Your Marketing Plan: If you have one, chances are your firm has invested hundreds of hours into what will be your roadmap for the upcoming year or two. But did you structure your plan with the end in mind? Did you create a strategy that can be monitored and measured? If not, a few modifications will ensure your firm’s success.

Every year, I call a variety of my clients’ clients to get their input on what impresses them in project interviews and what doesn't. While the Facilities Director of a Community College District in California declined to be interviewed, he did make me an offer I couldn't refuse. Rather than taking his word for it, he invited me to attend their next interview to experience the process myself. What I learned provided great insight into what works (and what doesn't), when your firm decides to participate in a formal interview process for a potential client job.

When I first started in this industry I worked for a large, very well-established civil engineering firm in the Intermountain Region. I was the first marketing person they had ever hired so I was fortunate to be able to set up the department and get their marketing programs put into place. One day I approached my boss, the president of the company, about establishing a Client Relations program to monitor client satisfaction.