Marketing and business development The process winners use to win How to set up systems that will lead to more contracts By Laura Ricci Special to the CaCDR It's an old cliché; that's why it is still true: You can't get anywhere if you don't know where you're going. That's why the only marketing activities that succeed are those with thoughtful consideration behind them. And marketing will be a major factor that determines whether or not you are successful in your proposal pursuits. The marketing plan: A process, not a product Your marketing plan represents a process. It must eval- uate all of the available opportunities, compare them to the solutions your organization can provide, and then take the steps necessary to get you where you want to go. The marketing plan should be clear and have enough detail that the managers responsible for selecting specific 8 – Winter 2015 — The Canadian Design and Construction Report organizations as marketing targets can test their selections against the marketing plan and have some confidence they are making the right choices. Stage one: Starting questions The fist stage of developing a solid marketing plan re- quires asking yourself questions about what your organi- zation does best, what it can offer to the marketplace, and what marketplace you're most competitive in. The answers you come up with won't all be correct. But it's a starting point. Just about the time you think you've got a marketplace figured out, it'll move on you! So mar- keting plans are usually only good for one year at the most. If you're in a dynamic marketplace, or you're building a marketing plan for a new technology, you'll be editing and changing that plan each week as new intelligence is gath- ered.