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What? You Haven't Got a Capability Statement?

What's a Capability Statement?

As the name suggests, it tells potential clients what you, or your organisation and staff are capable of. It highlights what your future capability is and reflects on your past successes.

These are usually produced as brochures or booklets and are now increasingly appearing in online formats eg, HTML, PDF and self-executable ebooks. (The Entrepreneur Magazine section toy guns "The Weekend Australian" of 25 Feb 2005 ran an article advising that legal and other professional firms are now using electronic media for their capability information). Include your logo, corporate colours and graphics so that your market develops corporate identity and branding recognition.

Some organisations and individuals prefer to call them Corporate Brochures, Organisational Profiles, Prospectus' etc. This seems to be the preferred terminology and is, in my opinion, more accurate and descriptive.

The better Capability Statements produced as printed documents are graphics intense, professionally laid out and attractively produced on hiqh quality papers. The simplest form can be produced in black and white or colour on a cheap laser or inkjet printer.

Why have a Capability Statement?

When prospective clients enquire about your services or products, The Joker action figure send them a Capability Statement. If they visit your Internet site and don't want to spend time reading about you and your organisation, they can download your file and read it when more convenient.

Clients may pass it to others when recommending your services. You can send one with your proposals, publicity materials, and on other occasions when the opportunity presents.

Clients may have dealt with you for years, but only buy the same service. They may have no idea you also provide other services they could use. It spells out what you can do in addition to what you do for them now.

If you don't tell people what you do, how can you expect them to call you when they want something done?

What's in a Capability Statement?

It's not a dumb question! There are two trains of thought. One suggests that it should be chock full of verbage about how you can help your clients or prospective clients. The other view is that you simply tell them what you can do and let them decide whether they want your services.

The latter option would suggest you include the following topics and any others you feel are relevant, not necessarily in the order shown:

History: When did your firm commence operations and what has it done since commencement? (Keep it very, very short and succinct)

What You Do: What can you do for clients or what do you sell? Do you need any special accreditations, certificates or licences to do what you do? If so, mention them.

Our Staff: Who is your staff and what special qualifications, experience, awards etc has each staff member got that will help you provide services that are better than your competitors?

Your Equipment or Resources: If you are renting training venues, hiring out equipment, or rely on resources to earn a living, place some photos in your brochures. As some smart fellow said, 'A photo tells a thousand words'.

Similarly if you have a special way of doing something, try to find evidence that supports it as being the best way, most economical, safest or whatever. For example, if you clean carpets for a living you'll need to use cleaning materials that don't cause fade, are not noxious, don't harm animals or plants, are environmentally friendly and so on. You get the drift.

Where You Find Us: Where is your office, venue, factory, or whatever? How does your client find Gene Marshall Do you need to include a map?

Contacting Us: Where can you be contacted by phone, fax, mobile telephone, letter, or email? Do you have an Internet site? Where?

Client Testimonials: You can place a list of your clients here under the heading 'Clients' or you can write to your clients and ask them to provide testimony to the quality, cost effectiveness, or whatever of your service. Several of your longer term clients may be willing to accept telephone calls from people who are considering buying your goods or services. If so, include their contact details so that potential clients can talk with them.

While a few, carefully chosen testimonials are good, too many can bog down an otherwise excellent Capability Statement. Don't make it look like a testimonial contest! Nobody will read more than five or six.

Finally ...

Once you have your Capability Statement, whether online, in hardcopy or both, make sure you have sufficient copies to circulate and a plan to upgrade it periodically so it remains current. After all, the last thing you want is for a prospective client to telephone you about a service you no longer provide.

Copyright Robin Henry 2005 - 2008

Robin Henry is an educator, human resources specialist and Internet marketer whose firm, Desert Wave Enterprises, helps individuals and businesses improve their performance by using smart processes, smart technology and personal development. He lives at Alice Springs In Central Australia.

Visit href="dwave.com.au">Desert Wave Enterprises. Download a copy of our href="dwave.com.au/dwcap04.pdf">Capability Statement in Adobe PDF format.

posted by besnda @ 11:09 AM 0 comments

Tips to Build a Successful Consulting Engineering Firm

Many of these firms know who their paymasters are. They had been able to develop very excellent working relationship with their clients that make them kept returning with more assignments. Even though they have excellent working relationships, they always clarify the scopes of works required right from the beginning of the project.

This is very important as many clients have high expectation towards their consulting engineers. It is alright to be frank with them as to what you could or could not do. If certain projects or assignments are beyond Ouija board capability, you should acknowledge your own shortcomings and advice them to employ other experts. Many said that "honesty is the best policy", and this advice still stands today.

You may end up losing the project to another engineering consultant firm, but it is still better than to secure the job but unable to perform. Many customers appreciate your frankness and openness and would likely return to you for other projects. You also avoid the risk of being entangled in law suit filed by the client.

When you Charlie's Angels submit your proposal to a potential client, be as clear as possible about your scopes of work. You should always be affirmative in describing to the client on why he should engage you instead of other engineers. Present clearly the benefits of engaging you versus the cost.

Some rel="nofollow" consultingengineers.aokhost.com">consulting engineers also committed the mistakes of spending too much time trying to convince a prospect client. However, there are no fixed rules on how much effort you should spend. Just stick to your business sense and let your intuition guide you.

There are also many engineers who established their own consulting engineering firm thinking that they no longer need to auto donations for somebody else. This is wrong. In fact, instead of just working for one boss previously, you will now have many "bosses" as all your clients are your paymasters.

You may need to work twice as hard but always bear in mind that whatever effort that you have put into your own firm, one day you will enjoy the fruit of your own labour. It may take many years before you can see your business prosper, but the satisfaction gained from building an enterprise by itself is already a satisfying process.

Practicing href="teguhengineeringconsultants.com/building-a-profitable-consulting-engineer-firm">engineering consultancy is a lifelong process and you should constantly upgrade yourself. This is called continuing professional development. Otherwise, you may find that other business could easily overtake you

posted by besnda @ 11:06 AM 0 comments