BuiltEnvironment

Selling more than you can deliver?

I have probably told this to every client I've ever had, and every seminar and workshop I've ever delivered: never commit more than you can actually deliver!

Selling more work than you can do is nothing but a recipe for disaster -- a guarantee that you will walk smack into a very hard stone wall and break an essential body part.

I was very lucky in the last 30 days. I thought I had sold more than I could deliver, but discovered that I had actually, somehow, sold only exactly as much as I could deliver. In essence, I had walked up to that wall and barely grazed it with the tip of my nose -- no blood, no bruises, no broken cartilage!

One project was delayed a month by the owner; one project couldn't start for another week because the client's project manager had other commitments; one project moves by fits and starts because the client is always slow to respond to draft designs and text. Another project got dropped into the mix to fill the week left by the client with project manager commitments.

Every project I had taken on, I had agreed to with (I deemed) thoughtful consideration of time and my own capabilities, but without any hint of the delays that would occur. So I had no way of knowing, when I said "yes," what the ultimate schedule would actually look like.

My mother used to say, "God watches over blind men and idiots!" I don't know which of the two I was during this period, but He was certainly looking out for me.

Three of my five projects are now out the door; the fourth is moving along smoothly and is due next Friday; the fifth is due on July 3 and one major section is already complete.

In the future, I must always remember to leave "wiggle room" in the schedule!

In the future, I must always remember to leave "wiggle room" in the schedule!

In the future . . .

Counting my blessings

I found out today that my good friend, Jo West, had passed away in Dallas. Jo had been fighting cancer for about a year or so. I saw her in mid-April and she looked and sounded pretty good, she just ran out of steam in the middle of the afternoon.

I spoke with Terry (the friend who called to let me know), a little about Jo herself and the grace with which she waged her battle, and a little about how Terry himself was getting by, especially since he was one of the people making the phone calls to let other friends know.

When I hung up the phone, I thought for a while about the blessing Jo had been in my life. She was a wonderful woman with a heart big enough to encompass all of the "strays" who somehow found their way to her table. She genuinely cared about her friends -- cared a lot. And she had lots of friends to care about.

For me, she was a true friend -- she was there when I needed her, providing unconditional love, and support and encouragement for everything I tried. Sometimes, she made me feel like a success even before I did something, when we were still just talking about it. When she fell in love with my music, she offered to produce my next (4th) CD, but a cross-country move happened instead.

After a while, I started thinking about some of my other blessings -- a brother whom I love, and his family, whom I also love; cousins in Texas, California and New York, with whom I am very close; friends in Dallas and Austin who are as close to me as some of my blood family; and two careers of 30+ years each, both of which give me great satisfaction, and each of which makes me luckier than much of the adult population slaving away at jobs they hate.

I look at the friends I went to school with -- many of them, for one reason or another, wound up in jobs they hate. How amazing is it that I found not one, but two things to do with my life that I wouldn't trade for anything.

What a joy to discover that my life's work is something I love. And how astounding to find that I have stumbled across two different life's works, both of which I love, and which can be done concurrently.

I am blessed. Now I just have to make sure I stay busy!

The hardest part of self-employment

Ever since The Siben Consult, LLC opened its doors in January 2004, people have asked me, "What's the hardest thing about being self-employed?"

Some asked because they were contemplating going out on their own; others asked because they were curious. I've told everyone who asked the same thing:

                                                                                Self-discipline!

A/E/C industry marketers are used to having their lives dictated by deadlines. Everything revolves around when the next proposal is due. But what do you do when you don't have an assignment with a deadline?

I have one client assignment that has more than 25 components and no deadline. I can use the pieces as "fill" when I'm between time-sensitive assignments. I also have a typical amount of paper filing, cleaning of electronic files and emails from recent projects, expenses to track, expense reports to write up and file, bookkeeping to do, etc.

None of these chores are terribly onerous. Individually, they don't take long (other than the ongoing client assignment), once I get started.

The hardest part of what I do in The Siben Consult is getting started on these items.

