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O P I N I O N
T his is one of those times that some companies in the A/E business need to pull out all the stops to find some new clients and new projects. None of these is a panacea. All of these things do, however, have the potential to bring you new clients, opportunities, and projects. Guerrilla marketing tactics you can use
Yes – most companies in this business have a long sales cycle. From the time they have any kind of lead until closing a new project they can actually bill the client for, there is a lag of anywhere from a few months to a few years. So if you are concerned about your workload, you can’t waste any time doing things that could increase it. There probably is no “magic bullet” you can use to get the work you need. You will have to do MANY things to bring in new clients and/or new projects. Some of these may seem small and insignificant, but together they can make a difference. 1)Benchmark the current status of your marketing and BD programs. First things first, put all your marketing metrics in one report. Number of opportunities that week, number and value of proposals sent, number and value of contracts signed, dollar value of backlog, number of names in the database, numbers of follows and interactions
on all social media, web hits, time spent on the website, etc. Getting a baseline on all of these and tracking it weekly will show whether or not any of these other things that follow are working. And share this report widely to get everyone tuned in. 2)Fill the holes in your client and potential client list. Whatever your target markets are, do not assume you have ALL of the organizations or people in those organizations who could hire your firm or influence the decision to hire your firm. There are always gaps and companies/organizations and key people you want to know who you are are not there. Fill those gaps. 3)Get on social media and make new connections with people in your targeted client organizations. It’s so easy. For example, if you work for higher ed institutions, go to LinkedIn and look up any specific university you want to target and
Mark Zweig
See MARK ZWEIG, page 10
THE ZWEIG LETTER MAY 25, 2020, ISSUE 1346
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