A sales success formula?

This image is from Construction Business Development in the U.K. which proposes a systematized sales program for its British clients. Perhaps a similar business model would work well in North America.

A British company, Construction Business Development, has started a blog to promote its sales and business development services for U.K. contractors. In a recent entry, 4 Keys to a Successful Sales Strategy, the author explains some fundamentals and a business development system for companies in the mid-range, £1m to £20m in annual volume.

In their model, they put one of the contractor's office for the equivalent of one day per week.

"The results speak for themselves with one day typically producing 1-2 high
appointments between your directors and potential work providers. On top of that, this strategy tends to secure 3-5 tenders a month, mostly through utilization of telecommunications and subsequent relationship development. Finally, this strategy uses planning leads as a key source of market and project intelligence."

The blog entry says there are four keys to success: 1. Market intelligence; 2. Regular time to develop leads; 3. Executive support and 4. Encouragement of sales input across the company.

The writer notes these prerequisites:

There are some basic elements that firms should ensure are in place before pursuing any marketing strategy. Several of the most important of these are outlined below and for the vast majority of readers they will serve only as a reminder of the basics. These are:
• Commitment from the directors and managers for the a long term sales program is really important because it ensures that your bosses are behind you in your sales endeavors and will provide support when it is required.
• A strong, attractive and effective corporate identity is something that all firms aspire to have but it is essential to stress that if one’s corporate image is tainted, it will become much harder to build a client base.
• Clear thinking and clear prioritization of market focus areas will help streamline your corporate process generally, but it will also help any marketing strategy because a clear focus will make the best use of a marketers time.
• Effective marketing resources are essential for promoting a corporate image and for advertising to potential clients. Most firms will already be involved in some activities related to this field, however it is worth reiterating how important it is to be strong in this area by having a wide range of resources available – i.e., brochures, websites, pdf's and email material, case studies and letters.

I've italicized and bolded "it is essential to stress that if one's corporate image is tainted, it will become much harder to build a client base." All the selling in the world won't do you much good if you don't conduct your business with fundamental integrity and business sense.

I'll permalink this blog, hoping that it is updated with some frequency.

Connecting the dots

This image is from the California Subcontractor Listing Law page from the Carlin Law Group in San Diego. The law, about 50 years old, is intended to prevent bid shopping and peddling. But is it truly effective? In researching my story on bid shopping and peddling, people said legislative measures often result in greater corruption and manipulation as owners, contractors and suppliers manipulate the rules to protect favored relationships (good marketing) or reduce prices.

Yesterday, a group of seemingly unrelated calls and emails brightened my day. In one, a source elaborated on observations in a pre-publication draft of my story about bid shopping/peddling. In the second, we worked on implementing a good deed to a previous client (and a group of strangers) that correlates with the apparent demise of a once-formidable competitor. And I had intriguing conversations and invitations from people I hadn't known previously, who have read this Construction Marketing Ideas blog.

The experiences in the final sentence of the previous paragraph can (and later will) be turned into public blog postings. The other events need to remain confidential. The reason for the confidentiality is not the events themselves, but the circumstances that lead to the events. They result from connecting dots and being in the right places at the right times -- and disclosure of part of the story would lead to unintended consequences and possibly the violation of real, meaningful confidences.

So, as I write this posting, I am tangling with my desire to communicate a vital marketing message -- with some wonderful real-life examples that I cannot share. Frustrating, I suppose (but I know well that under the contradictions are an increasing number of respectful, warm relationships with individuals and businesses in a diversity of circumstances and trades).

If you would like an advance draft of my stories about bid shopping and peddling, please email me at buckshon@cnrgp.com. There's no cost -- and I've made sure that confidences shared in researching the story have been observed in the final written words.

Rote and creativity -- a real challenge

I keyed the words "rote and creativity" and found Peter De Jager's page "Creativity by Rote and Mechanism" where he writes: "Here’s a rote behaviour which is guaranteed (or your money back) to increase creativity in your organization is: Give all new ideas respect… even when at first glance, they don’t seem to deserve it."

One challenge (that is an euphemism for 'problem') I have yet to truly resolve is my tendency to fall into a rote/script when handling a repetitive task. This correlates with my own need for routine -- I have enough adventure in my life, with the challenges of self-employment , family and the like -- so I like some things to the same way, every day, every time. This certainly is apparent in my eating patterns (for breakfast and lunch) and my favorite sofa seat. These behaviors are normal enough, I suppose, but what is less normal -- and therefore much more of a marketing challenge -- is how to express good deeds and courtesies to clients and potential customers in a systematic, but natural, manner.

Take, for example, the idea of the "thank you call". I thought this would be a great idea a year ago. We have a lot of one-time advertisers, who purchase their advertising largely because they wish to support or maintain healthy business relationships with their current clients. I wanted to connect with these customers in a somewhat stronger and more personal manner than a bland invoice, once they do business with us. So I set out to call and thank them.

First time around, the new initiative worked like a charm. I learned interesting things, found ways to improve our service, and gained a real appreciation of the interests and needs of our clients. So I decided to make it part of my routine. I continued for a few months until I saw something not quite right.

First, I began dreading making the calls. Then I realized why. I had descended to using a call script -- a repetitive phrase that became almost drone-like. I had become, in trying to improve our client service, a "telemarketer". And I sensed that the people at the other end of the line were feeling the same.

My initial reaction proved to be less than effective. Whenever I find I'm doing something I need to do that I don't like, I think like an entrepreneur -- get someone else to do it. So I dumped the work on my sales team. Fortunately, they are astute enough to give it right back to me. They said most people weren't returning their calls, and they, too, said it felt funny to make the calls this way. So we reverted to sending hand written thank you notes. These may be somewhat rote-like, I agree, but they certainly don't have the horrible flaw of the phone calls -- the intrusive, voice mail or time hogging nature of artificial interaction, requiring you (the client) to engage, whether or not you are prepared at the moment.

This challenge of rote-like "relationship" behavior is common in other circumstances. I don't go to too many 'networking' events, but I'm sure one reason I don't is because the plastic goodness at these things drives me nuts. (I am getting better at it of course -- now I really put the 'selling' side away and focus exclusively on sharing, listening, and connecting -- that is when I'm not running away to the bathroom, or a corner table, or somewhere I don't need to be 'there' with the others in the room.)

And of course, we've all experienced and I sense find discomforting the plastic 'friendly client service' with all the scripted niceness at certain retail establishments and other businesses. If the warmth is coming from the heart of the employee, good, if it is coming from the "corporate training program" we can see it a mile away.

As I said at the beginning of this posting, I don't have really good solution to this problem. Maybe you can share one in a comment. The best answer I have is when you find you are travelling down the path of rote and it doesn't feel right, stop and do something else. And maybe that 'something else' is something you like doing. I'm a writer/journalist, so naturally, I enjoy blogging. Here, I combine some routine (right now I'm at my favorite family room sofa) with the absolute pleasure in finding something new and sharing it, instantly, wherever we may be.

Living for a fortune

Keith Walsh sent me a news release announcing his appointment as National Sales Manager of Starlight Skylights. What I liked most was the tag line to the signature on the email he presumably sent to countless media outlets.

"If you make a sale you make a living. If you make an investment of time and good service in a customer, you can make a fortune." - Jim Rohn

True, indeed.

Rules for salespeople

This contractortalk.com thread, The rules our sales guys live by, is fascinating on several levels. Different businesses have different models, it seems, on guiding and compensating their sales team. Should salespeople set their appointments, or go to them on pre-set calls (by company management). When/how should they meet internally, and with potential clients? And how should they be compensated.

One of the most intriguing insights from the thread is the way some contractors use "average dollar per lead" as a guide to sales performance.

If I give a salesguy 30 leads a month... and he sells $90K in gross.. his average dollar per lead would be $3000. That means that no matter what the circumstances... the good, the bad, the whatevers... I know the company will bring in $3000 for every lead we give the salesperson.

The other nice thing about this is it eliminates false numbers. If I close 80%... but every job I sell is undercut with little profit - would you be happy? If I sell super-fat jobs with lots of profit - but am sporadic in my closing - would you be happy? This number tends to be a much better indicator of true performance in your sales staff.

This is a good system, of course, if the company provides/counts the leads, and flows naturally into a cost per lead measuring system for initial marketing (and would I think provide great Key Performance Indicators if your business has this marketing capacity).

But what about the other end of the equation -- larger projects, with long lead time, and the implied value of relationships, connections, client service and the like. As readers of this blog know, this is the type of selling/marketing that works the best -- just look at our poll statistics on the sidebar (or take the poll yourself, and you'll soon find the answer).

Here, concretemasonry writes:

We operated in a different world than you. There is a difference between peddlers and professional salesmen. The thought of no salary was ridiculous and could not worked in any way in our situation.My salesmen sold materials and called on established contractors and not on the public using referrals. They had a reputation to build and maintain, so the time frames were different. Because of this, pride, success, friendship and accomplishment became very important.

They were also a part of a team, so the two of them were not the only reason for $12,000,000 in annual sales.When we were sold out, one was told to use his golf membership every day (avoid problems), but he still ended up on jobs we were supplying and on jobs supplied (poorly) by competitors in order to be ready for the next year or two. The other did not want to entertain customers, so he went fishing on the customers boat. Both sold by making money for the contractors after they got the jobs and by getting them new jobs.

They had a more difficult (time)separating business from pleasure on their expense accounts than I did when it came time to approve them.

When I used the term 'professional salesman', I was not being critical, but defining the position. On one $400,000 project that we were not the low bidder on, one salesman and my self did some work and justified getting another 15% from the GC due to labor savings. After the agreement and five minutes of talk, the salesmen tore up the revised agreement and got another 5% from the G.C. that felt it was worth it. - That is a salesman!

I'm sure the selling cycle and guidelines for selling vinyl siding or household window replacements is truly different from promoting your competence to design and build a $50 million commercial complex. You need to develop your own models and approaches, depending on the circumstances.

Where do we stand in our own business? The answer, to me, is less than perfect, but "somewhere in the middle" is where I'm at now. The reason this answer is less than perfect is that when you are neither black nor white, sometimes you don't know where you are -- and your standards and guidelines can get fuzzy, and people don't know/how to relate to them. But our challenge is we are selling an intangible; with a mixture of one-time business and long-term relationships, with a modest entry point cost, but a truly high total potential client value. I would like to find a more consistent answer here.

Tracking value for your client

Frank Gamez
Extended Stay Coordinator, Howard Johnson Toronto East receives a Tree Canada certificate from Chase. The Ontario Construction Report plants a tree for every advertiser in every issue -- meaning the Construction News and Report Group of Companies plants 70 trees for every 11 trees it consumes.

Chase makes a wonderful point in this posting Tracking Value for your client - Part 3 The Final Frontier? about how to generate value for the client -- it comes down to the quality of the relationship you provide. And if that relationship is healthy, you'll develop client-sensitive services to deliver real value.

You'll want to read his post about how he worked with the Howard Johnson Toronto East to give them resources to expand and enhance their contractor-related business.

Construction Informer

Duane Craig's Construction Informer blog is worthy of a permalink. The header describes "Construction News Views Interviews Commentaries Downloads and More" and the blog is well written -- in part because Duane is using it to market/promote writing and communication services (and sell a construction-related blog directory).

Also see this article: Constructing the Construction Blog, with some solid ideas on the whys and hows of blogging for the construction industry, and a gentle pitch for his writing services.

Collaboration vs. spam

This image is from the posting Collaboration Huddles and 35 Other Ways to Improve Sales and Marketing Teamwork in Brian Carroll's excellent BtoB Lead Generation Blog.

Today, I woke up with the inspiration to write about the power of collaboration in marketing. I turned on the computer, and discovered 347 emails in the in-box. Most were bounces from spam, apparently using my (forged) email address on the 'from' line. As I went through the tedious process of clearing the junk email and worrying about my damaged reputation, I am reminded how the Internet brings out more than ever the extremes in marketing -- something you should consider and appreciate in planning your own strategies.

On one end, the collaborative approach, the marketing/selling process is built from healthy relationships, most often from existing clients who have discovered the quality of your work (and the quality of your ability to relate to them as individuals). They give you more work, sometimes steady contracts, and refer others to you. You can then use these relationships to enhance your opportunities with just a little effort -- maybe discovering the name of a mutual acquaintance, or (with their guidance) learning of a worthy community project or cause to support.

While industry leaders probably don't cite "marketing" as a reason they involve themselves actively in their trade associations/groups (serving on the executive and committees) or joining at a high level in community/charitable activities, undoubtedly they obtain true and meaningful advantages through these relationships. When you are a friend and community builder, it is never hard to be invited to quote on projects; when you are well respected and recognized publicly among the people with decision-making authority, you will find your proposals tend to be wired in your favour. This even creates ethical challenges; for example, your bid isn't the lowest, but the owner/GC wants you, so 'helps' you win, perhaps by redefining the scope of work, or finding some other approach to move you towards success, as competitors scream "they are bid shopping and peddling".

