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Despite the recent volatile market conditions, the construction industry remains competitive, and firms are consistently looking for that “it” factor to win more work. One of the most common analogies used in business development (BD) and the project pursuit process is the “three-legged stool”, denoting cost, time and quality. The analogy is intended to demonstrate that all three factors are weighted equally, but in this post-pandemic era when budgets and schedules fluctuate due to external factors such as a looming recession or continued supply chain issues, quality becomes the only factor that construction firms can actually control. Although quality can be a nebulous term, difficult to quantify, and certainly takes more time to establish, in the long-run, delivering quality service to clients stands to be the greatest contributor to a construction firm’s profitability.

Virtual business development seems to be a recently coined and common term in the A/E/C industries, as business development looks much different today than it did a couple of years ago. The opportunities to drop by prospects’ offices or meet them at a networking event are few and far between.

Business development (BD) has always been an important function for contractors. Now, with the impact of virtual offices and the ever-present office mobility, BD has truly become a greater challenge. Let’s not kid ourselves, there are multiple obstacles that BD professionals face amidst an ongoing pandemic including rising competitive landscapes, ongoing supply chain issues and labor shortages. Combining these issues with an ongoing desire for contractor demand, BD is more of a chase now, than simply developing opportunities.

Networking is a naughty word in construction — most people cringe at the idea. Let’s approach networking from a different point of view that’s not cringeworthy then. Let’s think about it as making friends, learning about someone or someone’s company, or just finding common ground.

To say the last two years has been challenging for everyone in both our professional and personal lives, is quite possibly the understatement of the past 20 months. The construction industry has certainly faced a myriad of challenges, economic fallouts and other setbacks over the years, but none as far-reaching as COVID and its continued impact on all of our lives. As we reassess and begin 2022 with at least some sense of hope, the “challenge” now posed to the construction industry is to redefine our notion of success – more specifically, how we measure and celebrate successes both externally with our clients and partners, as well as internally with our employees.

As we trudge through the pandemic and its economic uncertainty, one thing is clear: we must continue to win work. While there seems to be no shortage of RFPs, our ability to build relationships with the clients behind the RFPs and to truly do the early work of discovery is heavily weighted towards the established relationships we built pre-pandemic. The old rule that 80-percent of our work comes from existing clients and 20-percent is from new is in question. In a recent, very informal poll, 50-percent of respondents said the 80/20 rule was still relatively valid, while the other half erred on the side that its more likely 90/10 at best. With traditional methods of meeting new clients (conferences, networking events, meals, and happy hours) almost non-existent in some places, I wondered how business developers are making connections and succeeding at winning new work. I found two fascinating examples that tell us a lot about what’s working.

A lot of contractors and managers still struggle to track and understand their sales data. It’s a constant battle of wrangling information from spreadsheets, paper forms, emails, and even word of mouth.

This current, messy way of doing business is bogging down your processes and best people. It’s difficult to track your daily sales activity, qualified opportunities, and recently won projects and dollar amounts. And, unfortunately, there’s no clear path to efficiency.

So, why are you still stuck with these methods? Because they’re familiar and what worked in the past. It’s hard to change to something new.

But the industry is now at a tipping point. Digitization is the way forward.

In my many years in the general contracting industry, I ran across many prospective clients that could have benefited greatly from a negotiated team build approach, but were so committed to their traditional Bid-Build delivery model that they were not willing to deviate. First, I will admit that a negotiated approach is not always the right solution, but whenever a project has complicating factors, whether it be logistical, schedule, constructability, or its a unique one of a kind structure, a negotiated team build approach can bring early solutions to a client's most worrisome issues. Regardless of the benefits, some of these "Hard Bidders" are true believers that general contractors are all the same and that price is all that mattered.

Business development (BD) in the construction industry is a continual building and re-building of mutually beneficial relationships. Although this practice of building and re-building relationships was surely tested over the past year, BD professionals still found unique and creative ways to connect. Whether that was through a LinkedIn virtual leads group or setting records for the greatest number of video meetings in one day, BD professionals certainly adopted their practices to fit the needs of their clientele.

Marketing and business development take months, sometimes years, to turn into something big. It’s the consistency of doing these things on a daily basis that produces results. It’s like running a marathon. If you decide today you are going to run a marathon and you haven’t typically been a runner in the past, then you are going to have to train for it. You can’t just go out and run a marathon. It’s your daily routine and plan you must follow, so in 4 or 6 months, you are prepared and ready to run that marathon. It’s following that plan and consistently implementing those tactics that will get you to race day and across the finish line.