Business Development Best Practices

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, there are nearly 30 million small businesses in the United States employing 47.8 percent of U.S. workers.”

Within the architecture, engineering and construction industry, it is not uncommon for many firms to experience a disconnect when it comes to understanding the value of marketing. Here are some practical insights on how you can begin to grow and develop a culture where marketing is not only respected but embraced. 

Is your company looking to expand its portfolio, build its industry profile or adjust its image? A LinkedIn Showcase may help! Here is an overview of Showcase pages on the LinkedIn platform and how they could help your firm convey their service offerings and build its network. 

Rebuilding a website is no easy endeavor. Fortunately, if you ask the right questions at the onset of the project, you will keep your team on track and your soon-to-be new website on the road to exceptional. 

It’s time that professional services firms faced a couple of hard truths: First, no one wants to subscribe to an e-newsletter, and second, a single email is not going to make the phones ring. Companies spend significant resources on online marketing only to be left wondering why it’s not working. It’s not surprising. Gaining traction through content alone is not easy—especially if you want to do more than build awareness. The problem, however, is not that online marketing doesn’t work. It's that most A/E/C firms stop short of what it takes to see results. Specifically, their online marketing lacks strategy and disciplined follow-up.

First Things First: What Is a Brand? A brand is NOT a logo. Or a tagline. Or an identity system. A brand is an expectation of experience and a promise delivered. It’s the perception others have about your company – its people, culture, products and services. Your company builds its brand, or rather the perception of its brand, with every customer contact, planned or unplanned. Every interaction, no matter how insignificant, shapes your brand’s perception and drives your customers’ behavior. Rebranding is about taking control of what your audiences think – and say – about your brand. 

For many construction companies, marketing supports the Business Development department in winning new work. This includes responding to project opportunities through the creation of statements of qualifications, proposals and presentations. Depending on company size, operations staff or team members working in different departments such as HR or Accounting may have marketing responsibilities. In some cases, companies haven’t needed a marketing department until now. If you’re just setting up your marketing department, planning it to support Business Development is priority No. 1. Here are some tips to help you lay the foundation and set your company up for long-term success. 

The acronym “BIM” is showing up more and more in our industry. Owners are requiring it on projects, countries are setting standards for it, and firms are touting expertise in it. But what is Building Information Modeling (BIM) and, as marketers and business developers, why should we care? 

In order to execute a successful business development program, it is important to define what business development truly means and what steps are required to make it so. At its core, business development is the strategic manufacturing of revenue growth opportunities. While some use the term as a synonym for sales and others include mergers and acquisitions, business development actually involves a broader scope including corporate strategy, marketing, sales, and human resources. Each of these are prevalent throughout the following steps, which outline a successful business development process.