Track 3: Business Development
Business Development (Track 3)
Help business development professionals learn new techniques and share best practices for making connections and growing work for their firms.
GEO 101: Understanding How AI Is Changing Business Development
Date: Tuesday, 12:45 PM - 2:00 PM
Our next big client or new hire just asked AI for a recommendation. Were you mentioned? AI has quietly become the most influential referral partner in business development, building shortlists before anyone ever visits your website. This session breaks down Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): why being cited now matters more than being ranked, how buyer and candidate discovery has shifted from short queries to long prompts, and what AI bots actually look for when deciding who to recommend. Through a live AI visibility test using a real-world example, attendees will learn how to audit their own presence, fix the technical gaps holding them back, and build content AI loves. You'll leave with a practical, step-by-step playbook to make sure that when AI is asked, your firm is the answer.
Learning Outcomes
- Understand the shift from ranked to cited. Attendees will learn how AI discovery differs from traditional search, and why being recommended by AI now matters more than ranking on page one.
- Apply a repeatable GEO playbook. Attendees will leave with a five-step system to identify citation gaps, create content AI loves, monitor AI-driven traffic, and scale what works.
Joshua Hanosh
Josh is the founder of Three29, a digital marketing and web development agency that helps A/E/C, law, and financial brands turn marketing into measurable sales and talent growth. He spends most of his time thinking about how AI is reshaping how B2B buyers research, decide, and engage with companies. Outside of work, you can find him at the gym, on his motorcycle, golfing, or traveling.
Inputs to Outputs: Focusing to Drive Better Business Development
Date: Tuesday, 2:30 PM - 3:45 PM
Without focusing our efforts for business development, we can't make it simple. If we can't make it simple, our people won't do it. From business developers to marketing pros to leaders, we need a plan. And that best, simple plan revolves around where we do our best work.
Learning Outcomes
- Explain how the EnabledBD framework uses existing client data to find where business development time will pay off most, for them and for their team.
- Describe the three core BD activities (referral management, prospecting, and personal brand building) using common terms their team can share, so everyone plans and discusses BD the same way.
- Leave with one specific, doable BD action to take the following Monday, based on where the framework shows they should focus.
Neil Barrow
Neil Barrow is the founder of EnabledBD, helping professional services firms get BD cooking and UndergroundBD, an online community for business development professionals looking for clarity and community. He’s also the host of ‘I hope this email finds you well’, a business development podcast interviewing BD leaders and pros where they share stories around what actually works to generate revenue in professional services.
The Web of Influence: Connecting Leadership and Business Development
Date: Tuesday, 4:00 PM - 5:15 PM
Are you looking to go beyond the basics in business development? How about wanting to level-up your relationship game? What about ways to convert relationships into wins? We all want this…not to mention an omnipotent CRM that knows what we’re doing and thinking at any given time while entering it into itself.
Defining connection is as tricky as pinning down what makes for good leadership. In fact, they’re essentially the same thing, if only they didn’t morph and shift with individual perceptions. It’s like trying to hug a bowl of Jello: messy and shapeshifting (which, when you think about it, are the makings of a good super-villain).
In a competitive landscape where business development is crucial for success, the intersection of leadership and strategy becomes paramount. This session invites you to explore leadership techniques that can elevate your business development game while you create your own web of influence.
Learning Outcomes
- Shift from transactional networking to relationship-building by viewing social capital as an appreciating asset, challenging common networking myths, and approaching connections through service rather than self-promotion.
- Learn how to tell a compelling story that draws people in, build stronger connections through thoughtful questions, and identify the experiences and insights that create value in conversations.
- Develop the confidence to ask for advice, mentorship, and introductions, while balancing generosity and reciprocity to strengthen professional relationships over time.
Jen Crawford, Assoc. DBIA
Jen specializes in crafting strategies to help firms win more work. She collaborates with teams before, during, and after pursuits to enhance their engagement with clients and projects. Known for fostering collaboration and building alliances, Jen keeps teams focused on what truly matters: the client, user experience, and a sense of humor. Her efforts have led to strategies contributing to wins across several market sectors for projects up to $4 billion. After 30+ years in marketing and business development roles, Jen founded IntegrateBD to help firms connect business, marketing, and BD as one integrated strategy.
The Invisible Pursuit: How A/E/C Firms Win Before Procurement Begins
Date: Wednesday, 9:15 AM - 10:30 AM
Many A/E/C firms assume they lose opportunities because their fee was too high. More often, price is a convenient explanation for a deeper issue: the client did not clearly perceive enough value to justify the investment. By the time an RFP is released and pricing discussions begin, the decision-making process is already well underway.