Now, look at the other extreme -- spam. It costs little cash to pour out thousands of emails to prospective customers, in the hopes that one or two might actually buy something. It doesn't matter how many people you irritate or offend (especially if you can forge things so an innocent person takes the heat) as long as a few people buy stuff.

The net cost, of course, of your marketing is far higher than the benefit -- the wasted time, energy, and frustration for thousands doesn't matter -- you are still making some bucks. Of course you are also probably breaking quite a few laws.

Telemarketing, broadcast faxing, and door to door canvassing all fit in this framework, though (thankfully) there are self-contained limits on these practices. You need to find "human resources" to do this type of work -- and since the work is so thankless, you generally find only desperate or naive people to do it (and if you can find really good people, with sensitivity and intelligence, so be it, you may well be successful with these marketing approaches, though I am intrigued by how much more successful you would be if you applied these individuals' talents to more collaborative and community-sensitive strategies.)

I am certainly not disputing that in-your-face push marketing works; my argument is the cost -- to all the people who don't want to receive your message; don't desire your interruption, and overall, to society/the environment for the complete waste they cause. How much more effective is it to share, to give, and to contribute to your community (and ensure your existing clients are so pleased with their experience they rave about it to their friends and even complete strangers?)

Bid shopping and peddling -- stories beneath the story

An image from the "about" page of the Mechanical Contractors Association of Canada. The association's history says: "In 1952, an assistant to the Secretary Manager was hired and an increasing number of issues were addressed such as bid-peddling, public relations and contract forms, and in 1956 the Association participated in a Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Program. A Bid Depository was established in Toronto in 1956 which subsequently led to similar depositories being adopted across the country."

Because I own the publishing business, I can break some of the conventional rules of journalism. One of these rules is "never show the story to the people you interview before publication". This is supposed to protect the independence of the writer from outside influences. It also creates challenges for accuracy and completeness because, I find, writing is best as a collaboration -- and the people who know the most what is really happening are, rightfully, part of the story.

I felt ready (and realized the deadline required it) to write a first draft of my feature about bid shopping and peddling yesterday morning. Then I sent it to a group of people -- some named in the story; others reflecting key associations and groups who might have an opinion and perspective on the topic.

By the end of the day, I had a very different story, or should I say, stories. Much of what I learned will never get to print -- it is always risky and rarely wise to publish negative stories about individuals or corporations unless you want to spend a lot of money on lawyers. I certainly can appreciate the complexity of the issue, more than ever.

An intriguing issue, relevant to this blog, is the observation that it take two to tango -- and where "bid peddling" fits into the marketing picture. One of my sources described the reality of the sub trade or supplier, desperate for work, needing the sale, and going back to the GC after the bid close, to find if there is some way to sharpen pencils and get the job. When does downright unethical behaviour become a valid business necessity -- or is there never an excuse for this sort of thing?

Learning, communicating and selling

The best "marketing letter" is probably the testimonial -- rather than extolling our virtues, a satisfied client does. This is from sales consultant Fred Firestone's website, http://www.ethicalselling.com.

Friday evening, one of our employees sent me a draft marketing letter for my review. Her letter extolled our publication's benefits --listing six really useful services we provide any business which contracts with us.

My immediate reaction:

I’m not sure about this – this is all about us. No one cares about us. The contract advertiser cares about their own business and all the ‘benefits’ cited in the draft letter do not connect the dots here. All the $$$ do little to appeal to meaningful emotions.

We need to capture the prospective clients’ needs, interests, values, dreams, aspirations, emotions, and so on. So I’ve made my observations -- can I come up with something better? Maybe. Have to go out early tomorrow (when I write best) but I’ll see if I can generate something by Sunday. I think it will be a 100 per cent give letter with absolutely no selling! We’ll get the sales once we’ve won the prospective clients’
hearts.

Sunday evening, I asked our employee for the context of the letter; who she wanted it to go to.

She responded:

I am going to sit down tonight and see if I can put together something. It takes me awhile to get that initial sentence out but once my thinking kicks in, I get on a roll. Once my kids are in bed and it's quiet time.......I'll use one company as a sample and draft it as if it was for them only.....it's a start. I think they will have to be individual to each group....electrical, contractors, equipment suppliers....etc.. I will try one for the various equipment sales companies....

Then she followed up with a further observation, and a useful link.

http://www.bizine.com/saleltr2.htm I found this website. I figured I better research this a lot better than trying to wing it.

I'm looking forward to reading her revised letter, and working with her on improving it even more.

Here, I think, we are encountering the challenge that most sales representatives have in finding/developing leads. The sales representative's source, it turns out, are advertisers in another publication with some competitive overlap with ours. The information we have are the actual ads, and the general business contact information. This publicly available data is legitimate and useful of course, but will we sell much with a head-long intrusion into the prospective client's space? (Ironically, our call will for certain have one unplanned side-effect -- it will reduce the value perception the advertisers have in their publicity in the other publication; they are looking after all for potential clients to call them, NOT other businesses selling advertising!)

My argument would be that we have a much better opportunity of doing business if we find/develop a healthy relationship with the potential advertiser before we start pushing our benefits and features in their face uninvited. This suggests that the initial sales letters should either be highly individual and personalized (based on real knowledge and connections) or, if it is going to be a form-like thing, share useful information relevant to that business and give it something free without obligation or pressure.

"Personalization" these days can be manufactured -- perhaps to good effect, though in my case, I am skeptical of anything too friendly from someone I don't know. You've probably received the faxes that appear handwritten but are really computer generated; and I've seen real handwritten envelopes which, when opened, contain content touting overpriced or dubious network marketing or "Internet business" seminars. I guess this stuff may work, but not on me.

Maybe salespeople and marketers need to respect the intelligence of business owners more. I felt right at home at the Ontario General Contractors' Association symposium when, after completing an interview with Clive Thurston, he introduced me to someone selling a training service for the construction industry (who had paid the necessary fees to be a symposium sponsor). He had a demonstration meeting set up with a major general contractor. On Thurston's recommendation, I agreed to stick around and take a picture of the demonstration. The contractor -- who has been one of our advertisers -- showed up -- and looked at the demonstration. "How much does it cost?' he asked. The vendor hesitated; so the contractor asked again. When he got the number -- surprisingly low -- the contractor said: "Sign me up."

Here, we see the correct seeds for business and relationship development; face to face, relevant referrals, some luck (I just happened to be there at the time) and, when it comes right down to it, the offer made sense for the price -- no hemming and hawing around that important fact!

I'll respect the intelligence of our employees, meanwhile, encouraging them to think for themselves, try new things out, and grow. I'm confident we will soon have a truly effective marketing letter.

Consistency

Drew McLellan writes: "Be Consistent, Be Consistent, Be Consistent". In this blog entry he relates one form of consistency, but there is another (equally, if not more important) variation (which he relates elsewhere,as do other successful marketers.)

Always remember...you get tired of your message much quicker than your audience does. You may not even get noticed the first few times someone hears from you. You just have too much competition for their attention. After six or seven times, there might be recognition, but perhaps they don't need you yet. Typically it takes 8-13 interactions for your audience to really register that you are talking to them.

But what would happen if you stopped talking to them after attempt #7? Or if you speak to them differently each time?

We've been sending out a weekly e-mail marketing tip since 1999. We get calls from people who want to hire or interview us - some who have been putting our weekly e mails in a 3-ring binder for several months or even a couple years, but they just hadn't needed us until that moment.

Thank goodness we didn't take them off the list after the first five contacts didn't elicit a response!

Yes, and of course, your marketing message must resonate with the real life experience you share with your existing and prospective clients. If you convey a sensitive, respectful and client-centric model in your advertising, and someone calls your office, and ends up in voice-mail jail, or (worse, even) encounters an insensitive or unresponsive employee, all your efforts go to waste.

In other words, if you get things right, you need to get them right within your business first -- then your external marketing initiatives will pay off. And once you find a model that works, as long as it is working, keep doing it (and give any new idea you introduce enough time to validate whether it is working, or not.)

Which numbers really matter?

"Drew's Marketing Minute." Here's my 'give' for today -- a link to Drew McClellan's blog, Drew's Marketing Minute. This is his book, 99.3 Random Acts of Marketing. I haven't read it (yet) but you don't need to pay anything to read his blog.

Our sales deadline for June has just passed, and the tentative final numbers are in. We've broken even, just. On one level this is good -- the business isn't sinking -- but on another, it is disturbing, because the final results are significantly below projections set and reported by our team in the weeks before deadline.

"So what do we need to change here?" I ask. Logically, and commonly, businesses set sales quotas and sales reps make projections on request -- and they give numbers either through wishful thinking, hope ("If I say it will be, it will.") or, if the sales representative wants to prove exceptional talent, lower than reality. ("Now, I've gone ahead of projections, again.") So while the final numbers have some meaning -- we need as a business to know if we have sold enough to make a profit -- the numbers we are hearing on the way to the goal don't do us much good.

One 'solution' is to discount or enhance the numbers based on subjective credibility perspectives. "OK, salesperson A always under-projects so we can add something to the calculations; and salesperson B over projects, so lets discount." But again, does this really help the business -- or trust -- between the manager and the sales team.

Maybe the solution is to break the final number into components, based on our understanding of the business and previous experience. If X number of calls leads to Y number of appointments and Z number of sales, we could ask the sales people for call reports. But again does this measure anything useful. I fear the possibility of wasted calls to people who don't really matter -- or pestering and irritating calls to those who do -- so the sales rep can meet the number or quota.

"We could do nothing, just trust the sales team to do their work?" might be an answer -- and it could be -- but here, the problem is blind faith often results in blind results.

Then something dawned on me as I woke up this morning. Why not try measuring something unconventional, somewhat fun, and maybe habit forming. Maybe it won't work, but maybe it will provide something useful. It is this. "What good (business) deed did you do today?

The argument goes that sales come from sharing, from respecting, from giving, rather than hoping people will purchase something -- so the steps we take to provide a little extra value, some worthy assistance and support, and some contribution to others within our market community really matter far more than how many people we call, how many appointments we set, and how many orders we write (though the latter is the final number we need to achieve).

Will this strategy work? I don't know. It is a morning thought and needs to be tested in the crucible of real work and real relationships. And maybe I am trying to force quantification of something that cannot be so easily structured. But at least it is measurable, tangible, and real. And it can be reported daily, in a brief huddle meeting or email (I tend to like the huddle idea). Could this be our Key Performance Indicator (KPI)?

The bid peddling/shopping survey (2)

I am receiving intriguing -- and shocking -- feedback to my bid peddling and shopping survey. This issue is touching a nerve, especially among estimators and some trade associations who have asked permission to forward the survey to their members. (I am of course agreeing). If you wish, you can take the survey and view the live results here. But the most interesting stuff is in the comments and emails I've been receiving. I am reviewing these observations for the first story to be used for our printed Canadian publications (also need to ensure that identity of respondents is disguised, or I have permission to use the comments, before publishing them).

Please feel free to take the survey and/or respond to the poll question. Responses from these links are confidential; I won't know who you are unless you let me know!

You can take the survey by clicking here.

You can view the live results (without comments, of course) here.

Advertising, generosity and branding

One way to build a reputation for generosity is to support community projects financially and with trade services -- such a s The Ottawa Hospital Foundation. But your business brand is even more effective when you take a leadership role in the process -- your network of contacts, and good-will, will translate into much additional business. But you have to do it without worrying about immediate reward or return.

How do businesses which sell advertising for a living succeed. If you understand the answer to this question, you might learn something about your own marketing -- and how and when to use advertising or other resources to achieve the results you are seeking.

Fact is, most advertising-supported businesses need to deliver something of great value to enough of the right people for a truly low (or free) price that the audience is large enough to encourage people to want to pay to access that audience! In other words, a television station attracts millions of viewers, a local newspaper goes to virtually everyone in the community with some money, or Google develops such an effective search engine that virtually everyone on the Internet uses it (often at the moment they are considering a purchasing decision).

In our case, of course, we reach a highly specific -- but important -- audience of construction industry readers, who need many products and services to do their business.

The cornerstone of the media business is successfully giving away enough real value that people want to do business with us -- then delivering the advertisers enough value that they want to keep doing business. Like any business, we have competition, both from peers and interlopers. The competition challenges us to improve our practices and effectiveness.

And, like any business, there are a few players who go over the line, over promising and under-delivering (or not delivering at all). Most of these outfits fail sooner or later, or find some scammy way to find a continuous number of new suckers (or sit close enough to the edge that a few people think they are getting enough value, that they can continue despite high turnover from the majority.)

You can see from our survey results that advertising is a valid -- but minority -- source of new business for most construction enterprises.

But at root of our business -- and perhaps the biggest clue about how you can succeed at yours in marketing -- is we take something really useful, do it well, and virtually give it away! Google provides a wonderfully effective search engine and we provide editorial content -- information and news about the industry that just is not available elsewhere. For free.

