Mega-leap Your Competition

If you can get clients to respond to questions on long-term needs, you can position your firm for serious success. In order to “mega-leap” way ahead of your competition, consider the following steps:

1. Ask clients about specific ideas that will give them clear and quantitative benefits.

2. Be ready to demonstrate the improvement in a low-risk fashion to the client.

3. Lead clients to picture their own future through:

• Education — making certain the client understands all the options and why yours is the best.
• Partnering — joining with the client as a team member to ensure “buy-in” and teamwork.
• Visioning — working closely with the client in the beginning to develop a long-term vision that is exciting, motivational, and rewarding.


Corner the business

As a result of researching an expanding market, one Midwest firm realized that most of its potential clients were interested in the idea of getting things done faster. When meeting with these clients, the firm offered to work toward decreasing the total cycle-time of a project by at least 33 percent.

Of the 75 surveyed decision-makers, 20 responded with a “let’s try to do it” attitude. After all, if the firm failed to achieve a 33 percent reduction and completed the project in 20 percent to 25 percent less time, this would still be a leap over present performance.

Thanks to their aggressive and timely approach, the firm closed a dozen contracts in 14 months in very competitive situations.


Beat ’em to the punch

Clients want to buy a major benefit faster, cheaper, or better, but often are not sure of the details. It’s up to the architects or engineers to identify, refine, and respond to that need with a mega-leap benefit and systems to achieve it. So don’t wait to react during periods of heavy competition. Decide early how you can outperform your rivals, go out swinging, and land some business!

Learn more about how to get ahead of your competition and really integrate your firm into your client’s long term plan. Join PSMJ this spring for our Business Development for A/E/C Firms Seminar, coming to 6 locations across North America. Get the tools and confidence you need to succeed in bringing in more work for the firm – register today!