The CRM construction BD runs pursuits and pre-con partnerships in.
Business Development professionals at general contractors, specialty subs, and design-build firms carry a number against new owner relationships, GC relationships, bid-list qualifications, and pre-con partnership wins. The 18 to 36 month pursuit cycle on a strategic owner has 20 to 40 touchpoints across trade events, project tours, pre-con interviews, and the capability presentation. Strkr collapses that into one workspace with native pursuit pipelines, GC and owner relationship mapping, bid-list qualification tracking, Strkr AI pursuit brief drafting, and DocuSign on teaming agreements for pre-con partnership chases.
Construction Business Development: the daily pains.
The construction Business Development job runs on a different clock than any other sales role. A target owner relationship on a strategic account takes 18 to 36 months to mature from first conference meeting to first bid invitation to first pre-con partnership to first awarded project. GC relationships at a specialty sub run the same arc. In between, the BD person runs trade event circuits (AGC, ABC, ULI, industry-specific conferences), project tour hosting, capability presentation delivery, pre-con partnership chase, and the quarterly pursuit review with the ops principal. The common stack is Salesforce or Deltek Vantagepoint for owner records, a Smartsheet for the active pursuit tracker, LinkedIn Sales Navigator for prospecting, a shared drive for the capability presentation library, DocuSign for teaming agreements, Eventbrite or industry conference apps for event attendance, and the BD person inbox for actual relationship memory. The sections below show how Strkr collapses the pursuit, relationship-mapping, and pre-con partnership layer into one workspace with native pursuit pipelines, GC and owner relationship mapping across pre-con through award, bid-list qualification tracking by project type and value band, and Strkr AI drafting the pursuit brief off every touchpoint.
Relationship mapping blind spots
A strategic owner has 15 decision-makers and I know 3.
A strategic owner relationship on a $500M portfolio has a facilities VP, a facilities director, a project manager, a procurement lead, a legal lead, a sustainability officer, 2 to 3 architect-of-record relationships, 2 to 3 engineer-of-record relationships, a construction director, and 3 to 5 individual program managers. BD typically maps 3 of these in Salesforce and misses the other 12. Strkr runs native owner relationship mapping with role, influence rating, prior-project touchpoints, event-interaction history, and introduction-chain tracking so BD sees the full decision-maker map before the next capability presentation.
Bid-list qualification lag
I missed the prequalification window because the owner RFQ never surfaced.
A strategic owner opens a prequalification window for a $75M project type the firm is positioned to pursue, publishes an RFQ, and gives firms 3 to 6 weeks to submit prequalification documentation. In the typical stack, BD finds out from a LinkedIn post 10 days before the window closes, scrambles to pull the capability packet, and submits on day 2 of the closing weekend. Strkr runs native bid-list qualification tracking by owner, by project type, by value band, with prequalification window alerts the moment the RFQ posts and the capability packet library ready to assemble.
Pre-con partnership chase
The 2-year pre-con partnership pursuit lives in my inbox.
A strategic pre-con partnership pursuit with a design firm or an owner development arm takes 18 to 36 months of trade event interactions, project tour hosting, capability presentations, and informal site-visit coffees to mature. In the typical stack, that 2-year chase lives in the BD inbox and the Smartsheet tracker. Strkr runs pre-con partnership chases as a native pursuit pipeline with the full touch cadence, Strkr AI pursuit brief updating with every interaction, teaming agreement draft via DocuSign at commitment, and the ops principal sees the pursuit on the dashboard at every stage.
Trade event ROI opacity
We spent $120K on AGC and I cannot tell you which contacts converted.
A firm spends $80K to $200K per year on trade event circuit attendance (AGC, ABC, ULI, DBIA, industry-specific conferences, regional owner forums) with booth sponsorships, hospitality dinners, project tour hosting, and travel. In the typical stack, event ROI is a gut-feel at the fiscal year end. Strkr runs native event-interaction tracking on the owner and GC relationship records with event date, specific decision-makers interacted, follow-up cadence, downstream opportunity attribution, and dollar ROI per event the ops principal reads on the dashboard.
Markup-tier pricing
Our pre-con fee is a flat 2 percent across every pursuit.