Now, I am not suggesting if you are a drywall contractor that you will be in business long if you give away your services without charging for them. But if you share your expertise, your ideas, and your insights into effectively reducing drywall installation costs -- or making the product more effective -- with your community or clients, you may find some surprisingly positive results. Or if you strategically give away your services as a community service initiative; or take a voluntary leadership role in a relevant industry group or association, you may find results far beyond your expectations.

You can provide this benefit informally and quietly (creating an aura of exclusivity with your clients) or publicly, perhaps using media such ours, or by email, or speaking, or association participation.

Your generosity needs to be sincere, and if you expect a quid-pro-quo response, you will not get very far. (Of course I am not suggesting giving and giving indefinitely to leeches -- there are some out there!) But over time, you will find amazing things -- potential clients will come to you, you will be able to charge more than others for the same service, and you will build a successful business. Essentially, you will create a brand for your enterprise. And that is the essense of marketing success.

Ethics and marketing -- some thoughts

If you are looking for a clear and obvious answer to the ethical issues in our industry, I won't be able to provide them (I am not that brilliant!) This image from an academic paper suggests some of the variables here -- but if you read the whole thing, you'll see how downright complex your choices really are.

In the previous post, one of our readers describes how, to ensure a successful low bid a co-operating vendor and purchasing agent (and some friendly 'competitors'), arrange higher competing bids to ensure compliance with multiple bid requirements and still ensure a profitable job. Similarly, if you read my "Seven tips for construction marketing success" (by request on the blog sidebar) you can read about a general contractor who conspires with a local hospital to "come in low" all the time -- with the mutual understanding that the scope of work is deliberately left vague enough to allow for profitable change orders. Both practices, of course, are blatantly unfair to competing bidders and could well be in violation of the law, especially anti-combines (or in Canada, Competition Act) laws.

Last November, the late Sonny Lykos addressed these issues in a blog comment:

In my opinion, deceptive practices can never be justified any more than when an employee steals from his employer, justifying the act by telling himself that he deserved the raise he didn’t receive.

And that’s the problem with far too many people, their cavalier attitude of rationalizing unethical acts to get what they want. We know what the GC wanted, being awarded the project. We don't know what the hospital administrators wanted, and obviously got. Either way, the agreed upon tactic is tacky!

Of course, we don't live in a perfect world and ideals of fair business practice are challenged every day by the competing demands of expediency, personal relationships, and (on a more positive ethical note) job quality/satisfaction. We all know that the low bid is not always -- or even often, the best -- except in purely commodity transactions where quality standards can be highly specified. So, arrangements to get around the bidding rules sometimes serve a higher ethical purpose. (Should you take the low bid and get a crappy job that will cost more in the long run, or work with a trusted supplier who does things properly, without question, and will fix problems without complaint or manipulative change orders.) But we are playing with fire here and the ground rules are shaky, indeed.

I'm facing many of these contradictory ethical issues in my writing, for example, on the bid shopping/peddling issue. I cannot disclose the intellectual foundation of the story, for example, in part because it would divulge or interfere with sensitive and important business relationships. And I know that I cannot attribute or publicly identify in any way the many people who are contributing to its substance -- including the people who have graciously responded to my survey, and my own network of personal contacts who have shared insights that usually don't find their way into the media. (No one issues a press release saying they are about to bid shop or peddle, of course!)

Here, I cannot wave a magic wand and tell you what is right, and what you should do. But I am certain that successful marketing is very much intertwined with ethical and sometimes legal dilemmas. We should, I think, strive to build our marketing/branding advantage, but equally, strive to be fair in our practices. Done right, I suppose, this has advantages in business practice and sustainability. In the real world community -- not that of public relations experts and photo opportunities -- people get to know who is who, and what is what, and behave and respond accordingly. Your (real) reputation for integrity I think, with some common-sense shrewdness and talent, will ensure your business survival no matter the economic environment or ethical practices (or mispractices) of your competitors.

The bid peddling/shopping survey

The American Subcontractors Association, Inc. and its local chapters in several U.S. cities, speaks up for sub contractors facing bid shopping and bid peddling challenges. Our business belongs to the ASA in North Carolina -- I wish there was a counterpart in Canada.

Early responses are arriving from our survey on bid shopping/peddling, and not surprisingly the majority of people who have answered so far say the problem is serious, and growing.

But one person responded in a way that shows the challenges of ethics, good client service and effective construction industry marketing. The practice described here might be more accurately described as something other than bid shopping/peddling but I think you will see how good branding/relationships (and thus effective marketing) can clash with what would commonly be thought as proper business practices. Obviously I will not say who provided this response.

Sometimes a company wants to buy only from you but can't because his purchasing agent requires bids. We will send purchasing our quote and contact other vendors we know out of our territory that sell our product to quote higher than us. They don't want the job anyways and we return favors back to them. I don't know if this is what you are talking about. I'm not sure if this is illegal but it helps everyone and makes the customer happy.

Of course, your survey responses are welcome -- and will be totally anonymous if you answer though the link off this blog.

To see the survey (and complete it if you wish) just go to the link here.

Making the most of the economic downturn

You can view a PDF of Randy Pollock's SMPS Marketer article on "Making the most of an economic downturn" at Tim Klabunde's CofeBuz blog. If you look carefully, you'll see my modest contribution to the piece.

Bid shopping and construction marketing

Miller Grading Company, Inc. in Atlanta, has published some concise definitions of bid shopping and bid peddling, and explains why these are unethical.

If there is ever an issue that tears at the soul -- and challenges the fundamental practices -- of the construction industry, it is bid shopping. The practice of using confidential bid information to play one supplier against the other is deemed by industry lore -- and ethical standards -- to be wrong. But anyone who knows anything about this industry knows it happens, all of the time.

How much? And can/should anything be done about it? And what does bid shopping have to do with marketing, after all?

Well, if you think at it at the most elemental level, bid shopping's corollary -- bid peddling -- is all about marketing. You aren't the lowest bidder, but want the job, so you offer to come down and match the lowest bid, or (perhaps on a slightly higher ethical plane) suggest variations to the project/scope of work that allow you to be 'lower' than the others -- and still win the job (presumably by helping your GC come in lower, hopefully -- from the GC's perspective -- on a fixed bid contract where the owner doesn't engage in bid shopping or reverse auction practices.)

I'd love to catch first hand evidence of the bid shopping/peddling practices within this industry, but sense only a fool will let me anywhere near the action, especially if I am equipped with a digital tape recorder and camera. But occasionally, people let their guards down and (knowing I would never identify them publicly) give me a peek into the real world, at least real to the participants.

The mayhem (and bid shopping/peddling) I suspect is greatest around the fixed bid deadline as the general contractor is wrapping up the process of closing for the fixed bid deadline. Faxes, emails, phone calls, and other mechanisms bring in the sub-trade prices at the last possible moment. But maybe there is a little room for haggling, a little nudge, a little wink, and the invitation to just lower that bid a little (or a hint that if the original bid is too high, an adjustment can be made.) And so the deal is sealed, or is it, on close.

Bid depositories supposedly solved this problem, as (especially in the U.S.) procurement regulations requiring all sub trades to be named and prices quoted on completed projects. But of course these ideals have been lost in the era of Public Private Partnerships, construction management, and design-build contracts, where transparency is often lost in the name of efficiency and flexibility (and bid shopping).

So how do you win the war here? I would argue you want to get in a position where you can command a higher price -- and a higher ethical standard -- by achieving a brand reputation for integrity and fair value. If your business practices are above reproach (and your internal costs and efficiencies are strong enough), you should be able to win enough business without resorting to the bid-shopping/peddling game.

But maybe I'm dreaming in technicolor. Maybe there is no solution to this problem. I will seek out some insights and invite your response to an upcoming survey. You can also communicate with me by phone or email (and I promise not to disclose your identity to anyone, without your consent.)

SMPS Facebook group reestablished

SMPS has established an official SMPS Group on Facebook, some months after an "unofficial" grasroots group appeared and then disappeared following a firm cease and desist letter from Lisa Bowman. This time around, you can only get into the group with the SMPS administrator's (Molly Dall'Erta) permission.

The group now has 19 members -- an increase of eight -- including the original unofficial SMPS Group founder Liz O'Rourke Kupcha.

Meanwhile, our own business received a slap in the face from Facebook when we (not fully appreciating the rules) set up Facebook 'pages' in the names of some of our publications, with Facebook accounts tied to these pages. This is a no-no, according to Facebook rules -- pages can only relate to individuals, not organizations. Obviously, the "Groups" function serves the organizational purpose, and that is where we will be managing our own sites.

For some insights into Social Networking marketing, you can view this PDF of my article on the topic for the SMPS Marketer.

Your Ins and Outs of Construction Marketing

Lots of good stuff in Customer Experience Crossroads by Susan Abbott.

How do you obtain the best construction marketing results, by looking in, or looking out? This is a trick question. The answer is "both" and "neither" because the explanation depends on what you are looking at!

Looking in

If you are introspecting, thinking, reviewing and questioning, if you are asking yourself the question: "Am I doing the right thing to build and improve the business and its client service?" then clearly looking in makes sense.

But if you are doing that in front of your clients either in your marketing communication or (worse) your immediate interaction with them, you are in big trouble. Steve Yastrow's recent blog entry "Stop talking to yourself" captures this point really well.

Looking out

We of course must see beyond our current business bounds to obtain ideas, insights, capture market insights and understand industry trends. And we of course need to find new clients -- and some of them are people we don't know, and who don't know us. (So it is helpful to advertise, promote, create publicity, and develop recognition resources to find these new clients.)

But since most new business either arises from repeat business from current clients, or first-hand referrals and recommendations (again from your current clients), logically we should focus most of our marketing resources internally.

So look in, and look out -- but watch that you are focusing on the right construction marketing priorities.

SMPS Georgia -- New Blog

The SMPS Georgia Chapter has just launched a blog for AEC Marketers. First entry is recorded from Friday, May 16. I will set up a permalink and am looking forward to seeing other chapter blogs -- if I can see two or three more, I'll create a special blogroll section for them.

Motivation, eh (2)

The low budget 1992 movie, Glengarry Glen Ross, (see video clip in previous posting) can teach us something about motivation.

I learned about the movie clip in the previous posting from a contractortalk.com posting by WPC07834, a New Jersey based marketing consultant who has been using the forums to (effectively) promote his door-to-door canvassing consulting service. He started the thread "10 step selling method" with this question: "Does anyone have the 10 step selling method they can post or email me?"

I piped in (before someone posted the video clip) with this 10-step program, which reflects my values:

OK, here's my 10 steps

1. Hire sales reps systematically, carefully, prudently

2. Treat all employees with respect; expect the same (with accountability) in return

3. Ditto for current/potential clients and the community at large

4. Return calls promptly even from solicitations (I've converted more than a few to sales!)

5. Blog, involve yourself in your community, support associations, without worrying about 'getting business' (it will come).

6. Deliver more than expected to current clients, with respect and where possible fun.

7. Respect your clients and prospects time -- if you are going to call cold, be sure you are offering something more than just another 'offer'.

8. Recognize the power of relationships, especially within the supply chain, and position yourself accordingly.

9. Respect privacy, (I will be courteous with business callers during business hours, but never knock on my home door to sell anything, ever!)

10. Have fun. If it's a grind, find something else to do (or get someone else to do it who enjoys it.)

WPC0784's response:

Ok, Nice try but not what I was looking for. This is more like what I had in mind.

Does anyone know this?

1.Entry

2. Warm Up

3. Measure

4. Company story

5. Product demonstation

6. Price condition

7. pre close

8. Close

9. Button up

10. Replace the lead

I use the 3 step method.

W arm up

P itch

C lose

Ok, but what about that video clip, posted to the thread without comment by California kitchen remodeller A.W. Davis? WPC0784's initial response: "I love that part. Its pretty motivating."

I decided to take a few minutes to look into the source of that clip a little closer. Turns out, from Wikipedia, that:

Glengarry Glen Ross is a 1992 independent film, adapted by David Mamet from his acclaimed 1984 Pulitzer Prize and Tony-winning play of the same name. The film depicts two days in the lives of four real estate agents and how they become desperate when the corporate office sends a representative to "motivate" them by announcing that, in one week, all except the top two salesmen will be fired.

It turns out that the big-name actors for the low budget film liked the script so much that they voluntarily took pay cuts and (without compensation) stayed around the set for the filming-- no one needed to coerce them or 'sell' them on working on the project. Also, it turns out that, despite the film's low budget, it still lost (a little) money in production.

This takes me back to Alfe Kohn's "Punished By Rewards" thoughts regarding intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, the debate between salary versus commission, and the values and approaches we use in instilling pride and motivating sales results. I sense, reading the posts here and looking into these issues more closely, that WPC0784 are at the opposite end of a very close spectrum.

