So when was the
last time your firm rebranded itself? Most of my clients have at least
tweaked their brand in the last decade—or so they thought. More
accurately, they redesigned their logo, modified their color scheme,
rewrote their positioning statement, overhauled their website, etc. In
other words, they changed how they marketed themselves.
But that's not
branding. Not really. It's disappointing that most marketers don't
understand this, but who can blame them? There's a lot of confusion
about this subject in the literature. Marketing people naturally view
branding as something within their domain. But the consensus of brand
experts points to something much more complex than a marketing function.
In simple
terms, brand is how your firm is perceived in the marketplace. It is
primarily shaped through the direct and indirect interactions customers
and others have with your firm. Marketing can influence those
perceptions (through its indirect interactions), but eventually direct
interactions form the bedrock of your brand. Your real brand is
substance, not image.
So what does
this mean? True rebranding is about changing the substance of the
interactions you have with clients and others. It's about creating
better experiences, which lead to positive expectations about future
experiences with your firm. (I like Sean Adam's definition of brand:
"It's a promise of an experience.")
It's about
backing up your marketing claims through action. Focused on clients?
Show it! Design excellence? Let's see what you got! Superior quality?
Prove it! Great at collaboration and team building? Demonstrate the
benefits! This is why marketing can't create your brand, because
ultimately you have to deliver it. Clients have to experience it.
This is not to
diminish the contributions of marketing. On the contrary, I'm a strong
advocate for effective marketing. I think as an industry that we
generally underappreciate the value of marketing. Marketers are too often marginalized
as tactical specialists rather than strategic partners. The best
marketing comes when there's real substance to sell. Invite marketers
into the discussion about how to create a genuine, deliverable brand.
For a step-by-step approach to building your brand, check out this previous post.
A few years ago
I was helping an engineering firm prepare a proposal to what would have
been a new client. A coastal city wanted to combine two smaller
wastewater treatment plants into one new or expanded one. I was working
with two seasoned engineers, both with over 35 years of experience. They
were abundantly qualified to do the work.
Early in our
discussions, I asked the question I typically ask when planning a
proposal, "Why is the client doing this project now?" Despite having had
a couple conversations with the client, neither of my collaborators
could confidently answer the question. "Well, let's make sure we clarify
what's driving this project next time you talk to them," I urged.
Another meeting
with the client followed. We had prepared a list of questions we wanted
answered, but somehow my question was never posed. When I later pressed
the point that it was important to know the answer, one of the
engineers responded in frustration, "What difference does it make? We
can do the work!"
Unfortunately,
his response is hardly unique. I've asked some variation of that
question hundreds of times over the years without getting a satisfactory
answer from the proposal team. It's symptomatic of a larger problem:
The failure of many in the A/E industry to see the value of connecting
their work to the client's higher-value strategic needs or business
goals.
Need further evidence?
Read your firm's project descriptions. Most I've seen do a poor job
describing why the project was necessary or important. Instead they
focus on the scope of work performed. How do you think the client would
describe their project? Much differently, don't you think?
I once was
responsible for marketing for a new national environmental company
formed through the merger of six firms. I wanted to produce more
meaningful project descriptions, so I divided the template for
collecting project information into three parts: (1) What was the
problem we solved? (2) What did we do? (3) How did we add value?
The company had
some great projects on its resume—pioneering industry milestones,
technology innovations, millions of dollars in savings for our Fortune
100 clients. Yet I was shocked to see how much my colleagues struggled
to supply the project information I had requested. No problem with the
scope of work, of course. But they found it difficult to associate the
problems solved with our clients' business objectives. And many
completely whiffed on the question about added value.
So, we're
supposed to make the case that we're the best firm for the job, but we
can't describe why our past clients benefited from hiring us versus any
other environmental firm? That, my friends, is the fundamental
definition of a commodity:
- A commodity is a product or service that is widely available and interchangeable with what competitors offer.
The fast track to commoditization is to be just another competent service provider.
