Seller-Doer Success - arming everyone to help win new work

Think selling is not in your job description?  Think again.
Success in the AEC Industry requires that everyone provide value to your organization, and business leaders need everyone to contribute to winning new work.  Whether you’re responsible for generating revenue or just engaging with your customers, you’re involved in the sales process. Today, being great at what you do is just not enough.

Organizations need to retain existing business, cross-sell services among practice groups or divisions, and find new opportunities for work – a formidable task in a marketplace that is competitive and crowded.   It requires brand differentiation, well planned business development initiatives, and proving to your clients that you understand their business.  To execute, it requires alignment between sales, marketing and operations and requires that everyone contribute.

Here are 3 steps to getting everyone aligned and involved in winning new work:

Step 1  Define Your Business 

The Building Industry is saturated and highly competitive and organizations risk being selected on price if not fully differentiated from their competition.  The more defined you are about what you do and how it benefits your clients the better positioned you are to win more work.  Make sure you have a well-defined Position Statement and Value Proposition and make sure that everyone in your organization understands your message and how to tell your story. 

Step 2   Develop a Plan

A Strategic Sales and Marketing Plan helps to provide direction and focus for all employees. It points to specific results that are to be achieved and establishes a course of action for achieving them. A strategic plan also helps the various departments within your organization align themselves with common goals. Without a clear plan, expectations are developed in a void, priorities change constantly and there is little or no alignment with common goals.  For technical Doer-Sellers, establishing a personal marketing plan is the key to finding time in your schedule for sales.  

Step 3  Set Personal Goals

In sales, goals are the engine of productivity.  One of the most powerful things about establishing specific goals in your Sales and Marketing Plan is that it becomes your scorecard – it includes indicators for how you are doing.  These indicators allow you to look critically at your sales and marketing activities and make adjustments.   Regular reviews to analyze your results and make adjustments will keep your plan relevant and on target.

Whether you are in a sales and marketing function for an A/E/C company or whether you are part of the technical team you have some responsibility for impacting new business development – whether it is in your job description or not.  You have to sell yourself and your contribution to the business every day.  Start with the 3 steps defined above.

For more information about how technical professionals can contribute to the Business Development effort join us for one of our upcoming Seminars:
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Sales Skills for AEC Technical Professionals
Associated Builders and Contractors
[email protected]
610-279-6666.

This course provides technical professionals in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) market with effective sales strategies and skills needed to help win new work. Whether you’re responsible for generating revenue or just engaging with your customers, you’re involved in the sales process. Learn how to create a personal business development plan, cultivate customer relationships that build trust and learn the keys to developing a professional network.

Strategic Sales Planning 
Society for Marketing Professional Services
http://smpsphiladelphia.org/event
 
Learn how to build a strategic business development plan for achieving your sales targets. A good planning process brings operations and sales together to set goals and to generate agreement on strategic priorities, outcomes and results. Learn how to build a solid plan that aligns the sales strategy with the corporate strategy so that sales energy and resources are efficiently used and measurable goals are established that drive performance and compensation.

This program may be eligible for 1.5 CPSM credits and 1.5 AIA CES LUs.