A commercial GC runs pre-con services (design-assist, constructability review, GMP preconstruction, bid-list consulting, trade-partner selection) with a fee of 1 to 5 percent of construction value. Running a flat 2 percent across every pursuit leaves money on strategic pursuits and prices out of competitive pursuits. Strkr runs pre-con fee tiering on the Products module with the recommended fee tier grounded in project type, owner relationship history, competitive position, and firm sweet-spot alignment so BD prices each pursuit for its specific economics.
Capability presentation drift
Every pursuit gets a slightly-different capability deck and the brand drifts.
Every pursuit gets a specific capability presentation (10 to 25 slides on firm overview, project portfolio, team bios, safety record, technology stack, past performance on similar projects). In the typical stack, BD rebuilds the deck per pursuit by pulling slides from past presentations, and the firm brand drifts across versions. Strkr runs a native capability presentation library on the Projects module with modular slides tagged by project type, owner type, value band, and specialty, so BD assembles the pursuit-specific deck in 30 minutes with brand-consistent slides.
How Strkr fits the BD week
The primitives construction BD professionals actually pursue on.
Strkr for construction BD ships the same CRM every other role at the contractor runs, with pursuit-management views layered on top. The primitives below map to the five jobs a BD professional repeats every week: review the pursuit pipeline across 15 to 50 active target accounts, run the 20 highest-leverage touches this week across trade events and relationship touches, map new decision-makers on strategic accounts, assemble the capability deck for upcoming pre-con interviews, and track bid-list qualifications across target owners. When those five jobs happen inside one workspace with the full relationship map and the capability library loaded alongside, BD stops reconciling and starts pursuing.
Pursuit pipeline
15 to 50 strategic pursuits on one board.
Column-per-stage pursuit pipeline board for Identification, Qualification, Early Engagement, Capability Presentation, Pre-Con Partnership Chase, Bid-List Prequalification, First Bid Invitation, and Awarded Relationship, grouped by owner type (public, private, developer, institutional), project type, value band, or BD assigned. The BD person sees the full pursuit book on one scrollable view instead of a Smartsheet with 50 rows.
Owner relationship map
Decision-makers mapped on the account.
Native relationship mapping on every owner account with facilities VP, facilities director, project manager, procurement lead, legal lead, sustainability officer, architect-of-record contacts, engineer-of-record contacts, construction director, and program managers. Each contact carries role, influence rating, prior-project touchpoints, event-interaction history, and introduction-chain tracking. BD sees the full decision-maker map before the next capability presentation instead of mapping 3 contacts and missing 12.
Bid-list qualification tracker
Target owner prequalification windows surfaced.
The bid-list qualification tracker runs by target owner, project type, and value band, with prequalification window status (open, closed, submitted, approved, denied), submission date, approving contact, and the capability packet assembled for the submission. Prequalification window alerts fire the moment an RFQ posts on target owner procurement portals or industry databases.
Pre-con partnership chase
18 to 36 month pursuit cycle on one view.
The pre-con partnership chase runs as a native pursuit pipeline with design-firm, owner-development-arm, or GC-pre-con-services target pursuits. The full 20 to 40 touchpoint cadence (trade events, project tours, capability presentations, informal coffees, pre-con interviews) renders on the pursuit timeline with Strkr AI pursuit brief updating with every interaction.
Pre-con fee tiering
Products module holds pre-con service tiers.
The Products module carries pre-con service tiering (design-assist at 1 to 2 percent, constructability review at 1 to 2 percent, GMP preconstruction at 2 to 3 percent, bid-list consulting at 1 to 2 percent, trade-partner selection at 1 percent) with the recommended fee tier grounded in project type, owner relationship history, competitive position, and firm sweet-spot alignment. BD prices each pursuit for its specific economics instead of a flat 2 percent across every pursuit.
Capability presentation library
Modular slides tagged by project type and owner type.
The capability presentation library runs on the Projects module with modular slides (firm overview, project portfolio, team bios, safety record, technology stack, past performance on similar projects) tagged by project type (commercial office, healthcare, higher education, civil, industrial), owner type, value band, and specialty. BD assembles the pursuit-specific deck in 30 minutes with brand-consistent slides.
