Rob Curtin AIA – Business Mentor
At a glance
After thirty-eight years as a leader of private practices, I was frequently asked to advise on how to achieve more successful approaches to business development alignments within the existing structures of my friends’ practices. This began to lead to larger contract offers from established national level firms for senior experienced based advice on business plans, market penetration, and staff alignments. It became eye-opening to see that even in larger firms, the time to stop, evaluate and plan the business direction and mentor younger staff up into a wider business plan process, many times was not executed. Younger staff in many cases is just not receiving one to one mentoring, but rather may be left to ride the tides of the office’s currents.
Leading us up to today, I now consult to firms, lecturing, mentoring and offering interactive work sessions on professional growth with an emphasis centering on the firms’ business development growth. I strive to sharpen a team’s professional aptitude, raising the firms’ talent up to its’ best by stressing and teaching strategic thinking to upcoming professionals and emphasizing the most important lesson I ever learned; “RESPONSIVENESS”.
As a Business Mentor what do I offer?
As your mentor, I am considered an expert in business development with a thorough knowledge in the business of architecture and various office models and cultures. I function as a confidant, an advisor, a sounding board, a member of your team who operates through the authority you grant or invest in me.
I will guide you through the business development process and offer you specific advice. Together we will be accountable to the overall goals of the program, and any the specific ones you set for yourself and other members of your team.
Together we will address baseline issues of leadership challenges, management concerns, marketing and business development strategies, and financial planning issues surrounding the business.
Business mentors bring an outside perspective with an unbiased view and unvarnished opinions. I assist you in examining new strategies, implementing new systems and achieving better results in your practice.
My Approach
As an expert consultant to other firms, I have utilized my core belief that the epicenter of all the firms’ resources and systems should focus on a single targeted outcome—INCREASE MARKET SHARE and PROFITABILITY— and an increase of market share and profitability can only occur if ALL of the firms systems are honed and work together as an overall system – like the engine of a fine-tuned race car.
So, in order to do this, I draw upon my expertise in Business Development, Team Alignments, Management and Financial reporting to assess employee talent, current firm reporting systems, and your current employee training/mentoring programs. This process, I refer to as my CONCENTRIC BUSINESS PRINCIPALS approach. So let’s understand my approach together.
Concentric Business Principals
Each of these concentric principals must work in conjunction and overlap with one another to deliver the performance and financial results you desire from your business development efforts.
The first three Principal centers are
STRATEGIC:
Leadership
Management
Finances
The next three Principal centers are
TACTICAL:
Marketing
Business Development
Client Retention
Guide to the process
As stated earlier, an increase of market share and profitability can only occur if ALL of the firm’s systems are honed and work together as an overall system. And each concentric principal must work in conjunction and overlap with one another to deliver the performance and financial results you desire from your business development efforts.
Here are the efforts that I tend to assist in defining or refreshing if they are already well defined.
Leadership
The broad goals and expectations are set. To be in a leadership position, people must be willing to follow you and believe in the direction you set as the leader.
Management
Process driven where the delivery systems are operated.
Finances
Results in – results measured – results reported
Marketing
Tell the world who you are and what you do
Business Development
The outside face of all business capture efforts
Client Retention
This end — is the beginning.
Clients are the result of an entrepreneurial culture. A firm must set out a codified culture around a unifying goal –turn good clients into repeat clients. This is usually the end result of all your efforts, but for me, it’s the place to actually begin work.
Many firms do not realize the capacity of ALL employees to grow within a culture and feed the company’s future work stream. Therefore the first place to begin for me is the firms’ Employee Education & Development plan. The firm needs a structured platform with defined programs, and methods of teaching and mentoring employees for long-term retention. This must be done with one eye on what you want to maintain in terms of the cultural base for the firm as a creative enterprise, but it must also be balanced with serious business acumen.
Each time the firm loses an employee with experience, a great deal of forward motion is lost and the firm is set back to its previous position. Employee retention is critical. A firm cannot grow when it keeps getting trimmed back every couple of years. It takes longevity and investment in employee retention, otherwise, knowledge and growth is lost to other competitors.
This will show employees you are interested investing in them and that this investment is a wise use of revenue in order to position the firms’ future. For you, business owner, this is the least costly alternative compared to retraining and enculturating a revolving door of employees.
My program carries a direct return on investment through a better trained and mentored up staff, which in turn is a better investment in the firms future.
How do we get there:
Conduct instructional Classes each week — rotating staff into appropriate classes
Work one on one with staff each week on specific goals and development areas specific to each person.
Assist in creating a hiring process for all hiring and replacement of staff as determined with you.
Receive feedback from the Business Development point of the spear and make suggestions on a shift in tactics.
Review all project financials and % complete analysis with PM’s and teams. Everyone should understand a targeted profit margin and know how to adjust their work strategy to achieve it.
Sound like something that might be a benefit to your firm?
Feel free to contact me for a no obligation consultation, we will outline in detail a program centering on your needs. My program is specifically directed to medium and small practice firms or even those contemplating starting a practice for the first time. I can do a little or a lot, I can focus on only a segment of your practice or employees, or take a more global approach if you feel you have your tactical tools all set in place.