It is no secret that I detest selling models which involve pushing yourself in the face of reluctant consumers (or business owners) and instead advocate the more positive approach of systematically building on referral and repeat business (a process, incidentally, that WPC0784 uses effectively in the forums to attract clients for his door-to-door canvassing consulting service). Instead, I advocate building a talented team, with a culture of mutual respect, high performance standards (accountability) and active integration of your current business operations with the market business development for new clients. The idea is to attract the right people (with the right intrinsic motivation) to draw out the positive qualities of clients, suppliers, and the marketplace to attract and retain business. In this context, cold calling and pavement pounding have their (small) place but effective and meaningful long term relationships are the centre of the strategy.

But, when we go back to the Glengarry Glen Ross example, we find some interesting points, showing the delicious ironies here. The film's producers were able to tap into the intrinsic motivation of highly talented actors who took a (personal) financial bath to have the opportunity to play in the movie, but even a low budget, and talented stars, could not make the film profitable In the end, effectively, you may find both ends of the marketing and sales model -- the high-pressure, intense, performance based in-your-face push marketing; or the softer, more humane, respectful, and longer-range vision relationship approach both 'work'. The explanation of which approach to use, and in which context, probably relates to your own values, and your own marketplace. And as WPC0804 shows, you can use one approach (soft) to sell the other (hard). Just some food for thought.

Motivation, eh

Please read the next posting for the context from where I learned about this image.

About Ascribe

This video image is from the home page of the Ascribe website.

Ascribe Buildings & Projects CPM (Collaborative Portfolio Manager), "is a simple plug-in to your website allowing you to build and manage reciprocal links through your project webpages with other companies that had a hand in that project," the company says on its website.

"Manage your company’s portfolio with Ascribe and increase your project’s traffic by over 40 times! Ascribe has been the missing piece of your website that makes it a real marketing tool, not just an online brochure."

An intriguing concept -- and they have a blog, which is how I found about them, by researching possible additional permalinks. It turns out they are attending SMPS conferences both regionally and nationally. The Ascribe blog certainly qualifies for a permalink.

Employee blogs

Image is from Daniel Smith's blog entry, Filtering Through Online Information Overload To Find The Gems Worth Reading (Part 1.5)

Two of this company's employees, Daniel Smith and Chase, have started their own blogs. Both have qualities that define people who are great at sales and who are suited to this business's culture -- they have a reasonably competitive and individualistic spirit but can see beyond themselves. I certainly don't require nor expect anyone working in this company to start a blog; blogging is something you should do if you enjoy it, not for any immediate return. Still, I enjoy peeking into their contributions because they are certainly not following (my) corporate script and I can learn from them.

Daniel has two blogs, one personal at http://www.smithereensblog.blogspot.com/ and the second more closely related to our business, at the second, Tracking Construction Trends, at http://constructiontrendtracker.blogspot.com/. Daniel has discovered that Google's Blogger allows you to set up several blogs on one console; I've used this facility to create one page blogs to address highly specific issues while we rebuild our websites. His writing is evocative, informative and fun. You'll enjoy for example, Filtering Through Online Information Overload To Find The Gems Worth Reading (Part 1.5)

Meanwhile, Chase recently moved his blog to Blogger as well, at http://chasemarketing.blogspot.com/. His recent postings, Tracking Value for Your Client: How to do it effectively (Part I) and "Show me the Value!" "Show me the Value Jerry!" - Tracking Value for your client part 2 are inspiring articles which support clients and show how you can find more business through advertising.

Is blogging worthwhile? I'm noticing some marketing consultants, members of the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS), have revitalized or restored earlier blog efforts -- and new blogs relevant to the theme of Construction Marketing Ideas are launched with increasing frequency. This means my blogroll is getting longer. You'll especially enjoy reading Tim Klabunde's CofeBuz -- the Marketing and Business Blog (he recently referenced one of my blog entries) and Ford Harding's postings. I also enjoy Craig Galati's Heart of Business and recently Bernie Siben reactivated his BuiltEnvironment Blog.

If you know of other blogs relevant to construction marketing, please let me know. I'll be happy to add relevant blogs to the listings.

Key Performance Indicators -- unintended consequences

It took some searching (because link backs aren't obvious from the blog), but I traced Jerry's Blog to Jerry Tice (see his linkedin.com page) and The Appalachian Group of Companies.

Ford Harding graciously sent me a link to this posting "Is accountability a performance management issue: Unintended Consequences" in Jerry's Blog -- Striving for Organizational Excellence. The writer addresses the problem that setting measurable targets can distort business practices and result in dangerous excesses; sometimes serious ethical breaches, or possibly seeking short term gain at the expense of long-term viability.

As everyone in business knows – if you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it. But what happens if you are measuring the wrong thing? Well obviously it can drive the wrong result. Worse still is that it may drive exactly the result you hoped it would, but it drives it way too far or drives other undesirable results along with it that are not seen until something hits the fan. In nearly every one of our consulting engagements we work with our clients to set up a set of metrics that can be measured directly on the floor in very short intervals, typically 1 to 2 hours. We do this to enable front line managers to drive barriers to performance to the surface so that they can be resolved on the fly instead of building up to unrecoverable levels. Often, probably more times than not, we discover after a few days that the measure that the client told us was the one to watch turns out to be the wrong metric. Either its focus is too narrow and other important metrics suffered (the old production vs. quality dilemma for example) or the focus of the metric is way too broad and we never achieve the intended result. I see the same thing on the verge of happening on a grand scale with a trend that is developing in the talent and performance management fields.

Ford Harding, in comment, writes:

Jerry
This is a serious issue for professional firms pushing for growth. As the incentives to sell go up, so must the controls to avoid both selling something the firm shouldn’t and providing advice to a client more geared at selling more work than looking after the client’s best interests. Note that in Andersen’s case the partner in charge of the Enron account successfully challenged the firm’s controls.

Firm management may exhort its partners to sell, sell, sell, but it seldom balances that message with a reminder of the need to use good judgement, behave ethically and abide by controls while doing so. They take it for granted that the partners remember and care about such things. Unfortunately, not all partners do.

Good post,
Ford Harding

Jerry's initial solution -- that is to make sure the measurement cycle is short and fast enough to quickly determine if something wrong is happening, is a good approach, of course, for production-line or fast acting situations, but our business (I think) operates on a longer cycle and in any case, our staff are highly decentralized, often working from home offices with much autonomy. So how do you determine an appropriate fast acting and quickly repaired measurement cycle?

However, I shudder to fear when we get down to setting out our KPIs that we mess this up -- and fall into the traps described here. This is a problem that needs attention; but I am (alas) still at a loss for a good solution. Hopefully, our short term internal KPI (something I don't think should rightfully be broadcast outside our organization) is valid, and we can review/implement it without damage pending our full-scale planning meeting in the fall.

Selling: Working hard, smart or both

This is a great quote from Napoleon Hill -- and is the foundation of success, and happiness. If you do work you really enjoy, and do it well, you'll persevere -- and succeed. Since I really enjoy writing and journalism it certainly makes sense for me to own a publishing business, and I can contribute the most to the company by simultaneously writing and selling -- even though we have really competent writers and salespeople on staff. So why not write about selling -- and, voila, you have the Construction Marketing Ideas blog.

Some things -- sales especially -- work best when you do less to achieve more. Of course you have to do less of the wrong things, and more of the right ones. And the "wrong things" can include trying to hard; forcing yourself into a desperate bind where clients feel your angst and need to meet quota -- and run for the hills to avoid you.

Yet the irony here is that you need to get yourself in the right places, at the right times, to find the results you are seeking. This can involve hard work, working smart, or both. You can achieve great results without hard work if your work is truly smart -- but woe is you if you think you are 'smart' but really aren't doing the right thing. Conversely hard work in itself can be a quick road to burnout and failure, if you don't listen to the signals and adapt and change course -- or persevere where appropriate.

Some say sales is a "numbers game" and advocate measuring the number of calls you make, the conversion rate, and the revenue per effort. The theory goes that if you know the numbers, and make enough calls, you will get the results you are seeking. But I can think of few things as demoralizing and disenchanting -- and generally ineffective -- than cold calling down lists of names in a rote-like fashion, hoping someone will buy something, anything.

Certainly in the not-too-distant past I could be held responsible for working not too hard and certainly not too smart. I purportedly delegated things to my employees, and then I embarked on projects which I could "justify" saved the company money, or helped its interests, but really were expensive distractions. At one point, in the midst of the distractions, I brought myself back on track briefly -- personally taking charge of sales for a failing publication. But the minute someone showed up who looked 'good' (he ultimately pulled a fast one on me), I dropped the real hard work like a lead brick, to get back to my hobby-like distractions.

Eventually, out of absolute necessity, I got back to basics -- taking on more jobs than anyone my age should; writing the papers and (for several months) holding on with one competent salesperson. This meant that I had to be actively engaged in the sales process as well -- any slip-ups would leave us well below viability and quota. We now have a competent sales team of three; with salaries, this increases overhead and the break-even point, but gives the business a little more stability and reliability; it leaves room for one or sometimes even two representatives to have an off-month, and we can still find enough business to meet our numbers.

I don't work so hard now, since hiring a competent staff editor, but I continue to write, to fill in, and to look for leads and opportunities. And I find them. This is not the 'grind it out and hope they will buy' type of work; it is a series of seemingly spontaneous but highly effective responses to opportunities. A few minutes here, a brief call or email there, and I can contribute some useful business to the sales team and bring in some worthwhile orders.

Everyone I realize has their own style, and you aren't going to get very far in sales unless you are able to find and seek out the business; but I think the best business comes when it simply doesn't feel like you are 'selling' but are naturally engaged in sharing, contributing, and relating to current and potential clients. Hence this blog. I enjoy the topic; it is certainly relevant, and, yes, it generates a few worthwhile leads and some useful opportunities.

I am an advocate of receiving by giving; sharing, contributing, supporting, and bringing worthwhile businesses together. Can you do the same thing -- and find the way to sell effectively by working hard enough to work smart?

Phone message courtesy

This image arises from my search on Google images for "returning calls" -- it is from a posting of someone reporting on their efforts to build a patio deck -- New Patio -- or -- How long does it Take? The story, alas, shows some of what is wrong with the industry -- with reliability, delays, poor communications, and more described. Ouch!

As you know, I advocate returning all calls asap -- whether or not they appear to have immediate business value. Even if the message is for 'rote' solicitation call, you can still courteously decline (often by leaving a voice message). And I've found much profitable business often results from returning these calls and discovering that the opportunity to purchase is an opportunity to do business -- though of course I never force the issue.

One thing I notice in returning calls, however, is how few people who leave a message have the courtesy to make it easy for me to take down the information to return their call. They rush through their contact information and phone number at the end of a lengthy message. This means that I have to replay the message one, two, or sometimes three times to get the information I need to respond. (No wonder why I prefer people to communicate by email!)

The solution to this problem is simple -- slow down, and repeat your contact information and number twice, spelling out your name if need be. It just takes a few seconds at your end, but makes it much easier for the person you are calling to return the call.

Some worthy resources

Here are a couple of resources to consider in your construction marketing toolkit.

constructionlinks.ca



Joe Roel has built one of the largest Canadian e-lists for construction marketing -- with extensive links information relevant to specifiers and project managers at http://www.constructionlinks.ca/. He saw the opportunity in online media before many of us caught on and built the database from the ground up. Today, he sent me this promotional note:

How can Construction Links help you be found?

Think of our search engines as the librarian’s assistant. At the start of a project, when the designer is looking for products to use on his project. They go to http://www.constructionlinks.ca/

Our index cards are designed so that the designer can quickly and easily conduct product searches and identify the manufacturers/distributors he wants to work with.

Our search engines include Both MasterFormat™ 95 and 2004, keyword in MasterFormat, Keyword in product/service description, company name and searches can be restricted to green products/services (products that have been classified as friendly to the environment or that can help projects achieve their LEED credits).

No matter what the product is that you manufacture or distribute, it belongs in our database and will be found by your target audience when they are looking for it.

Get linked today, start being found by your target audience and specified in their projects.

Although Joe's note has the 'stamp' of marketing hyperbole (first time I've found a use for that big word!) in it, the main thing I find about Joe's service is its depth -- at least within the Canadian context -- and that depth did not occur quickly or without a lot of hard work on his part. So, when Roger Ali, responsible for the Construction Specifications Canada Toronto Chapter trade show asked for some guidance on e-marketing, I connected him with Joe. This of course is the correct implementation of positive networking principals, where you put your own needs aside and think in terms of the people with whom you are working. Since Roger is working on a trade show geared exactly to Joe's market interest; and the same applies for Joe to Roger, why not link them!


Infinite Source Systems

I'm enjoying Steve Sulpher's newsletter, The Source: Construction Industry News. In the latest issue, he writes: Eight Steps to More Effective Bidding Practices. Of course, these steps are most effectively achieved if Infinite Source Systems software is used, but I think you can find value in the observations regardless.

