“Our clients love us. Winning their next project is a sure thing.” You have, no doubt, heard this kind of comment many times. You may even have said it yourself. My response: “How do you know?”

In a recent independent performance survey for one of my clients, I interviewed nine staff members from one of the firm’s most important clients. The issue was the level of satisfaction the agency had on its performance nearing the conclusion of a three-year project. At the end of one interview, the staff member told me, “This is the first time that any consultant has made a real effort to find out how I felt. I can’t understand why more don’t.”

The punch line is that, though the agency was generally highly satisfied, there were a few issues it wasn’t happy about. And my client had no idea. Wishful thinking could have cost it work worth millions of dollars in fees.

The lesson is simple. If you don’t ask, you won’t know. Here are a few simple rules for getting meaningful feedback:

1.Never send the project manager. Clients generally don’t like to give bad news. During a project, personnel develop relationships with your staff and don’t want to cause problems for them. They may feel that the issues partially resulted from their own actions, such as lack of direction or scope changes. Your team members, especially the project manager, can never be unbiased listeners.

So who should ask the questions? Clients often will share difficult issues with someone perceived as independent. There are three options: principals not directly involved in the project, key leaders with authority and credibility; or outside consultants, public relations or independent survey firms.

2.Consider the medium. I like face-to-face meetings; it is easier for me to probe when I’m sitting across from a person. I know others who are skilled at getting detailed information over the phone where distance and anonymity facilitate good critical feedback. Well-designed mail and electronic media offer even more anonymity. Each has advantages depending on your specific situation.

3.Keep questions simple and open. Dr. Stu Rose of Professional Development Resources suggests a simple series of questions with follow-ups. For example:

• “During our performance on your project, what about our team/approach/service has been most valuable? What made it valuable? What else?” Repeat until the well runs dry.
• “What has been the least valuable? What issues or problems did it cause? What else?”
• “If the project were to start over today, what would you do differently? Why? What else?”

Keep the questions short and focused. At the end, summarize what you heard and ask for confirmation of its accuracy. “Did I get it right? What have I missed?”

4.Just listen; don’t debate or solve. No matter what you hear, or how unfair or inaccurate you believe it to be, do not debate the issue. You are not there to get to the truth; you are there to get your client’s view of the truth. As soon as you start to argue, the information stops.

Finally, as a professional trained to solve problems this one is tough, but a feedback interview is not the place to propose solutions. Keep in mind that you are only hearing one person’s perceptions. Promising to fire your project manager at this point is not the right answer.  Committing to follow-up is good, but don’t hammer out details until you have more information. And don’t neglect to do any action you promise.

During these economic times (or any other for that matter), firms simply cannot afford to not know what your clients really think about you. Get out there and ask.

Steve Walker is the principal of SRWalker & Associates and a member of the Society for Marketing Professional Services. He has more than 35 years of experience in engineering, construction and professional services marketing. Contact him at 503-288-3379 or steve@srwalker.com.

The post Client feedback: the most effective marketing tool we never use appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

If you are like the marketing leaders at most architecture and engineering firms, you’ve noticed that these days there are a lot more companies competing for every project. Firms that didn’t previously compete in your core areas are now actively seeking toeholds. How can you make sure that you keep the clients with whom you have worked so hard to build lasting relationships?

There are three practices that I feel are important in any market, but in challenging times they are absolutely essential. And they are the most likely to get lost in the “chase whatever moves” trap that is so easy to fall into in slow economic times. These practices are:

• Select your clients as carefully as they select you.

• Find out how they really feel about your firm and service. (“Oh, you’re doing fine” is not a useful answer.)

• Become their “partner”, helping them weather the downturn.

The first practice is the foundation. Andrew Carnegie said, “The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches that basket.” While diversity is important to any business, there are only so many hours in a day and so many clients you can serve effectively. Trying to serve too many, and especially chasing RFPs from clients with whom you have no relationship, is one of the easiest paths to failure.

All clients are not equal and an RFP is not a subpoena. It’s wasteful to spend valuable staff time and resources to blindly chase new clients or projects you are not positioned for. So, start by evaluating your existing and potential clients and then purposefully select the ones you will invest in. Here’s how:

With your key staff, brainstorm the most valuable characteristics of the clients you would choose to build a practice around. Are they well funded? Do they use fair contracting practices?

Do they have challenging projects? These characteristics will be different for each firm. And they may change depending on market conditions. After you build your list of desirable attributes, apply weights. I use a four-weight system. First, are the pass/fail criteria (if they don’t meet this one, delete them). Then the rest are weighted “vital” (three points), “important” (two points), or “nice” (one point).