I know from experience that it's always easier to start a new time-sensitive project when my desk is relatively clean. It's certainly easier to work two concurrent projects if I start with a clean desk. But doing the administrative chores and getting the desk clean...

The hardest part of what I do is getting started.

So I shower and dress -- sometimes I even shave. I have to do that in order to have the "work mindset" when I sit down at the computer. I can't overcome the mental inertia until I deal with the physical inertia. And I can't approach the work seriously in my pajamas!

The right person for the job

A marketer recently asked, "My firm wants a new website; should I design it myself"?

In the A/E industry, we're all about experts. When you need something done, you get an expert, and you get the right one. You don't call a GIS specialist to design a bridge just because you think he is a quick study with new software packages. You don't call a biologist because you know she understands the interactions of complex natural systems.

The same goes for websites. You may know what looks good on-screen, but that doesn't mean you know how to write code. And while you did design your personal website seven years ago, that doesn't mean you can learn today's website design software packages quickly and completely enough to develop a site that stands out from the thousands of other A/E firm websites. Even if you have the time.

If you're thinking of designing it yourself to save some money, please think again! The money you save will be quickly surpassed by missed revenues when potential clients go elsewhere because your site is not as strong a "positioner" as the other A/E websites out there.

Finally, if you design the website yourself, you will probably have to maintain it yourself. Regardless of your other time commitments, many of which will have been made for you by people who didn't speak to you first, or even look at your calendar. Do you really have time for that?

Bottom line? Get the right expert for the job. Just as you call a structural engineer to design a bridge, call a website designer to design your new website.

Sharing knowledge

I've heard it said that you learn (or re-learn) something best when you have to teach it to others. So I try to teach as often as the opportunity arises. In fact, my desire to share knowledge is such that my answers are often way more detailed than the questioner ever wanted!

So far this year, I've had three opportunities to conduct professional workshops, requiring quite a bit of travel.

In late February, I went to Anchorage, Alaska, where I conducted two half-day workshops at the Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference. In the morning, I did my "Who's Afraid of Marketing?" for the 17th time. I love doing this workshop. It's designed for senior technical folks -- project manager and higher -- who fear marketing as an "unknown" because they don't know they do it every day. In the afternoon, I did my new "RFQs/RFPs -- Writing and Responding" for the first time. This session focuses on the required components of a solicitation and the various ways to respond to them. It also touches on the ethical dilemma of whether or not to write an RFQ or RFP for which only the writer's firm can make a fully responsive submittal.

In mid-April I had two speaking engagements -- one in California and the other in Florida. At Lake Tahoe, I spoke to CELSOC, the Consulting Engineers and Land Surveyors of California, presenting a shorter version of "Who's Afraid of Marketing?". A week later I was at the ZweigWhite 2008 Marketing Now Summit in Coral Gables, where I presented a new workshop on how an A/E firm's marketing staff might be impacted by the firm's implementation of an "integrated services" method of service delivery.

One of these opportunities paid a fee plus travel, lodging and miscellaneous expenses; one paid for travel and lodging; and one gave me only a free conference registration. It didn't matter. The combined opportunities to teach and to learn are always worth it for me.

These are great opportunities to talk about a wide range of "how to's" related to marketing A/E, planning, surveying, environmental and construction phase services. They showcase me and my firm and bring me additional opportunities to teach, write and consult. But the best part is the exchange -- the "question and answer" section at the end of each workshop, where I get to defend my ideas, which helps me make sure they are still relevant, or that I've struck the right chord in developing a new presentation.

I learn more in these "teaching" sessions than in anything else I do. If  you and your firm would like to give me an opportunity to learn by teaching, call me at 559.901.9596 or contact me at bernie@sibenconsult.com. I'll be happy to chat with you about how I can deliver the kind(s) of workshops you want to provide for your staff.

Tom Peters and Me

For a few years now, I have been sharing this mantra with clients and workshops: the quality of the work experience can be a bigger differentiator than the quality of the work product.

Some people get it. But a lot of them don't seem to understand what I'm saying.