Trade event tracking
Attendees, interactions, and ROI on the event record.
Trade event records (AGC Annual, ABC Nationals, ULI Fall, DBIA Conference, regional owner forums) carry attendee lists, booth sponsorship cost, hospitality dinner cost, BD interactions logged against the attendee owner contacts, follow-up cadence firing automatically, and downstream opportunity attribution. The ops principal reads event ROI on the dashboard at fiscal year end instead of a gut-feel.
DocuSign teaming agreements
Pre-con partnership commitments signed and stored.
Teaming agreements for pre-con partnerships (confidentiality, scope definition, revenue split, exclusivity terms, roles and responsibilities) draft from the Products module scope on the pursuit, route through DocuSign for the partner and the ops principal signatures, and the signed PDF returns to the pursuit record with the pursuit auto-bumping to Pre-Con Partnership Confirmed.
Pre-con partnership workflow built for construction BD
The 18 to 36 month pursuit cycle lives on one pipeline.
Pre-con partnership chases are the single highest-leverage BD motion in construction. A design-firm pre-con partnership that matures over 24 months unlocks a stream of 5 to 20 projects over the next 5 to 10 years on a long-tail basis. In the typical stack, the 24-month chase lives in the BD inbox and a Smartsheet row. Strkr runs the pre-con partnership chase as a native pursuit pipeline with the full touch cadence, relationship mapping across every decision-maker, capability presentation assembly from the modular library, Strkr AI pursuit brief updating with every interaction, and DocuSign on the teaming agreement at commitment so the pursuit matures with intent instead of chance.
Target identification
Design firms, owners, and GCs tagged by strategic fit.
Target identification runs against the firm strategic plan (which design firms match the sweet-spot project types, which owners run portfolios in the geographic coverage area, which GCs have specialty-sub opportunities aligned to firm capabilities) with each target carrying a strategic-fit score and a pursuit-priority tier. BD runs the top 15 to 50 strategic pursuits across tier-1 and tier-2 targets instead of a scattered 200-row Smartsheet.
Relationship cadence
Touch cadence per pursuit tier with Flow enforcement.
A tier-1 strategic pursuit carries a 45-day touch cadence with the primary decision-maker and quarterly touches across the secondary decision-makers. A tier-2 pursuit carries a 90-day touch cadence. Pursuits past cadence surface on the BD triage view. The relationship stays warm across the 18 to 36 month cycle instead of going cold between infrequent trade event interactions.
Trade event prep
Attendee intel on target decision-makers.
An upcoming trade event (AGC Annual, ABC Nationals, ULI Fall) triggers a prep Flow 14 days out. The Flow pulls attendee intel on target decision-makers (role, influence rating, prior-project touchpoints, event-interaction history, LinkedIn Sales Navigator refresh, recent public statements or press mentions) into a pursuit-specific briefing. BD walks into the event with the top 20 target conversations pre-briefed instead of a cold scan of the attendee list.
Capability presentation prep
Interview scheduled fires the deck assembly.
A capability presentation or pre-con interview scheduled on the pursuit triggers a prep Flow 7 days out. The Flow assembles the pursuit-specific deck from the modular library (firm overview, project portfolio filtered to project type match, team bios of the specific team BD proposes, safety record, past performance on similar projects, pursuit-specific pre-con approach), reserves 1 hour for BD final review, and the deck is interview-ready instead of a day-before scramble.
Pre-con fee negotiation
Fee tier recommendation per pursuit.
A pre-con fee negotiation on the pursuit opens with the Products module recommended fee tier (design-assist at 1 to 2 percent, GMP preconstruction at 2 to 3 percent) grounded in project type, owner relationship history, competitive position, and firm sweet-spot alignment. BD negotiates with a defensible fee anchor instead of a flat 2 percent across every pursuit.
Teaming agreement execution
DocuSign on the pre-con partnership commitment.
Teaming agreements draft from the Products module scope on the pursuit (confidentiality clauses, scope definition, revenue split, exclusivity terms, roles and responsibilities, pre-con services covered, pricing structure) and route through DocuSign for the partner and the ops principal signatures. The signed PDF returns to the pursuit record and the pursuit auto-bumps to Pre-Con Partnership Confirmed.
