Are Your Competitor’s Merchandise Being Specified Extra Than Yours?

In brief:

• Essentially the most dependable method to know: monitor specification share, which means how typically your merchandise are named in mission paperwork in contrast together with your opponents.
• Why it issues: specification share strikes earlier than gross sales do, so it is an early learn on the place your market share is heading
• How one can do it: ConstructConnect^® Analytics’ Specification Positioning dashboard tracks how typically your merchandise are specified, and the way that compares to key opponents, throughout architects, geographies and mission sorts.
• Who can use it: anybody in your group. No analytics experience required.

You possibly can pull up final quarter’s gross sales in a minute. Know-how makes it really easy lately to seek out out what you offered previously, however what these PowerBI dashboards and spreadsheets experiences cannot inform you is whose product architects wrote into the drawings six months in the past, and that’s the place tomorrow’s gross sales get determined.

In the event you’re questioning whether or not a competitor is quietly pulling forward on specs, you are asking the correct query.

Now, this is the right way to discover the reply.

How Do I Know if a Competitor’s Product is Being Specified Greater than Mine?

Begin with the correct measurement. Arduous gross sales numbers inform you about what’s already offered. Specification share, nonetheless, tells you the place your gross sales are headed. It exhibits how typically your merchandise are named in mission paperwork, earlier than anybody buys something.

This is a easy method to learn it with ConstructConnect Analytics:

• Arrange search tags in your merchandise and your opponents’ merchandise. Outline tags for particular person merchandise, product strains or your model, then add competitor tags alongside them. Maintain the tags constant so every interval is comparable.

• Begin with the AI abstract. It reads your filtered outcomes and calls out the traits and aggressive shifts price your consideration.

• Type the Specification Share Comparability by development path. The place are opponents trending up when you’re flat or slipping? That is your early warning.

• Evaluate share by state, then verify the change in opposition to the prior interval. Have a look at the tasks behind any shift, too. Rising share on just a few giant tasks is a distinct story than rising share throughout many small ones.

• Zoom in on the account. Search Tag Insights exhibits how your saved search tags monitor throughout an organization’s tasks, together with what number of matching tasks flip up total and within the final 12 months.

• Make it a behavior. Reviewing spec share month-to-month, and regional traits quarterly, is normally sufficient to catch a competitor’s momentum whereas there’s nonetheless time to reply.

Do not watch for the quarterly report

For a lot of producers, understanding spec share means ready for somebody to compile a quarterly report that displays the place you stood three months in the past. By the point it lands, choices have been made and opponents have moved. Analytics updates constantly, so you recognize you’re a dwell view of the place your merchandise are being written into specs, not a snapshot.

Why a Robust Market Does not Imply You are Profitable it

Whereas information headlines cowl the details, the true intel is within the particulars. Right here’s a very good instance: ConstructConnect Information reported that, by September 2026, U.S. nonresidential constructing begins have been up 34.7% year-to-date. Additional on within the article, ConstructConnect Chief Economist Michael Guckes notes the “places of work” class (which presently contains information facilities), equipped 72% of that acquire. In the event you take “places of work” out of the report, begins have been nonetheless up 11.2%, with warehouses, hospitals and clinics, and army development all posting features.

What this implies is that it’s best to at all times be:

• Studying the market at multiple stage

• Then testing the geography of the market in opposition to tasks, product match, and the specification path

• Asking the identical query about your personal merchandise. When a class grows, are you aware who is getting specified on that development? If a competitor is capturing extra of it, you might want to know now, and never after the quarter closes.

What to Monitor: a Brief Record Beats a Huge Dashboard

You do not want each metric beneath the solar. These 4 metrics cowl most of what a producer’s management group must learn about market place:

Discover Out Who’s Doing the Specifying

You already know getting a product specified begins properly earlier than bid day. The specification conversations occur on the design stage, and, by bid day, these choices are sometimes already made. So, when a competitor pulls forward, the following query is: whose drawings are their merchandise displaying up on?

