Brand Constructor Blog
Posted on May 20, 2013
I found this the other day and just had to share it. Even if you’re not an Angry Birds fan (I’m actually not), this is still funny. Enjoy.
Original source: Geeklogie.com
Posted on May 16, 2013
As I mentioned last week, I attended SMPS’ The Basics of Business Development here in New Orleans. Last week I shared a graphic from the class about business development’s involvement through the client (see post). The course offered another great graphic that represents the client sales cycle and is especially helpful with non-marketers and business developers. Most people do not realize how hard it is to acquire new clients and this chart shows how the internal teams the importance in maintaining happy clients because you can bypass 7 of the 10 steps. Who wouldn’t want things to be 70% easier?
The track starts off with marketing at (1) Position and Promote the Firm. Marketing & Business Development (BD) needs to work hand-in-hand to have a cohesive brand position, message, and target. When Marketing & BD do not agree, the company’s success is greatly diminished and can easily sink the entire company. Step (2) is developing the relationship, which may start at a conference, business mixer, or the client searching your website. This step can take years before a deal is available and is the most important step not to rush.
Step (3) starts when a deal is on the tab and generally goes hand-in-hand with Step (4) when the RFP is issued. Many veteran business developers say if you don’t know the RFP is coming, its too late to get in. This is not always the case, but when you’re in the process of (5) Making the Go/No Go Decision, you need to take in consideration your competitors have been tracking this deal and courting the decision makers for months or years. The Go/No Go step is vital because wasting time and resources on a job you have no business responding to because you’re not qualified and do not have the relationships is not just a waste of money, it impacts your efforts on proposals that you’re better qualified to respond to anyway. Most companies increase their hit rate by eliminating the deals out of reach, not be doing more proposals. How many many jobs do you expect to win if you had to do 10 proposals next year? What if you had to do 100 proposals in the same time period? The quality of all the responses would plummet and you’d only be able to compete on low-bid.
Step (6) is actually submitting the proposal and then waiting for (and praying for) Step (7) the Short List. Just because you’re Short Listed, doesn’t mean you have the job. The next step (8) the Presentation is where your brand & people count. Getting past the proposals is about qualifications and price, while winning the shortlist is about you. I (and many of those experienced BD teams I mentioned earlier) have another Go/No Go here because things change, you may know who you’re competing with or the client may set you up for failure to test you with a 48 hour notice to your shortlist presentation. It’s okay to back out here, you’re invested, but not totally invested much like dating someone – break up before it leads to a wedding and foreseeable divorce.
Step (9) is Winning the Job! The work doesn’t end here, but this is do-or-die time for the rest of team as they are in the drivers seat in regards to solidifying that relationship with the client and getting repeat and uncontested work in the future. The large arrow in the middle of the graphic ideally goes round and round numerous times without the cost and uncertainty of bidding.
Posted on May 9, 2013
Earlier this week, I attended SMPS’ The Basics of Business Development here in New Orleans. I wanted to attend to brush up on my skills that are mostly self-taught and learned through trial-and-error and secondly, to see what my clients regularly go through as an A/E/C business development (BD) and marketing professional. It was a good course and especially valuable for those newer to business development such as technical staff, project managers (PM), principals, and marketers transitioning over. I also met some great people and new friends.
I wanted to share a few pieces from the course, some that I’ve seen & experienced first hand, but this course helped phrase differently or had a great visual for it.
A big question most companies ask from operations to BD, is when does the business developer let go of the client? The answer is never. The business developer does not break the relationship they spent years creating and nurturing and just hand it over to the operations team. This chart below illustrates how the business developer gets less involved as the project comes to completion, but never disappears.
I’ve seen this recently with our team. As we’ve grown, we brought in a project manager about a year and a half ago so I was not a business developer and manager. This allowed me to spend more time nurturing my clients, prospects, and focus on a few clients that I did still manage instead of juggling dozens of balls every day. For our clients, they now have two contacts so things do not slow down when one of us is out of the office. This also allows me to call a client and simply ask, “How are things going?” Because I’m not their only contact and because I have a relationship with them already, they are honest with me. This honesty allows us to tailor our interactions with individual clients and improve our systems. Also, most internal teams are too focused on the job at hand to discuss future opportunities. Keeping the business development team involved allows everyone on the team to focus on their strengths and for the entire company to work with clients long-term instead of for just one project.
What are your thoughts on business developments interactions through the project? Do you have examples of your own similar to this chart?
Posted on May 6, 2013
Occasionally we share fun, construction or web related humor on Mondays to brighten up your work week. I think you’ll enjoy this one.
Posted on May 2, 2013
From xcellimark.com
Over the past 12 years that I’ve designed, built & marketed websites, I have noticed a trend where the responsibility for a company’s website is now transitioning from the IT department to the marketing department (and rightfully so). Don’t get me wrong, I love IT departments and I built my client base through referrals from IT companies years ago. Those referrals have dried up because business owners are looking to their marketers and not their IT companies for help on their website.
Why am I writing this post if this transition already happened? Because just yesterday I spoke to a marketer that had his hands tied because ownership decided to have the internal IT team redevelop their website instead of bringing in a web or marketing company. That conversation made me realize that this is still going on, especially with older companies and companies run by, lets say, old-fashioned executives where everything digital or technology is run by the IT team.
Five reasons why IT should not develop your website:
- They have better things to do - Technology touches every facet of a company whether big or small – from operations, accounting, HR, and in the field. The IT team has too much to do already to worry about building a website and especially updating it. I have seen some IT departments manage the website as “job security” because there is a weakness elsewhere. Rarely do we find a person that is stellar at web on both the IT and marketing side.
