Today’s landscape architectural firms face an unprecedented level of competition. Computers, professional liability, regulation and other issues mean that it now takes a lot more than good technical skills to build and maintain a successful practice. But these challenges can be opportunities for those willing to be creative about business strategies than they are about other aspects of their practice. This article begins a three-part series which cuts through the “business school” jargon of the strategy development process to provide straightforward insight into effective market positioning.

Is Strategy Necessary?

“Why can’t we just be good at what we do and let the clients come to us?” you ask. Hard work is still an essential ingredient for success in today’s turbulent economy. To paraphrase Peter Drucker?EUR??,,????'??+doing things right (hard work) is not as important as doing the right things. Indeed doing the right things, (successful strategies) makes hard work successful. Doing the wrong things, no matter how well, makes hard work wasteful and unrewarding.

Three Methods to Approach a Business Objective

There are three ways to approach any business objective. The first we call the “brute force method.” As Vince Lombardi said, “I’ll show my playbook and still beat you, because we execute our plays so well that they work even when you know what we are doing.”

There are no tricks in this method, just more resources than the enemy. But what if you don’t have more money, more staff, more years of experience than the competition? Even if you do, what if potential clients don’t perceive you as having this superiority? (If it does not exist in the mind of the prospect, it might well not exist at all.)

The shot-gun approach says, “I’m willing to do whatever the market calls for once I see what the requirement is.” The problem with this approach is that by the time you determine that the market requirements have changed, others have already taken advantages of those changes. Even Lombardi didn’t like playing catch-up football!

The shot-gun approach also dilutes your marketing efforts. The firm that says: “We specialize in everything,” gets very little respect from the marketplace.

The third approach is the strategic approach. “A trick in war is for deceiving your enemy,” according to Webster. No one is particularly comfortable thinking of strategy as “trickery.” Strategy sounds noble, trickery sounds deceitful. It is not that strategy is a trick that makes it distasteful, but rather the degree to which the trick violates the rules of fair play and professional ethics. A merchant in New York offered two dollars off any pizza to every customer who brought in a competitor’s ad torn out of the “Yellow Pages.” That might work in the pizza business, but not in landscape architecture. The challenge to today’s firms is to find that combination of “tricks” that build the practice in the face of stiff competition, but still retain the dignity and stature of the profession.

Next month’s article outlines a proven process designed to develop innovative marketing strategies for your firm, and, more importantly, secure the commitment of your key staff members in order to translate those strategies into action.

Dr. Robert E. Heightchew, Jr., is president of Organizational Excellence, Inc., a Washington D.C.-based consulting firm specializing in marketing and strategy development for design firms. Dr. Heightchew also teaches marketing strategy in the University of Maryland’s graduate school.

Kerry Harding, Vice President of Marketing for Organizational Excellence, Inc., was formerly executive director of the Professional Services Management Association, a professional society focusing on the management issues in the design professions. He received a bachelor’s degree from Ball State University and a master’s degree in marketing from Marymount University.