So imagine the rush of pleasure I got the other day when I read the same thought in chapter 3 of "design," by Tom Peters. "design" is part of a 4-book group called the Essentials Series. I've already read "leadership" and "talent," and found them both enjoyable reads full of valuable insignts. But neither gave me the warm fuzzies that I got from chapter 3 of "design."

Essentially, it comes down to this:

Think of any service your firm performs, and let's assume you do high-quality work. The quality of your work differentiates you from other firms that don't produce the same high-quality product.

Now, it is pretty much a "given" that there will be at least one other firm in your market that provides the same service at a similar level of quality as your firm -- perhaps at the same price or better -- perhaps on the same schedule or faster. What differentiates your firm from that other firm?

What makes your firm the obvious selection in a market where two or three firms can provide the same work product at the same quality for the same price in the same timeframe? The difference lies in the quality of the work experience. Are you more fun to work with than another firm? Do you give your clients a stronger sense of "all bases are covered, you can sleep nights while we're on the job!"?

That's a very powerful differentiator!

It's always nice to find an idea that I've been "pushing" in the work of someone I respect. Professional validation is a wonderful thing. But finding such an idea in a Tom Peters book was a very special bonus for me. I'm hoping it will be a powerful motivator for me as well.

The Wrong Stuff - part 3

This is the 3rd in a series of items about some of the marketing actions A/E/P/CM/Environmental firms take that are most often a waste of staff time and other resources.

Chasing Strangers

How many times has one of your firm's principals elected to respond to an RFQ or RFP issued by a client nobody in the company had ever spoken with? perhaps a client nobody in the company had ever heard of?

I bet this sounds all too familiar to every marketer in every marketing department of every A, E, P, CM, Environmental or multi-service firm there is. We look at these choices about how to commit our staff time and other resources, and we shake our heads. We have to wonder if the person who made the choice is just "shooting at everything that moves" because he's desperate for to win a new project and thinks this is the way to get one.

One alternative is that your decision maker truly believes your unknown firm has a chance of winning the project even though the client probably has an incumbent and five or six other firms that have been visiting and courting him for a while.

A second alternative is that the decision maker wants to "put your name in front of a new potential client" and thinks this is a good way to do this. I know we've all heard this one befo0re.

But this can be dangerous! If a prospective client has issued an RFQ or RFP, submitting a document that is either non-responsive or a weak response is a waste of the client's time. And since , a selection process adds to the client's workload -- his other work doesn't just go away -- he has even less time to waste than usual. Branding your firm as a non-responsive time-waster is probably not the first impression you want to make.

A better approach is to wait until the selection is made, assemble an SOQ, visit the client and talk with him about what your firm really CAN do for them. Communicate that you didn't submit on his RFQ or RFP because you didn't want to waste his time with a non-responsive submittal (perhaps your major services are not what he was looking for at the time, but could truly bring him value on other projects). Such a truth can help you establish your credibility and integrity.

People give work to people they know, like and trust. They only give work to a stranger as a last resort. The concept of "best value" has made this easy even in the public sector, as the value of the relationship (previously a subjective input) can now get objective points in the ranking of responses.

So what's the answer? We've all said it before, so let's all say it together:

Pursue the client, not the project.

Business Acquisition

This morning, on the SMPS member and CPSM listserves, I started (what I hope will develop into) a discussion of how to define business development (BD) and marketing.

Some people say BD is all the client interaction up to the opportunity to submit an SOQ or a technical proposal and marketing begins when you start developing a submittal. Others say that marketing is all the client interaction up to the opportunity to submit an SOQ or technical proposal and BD begins when you start developing a submittal. Still others separate the writing of SOQs and proposals from both BD and marketing, and give these writer folks their own department!

I think that a lot of industry interaction, among marketers and between marketers and technical folks, would be easier if there were agreed-upon definitions for these two terms that were accepted throughout the industry. But that's not the whole answer either.

Many folks, particularly BD folks, believe that BD must lead the effort with marketing in a support role. Others, particularly marketers, believe that marketing should lead the effort. Personally, I don't think it matters which one leads, nor does it matter what you call the leader or the department. As long as that leader has a good appreciation for both sets of skills and activities.