Pre-con project pipeline
Confirmed partnerships generate pre-con projects.
A confirmed pre-con partnership generates pre-con project opportunities on the pursuit record for the next 5 to 10 years. Each pre-con project runs the standard pre-con workflow (constructability review, GMP build, trade-partner selection) with the pursuit continuing to feed opportunity flow long after the initial partnership agreement signs.
Partnership-tier win/loss
Pursuit outcomes feed the next-cycle strategy.
Pursuit outcomes (confirmed partnership, declined partnership, held in long-term relationship, deprioritized) feed the win/loss dashboard with pattern analysis by target type, pursuit-tier investment, touch cadence outcome, and competitive position. The next-cycle BD strategy pulls from the pattern instead of a gut-feel on where to invest trade event dollars.
Flows for the BD motion
Automations across pursuit touch, qualification, pre-con chase, and reporting.
The best construction BD professionals automate the administrative drag between relationship touches and spend their hours on the three BD conversations where human judgment matters most (strategic owner cultivation, pre-con partnership chase, specialty-trade competitive positioning). Strkr Flows cover the automations every BD team should run as native triggers with no webhook plumbing. The pattern below compounds into a cleaner pursuit pipeline, a tighter trade event ROI, a reliable bid-list qualification state, and a pre-con partnership portfolio that compounds over 5 to 10 years.
Pursuit cadence enforcement
Pursuits past cadence surface weekly.
Weekly Flow checks the touch cadence on every active pursuit. Pursuits past the cadence threshold (45 days for tier-1, 90 days for tier-2) surface on the BD triage view with target name and last-touch date. BD runs the specific re-engagement touch instead of letting the strategic account go cold between infrequent trade event interactions.
Trade event follow-up cadence
Event attendance fires the 7-day follow-up.
A logged interaction at a trade event triggers a 7-day follow-up Flow with a Strkr AI drafted personalized note referencing the specific conversation, the specific prior-project touchpoint, and the next-step suggestion grounded in the pursuit stage. BD closes the trade event ROI loop with every logged conversation instead of post-event amnesia.
Prequalification RFQ alert
Target owner RFQ posts and BD sees it inside 24 hours.
A monitoring Flow checks target owner procurement portals and industry databases daily. When a target owner posts an RFQ for a project type aligned to firm capabilities, the Flow fires an alert to BD inside 24 hours with the RFQ details, the submission window, the required documentation, and the capability packet library ready to assemble.
Prequalification packet assembly
Submission window triggers packet assembly.
An approved pursuit of a prequalification RFQ triggers a packet assembly Flow with the modular capability packet pulled by project type and owner type, firm safety record, insurance and bonding documentation, past-performance narrative, team bios, and financial statements. BD reviews the assembled packet in 2 hours instead of a weekend rebuild.
Capability interview prep
Interview scheduled 7 days out fires the deck assembly.
A capability presentation or pre-con interview scheduled on the pursuit fires a prep Flow 7 days out. The Flow assembles the pursuit-specific deck from the modular library, surfaces the attendee list intel on target decision-makers, drafts the Strkr AI pursuit brief, and reserves 1 hour for BD final review before the interview.
Teaming agreement workflow
Pre-con partnership commitment fires DocuSign.
A verbal commitment on a pre-con partnership logs on the pursuit and the Flow drafts the teaming agreement from the Products module scope on the pursuit (confidentiality, scope definition, revenue split, exclusivity terms, roles and responsibilities), routes through DocuSign for signatures, and the signed PDF returns with the pursuit auto-bumping to Pre-Con Partnership Confirmed.
Trade event ROI rollup
Post-event summary with attribution and dollar ROI.
A trade event closed-out triggers an ROI rollup Flow with the event spend (booth, hospitality, travel), interactions logged against attendee contacts, follow-up cadence conversion, downstream opportunity attribution, and dollar ROI per event. The ops principal sees the event ROI on the dashboard inside 60 days of event close instead of a fiscal year-end gut-feel.