This interactive panel brings together four perspectives that influence project selection and procurement decisions: an owner, architect, contractor, and engineering consultant. Through candid discussion and real-world examples, panelists will explore how trust, credibility, relationships, and strategic pre-positioning shape client perceptions long before competitive pursuits begin.
This interactive panel brings together four perspectives that influence project selection and procurement decisions: an owner, architect, contractor, and engineering consultant. Through candid discussion and real-world examples, panelists will explore how trust, credibility, relationships, and strategic pre-positioning shape client perceptions long before competitive pursuits begin.
Learning Outcomes
- Evaluate client relationships and market-positioning gaps within your firm's business development efforts and prioritize strategic pre-positioning activities to increase preferred-partner status before procurement begins.
- Identify factors that influence owner, architect, contractor, and consultant selection decisions and align pursuit strategies with those factors to reduce fee-driven comparisons during competitive pursuits.
- Craft value-centered messages and client-focused stories that connect technical expertise to business outcomes, resulting in stronger differentiation and greater client confidence.
- Develop a relationship-building action plan that engages key decision-makers before opportunities emerge and creates sustained demand for the firm's expertise over time.
Elaine Moal, CPSM
For more than 20 years, Elaine Moal has built bridges between people, opportunities, and ideas that move the A/E/C industry forward. A CPSM and longtime SMPS San Francisco leader, she serves as Affiliated Engineers, Inc. - AEI's Director of Business Development in San Francisco, where she combines client empathy, strategic thinking, and relationship-building to help teams solve complex challenges and achieve successful outcomes. Her experience spans healthcare, science and technology, energy and utilities, affordable housing, building trades, data centers, and advanced manufacturing markets. Deeply committed to industry engagement, she remains active in numerous professional organizations that foster innovation, collaboration, and leadership across the built environment.
Saundra Price
Saundra Price is Associate Director of Project Development at W.E. O’Neil, where she leads strategic growth, project capture, and client relationship initiatives. With more than 27 years of A/E/C industry experience spanning architecture, MEP engineering, general contracting, and structural engineering firms, she is known for identifying new opportunities, developing effective pursuit strategies, and building lasting partnerships.
Kaveh Dabiran
Kaveh Dabiran began his career in the consulting world as a project controls specialist, providing guidance to owners on large scale projects across health care, renewable energy, oil and gas, and aviation. He joined the United Airlines Corporate Real Estate team in 2018 and currently serves as the Managing Director of Planning & Development (P+D) overseeing design & construction teams in San Francisco (SFO), Los Angeles (LAX), Denver (DEN), and our Global Line Station portfolio. His passions include building strong relationships, bringing differing perspectives to the table, and leveraging the expertise of professionals to drive positive disruption in the aviation world.
Michael Huang, RA, LEED AP
Mike Huang is a Regional Manager and Senior Project Manager with more than 21 years of experience leading complex aviation and infrastructure projects for airports, airlines, and aviation clients nationwide. He combines technical leadership with business development, helping grow FSB's aviation practice through strategic pursuits, client relationships, and multidisciplinary collaboration. Mike is passionate about building high-performing teams, strengthening client partnerships, and sharing practical lessons that bridge technical delivery with successful pursuits. His presentations draw from real-world aviation programs to provide actionable insights on collaboration, leadership, and business development that marketing and technical professionals can immediately apply.
From Relationship Selling to Insight Selling
Date: Wednesday, 10:45 AM - 12:00 PM
Most technical professionals in A/E/C know they “should” be doing business development — but few were ever taught how. And the ones who resist it most? They’re usually the ones with the most to offer.
This session, grounded in Ken Harms’ book Building Trust, Winning Work and four decades of A/E/C experience, challenges the divide between “doers” and “sellers.” The most effective BD professionals in this industry are not the most extroverted — they are the most authentic and consistent.
Attendees will learn how to shift from reactive relationship management to proactive “insight selling”: using client research, advisory thinking, and purposeful listening to create earlier, more valuable conversations — long before an RFP exists. Real-world A/E/C case studies, interactive exercises, and a take-home action plan make this immediately applicable back at the office.
This session, grounded in Ken Harms’ book Building Trust, Winning Work and four decades of A/E/C experience, challenges the divide between “doers” and “sellers.” The most effective BD professionals in this industry are not the most extroverted — they are the most authentic and consistent.
Attendees will learn how to shift from reactive relationship management to proactive “insight selling”: using client research, advisory thinking, and purposeful listening to create earlier, more valuable conversations — long before an RFP exists. Real-world A/E/C case studies, interactive exercises, and a take-home action plan make this immediately applicable back at the office.
