Nobody in construction is short of names. They are short of names worth calling, which is a different problem with a different fix. Four tests decide it — intent, category, recency and reachability — and in one real market they reduced a file of 33,083 records to 717. The research on timing says something useful too, and it is not what most lead-gen advice claims.
The problem was never volume
Ask a contractor or a supplier what they need and most will say more leads. Watch how the week actually goes and the answer looks different: the list is long, most of it is not theirs, and finding the part that is takes the morning.
That cost is measurable and it is large. Salesforce's State of Sales research has put the share of a representative's week that goes to things other than selling — administration, internal meetings, and the account research that has to happen before a first call — at between 60% and 70% across recent editions. A Forrester activity study of 3,031 representatives, as reported, put nearly two full days a week on administrative work alone.
None of that is fixed by adding names. It is fixed by removing them. A list that is one-tenth the size and entirely relevant produces more conversations than a list ten times longer that has to be sorted first — and the sorting is the expensive part, because it happens at sales compensation rather than at data cost.
This is a different question from where to buy construction leads in the first place, which is a supplier decision. This is about what to do with them once you have them, and which ones deserve the call.
A filing is an intent signal, whatever its stage
Building records are the strongest intent signal available in this industry, and the reason is simple: filing costs money and effort. Nobody applies to build, alter or repair a structure idly, which is what makes the filing itself the signal rather than anything inferred about the filer. Somebody has decided to do work, has committed enough to put it in writing with an authority, and has done so publicly.
That intent exists from the moment of application. It does not arrive when the permit is issued.
This matters because most records in any feed are not issued permits — 82% of them across five authorities were still applied, in review, or approved and awaiting issue. Treated as a defect, that looks like four records in five being unusable. Treated correctly, it is the opposite: those are the records where the intent is established and the decisions are not.
What changes between application and issue is not whether they intend to build. It is how much has already been decided without you.
So the stage of a record does not determine whether it is a lead. It determines what kind of conversation you are walking into. Early, you are helping shape something. Late, you are asking to be considered next time. Both are worth having; they are not the same call, and the timing argument for suppliers works the same way from the other side of the table.
Four tests for construction lead generation
Four questions, applied in order. A record that fails any one of them is not worth a call no matter how well it does on the others.
| Test | What it asks | What it removes |
|---|---|---|
| Intent | Has this party actually committed to doing work? | Company lists, industry directories, anything assembled from who someone is rather than what they have done |
| Category | Is this the kind of work you serve? | The largest share by far. A roofing contractor has no use for underground utility work, and a commercial builder has none for residential remodels |
| Recency | Is the signal still live? | The most underrated test. A filing from eight months ago is history. The decisions it implied have been made |
| Reachability | Is there a way to contact anyone? | Records where the authority published no contact detail. Worth knowing before your team discovers it one dial at a time |
Order matters, and which category is yours decides most of it. Category before recency, because filtering a large file by category is cheap and filtering by recency is only meaningful once the file is yours.
Run against a real market, those tests are brutal in a useful way. One city authority's file held 33,083 building records. Commercial only: 5,700. Filed in the most recent thirty days: 753. Carrying a contractor phone or email: 717.
That is 2.2% of the file — roughly one record in forty-six. And the 717 is the good news, not the bad. Those are records where somebody has committed to commercial work, did so this month, and can be reached. A rep working that list has a reason for every call. A rep working the 33,083 has a reason for one call in forty-six and will find out which by making the other forty-five.
Note also what the fourth test costs here: almost nothing. Between the third and fourth filter the list only fell from 753 to 717, because contact coverage varies by authority and this one is generous. In a jurisdiction that publishes little, that same step could halve the list — which is an argument for checking your own markets rather than assuming.
Want the same four filters run on your market? Tell us the jurisdictions and categories you work in and we will show you what survives — before you commit to anything.
Request a filtered sample or call 888-888-1214Being early is not the same as pitching early
Most lead-generation advice says reach people earlier and you will close more. The research is more interesting than that, and more useful.
6sense's Buyer Experience Report, drawn from studies of several thousand B2B buyers, finds that the vendor who eventually wins was already on the buyer's initial shortlist about 95% of the time, and that the vendor a buyer contacts first goes on to win roughly 80% of deals. By the time a seller is contacted, most of the thinking is done — which is as true of a supplier being shortlisted as of any other purchase.
