more resilient pipeline, contractors and suppliers should take a more proactive approach to project discovery. Adopt platforms and tools that offer a clearer view of project requirements, assess fit, and provide direct access to the right stakeholders.

Personalize your outreach using detailed project information and direct contact data. Lead with specifics and clear intent to engage more effectively and reduce ignored messages.

Around 50% of sales go to the first vendor to respond. The faster you can identify, evaluate, and engage around qualified opportunities, the more time you can spend pursuing the right work—not searching for it.

Bringing it together

Finding project opportunities will always require effort. But it does not need to take as much time as it does today.

When contractors access relevant opportunities in one place, understand scope and value upfront, and connect with the right contact, the process is more straightforward. Businesses spend less time searching, encounter fewer dead ends, and focus more on work that moves them forward.

With Find Projects, contractors can discover relevant opportunities, review requirements and contract details, and connect directly with key stakeholders—all within the Avetta network. Instead of spending valuable time searching and qualifying incomplete leads, teams can prioritize the right projects and build relationships that grow their business.

The result is simple. You spend less time looking for work and more time pursuing the right projects.

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