Business Development Director, Pipers Model Makers

Pipers are the preeminent architectural model makers in the UK. We’ve got a 50 year heritage of building world class models for clients across the built environment sector both in the UK and internationally. Help us build on that heritage and excellence as we enter an exciting new chapter of our development.

Purpose of the Role

To establish a consistent and proactive approach to business development, building relationships with the clients and organisations most likely to generate high-quality future opportunities for Pipers.

Working with the Managing Director and Commercial Director, the Business Development Director will identify priority markets, organisations and projects, develop new relationships, and ensure Pipers is engaged with potential clients well ahead of a formal requirement.

This is a relationship-led role, requiring patience, persistence and strong market awareness. The role will also oversee marketing activity to ensure Pipers’ reputation, projects, products and market presence are used effectively to support business development.

For the right individual, there is potential for the role to develop into broader leadership of the business over time.

Core Responsibilities

1. Business Development Strategy

Work with the Managing Director and Commercial Director to define priority markets, organisations, relationships and opportunities.

Maintain a clear business development plan covering:

• Priority clients and prospects
• Target sectors and markets
• Key relationships within target organisations
• Known and potential future projects
• Routes to engagement
• Agreed actions and next steps

Focus activity on opportunities that fit Pipers’ capabilities, positioning and commercial objectives.

2. New Client Development

Proactively build relationships with organisations Pipers would like to work with.

Ensure that:

• Relevant decision-makers understand Pipers’ capabilities and experience
• Pipers is known to those who commission or influence model-making requirements
• Pipers is registered as an approved or preferred supplier where appropriate
• We understand how and when model-making decisions are made
• Future projects and opportunities are identified as early as possible

The aim is to establish relationships before a live requirement arises.

3. Relationship Development & Follow-Up

Maintain consistent and appropriate contact with prospective clients and industry relationships.

Develop different routes into target organisations, follow up introductions and conversations, share relevant work and information, and create useful reasons to remain in contact.

Build long-term relationships rather than relying on transactional or short-term selling.

4.Market & Project Intelligence

Develop a strong understanding of the market and identify projects, organisations and individuals that may create future opportunities for Pipers.

Draw intelligence from sources including:

• NLA and The London Centre
• Planning and development activity
• Existing Pipers relationships
• City of London and New London Model activity
• Industry events and networks
• Pipers’ historic client base

Share relevant intelligence with the Managing Director and Commercial Director and agree where Pipers should focus its efforts.

5. Marketing

Oversee marketing activity to ensure it supports business development priorities.

This includes:

• Case studies, Credentials and presentation materials
• Website content
• Project photography and video
• LinkedIn
• Targeted outreach
• Client communications
• Product marketing

Ensure strong projects are consistently turned into useful content that supports client engagement and new business development.

6. Pipeline & Reporting

Maintain a clear record of business development activity, relationships and emerging opportunities.

Work with the Commercial Director to ensure opportunities move into the commercial pipeline at the appropriate stage.

Provide the Managing Director with regular visibility of:

• Priority target clients
• Relationships being developed
• Meetings and introductions
• Future project intelligence
• Emerging opportunities
• Progress against agreed priorities

Getting Started / Routes to Market

We don’t know at this point whether the right candidate will have existing market knowledge or contacts. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways for them to contact potential clients without relying on cold outreach, which I’ve laid out below.

All of these provide reasons to engage with clients, remind them about Pipers and why they should be working with us, and make sure that as many people within their teams as possible are exposed to what we do.

1.New London Model

We add schemes that have received planning permission to the model free of charge.

This provides a great reason to get in touch with multiple potential clients involved in each scheme, including developers and architects.

This contact could take various forms:

• We’re getting in touch to make sure all your schemes are up to date on the model.
• We’ve identified a scheme of yours that has received planning and would like to add it for you.
• We’ve added one or more of your schemes – here are some images.
• Here’s a video of your scheme being printed.
• We’ve printed you your own version.
• Would you like to come to The London Centre to see your projects on the model?

All the above can be accompanied by messaging around:

• We obviously do this because we want the opportunity to produce models for this and your other projects.
• Can we come in and speak to the team and make sure we’re a registered supplier / on your preferred supplier list?
• Can you tell us more about how you use models, who commissions them and what opportunities might be coming up?

2. City of London Model

This is not free of charge but is also a good route into clients who are likely to have wider model-making requirements.

It's also an area that can be sold relatively directly, without the usual consultative approach, so could be sold by the Business Development Director directly.

A typical additional costs £4,000-£10,000.

