Marketing Your Company? 6

[GoldDredger]

I’ve been with a new company for about a year now, and hired as project manager. I took on some projects from a predecessor who left them out of budget and in a shambles. Needless to say, the entire last year for me has been putting out one fire after the next. Unfortunately due to the multiple problems experienced, the main client has decided not to work with us anymore.

At any rate, I am now in a position of needing to find new clients and work, so I’ve been directed to start a marketing campaign. I do remember my marketing training from engineering school 13 years ago, it was about a two sentence lecture from a professor who never left the academia.

I have tried cold calling from data base of developers and architects I got from a friend of a friend, without any success. Have any of you tried cold calling? It is harder than it seems. I give about a 15 second spiel, then ask if they need my services. Most are polite but generally the response is ‘no, we’re good, thanks’.

My company also has this color flier, a brochure that extols our virtues and experience and so on, which I have sent out to the same contacts above with a one page cover letter. I imagine they are received with a cursory glance on the way to the trashcan.

Do any of you have any tips or things I might try? I imagine persistence is the watchword. Research the company, know the contact names, etc.. How about articles or reference materials I might look at?

 

[PatBethea]

I've been in business for myself for almost two years. I've tried cold-calling, cold-mailing, I've given a couple of presentations to local groups, I've advertised in the local paper, on the radio, and my company is in the phone book under multiple headings. Very little work has come from those efforts. Word of mouth is the best marketing tool I have found - and that is very dependent on a good reputation. It sounds like your company may now have a bad reputation - somehow you're going to need to find a way to fix that. Good luck.

 

[dwt]

Picking up the phone and calling is easy, it's being successful, that's the hard part.

When I changed jobs a couple of years ago, cold calling became part of my duties (not what I originally believed, but that's another story). I found a book "Cold Calling Techniques that really work" by Schiffman that really helped.
My main problem, and it sounds like yours, was that I was going for the home run on each call. Basically the book recommended that the goal of the first call is to introduce yourself and set up a meeting. From that meeting you may be able to secure some work or at least develop a relationship that leads to something. The bad part is that it's a slow process.

 

[lansford]

I agree with PAT. The same marketing efforts on my part did not yield much results. Church bulletins especially do not work and word of mouth is about the best.
If you are lucky enough to be more than a small shop then you may have someone in your organization to be the salesperson.
Getting your name out to suppliers is helpful as well.
Jim

 

[Feric]

Hi there:

In order to speed the process, I would suggest some web presence and marketing.

Today, web presence and marketing are a fast way of spreading the word. It does not cost that much and does not require much effort. Also, you go worldwide and on 24/7 basis ...

Information can be posted and potential clients can either find the relevant information online and/or download it. e-mail is used as way of communication. Phone calls and visits can be used too.

Good luck!

Thanks,

Gordan

http://engware.i-dentity.com

 

[csd72]

Do you have an industry journal that you can write an article for, I am not talking about an engineering journal, rather I am talking about the type of journal that your clients would read.

 

[msquared48]

I totally disagree about cold calls. That was my primary means of getting the word out when I started out on my own 21 years ago. My rate of job return on the calls was 1 in 5 when the industry was 1 in 10 at the time. I had no problems with this and igt did work.

The other factor with cold calls is that your business resume is in front of someone who may, just may, pass it on to someone who could use your services even though they may not. This has happened innumerable times to me. It's called a referral. All you are doing is getting someone else to help do your marketing for you - more contacts. And if you do a good job for the client - more referrals. It is a never ending snowball - a network. It does take time to grow, but so does a Sequia.

I do not know what happened to your predecessor, but if he was released or quit your firm, you might eat some crow and go to the important client your firm lost, introduce yourself, explain that you understand why he stopped doing business with your firm, but that things have changed, going into particulars if you so desire. A business lunch would be good where you could offer to do another job for him under conditions that would be very favorable to him if he was not satisfied. You have nothing to lose here, and might actually turn around his current opinion of your firm. Prior to trying this though, I would get the permission of your superior(s), and hopefully that is not your predecessor. Good luck.

Mike McCann
McCann Engineering

 

[DonPhillips]

I agree cold calling just takes time, if you have the personality to bullshit with people and develop the personal relationship before turning it into a professional one.

