Reference entries (33)
- reference May 2026 psychology brief — explicit research gaps and source-quality caveats
- reference Ontario regulatory stack as credibility substrate — HCRA + Tarion + Construction Act + RenoMark differentiate Ontario GCs from U.S. imports
- reference APB SORCI 2024 — 48.7% of builders rely on referrals for >50% of sales; 41.1% need 1–50 paid leads to close one contract
- reference Office manager / controller / GM presence in a GC firm strongly predicts marketing engagement; threshold ~$2M revenue
- reference GC owner's spouse is a primary buyer in majority of $1M–$10M residential firms, not a gatekeeper — often the first-mover on marketing adoption
- reference Contractor coaching ↔ marketing receptivity correlation — three plausible causal interpretations, data does not distinguish
- reference Breakthrough Academy (Vancouver) — 70% U.S. / 30% Canadian members; self-reported −22 hrs/week, +69% net profit year one
- reference Design-build / custom-residential leading edge — $1M+ buyer pays for design, which is itself a credence good
- reference Marketing-engaged vs marketing-averse GC profile — five-axis comparison (generation, education, scale, spouse role, positioning)
- reference Pioneer Craftsmen (Kitchener) — 70+ years, 2,700+ projects, $95K–$750K+ design-build; published 4–6% design fee; refuses free quotes
- reference Crawford "the building stands, the car runs, the lights are on" — marketing's probabilistic outputs violate the GC's calibrated expectations
- reference GC cognitive default is pattern-matched stories, not ROI spreadsheets — implication for pitch structure
- reference Klein & Kahneman (American Psychologist 2009) — Conditions for Intuitive Expertise: high-validity environment + prolonged practice with rapid feedback
- reference Klein, Calderwood & Clinton-Cirocco (1985, ARI TR-85-46-12) — Rapid Decision Making on the Fire Ground; origin of RPD model
- reference Kahneman & Tversky prospect theory (Econometrica 1979; JRU 1992) — loss aversion ratio ~2:1; fourfold pattern; certainty effect
- reference Marketing services are a near-paradigmatic credence good for a GC buyer
- reference Darby & Karni (J Law Econ 1973) — "credence good": quality consumers never discover even after consumption
- reference Marketing budget benchmarks 2024–2026 — cross-industry vs construction comparison table
- reference Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2024 & 2025 — marketing budgets averaged 7.7% of revenue (down from 11% pre-pandemic); 59% of CMOs report insufficient budget in 2025
- reference Buildern Residential Construction Marketing Report 2026 — residential builder marketing spend is 1.8–3.2% of revenue
- reference Angi Inc. Q3 2025 — Average Monthly Active Pros 131,000 (−17% YoY); 5.9% TTM monthly churn; Q1 2024 revenue −14% YoY
- reference Vermont AG Charity Clark — $100K Angi settlement Oct 13, 2025 over misleading "Certified Pro" terminology
- reference FTC v HomeAdvisor (Jan 2023) — up to $7.2M order; $3M+ refunded to 110,000+ contractors by Nov 2023
- reference NAHB Remodelers Cost of Doing Business 2026 (FY 2024) — 6.3% net margin (highest since 1996), avg revenue $2.7M
- reference Women = 13.6% of Canadian construction employment 2024; 3–5% on-site; Ontario construction 86.5% male
- reference Cockburn, Machinery of Dominance (Pluto 1985) and Brothers (1983) — "skill is a sex/gender weapon"; technical competence is gender-coded male
- reference Ontario construction 2024: 16.8% hold university degree (vs 41.7% all sectors); 27.4% self-employed (vs 13.5% all)
- reference Down & Reveley (Organization 2004) — small-firm owner-operators construct identity through the trade, not through the firm
- reference Mike Rose, The Mind at Work (Penguin 2004) — embodied cognition in skilled trades is invisible to outsiders
- reference Joan C. Williams, White Working Class (HBR Press 2017) — the asymmetric meaning of "hard work" and the disrespect dynamic
- reference Lubrano, Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams (Wiley 2004) — "Straddler" identity and the three-times-more-words finding
- reference Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft (Penguin 2009) — "cognitive richness of the skilled trades" and the chattering-interpretation problem
- reference Research brief: the psychology of marketing aversion among general contractor owners (May 2026 foundation)
