• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

Fraley Construction Marketing

Heavy Construction Marketing

  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • Brian’s Story
    • The Fraley Difference
  • SERVICES
    • Website Design
    • Video Production
    • Job Stories
    • Social Media Marketing
    • Email Marketing
    • Writing & Editing
    • Construction Photography
    • Public Relations
  • THE WORK
  • CLIENTS
    • Clients
    • Testimonials
  • KNOWLEDGE
    • Blog
    • Articles
  • NEWS
  • CONTACT
Menu

3 Ways to Help Your Seller-Doers Succeed by June R. Jewell, CPA

April 15, 2015 by Brian Fraley

0
SHARES
SubscribeShare on LinkedInShare on FacebookShare on Twitter

With the competition for projects tighter than ever in the Architecture and Engineering industry, most firms are still depending on their technical staff to manage and close business. The industry has not quite caught up to the rest of the professional services world in recognizing the need for a more professional team of seller-doers.

For the mainstream A&E firm today, most business opportunities are being pursued on a part-time bases by project managers and others that have the secondary title of Seller-Doer. This basically means that they have to split their busy schedules into working on projects, managing teams, and selling services. This can be very challenging to fit into their already crowded schedule, and as a result, critical deadlines and even quality can suffer, and win rates are not maximized.

Aside from hiring a professional sales team that can be difficult to manage, compensate and hold accountable, there are some things that can be done help your seller-doers by both making their jobs easier, and improving their behavior and performance in closing work. These three improvements to your sales efforts can be broken into three main categories of Sales Process, People and Systems, and are summarized as follows:

Sales Process

The foundation of everything your people do every day is established by setting expected behaviors and actions. Without an established sales process, your employees will be left to their own interpretation of how to manage a project opportunity. By developing a written, detailed sales process for your seller-doers, you can start to build some predictability and consistency into how they manage an opportunity from the moment a potential project is uncovered, throughout the proposal and award.

A good sales process should identify each step in detail including their responsibility for recording information in a database, going through a Go/No-Go process, getting approval to invest substantial time and money into a competitive proposal process, following up on critical due dates, and regular communication. It should also include regular updating of opportunities in the company’s client relationship management (CRM) system, which can provide important firm-wide visibility into sales success, revenue forecasts, and assist with resource management decisions.

The sales process is the core of a successful sales effort, and without it, your seller-doers are running blind and not optimizing the time invested in looking for and closing new business.

People

Your seller-doers are being put in a very difficult position if they have never been exposed to sales. In many cases, project managers are automatically expected to be involved in new business acquisition, with little to no desire to be involved, or training in sales. Many of them are self-proclaimed introverts, and couple this with the fact that they often view “sales” as a dirty word, there may be very little enthusiasm for this part of their job.

The best sales people view their role as helping their clients. By viewing the sales process as uncovering problems and solving difficult challenges for them, they can start to view the sales process as an important part of the project. I am seeing more and more A&E firms engaging in professional sales training for their seller-doer teams, and it is reaping benefits.

Sales training, along with a well-developed sales process, can be a competitive advantage and make a substantial difference to increasing the firm’s win rate.

Systems

The third critical factor to helping sell-doers succeed is technology. By automating the data management portion of the sales process, seller-doers can be more effective at staying on course and following through with critical deadlines.

A Client Relationship Management (CRM) system will save your staff time as well as manage large quantities of data. By utilizing a CRM system to manage project opportunities, your seller-doers will more easily be able to:

  • Track client and team contact information
  • Keep track of critical deadlines
  • Record notes from meetings and phone calls
  • Better analyze what is working and not working
  • Track detailed data about the projects they are pursuing
  • More easily create the project scope
  • Track the probability of winning and potential revenue from the project

Additionally, the leaders of the firm will have better insight into cumulative potential future revenues and sales performance, as well as protect the firm in cases of turnover. In some systems, the entire Go/No-Go process can be captured as well as competitive analysis and win-loss statistics by lead sales person, location, project type, or industry. This data can be extremely valuable when seller-doer performance is not at the level needed or expected.

Your seller-doers have a tough job these days and anything you can do to help them succeed should provide a measurable pay-off. Not every seller-doer is going to be successful at sales. By improving their sales skills, and providing them with the tools to be successful, your seller-doers will either soar to success or fail. The sooner you can help them to do either will ultimately affect the bottom line in a positive way.

How do you help your seller-doers succeed? Have you tried these or any other methods? Please share your thoughts.

