Consultants – 5 Ways to Find Municipal Work

If your marketing is not hitting your target audience, it’s like trying to get someone’s attention, by winking at them in the dark!”

It is a known fact that municipalities share success and horror stories about experiences they have had with a particular consultant or professional they used. They quite literally pick up the phone and ask other municipalities, “who did you use”. They do this because municipalities differ from the private sector, in that they are not in competition with each other, so they freely share their success stories/best practices, etc.

While this works very well for municipalities, this reliance on the word- of- mouth exchange of information can often make it difficult for consultants and professionals to find that first opportunity to work with a municipality and get them to become part of one of those, “who did you use” conversations. Connecting and marketing to municipal clients to get your consulting and professional services known, is also extremely challenging, because the typical advertising methods do not necessarily always work with municipalities.

For instance, there are a limited number of printed municipal publications that reach municipal clients. And of them, how many are sitting on a table in the municipal lunchroom collecting dust? It’s doubtful too, whether they’re even being read by the decision-makers you need to reach. Even if they do read the publication, your ad is only effective until the issue is tossed into the recycling bin.

Social media marketing to municipalities is like the quote above – you’re kind of just, “winking in the dark”, because social media is generally not yet widely accepted or used to its full potential, by many municipalities. So your social media marketing efforts most likely will not produce the results you want because they simply may not be reaching your target market.

Some of us used to like sending personal email messages to municipal decision-makers – that is if we could find their email addresses on their municipality’s website. But now, with Canada’s Anti-Spam legislation (CASL) in effect, unless we have “implied” or “express” consent to do so, we can no longer use email to let municipalities know what we have to offer. This has really taken the wind out of our collective sails (and sales).

From my experience, possibly the best forum to reach municipal decision-makers, is to attend municipal conferences. However, the actual ROI (return on investment) of attending municipal conferences is sometimes questionable when you start adding up all the costs associated with doing so. (the number of them per year you need to attend to get adequate exposure, the cost of exhibit space, hotels, meals, travel expenses, and the list goes on.)

So, where does that leave consultants and professionals who are trying to find work in municipalities, if they are not already part of those, “who did you use” conversations? How do they make those first connections?

Well there are ways, and there is hope.

1. Don’t limit yourself to wanting to work in just the large municipalities – Smaller municipalities need and use consultants and professionals too – in fact in some cases more so because they do not always have the in-house staff with specialized expertise for all projects or because they want remove any bias or perceived bias from the project.

2. Search the Municipality’s Website to Learn their Procurement Processes – Admittedly, this is time-consuming, but you need to search the websites of the municipalities you want to work with and familiarize yourself with their procurement processes/policies. If they have a VOR (Vendor of Record) system, you will need to be on that list first before you’ll be able to quote on any project they have – whether it’s posted on their website or a RFP website. Do your homework and find out how to become one of their VORs. Many smaller municipalities do not use a VOR process so that’s another good reason to research and determine which municipalities you want to work with.

3. Review Minutes and Staff Reports Attached to Meeting Agendas – To find work that’s coming up, look at the staff reports attached to council agendas. It will most often be the department heads who have identified a need to bring in a third party professional to assist with a particular project, and they will usually outline the reasons why they need an outside expert, in a report to council. Reading the report will give you insight into what they need so you’re prepared to respond to their solicitation document, once posted. Of course you’ll narrow your search to only the reports from the departments to which you want to offer your expertise. You might also find clues as to upcoming work by looking at council resolutions in the minutes. In smaller municipalities look for wording like, “be it resolved that staff is hereby authorized to call for quotes (or advertise by public tender, etc.) for the services of a consultant to undertake ……..”

4. Send Good Old Fashion Flyers to Council Members – In Ontario, we’ve just had municipal elections and what better time to get your information out to new members of council? Being new to council they are generally keen for information and sometimes in smaller municipalities, you really do need to market to the Mayor and Councillors. In fact, some municipal by-laws actually require staff to include any mail that is addressed to “Mayor and Council”, as Miscellaneous Correspondence on a council or committee of the whole agenda. So, try mailing the municipality an information package (brochures, business cards, etc.), about your business and your service, include one copy for each member of council and make sure you address it to “Mayor and Councillors”.

5. Set up your profile on muniSERV.ca I know I’m running the risk of appearing a bit biased here, but honestly, this really is the quickest and easiest opportunity for you to showcase your services directly to municipal decision-makers – and better yet, to HAVE THEM SEARCHING FOR YOU INSTEAD. After all, the more municipalities search, the more opportunity there is for them to find you – and the less you’ll be winking at people in the dark!

Susan Shannon, Principal, muniSERV.ca

[email protected] / t.f. 855.477.5095

** Note – This information is drawn from my own experience as a consultant and a former municipal CAO in Ontario and processes may be somewhat different in other provinces in Canada

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