The hills in northern Maine farm country are arduous and ostensibly endless. You climb. Plateau. Climb. Possibly turn a corner and climb again. The well-deserved reward for this taxing endeavor is a panorama across pastoral fields to majestic Mount Katahdin. The roads, however, are narrow, without a bike lane, and the gravel ditch is close…
A 3-mile climb with an average grade of 7.5%, half of which is 11%, is formidable to say the least. Screaming quads aside, while ascending the unrelenting backside of Evans Notch not long ago, I pondered how far I’ve come as a cyclist. In almost 4,000 miles of pedaling this season, I have scaled over…
Riding a road bike gives one plenty of time for reflection. When the pandemic hit, resulting in the quick and subsequent shut down of life as we know it, my husband and I pulled out our road bikes. During those cool March days with snow still on some supposedly plowed roads, the focus was all…
The AEC industry has an overwhelmingly bad habit of talking about ourselves. From meetings with clients to quals packages to proposals to interviews, it’s all about us. Why is that? Building relationships is about give and take and creating a rapport. Yet, we tend, as an industry, to do the exact opposite. Are our firms…
The trend in recent years has been to send clients and potential clients Thanksgiving greetings vs. Holiday cards, in whatever form – digital or print. Why? Thanksgiving is non-denominational. Just about everyone celebrates it. You aren’t going to offend anyone by saying Happy Thanksgiving vs. Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanza or Happy Holidays. It’s…
On the heels of Kroger Grant Consultants’ (KGC) two, very-well-received MAX Talks about our president, Anne Crowe Kroger, rebuilding her life after the untimely death of her first husband, KGC has been asked numerous time to write about grief and healing from that pain. You may say, we’ve avoided this topic for a number of…
The Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) created Max Talks a few years ago. These 15-minute sessions were modeled after Ted Talks and are intended to be both inspirational and educational. In May, Kroger Grant Consultants (KGC) was honored to deliver a MAX Talk at both the SMPS Connecticut Max Event held in Hartford at…
Love or hate it, networking is a necessary evil for business success. It’s a requirement in the AEC industry for both business developers and seller/doers. By definition, networking is the act of social interaction. It requires face-to-face encounters. If you’re an introvert, a homebody, or a millennial glued to your phone, this can be intimidating…
Rudeness never wins. You may think you’re placing yourself in a point of control, but in fact you’re undermining a potential relationship and showing how ignorant you really are. Letitia Baldrige, social secretary to two US ambassadors – David Bruce in Paris and Clare Boothe Luce in Rome – and Jacqueline Kennedy’s Chief of Staff…
Business development in the AEC world takes time. You do not create a successful client relationship after one introduction, a first meeting, or an encounter at a conference. It may take months to receive the first RFP from a client. It could take years for the first sale. That may sound daunting, but it’s true.…