Expand Your Business Development: Tap the Talents of Your Multigenerational Staff

As business development professionals, we constantly beat the drum: "Everyone is a marketer!" We hope that each staff member will then magically step up and contribute to the firm's overall sales and growth. Oh, and do this on top of their existing responsibilities that, incidentally, they are measured upon.

One surefire way to increase results from your "expanded marketing team" is to measure everyone formally during performance reviews on their business development contributions. It's also up to business development leaders to help staff find their way in terms of contributing to the bigger picture of firm growth. How can we help them to help us? Here are three ways:

• Be prepared with specifics in terms of what's needed. Create a master list of specific marketing and business development tasks so that you can readily assign real projects to individuals.
• Match specific projects/tasks with skill sets. Conduct individual interviews with each staff member to get a feel for their interests and their hidden talents. (Did you know...your mid-level manager takes journalistic-style photos as a hobby and would be perfect to document the firm's interactive design process? Your junior engineer has a passion for videography and would be a great resource to establish parameters for video podcasts? Your human resources director's creative outlet is to write poetry and would very much enjoy creating descriptions for project award submissions and web content?)
• Consider the generational preferences of each individual. There's something to be said for the stereotypes of the three generations that are currently in the workforce: Baby Boomers (1946-64); Generation X (1965-76); Generation Y, aka Millennial (1977-present). Without clarity on generational tendencies, you may try to force a square peg into a round hole. Let's face it; in this lean economy there's no room for that sort of mistake.

This article focuses on the generational preferences of each person. Generational frameworks play a role in determining the highest and best use of staff talent from business development and marketing perspectives. There is research galore around the subject of motivating and managing a multigenerational workforce. I do not proclaim to be an expert; however, I have interpreted the data to determine what would work best in the AEC marketing and business development environment.