My best marketing effort was to get actively involved in local professional organizations. Word gets out and those seminars your organized, or social event you put together, or people you helped with free advise or even projects will come back in spades. It is the old "what goes around..." but with a positive spin instead of the normal negative.

Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com

 

[zdas04]

Everyone has their own personality. Every company is made up of the personalities of its employees. For me, cold calling was a dud. The yellow pages were a major waste of time and money for me (I never got a single call from someone who was willing to pay me from my yellow pages adds, I've stopped them all). Adds in industry publications are just expensive noise, I've never hired anyone from those adds nor have I ever heard of anyone who got hired because of them.

What worked for me was: (1) the network of contacts that I carefully nurtured over a 25 year industry career; (2) my web page (and the link to it in my eng-tips.com signature); (3) becoming an officer in SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers); and (4) articles in industry magazines and presentations at seminars.

While I worked for wages I had a bunch of opportunities to write seminar papers and present them. I met a lot of people on industry committees. I kept business cards I collected and annotated them with who the contact was, where we met, and what we had in common. When I started my business this card file was out of date for about half the cards, and the other half represented my entire clientele for the first year.

I've gotten 5 new clients in the last few months who found me through Googling a tech topic, following it to eng-tips.com, and then linking through my signature to my web page. This requires that your contributions here are thoughtful, well reasoned, and consistently add value. It also requires that your web page has stuff on it that helps people. By giving away some pretty cool information on my web page people seem to think "if he can give away this much value, what do you get if you pay him?".

I'm a mechanical engineer who works in Oil & Gas. SPE is a society filled with potential clients for me. Becoming the local SPE section chairman got my name and face in front of a lot of potential clients and several of them hired me. NACE and ASME on the other hand have nearly zero clients for me--I belong to both, but I don't bother to invest the time in being an officer. The key to this strategy working is to take it very seriously and to do the best job that can be done in the role.

If you have an interest in and a talent for writing and presenting, that is a great way to get your name/face in front of clients. I've gotten more interest (and some work) from people who want to argue with me about a cover story I wrote for a major industry publication a couple of years ago. The time required to research and write that article has been repaid sevenfold.

None of these strategies will have much impact on this quarter's revenue, but for long-term viability I've found that they can't be beat. For the short term, I would call the client that dropped you, ask them to lunch to try to get them to do a post-appraisal on what they didn't like. At that meeting (if you can get them to come), don't argue, don't be defensive, try to appear to have a real interest in fixing the problems. Those meetings are painful, but the one thing that you CANNOT do is offer to do the next job at a discount to try to get their business back--you'll never be able to get rid of the discount after the job is done.

Good luck.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

http://www.muleshoe-eng.com

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

The harder I work, the luckier I seem

 

[tygerdawg]

Put yourself in your client's position: some guy calls me from out of the blue, gives his pitch to me over the phone, and expects for me to risk my wage earning capability by spending money with him based upon...what?...a cold call, a sales pitch, and a 4-color brochure? No thanks, buddy, we'll call you.

Cold calls can be effective, but you gotta grind through those 20-30 "no thanks" answers to get the single "Well, maybe, let's talk" that will pay the bills.

I learned to use cold calls to screen clients with high potential, then schedule a no-pressure lunch date. It's amazing what an $8 lunch will do to break down barriers, and there is no better way to build a relationship than face-to-face. Then I'd plant a seed and ask for a small "let me prove myself" project (read that as: low risk to client's reputation and career in case the project tanked). It's necessary to build a relationship based on proven results. That's why "word of mouth" is most effective: no one wants to risk their livelihood on an unknown, but they'll jump off a cliff if their buddy says it's OK.

A friend of mine was very successful with PLC & Vision system programming in factories because he started out getting a $300 job with the Maintenance Department and do a **super** job. His reputation would filter up to the big-money decision makers for larger projects. His credibility had been established by the time the real money was on the table.

Home runs are nice, but it's base hits and rounding all four bases that win the game. And you gotta have a bunch of "at bats" to make it happen.

This entire topic has been discussed several times here before...dig around in Eng-Tips and you may find some great insights.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Advanced Robotics & Automation Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[ajack1]

I would agree with the majority on here that word of mouth is the best thing, however that can be a two way street, I doubt the customer who no longer uses you is out there singing your praises. I would do whatever is possible within reason to get them back.

