> Registration and Complimentary Continental Breakfast
> Introduction and Overview
- Introductions, roles and perspectives
- Experience: Defining your own starting point
- Your biggest challenges with successful BD
> Getting Started: The Business Development System
- The economic and business context influencing our industry
- Opportunities and challenges of A/E firm growth
- Defining the objectives of business development
- Important happenings, changes, and trends in the marketplace
- A new paradigm for marketing in the 21st century
- The business development process
- A comprehensive framework for business development
- Roles, responsibilities, and the first law of BD success
- Why A/E professionals avoid business development
> Marketing in the Firm
- AEC Industry Outlook: How firm leaders plan to grow
- Key benchmarks: How much should you invest in marketing?
- Tools of strategic business and marketing planning
- Understanding why clients buy from you
- Branding the firm; pull verses push marketing strategies
- Defining your company’s distinctive value proposition
- Eight marketing communications best practices
- Outlining the proper BD role for A/E professionals
- Marketing plan: The BD management tool
- Successful marketing strategies of top firms
> Morning Break
> Personal Success with Business Development
- Focus, value, and the second law of BD success
- Strategic marketing at the personal level
- Why thought leadership builds credibility best
- Writing and public speaking: Not-so-secret strategies
- Press kit? Three parts of your personal collaterals package
- Get it done: A personal communications action plan
- Special tools for managing your BD effort
- CRM systems
> Reflection and Action Planning
- Three top ideas from the morning’s work
- Other resources to consider
- Defining the objectives of business development
> Lunch
> Nurturing Rich Client Relationships
- Relationships verses projects
- Primary sources of quality A/E opportunities
- Five secrets of super-successful A/E lead prospectors
- Profitable strategies for developing sales
- Ten tips for thawing out cold calls
- The real difference between a lead and a prospect
- Rapport: Building credibility and connections with clients
- The different types and roles of client buyers
- Leveraging the power of cross selling
- Strategies for saying no to clients or projects
> Finding and Creating Profitable Opportunities
- How to define what an opportunity is
- Relationships verses projects, part two
- The primary sources of quality A/E opportunities.
- Five secrets of super-successful A/E lead prospectors
- The sales pipeline is a system and a process
- Profitable strategies for developing sales
- Ten tips for thawing out cold calls
- The real difference between a lead and a prospect
- Rapport: building credibility and connections with the client
- Adding value, using the customer’s language
- The different types and roles of client buyers
- New customers or new services? Leveraging the power of
cross selling
- Using research and inquiry to get at the heart of the matter
- Fit (between buyer and seller) is the secret word of success
- Strategies for saying no to clients or projects that don’t work
> Afternoon Break
> Proposals and Presentations that Close the Deal
- A/E proposal benchmarks: How does your firm compare?
- The go/no go system – Does it work the way it should?
- The proper proposal type for the job at hand
- Six keys to developing more successful proposals
- How to beat the odds in the RFP game
- Creating a system for tracking opportunities
- Ten tips for presentations that win business
- Negotiating the final deal from a position of strength
- Common fee structures and what works best
- Pricing: The seven secrets of getting the fees you deserve
- The single best way to close the deal
> Reflection and Action Planning
- Reviewing the day’s journey
- Developing your top seven agenda items
- Bias and commitment for doing
- Scheduling a personal follow up with the seminar leader
> Program Concludes
Call 800-466-6275