I first met Steve in Ottawa when (as we were launching Ottawa Construction News) he was president of the Ottawa Construction Association. He has since moved to Vancouver (where I was born, have family, and therefore visit at least once a year) and Infinite Source Systems, which has software and services of value to construction businesses truly wishing to streamline their processes. Sulpher, of course, knows the industry and understands its concerns and values -- so, not surprisingly he also sees value in sponsoring and supporting groups such as the Ontario General Contractors' Association.

I like the way both Joe Roel and Steve Sulpher use a variety of creative marketing approaches to build their brand reputation, and develop their market. You might wish to look at their marketing models -- and their actual services -- in developing your own strategies.

From negative to positive

I've enjoyed reading this posting by Ford Harding (and you can see the next installment by checking his blog). He outlines some common false assumptions and reasons for not doing the things we are supposed to do to build sales -- excuses that I admit to finding very close to home.

I especially can relate to this point:

Why bother going to an association meeting when I hate doing it and am no good at small talk?
Why? Because it is a highly efficient way to meet and catch up with many market contacts. Also, because networkers know that there is no such thing as small talk; there is only business talk and relationship talk. And finally, because you don’t have to be good at small talk. You need to listen to other people, so that you learn about them.

I solve this problem by going with a purpose -- of course I'm a journalist/writer by trade, so that is the role I rightfully play. At a recent association meeting I listened with interest as the owners representative and general contractor described an exciting $500 million building project, with great pictures. A brief conversation at the end of the meeting and some follow up and, voila, we have a solid revenue-generating feature.

But I also appreciate that "going with a purpose" does not necessarily mean "going to sell". In fact, my attitude at these meetings is virtually always to listen, to learn, and to help others, perhaps by bringing some connections or mutually beneficial ideas. It certainly isn't a game of counting business cards, or "gathering leads" -- I think if I attended association events with such an overt attitude I wouldn't sell a thing.

But I get ideas -- and tomorrow have some follow-up to do from today's Toronto Construction Association meeting. Indeed, it pays to go and participate in relevant associations.

The Toronto Construction Association members' day

Today, for the ninth year in a row, I attended the Toronto Construction Association's annual Members' Day. The event combines some education, some business opportunities, and some socializing -- with a free lunch and no-cost exhibit space for members. The theme this year: Environmental opportunities -- with both challenges and business potential through environmentally-sensitive construction.

I burned some carbon to fly in from Ottawa , but think overall the world is better for events such as the Members' Day -- a concept other associations might wish to consider. So much association time and money is spent on fund-raising, solicitation, and selling, that it is a treat and brand image builder to say: "Forget the expense -- we'll take care of everything" for a change. So no one is expected to pay for the barbeque meal; and exhibitors are not required to pay for their table top display space; and if any selling is done, it is with members gently encouraging each other to do business with their organizations.

In the last decade much has changed, of course. I sit in Air Canada' s Maple Leaf Lounge indulging in the luxuries of first class travel (on a cheap ticket, I am not about to waste the company's money), listening to Clem Thelot's old Rhodesian songs over the Internet via wireless as I write this blog entry. A decade ago, the concept of taking a 'day trip' to another city seemed totally unique and adventurous, and while we knew the Internet would have a place in our lives, we could never have predicted the way things have turned out.)

Nevetheless, it is good that some traditions continue, and I hope to be able to attend the TCA Members' Day in another decade -- and the association will continue to thrive and grow as it serves its community with creativity and traditional perspectives.

The environment

In a few minutes I'll be on my way to the airport to consume some carbon and make my way (with Chase) to the annual Toronto Construction Association Member's Day. I'll post about this important event later today.

In the meantime, you may wish to read Daniel Smith's blog entry about Minto Development's Eco Home -- an initiative that combines research, marketing, and environmental sensitivity; showing how all the elements can be packaged into one project.

The quality of the experience

In a recent blog entry, consultant Bernie Siben makes this important point:

"The quality of the work experience can be a bigger differentiator than the quality of the work product."

He writes:

Think of any service your firm performs, and let's assume you do high-quality work. The quality of your work differentiates you from other firms that don't produce the same high-quality product.
Now, it is pretty much a "given" that there will be at least one other firm in your market that provides the same service at a similar level of quality as your firm -- perhaps at the same price or better -- perhaps on the same schedule or faster. What
differentiates your firm from that other firm?
What makes your firm the obvious selection in a market where two or three firms can provide the same work product at the same quality for the same price in the same timeframe? The difference lies in the quality of the work experience. Are you more fun to work with than another firm? Do you give your clients a stronger sense of "all bases are covered, you can sleep nights while we're on the job!"?
That's a very powerful differentiator!

This is absolutely true, and I think the effect of the experience quality is multiplied in large, complex, projects, involving hours (days/weeks) of interaction and communication. Sure, the technical competence between two organizations may be the same, but if you enjoy the experience with one more than the other -- in fact if you enjoy it so much that it creates a degree of 'wow' in your mind -- will you more likely use that business again, or recommend it to others?

Accepting responsibility, respect,and open book business management

In searching for an image to go with this posting, I found this article about initiative: "A Message to Garcia" by Elbert Hubbard, written in the early 20th century and posted by Foundations Magazine.

We all have our own unique personality and business style. One of my good friends, for example, operated his business the old-fashioned way. He built up a successful local publishing company (with a few missteps and crises along the way) before selling out just at the right time and reaching semi-retirement while still in his 50s. I've probably got another decade to go before I reach true financial independence. My friend believed in controlling the business, in compartmentalizing operations, and certainly had no intention or plan to give his employees any more than the lowest salary he could get away with.

I've always taken a different view of things; of openness, respecting individuals, providing freedom and empowering others. Nice talk, of course, but these ideals backfired badly when my former employees, thinking as individuals, and without a cohesive or responsible leadership from me, started doing their own thing, too much. Ultimately, the business almost failed because everyone acted in their own personal self interest without seeing the overall direction and vision required for business success.

I survived the painful three year downturn in 2003-2006 by remembering the crucial life lesson I learned during my first business crisis, in 1990-91. Then, my new publishing company had hit the hard wall of the early 90s recession. I had burned through our small reserves, and a grant from my mother. Now, it looked like we were about to fail.

I recall returning to my modest apartment, at age 38, thinking all would collapse. Then, I had one of those insightful flashes -- recalled from a Brian Tracy motivational tape. "I am responsible for myself," I thought. "No one is to 'blame' for the problems I'm experiencing -- but I have my health, my self-will, and I'll do what I can to make good and make things right."

Simple concepts, of course, but at the time they were revolutionary to me. I vowed to practice affirmations, to speak out loud the expression of self-reliance, and began rebuilding my life -- and the business.

As the second crisis in 2003-2006 deepened, I also accepted responsibility -- and faced a crucial decision-point when I realized the only hope to survive would be a brutal personal salary cut and my taking on virtually all of the writing and editing of our (remaining) publications. This meant hours of roll-up-your-sleeves work, but proved to be successful, as I got closer to our markets, uncovered several deep problems in our business practices, and began hiring people who could capably take overall control of the business within the next decade.

Is my approach to business better or worse than my friend's? I cannot be sure, but believe it is -- if the goal is to build a business that will thrive and survive in future generations and operate in many markets, including cities many miles away from Ottawa. Some entrepreneurs, of course, hand their successful businesses to their children as they grow up -- but I sense Eric will be happiest using his probable relative financial freedom to do other things (as are my friend's sons.) I would rather the company's employees take on the ownership role after, over time, paying me fairly for their shares (while earning fair salaries for their work.)

So the employees are now seeing the books -- something my friend would think to be heresy --The employees even see when I use owners' prerogative for personal advantages (I explain the reason, show the financial implications, and offer examples of how these practices must be limited in an employee-owned business). Equally, despite this openness, I am increasingly involved in setting standards and requiring accountability, while actively contributing to sales, and writing.

How can you apply these concepts in relationship to construction marketing?

• Consider your market, your relationships, and your own personality style -- I'm not sure there is one 'right way' but know the right way for you must be consistent with your own values and principals.


• Then, as much as possible, see the world through the perception and mind-set of your current and potential clients. Respect them, and their perspectives.


• Ensure your employees values are aligned with yours and your clients. The goal is to create harmony -- a situation where the natural comfort and relationships build without stress or artificiality.


• Don't be afraid to lead, to say 'no' or to demand that employees do the right thing and your clients fulfill their part of the bargain (which may simply be paying you fairly for your work on time).

With these attitudes and practices, I think you'll find you retain your existing clients, attract new ones through word-of-mouth referrals, and use other marketing resources effectively including outbound 'push' marketing (such as canvassing and telemarketing), bidding on projects through RFPs/tenders and lead services, and advertising. And you will succeed in growing your business.

the 80/20 rule -- watch out for the 20 (or 10, or 5)

This posting in the Chris on Engineering blog explains better than I've seen elsewhere the application of the 80/20 rule.

Today, Daniel Smith and I discussed a potential advertiser for our publications. The new business wishes to promote an Internet-related service. Its owners had spent significant money exhibiting at a renovations show, and received no satisfactory results. The enterprise, operated part-time, has a budget of $2,000 for business development. Daniel, working with them to find a way to help them generate business, suggested some ideas on how they could improve their approach. He then asked me for advice on how we could help out.

Alas, in this case, I turned into a rather blunt boss, telling him to decline their business. This is after we spent about 10 minutes discussing the enterprise. Neither of us could figure out how the business would realistically earn a profit. I told Daniel I wasn't interested in doing a half-size (that is 50 per cent below our minimum volume) advertorial feature for them because it probably wouldn't work, and we would spend more time serving them than we could possibly hope to achieve in useful business. In any case, I couldn't ethically encourage a situation where we would drain almost half of their marketing budget on a single advertorial story.

I have some grey hairs, having survived (and sometimes thrived) in business for 20 years. At the very beginning, I drew up a plan that just didn't add up as a rational business, but I listened to my heart and gut feelings, and proceeded. But I also set a condition: I would only launch the business if I could do it with absolutely no money.

With some creative interpretation of the Unemployment Insurance legislation, my former employer assisted me with a planned layoff (I realize this isn't quite 'right' but two decades have passed, and now the government actually has a program that allows budding entrepreneurs to collect unemployment benefits while launching their business), so I had some income support, but how could I pay the bills of my fledgling publishing enterprise?

I decided to see if I could collect the money from advertisers before publishing, without a prototype, just an idea. To help make the offer appealing, I set up the Net and Gross pricing system -- offering a 25 per cent discount for prepayment. (We continue the system, but now provide the discount if advertisers settle their account quickly after publication).

I succeeded. Several clients liked the idea, and were willing to hand me a cheque on the spot. I sold a few thousand dollars worth of advertising, enough to produce certified cheques for the design house and printer. And I was in business.

You can compare my start-up approach to the Internet start-up business with no revenue, and no proven market. "Woah!", I say. If you wish to start a business without a track record, you've got to preserve your capital -- and make sure that customers will pay before you go too far.

We simply cannot ethically take their money because I can't see how we can generate the kind of fast and immediate returns they need to survive. The entrepreneurs should not be talking with one of my advertising representatives: They should be on the phone, meeting people, and getting people to pay for their idea, not spending money on wishful dreams.

Meanwhile, we should use our time more wisely and work with potential clients who can pay and will benefit from our services.

I pointed out to Daniel how, just before discussing this matter, we had reviewed our progress in seeking business relating to a $500 million project. While we had spent about 15 minutes on the Internet pipe-dream, we had spent just a minute figuring our strategy to find business where there is real money and valid opportunity. Here, more clearly than ever, the 80/20 principle applies -- spend just a little more time and effort on the things that produce results, and cut just a little from the things that don't (20 per cent each side) and you'll gain far more than you spend.

CSC-CSI and marketing

The CSC Ottawa Chapter AGM on May 8. The chapter website is at http://www.cscottawa.ca

Construction Specifications Canada (CSC) and the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) chapters provide some of the most unique and rewarding marketing opportunities within our industry. The reason is because of the core role of the specification writing process within the planning/construction/cycle. If you can encourage the person writing the specs for the project to use your materials or technologies, you have a 'sale' down the road -- regardless of which contractor or sub-trade actually does the work. And if you are a contractor or sub-trade, the spec writing stage often provides really valuable clues and evidence about upcoming projects now well under way in the planning/designing process, providing clues about future work. Everyone in the industry clearly benefits from clear, consistent specifications -- reducing the risks of change orders, or inconsistent design.

These facts make the specifications writing community a prime marketing focus for building product manufacturers and building technology service providers, of course, but you'll find plenty of other people you want to meet and know at local chapter meetings. So I hesitated not a second in attending the CSC Ottawa annual chapter meeting on May 8. We learned about the multi-million dollar work at the Victoria Memorial Museum Building (Canadian Museum of Nature) and and executive/committee members provided reports on their activities.

Paul Butcher from Ottawa Community Housing Corporation will take the helm as chapter chair.

