|
Integrating Marketing Efforts into
Operations
By Terry Kramer
Helping Hands
When construction companies initiate marketing and business
development efforts, the other employees typically resent
this new kid on the block. Everyone notices that not only
does the Owner and Managers lend helping hands to promote
this person's success, but this person expects everyone else
to lend a helping hand, too. This does not normally sit well
with Estimators, Project Managers, and Accounting personnel
since they were originally thrown to the wolves and asked
to figure out what their jobs should be. Where were their
"helping hands" within the company when they needed
them ?
To compound matters, the Marketing/Business Development Manager
will announce within a relatively short period of time that
marketing is everyone's job. Excuse me? Employees frown upon
these comments because it appears that everyone should do their
own work and that no one else has made their job tasks the common
responsibilities of all company employees. What a way for a
Marketing/Business Development Manager to get off on the wrong
foot.
Salvaging the Marketing Function
In many ways, the behavior of the Owners & Managers is
correct, as well as the request for assistance from all employees.
It's just that it was handled all wrong and within the wrong
timeframe. There is nothing so powerful within construction
companies as motivating a large bloc of employees to rally
against a Marketing/Business Development Manager. Employees
frequently pull the rug out from under the promising candidates,
especially when things are handled incorrectly.
How do companies get to that point where Operations personnel
will help the Marketing/Business Development Manager? Despite
significant resentment from most employees, the marketing efforts
can still be salvaged, but it will take a concerted effort from
the Owner & Managers to convince company personnel that
marketing and business development activities are worthwhile.
With an employee backlash facing the company, the Owner &
Managers must implement the following:
Culture: emphasize and establish marketing, customer service,
and work acquisition activities as key components of the company
culture
Bonus Program: connect individual employee behaviors to
an incentive program that rewards and supports these cultural
behaviors
Meetings: illustrate to company personnel in meetings how
their behaviors impacted a contract, a sale, change order
approvals, or repeat work
Strategy: convey importance to employees of how marketing,
business development, and work acquisition activities factor
into company's strategic success for backlog, market penetration,
new market niches, and profitability
Organizational: creating an organizational matrix structure
that places the Project Manager as the Team Leader on each
project where even the Marketing/Business Development Manager
will serve the needs of the PM and project team in regard
to customer needs
Benefits of Team-Marketing
These approaches are effective and do work within construction
companies. Before companies know it, employees are gleefully
complying with the requests of the Marketing Manager. They
start to notice the benefits of companywide involvement
in marketing:
1) there is a steadier flow of work which secures employment
2) promotions are more frequent throughout the company and
career tracking is discussed more
3) the bonus pool appears to be increasing each year
4) employees take more ownership of new projects, since they
have assisted in acquiring the work
5) customers are happier and freely give more repeat work
to the company, without bidding for it
There are some surprises to employees about marketing &
business development activities:
marketing & business development efforts are harder
than they look
there is a much longer lead time involved in projects than
everyone had originally thought
the hours required to secure projects vary wildly from project-to-project
there is lot more information required to be provided to
customers
the disappointment associated with projects derived from
marketing is more personal than just hard-
bidding a project without much personal contact with the customer
What Are Companies Ideally Looking For?
When marketing & business development tasks are finally
accepted internally as standard business functions similar
to estimating, project management, and accounting, companies
should expect the following behaviors from Operations personnel:
1) regular participation in presentations
2) assistance in the preparation of conceptual estimates
3) involvement in ongoing pre-construction meetings
4) collaboration with estimators during the job on change
orders
5) meetings with the customer liaison throughout the job
6) preemptive punch lists prior to customer walkthroughs
7) actively seeking customer feedback at the end of the projects
via surveys
8) jobsite visits to new projects prior to the end of the
current project
It takes construction companies years to fully integrate a
marketing & customer mentality into the heart of the company
culture. There is usually internal resentment from the typical
opponents of marketing but there are always a surprising number
of key employees who defy the company's strategic intent.
These personnel eventually realize that they do not fit into
the new company scheme and then leave. The departures typically
advance the cause of marketing further, as obstacles are removed.
On occasion, a marketing culture can be so successful that
non-marketing personnel lay claim to more work acquisition
successes than the marketing & business development personnel
do, but it is usually exaggerated. At the end of the day,
no one cares who takes credits because marketing really is
a team effort in the first place.
Terry Kramer has been consulting
to construction companies for 17 years. He can be reached
at 480-443-0859 or www.k-advise.com
|
print this page
e-mail this page
