This issue features several contractors and their progress over the years. At the NPCA we've been making progress for 10 years also as we start our 10th summer "season" of consumers searching for quality contractors on our database. We've come a long way since 2000, when people had to select their state and then look through a list of contractors to today where all they do is enter their zip code and the type of work they need done and results are quickly displayed.
The NPCA is the most ambitious undertaking in the history of associations for pavement, and possibly associations in general, because it serves so many diverse types of contractors from repairs, to concrete and asphalt paving, infrared, sealcoating and cracksealing, parking lot striping, and now decorative and other new pavement technologies.
So our list of contractor categories continually grows as the demand for these new types of contractors grows and consumers search for the best to do their work. And in many ways NPCA is just like the contractors profiled in this issue. We have adapted and changed over the years, and that's the type of contractor that is an ideal NPCA member. Not the "average" contractor, not that we would turn anyone away as long as they do good work, but the exceptional contractor who is continually learning not only better ways to make use of new technologies but in learning how to adapt to the new materials and new technologies of today and perform the best quality work. At the same time, NPCA has been adapting to provide today's best marketing technologies for contractors, making it easy for consumers who want the best contractor, not necessarily the cheapest, to find them quickly and easily.
There are many contractor search type firms out there, but they are not associations made up of their members. All of them charge "lead fees," and most of them charge a percentage of the cost of the job if a contractor actually gets one from one of their leads. Unlike them, the NPCA is contractors helping contractors. We have nothing to do with the search-find "business." Customers find our members and make their selections on our search engine based on the ads that our contractor members create with their search listing. The the customer contacts the contractor directly with no fees to the contractor and no personal information collected by us from the consumer. We have found this is what makes us vastly more successful than any other "contractor search" because people, especially in this day and time, do not like to provide their personal information to find a quality contractor.
As we enter our second decade our consumer search numbers are already higher than they were this time last year, and we've just added a site for contractor videos. So stop by and see everything that's going on.
For more about NPCA and its benefits visit www.PavementPro.com