Quarterly pursuit review
Metrics to ops principal by day 5 of each quarter.
A quarterly Flow pushes pursuit pipeline metrics (active pursuits by tier, touch cadence health, prequalification wins, pre-con partnership chases, teaming agreements signed, pursuit-to-pre-con conversion rate, trade event ROI, dollar pursuit value in the pipeline) to the ops principal dashboard by day 5. The quarterly pursuit review runs off the dashboard instead of a BD-built report.
Head-to-head
Strkr for Construction BD vs the Salesforce + Smartsheet + LinkedIn stack.
A typical construction BD stack runs Salesforce or Deltek Vantagepoint for owner records, a Smartsheet for the active pursuit tracker, LinkedIn Sales Navigator for prospecting, a shared drive for the capability presentation library, DocuSign for teaming agreements, Eventbrite or industry conference apps for event attendance, and the BD person inbox for actual relationship memory. Strkr collapses the pursuit, relationship-mapping, and pre-con partnership layer into one workspace with native pursuit pipelines, GC and owner relationship mapping, bid-list qualification tracking, Strkr AI pursuit brief drafting, and DocuSign on teaming agreements.
Native tracker with RFQ alerts on target owner procurement portals
LinkedIn scan 10 days before window closes, weekend scramble
Pre-con partnership chase
Native pursuit pipeline with 18 to 36 month touch cadence
BD inbox and Smartsheet row for a 2-year chase
Capability presentation library
Modular slides tagged by project type, owner type, value band
Shared drive, slide drift across pursuits, brand inconsistency
Pre-con fee tiering
Products module fee tiers with per-pursuit recommendation
Flat 2 percent across every pursuit, money left on strategic
Trade event tracking
Native event records with interactions, follow-up, ROI attribution
Event app check-in, business cards, ROI as fiscal year-end gut-feel
Teaming agreement signature
DocuSign Flow with Products module scope pre-filled
DocuSign bolted on, signed PDFs scattered across email and drive
Pursuit brief drafting
Strkr AI updates brief with every logged interaction
BD rebuilds brief Thursday night before every pursuit review
Trade event ROI
Native ROI tile with dollar attribution and downstream opportunity
Fiscal year-end reckoning with no attribution
Quarterly pursuit review
Metrics push to ops principal dashboard by day 5
BD builds pursuit review deck for every quarterly meeting
See the CRM construction BD runs pursuits and pre-con partnerships in.
Start a 14 day trial with the full construction BD stack enabled: pursuit pipeline for 15 to 50 strategic pursuits, native owner relationship mapping across every decision-maker, bid-list qualification tracker with RFQ alerts, pre-con partnership chase pipeline with 18 to 36 month cadence enforcement, modular capability presentation library tagged by project type and owner type, pre-con fee tiering on Products, DocuSign on teaming agreements, trade event ROI attribution, and Strkr AI pursuit brief drafting. The pricing page lays out the per-seat line in full.
Does Strkr replace Salesforce or Deltek Vantagepoint for a construction BD team?
For most 20 to 500 person contractors with no dedicated Salesforce admin on staff, yes. Strkr runs native pursuit pipelines, owner relationship mapping, bid-list qualification tracking, pre-con partnership chases, capability presentation library, pre-con fee tiering on Products, trade event ROI, DocuSign on teaming agreements, and Strkr AI pursuit brief drafting on one workspace. For large contractors with Deltek Vantagepoint for project accounting and resource planning, Deltek continues in parallel for the financial and project control functions while Strkr runs the pursuit and relationship layer. For firms where Salesforce was the system of record for BD, Strkr replaces it outright and keeps the integration surface for any back-office tooling.
How does the pre-con partnership chase actually work across an 18 to 36 month pursuit cycle?
