Doing the little things matters. It’s easier than rebuilding a town. Make these part of your culture and the payoff will be strong.

In this very modern marketing age, you are not in the contracting business. You are a marketer of contracting services. The closer you adhere to that definition, the better both parts of your business will get.

Pick a trend, any trend, and hop on board. Or, you can wait for everyone else to start doing it and play catch up — your choice. By being proactive, you can divert more traffic, capture more eyeballs and leads, and slowly cause your competitors to lose relevancy and cool points, which isn’t a bad trend either.

Ever wonder why the most irritated people always call you? Actually, it could have less to do with you than it does with the kind of contracting business you operate. (Plus, there’s actually good news in the call, which we’ll cover in a moment.)

According to word-of-mouth and social-marketing expert Gary Spangler, most businesses do social media wrong. Follow these rules to make sure you don’t fall into a social media trap.

Let your company, every employee, and your website be a mirror held up so the customer can see himself. It’ll reflect nicely upon you and your profits.