Joining the dots
When it comes to growing a construction business, we find a mixed bag of maturity in the use of best practices across the industry. We find some great practice in framework management and client feedback programmes in some places whilst others are completely unconnected and un-co-ordinated in their efforts through the sales funnel. Irrespective of scale of businesses, rarely do we find robust practices being deployed all the way through the growth chain, flowing down from business planning, through marketing and brand to account management, capture, bidding and client satisfaction and retention.
This is at odds with one of the things that we know to be true - that business growth comes from generating sustained focused momentum. It’s not a black art. It’s not the sole responsibility of charming business development people. It’s grounded in well researched and organised activity, focused on working with clients who have programmes and pipelines of work, who fit your project sweet spots, culture and aspirations. It comes from the top and flows down through the business.
We call it joining the dots.
Here are the seven key components as we see it:
1 | Business planning
At the top of the pyramid, business planning is not the preserve of just some turnover numbers in a spreadsheet. High quality business planning is grounded in decent market research and insight. It brings together the top-down view of your leadership, with your vision for the business and targets of where you would like to be in the future, with bottom-up hard data on where workload will come from, with which clients and what stakeholders influence it to substantiate it. This in turn can inform sections on people, H&S, sustainability, social value and beyond.
2 | Marketing
With the odd exception, quite often we find marketing functions in contractors are at best tactically focused on the usual rhythm of day-to-day activity on project updates and the like. The background noise of endless social media posts on sod cutting and topping out ceremonies is all well and good, but it doesn’t differentiate. Your marketing plan should be a subset of business planning that goes far beyond budget setting and into propelling opportunities through your pipeline through aligned thought leadership and engaging client influencers far before tender release. The focus needs to be on finding opportunities to communicate the value you create for clients, their stakeholders and communities as well as the technically excellent ways you deliver.
3 | Account Management
Your business plan should call out your key client accounts. An often-neglected general rule of thumb is that around 80% of workload should come from existing clients. Opening doors and acquiring new clients is an incredibly expensive escapade. Far greater value can be derived from looking after the client you already have. Research your clients carefully, working with them to understand their business objectives and desired outcomes across their programmes of work, looking to shape additional value you can create for them through efficiencies etc. Assign owners and sponsors for key accounts, planning your activities carefully and reviewing them regularly. Start small and take baby steps, perhaps kicking off a programme with just your top three clients in year one and then go from there.
4 | Capture
As I’ve covered in previous articles, capture is a new and developing space for most construction businesses. Capture is about recognising key pursuits in your pipeline far before tender, perhaps 18 months to 12 months before tender release, and building opportunity specific campaigns to influence and secure key bids. They should be tentpole opportunities from your pipeline, quite likely flowing down from your key account plans.
5 | Pipeline Management
Pipeline management does tend to be well established in most construction businesses, with fairly regular review of pipeline data held in CRM platforms or management spreadsheets. But I would urge you to raise your horizon to look at, select / deselect, and drive activity on opportunities as far out as reasonably possible. It’s obviously important to have a single version of the truth with data collected centrally. It’s useful to categorise opportunities, indicating where they are through the sales funnel, and to capture key actions and linkages to account and capture activities. And lastly, it’s smart to look across the data for common influences such as key consultants and plan activity to engage them.
6 | Bidding
As also covered in previous articles, bidding should be in the vein of a sniper as opposed to infantry. Bidding should be sparingly highly selective and process driven, with clients engaged early and clear roles and responsibilities amongst your teams. As touched on before, sponsorship of opportunities through the sales funnel, but particularly during the bid phase, is critical to win rates.
7 | Client feedback and retention
Lastly, we find that the final building block in sustainable growth is well coordinated key client engagement. We’ve seen some fantastic best practice in orchestrated client feedback programmes, integrated with the performance management of staff and the supply chain. You may choose to segment your clients, undertaking senior face-to-face meetings with perhaps your top five, management level teams calls with tactical clients, and simple online surveys with the tale of smaller clients. As long as the data and themes are consistent, great value can be derived from the insights and themes you will find. Listen to your clients carefully and be seen to affect change.
Jeremy Brim
Jeremy has a portfolio career as a Non-Exec, Growth Consultant, Capture Specialist and a Global APMP Accredited Proposals Trainer.
He brings 20 years of experience as a work winning and bid management professional across both the public and private sectors. He’s led successful bid functions spanning professional services, outsourcing and construction, where he was Head of Construction Bids at Mace. He has secured an enviable collection of high-profile projects, programmes and frameworks with blue chip clients around the globe.
He now leads Growth Ignition – a consulting, training and enabling tech firm. They’re on a mission to help clients maximise sustainable growth and focus their spend by joining the dots from marketing, through to initiatives in account management, capture and pursuit.
In October 2018 he also picked up the leadership of the bid toolkit – a unique APMP accredited simple step by step online bid process and guide, with integrated learning content and tools to download.