But the best stuff occurred informally, at the table with people I knew and hadn't met yet -- representing a general contractor, new telecommunications industry members, and a senior representative of the CSC Toronto chapter. (I make it my practice to put all comments and observations at the dinner table for events such as this to be off the record unless we agree otherwise -- otherwise, conversations can become quite stilted and way too over cautious.)

CSC/CSI individual member dues are quite reasonable -- if you haven't already joined, I recommend membership; you'll develop connections and meet some truly worthwhile people (and find business from the process).

Resumes, interviews and branding

APL Landscape Solutions in Bloomington, MN uses an online questionnaire/application -- a little more sophisticated than our email response to initial resumes. Theirs is a good approach, but frankly, we want to see the initial resume and send the questionnaire after it arrives (even though we don't read it except to find the email address to send the responding questionnaire). Why? We can compare the resume and questionnaire responses, and review for inconsistencies.

I've observed several times in this blog that your marketing and brand development depend highly on your employees -- the attitudes, responses, and respect your employees have to current and potential future clients will weigh far more in market success than any advertising you place.

But that leads to the next question: "How do you find the right employees?"

It is this: The resume and (conventional) job interview are virtually useless in determining who to hire. Throw them out!

Well, not exactly, of course -- if you want to get that radical, you probably will have an organization with one employee -- yourself! But I advocate rethinking traditional approaches in developing a hiring model that reduces pain, bureaucracy, and allows you to select both the best qualified candidates and the individuals who really want to work in your company.

The problem with both the resume and interview is that they are contrived, and often tell you little about the person you are considering hiring. And no one likes wading through hundreds of resumes, hoping to pick out some worthy for follow up -- or sitting through interview after interview, where your mind glazes over with the repeated scripted questions (and often scripted answers).

Here is how we handle the situation. Consider the differences from conventional practices.

1. Everyone who answers the ad or posting for the career opportunity receives a response -- a cover letter describing the work, and a one-page questionnaire asking some things that we think are essential for the work. (This is all done by email -- we are not interested in hiring anyone who can't use a computer for basic email!)


2. The questionnaire asks things that are skill and job related -- for administrative employees, for example, we include some grammar and basic math/arithmetic questions. We want to see if they have the basic level of intelligence either to know the answers or at least to look them up or get some help.)
   
3. I've found that 80 per cent of the people who send in the resume, don't bother completing the questionnaire. So why should we spend time reading every resume in the first place? For the remaining 20 per cent, we can compare the resume with the questionnaire responses, and notice inconsistencies. And of course, we can also eliminate from consideration the people who truly get the questionnaire wrong. (Note also this is all documented so we are prepared if there are any complaints about fairness -- and our questionnaire obviously is designed to avoid any questions that would offend anti-discriminatory or human rights legislation.)


4. We have a brief phone interview -- this just allows us to determine if the person is really interested, and allows us to set the next stage: The working assignment. (For sales careers we put in another stage, an online sales aptitude/sales test). The candidate who says: "When is your interview", gets the response: Do the work, and we'll see about it!"
   
5. Now we are fair about this working assignment -- we pay for the time, either at our conventional freelance rate, or with hourly pay comparable to the level of which the person would be paid if hired. Here, we find if the person can really do the work, and how well he/she interacts with other employees in completing the assignment (and their feedback is an important part of our final hiring decision).
   
6. We listen to our current employees' observations, plus review the success/failure of the working assignment, and then can hire with virtually 100 per cent confidence that the person we select will be competent, and ready to work well within our organization.

Oh yeah, where is the interview? For local candidates, the interview is effectively built within the day or two working assignment in our offices. I'll visit out-of-town finalists after they successfully complete the working assignment, but this is more a validation than a conventional interview -- they've already proven they can work well in our decentralized organization.

The result: We are building a cohesive, collegial team; and clients can see this -- and feel comfortable doing business with us. The only problem with this model (and it is a big one) is what do you do with your current employees who really shouldn't be there! (Not a problem here now, thankfully). But that is another issue, and another posting.

The Top 5 Reasons I Left Wordpress.com for Blogger

As a new blogger, I sought out the best free hosting platform and was told that Wordpress.com was it. Three days and plenty of hair-pulling later, I ported everything over to Blogger by hand and started fresh. Lest other newbie bloggers make the same mistake I made, here's why I left...

read more | digg story

Getting started in construction marketing: Some ideas from experience

This image, from the home page of Bruce Giese Construction Company, Inc. in Port, Orchard, WA, is about as far removed in business as you can get from places like Hill International, Aker Solutions or Honeywell, but the small residential contractor and multi-national ICI businesses share some important things in common. The Giese website notes: "As with all our undertakings, we set high expectations for all business relationships. We trust our clients will be more than satisfied with their custom homes long after the tools are put away.
You probably already know that when it comes to referral- based businesses like ours, a referral is the highest complement that can be earned from a client or an associate. And just like us, our clients are impressionable which is why we chose to surround ourselves with the best employees, local subcontractors and suppliers available."

Crystal Stowe, marketing co-ordinator with Hill International in Washington, D.C. posted this question on the SMPS Listserve:

I'm fairly new to the industry. So far, I've joined SMPS and CMAA. (ed: Construction Management Association of America) I'm constantly writing down new terms/acronyms and names of other companies and people we may team with/compete against. My boss has also been very helpful in sharing info he's learned over the years. Does anyone have any other tips to help submerge myself in this industry faster?

Here are some responses from other SMPS members with years of construction industry marketing experience:

From Ellen C. Moore, CPSM, Communications Manager, Sales and Marketing Manager, Proposals and Estimating, Aker Solutions, in Houston, TX.

Network. Establish a network, expand it at every opportunity, and work at developing and maintaining relationships with the contacts in your network. Of course, this is to be done over time, but from my own personal experience of 19 years ago when I first came into this industry and to SMPS, START NOW!!! I found my initial network of others in similar jobs at other AEC companies to be absolutely invaluable in the first 5 years of AEC industry experience. Not to say they are not still valuable, but when I was working very hard to establish a toe hold in the industry, that network was absolutely essential.

Read. Read every word of every proposal you co-ordinate. Read it until you understand what it all means. If you don't know, ask. Read the SMPS Marketer (magazine) every issue. Read ENR magazine. If your company doesn't receive it, or won't pay for you to receive it, pay for it yourself, and consider it an investment in your career. Read press releases posted on your company's website. If your local SMPS chapter has a newsletter, read every word of every issue.

Attitude. At my company, we say "Attitude is Everything." Personally, I believe it 100%. What does that mean to your career, short- and long-term? Short-term: Accept responsibility for proactively educating yourself about your company, your previous and current projects, your key people. Know your company's mission statement and core values.

Mentally develop and rehearse a 60-second "elevator speech" about what your company offers. Know your clients. Equally important, know your competitors, especially locally. Do NOT expect or rely on your company to provide ALL your education about the AEC industry and your own business. If you have to spend a few of your own bucks occasionally, do it. After all, it is YOUR career.

Long-term: Be responsible. Be accountable. Be credible. Somehow it seems to have become unfashionable to go "above and beyond." That baffles me. It is in going "above and beyond" that I have taken my own measure and come to like and respect what I've found there. Don't do it foremost for others; do it for yourself.

Team. I hate the phrase "team player." What do we SAY that means vs what does it REALLY mean? After almost 24 months of proposing in an extremely high-dollar, high-visibility, high-volume, high-stress, extremely high-pressure environment, I have a MUCH clearer idea of what team means, for me and for the people who report to me. Maybe this sums it up best: I have personally managed 8 major (gigantical) tenders to sell engineering design, manufacture, and qualification (testing) of subsea oil and gas production equipment in the last 24 months. Because of forces and issues beyond my control (or even, the control of my boss), in order to make the nonnegotiable submittal deadline for each of those proposals, MY TEAM AND I WORKED AT LEAST 26 CONSECUTIVE HOURS ON EVERY ONE OF THEM. No, I don't believe that is a desirable or efficient way to work. No, I did NOT enjoy it, and I know my team did not. I am NOT an adrenalin junkie. I AM 56 years old, so a 26- or 33- or even 38-hour shift hurts, but I don't believe I should walk out at 5 or 8 p.m. and leave my team to work alone. But, if we miss deadlines and miss work, eventually my company will not be able to pay all my coworkers here in the US, and somebody will have to go home with a pink slip. I don't ever want that to happen, if I can help prevent it. One way I can help prevent it is to be sure we do NOT miss submittal deadlines. And, out of those 8 proposals, we have won work on 5, and of those 5, we won SUBSTANTIAL contracts on 3. And, we all lived to celebrate.

Long-term: Never stop expanding and nurturing the contacts (links) in your network. As your network expands, nurturing the links takes ever more time and effort. Just do it. Never stop learning about the industry, the movers, the players -- and the losers (and why they lost).

BUILD RELATIONSHIPS AND LEARN TO NEGOTIATE. When I began making proposals, I made the conscious decision to be very proactive. It made my job ever more interesting. I worked (and continue to work) hard to build relationships with my internal clients (who now may be local in Houston, or virtual in Norway, Scotland, UK, Brazil, Malaysia, etc.). I negotiate: For example, I make it a point to ask engineers assigned to proposal teams how I can help them do the technical work I need from them so they can give me (my team) the input we need to develop proposals. It seems I am one of the few proposal team members to have done this, at least at my present company. It has been well-received and appreciated, even if there really is nothing I can personally do, in many cases. In some cases, a PM will say, well, I have to make this document for a client. It is something I can do, so I offer to do that task, freeing the PM to work on proposal input. After 37 years of working professionally, 19 of which have involved marketing and proposals, I am scarred but much wiser: If I can negotiate a happy ending (a win/win), I am always better off than when I have to ask somebody's supervisor (or VP or EVP) to intercede. I have done it on rare occasions and after serious thought about ramifications. But it is NOT my preference or something to be undertaken lightly, especially when the people involved sit higher on the organizational totem pole than I.

Passion. If you don't have it -- for your work, for winning, for something bigger than just you -- I suspect you will burn out and quit.

Passion is what motivates me at 4 a.m. to dig deeper inside myself to find the energy and motivation I need to finish a proposal, a presentation, or the arrangements for our participation in a conference or exhibit. After these many years, I believe passion is something you're born with or not. I can teach the logistics of proposal making, but I cannot teach passion. It lives somewhere deep within you, and it is the fuel that drives the energy you invest in your work. I feel bad for people who never find passion within themselves for ANY work.

Integrity. In my experience, integrity is what keeps good people from doing unethical things. Granted, the line is not always clearly drawn.

But, as my mother used to tell me, there is a "wee, small voice inside of you" (in me, it lives in the pit of my stomach) that screams when bending the rules means breaking the rules. I listen to my gut. It has saved me on more than one occasion. As I have indicated to several supervisors in my career, if you force me to choose, I will listen to my gut. In one instance, I walked away from a job because maintaining integrity and self-respect was more important to me than maintaining employment. Again, this is NOT something I advocate you do without serious forethought. But, sometimes it is the right thing to do. Hopefully, you will not ever have to choose.

Fun. I know it seems impossible to have fun in an arena where you are being beaten with non-negotiable deadlines, uncooperative engineers, demanding clients, and unreasonable expectations. But, I always have believed a sense of humor is a strong antidote to allowing yourself to be beaten into feeling like a victim. Victims -- by definition -- have no control over their destiny. That won't work for me. I HAVE had fun in my career. Not every day, not with every internal client. But now, being older and wiser, I create opportunities to have fun. Fun has saved my soul.

Venting. Everybody needs somebody they can talk to and know that no matter what is said, it goes no further. You know -- like those ads on TV that say "Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." Twenty years ago, I was blessed to meet in SMPS/Houston counterparts in other companies with whom I made lasting friendships. Short of giving each other proprietary information, we met at all hours, usually in establishments serving alcoholic beverages, and we talked. Sometimes we screamed, yelled, or wept. We VENTED! We got it all out, we trusted each other to keep it confidential, and we did. To this day, we remain stalwart friends, and yes, we still vent on occasion.

Bottom line. Be responsible. Be accountable. Be credible. Be honest.

Act with integrity. Take the high road. As one of my mentors advised many years ago, "Take the high road, Ellen. Nobody ever has to apologize for taking the high road." Don't allow people to walk on you, but likewise, don't walk around with a chip on your shoulder.

Understand that it's not about you. It's about something bigger than you: feeding all the people in your company. Selling -- as I have had the opportunity to see in my present company -- occurs in an arena that is brutal, grueling, tough, and unforgiving. Nothing I do in the development and production of proposals is quite as demanding as the arena in which our sales managers work. I did not believe this for a long time. Now that I have had the opportunity to walk with them, I have experienced their reality. I appreciate their skills, tenacity, and yes, their courage. They now appreciate my efforts to support them.It's a nice place to be. It took 22 months of concentrated effort, and I had to make the overtures because I was the new kid on the block.

