2026 Starts Now. Five Reminders to Strengthen Your Year Ahead

As 2025 comes to a close, the most common regret we’re hearing from our manufacturer and contractor friends is the same one we heard last December: how few of those ambitious marketing and business-development goals actually got done.

The good news? It’s not too late to do something about it. If you want to enter the peak summer season with a full pipeline of profitable, desirable projects instead of reacting to whatever comes your way, the foundational work has to happen now.

To help you get the ball rolling, we went back over our articles and podcasts over the past 12 months and pulled out our top 5 that will help you get a plan going right away. 

1. Story Before Style

Getting ahead in 2026 doesn’t start with new AI-driven tactics or increased PPC spending, it starts with clarity. Most contractors and manufacturers rush to bombard prospects bragging about services, specs, and credentials instead of leading with what they really care about.

This January article explains that prospects decide based on trust and emotional connection first, and story is what creates that differentiation. When you clearly articulate who you are, why you do the work, and how you solve problems differently, everything else moves faster. Your website, proposals, sales conversations, and content all snap into alignment, allowing you to execute a plan quickly instead of spinning your wheels. 

Companies that define your story now enter 2026 with momentum, stronger positioning, and a pipeline built on preference rather than price.

Read Article Here >

2. Smarten Up Your Website

Your website can no longer be just a digital brochure. It’s a frontline sales rep working 24 hours a day, seven days a week that shapes how prospective clients find, evaluate, and decide to work with you.

Our podcast and article from October says if your site is not aligned with how modern search and AI-driven discovery work, it can actually cause you to lose business to your more savvy competitors. To be competitive in 2026, your website needs to clearly communicate who you are, answer real questions, demonstrate proof of success, and reduce risk for prospects. This is because roughly 85% of buyer decision making now happens online before you ever speak to them. 

Updating your website to tell your story like a human can potentially position you ahead of competitors heading into the new year.

Read Article Here >

3. The 5 Stages of Business Development for Builders

This article from July lays out a strategic, five-stage business-development process: Promote, Attract, Nurture, Win, and Leverage. 

To scale beyond relying on sporadic word-of-mouth opportunities or competing on price alone, it outlines how to prepare your team to meet them where they are and guide them through each stage of the decision making process.

It stresses that clearly promoting your brand story and values helps you stand out, attracting the right leads with helpful content and a strong website, nurturing those leads with trust-building insights, winning by aligning proposals to client goals, and then leveraging delivered work into referrals and repeat business.

By understanding and acting on each of these stages, you can build a more intentional roadmap that gets you in front of ideal clients earlier, shortens sales cycles, and strengthens your competitive position so 2026 starts with a fuller pipeline of better projects.

Read Article Here >

4. SEO + SEM: How To Work Them Together

Most buyers now start their vendor research (yes, this includes B2B) on Google or AI LLMs long before they reach out to you, and if your company doesn’t show up in those early searches you’re effectively invisible to new opportunities. 

This article from November explains that being found online through search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) is essential, even for B2B builders, manufacturers, and contractors. 

SEM (paid search) gives you immediate visibility in a crowded market, while SEO (useful content, strong site authority, and credibility signals) builds long-term organic presence that draws higher-quality prospects over time. When both are part of your inbound strategy, you increase discovery, reinforce your brand repeatedly, and create a digital flywheel that attracts clients before competitors even get a chance to engage them.

Read Article Here >

5. Small Moves Now - Big Wins Next Year

Although this article is our most recent, it's the most timely (and important) in the waning hours of the year. It urges builders and manufacturers to intentionally take a few strategic actions now that set the stage for a stronger, more competitive 2026. 

It offers practical, relationship-building moves like telling your story from the point of view of your ideal future clients and offering smart, relevant content over time to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Getting at least a small plan in place now is essential to strengthen visibility, trust, and top-of-mind presence in what is shaping up to be a difficult year ahead.

Read Article Here >

Start Next Year On Solid Ground

As we close out 2025, we’re proud of the work we’ve done alongside our clients and equally proud of the guidance we’ve been able to share with you whom we haven’t yet worked directly with yet. 

These five resources resonated with the most readers, but they are only a starting point. 

Our goal has always been to help this industry become clearer, more confident, and more intentional in how you present yourselves and pursue new work. 

If you find yourself renewing your promise to put a grown-up business development plan in place for this upcoming year, we welcome the opportunity to help in whatever way makes sense for you. Until then, happy new year and best of luck to you in 2026.

Written by Rusty George, with almost zero help from Artificial Intelligence. Well, maybe once or twice to check his grammar, but her promises that his new year's resolution is to cut down.

Rusty George leads a branding, website design and marketing agency serving Seattle and Tacoma area construction companies, developers, subcontractors, manufacturers, material fabricators and suppliers. His goal is to help the building industry become more attractive to the skilled workforce of the future. Reach out to us at any time to get a plan in place to crush the competition in the new year!