What are your thoughts on The Blue Book?

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This is what I'm talking about: http://www.thebluebook.com/

bluebklogo.gif
 

celtic

Senior Member
Location
NJ
Once more for those in the back row:
Blue Book Building And Construction


Since 1913, The Blue Book of Building and Construction has been the construction industry's premier information source. The Blue Book, headquartered in Westchester County, New York, publishes regional construction directories in most major markets throughout the United States.

Online, thebluebook.com provides easy access to continually updated information for each of The Blue Book's regional editions. Construction buyers and sellers also have free access to BB-Bid, The Blue Book's online bid management system.
 

mdshunk

Senior Member
Location
Right here.
I get my line ad in The Blue Book, but that's about it. Unless you do some specialty, niche trade, that a GC or Architect would have a reason to pull out The Blue Book, I see absolutely no advantage to paying for advertising in it.
 
I have an ad under "Alarm Services" for Fire Alarm contracting and and ad under "Cabling Contractors" for data cabling, cctv and other low voltage stuff.

It's a 2 year contract and I'm paying $540 a month.
 

mdshunk

Senior Member
Location
Right here.
Fire Alarm said:
It's a 2 year contract and I'm paying $540 a month.
It will become important for you to now start to religiously track where your new leads come from. Ask each and every new prospect. Otherwise, at the end of your 2-year contract, you might renew for another 5 or 6 hundred without knowing if the first 500 provided any benefit, for sure.
 
mdshunk said:
It will become important for you to now start to religiously track where your new leads come from. Ask each and every new prospect. Otherwise, at the end of your 2-year contract, you might renew for another 5 or 6 hundred without knowing if the first 500 provided any benefit, for sure.

That's good advice. I have a separate phone number that I use only for the blue book so I should be able to track the source of leads easily.
 

mdshunk

Senior Member
Location
Right here.
Fire Alarm said:
That's good advice. I have a separate phone number that I use only for the blue book so I should be able to track the source of leads easily.
That's a good idea. If you have that line set up as one of your rollover lines, and the other lines are full, you should take notice of that and ask during those times.
 
I have a neighbor that is a PM for a midsize commercial construction company and he suggested I get an ad in there. He said his company uses it a bunch when working out of state where they don't know any local subs. I haven't yet acted on that advice so I don't have any personal experience with it but take his comment for what it's worth.
 

mdshunk

Senior Member
Location
Right here.
ishium 80439 said:
...He said his company uses it a bunch when working out of state where they don't know any local subs.
Exactly. The only time I know for sure that I got work from the the free line ad in The Blue Book was a one time job for an out of state contractor. He was building Auto Zone stores. I did the one local to me, but didn't care to go "on the road" with him like he wanted. Apparently, no other EC's over the years wanted to either.
 

roger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Fl
Occupation
Retired Electrician
I've had one in my office for 8 years and haven't opened it in 7 years 364 days.

Roger
 

electricmanscott

Senior Member
Location
Boston, MA
Fire Alarm said:
I have an ad under "Alarm Services" for Fire Alarm contracting and and ad under "Cabling Contractors" for data cabling, cctv and other low voltage stuff.

It's a 2 year contract and I'm paying $540 a month.


Holy sweet fried chicken.

That's $12,960 dollars. Good luck with that.
Guess where I will not be advertising.

I hope it works for that kind of money.
 

john_axelson

Senior Member
Location
MN
Not sure about California

Not sure about California

But, in Minnesota the only time we see much activity is from the Out-of-Town GC that wants to come to town to build their one project and leave again. They send out bid invites to EVERYONE listed in the Blue Book for our Metro area. Usually leads to well over a 100 ECs being invited and in our current market, it leads to over 20 EC's looking at the same job. Not the market I am interested in.
 
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