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■ Strategic alignment: conformance with strategic plan and company mission, vision, values ■ Licensing considerations: business license, staff license and certifications, contractor license, etc. – whether in a specific state, geographic region, or having specialized certifications necessary to work in the target market AEC firms often spread themselves too thin when it comes to target markets. Just because you technically “could” do the work doesn’t mean you will be hired without a robust offering to the target market, as outlined above. In other words, ensure you have the right bait before fishing. GETTING REAL WITH GO/NO-GO DECISIONS. A tale as old as time is the propensity for making “go” decisions for pursuits that are quite obviously “no-go” opportunities. In most firms, there is a “go” process instead of “go/no-go.” An executive, principal, partner, or PM wants to pursue an opportunity, so it automatically becomes a “go” – regardless of the firm’s past experience, existing relationships, capacity of the marketing department, etc. The opportunity cost of poor “go” decisions is significant. Critical – and often limited – resources are diverted to pursuits with low-to-no probability of success. Sometimes, this comes at the cost of pursuing higher probability opportunities, or avoiding the critical marketing tasks necessary to build your brand, establish name recognition, and generate inbound leads. So it has the double-whammy of essentially doing nothing (pursuing a project you can’t win) and preventing the firm from conducting proactive marketing, which is essential during times of uncertainty. There are many different types of “go/no-go” forms and processes, but they typically entail responding to several questions and scoring them. However, when they are too subjective, everyone knows how to “cook” the workshop to score it as a go, so being objective here is very critical. Typical categories or questions for scoring include the strength of your existing relationship with the client, whether pre-positioning occurred before the opportunity or RFP was released, alignment with your firm’s ideal client profiles, target markets, and primary services, and the probability of being shortlisted or winning. Other considerations include the capacity of your marketing and pursuit team members, knowledge of the client’s challenges and pain points, a portfolio of relevant project experience, strength of proposed team resumes, ability to be competitive on fee or bid, potential for profitability, level of competition (including incumbents), the firm’s desire to be associated with the project, and potential risks. NEXT STEPS. There is of course much more to business development and marketing when developing strategies to generate work in uncertain times, but by focusing first on existing clients and segmenting them, then ensuring that your ICPs are current, target markets are defined, and go/no-go processes are realistic, you’ll be able to focus your marketing and BD efforts and improve your probability of success. Ready to learn more about these and other strategies to help drive your business development pipeline? Watch the on- demand webinar, Generating Business for Your AEC Firm in Uncertain Times, or reach out to me to discuss how Stambaugh Ness can help you be more intentional and strategic when it comes to BD and marketing. Scott D. Butcher, FSMPS, CPSM is managing director, Strategic Growth Advisory at Stambaugh Ness. Connect on LinkedIn.
SCOTT BUTCHER, from page 3
focus on targeting individuals based on specific demographic/ geographic characteristics. For the AEC industry, it is hard to pigeonhole a specific “persona.” For instance, a DPW director at one municipal client may be a male baby boomer who did not go to college but worked his way up, beginning in maintenance. He may retire in just a few years. But the DPW director at the adjacent municipality may be a young millennial woman with a degree in engineering, new to the role, and with a long career ahead. So, how do you create a buyer persona with these characteristics? Well, this is where the ideal client profiles come in. Identify the ideal companies, agencies, or institutions based upon certain variables, then target those prospective clients and individuals with specific roles/titles identified through the ICP process. It is critical to look at your existing and former clients to help provide context for the ideal clients. Every company has its own definition of ideal clients, but some of the common variables analyzed include market sector, sub-category (if applicable), size (revenues, employee county, population, etc.), AEC selection process, financial position, business objectives, needs we can address, project delivery preferences, and primary contact profile. Once defined, making ICPs central to your BD and marketing strategy is essential. Use them to score leads, define targets, guide content creation, and prioritize pursuits. KNOWING YOUR (MARKET) STRENGTHS. ICPs must align with target markets. Too often, firms facing uncertainty chase any and every opportunity, hoping that if they throw enough at the wall, something will stick. At the beginning of my career, I experienced a recession. The architecture/engineering firm I worked for was very worried about workload and went after everything. This reaction included taking a one-size-fits-all approach to pursuing every publicly advertised opportunity. I vividly remember the thrill of the pursuit in the early days of my job, followed by the consistent agony of defeat. After a year of pursuing every federal opportunity in our general region, with no focus or proactive business development, doing the math and learning we were 0-for-100 took the wind out of my sails. You may have heard the saying, “Don’t fish everywhere.” Perhaps a better saying should be, “Don’t fish everywhere, and bring the correct bait.” In the prior example, we fished where the fish were biting, but our bait was woefully inadequate. When targeting the right markets for your services, internal subject matter expertise and prior experience are absolutely essential to succeed in an uncertain market. There are many different ways to define a target market, but it is really about the intersection of several different components, including: ■ Historic performance: past revenues, profitability, current backlog, portfolio of project experience ■ Future opportunity: growth projections, funding sources, legislation that could impact the market ■ Existing relationships: knowing the decision-makers, having a broad network in the market sector, and geographic region ■ Company brand: recognition as a legitimate provider of specific services to the specific market in the specific region
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THE ZWEIG LETTER JULY 7, 2025, ISSUE 1592
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