We have learned over the years there are 15 solid reasons clients leave firms they’ve built long-term working relationships with. Does your firm have a culture of client service to mitigate this?

MARKETLINK Principal Stephanie Craft caught up with Chuck Hack, a Lionakis principal and owner, to learn more about how he and Lionakis’s leadership have created and fostered a marketing mentality within the firm.

Whether you’re new to the industry and just wondering how to get started or you’ve been creating proposals for years and you’re always trying to find “that one write-up you created for that one proposal,” it’s never a bad time to organize your marketing materials!

We’ve talked before about the necessity of generating, maintaining and following up on leads. It’s a marketing task that requires daily and ongoing activity to ensure your firm is well-positioned to secure new work. While the internet makes finding project and client leads easier, the amount of information a marketer can find in a manner of seconds can be overwhelming. IMS is a leader in advance notice public leads specifically for architects, engineers, and construction management professionals.

As we continue to adapt to the new paradigm, we must adjust to the limited ability to meet face to face, while remembering how important this activity is to creating a longstanding relationship. Here are six suggestions for pivoting and making the most of your business development efforts.

Now more than ever, knowing how to conduct online training is a must for marketing and management staff. In these times of uncertainty, firms must be nimble in the ways they pursue their long-term strategic planning goals. This means providing your professionals with the right tools to keep them on track to meet overall marketing and new business development goals and objectives. Most of these tools can be provided through training and coaching, so you'll want to be at the top of your game with for training online.

We’ve all heard the adage “the best way to get somewhere is a straight line,” but author Rich Christiansen suggests otherwise. Christiansen is an entrepreneur who has founded or cofounded more than 30 businesses. Some of them were colossal failures, others were multi-million-dollar successes.

First impressions are critical in taking a prospect to a client. Lasting impressions are critical in keeping clients coming back. Are your social media and website having the desired impact? We've outlined five steps to ensure they do.

Social media is a jungle. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a guide? Social Media Examiner is a great resource for all things social media.

 

When marketing departments get busy, it’s always the same thing that gets put on the back burner until things slow down: public relations. But getting out in front of your audience is a great way to build your brand awareness and credibility, and ultimately your bottom line!

You know that the easiest way to get work is with existing clients, but do you know if your existing clients would hire you again? To be effective in obtaining any new business, it’s important to know what clients think about your organization.

The secret to staying on top of the many marketing activities that keep an AEC firm successful is making it manageable. Here at MARKETLINK, we like to break marketing categories down by month, and then create bite-size chunks in the form of weekly activities.

With the holiday season behind you, now is the best time to look at your client appreciation program. Consider taking a fresh approach in the new year, streamlining the traditional holiday chaos by planning an alternative time to provide client appreciation and outreach.

MARKETLINK Principal Stephanie Craft is passionate about budgeting - and she wants to share that passion with you. Her four tips may take a bit of effort to implement, but the pay-off is immense.

Interested in doing something good for the body and soul that doesn’t require running shoes, a gym membership, or scheduling an appointment with a therapist? Try being grateful! Here at MARKETLINK, we’re implementing a 10-day Gratitude Challenge. 

In the professional world, bad writing isn’t tolerated. It’s the difference between winning a project and being stuck scrambling for more work.

Excel spreadsheets, workflowy lists, and back and forth emails, move over! If you’re looking for an app to keep everyone in your organization on the same page, we suggest Asana. Asana is a simple yet powerful work management platform full of features that project managers of all types need.

 

MARKETLINK Principal Keri Hammond is a party planner of sorts. What Keri plans is how a company can create or shift its strategic vision to achieve goals, exceed revenue expectations, and bring different departments together for the improvement of the whole. It may sound intense, but for her, it is a party.

How do you approach your annual strategic plan? Many AEC firms use the same tactics they did last year, not considering whether their end goal has changed or what they want to get out of their marketing efforts. We recommend a more methodical, strategic approach.

Whether you’re creating an AEC marketing department from scratch or the team is growing, you want to make sure you keep systems, materials, and files orderly and accessible. Where do you start? Here are three simple steps to building a solid organization foundation you can build on.

Whether you call it internal marketing, marketing mentality, or creating a culture of rainmakers, it’s a straightforward concept critical to the AEC industry: Training and motivating client-contact employees and support staff to work as a team to ensure client satisfaction.

Working in marketing for the AEC industry, you have undoubtedly been confronted by – or are yourself considered – the grammar police. (You know who you are.) Want to avoid that embarrassing moment when one of your colleagues catches a subject-verb agreement error or a sentence fragment?

When it comes to shortlist interviews, the Q&A session often has presenters shaking in their boots. It’s been our experience that all the hard questions you’d prefer to avoid are going to be asked. Our advice? Prepare beforehand for the worst so that your experience can turn out for the best.

Stop Clowning Around with your AEC Marketing Plan! Review your mid-year marketing goals and steer toward improvements.

Presenting is crucial to gaining business in the AEC world. Take advantage of a captive audience by following these six topics for a successful AEC presentation.

Creating templates for your AEC proposals is very helpful in streamlining your pursuit efforts, and crucial for meeting deadlines. Over the past 30 years, we have learned some valuable lessons in AEC proposal strategy and development. Learn our top six tips for an effective AEC proposal template.

Winning business and building credibility through presentations is no joke. Much like a standup comedian, presenters hoping to show their stuff must prepare wholeheartedly beforehand, know how to best present to their audience, and set the stage with visuals.

In any proposal, the project approach is likely the most important section – it is the place you get to tell the client exactly what you are going to do to make their project a success. In order to write a successful strategic approach, you must research and brainstorm and then brainstorm some more. The writing is the easy part!

Chip Allen specializes in architectural photography, and he understands the importance of high-quality photography to his AEC clients. “In an interview, I want my client’s prospective client to say ‘wow!..... I’d like you to build me an interior or building like this!’”

Principal Stephanie Craft attended the SMPS Sacramento Luncheon recently, where a panel made up of three public sector staff discussed what they valued most in consultants. Here are the top three take-aways.

 

The ability to listen, and listen carefully, is a skill that seems to be scarce these days. Conversational “blah blah blah” is so common, there’s a day to commemorate it! April 17th is Blah Blah Blah Day. Defeat the disregard of dialogue with these three tips to improve your listening skills.

Hootsuite is the tool to save you time and energy as you keep your AEC firm engaged with your customers on social media.

AnyList is primarily known for its ease of sharing and organizing grocery lists and recipes, and truth be told that is exactly why we love it. But it is just as easily used for any list you can think of: to-dos, must-see movies, books you want to read ... the (Any)list goes on...

Jade Donaghy's goal as a graphic designer? To create something visually appealing that still communicates an idea, a service, or a product, while focusing on brand recognition. “It’s art, but with a commercial purpose.”

Our Clients

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19