Why oneninety8
Built by someone who has qualified suppliers
Commercial construction is bought like industrial work: by people who qualify you long before they award you anything.
Robb Sutton has spent 20 years in industrial sales and supply chain leadership. He has quoted complex work against tight lead times, walked supplier qualifications, and watched capable companies lose because the buyer couldn't find proof they could do the job.
We're not contractors, and we'll learn your trade from your estimators and project managers. But how owners, GCs, and facility teams decide who gets the work is familiar ground.
What carries over from industrial sales
- Bids, quotes, and scopes of work
- Prequalification and vendor approval
- Lead times and schedule pressure
- Safety and quality documentation
- Material and equipment supply chains
- Repeat buyers and relationship selling
- Long, multi-person buying decisions
Who you're really selling to
One project. A whole approval chain.
Commercial work rarely has one decision maker. We write for each person who has a say in whether you're invited, shortlisted, and hired.
Built for the prequal
Before you're invited to bid, someone checks you out.
Most commercial work is won through relationships, and that won't change. But before a new GC adds you to a bid list, or an owner shortlists you, someone looks you up. If your site is a slideshow and a phone number, you lose invitations you never knew about. We build the site and content that pass that check.
- Project experienceSimilar projects by type, size, and sector, with scope and results, not just a wall of logos.
- Safety recordYour EMR, training, and how you run a site. Many owners screen on it first.
- Capacity & credentialsLicensing, bonding, self-performed trades, and service area, in one place.
- Your peopleWho runs the job, and how long they've been doing it.
- What search and AI sayYour Google profile, your reviews, and whether AI tools name you when someone asks for contractors in your trade around Atlanta.
What we run
Built around how projects get awarded
Six parts, run every month as your marketing department. A person reviews every piece, and nothing publishes without your approval.
Project & capability pages
A page for each project type and sector you want more of, with scope, size, schedule, and the project photos you already have. The proof a GC or owner looks for before inviting you.
A prequal-ready website
Safety, licensing, insurance, and capabilities in one place, with qualification documents to download, so the person building a bid list doesn't have to call to find out.
Search & AI visibility
Built to rank for the searches buyers make, like "commercial roofing contractor Atlanta" or "design-build contractor Alpharetta," and to get cited when AI tools are asked for a shortlist.
LinkedIn, where buyers are
Milestones, completions, safety wins, and the people behind the work, where GCs, developers, and facility managers already look. In your voice, on a schedule that holds.
Bid & relationship support
Capability statements, project sheets, and short introductions your estimators and PMs can send to new GCs and owners.
Recruiting that sells, too
Careers content that helps you hire crews and project managers. When labor is tight, capacity is part of what you're selling.
How we learn your business
We don't know your trade yet. Here's how we learn it.
Our deepest experience is industrial. For every other client, the first month goes to learning your business from the people who run it, not guessing from the outside.
Walk a job site
Time on an active project with your PM or superintendent, to see how you actually run the work.
Sit with your estimators
Which bids you win, which you pass on, and what GCs and owners ask before they award.
Hear it from your buyers
A few short conversations with repeat GCs or owners about why they keep calling you. Their words become your headlines.
Write it, then check it
Early pieces go back to your team for a technical review until they're right. You approve the plan before anything publishes.
Example deliverable
What the plan looks like
This is the one-page plan you'd approve before anything is built, filled in for an illustrative contractor. Client work is confidential, so we show the format and the depth instead.
Yours is built from the site visit and interviews above, not from a template. To see the whole process running, look at our own site: we're the test bed.
- The company
- 85-person commercial electrical contractor in Kennesaw. Wants more negotiated work with developers and fewer hard-bid jobs.
- Who buys
- GC estimators and PMs, developers' construction managers, and facility directors at healthcare and education campuses.
- What they ask first
- Have you done this type and size of project? What's your EMR? Can you staff it on our schedule?
- The offer
- A downloadable prequalification packet, plus a preconstruction consult for developers who bring you in early.
- First 90 days
- Where early electrical input saves money on a medical office build-out
- Tenant improvement electrical: eight questions to settle before bid day
- Our safety program, explained for owners who screen on it
- Channels
- Company LinkedIn twice a week (milestones, completions, safety) and a monthly email to GCs and owners.
- Qualified lead
- Commercial project over $250K, inside the service area, with time to bring you in before bid.
- Reported monthly
- Bid invitations and inquiries by source, the project pages they read, and who AI tools recommend.
Illustrative example, not a client. It shows the format and level of detail of the plan every client approves.
Bid boards and your own site
Keep the bid boards. Own your reputation.
Plan rooms, bid boards, and GC relationships produce real work, and we'll never tell you to drop what works. But on a bid board you're one of twenty names, usually chosen on price. We build the part you own: the reputation that gets you invited earlier, into negotiated work, by buyers who call you first.
What we report every month
Who this fits
Established commercial contractors around Atlanta
Typically $5M to $150M in revenue, working mostly commercial, institutional, or industrial projects, with no marketing department to run the work. From Kennesaw and Marietta to Norcross, Gwinnett, and the south side.
Mostly residential projects? See residential construction marketing. Weighing a marketing hire instead? See what that hire really costs in year one.
Do you understand construction?
We're not contractors, and we won't pretend to be. Robb's 20 years are in industrial sales and supply chain: bids, lead times, supplier qualification, and long buying cycles, which is how commercial work gets bought too. Your trade itself we learn from your estimators and project managers in the first month, and every early piece gets their technical review.
Most of our work comes from GC relationships. Does marketing even matter?
Keep the relationships. Marketing makes new ones easier to start and old ones harder to lose. GCs and owners check you out before adding you to a bid list, and a strong project portfolio gets you brought in earlier, when there's room to negotiate instead of just bid.
Can you use photos and details from our projects?
Only with your OK, and the owner's where it's needed. Some owners restrict publicity on their projects, so we check before anything with a project name goes out. We never publish pricing, contract terms, or anything from your bid documents.
Will this help us hire?
It should. Careers content and a site that shows the work you do make recruiting easier, and in a tight labor market, crew capacity is part of what you sell.
How long before we see results?
Setup takes two to four weeks. Fixes to your website and your Google profile can pay off in the first month. Treat three to six months as the window to judge content and search. AI visibility is less predictable: it varies by market and by platform, so we check it monthly and report what changed rather than promise a date.
Do you meet in person?
Yes. We're based in Milton and meet with every client in person once a month, at your office or on a job site. It's hard to write well about work you've never seen in the field.
What does it cost?
Every engagement is a one-time setup plus a monthly rate, and you know both before anything starts. For most contractors it comes in under the cost of one marketing hire. Run the numbers for yours.
Free calculator
What does a marketing hire really cost?
An Atlanta marketing manager averages about $88,000 in salary. Add benefits, tools, freelancers, and hiring, and the first year comes to about $145,900. Run the numbers for your company in about a minute.
Find out if you'd pass the prequal.
Request a free Engine Teardown. Robb responds personally within one business day and sets up a time to meet. You'll talk through what a GC or owner finds when they look you up, including what ChatGPT and Google's AI say when someone asks for the best contractors in your trade around Atlanta.