What we have to remember is that BD and marketing are merely two components of a larger activity. They, along with proposal/SOQ writing, public relations, client relationship management and other activities, are all parts of the overall process of Business Acquisition. And business acquisition is what it's all about.

It doesn't matter whether your involvement is in finding and opening doors, building relationships with potential and existing clients, writing technical proposals and qualifications packages, developing the short-list presentations, making the presentations, attending trade shows and technical conferences, writing articles and press releases, working on public involvement activities, building relationships with the press, or any combination of these and related activities. It is all part of how your firm acquires business.

Every activity that helps your firm acquire business has equal importance and needs to have equal recognition within the firm.

The Wrong Stuff!

This is the second in a series of items about some of the marketing actions A/E/P/CM/Environmental firms take that are most often a waste of staff time and other resources.

No Plan? No Way!

Your firm is chasing every solicitation it learns about. It doesn't matter what kind of work, or what kind of facility, or what kind of client.

You have a "Go/No Go" process, and sometimes your senior folks actually follow it. But you lack a major tool which would make your "Go/No Go" process truly efficient:  a PLAN!

The "Go/No Go" process is designed to help you say "no" when "no" is the appropriate answer. The hard part is determining when "no" is the appropriate answer. With a Strategic Plan, Marketing Plan and/or Business Plan, this determination is much easier.

For example, when the project's primary disciplines are of a type you would have to subcontract, the facility is a type you've never designed, and/or the client is one you have identified as not wanting to pursue, you can say "no" because the solicitation goes counter to your strategic plan. This solicitation may be a great opportunity for someone, but that someone is not you.

Moreover, since a good Strategic Plan helps you define "who" your company is, what it does and where it is going, it also gives you strong clues about what type of work you should be pursuing, for what type of facility and for what type of client. These items say a lot about where to look for solicitations that are truly opportunities for you.

Knowing where to aim is very important; but sometimes, knowing where not to aim can be as important. How to recognize what is an effective and efficient use of your limited staff/financial resources is one of the most important lessons you can learn as you move up the marketing and corporate ladders.

In general, it costs less to develop a Strategic Plan than it does to write one moderate-sized proposal. But over time, the investment in a Plan has a much bigger payoff than almost anything you can do for your business.

The Wrong Stuff!

This is the first in a series of items about some of the marketing actions A/E/P/CM/Environmental firms take that are most often a waste of staff time and other resources.

No "Go/No Go"?

Do your senior folks say "yes" to every solicitation they find in the newspaper or online, or to every potential project they hear about?

I hope all marketers know that, while every solicitation is an opportunity for some firm, NOT every solicitation is an opportunity for your firm. Do your senior folks get this? Do you?

A Rocky Mountain States engineering firm recently went through a "Go/No Go" process regarding an opportunity with their State Department of Transportation. The first few questions were answered as follows:

Do we have a current or recent relationship with this client? -- NO

Has the firm done this kind of work before? -- NO - not as a prime

Did we know about the RFP before its release? -- NO

To top this off, while refusing to visit or call to get the RFP, the office manager insisted that they could turn this DOT into a strategic client of that office.

In another instance, a department manager answered these questions:

Do we have a current or recent relationship with this client? -- NO

Did we know about the RFP before its release? -- NO

Is there adequate budget to build the project -- NO

Can we make money on this project? -- NO

If we can't make a profit, is there a strategic reason to pursue this? -- NO

But the department manager had an ethical dilemma with a "No Go" decision. He interpreted it as "choosing not to help someone." Therefore, no matter how many times he answered "NO" on the form, he said "yes" to every RFP he heard about.

The real purpose of a "Go/No Go" process is to assemble all the information you need to make a good decision, and to then help you say "No" when "No" is the appropriate answer.

In both cases presented above, the wrong person was making the "Go/No Go" decision. And in both cases, the bottom line is, "why should a firm take the time to develop processes if nobody has to implement them?"