Good luck. I wish you the best success. I never made a conscious decision to work in the AEC industry. I happened into it and worked there for nearly 16 years before stepping into a different but similar industry. Wow! Am I glad I discovered AEC! It was tough and demanding, but I believe I am a better person for it -- and I know I am currently successful because of it. I hope 20 years from now, you feel the same.

From Juliette Brown, Marketing Proposal Specialist, Western Region Honeywell Energy Services:

I just had one quick additional suggestion: Find out the names of the firms your company currently partners with, subs to, or uses as subs, and ask your peers at these companies out for lunch; then try and make it a monthly or bi-monthly thing.

These relationships will be important to keep and maintain, because these individuals will most likely a) bring your firm the most work or leads, b) be your introduction to other contractors/consultants/clients, and c) act as a sounding board and advisor for any questions, concerns, or grievances you might have.

It takes a lot more work to start a new client relationship than to cultivate an existing one, so expensing $20 for lunch every once in a while should pay off in spades for your company.

I won't publish here another, and possibly the most tangibly useful, response. The person references a specific name in the office, and suggests to give the person a call, referencing the original email sender's name. This type of personal networking and communication happens when you take the time to get involved and join your local SMPS chapter.

Eight guidelines for business/marketing success (or eight lessons learned the hard way)

The rowing together image is from the Caswell Corporate Coaching Company home page. We learned our meeting system and policies from CCCC's Bil Caswell.

This blog's launch (you can see the early entries deep in the archives) co-incides with the inflection point in late 2006 when my business hit bottom after a painful three year decline. From 20 employees and publications in five Canadian and U.S. cities, we were briefly down to one part-time employee. The painful failure and surprising resurgence have taught me some important lessons about business. The school of hard knocks can, indeed, teach us some important lessons.

1.You need to have a staff meeting at least once weekly, no more than an hour.

I used to hate meetings and ran the business without them except in exceptional or special circumstances, considering them to be a waste of productive work time. Bad mistake. Meetings serve some important purposes including managing work flow, setting priorities, and ensuring alignment amongst everyone. Our meetings have an agenda (there is always room for 'new business' and late additions), and are co-ordinated with "Action Items" so we can track on work progress. All salaried staff are expected to attend and independent contractors closely associated with the business are invited. Notably, a sign of the meetings' success is that the independent contractors -- who don't need to come -- generally show up! (We have several out-of-town employees who attend by teleconference; local employees are encouraged to be in the office but can join in by phone if it is inconvenient to get to the office.)

There are other good meeting formats -- some businesses find the Daily Huddle to be very effective -- here everyone in the work group gets together for no more than 10 minutes for a quick update and progress report. People who use this methodology say it saves time as back and forth discussions one on one are reduced during the day and all issues are addressed quickly. We will probably go to the huddle format when we are a little larger.

We learned our meeting approach from Bill Caswell of Caswell Corporate Coaching Company (CCC).

2. You need a full scale planning meeting once a year, and probably a six month secondary evaluation/co-ordination meeting.

These are major events -- "the management retreat" -- and in our business, involve all employees and contractors. The cost is high --- I need to fly in several people from out of town locations, and hire professional facilitators, but I realize now these meetings are where the company sets its course and where people who can't see each other routinely have some important face-time with peers. For a small business (presently) we are spending a truly significant amount of money on these meetings but I realize they are a cornerstone of our growth.

3.You need to connect face-to-face with your community and market

For years, some of our salespeople insisted on doing everything by phone -- or, in the rare cases when they would meet someone, the meeting had a sales purpose in mind. Our editor would go out to some events but in the latter stages, as cutbacks intensified and demoralization set in, he started relying as well on the phone and press releases! Bad move. Face-to-face contact without worrying about or forcing the actual sale is really important in business, especially these days when so much is conducted online and by email. When you see people, you get feedback, interaction, mutual respect, and new ideas. Get out there.

4. You need to adapt and introduce the new technologies but (unless you are in the technology business), you don't want thinking about these things to overtake you.

I'm wary of "simple" systems integration and CRM (Client Relationship Management) programs, at least the formal kind that are centralized . In the prefect world, these tools should allow you to seamlessly communicate with clients adapting the product and message to them, and allowing great teamwork. The reality is that many of these things just don't work very well, and force sales people and administrative staff into straight jackets of process rather than substance. We patch our IT systems together to get the job done -- yes, we will need to refine and revise things as we evolve and grow, but I'll always as CEO keep the "efficiency+effectiveness/cost" ratio in mind when evaluating projects.

5. Your employees need a mixture of freedom and accountability (with the emphasis on freedom)

Pure unbridled freedom invites abuse and abuse by one employee can spread to others, resulting in a breakdown of order and priorities. Equally, employees are adults and should be treated that way -- I respect the people who work in our organization to be able to think for themselves, solve problems without running to the boss, and respond swiftly when something isn't right. In exchange they don't need me breathing down their backs.

6. Hire carefully, slowly, and with clear guidelines

Our hiring system is elegantly effective. We (initially) don't read resumes. Instead we send all candidates a questionnaire with a brief job description. If you don't answer the questionnaire, you don't get the job! (Duh). If you do, we then compare the questionnaire responses to the resume to check for inconsistencies -- and people who pass the initial screen (about 1/5 of the people who send us resumes in the first place) receive a phone call.

Then, depending on the job, we either use an online test or go directly to a paid freelance or working assignment for finalists. This serves as the "interview".

Our hiring system works because I realize people spend too much time faking up resumes and "dressing up" for interviews -- two things which mean very little in the real working environment. We want to know instead: "Do you really want the job? Are you capable of the work? Would you work well with us?" and we don't want to spend hours 'sifting resumes'. The system works.

7. Have systems but remember people, ideas, and clients make the business work

We obviously have systems, but are not bound in knots by policy rules and directives. Take for example our travel policy. You can stay where you like, eat what you want, and do what you like -- just use common sense and think about it as if you are spending your own money. Once, for fun, I bought a full fare business class ticket for a key employee so we could go to the airline lounge and sip on a few drinks. We then refunded the ticket, and hopped on another flight with a discount airline. We won't do that every trip, but I shudder to think about how that would fit within any 'travel policy'.

8. Have fun

When business becomes (mostly) unpleasant work, change things so that you can enjoy yourself again. I can't see anything worse than being stuck in a dead-end and demoralizing space because you need the money to survive. I realize that not everyone has this freedom, but I think we can all take at least small steps to gain control and have some satisfaction in our work. As an employer, I want to be sure that this company's employees, most of the time, really enjoy what they are doing. This is common business -- and marketing -- sense, because if the employees are happy they will interact with current and potential clients with the same level of enthusiasm and, indeed, that is the best way to find new business and grow the current one.

The new SMPS Executive

DATE: May 8, 2008

TO: SMPS Members

FROM: Dana L. Birkes, APR, FSMPS, CPSM, Chair, Nominations and Elections Committee

SUBJECT: Newly Elected National Officers and Directors

In accordance with the provisions of the SMPS Bylaws, it is my pleasure to announce that the following candidates have been selected by the Nominations and Elections Committee to fill three open positions on the 2008-2009 National Board of Directors:

President-Elect Sep 2008- Aug 2011
Thomas E. Smith, Jr., AICP, FSMPS, CPSM
President, BonTerra Consulting, Pasadena, CA

Fellows Delegate Sep 2008 - Aug 2010
Judith Nitsch, P.E., LEED AP, FSMPS, CPSM
President, Nitsch Engineering, Boston, MA

At-Large Delegate Sep 2008- Aug 2010
Donna Lynn Jakubowicz, CPSM
Corporate Marketing Director, Barton Malow Company, Southfield, MI

As further provided by the SMPS Bylaws, in the absence of a nomination for any of the open positions on the Board by the petition process, the candidates selected by the Nominations and Elections Committee are automatically elected by acclamation for the offices and terms specified above.

Current directors and officers continuing terms on the National Board in 2008-2009 are:

President
Dana L. Birkes, APR, FSMPS, CPSM
Vice President, The Flintco Companies Inc., Tulsa, OK
Past President
Donna J. Corlew, FSMPS, CPSM
Business Development Manager, The Schneider Corporation, Nashville, TN
Secretary/Treasurer
Carolyn Ferguson, FSMPS, CPSM
WinMore Marketing Advisors, Kingwood, TX
Chapter Delegate
Frank Lippert, CPSM
Marketing Manager for Water Resources, David Evans and Associates Inc., Portland, OR

Newly Elected Foundation Trustees
The Nominations and Elections Committee also solicited candidates for four open seats on the Board of Trustees of the SMPS Foundation. The committee recommended the nomination of and the National Board approved these four candidates to two-year terms (Sept. 2008-Aug. 2010) on the Foundation Board:

• Michelle H. Fitzpatrick, CPSM, Principal, Marketivity, Inc., Portland, OR
• Peter A. Lyon, FSMPS, Assoc. AIA, Associate/BD Manager, Flad Architects, Atlanta, GA
• Craig E. Park, FSMPS, Assoc. AIA, Vice President and CMO, Leo A Daly, Omaha, NE
• William C. Viehman, AIA, Principal and CMO, Perkins + Will, Atlanta, GA

Current trustees continuing terms on the Foundation Board in 2008-2009 are:

• Jane A. Caffey, CPSM, Regional Business Development Manager, Kleinfelder, Pleasanton, CA
• Paula M. Ryan, CPSM, Director of Marketing, Braun & Steidl Architects, Columbus, OH
• Warren G. Simonds, Ph.D.,DBIA, LEED AP, Director of Client Relations, Willis A Smith Construction Inc., Sarasota, FL
• Nancy J. Usrey, FSMPS, CPSM, Principal Consultant, Partners Usrey, Rowlett, TX
• Rhodes B. White, FSMPS, CPSM, President, White Consulting, Charleston, SC

Folly, foolishness, and hope

Wikipedia explains the crisis.

In some markets, especially the residential construction industry in parts of the South, things are dismal. The mortgage crisis has threatened the entire U.S. economy and in fact disrupted the world economic situation. And, I'm troubled. Why?

Who thought it made sense to push loans and home ownership on people without enough credit and financial resources to obtain a mortgage in the first place? And which brainwaves came up with the brilliant idea that it makes sense to 100 per cent -- or more -- leverage your home with the delusional perspective that home values only go up, and homeowners with bad credit, unstable income, and not enough cash to meet regular living expenses let alone inflated mortgage monthly payments, could actually afford these houses.

Does any of this make sense to anyone with even a little intelligence and social responsibility. I'm thankful that the North Carolina legislature saw the folly of this unbridled and ill-thought "capitalism" by introducing legislation to eliminate the worst excesses. But where were all the big thinkers in the other markets and in the investment banks in New York to allow this to happen? Who will -- should -- take responsibility?

Here, my Canadian conservatism takes hold. In Canada, mortgage interest is not tax deductible unless you are using the mortgage loan to invest. That is, you could mortgage your home and purchase stocks or put the money into a business, and claim the deduction, but you don't just get the deduction by borrowing against your home. This seems a perfectly rational and responsible approach to me -- people wishing to take risks -- to play the limits -- can -- but most people living ordinary lives (and most astute businesspeople!) know that it doesn't make good sense to load up more mortgage on your home than you need; and it makes lots of sense to pay it off as fast as you reasonably can.

So, when I married Vivian (later in life than most), we purchased our home and Vivian paid 50 per cent down with the proceeds from her own place. I had the mortgage. I decided to live modestly, cut expenses, and cleared the mortgage to zero in six years. Good timing. Because just as I made the last payment, my business entered a major crisis and cash flow got really tight. But we owned our house, and of course, didn't have to budget any more for the extra high mortgage payments (extra high because I wasn't just paying the amortization down, I was paying the principal!) So we survived the downturn without stress and anxiety you might otherwise expect.

I wonder about business owners who live high for the short term, and lack longer range vision. I wonder about greedy brokers, agents, and "marketers" who think it is right to push junk business deals on unsuspecting and unsophisticated people. Where does making some money and living a little high need to be put into context and thoughtful, respectful and responsible living values overtake the superficial and stupid greed and ignorance that shaped some important markets in recent years.

Yes, I feel sorry for the innocent victims of this carnage -- the people who worked hard, tried the best they could, and now are losing their homes, experiencing family break-ups, and deep unemployment. But I also know that we all have to be responsible for the decisions we make; and here, a lot of people made a whole lot of very wrong decisions.

Alliances and co-operation

Among the most effective resources in our marketing arsenal are key alliances. These can be with commercial organizations or non-profits. The idea is to leverage the relationship for mutual benefit. To me, a great alliance requires no written contract and no cash by either partner; it is founded on good-will and simple, common sense understandings. The power of alliances of course is that they effectively enhance your market reach, and (since they require little if any cash investment) don't drain your budgets.

Or alliances include relationships with Merx/McGraw-Hill in Canada, some trade show organizers, and several non-profit groups. For each, we give freely advertising and editorial space. In exchange, we receive brand recognition, free trade show booth space, business leads and reader-relevant editorial content.