So far that supports reaching people early. But the same body of research finds that cold outreach made before a buyer is ready actually reduces the chance of winning rather than increasing it. Contacting someone early and pitching at them is worse than not contacting them at all.
Those two findings are not in conflict, and together they say something precise: the advantage of an early signal is being known, not being first to call. A filing tells you a project exists months before an invitation to bid appears. What you do with that head start should be building familiarity — being visible, being useful, being the name already on the list — rather than dialing harder than the competition.
For construction specifically, that reframes what a permit record is for. It is not a buying signal telling you to call today. It is a signal that a shortlist is about to form in whichever market it was filed in, and an opportunity to already be on it — which is why seeing real records matters more than seeing a bigger list.
Outreach when the signal is a filing
Given all that, a sequenced approach across more than one channel works better than any single channel used harder. Three points worth making about the sequence, whichever side of the table you are on.
The filing is the reason you are getting in touch, so say so. A first message that references the specific work, the location and the category reads as relevant because it is. This is the entire practical advantage of working from records rather than from a company list, and it disappears the moment the message becomes generic.
Email, phone and professional networks each reach different people at different times, and a short sequence across all three consistently beats a single blast on any one of them. Records supply the email and the direct number where the authority published them; the rest is your own research. Whichever channels you use, the case for a sequence is that people are busy, not that they need chasing.
An application and a closed permit deserve different messages. Early, the useful thing is to be helpful and available. Late, the useful thing is to be memorable for next time. Sending the same note to both is the most common way a good list produces poor results, and the same principle applies in both directions for a general contractor.
Why Alliance Data Solutions
The four tests work against any complete records set. The case for this one, against what is normal in the category.
The filtering happens before delivery. Records are deduplicated, scored on how many of their up to twenty fields carry a value, then cut to the categories, jurisdictions and thresholds you set. That is the difference between receiving 717 records and receiving 33,083 with the instruction to sort them — and the sorting is the expensive part. You are buying the triage as much as the data.
Recency is a delivery question, not a data question. A record filed at its source is generally available in a delivered file the next day. The third test above is worthless if the file arrives monthly, because by then the newest record in it is four weeks old.
Coverage counted by issuing authority. 300+ jurisdictions across 39+ states, counted by the authority that issues rather than by state, because a state is not a market. The list is published.
Published pricing, monthly billing, no contract. Plans run from a single metro up to multi-state, with the numbers on a page rather than a call.
And the limit, stated the same way it is stated everywhere else on this site: this is public building activity, assembled, deduplicated, scored and filtered at national scale. It is not a proprietary intelligence network and we do not claim one. Your competitors can read the same filings. The advantage is in filtering them faster and acting on them better, which is a real advantage and a different one from secrecy.
Common questions
What makes a construction lead worth calling?
Four things, in order: the party has signaled intent to build, the work is in a category you actually serve, the signal is recent, and there is a way to reach someone. A record failing any one of those is not worth a call regardless of how many others it passes. Applying all four to one city authority's file reduced 33,083 records to 717.
Is a permit application still a good lead if the permit has not been issued?
Yes, and often a better one. Filing is the intent signal — somebody has committed to building, altering or repairing a structure, and has spent money to say so publicly. Whether the authority has issued yet changes how much has already been decided, not whether the intent exists. For anyone who needs to be in the conversation before decisions are made, the pre-issue records are the earlier and more useful ones.
Does contacting a construction lead earlier improve your chances?
Being known earlier does. Pitching earlier does not. Research into B2B buying behavior finds that the winning vendor was already on the buyer's initial shortlist about 95% of the time, and that the vendor a buyer contacts first wins roughly 80% of deals — but the same research finds that cold outreach made before a buyer is ready reduces rather than increases the chance of winning. Early signals are for building familiarity, not for calling harder.
How many construction leads does a market actually produce?
Fewer than the raw record count suggests, which is the point. In one city authority, 33,083 building records over the collection window reduced to 5,700 commercial, then to 753 filed in the most recent 30 days, then to 717 carrying a contractor phone or email — about 2% of the file. That 2% is the workable list; the other 98% is someone else's market, someone else's category, or old news.