Relationships, marketing and rainmaking

You will find some simple truths in this blog posting, Rain Making by Deduction, from Ford Harding. His basic premise: Relationships are the key to rainmaking success, and successful relationship development (and maintenance) is found in both the quality and quantity of your relationships. He also asserts you can't build a relationship without personal contact.

For marketing, he writes:

Marketing Properties

1. The goal of marketing is to help you meet people and develop relationships with them (by giving you reasons to contact them).
2. Marketing efforts that don’t do one of these two things are probably not worth the investment.

Good advice, indeed.

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Recruiting rainmakers

Here's a link to a PDF file of my latest contribution to the SMPS Marketer: Recruiting Rainmakers. In the story, I report on interviews with Ford Harding, recruiter John Kreiss of Sullivan Kreiss, and rainmaker Guy Geier at New York architect FXFOWLE.

The advice is simple: If you wish to use an outside recruiting agency, be prepared to pay upwards of $30 to $60,000 in fees, and if you wish to do it yourself, the best approach is to work your own network and connections -- and be aware that the process can be long and slow.

Kreiss makes an astute observation that while business for recruiting agencies has not surprisingly dried up for most construction personnel in the recession (there are lots of qualified project managers, superintendents and technical personnel looking for work), AEC businesses are still hunting for rainmakers, generally combining the requisite professional qualifications and several years experience and a proven track record in bringing in new business.

In the article, I also outline our method for recruiting and hiring non-rainmaker sales personnel; that is, individuals capable of bringing in new business but without necessarily having professional qualifications. The rules are different for this type of recruiting.

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