- IT’s expertise is only one piece of the pie - A website can be boiled down to 3 main components – Design, Message, and Functionality. The IT team can only help with the last part and even that isn’t a given, because web coding is a different talent than IT work such as networking, troubleshooting, & high-level consulting. On our team, we have people who design websites and others who code websites. The few that can do both design and code, do not have the same high level of skills as the ones that specialize in one or the other. This is not a slight to them (I used to be a designer & developer), it is because they are pulled in different directions and can not refine their craft as efficiently. Although we create websites, we certainly do not do IT for our clients, we don’t even do it for our own company.
- Poor Utilization of Resources - Generally, IT people are paid well and rightly so for many of them. Having them spend time on the website should be “beneath them” if they’re utilized correctly as more of a consultant and long-term vision instead of a break-fix repair shop. The best IT companies I know have left the break-fix model years ago for a managed services approach were they are rewarded with incentives for having things not break and being proactive, a win for them and the client.
- Accountability - One of the biggest reasons is that your marketing and business development teams are charged with bringing in new business and retaining existing clients. Since they are the ones held accountable, why take the control and ownership of one of their biggest tools and resources away from them? Your website should be a powerful business development tool that builds credibility when networking, recruits the best prospective employees, and converts visitors into clients.
- Big Picture – IT should be in discussions about the company’s future as it regards to operations and creating efficiencies using technology. Marketing should be at the table guiding the company through positioning, differentiation, and strategic goals on how to get to the next level. This is comparable to the difference between a COO and a CEO.
We do work with IT firms & departments when creating the website, but it is usually in regards to the hosting and integrating business applications already in place. The strongest websites that produce a ROI (return on investment) are lead and managed by the marketing team.
Posted on May 2, 2013
Over the years, I’ve found numerous websites, blogs, & social media channels dedicated to the little known Construction Marketing industry that we love.
Construction & A/E/C Marketing Organizations
Construction & A/E/C Publications
Construction Marketing Resources
Construction Marketing & Design Firms
Construction Organizations
If you have any suggestions for this list, please let us know in the comments.
Posted on April 25, 2013
If you haven’t seen the writing on the wall yet, the world is mobile and your website needs to be mobile too. I know what you’re thinking, you’re in the construction industry and mobile is for B-to-C (Business-to-Consumer) companies. You’re correct in thinking that B-to-C companies need a mobile strategy, especially if they sell online. So do B-to-B (Business-to-Business) companies, even construction. You can not track or even begin to wrap your hands around how many prospective clients, bids, and employees you’ve lost because they can not view your website on a mobile device. I’ve talked to people who’ve missed meetings because they have trouble finding a company’s office and can not find a phone number on the company’s website.
Forbes reported in December 2012 that 13% of all web traffic worldwide is from a mobile device. They added that nearly one-third of American adults own a tablet or e-reader.
Another huge hinderance to mobile is the use of Flash. Recently, I completed a review of over 400 of the top construction company’s websites and was appalled at how many construction companies still used Flash on their website. This told me either the websites haven’t been updated in over 5-7 years or many of them have been dooped by web companies using fancy graphics and animations. If you don’t know already, Flash and Apple’s iPhone and iPad do not play well together – it was a very public, heated debate. If your company uses Flash on your website, your visitors see a grey box with a question mark or an error message like the website below. (I did remove the company’s name & website address to protect them.)
You need to take mobile into consideration with your website whether it be a simple one-page website that provides visitors your company name, services, and contact information. From there, give visitors the opportunity to view your entire website. They will have to do the awkward pinch & squeeze to see your website, but you’ve provided them with the vital info and then allowed them to dig deeper.
Ideally, your website is built using the new principle called “Responsive Design”, where your website responds to the visitor’s screen size like the example below.
Whether your visitors are on a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone, the website looks great with no need to pinch and squeeze to read a website on your smartphone. A great feature for marketers about Responsive Design is that it utilizes the same website for all three screens, pulling the information from the same CMS (Content Management System) database.
Learn more about Responsive Design in a past blog post.
Posted on April 18, 2013
This image went viral on Facebook the past few weeks. If you’re not from New Orleans, I do not expect you to get it. The image us obviously based on the famous Joan de Joanes’ ”Last Supper”, but what may not be so obvious is the iconic New Orleans’ brands.
I’m not going to give you an education on these brands because unless you’re from New Orleans, they don’t matter and you’d forget them anyway. (Although, I hope you recognize the Saints bobblehead near the center along with the George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog.) The importance of this image is that it spread like wildfire via social media, but to a small demographic of the world – New Orleanians. To all New Orleanians, this image resonated with them and made us all think about how brands effect our lives.
As an example, the snowman character on the far right, Mr. Bingle, is presented each year in City Park’s Celebration in the Oaks as part of New Orleans’ Christmas even though the character’s brand, Maison Blanche, has been closed for over 20 years. Also, the baker to the right of him, Simon of Hubigs Pies, represents a brand still current in New Orleans. This brand made numerous adults cry last year as Hubigs’ bakery burnt causing a mad dash to stores to buy the remaining stock.
These are B-to-C brands, making them more universal, but B-to-B businesses can create this passion and personal connection, especially in select vertical markets. It starts with having a good product or service, building a brand community and also having a personality. Think about the companies you work with, which ones do you fight for and protect?
Do your clients fight for you? Are they passionate about you and your success? Would your clients cry if you closed your doors? If you answer no to any of these questions, how do you change that?
When your clients are passionate about you, they don’t leave you and these raving fans spread your message and grow your company.
