Craig Watson is a leadership consultant with nearly a decade of experience, the son of a career construction professional, and the founder of Watson Consultants: Coaching for Construction. He had the expertise, a book, and a course. Gridwell helped him turn them into a clear position in the market and a system that sells to whole companies, not one leader at a time.
The Client
Leadership Training Built for the Job Site
Watson Consultants trains supervisors, foremen, and project managers in the people skills construction rarely teaches. Craig’s work brings together clinical insight and construction roots, a combination almost no one else in the market holds. His credentials include a partnership with Columbia University on the Hard Hat Help app, a suicide-prevention tool for construction workers, and The Construction Leadership Field Manual.
His flagship offer, the Construction Leadership Course, covers four modules (Motivation, Communication, Culture, and Coaching) in three formats: self-paced, course plus coaching, and in person.
The Challenge
Expertise Without a Clear Market Position
Craig’s credentials were strong, but his story led with the wrong ones. Marketing that opened with counseling credentials positioned him as a therapist, not as the leadership expert construction companies needed. The website explained what he did without making the case for why it mattered to a contractor’s bottom line.
The course had a second problem: it was set up to sell to individuals, one enrollment at a time, while Craig’s real buyers were companies that wanted to train a group of leaders together.
The Strategy
Lead With the Problem Contractors Already Feel
Position Craig as a leadership consultant first. His clinical background became a supporting credential, and the Columbia University partnership became the lead authority signal everywhere he shows up.
Make the labor crisis the hook. Construction companies promote skilled tradespeople into leadership with no people-skills training. The website now opens with that problem: companies don’t lose money because of labor shortage; they lose money because of leadership inconsistency.
Tell the story with the customer as the hero. We rebuilt the site copy on the StoryBrand framework, with the contractor as the hero and Craig as the guide, and gave the main site one job: warm up visitors and send them to the course.
Sell to companies, not individuals. We shifted the launch from a broad media push to direct outreach to Craig’s construction contacts, and reworked the course into a team product that companies buy for a cohort of leaders.
What We Built
A Brand Story and the System Behind It
- Positioning and messaging that every page, bio, and pitch now follows.
- Website copy for the homepage, offerings, and About Craig pages, plus long, short, and one-line bios for speaking, media, and directories.
- Course launch materials, including a press release and a go-to-market strategy.
- Cohort onboarding automation. A company’s point person fills out one form with up to ten leaders. Each leader is added to the CRM, tagged by company, placed in the right cohort, given course access, and sent onboarding emails automatically.
- A sales pipeline with discovery-call booking, proposals, and e-signature, so a company can go from first call to signed agreement to enrolled leaders in one flow.
- Ongoing content and lead capture, from monthly social content focused on the course to sign-up links Craig shares from the stage when he speaks.
The Result
A Clear Position and a Course Built to Scale
Craig now goes to market with a single, consistent story: the leadership consultant who understands construction. And his course runs as a team product, so a company can enroll a whole crew of leaders without Craig touching the paperwork.
