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.
Digital transformation. Disruption. Innovation. As a professional in the A/E/C industries, you know these buzzwords all too well. Project teams are accustomed to adapting, testing new solutions on their project sites, and reaping the benefits of quicker workflows and access to data in real time. But what does it mean for marketers?
In the business world we live in today, there is no such thing as a single person, process or strategy that sets a company apart from the competition. Evaluation of your services has become more complex and the ability to market yourself and grow during this unusual time due to COVID-19 can make you feel over-extended no matter if you are small, mid-sized or large.
If you are like the thousands of BD folks in the A/E/C industry right now, you are struggling to find ways to stay relevant and connected to your clients and project management teams. Depending on the state you live in and the day of week, your situation varies.
It happens to all of us: an RFP comes across our desk and someone says “Go!” You contact the owner and the design team to gain an understanding, then submit a proposal. Then you wait… and wait… until that “thanks but no thanks” letter arrives. The owner provides a debrief but the unspoken truth is that you don’t know enough about that client let alone the project. Winning takes more than visiting a project site after an RFP hits the streets and submitting a sound proposal. The best submittals come from years of relationship building and information gathering.
As a society, the way we consume information has changed. We have become accustomed to small bites of information (think Twitter) and highly graphical content (think Instagram and infographics) that can be skimmed and quickly grasped. If brevity is our new normal, why do many firm owners still ask for, and A/E/C professionals respond with, the same stale proposal formats we’ve used for decades.
In the A/E/C industry, your employees are your most important asset. These are the folks providing the firm’s services and interacting with your clients. In turn, your employees’ perceptions and experiences with your firm are transferred to the clients with whom they work. If your employees are rallied around a cohesive business strategy and a shared sense of purpose, the brand will radiate meaning from the most authentic source: the people who work there.
Regardless of whether you work at a small or large firm, the chances you've heard, "Our pricing just isn't competitive", is pretty high. What do you do if your pricing simply isn't competitive?
The reality is that many A/E/C professionals, especially engineers and environmental scientists, are introverts by nature. Firm leaders can be just as reluctant to put introverts into this role, focusing their efforts on more extroverted staff. Introverts (and those who manage them), take heart. You really can learn to be more comfortable with—and even enjoy—BD activities. And you can become proficient without the pressure to be someone you’re not.
Building brand awareness on social media may seem like a daunting task, however it is worth your time. Social media is a vehicle to share your story, build brand awareness, and engage with your community, clients and employees.
Business development is not a cheesy, disingenuous process of passing out business cards or relentless cold calling. Let go of the overly canned elevator speech and consider every conversation your opportunity to learn more about potential clients and their goals and challenges.