Learning Outcomes
- Apply the Doer-Seller mindset by reframing business development as an extension of client service, not a separate “sales” activity — and identifying three specific client interactions in their current workflow where BD behavior can be embedded immediately.
- Execute insight-based listening in client meetings using the WAIT technique and the three-level listening framework, enabling them to uncover real client priorities and pain points that rarely appear in an RFP.
- Build a proactive client care system using the Post-Project Client Care Calendar and Account Growth Strategy Worksheet, ensuring no client feels forgotten and every relationship is deliberately cultivated between projects.
- Develop a personalized 90-Day Doer-Seller Action Plan that includes a mindset goal, a specific client relationship target, one skill to practice, and an accountability structure to sustain momentum after the conference.
Kenneth J. Harms, Sr.
With over four decades of leadership in executive advisory and sales excellence, Kenneth
Rewiring Reluctance: Coaching Our Next Generation of Relationship Builders
Date: Wednesday, 1:45 PM - 3:00 PM
We all know business development is critical to professional and firm growth. Yet as business development leaders, we've all watched talented professionals actively avoid relationship-building activities. We've tried encouragement, accountability, mentoring, and sometimes even a little cowbell. Still, the response is often the same: "I'm just not good at BD" or "I'm an introvert." We counter this with endless trainings on the tactics of networking.
What if the problem isn't that people don't know how to build relationships? What if the real barriers are the stories they've told themselves, the assumptions they've accepted, and the beliefs they've carried for years?
Drawing on principles of neuroplasticity and cognitive behavioral therapy, this interactive session explores how limiting beliefs, learned narratives, and "should" expectations influence business development behaviors. Rather than forcing everyone into the same business development mold, attendees will discover how to help willing professionals develop authentic relationship-building habits that align with their strengths while still supporting firm growth. Participants can help others learn the difference between preference and avoidance, recognize self-limiting narratives, and create low-risk experiments that build confidence and capability over time.
Through reflection exercises, discussion, and real-world A/E/C examples, participants will leave with practical coaching tools to help seller-doers, emerging leaders, and other teammates find their own path to relationship building. Because the goal isn't to create business development clones, it's to help our team discover that there is more than one way to build meaningful professional relationships, one that's rooted in your authentic style.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify the beliefs and narratives that often create resistance to relationship-building activities and distinguish between genuine preferences and avoidance behaviors.
- Apply a coaching framework that uses reflection, experimentation, and feedback loops to help technical professionals develop authentic business development habits.
- Create individualized development approaches that leverage each person's strengths rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all model of relationship building.
Janki DePalma, FSMPS, CPSM, LEED AP
Janki DePalma has spent more than 20 years helping architects, engineers, and builders create meaningful professional relationships. A frequent speaker and writer, she explores topics including belonging, business development, emotional intelligence, and professional growth. A connector at heart, Janki believes there's always room to widen the circle and create a stronger sense of community. She loves spotting patterns, asking questions, and helping people embrace their next "big crazy idea." A San Francisco native, she can happily talk for hours about 90s television, the Enneagram, or the Warriors—and believes authentic connection starts with curiosity.
AEC Operations and BD Alignment Strategies that Yield Huge Gains
Date: Wednesday, 3:30 PM - 4:45 PM
Business developers open the door, but operations delivers on the promise. When the two work in parallel instead of together, firms chase the wrong pursuits, stretch their teams thin, and miss chances to win and deliver better work. In this interactive session, Wally Hise, P.E., FSMPS, CPSM, shares a practical framework built on three A's: Attributes, Activities, and Alignment. You'll look at what motivates business developers and what operations leaders need from them. You'll also see how to define the BD role clearly, and where the operations "radar" and the BD "radar" overlap or leave gaps. Then you'll practice the conversations that close those gaps: what a good client and a good opportunity look like, and how to collaborate on strategy, relationships, and leadership without micromanaging. You'll leave with a repeatable structure for joint forums and check-ins that turn shared business goals into more wins and stronger project delivery.
Learning Outcomes
After this session, participants will be able to:
- Explain the motivations, pressures, and priorities of their operations counterparts, and how the BD, seller-doer, and operations roles connect to win and deliver work.
- Identify overlaps and gaps between BD and operations priorities, including what each side considers a "good client" and a "good opportunity."
- Design an interactive alignment forum and regular check-in that covers strategy, relationships, and leadership, with two-way feedback and shared expectations, assumptions, and progress.
Wally Hise, P.E., FSMPS, CPSM
Wally is a BD expert who currently leads business development, major pursuits, and proposals for HDR’s Federal program. His career spans 40 years in technical, operations, and marketing positions with small to very large firms. Wally combines his experience in management, leadership, and training to develop and share creative approaches while advancing the business development practice in the A/E/C industry.
