Construction Business Development - Gorilla Warfare 101

By Shawn Desgrosellier of Vitality Group

When we are faced with a recession, what happens? The strong survive and the weak die.

Client after client refer to this market as "gorilla warfare" and I would agree. It is tough out there and it is impacting the A&E Firms, Program and Construction Management firms, General Contractors and the entire Specialty Contractor market segment in all sectors and sizes. So what do you do? Do you go where you have never been before and competitively pursue and bid every project that hits the wire? Do you get into the Federal market since that is where all of the money seems to be? Do you diversify geographically and have a wider reach and expect your project teams to travel? Do you scale back and wait it out? I think you get my point, there are more "what if" scenarios than ever before, so the question is: What are YOU going to do?

The companies that have survived gorilla warfare are: steadfast in their strategy, equipped with the right weapons, know their enemy (competition), and have one objective-  to Win the WAR. Here are some tips to improve your strategy.

Steadfast Strategy:

When planning for war, you must operate with precision - no mistakes. You must be in control and not at the mercy of your opponent. Market Mastery is an offensive sales and business development approach that can dramatically improve your depth and breadth in the market, uncovering every possible prospect without trying to be everything to everybody. Focus on your core.

Here is an exercise that can draw out opportunities:

Get your Top Guns or Seal Team (the best of the best at all levels in the room) and drive a discussion around market segments, organizational expertise, and your niche or specialization. Identify all possible prospects (organizations and people within those organizations) in that fit into your market niche or area of specialization. The longer the list the better.

Compartmentalize your targets by market segment: Healthcare, Education, Federal, Municipality, Retail, Office, Industrial, etc. Next you need to identify contacts at a local or what some call "national account" level as well as local or regional contacts who influence the decision making process.

This will be your guide and from this you will carefully and strategically work this long list of opportunities into a short and manageable list of targets/strategic accounts. When this is at a manageable level, how do you approach these clients and how often is critical. If you create a SOP for client prospecting, in no time at all you will know every step by memory and can track each prospect by stage and moving each prospect from stage 1 to stage 2 and so on will show you the progress or lack thereof you are making with each prospect.

How often do you have a great meeting with a client prospect and it goes dormant? It happens more than it should, so how do you and your organization prevent that from happening? You need to stay in touch with your clients and it can be as simple as adding every prospect to an e-mail or U.S. Mail distribution list and sending them something monthly. Just that alone could dramatically increase your market coverage and keep your company on the top of their mind when an opportunity arises- it is all about timing in sales and that is where most sales people and companies miss huge opportunities. Strength of numbers and law of averages is a theme that over time can change the direction of your company forever!

Of course your past projects and the people who were involved in selecting your firm as the contractor are great targets that also need to be on your list. You need to stay in touch with those people, track them in a database, and assign someone internally who connected well with them at both a personal and professional level.

If you gather all of your troops into the WAR room and if each member can move each prospect from stage to stage effectively - in no time at all your organization will be ready and in position when the timing is right- to strike.