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Effective Budgeting to Maximize ROI
Learning Objectives:
Basics of Budgeting / Planning
Baseline Creation
Tying Revenue to Investment
Importance of Tracking
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What do you want to
accomplish?
Purpose Marketing:
Specific Goals and
Objectives
How will you know you
are successful?
Must be measurable
by:
- Revenue
- Quality
- Cost
- Speed
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Example: Increase $ Volume of Education
Contracts Booked by 30%
1. Increase hit rate – what is your current hit rate?
Hit rate is the % of work that you get, based on the
amount of work that you go after.
2. Increase size of opportunities.
3. Increase number of opportunities.
4. Offer more services (within that market)
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What will it take to be successful?
To increase your hit rate you will need to:
1. Have a company “go” or “no-go” plan.
2. Write better proposals.
3. Execute better interview presentations
Basically, you need to ask yourself: If we aren’t
accomplishing it now, what behaviors must be
changed to accomplish it in the future?
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What are specific
strategies?
Conduct Better Interviews:
1. Presentation Training
for staff.
2. Hire consultants for
message development.
3. Conduct mock
interviews.
4. Better positioning.
How much does that cost?
1. Consultant Fees.
2. Indirect Labor.
3. Marketing Support Staff.
4. Equipment, Food, etc.
Let’s say for the purpose of
the exercise that it cost
the firm $50,000 to
execute this type of
training.
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What will the training accomplish?
1. Increases your hit rate by 10%
2. If your firm has 100 opportunities
per year @ 30% hit rate = 30 jobs.
3. With training you can increase that
to 40% which equals 10 more jobs
per year.
4. Average job revenue $500,000 x
10 jobs per year = $5,000,000
5. If you subtract the $50,000 it cost to
execute this goal, that is still a
worthwhile expense with a large
ROI.
See the Return on Investment
Worksheet in the packet that you
received in the meeting/event email.
Additional Notes:
1. A client survey will help create your
“bottom line” so that you know your
position in the market.
2. Don’t equate savings in time to
reduction in expenses unless you plan
to fire someone.
3. You CANNOT focus on: What is this
costing the company.
4. You MUST focus on: What is it costing
us by NOT doing it.
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Marketing from the Buyers Perspective
Learning Objectives:
What are clients looking for?
Desired traits?
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Desired Traits in Order of Importance:
Do you know me? / Do you get me?
• People buy based on emotion – emotion is a competitive
advantage that you can only get by building authentic
relationships with your clients/prospective clients.
• An RFP/RFQ should look and feel like you. You should talk
about the company and your personal background last if
and when possible.
• Use specific experience in your RFP’s.
Example: Instead of writing statements like “IDA is an
expert in…” You should write “When we worked on “____”
project, we tackled “____” problems by “_____”
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Desired Traits in Order of Importance: Continued
Listen Fast
• Spend more time listening than talking.
• Initial meetings are meant to get information, not to tell the
client about how great you are.
• Communication is 93% body language and 7% the actual
words that you say. Sit forward while engaging in the
conversation, this makes the client feel like you are actively
listening and interested which results in the client…talking
more!
• Use key phrases like: “Really?! Can you tell me more
about that?”
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Desired Traits in Order of Importance: Continued
Demonstrate Confidence (Expertise/Experience)
• Confidence translates into expertise/experience;
however, you should translate it without saying it. People
who are really confident exude it – they never say it or fish
for it.
• Definition: Exude - to make apparent by mood or behavior.
• Never start out by talking about yourself or your firm.
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Desired Traits in Order of Importance: Continued
Genuine Interest / Enthusiasm
• Go to meetings with a team member so that one person
can engage and focus on the conversation while the other
person takes notes. It shows interest and is beneficial to
have another set of ears.
• Taking notes also shows interest. It means that you are
taking this seriously and it will also result in the client
talking more.
• People love to talk about themselves: Ask a lot of
questions.
