Business Development in a Downturn

When sales slow down, it’s easy to start worrying and lose confidence. Which is a problem, because confidence is what you need to win more work. In today’s post, Pete shares his thoughts about what you and every member of your team can do to sustain your confidence and create the future you want.

Click here to explore how we can help you create the future you want.

his has been a challenging year for a lot of us because the economy seems to be cooling off, and projects have slowed down this year. So, a lot of AEC firms out there have been experiencing fewer projects, and it’s created a fair amount of concern in the clients and prospects that I’ve talked to over the course of the year. I wanted to share a couple of thoughts about what firms can do, and what team members who work for firms can do, in a situation like this. So, it’s really easy when things slow down to start to worry and to get pessimistic and to start to focus on yourself. You start to worry about things looking lean and what’s going to happen to me, what’s going to happen to my friend. The best way to react to this is to focus on two things. Thing number one is the future, and thing number two is the value that you have to offer that can create a better future. So, I am a huge proponent of optimism. You can’t know the future, so you might as well choose to believe that the future is going to be better than the now, that things will improve. Secondly, you can focus on what you can do to bring about that future, and what you can always do is offer your value to someone else to make a better future for them. Because if you are doing that, if you’re providing value that improves the situation of others in the future, that value is going to come back to you. It’s a karma sort of thing. So, that’s what I recommend to professional service leaders and to members of all BD firms: focus on those two things, the future that you want to create and the value that you can offer that can create that future for your clients and for yourself.

No Comments yet!

Your Email address will not be published.