• The Specification Positioning dashboard breaks spec exercise out by architect, geography and mission kind, and it attracts on information for 200,000+ architects and engineers with specification historical past. Use it to strengthen relationships with the architects who already specify you most, and to focus on segments the place opponents are outpacing you.

• The Specification Share Comparability would not simply present spec share. It exhibits which companies are driving spec share. Discover the architects with the very best spec quantity in your class, then ask: which of them will we already know, and that are specifying opponents with out ever listening to from a rep? One click on takes you to an organization web page with contacts and up to date tasks, so the decision listing builds itself.

• Filtering by geography helps, too. Markets the place mission quantity is excessive, however your spec share is low are markets the place reps needs to be constructing architect relationships now, earlier than these tasks transfer previous the design section.

To get a better take a look at a particular firm in ConstructConnect Analytics, the Firm Connections tab exhibits a agency’s most frequent collaborators, together with architects, common contractors and house owners, together with every firm’s position and the variety of tasks they’ve shared. Right here’s a walkthrough of utilizing Firm Connections, from ConstructConnect’s YouTube:

ConstructConnect Analytics is Constructed to be Utilized by Your Whole Group

Whereas many enterprise intelligence instruments simply present you charts, ConstructConnect Analytics is constructed to inform you the story behind them:

• AI-generated summaries replace together with your altering filters and flag what’s completely different

• Saved Dashboards allow you to return to the identical view with out rebuilding it.

• You too can go from a high-level view to in-depth mission particulars in a single click on.

Which of Your Group Members Needs to be Taking a look at Specification?

Specification is not only a gross sales concern. Anybody who touches development has a stake:

• Homeowners and executives can see the place the business development market is heading and the place to speculate subsequent.

• VPs of gross sales, advertising and technique can convey actual market information to territory planning and quarterly enterprise critiques. Spec exercise by product tag additionally exhibits which strains have momentum and that are fading earlier than you commit subsequent yr’s funds to product advertising or rep protection.

• Gross sales managers and architectural reps can pinpoint which architects and engineers specify merchandise like theirs, and which of them have not but.

• Advertising and marketing groups can purpose campaigns and messaging on the segments the place opponents presently dominate, and see which product strains are gaining or shedding designer consideration.

Backside line, since gross sales and advertising base their work across the similar info, when outcomes have to be shared, you’ll be able to export insights for shows, experiences, and CRM updates.

How Can You See Your Spec Share Proper Now?

The quickest method to know whether or not a competitor is being specified greater than you is to take a look at your precise market. Schedule a ConstructConnect Analytics Demo with us, convey your personal territory, and we’ll present you your specification share by state.

Continuously Requested Questions (FAQ)

What’s specification share?

Specification share relies on how typically your merchandise are named in mission paperwork, in contrast with competing merchandise.

What is the distinction between spec share and market share?

Market share relies on gross sales. Specification share relies on how typically your merchandise are named in mission paperwork. Spec share strikes first, which makes it an early learn on the place market share is heading.

How typically ought to I verify whether or not a competitor is gaining on me?

Month-to-month for spec share and begins quantity, and quarterly for regional traits and forecasts. Test extra typically throughout a product launch or a pointy swing in regional exercise.

Can I monitor a number of product strains and opponents without delay?

Sure. You possibly can outline tags for particular person merchandise, product strains or model phrases, and add a number of competitor tags alongside them to benchmark in the identical view.

Do I want a knowledge analyst to trace competitor specification?

No. Analytics is constructed so folks throughout your group can interpret the information with out analytical experience, and AI-generated summaries spotlight insights routinely.

What information is behind it?

Analytics attracts on 825,000+ verified tasks and a couple of million+ searchable plans and specs, with about 15,000 new U.S. and Canadian tasks added each month. Information is refreshed every day.