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Business Development Best Practices

Every month the Business Development Committee reaches out to small business owners, marketing directors, and public relations specialists to gather valuable insight into the rapidly growing construction industry.

If you're looking to create marketing proposals, build relationships with customers, and increase sales, our Best Practices article series can help.

2024

  • February 2024
    Susan Matson, Atlas Marketing

    Tell your story the way it should be told, and intentionally connect with your visitors. Remember, prospective businesses or employees will look at your website before choosing you. Give them a reason to say yes. Yes, to buying your product or service. Yes, to joining your team. Yes, to partnering with you.

    Tags:
    Business Development, Client Relationship, Digital & Social Media
  • January 2024
    Tonya Byrd, Gilbane & Chris Martin, Atlas Marketing

    If you believe that business development is essential for a company's success - and let's face it, who doesn't? - this article is for you. It provides best practices for 2024 planning and is designed to help you plan and grow your business more effectively, both personally and professionally.

    Tags:
    Business Development, Culture & Personnel

2023

  • October 2023
    Leah Gradl, Kent Companies

    If you’re tired of a shotgun approach to sales and business development, it’s time to change your plan of attack. Account-based marketing (ABM) offers small and medium-sized contractors a critical opportunity to pivot from selling to everyone to capturing the right projects with high-value accounts. With limited resources for business development, ABM is targeted and measurable. Use this guide to start building your account-based marketing plan.

    Tags:
    Business Development, Client Relationship, Marketing & Branding, Metrics & KPIs, Technology & Processes
  • September 2023
    Lisa Frisbie, AGC MA

    Building relationships through shared interests can make your efforts less self-promotional and lead to unexpected resources that may open opportunities to meet prospective mentors, partners and clients which, in turn, will foster your career and business development.

    Tags:
    Business Development, Client Relationship, Networking
  • August 2023
    Glenn A. Thompson, W.M. Jordan Company

    Industry Conferences are a great way to network and collaborate with your clients and business partners.  Essentially it is a single location for you to engage with multiple contacts while making a single trip.  Effectively utilized, it is an efficient and cost-effective way to pack a lot of business development into a small window of time. Your long days, properly planned, will provide positive results which will justify the time and expense expended for each event.

    Tags:
    Business Development, Networking
  • July 2023
    Erin McCullough, Atlas Marketing

    You’ve seen it discussed everywhere lately – from trusted nightly news programs to your teenage kids and from folks as high up in the food chain as U.S. Government officials. And even with all the coverage, there are still many questions left unanswered. Is it breaking any rules? Can it be trusted? Is it going to make our jobs obsolete? We’re talking, of course, about ChatGPT and how AI in digital marketing is seemingly taking over.

    Tags:
    Business Development, Communication & Collaboration, Digital & Social Media, Marketing & Branding, Markets & Trends, Technology & Processes, Writing & Graphic Design
  • May 2023
    Fred Hencke, Segal

    The remaining aspects of SERVE provide more helpful tips and techniques for managing and enhancing the relationship building journey.  As you read each of them, consider how both the heart (emotion) and mind (logic) should be engaged. The first “E” in SERVE stands for “listening with Empathy and honoring wants.”

    Tags:
    Business Development, Client Interview & Presentation, Client Relationship, Communication & Collaboration, Culture & Personnel, Marketing & Branding, Markets & Trends, Networking
  • April 2023
    Fred Hencke, Segal

    As a business developer in this industry, you are selling solutions. As you build that trust one kept promise at a time, you may find your customer starts asking you for advice about other things. You are on the path to becoming one of their trusted advisors when your customer starts proactively sharing their plans, asks for your advice on broad topics, and starts using you as a sounding board. So, why become a trusted advisor and how does that help you with business development?

    Tags:
    Business Development, Client Relationship, Communication & Collaboration, Marketing & Branding, Markets & Trends, Networking
  • March 2023
    Chris Martin, Atlas Marketing

    Organizational disruptions are something every company will face. Sometimes these disruptions are easily managed, while other times they quickly morph into a crisis. How you manage and lead your team through a crisis begins with planning.

    Tags:
    Business Development, Client Relationship, Communication & Collaboration, Marketing & Branding, Markets & Trends
  • February 2023
    Lindsay Young, Strategic Marketing Consultant - Nu Marketing LLC

    Being busy is a blessing for many companies today. Most firms are overwhelmed with the amount of work they have for their employees, but firms should still be marketing their services to clients and prospects. Positioning your firm and marketing your services right now, while you have the cash flow, will elevate you in the marketplace.

    Tags:
    Business Development, Client Relationship, Communication & Collaboration, Marketing & Branding, Markets & Trends