Create a simple matrix with the criteria and weighting factors on one axis and your current or proposed clients on the other. Score each client for one (lowest) to five (highest) for each criterion and add the weighted score. Invariably, I find that there will be clear break points to show you which clients you should spend your time with.

Divide them into categories. I use platinum, gold, silver and fool’s gold.

Platinum and gold: Assign a dedicated client service manager, one who will make sure that the client receives undivided attention, to watch this basket. Then develop a marketing plan specifically for this client and make it a top priority. Platinum clients should have some kind of contact at least weekly.

Silver: Track these clients and make monthly or quarterly contacts. Submit on their projects only when doing so won’t jeopardize your efforts with gold or silver clients.

Fool’s gold: Fire them! Life is too short, and they only divert resources from the higher-value clients.

Taking time to carefully select your clients and then being disciplined to focus on the platinum and gold ones will reduce the demands on your marketing staff and budget, increase your hit rates and improve your bottom line.

Steve Walker is the principal of SR Walker & Associates and a member of SMPS. He has more than 35 years of experience in engineering, construction and professional services marketing. Contact him at 503-288-3379 or steve@srwalker.com.

The post It pays to be choosy in client selection appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

If you provide or market architecture and engineering services, you've often heard, "When the Request For Proposal (RFP) comes out, you're too late."

Firms that position their team months in advance win most of the time. So, how do they find out about coming projects before an RFP is published?

The best way is for your client to call you up and tell you about the project they want your firm to do. The architecture and engineering business, like most businesses, is about relationships. But if your client relationships aren't at that level, what can you do?

Follow the money

Without funding, projects don't get built. But funding doesn't just happen. It leaves a trail. You need to understand where your clients get their money and how they budget for their projects. Typical funding sources are tax revenues; enterprise funds (user fees); development fees; bonds or other loans; grants; and private donations. Each has a set of requirements for obtaining and accounting for money.

Nearly all government agencies, major utilities, schools, transportation, health care, justice and private industries have a process for budgeting capital improvements. Often, this is public information and can be obtained relatively easily from their Web site or purchasing department. If it's a client you have a good relationship with, you could just call them. Or, if it's a client you have a great relationship with, they might call you to let you know about upcoming projects that would fit your firm.

Once you have a capital improvement plan, what do you do with it? First, take it with a very large grain of salt. Keep in mind it was created specifically to convince politicians, boards of directors and other decision-makers to approve a budget. Often, it is only a loose approximation of reality. But it's better than nothing. Read through it and note projects that are at least six months in the future and seem to be a good fit for your firm's capabilities.

Now set a meeting with your best client contact, preferably someone one or two levels below the top dog. You want someone high enough to know what's really going on but low enough to really know what's going on. Review your short list of projects with them, and identify those that are likely to go forward and those that have funding or a driver and a champion pushing them. Then you'll have a list of projects on which to focus your positioning activities.

Federal agencies

Federal agencies ultimately get their projects funded through the federal budgeting process. Key steps include obtaining an appropriation, authorization and final budget approval. The results are published in the federal appropriation legislation – either by an individual government agency or an omnibus bill that would have all the appropriations rolled into one document. Specific projects may get special line-item appropriations called "earmarks." Earmarked projects have a higher probability of going forward. However, very often one of your competitors will have helped to get the project to that point.

How do you get this information? Again, this is public information which means that you can get thousands of pages of documents from the Federal Budget office. If you have a relationship with a local congressional staffer, they can provide you with better information.

Better yet, if you have a good relationship with a congressional staffer, they may call you up and tell you about a coming project. And best of all, you may have helped them obtain the project earmark in the first place.

Grant Programs

Many projects get funding from various grant or loan programs. Every such program has an application process, criteria and schedule. Each also has an administrator. Their job is to spend money. They solicit applications for projects that deserve and need their funding. How do you get this information? Do Internet research on grant programs relevant to a specific industry. If you have a good relationship with the program administrators, go visit with them. Find out who has received grants. If you have a great relationship … Well, you get the message.

Bottom Line

Following the money can take many paths. These are a few of the most common. Just like every other aspect in professional services marketing, those who provide the most service for their client, and create the strongest relationships, will follow them better, faster and more easily.

Steve Walker has over 35 years of engineering, construction and professional services marketing and is the founder of SRWalker and Associates, Inc. Contact him at 503-288-3379 or at steve@srwalker.com.

The post Follow the money to your next project appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.