Do You Have a Business Development Mindset?

By Trace Pesavento

Superintendent Josh Rogers was working on a project to build a new elementary school. As with most education projects, the schedule had no wiggle room for delays. The school had to be open in time for the first day of school.

Throughout the course of the project, Rogers worked tirelessly, like a general overseeing his troops, to ensure the logistics plan was sound and the schedule was on track. When there was weather or material shipping delays, he acted quickly to identify mitigation strategies. He constantly communicated with his trade partners to ensure they had the appropriate resources and training. He conducted site inspections with the safety manager on a regular basis to ensure a safe work environment for both the team and their neighbors.

Rogers also maintained close relationships with local city officials, ensuring they always had the proper permitting and paperwork, and that inspections were conducted on time. He worked with the local utility companies as well, staying in constant communication to ensure the job was in line for service at just the right time. He was in close contact with the client throughout all of this, always keeping them apprised of the situation.

Thanks to Rogers’ leadership, the school was completed on time with zero safety incidents. The client was ecstatic about how well Rogers had prepared them for the first day students began arriving for class. By staying laser focused on the client’s goals and continuously communicating and collaborating to work through challenges, the project was considered a huge success and already the client was looking forward to hopefully working with Rogers again on the next project.

Of course, to Rogers this was all part of being a superintendent. Yet, unbeknownst to him, the simple act of “just doing his job” made him one of the most critical members of a company’s business development team.

Rethinking stereotypes

The concept of a superintendent as a business developer – a salesperson – might seem antithetical to those who typically serve in this role. But let’s consider the true function of business development.

Business development is often given a bad rap. People automatically think of the glad-handing salesperson wining and dining at fancy restaurants or trading business cards over cocktails at networking events. This is not the picture of your typical superintendent.

Stereotypes aside, business development serves a higher purpose. The Oxford dictionary defines business development as “the activity of pursuing strategic opportunities for a particular business or organization… by cultivating partnerships or other commercial relationships.”

The entire construction project delivery model is based on partnership, so the act of cultivating and maintaining relationships is critical. Of course, this doesn’t always have to entail dinners and networking events. In fact, in an ideal world, it shouldn’t. While those activities serve a purpose, the true key is to maintain great relationships once you have established them. This can lead to a long-lasting pipeline of work without having to constantly go hunting for new customers. Happy clients often do much of the work for you by providing referrals.

When it comes to relationship management, as the day-to-day point person on the job, a superintendent plays a critical role. A good superintendent is in constant contact with the client and knows them inside out. In the best of circumstances, the superintendent becomes the client’s trusted advisor.

Considering this deep connection, the partnership between superintendents and business development can be powerful.

Forming a business development mindset

Simply being aware of the value you bring as a superintendent to the business development process is a good first step. With some intention, however, you can take it a step further by connecting the dots between what you know about your clients and potential future work.

This means bringing some additional awareness to your day-to-day interactions. During the course of an active project, you likely connect with the client more often than any other member of the team. Those interactions allow you to pay attention to what the client communicates about their vision, goals and future objectives. This is extremely useful information to support a business development strategy.

We have created a mechanism for sharing this information in our organization. A group including a business developer, a project executive, project managers and superintendents meets regularly to share updates from meetings or conversations that occurred since the last group meeting. The team logs this information and discusses how it supports a strategic plan around a client or upcoming project pursuit. This exercise not only helps cultivate a practice of “dot connecting,” but also enables us to be more aligned in the way we support our clients and position ourselves for future work.

Recognizing your value

As a superintendent with a business development mindset, you bring a huge amount of value to your clients, your organization and yourself.

You are naturally already client-focused. However, the more broadly you can think about the relationship, the better able you will be to go beyond the current project and support them in the long-term. Furthermore, doing the work up front to cultivate a long-lasting client relationship can yield significant efficiencies for future projects.

As the face of the company on the jobsite, your actions reflect the entire organization. From that perspective, you play an important role serving as company spokesperson in front of the client, trade partners, design team and local city officials. Developing a business development mindset elevates you as a leader both within and outside your organization.

Just do what you do

The good news is, developing a business development mindset doesn’t require you to change the way you do your job. Simply being more aware of the role you play is a good first step.

In the end, it all comes down to relationships. Strong relationships yield better teamwork, more effective problem-solving, more efficient processes and more successful results. Simply put, great relationships yield better projects, which lead to more great projects.

 

Trace Pesavento is vice president of field operations for XL Construction, with more than 25 years of experience in field operations, including experience as a project manager and superintendent.