I have been a marketer in the A/E/C industry for more than 30 years, and for much of that time there didn't seem to be any clear definition of what constituted marketing and what constituted business development.
For a long time, many in the industry said that everything up to the proposal was marketing, and everything from the proposal on was business development. But others said exactly the opposite.
Today, we seem to be in agreement on the definition that everything we produce for communication to the general marketplace is marketing, and everything we produce for communication to a specific client, especially if it is related to a specific project, is business development.
This distinction feels right to me. I am comfortable with it. For as long as I was aware, the business development folks were concerned with pursuing the specific project, closing the sale and taking care of the client.
However, there is a monkey wrench that is thrown into the works on a consistent basis, which is exemplified by the following questions:
If pursuit of a specific client and/or a specific project are the province of business development, why is the RFQ or RFP for an individual project or ID/IQ-type contract automatically handed to the marketing staff? Even when a business developer brings the RFQ or RFP into the office, marketing staff still get the assignment.
In some instances, the business development folks give an RFQ or RFP to the marketing folks and then disappear. In most cases, they will at least tell the marketing folks what they think the client is looking for, what the client wants (or doesn't want) to see in the proposal, and what the client's "hot buttons" are for that project.
Then they go away until the Red Team Review meeting, unless the marketing folks have specific questions for them.
Sometimes, they go away until the SOQ or proposal is finished, printed, assembled, bound and packaged for delivery. Then, if the client is local, a business development person might make the delivery.
Even in larger A/E/C firms with specifically committed staff in both marketing and business development, this is the usual behavior. And after many years of wondering, and many discussions with A/E/C firm leaders and human resources folks, I believe I have finally figured out why this is so. More specifically, what I have heard over and over again is the following:
A/E/C firms don't hire business development folks for their writing skills. These folks are hired basically for their "gift of gab," their ability to schmooze the client, and their track record of coming back to the office with a contract, or at least an opportunity to propose.
But nobody expects business developers to write SOQs and proposals because written communication skills were not thought to be a necessary part of their tool kits.
In a way, this hardly seems fair, because marketing staff are very often asked to work the firm's booth at a trade show, speaking with clients, prospects and curious visitors to the booth. I see a lot of marketing folks doing business development, but way fewer business development folks doing marketing.
Marketing folks generally don't complain about this because we love the opportunity to get out of the office. And that's just the way the industry is—take it as it is, or leave it for something you consider more sane.