Tough times, BD and business: Why your goals should be set in concrete

There's nothing like a fuel crisis and ubiquitous AI disruption to sharpen the focus on immediate threats to business continuity.

For those in construction and heavy industry, these more recent challenges simply add to an already significant list - skilled labour shortages, low productivity (you can't build a country working 2.8 days / week), escalating supply costs, excessive union interference, suffocating regulatory burdens (red and green), and competing major project pipelines, to name but a few.

Sleepless nights, waking at 3am, ruminating on next steps to take.

All too familiar for contractors wanting to keep machines moving, people employed, and the vision of business growth alive.

So, what's the answer?

Instinctively, we react. Try a silver bullet or two.

Cut costs where possible.

Let people go.

Become more productive.

Shine a microscope on everyone.

Implemented in isolation, or as part of an overall approach to handle choppy seas, these tactics can have merit.

Keeping a close eye on costs? Essential. Letting driftwood go? Also a positive. Your team will thank you. Upping the crew's stroke rate? A definite winner. There could even be a genuine need for more closely scrutinising what your team is actually doing.

Here's what's missing though.

The certainty of your goal.

Goals in concrete, plans in sand: Why it matters

Tough times in business, life, and war are inevitable.

That's why the Army maxim, goals in concrete, plans in sand helps.

I have a sibling, an ADF doctor, who went to the first war in Iraq. The goal? Stay alive, help other people stay alive. The goal was concrete. It didn't change once during deployment.

The plan? Well, the plan was in sand, because often the plan, it needed to change, not just daily, but moment to moment. Like when the truck you're travelling in blows a tyre and rolls throwing everyone onboard onto the road.

Goal didn't change that day, the plan did.

What's your goal?

Rather than react to the noise, chaos, and pressure, right now is the time to draw breath. Pause. Especially if you're walking the line.

Then, take a good, long hard look at the goal. Your goal. At your business strategy.

Is it forged in concrete? Is the concrete ultra high performance durable no matter the conditions, like skyrocketing fuel and AI everything? Does it carry your certainty?

This doesn't mean blindly doing things without adjusting course, or the plans. Perhaps the goal or the strategy does need to be recast.

Whatever that goal or strategy is, however, there's one thing guaranteed to sit right alongside it.

The business development to bring it to life. Because here's what it looks like otherwise:

No strategy. No BD.

No BD. No wins.

No wins. No projects.

No projects. No business.

The #1 BD solution to get started today

What's the one thing you can do right here, right now?

Document your business strategy (a single page will do), cast it in concrete and don't let it get hammered apart in the pressure cooker of global fuel movements, domestic political stupidity, and the AI tsunami.

Instead, let it guide every your BD effort.

The other BD solution you can do right now

Because you've read this far, I'm sharing a bonus BD solution.

Go rogue and keep it personal.

Revolutionary? Not at all. Costly to implement? No, it's practically free.

As we're urged to automate everything, keep in mind your clients - those people with the projects you want to price, design, and deliver - are humans. Real people.

As technology becomes more omnipresent and interactions more transactional, your clients, like you, will seek genuine connection. That means genuine connection is good business. It sounds so last century, but it works.

Here's what personal means:

Picking up your phone and making a call, rather sending a text.

Making a time to catch up in person, not online.

Asking questions and listening, and making it less about you.

Just regular BD that no algorithm or AI can out manouevre. Not just for tough times, but for all times.

Walking the line and want to talk strategy? Reach out. I'm keen to listen and help work out next steps. Message me and let's block out a time.

The BD Edge is a Brisbane based business development consultancy working with construction and heavy industry contractors and consultants to plan, develop, and implement a BD strategy that supports their growth.