Routes to selling additions to the City Model will typically be:

• The City of London makes an introduction to the client, encouraging them to add their scheme.
• We identify a scheme with planning permission and start with a free-of-charge addition to the New London Model, before speaking to the client about adding it to the City Model.
• We are approached about a model commission directly and then make the client aware that their scheme f=could also be added to the City Model.

Aside from the opportunity to sell updates to the City Model, this provides another route into potential clients, including:

• Following up with the project team – developer, architect and others – once a scheme is added, to ask about other model-making requirements they may have on this and other projects.
• We are installing a new interactive system, so will need to contact clients to collect information and images for their Project Profile.
• There is an opportunity to evolve the Interactive System to include Client Profile pages, providing another reason for clients to add schemes and stay in contact with us about information being displayed.
• Sharing images of projects once they have been added to the model.
• Meeting clients around the model so they can see their projects in context.
• Offering a replica of the model made for the City Model, which could be displayed in their office or made portable for use in meetings.

3. Lapsed Pipers Clients

Pipers has worked with a large number of clients over many years.

It is quite normal for clients not to commission models for long periods simply because they don't have a requirement.

Many of our clients work like this and come back to us when they next need something.

In other instances, personnel within an organisation may have changed during that time and, when a new requirement arises, the work goes elsewhere.

There is a good opportunity to systematically reach out to these clients and re-establish relationships.

4. Pipers Products

We are developing the London Projection Model and Interactive City Model, which give us a reason to talk to people about products rather than just our usual model-making services.

With each of these, and potentially other products in the future, we can identify companies that may have a used for them even if they weren't previously aware that the opportunity existed.

Even if they don't ultimately buy the product, it provides another reason to be in contact and opens up a wider conversation about Pipers and their future requirements.

5. Our Market

Pipers has an excellent reputation in the marketplace.

There will be companies we have never worked with, but as a market leader we should feel confident approaching them to make sure they know who we are, understand what we do and have our details when a requirement arises.

Many of these companies will also be NLA members, so there will be potentially be opportunities for introductions or other routes to make contact.

Key Interfaces

Managing Director
Sets overall business and market priorities with the BDD; provides senior support, introductions and market insight; reviews progress and decides where business development effort should be concentrated.

Commercial Director
Provides deep knowledge of existing clients and historic relationships; takes ownership of formal enquiries, proposals, commercial negotiations and project account management once opportunities become live.

Production Director
Provides technical input and capability knowledge where required and helps identify new capabilities or products that can create commercial opportunities.

NLA / The London Centre
Provides a valuable source of market intelligence, relationships, introductions and opportunities to engage with potential Pipers clients.

Role Boundaries

The Business Development Director is primarily responsible for creating and developing future opportunities.

The Commercial Director remains responsible for managing live commercial opportunities and the client relationship through the project lifecycle.

The Managing Director remains accountable for overall business performance, market priorities and major strategic relationships.

There will inevitably be collaboration between these roles, but opportunities should have clear ownership as they move from relationship development into active enquiry and delivery.

Measures of Success

Success should be assessed over an appropriate period for a relationship-led business and should include:

• Number and quality of priority client relationships established
• Increased engagement with target organisations
• Increased number of clients with Pipers registered or recognised as a supplier
• Future projects identified before formal model requirements arise
• New opportunities generated from target clients
• Re-engagement of valuable historic clients
• Opportunities generated through the New London Model and City of London Model
• Development of product-led opportunities
• Consistency and quality of marketing activity
• Quality and diversity of the forward pipeline
• Ultimately, profitable work secured from new and reactivated relationships

Future Development – Internal

Pipers would ideally appoint someone capable of developing beyond the immediate requirements of the role.

As their knowledge of the business, market, clients and operations develops, there may be an opportunity for the Business Development Director to assume broader leadership responsibilities and potentially progress towards Managing Director.

For that reason, the successful candidate should combine strong relationship-building and commercial capabilities with the leadership potential, judgement and business understanding required to lead a specialist SME in the future.

How to Apply & Equal Opportunities

We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. We celebrate and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Adjustments for application or interview process are available on request.

Applications will close at midday on Monday, 21 September.

To apply please follow the link on our recruitment page where you can send your CV and cover letter. For clarity, Jane Wilson, Office Manager, Pipers Model Makers can be contacted if you have any queries regarding the role and Danielle Rowland, Head of Operations will be supporting on the recruitment process.

Please note that applications will only be reviewed where cover letters are included.

We reserve the right to close applications early if the right candidate is found, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.