June Jewell is the author of the book “Find the Lost Dollars: 6 Steps to Increase Profits in Architecture, Engineering and Environmental Firms.” She is the president of AEC Business Solutions, focused on developing business assessment tools and online training for project managers to help AEC firms make more money on their projects. Connect with her on LinkedIn and learn more about how to improve your project management performance at www.AECBusiness.com.

 

Related Posts:

  • Marketing Takeaways from CONEXPO 2020
  • The Best Trench Construction Photo is a Safe One
0
SHARES
SubscribeShare on LinkedInShare on FacebookShare on Twitter

Categories: Business Development

Previous Post: « How Construction Firms Can Avoid a Public Relations Disaster
Next Post: Free eBook Helps A/E Firms with Branding »

No Spam. No Sales Pitch. Just Ideas for Making Great Content.


We found Brian and his team easy to work with and they did an outstanding job on our website. Brian offered editorial work when needed and his team put together a great layout and format for our site. Once we decided to get serious with the content, our site came together quickly and now we have a more professional representation of Earth Engineering on the Internet. I highly recommend Fraley Construction Marketing for anyone involved in the engineering or construction industry who wants someone… Read more
Ward McMasters, P.E.PresidentEarth Engineering Inc.
Brian was there for us when we had just a few days to put together a complex proposal for a P3 bridge replacement project we were bidding that involved detailed technical and financial plans. As a contractor, we had no experience in putting together the marketing and narrative pieces that the proposal required. Brian not only walked us through the process, he helped us put together a complete and professional looking proposal. His extensive experience and knowledge of construction and engineerin… Read more
Mark EckmanPresidentJ.D. Eckman Inc.
I’d like to thank you for the job you did redesigning our website. The site is more modern and MUCH easier to navigate. You listened and brought our ideas to life.
Bob HessPresidentFaddis Concrete Products
The services Fraley Construction Marketing provided to us were top notch.  We’ve hired photographers across the country to obtain photos of our equipment in use on various job sites, but Brian’s talent shined in this particular project.  He went above and beyond, was very informative and did a great job scheduling and coordinating with the jobsite.  We are very happy with the quality of his photos!  We would be more than willing to use his services again in the future.
Gretchen TremmierSecretaryPile Hammer Equipment
Fraley Construction Marketing has taken KB’s online presence to the next level. Brian utilizes multiple social media platforms to engage with our industry and drive traffic to our website. They also manage our e-mail marketing and we anticipate many long-term benefits. Fraley is a truly innovative online marketing firm.
Mark WaltersMarket ManagerKB International
We are extremely pleased with the work Fraley Construction Marketing has done. We had a massive amount of website content that needed to be edited and written within a tight schedule and it was all done in a timely manner. Brian is a great communicator and talked me through the entire process to make sure everything was exactly to our liking. 
Caitlin KitchensCommunications SpecialistSuperior Construction
We are very happy with Fraley Construction Marketing’s services. Brian helped us get into key industry trade publications and did a fantastic job writing the story of an unconventional project we performed. His experience and understanding of the construction industry is inherent. We continue to work with Brian, whose knowledge and hard work has raised our online presence!
Kay MiluskiPresidentCompaction Grouting Services
Fraley Construction Marketing has achieved incredible results in our company’s marketing efforts. Brian has taken our social media and press releases from zero to overwhelming. This is due to Brian’s industry knowledge and exemplary communication skills. His skill and guidance have led us beyond our expectations.
Ben DuttonPresidentEquipment Corporation of America
I was looking for an effective and precise way to market my new Black Splitter log splitting products to potential customers and that’s exactly what I got with Fraley Construction Marketing. Brian exceeded my expectations by suggesting a project application story instead of a standard new product press release, and identifying and getting it published in at least six industry trade publications. I will be doing more marketing projects with Brian in the future.
Eric RansomeOwnerRansome Attachments
Brian Fraley is an asset to any business that desires a stronger emphasis on construction marketing. In the past year, Brian crafted two job stories, opening doors to more than 10 publications, including PileDriver, Piling Canada, Deep Foundations, Foundation Drilling and Pile Buck to name a few. His in-depth knowledge of the construction industry, writing and photography skills, and relationship with trade magazine editors makes collaborating on stories a pleasure and helps ECA promote the cap… Read more
Jeff HarmstonVice President - Sales & MarketingEquipment Corporation of America
610.906.7275

Copyright © 2021 - Fraley Construction Marketing - All Rights Reserved