Full Description

The past several years have seen sweeping changes in the economy, brought on by the information age and an accelerating rate of technological change. In this challenging economic landscape, no business can afford to stand still without losing its place in the market. A/E Business Development Cookbook provides your firm leaders with the information and strategy to manage and grow a sales organization in an increasingly complex world.

A/E Business Development Cookbook provides your firm with indispensable information, including:

• How to identify, capture and qualify opportunities
• How to coordinate your marketing and business development efforts
• Whether or not to hire a dedicated business development professional
• Strategies to help your firm build lasting client relationships
• How to make go/no-go decisions, negotiate, and close the deal
• How to develop an individual business development program
• Why customers defect and what you can do about it
• How to align your business development goals with your firm’s mission and strategic plan
• Why everyone in your firm plays a role in business development

 In an ideal world, potential clients would recognize your firm’s value to their project, and would virtually line up at your door, begging you to let them hire your services at whatever price you named. You would have few or no competitors, so you would have no trouble filling your sales pipeline with terrific opportunities whenever you felt the need. In the real world, it’s another story. In the real world, opportunities are lost every single day either because you aren’t looking for them at that precise moment, or because you don’t have the time to deal with them when they come up, or because you don’t have the knowledge to address them.

 This book is about what is happening in the real world and will prepare you to identify and make the most of real business development opportunities. You will learn why it’s important to identify the rainmakers in your firm; how to turn your doers into sellers; the best way to find leads; why it’s necessary to coordinate your marketing and business development efforts; how to hang onto your valued clients; how to write compelling proposals and make winning presentations; what is meant by “widening the funnel,” and how to identify and articulate “fit”. These and other subjects are addressed in the A/E Business Development Cookbook.

 If you’ve been curious about how other firms handle business development, the case studies section of the book will give you an inside look at other A/E firms and the strategies that have led to their success. Get helpful advice from companies just like yours. See how they.ve developed a business development strategy, ramped up financial and other resources, created a sales-and-marketing culture, and developed and managed client relationships. Learn how the leaders and managers in these firms have maximized opportunities and used ongoing sales and marketing techniques to keep their businesses on track, even through tough economic times. Go behind the scenes in the life of business development professionals to see how these people organize their day-to-day operations and use skills and strategy to grow their firms.

 Business development is not one-size-fits-all, and this book also recognizes that no two companies are alike. To create a successful enterprise requires a thorough understanding of your own firm and its employees, the economic climate, and the A/E industry-at-large. Business practices that have worked for many successful A/E firms can be applied; however, to be assured of success, a company must examine its own history, resources, and goals. The A/E Business Development Cookbook will show you how.

Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1: Getting Started: Why Business Development Matters

• The changing landscape
• Today’s new marketing paradigm
• The value of business development
• Defining marketing, sales, and business development
• Creating a dynamic system
• Why we avoid business development
• The first law of business development success

Chapter 2: Finding and Capturing New Opportunities

• Identifying opportunity
• The opportunity pipeline
• Widening the funnel
• Qualification: Turning leads into prospects
• Building connection and credibility
• Understanding who’s who
• Asking the right qualifying questions
• Identifying and articulating “fit”
• Overcoming client objections

Chapter 3: Proposals, Pitches, and Presentations

• The go/no-go decision
• Gathering information from the client
• The pre-proposal meeting
• Writing the proposal
• Winning presentations
• The right presentation team and the right preparation
• Coaching presenters and presentation teams
• Visuals
• Better presentations
• Debriefings

Chapter 4: Negotiating Agreements and Closing the Sale

• What really matters
• The art of the deal: Successful negotiation strategy
• Discussion: The heart of the negotiation
• Difficulties in negotiation
• Closing the deal

Chapter 5: Relationship Building: Taking the Long View

• Relationships, not transactions
• Superb account management
• Individual relationship building
• Developing a communication strategy
• Relationship marketing
• Client relationship management
• Why clients defect
• A final thought

Chapter 6: Developing a Personal Approach to Business Development

• Contact development: Widening the funnel
• A personal business development system
• What to say
• Networking; from cold calls to warm calls
• The value of networking
• Developing a personal brand

Chapter 7: Business Development Inside Your Firm

• Developing a strategy
• The building blocks of strategic business planning
• Getting a seat at the planning table
• Who are your sellers
• From doers to sellers
• Bringing in the big guns
• Getting the whole staff on board
• The BD cycle and process
• What are you selling?

Chapter 8: A/E Business Development Case Studies

Appendix: Resources