Lead Development

A Perspective from Architecture & Engineering

By Anne Scarlett

Throughout the lead development process, business development professionals work very hard. You make contacts, nurture relationships, submit RFPs, all before you finally get a chance to interview with prospects.

By the time you get to that interview, you realize that all of the firms are fully qualified—especially in terms of project portfolios and proven performance track records. So what's in question? Quite simply it's the personalities and the "wow" factor. When considering how to showcase synergies and group dynamics, what's better than giving your prospects an opportunity to truly "experience" working with you and your team?

Creating an interview "experience" is possible, even within the limited timeframe of a formal client interview. Think about it. As a service provider, your firm often facilitates sessions around project strategy, programming, and design charrettes. Why not dedicate a portion—or even all—of the interview to facilitate a dialogue? In other words, why not make your presentation truly interactive, rather than just saying it will be interactive?

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Here's how it's done. (I've used this format myself, so I know it works.)

1. Prepare and submit an agenda in advance. Share your intentions to incorporate facilitation as part—or even all—of the presentation.
2. If the client requests specific points to be covered by each team, include those points within your agenda. Just make sure you allocate plenty of time for facilitation as well.
3. Prepare your firm's top three messages that you want to emphasize to the client. Think: "If the client remembers nothing else from this interview, I hope they will remember this…"
4. Work out some potential talking points that you may want to cover during the facilitation, depending upon the direction it takes. Practice drafting out (in a simple format) your team's process and/or diagrams to illustrate a point. You can always bring mini-sketches of these diagrams to refer to if you need to draw them in real time.
5. During your rehearsal, have someone serve in the prospects' role while your team guides them through the interview. Preselect the facilitators and the scribes. Make it smooth and organized, yet be flexible and open to spontaneous shifts during the actual interview.
6. Make sure you have flip charts with a sticky back and multicolored markers. Bring at least one easel.

Sample Agenda

• Brief introduction of firm, team, and client. (Casual and quick).
• Brief summarization of your understanding of their project goals. (List these in real time. Ask if there are any additions or changes.)
• Identification of top three to five client challenges/issues for project. (This part is facilitated by you. It will require your ability to help guide the client through their priorities and get them talking immediately. In addition to stating the top three to five challenges, you may have to group items into buckets and/or create a parking lot. Document these on flip charts).
• Reflection by your team of how you would propose to tackle the identified challenges. Use relevant, real stories to support your proposed approach. Whenever it makes sense, tie their challenges back into the key messages that you mentioned during the introduction. Perhaps it will also include a representation of your process by drawing it out in a simple form.
• Presentation of initial design schemes, if required.
• Wrap up: Inquire if there are additional questions. And finally, repeat the top three messages that your firm wants to leave them with (the ones you started with at the beginning).

Reasons to Use This Format

• Your team shows off its ability to glean information from a client group and organize that information into something solid and real.
• Teammates demonstrate how they work with one another. Team dynamics can be quite telling.
• Your team exemplifies tremendous listening skills, making the prospect feel both heard and respected.
• Your prospect speaks out, so the overall experience will be fun and interesting. Don't worry that those speaking aren't decision makers. Those who have a less important voice will most certainly defer to those who have final say on projects.
• The overall experience is kinesthetic and engaging. It will be memorable and unique, and it will greatly differentiate your firm.

Reasons to Not Use This Format

• Your team is risk-averse and doesn't like the idea of simply using talking points rather than a prepared presentation.
• Your team is unable to think on its feet, especially if the client throws a surprise curve ball.
• Your prospect is not willing to be led through an active dialogue—they simply want to "be pitched." This needs to be determined as early in the process as possible, which is why you need to share your agenda/intentions in advance.
• Your prospect includes decision makers who will not be involved in the actual project. These people don't care about the experience of working with your team.

If you have team members ready to show off their talents as professional design consultants—quite literally—then this is a great interview format to consider.

Anne Scarlett, President of Scarlett Consulting, provides marketing advisory services to the architecture/engineering/construction industry. She is a frequent public speaker and contributing author to multiple industry publications, including PSMJ's AE Rainmaker. What's the Scarlett Consulting difference? Clients receive hands-on attention. Find out more by calling 773-251-8132 or visiting www.annescarlett.com.

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