The pursuit pipeline carries pre-con partnership chases as a native pipeline from Identification through Qualification, Early Engagement, Capability Presentation, Pre-Con Partnership Chase, Teaming Agreement, and Pre-Con Partnership Confirmed. The relationship cadence enforces a 45-day touch cycle for tier-1 pursuits and a 90-day cycle for tier-2, with pursuits past cadence surfacing on the BD triage view. Trade event interactions log against the pursuit with Strkr AI drafting a personalized 7-day follow-up referencing the specific conversation and next-step suggestion. Capability presentations assemble from the modular library tagged by project type and owner type with Strkr AI drafting the pursuit brief. Teaming agreements draft from the Products module scope and route through DocuSign for signature. Over 18 to 36 months, the pursuit matures with intent instead of chance, and the confirmed partnership generates pre-con project opportunities for 5 to 10 years.
How does the owner relationship mapping actually surface the 15 decision-makers I need to know?
Strkr runs native relationship mapping on every owner account with facilities VP, facilities director, project manager, procurement lead, legal lead, sustainability officer, architect-of-record contacts, engineer-of-record contacts, construction director, and program managers as structured roles on the account. Each contact carries role, influence rating, prior-project touchpoints logged across the firm history with the owner, event-interaction history, and introduction-chain tracking (which BD person introduced BD to which contact, through which specific interaction). Strkr AI surfaces decision-makers mentioned in email, call recordings, and trade event conversations that are not yet mapped on the account and suggests adding them with the suggested role and influence rating for BD to confirm. BD walks into the next capability presentation with the full 15-person decision-maker map instead of 3 contacts in Salesforce.
How does the trade event ROI tracking actually attribute downstream opportunity to a specific event spend?
Every trade event record carries attendee contacts, booth sponsorship cost, hospitality dinner cost, BD and ops principal travel cost, and interactions logged against the attendee contacts (specific conversations, specific decision-makers met, specific next-step commitments). Follow-up Flows fire within 7 days of event close with personalized Strkr AI drafted notes. Interactions that convert to downstream pursuits (new bid invitations, prequalification wins, pre-con partnership chases, awarded projects over the next 24 months) attribute back to the originating event through the pursuit timeline. The ops principal reads a native dashboard tile with event spend, interaction count, follow-up conversion rate, downstream opportunity dollar value, and dollar ROI per event at 60-day, 180-day, and 24-month attribution windows. The AGC Annual at $45K spend attributing $2.3M in downstream opportunity across 3 pursuits is a defensible fiscal year number instead of a gut-feel.
How does the pre-con fee tiering recommendation actually work on the Products module?
The Products module carries pre-con service tiering as a template library with design-assist at 1 to 2 percent of construction value, constructability review at 1 to 2 percent, GMP preconstruction at 2 to 3 percent, bid-list consulting at 1 to 2 percent, and trade-partner selection at 1 percent. For each pursuit, the recommended fee tier pulls from four inputs: project type (healthcare renovations typically carry higher pre-con fees than ground-up commercial office), owner relationship history (strategic repeat owners carry different fee math than new owner pursuits), competitive position (sole-source or short-list pursuits carry higher fees than open-RFP pursuits with 5 to 10 competing firms), and firm sweet-spot alignment (projects deep in the firm sweet-spot carry fee compression tolerance for strategic market positioning). BD opens the pre-con fee negotiation with a specific tier recommendation grounded in the four inputs instead of a flat 2 percent across every pursuit, which typically unlocks 20 to 50 basis points of fee lift on strategic pursuits and 50 to 100 basis points of fee discipline on competitive pursuits.
Can a BD professional configure the pursuit pipeline, relationship-mapping schema, and capability library without a RevOps admin?
Yes, for the BD-tier levers. The BD professional or BD director can tune pursuit pipeline stages, pursuit-tier threshold definitions, relationship-mapping role taxonomy, cadence thresholds per tier, prequalification RFQ monitoring sources, capability presentation modular library tagging, pre-con fee tier recommendations per project type and owner type, trade event ROI attribution windows, teaming agreement template library, and dashboard tile selection. Deeper schema changes (new custom objects, API-level integrations with Deltek, Procore, or LinkedIn Sales Navigator) still route through a RevOps admin or ops principal by design, so BD configuration stays local but shared architecture stays coherent across the firm.
No sales call, no migration consultant, no four-month implementation. Enter your card, get 14 days of the full Pro tier, cancel any time before day 14 with zero charge. Spin up a workspace, import your CSV, and have something useful before lunch.
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