EXCERPT FROM DIRECTIONS
Chapter 1 ~ STARTING POINT:
“BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT” VS. “MARKETING”
Glossary of terms following Chapter 1
A/E/C practitioners and firms can do great business development without formal knowledge or experience in using the total marketing process. We feel, based on experience, that they will execute business development much better and with greater results if they learn how to use the total marketing process, strategically and tactically, to guide those business development efforts.
Marketing professional services across the disciplines has many similarities. For A/E/C, there is one very significant difference from marketing activities by Lawyers, Doctors, Dentists and CPAs. Here's what we mean: for A/E/C services, the nature of the initial transaction (engagement) and any extension is different.
The other professionals all hope that each new client or patient contact, a transaction, is so successful in terms of satisfaction and value that an on-going relationship is formed, within which additional transactions take place over time, thereby producing an on-going, if 
sporadic, revenue stream. Not so in A/E/C, most times.
The A/E/C client engagement or project is basically an extended-time transactional activity. Any relationship values or attributes are generated within that time frame between participating parties as they work jointly to fulfill client expectations and complete the project.
This unique difference became very clear as Guest Speaker after Speaker described their architectural, engineering, design or construction firm's “business development process” and experience in our original Georgia Tech course, ARCH 8841-MARKETING ARCHITECTURAL SERVICES.
One of the biggest benefits of a successful client experience during a project relationship we observed was the increased likelihood of being remembered fondly or "short-listed" the next time the client needed an architect and began some variation of the RFI/RFP process. The wise A/E/C principal or firm recognizes this fact and maintains a planned level of contact and interaction with past clients after completion of a given project.
For A/E/C firms, "the transaction" may take up to four or five years, as we watched the fenced, green and very valuable lawn on Chicago's Michigan Avenue between Chestnut and Delaware be converted by Skidmore (S-O-M) into the world's then-tallest new building for John Hancock Center. (The project took an extra year because some 40 of the 192 concrete caissons drilled and filled managed to develop "bubbles," requiring drilling out and repouring!)
We also learned that Federal bureaucrats tend not to give the next project to the successful architectural firm doing the last project for that agency or bureau. They seem to like to pass the business around, which in political parlance makes sense: “It's good for votes!”
However, successful governmental projects can be used to create favorable word-of-mouth reputation and to demonstrate competency in project type. Sloppy work, whatever the cause, works just the other way in what is really still “a small community” -- the U.S. A/E/C sector.
For now, based on more than 40 years' involvement in spreading the marketing gospel, and after five years of close involvement in architectural marketing, here are 10 major observations about A/E/C marketing and business development ...
10 Basic Truisms in A/E/C Marketing & Business Development
- Everyone has "a Marketing System!" It's the way they execute the Business Development process now!
A “system” by definition implies a specific way of doing things in a given type of situation. For A/E/C, on a scale of 1-to-10, putting your name in the telephone directory, on the door, and printing business cards and stationery places you between Zero and Two on that scale, in our opinion.
Making a telephone call and inviting someone to lunch moves you towards Three, but not much. From our look at your sector, most A/E/C firms' range of marketing activities places the sector at about Four or Five. In Atlanta , several larger firms place much higher, with one approaching a laudatory Nine on our scale.
It is the objective of this text/workbook to help the reader-user move his or her practice or firm "up the scale" from Four-Five at minimum up to a healthy Seven-Eight-Nine in executing Business Development activity.
- Marketing Awareness and Marketing Activities usually start from the bottom up in daily activities instead of from the top down (i.e., initiated strategically, by plan, by top management) .
Historically, the Sales Department ran the show in most American firms. “Marketing” was the name assigned to the Advertising, Sales Promotion, Merchandising and Publicity or Public Relations departments when formed into a group reporting to the General Sales Manager.
Over time, parity was achieved, and then "Marketing" began to call the shots, and Sales (and the others) reported to a Vice President of Marketing.
One day, someone realized that a firm's strategic direction was really the set of answers to some very simple questions: Who are our customers? What do they want us to do for them or are we doing for them now? How can we make them like us and patronize us again?
History says it was the General Electric Company which began asking these kinds of questions of itself in about 1950. For A/E/C firms, their value today is more important than ever. The sooner each firm asks and answers these effectively, the sooner that firm sets in motion the shift from a reactive to a proactive "marketing culture" and orientation.
Choices must be made: (1) Where should we compete? ("Segmentation"), and, (2) How should we compete? ("Differentiation").
- The unguided, bottom-up entry of various marketing activities into the A/E/C services firm's business process often slows or impedes understanding and conversion to use of the total marketing process !
Inexperienced marketers often confuse one or two basic marketing activities (i.e., personal selling or personal contact, sales promotion, etc.) with "total marketing.” They don't realize the two-level nature of the total marketing process -- strategic guiding tactical. They also don't know the difference between "Strategic" (i.e., "Direction"), and "Strategy" (i.e., "How to get there!”)
