Believe it or Not! Darwin Awards for A/E/C Marketing?
With more firms going after fewer projects, you would think that a sharp marketing focus would prevail. Think Again... Here are actual, hard-to-be­lieve, real life ways to under­mine a marketing effort. Some of these could be good candidates for the Darwin Awards.  Read more.

Ensuring Merger & Acquisition Success
If you are committed to growth by merger or acquisition, that’s exactly what you’re doing. And buying a used company can be a mine field of hidden surprises. If not handled properly, it can add significant costs to the acquisition or scuttle it altogether. In a merger or acquisition you are often buying someone else’s problems, plus the merger event itself creates a host of new problems on its own.  Read more.

Marketing Getting Stale?
Where's the Beef? Remember the old ad for Wendy's hamburgers where Clara Peller would lift the bun, squint at what she saw, and then bellow, "Where's the beef?"

Great ad. Good question. It's one that senior executives often ask themselves when they see canned presentations or boilerplate proposals from AEC sales people. But unlike Clara, they typically react by dismissing the sales person or tuning out of the presentation.

So here it is: A definition of the exact kind of content you need to provide to make a senior executive feel they're getting some substance.  Read more.

Why CEOs Shouldn't Facilitate Their Own Strategic Planning Meetings
The purpose of planning is not to produce a plan. It is to get things done. It is to allocate limited company resources on those areas where you have the greatest probability for success. That 's why Principals, and other key staff need to get issues out on the table for discussion and resolution collectively. People think that most firms are doing strategic planning, and secondly, are using the most effective techniques to ensure a good plan and positive results. Wrong on both counts!

First of all, most design and construction firms don 't have strategic plans and therefore most CEOs are probably not fulfilling the most important part of their job-ensuring the firm is positioned in the right markets with the right mix of services. And secondly, many of those who do have strategic plans, have FUZZY plans, plans that lack clear direction, specific, measurable objectives, action plans, and built-in accountability for results.  Read more.

Measure Results, Not Hours Worked
Managers who feel that they're running flat‑out on a treadmill are usually the victims of two condi­tions. One is the "activity trap" ‑ a tendency to focus on the amount of effort expended rather than the re­sults.

The other condition, "perfor­mance myopia," is a failure to see yourself through the eyes of your internal and external clients.  Read more.

Improving Your Win Rate
Computerized prospect lists are filled with long shots, projects that never happen, or with projects “wired” by the competition. How do you sort the wheat from the chaff? How can you assure that your judgement isn’t clouded by the glitz and the excitement of a new project? What can you do to focus on the realities of the selection process and minimize the subjective elements of your thinking? The challenge is to develop a process or systematic approach to aid in an objective assessment of your real chances for success.  Read more.

Selling Smart-Getting the Most From EVERY Sales Contact
You have invested thousands of dollars in brochures, PR, a marketing staff, marketing support and all the other elements you feel you need to compete in today's market. How do you know you're getting optimum results from your sales and marketing effort? Read more.

Marketing Information Systems
Would you ever think of operating your firm without financial statements? Of course not, without timely financial statements you would not know if you were making or losing money until it was too late to do anything about it to correct the situation.

Yet, a surprisingly high number of sizeable firms operate without any marketing statements or any kind of measuring report to keep them properly informed about marketing results.  Read More.

Strategic Focus Means Increased Profits
Two years ago, a large mid-western environmental services firm took a bottoms-up approach to planning. The results were incredible: Bookings were 60% ahead of the previous twelve month period. They experienced an 80% increase in revenues and a 200% increase in pre-tax earnings. Cash flow is now approaching 8% of revenues and they have experienced an improvement in project win rates of over 250%. Read more.

Inventing Your Future-The Key to a Successful Firm
We all know of highly successful firms that always seem to be in the right place at the right time. They appear to have an almost eerie sense of timing and market positioning. Their names fill the professional and trade publications with their successes and awards. Top talent flocks to them eager to become part of their compelling dynamics.

On the other hand, companies that get into trouble, experience major downsizings, fail to reach their potential or just go out of business, probably could have prevented most of these disasters. Most firms fall somewhere in between just plodding along, never seeming to reach their potential yet never making any major mistakes. Read More.

Leading the Marketing Effort Instead of Managing It
Design and construction firms are populated by an abundance of managers, and hampered by a dangerous dearth of leaders. All disciplines alike are affected. What's the difference? The definition we've used for years in our speeches and writing is that we manage things, and lead people. It's impossible to lead things and you can't really "manage" people---not anymore. This classic definition has grown to be more relevant in recent years as the directive style of autocratic management has become less effective. Read More.

Are Bird Dogs Obsolete
I've always disliked the term "bird dog" as it has been used to de­scribe what someone felt was the re­sponsibility of marketers in design firms. I always felt it was a narrow and demeaning description of a mar­keters role. It should probably more appropriately be used to describe only one important element of the selling process, that of prospecting.

Within this definition, are "bird dogs obsolete?" It depends largely on how you define the duties of a bird dog.

If you require him/her to "find and point" to new projects, introduce the closer‑doer and walk on to the next project then yes, they are obso­lete. Today's selling environment is too complex and competitive for this simplistic approach to be effective. It may have worked when the rest of the competition was struggling with the basics of marketing, but not any more. We all know the competition is tough out there. Read more.

Winning Proposals
Any competitive proposal must be the best possible product your firm can produce. Proposals do three things:

1. They substantiate the position of the client*s decision maker who was pushing for you. He can proudly hold up your proposal and say, “See, I told you they are the best. Their proposal proves it.”

2. It is a stand—alone sales tool. It carries your message and tells the client what you want the client told. If it is a good proposal the message comes through. If it isn*t, the mes­sage dies.

3. The proposal is a sure indicator of the kind of work your firm does. If it is a superlative proposal, it is more than likely your work will be too. If the proposal is just average, quick and dirty, or poorly done, it implies it’s possible your work will be also. In fact, the proposal is the first work you do for the client. It is the first thing he sees that is a real sample of what you can do. Read more.