If you can't describe how you meet strategic needs, help solve business
problems, or deliver added value—well, you're in good company. That's
where most A/E firms reside. But, of course, the goal is to stand out in
the crowd, not fit in.
That
distinction could start by simply knowing the answer to the why question
above. In other words: "How do we help our clients be successful?" No,
really. Not the marketing slogan kind of commitment to enabling success.
But real business solutions delivered through your technical expertise.
If you're not routinely making that connection now, let me urge you to
make it a priority. Want to brainstorm some ideas, no obligation? Give
me a holler.
The verdict is in: Writing fewer proposals typically increases both your win rate
and your sales. That, at least, is the consensus of the many sales and
proposal experts I "surveyed" via a Google search. That has also been my
experience over the last 25 years working with a variety of
engineering, environmental, and architectural firms.
But many firm
principals aren't buying it. Not in practice, at least. They find it
hard to "miss opportunities" by being more selective in the proposals
they submit. Several have explained to me that while that maxim may work
for most, it doesn't apply to their firm, office, or market sector.
They fear dire consequences if they reduced the number of proposals.
Inevitably, these "volume sellers" have a low win rate. Their business development costs
are often inordinately high, and their profits are usually lower. It's
not uncommon for volume sellers to pursue a higher percentage of
price-driven selections, which would seem to substantiate their
conviction that more proposals equals more sales.
They may be
right, but I doubt it. For one thing, that approach to developing new
business inherently erodes the perceived value of their services. My
take after watching business development trends for decades is that
indiscriminate selling reinforces indiscriminate buying (e.g., selecting
on the basis of low price). When you shortchange the sales process by
simply responding to RFPs, you shortchange the opportunity to establish
your value proposition.
Still not convinced? I offer the following additional reasons why you should be writing fewer proposals:
Proposals are costly, but the greatest cost is opportunity cost. Proposals
constitute roughly half of the typical A/E firm's BD budget. But for
many firms, the budget share is still higher. And as proposal costs
increase, there is usually a corresponding drop in ROI (i.e., win rate).
That's because the larger expenditure is rarely an investment in better
proposals, but in more proposals.
It's fairly
typical for volume sellers to spend about 70% of their proposal budget
on writing losing proposals. But that's not the worst of it. The greater
cost is that those hours could have been diverted to higher-value BD
activities, such as positioning their firm for success in advance of the
RFP. I remain convinced that the vast majority of awards go to the
firms that invest substantially in the pre-RFP sales process.
You need to invest more in your best proposal opportunities. What
about the argument that
most of the cost is borne by overhead staff who you have to pay for
anyway? You still suffer opportunity costs because they could have spent
more time on more promising proposal efforts (not to mention marketing,
which is frequently neglected in A/E firms). Plus, if most of your
proposal labor cost comes from marketing staff, I would question your
commitment to producing winning proposals.
Having reviewed
hundreds of proposals, I've observed that most fail in the area of
technical content. Rarely do they reflect the firm's true expertise and
insights. Why? Because the technical experts invested too little of
their time in the proposal effort. Yes, I understand the demands on
their time. Which is all the more reason why they shouldn't be wasting
time on proposals that have little chance of success.
You shouldn't be using proposals to introduce (or reintroduce) your firm to the client. I advocate a "no know, no go"
policy. In other words, if you weren't talking to the client before the
RFP was released, you shouldn't be submitting a proposal. There are
exceptions, of course, but I consider them rare. I addressed this issue
in a previous post,
but I'll recount two reasons that stand out: (1) if you don't know the
client, you're usually going to lose to someone who does and (2) if you
haven't been gathering insight into the client's issues, you're not
going to be able to write a strong proposal. That means a mediocre first
impression—another opportunity cost.
Bottom line,
the volume strategy usually ends up diluting your value and wasting a
substantial portion of your BD budget. Yes, it can be a step of faith to
say no more often and trust that less is more. But you can take courage from the fact that the best firms have already taken that step.