On-demand webinar
From hero leader to a firm that grows without you
What you’ll learn :
- Why charismatic hero leaders hit a plateau, and how spreading business development lifts the handbrake
- How a 15-person firm took revenue per employee from $150,000 to over $225,000 by saying no to the wrong projects
- Why showing up and talking about yourself loses the room, and how to bring design curiosity into the pursuit
- Why 70 to 80% of the client's decision is made before your proposal, and what has to happen first
Speaker :
Maryanne Hewitt
High Performance Coach · AEC
Frank Niekamp
Chief Growth Officer · USA
What's covered
Inside the session. Watch a clip, then get the full recording.
Projects are stalling, cycles are unpredictable, and most large projects go to a handful of very large firms. How do smaller firms create stability and growth?
The charismatic founder grows the firm on instinct, then revenue levels off. Maryanne shares her own downsizing, and a client 40 years in his firm who was months from closing the doors. About a year into coaching, the firm just had its biggest invoicing month in years.
A diagnostic before treatment. Frank's first client, a 15-person Columbus firm, found its two owners spending 80% of their week on operations and business development. Seven staff were interested in a bigger role; three took one on.
When revenue feels thin, taking any project is a trap that erodes profit. Define the projects you love and excel at, the right size by fee, scope or square footage, your ideal geography, and who can give you that work.
Talking about how great you are tells clients things they may not care about. You cannot be creative without being curious, so bring that curiosity into the pursuit: ask, then listen.
The Columbus firm stopped chasing one-off restaurant clients and focused on developers with repeat work. Revenue per employee went from $150,000 to over $225,000, with nearly $80,000 per head going to profit.
Five to seven stages, like the design process. Research Frank cites, including the AIA, says 70 to 80% of the decision is made before the proposal. Skipping steps is like going from schematic design straight to CDs.
Without a conversation before the presentation, firms convert at less than 10%. Disqualifying those and reaching decision makers early can lift success rates to 40, 50, 60 and even 70%.
Resources
Get the recording
Frequently asked questions
Common Questions
The session suggests a target of around 10% of a senior staff member's week, noting most people are about 70% billable anyway. In Frank's Columbus example, seven of 15 staff were interested, and once expectations were clarified, three took on a larger business development role.
The presenters call it a trap. Projects outside your expertise risk low profitability, and some firms end up spending money just to complete the work. One firm that started saying no to the wrong projects lifted revenue per employee from $150,000 to over $225,000.
Ask what projects you love and are exceptionally good at, the right project size by fee, scope or square footage, your ideal geography, and who has the decision-making power to give you that work. Frank recommends analysing the last 12, 24 or 36 months of projects to see which made money and which lost it.
Frank cites research from a variety of sources, including the AIA, suggesting 70 to 80% of the decision has already been made by the presentation or proposal stage. That is why initiating contact and consultative conversations beforehand matter so much.
In Frank's experience, firms that do not get a conversation with the client before the presentation almost never convert: less than 10%. Firms that stop responding to those and reach decision makers earlier see success rates rise to as high as 40, 50, 60 and even 70%.
According to the session, no. As your effectiveness increases, bringing in work takes less time, and fewer resources go into proposals that will not convert.
The next step
Stop running on heroics. Start engineering revenue.
Whichever way you work with us, the same proven Revenue OS runs underneath. Book a growth session and we’ll show you where to start.