I have had little success with phone books and the like, a highly visible web site is a must have IMO, there is little use in being on page 4 or higher on a search engine, even if it means paying to be on page one that is money well spent.

I do find the numbers on cold calling interesting, I would certainly be in the 1 in 40 category; I find 1 in 5 an amazing return. However I do always make the mistake of only phoning around when the industry is slow, as we tend to be very busy when the industry is buoyant, oh the pleasures of owning a small business.

One thing I always do is try and keep in touch with reps who supply the industry as they always seem to know who is busy or looking to contract out work, we have picked up a good deal of work for the price of a pint and a sandwich in this way.

 

[bvi]

Work on you network; in my experience it is the most reliable source of work (by referals, repeat work, etc). As stated by others, it is a long process, but it is the most reliable way to build business in the long term. Further, if things don't go well with your current job, your network will help you land another job.

 

[Rye1]

I've been in buisness about six months now, and starting to see some good results. I can't agree more with the website suggestions. They are relatively cheap (or can be) and they give potential clients a glimpse of your buisness.

I spent the weekend looking for a surveyor for a project. I found a list of surveyors from my states registration board and then I googled their company names. If they did not have a website I moved to the next one.

Rye

http://www.newrivereng.com

 

[Surcharged]

Rye1

Your website looks good. Check your spelling though. "Loose vs. lose" Good luck.

 

[Rye1]

Thanks Surcharged! Those little typos kill me.

 

[cry22]

Tyger
Home runs are nice, but it's base hits and rounding all four bases that win the game. And you gotta have a bunch of "at bats" to make it happen.

I do understand baseball and I think I can relate, but I find it hard to do small talk with clients in the US.
As a a foreign born engineer, for some reason, 60% of our clients (my partner and I) are from owners of architectural or engineering firms whom are of foreign origins.

Just can't strike it for real with WASP's.

So what makes Americans tick? is it golf Tyger (sic)? which I consider a spoiled walk.

Sorry if I highjacked the thread onto some thing else.

 

[DonPhillips]

Cry22,

I am an american with some European family and I can understand your inability to relate. Except for college football and basketball, soccer is my passion and it is hard to converse with people who speak about Tiger's surgery and missing the Memorial Tournament but never heard of Man. U. and that their win over Chelsea last week in Russia (as opposed to London). When in Rome....





Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com

 

[cry22]

Don,
make that inability to "connect", not to "relate". I think I can relate enough after 25-years in the states.
I even learned the "suicide squeeze" in baseball.

Great game of MU over Chelsea.

 

[DonPhillips]

That is funny, I know of the suicide squeeze and I think have seen it once like 20 years ago, but I could never explain it to my son when he was playing baseball a few years ago.

If Ronaldo goes to Real Madrid, I would not be surprised if Sir Alex retires this summer.

Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com

 

[RLM2000]

I am in charge of sales for my firm.

I don't want to blow my own horn, but our sales have gone from 450K to 1.2M in the 3 years since I have taken over the position. Our office is much bigger now.

When I came here, they sent me to a bunch of these "Small Business" consortiums, and "How to sell A/E Services" classes. They were worthless. Just a bunch of blowhards telling me how great they were, and how "I" could make it happen (just fill out these 200 pages of applications, and if you aren't women or minority owned, you better know someone). I realized that I could spend 30 or 40% of my time marketing for those jobs, without ever making an "in". I gave that work to my assistant and every now and then we get one of those jobs, just like manna from heaven.

I formulated my own method. I call it "knowing people", yeah, networking is the easiest and fastest way to make engineering sales. I started attending classes aimed at developers and contractors. Classes for real estate, construction management, even "Time Management for Middle Managers.". I had no interest in any of the subjects really, just an interest in meeting people who I could talk to about me. When at these classes start being friendly with different people.Find out the dynamics of the group, and if you play your cards right you are handing out your cards and handshakes to some real players in your area. If you are really quick you can take someone out for lunch to give them a little prod about you and your crew.

It is sort of like picking up women at a bar. I even feel a little sleazy after a day of that kind of schmoozing. I don't feel that way when the X-mas bonus checks come out though.