When you’re busy delivering work, business development can easily slip down the list. I know this from running my own consultancy.
Client commitments have deadlines. Keeping in touch with someone you haven’t spoken to for six months rarely does. It is easy to leave that conversation for another week.
Then a project finishes, the diary opens up, and finding the next piece of work suddenly feels urgent. Yet relationships and decisions take time.
For small and medium-sized architecture and engineering practices, this can be particularly challenging. The people delivering projects are often also responsible for maintaining relationships and winning future work.
What helps me is making the next step small enough to fit into a busy week:
• Following up on a conversation while it is still fresh.
• Asking a past client how things are progressing.
• Sharing something relevant to a contact’s interests.
• Making time for a coffee without needing an immediate opportunity to discuss.
These conversations also help us understand what is changing for clients: their priorities, pressures and plans. That understanding makes future approaches more relevant.
There will always be weeks when delivery takes over. But giving relationship building a regular place in the diary can help avoid starting again from silence when work becomes quieter.
How do you keep BD going in your practice when everyone is busy?
