What started in 1991 has quickly grown and established itself as a major force to be reckoned with in North Carolina. Not content with being just a paving contractor, founder and owner David McGee expanded the business with sister companies that could manage other important aspects of the work, such as concrete and curb work, and eventually We have established a recycling yard to store recycled asphalt and concrete. It has been re-incorporated.
“Piedmont Paving Concrete and Piedmont Recycling have helped us continue to grow and opened up more avenues for the different activities we do.” Maggie's brothers and two sisters all , works in the family business with his father.
But what Matt really likes to spend his time on is the paving maintenance side. Spend less time and energy on new construction and focus on scraping and repaving existing sites.
start making videos
As many contractors are already aware, the importance of having some form of social media presence cannot be underestimated. Platforms like Instagram, Tik-Tok, and even his LinkedIn are increasingly becoming places where contractors can not only showcase their current projects to others in the industry. They can connect with potential customers and customers in their area who are looking for more than just a website and a phone number.
Videos, like Piedmont Paving's award-winning work this year, are increasingly playing a role, giving customers a virtual window into who their contractors are. What are they like when they are working on your property? What are their personalities like? It may sound strange, but it is valuable to people.
When Maggie started working full-time in the family business, he primarily engaged in social media as a source of entertainment, posting photos from the field. But he began to understand what it could be like.
“I went and bought a little GoPro camera,” Matt said. “The first few videos [still up to see on their company YouTube channel] I just took pictures and put them together on one of the computers in the store to try to understand the situation. But I'm totally illiterate when it comes to this kind of thing, don't tell me. I played around as much as I could and posted here and there. ”
The turning point came when McGee saw content created by a friend who had just started his own media company, CDS Visuals, and decided to reach out to see if he could come shoot.
“Eventually, I asked if I could book him and just come out and film the milling and paving and do a little promotional video.” But at that point, There was a lot of uncertainty.
“He came out and took a shot and I had no idea what was going to happen,” McGee said. “But after he sent me his first photo back, I was completely shocked. It was absolutely amazing!” Maggie recognizeHow quickly things have changed in a relatively short period of time since we created and published our first video content.
“From then to now, people are paying attention to this initiative and we're seeing more companies doing this,” he noted. “When I posted the first few photos, I felt like no one was doing this at that quality yet. I knew from the beginning that there was something here, there was something in this. I believed there was.”
Since then, their video producers have started an independent company called CD Visuals and have continued to work together, filming larger and more complex jobs and creating better content. McGee believes that customers will want this type of content in the future.
“New people, new generations are coming. [of property managers]That will test their credibility,” Matt said. Search us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube to see what kind of work we do and how we perform. Having these social media outlets is just another way for prospective customers to check our reputation.
It's not all about show
What many contractors from the social media generation are probably familiar with is the nature of work that must be completed in a day on the job site, and the difficulty of balancing the content creation side of the job. Balancing the two can be difficult, but Piedmont Paving has slowly worked out a system that works for them.
“Sometimes it's difficult,” McGee said. “We'll be doing some paving or something, so we'll have to stop the process for a little bit, so we can come down and explain what we're doing or film a little something. Sometimes, especially for short ones, I just throw my phone somewhere to make something, and as soon as I post it, I have to go back to the machine and get the job done.”
When he's not using his CD visual skills for long-form on-site videos, like this year's award-winning project, Matt is responsible for the video content for social media posts.
But all the hard work paid off in a pretty tangible way, as McGee shared the story of a recent job he won in a bid with a company located almost an hour away from his primary work location. I did. He was initially surprised that they won the bid, but it turns out they had access to some of his YouTube content, which influenced their decision-making.
“They had never heard of us before,” he said. “We could say, here's our YouTube account, here's our Instagram. Check it out. You'll see the kind of work we can do. Social Because of the media aspect, we're definitely starting to see more of it, which puts us at the forefront, and that helps us differentiate, and it helps differentiate us. I think we’re going to continue to build our reputation.”
