Madeleine Hope is president of Wordspark, a consulting practice in Union City, N.J., helping A/E/C firms deliver their message through the written word. Her e-mail is mhope@wordspark.org.

Building a Team of Rainmakers

How one CMO is transforming a   design firm from its longtime single-rainmaker model.

by Madeleine Hope

Mancini-Duffy is a 170-person New York-based firm specializing in interior planning, design, and architectural services. Throughout most of the firm’s history, the lion’s share of new business came through founder Ralph Mancini, the longtime chairman and now chairman emeritus. And while the firm thrived under Mancini’s rainmaking reign, it needed a new business model to sustain its success.

Enter Steven Bleiweiss, a commercial real estate broker who had been a client of Mancini-Duffy and who was at a career crossroads at the same time the firm was in a management transition. He came in as the firm’s first chief marketing officer in September 2002.

“The opportunity that I saw was to adapt a firm that had been very successful up to that point following a very classic model in our industry of single rainmaker,” Bleiweiss says. “For this firm to continue to grow, given that the single rainmaker was already in a plan of managerial and ownership transition, what was needed was a transition…to evolve the firm from a single rainmaker to multiple rainmakers.”

Bleiweiss calls this evolution “a journey that never ends.” It’s been four years since he launched his rainmaking plan, and it may take another five years to fully implement.

Why so long? There are two main reasons. First, it’s because Bleiweiss’s strategy encompasses every employee and so must take into account the capabilities of each individual.

“If we have 150 people, we can ultimately have 150 different ’how I can develop business’ plans,” he says. “We are a firm that expects every employee to be a good diplomat…Every employee is in a customer-facing position at every level and in one way or another helps develop business.”

Secondly, the plan is going forward in phases, starting from the top of the organization and trickling down, step by step, to layers below. At Mancini-Duffy, there are five or six layers. Right now, implementation of Bleiweiss’s rainmaking plan is well into the second layer and moving into the third and fourth layers.

Implementation involves giving employees the tools and skills they need to develop business. Key areas include sourcing new business, selecting the right clients, and developing relationship-building and presentation skills. At Mancini-Duffy, the necessary guidance is provided by a combination of in-house trainers and outside experts. Much attention is paid to preparing for client presentations; in fact, Bleiweiss likens the firm’s presentation training program to boot camp.

“There are no canned presentations,” Bleiweiss says. “Every presentation is carefully structured, orchestrated, and prepped for each unique client.”

Steven Bleiweiss on Launching a Rainmaker Plan from Scratch 1. First, take a hard, introspective look. Who are you as a firm? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What are your mission and core values? The key to a successful marketing strategy is to leverage your strengths and circumvent weaknesses until you can address them. 2. Next, look outside the firm, perhaps tapping an outside consultant or market research to understand your markets and identify your optimal clients. What opportunities exist for growth? 3. Then assess whether your strengths and weaknesses align properly with those opportunities. Be realistic about what you go after. 4. Use the information gathered in the steps above to create a targeted plan. How do you get where you want to go? To answer that, you need to know your clients and your firm’s unique value proposition. Why should they hire you? What is your brand and how do you market that brand? 5. Fine-tune and make your plan more specific, to the point that you’ve got a customized version for each client or prospective client. How will you get in front of them? What is the client’s selection process? What will you say when you get there?