I’d like to preface with the fact that I don’t do much of the face-to-face marketing for my firm, but I do have a lot to do with the materials preparations and I talk a lot with our marketing team. I work for a big multi-discipline civil engineering firm (it’s a lot more fun than it sounds) and we get a lot of our work through marketing our other disciplines to a client we are already doing some work for. Since that’s not a viable option for smaller firms, and since you all already know about pumping acquaintances for information, I can only offer the advice I got this morning…never underestimate the power of a cold call. Call anybody and everybody who might know anybody or anything having to do with work. Keep calling on a semi-regular basis, just try to stay on the good side of the eager/annoying line. Keep up-to-date on local RFPs (especially since government work is usually safer in trying times). And come up with some really great marketing materials and send them to all those people you called.
Now, back to the question at hand. Unless you’re a large firm that can absorb the cost of a marketing person/team, all of these things can be done by people you already have. I’ll agree with an earlier post that this is usually done by the partner/owner/head honcho who tends to have a lot of experience at this, but even the lowest person on the totem pole (me!) can provide leads and/or support.
And good luck to everybody…I’m thankful every morning I wake up with a job to go to that day!