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Desired Traits in Order of Importance: Continued
Compatibility
• Personal relationships are the key to business. Provided
you get an opportunity to work with the prospective client
on a project, you will likely be spending a considerable
amount of time with that person or firm.
• You have to do more than “get along” with your client –
Your relationship should become meaningful. It should be
compatible and fun.
Enjoyable
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In a meeting statistics show that the client is going to
remember 3 things about you or your firm.
What do you want your client to remember?
1.
2.
3.
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You should never contact a target client more than
1 time per quarter.
Never ask “Would it be okay if I followed up with
you in a few months…?” – Just do the follow
up, but find ways to do it “naturally”
Contact the client as often as you can without
crossing the line to becoming a “stalker”
It’s better to under-promise and over-deliver.
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Utilizing Client Based Organizations for Business
Development
Learning Objectives:
Get involved
Hunter vs. Gatherer
Strategy
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1. Your company should be
involved with 1 to 2
organizations that your
CLIENTS are members of:
• AIA
• BAYA
2. If you are not involved than
you are missing out on huge
opportunities:
• You have to do more than just
sign up for a membership.
• Join a committee, volunteer on a
board, be a guest speaker, etc.
3. Attend conferences / events as
often as possible: The money
spent on these pay for
themselves almost
immediately.
5. A great strategy at social
gatherings / events is to
bring a current, loyal client
with you. This can provide a
personal in-person
testimonial that is valuable
when meeting prospect
clients.
6. Always ask open-ended
questions so that you can
find out more information
which will give you a reason
to…
7. Follow-up. Provided you had
a meaningful initial
conversation this will be
natural and should never be
awkward.
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Never bring marketing materials: brochures, packets,
etc. to an initial meeting unless they have specifically
asked you to do so. Why?
It allows you 3 opportunities to connect with that
prospective client:
Initial Meeting, which you can close by saying “It was a
pleasure getting to know you better. I’ll make sure to follow up
and send you some additional information about our
company.”
Deliver on that by following up within a week by mailing the
materials along with a personal (preferably hand written) note.
Follow up by telephone in a few weeks to ask how things are
going and to make sure they received the information.
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The goal is to create multiple opportunities for
contact, multiple opportunities to engage with the
prospective client, but remember:
It’s never about you. It is about finding out how you
can serve that company or clients’ needs.
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Involve your staff:
Set up the people in your office to succeed by training
them properly.
If someone on your team is out-going and generally
good and socializing and networking, then send them to
events/conferences/meetings with someone who is not
as strong in that area.
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Build your Sphere of Connectivity:
Be inclusive: The more inclusive you are, the greater
your sphere of connectivity.
When hosting an event / lunch & learn / etc. that might
be applicable or interesting to a client, always invite
them to attend or participate.
As you expand your sphere of connectivity, your
network will extend and increase your opportunities.
See LinkedIn Example
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On www.LinkedIn.com you can see how many connections are 1st
connections. In this example:
169 direct 1st connections
Those 169 people link me to 1,311,616
LinkedIn is a great way to expand your sphere of connectivity.
Look at the connections on your current clients’ profiles, use LinkedIn and
ask to be introduced to those clients.
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Business comes down to Shared Experiences and
the Emotion Factor:
Cell
Text
Email
Mail
The above are all great forms of communication; however,
without shared experiences you will not be building
relationships with clients that turn into revenue/projects.
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Example of the Emotion Factor:
In the movie Ratatouille,
the toughest food critic
came to review the
restaurant and they served
ratatouille, which is a poor
man’s dish. People criticized him for serving something so
mundane on such an important event. However, ratatouille was a
dish that the critic ate as a child and eating the dish hit a heart
string in him that brought back cherished memories of his
childhood. In the end, the critic gave an astounding review of the
restaurant.
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Moral of the Story:
Serving the most elegant dish, or having the best
looking presentation isn’t as important as finding
the “heart string” in your clients and building
meaningful relationships with them.
If you build these types of relationships you won’t
have to call your clients for work. When they need
your type of services, they will be calling you.