What's more, expertise in one or more marketing functions in one business sector does not transfer automatically to similar effectiveness in a new and significantly different sector (i.e., from consumer goods over to professional services marketing).
- "Marketing", like Business Development, is not an activity you do or don't do. Instead, "marketing" requires -a total orientation to use of the process as the core strategy of business development, with on-going support up, down and across the whole organization .
A comment still heard too often in professional services marketing: "Marketing? Oh,
we tried it once and it didn't work!" Business Development, using the total marketing process strategy, is an on-going, continuous thrust, and not a single "magic pill" or "Silver Bullet" one-shot effort.
- Shifting to a real marketing mode in a professional services organization takes time. It requires an in-depth self-reexamination of basic assumptions on which the business has been built. It probably will mean and require changes is in cherished assumptions and ways of doing things. It must have complete organizational support .
To build a truly effective business development thrust using the total marketing process, you must go all the way. In short, "you cannot be just a little bit pregnant!"
- Marketing professional services has little in common with consumer goods marketing, which requires either a three-level or four-level marketing infrastructure. Professional services A/E/C marketing basically is a two-level or two-party interaction involving targeted information packaging and communication (execution) .
Bluntly speaking, A/E/C (professional services) marketing basically "does not need an advertising agency!" In its stead, the firm needs access (on payroll if large enough, off-payroll if smaller) to outstanding professional information packaging and dissemination talents -- business writers, publicity writers, etc.
Professional services marketing does require a "marketing planner and coordinator" of some kind within the firm -- either a partner assigned to get the job done personally, or through a support person, or a more experienced "marketing practitioner" comfortable with informational marketing.
- A/E/C clients and prospective clients "buy solutions” to their project needs. They do not "buy A/E/C services" per se .
Push Marketing (telling them how good we are) is not nearly as effective in A/E/C situations as is Consultative Marketing (asking good questions to identify their needs and requirements, and then generating more information from which to develop various strategies for solutions and presented later in a "next interview")!
Experienced "rainmakers" in any field will agree: a prospective client will tell you almost everything you need to know for developing a solution strategy and recommendation, if only the A/E/C professional will ask good, penetrating questions and listen insightfully to the answers!
- Word-of-Mouth can be a tremendously effective marketing tool !
W-O-M is a gold mine of opportunity for leveraging in the A/E/C business sector, to a degree even greater than for Accounting, Medical and Legal services, if planned and executed effectively. Actually, A/E/C marketing is a form of “Consultative and Solutions Services” marketing.
Word-of-Mouth activity is a form of positive image-building. It is a by-product of effective performance in conducting "the business of the business." It also is generated by the way the firm and its people interact, not only with the client and his/her people, but also by the way the firm and its people interact with a host of other "publics" in the course of business operation.
Some type of Word-of-Mouth image or reputation will be generated by your firm, like it or not. For A/E/C firms, good usage of Word-of-Mouth opportunities can enrich the business image and reputation over time.
- A/E/C Marketing process is a combination of (1) business intelligence activity (information gathering and analysis), (2) persuasive information packaging and dissemination, (3) executive-level "proposal presentation and selling", and, (4) good negotiation .
A/E/C marketing process actually draws more from life insurance or Consultative Services marketing than it does from consumer goods marketing. It is more like social and non-profit marketing in its informational needs for identifying and targeting marketing efforts.
- The entire A/E/C business sector should sponsor a bronze statue of Weld Coxe while he lives, in thanks and recognition of his pioneering contributions towards a distinctive A/E/C marketing process for business development !
One might describe the marketing process as "purposeful commonsense business activities focused on the client" for professional services scenarios. If so, Mr. Coxe ranks with the immortals of innovation in A/E/C business development.
Historically, in American business, innovative thinkers in a business sector have initiated much of the movement towards adoption of the marketing process for that sector. Mr. Coxe is one of those wonderful people, as we discovered in a lengthy telephone visit soon after completing a first read-through of his book, MARKETING ARCHITECTURAL AND ENGINEERING SERVICES (Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, circa 1983).
In relation to this text/workbook, Mr. Coxe's book falls within the tactical level of marketing. In terms of helpful information and commonsense about new business development, it would be most helpful to the new reader-user of this publication if read after finishing a thorough reading of this work.
(A recommended list of helpful business books and other resources is included in the MARKETING TOOL KIT section at the end of this information package.)
SPECIAL INDEX TO THE A/E/C MARKETING GLOSSARY
The following list presents 50 special marketing terms selected for their usefulness in learning about the total marketing process and its possible role in strengthening your firm's business development effort. Each description has been specially prepared to indicate its role in A/E/C usage, as contrasted to consumer products marketing usage or previous Business-to-Business usage in other business sectors.
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