Can you apply the same principals in marketing your own business product/service? I think so, but the models and alliances you will use will of course be truly different from ours. Here, I have a challenge coming up with specific examples, because these alliances are based on common-sense, valid relationships, and personal connections that you build in running your business.

But look around you -- at your suppliers, existing clients, non-profits, community groups and others, and see if there is a match that can lead to shared business opportunities or benefits.

Motivation, sales and construction

Most of us have heard the name Zig Ziglar -- motivational speaker and writer. However, probably few of us know that Ziglar traces his success to the motivation provided by Dr. Emol Fails, founder of FMI Management Consultants and Investment Bankers in Raleigh, NC. FMI now asserts that it is the largest consultancy/investment banker serving the construction industry, with almost 200 employees in four offices around the U.S.

I've just interviewed FMI President and Managing Director Hank Harris, but you'll have to wait until the summer to read that interview in our North Carolina papers (and, I trust, by then, our revitalized websites.)

So what do Zig Ziglar and FMI have to do with construction marketing? Well, especially if you are one of the larger generals or subs and need consulting services, the consulting will largely revolve around marketing issues and I expect sooner or later you will hear about and consider using FMI.

But the other issue here is the nature of references, stories, and evolving history. Ziglar started out as a protege of Fails -- but now FMI uses the Ziglar story as part of its corporate history and credibility. The protege has, in essence, become the endorser.

Greatness happens in many ways and, as you read Ziglar's observations about Fails, you can see that the Professor understood how to recognize the strengths and capabilities of the people working with him -- because these strengths and capabilities were both real and well deserved. Ziglar might have suffered from low self esteem, but Fails saw and appreciated his talent -- and helped him develop and gain confidence.

Some people I'm sure still associate "marketing" with advertising, canvassing, and nuisance surveys by telemarketers (I received another inbound call today and courteously, again, declined to respond.) But really when you come down to it, marketing is all about how you respect and treat the people around you; your clients, your employees, and ultimately your new clients. Marketing success is achieved when you meld all these elements into a cohesive vision and successfully implement it.

Maverick marketing

Does turning conventional corporate rules on their head help marketing? Reading books like Maverick Success Story Behind the Worlds Most Unusual Work Place: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace, Jack Stack's The Great Game of Businessand Steve Yastrow's Brand Harmonysuggest to me that your highest marketing success will occur when you ensure your internal business culture is in harmony with itself and your clients.

I'm reading Ricardo Semler's Maverick -- a story of a Brazilian company that defies the rules of conventional business, with a focus on worker autonomy, independence, and freedom. "No Receptionists * No Dress Code *Workers who set their own Salaries * Mandatory Vacation Time -- Would you run a company this way?" the book cover asks.

Semler's approach is largely in line with Jack Stack's Great Game of Business and other leaders who advocate giving freedom and autonomy to their employees. Semler isn't so strong on employee ownership in the unionized Brazilian business, where Stack believes it to be essential. (Though they both have generous profit sharing systems.) Both operate in manners which would stretch the reasonableness of most large corporations and a large percentage of smaller businesses and seem to invite chaos and inefficiency (plus leave the room for theft -- both of time and materials!)

But their common point has real relevance for the marketing process. Stack, Semler and others sharing these values advocate that if you create a working environment where employees feel a sense of autonomy and ownership in their work, they'll be much happier, more enthusiastic, and creative.

All of the evidence I can find is that most businesses find most new business either from within their existing clients and through referral and recommendations. Advertising, cold calling and canvassing, and third party leads services certainly have their place (fortunately for us, of course, because our business earns 99 per cent of its revenue by selling advertising), but in the end, successful businesses find future business by treating current clients with such quality and and spirit that repeat and referral business are almost routine.

So, essentially if you find a way to recruit the right people in your organization, and they are working in harmony and good spirits, clients will see the enthusiasm and purchase and refer more. Again, if 80 per cent of your new business arises from current/repeat clients, then just a 10 per cent improvement in this regard will have more impact than a multi-fold increase in the effectiveness of your advertising or cold leads quality! When you think marketing, then, you should give priority to the way you work with your employees and current clients.

Numbers, numbers, so many numbers

The Constant Contact referral link is on the right hand side of the blog with the permalinks. You can try it yourself and receive the $30 credit (and they'll pay me $30 as well if you sign up.

Today, I produced and sent out the bi-weekly Construction Marketing Ideas Newsletter. It takes me about 2.5 hours to get everything organized, mostly pulling together themes and responses from this blog. (The newsletter may be redundant to many blog readers, I realize, but some people have told me they read the newsletter more than the blog).

Anyways, once things are posted and distributed, the interesting thing for me is to see who is reading what, an how much. I can't exactly replicate the Constantcontact.com documentation here, but at present, here are the results.

Overall data:

Emailed 2,216 names, of which 54 (2.4%) bounced. Four people asked to be removed from the list (.2%). At present, 373 or 17.3% opened the email; and of that 17.4% or 65 clicked through to one or another links.

Drilling down further, we can see which links people went to -- and even more finely, exactly who went where! (I won't share that private information on this public blog, of course.)

You can see the summary of the specific click-through data here.

Email Link
Unique Click-throughs
Click-through Distribution

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
5
5.6%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
4
4.5%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
4
4.5%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
1
1.1%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
1
1.1%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
13
14.6%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
5
5.6%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
11
12.4%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
10
11.2%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
1
1.1%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
0
0.0%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
10
11.2%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
16
18.0%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
0
0.0%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
3
3.4%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
4
4.5%

http://ui.constantcontact.com/rnavmap/evaluate.rnav/pidwzI87cCLthBey8s-k81euLv63#
1
1.1%

Total Click-throughs
89
100%

Now, what is interesting about all this data is (a) the incredible volume and detail, (b) the speed -- I obtained this material within only a few hours of sending and (c) the ease of access -- a few clicks with my computer mouse and I now have an idea of what people are interested in reading.

Lets say you decide to have your own electronic newsletter. At a regular interval, you send out a combination of useful information and marketing resources; and every time you do it, you gather actionable, measurable data -- with contact information for everyone, including people 'just looking'. How much more effective is this than conventional advertising; especially when you look at it in the context of client relationships and maintaining communication with existing customers.

And the cost. . . well, the program we use is a flat rate deal based on the number of names on our overall list (now approaching 6,000 -- though in line with the policy to only send email when it is requested, the Construction Marketing Ideas newsletter only goes to about 2,300 readers; either people who have specifically requested it, or have purchased advertising in our print publications.) The fees are so low they barely register a dot on our financial reports. You'll of course need to factor in your time and effort in putting together the thing -- for me, this is not a problem, because I enjoy doing it.

Several competing services offer inexpensive email programs -- you can even get public domain stuff at no cost. At present, I use constantcontact.com backed up by bettermail.ca (bettermail.ca offers some really effective and easy-to-manage file management and autoresponder capacities not presently available on Constant Contact.) If you sign up for Constant Contact through the link provided here, they provide me with a small referral bonus, which I'll be glad to accept (and you can save some money as well).

Recession . . . what recession?

Routt County, Colorado, with Steamboat Springs, is enjoying a boom with 2.7 per cent unemployment. No recession here, of course!

Well, maybe in the residential sector in parts of South Carolina, the Grapes of Wrath image evoked in my previous blog posting "How severe is the recession?" rings true. But readers are telling me that the story is not the same everywhere. In fact, one person from Routt County, Colorado, commented:

In my neck of the woods (Routt County, CO), the biggest problem is a booming economy and a tight labor market with unemployment running at 2.7%: Colorado unemployment data. Most would love to have that problem.

But around here, folks will whine about most anything. We have more home/residential construction going on around here than you can shake a stick at (so much so that there is serious political pressure to slow it down). Some think it won’t last in our little corner of the world. I disagree. From my perspective, the biggest question is whether our local politics will allow it to continue. For decades, political pressures have slowed our growth and driven the price of housing through the roof.

Hmm, and over at Contractortalk.com someone has posted this poll question: "You think we are in a construction recession in California?" Only four votes so far, two say "yes" and two say "no". Take your pick!

This information suggests a little mobility will go a long way if you are in one of the depressed areas. I realize of course moving isn't easy to do -- family, schools, and lifestyle all factor into the picture. And of course it is rather hard to sell your home in a depressed area to move and buy one in a booming location! Certainly, the economic picture isn't universal, and it certainly isn't universally bleak.

MorganSullivan

I received the following email this afternoon responding to my posting about SullivanKreiss:

Hello Mark,

I just wanted to thank you for posting from our SullivanKreiss Building Design blog. You may also have an interest in our blog for Construction and Real Estate executive search. MorganSullivan is a sister company to SullivanKreiss. One firm(SullivanKreiss) serves Architecture, Engineering, Planning, and Landscape Architecture clients. The other firm (MorganSullivan) serves construction and real estate exclusively.

Anyway, here's a link to the MorganSullivan blog. http://www.morgansullivan.com/executive-search-blog/

It is my hope you find this information useful somewhere down the road. Feel free to contact me if I could be of assistance to you.

P.S. I really enjoyed reading your blog today and signed up to receive your newsletter. Good information!

Regards,

John P. Kreiss
President and CEO

The premier search firm in Real Estate and Construction
One East Main Street, Suite 206 Northborough, MA 01532 (508) 571-9893 (p)
(508) 439-9227 (c) (508) 393-0076 (f) Jkreiss@morgansullivan.com http://www.morgansullivan.com/.

MorganSullivan meets the criteria for permalinking, so I'll be posting that one as well. If your business has a blog relevant to AEC which is used for marketing purposes, I'll hyperlink it once I learn about it.

SullivanKreis Building Design Executive Service Blog

This "Executive Search Blog for Building Design Professionals" qualifies for a permalink. See: http://www.sullivankreiss.com/building-design-executive-search/

Green, trees, and (construction) marketing

We are media sponsors for The Canadian Green Building Council (CaGBC)'s Shifting Into the Mainstream National Summit in Toronto June 11-12.

Seth Godin has taken a pot-shot of ill-conceived "Green" marketing campaigns -- that is, businesses claim to be 'Green' but are they walking the walk they are talking? "Green" of course is taking on increasing significance within the construction community as LEED certification and claims of environmentally sensitive and sustainable construction are now virtually essential elements of most marketing claims within the industry.

But turning action into substance, Seth rightly points out, requires quantification -- and you had better be sure of your numbers before speaking too loudly.

So, how have we handled the Green issue? We made arrangements with Tree Canada to plant a tree for every ad in every issue of our publications -- then we called our printer to find how much newsprint we consume to produce them. And we learned that the arrangement with Tree Canada will result in planting 70 trees for every 11 we consume. (I realize our suppliers may be cutting down mature trees for pulp; and the new plantings will be seedlings, but still think the ratio is reasonable).

We've taken this alliance with Tree Canada a few steps further. Chase made arrangements for us to be media sponsors for the Canadian Green Building Council (CaGBC) Shifting into the Mainstream National Summit in Toronto June 11-12. And we called Tree Canada and they are joining with us at our booth to promote the Tree Canada initiative to the construction community.

These initiatives, from a business perspective, are surprisingly inexpensive -- they help our brand, and we can track enough actual advertising sales from the process to more than cover our costs here.

I agree with Seth that if you wish to make environmental claims, you should validate them with concrete numbers. Right after we made arrangements with Tree Canada, we validated them with our printers. And we therefore have the right to claim that we are the first Canadian print publishers who truly produce more trees than we consume.

How severe is the recession?

The Grapes of Wrath is a classic novel published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck,which emphasizes the need for cooperative, as opposed to individualistic, solutions to social problems brought about by the mechanization of agriculture and the Dust Bowl drought Many people have also seen the 1940 Hollywood movie adaptation starring Henry Fonda.

Friday afternoon, Derek Peterson from Constructionwork.com called me to explore some ideas. He traded news about the recession's severity in parts of the South. I felt the pain as he described examples of businesses failing -- and business owners about to lose everything -- just a year after they had been booming and so busy they had to ration and manage their work.

I am at a loss to offer answers to people caught in situations which evoke images in my mind of the Grapes of Wrath.

My earlier article on recession survival seems too simplistic and really inadequate when the business volume in some areas has declined by what appears to be 90 per cent or more. How do you plan for this kind of eventuality? I think that anyone waving the magic wand of a quick solution is either a miracle worker or, more likely, a con-artist.

I am confident that services such as Derek's are worth every cent of their cost, even in these circumstances. If you can obtain unlimited project leads for $39 a month (without any long term commitment), you should be able to find something of value in the leads service -- either directly through the leads, or indirectly through the contact information within the leads reports. If nothing else, for the flat fee, you'll be able to look at the markets nation-wide and possibly hit the road for better opportunities. But the depression-era images evoked from my conversation with Derek scar my mind. I pray that things will improve soon.

A look into your (and other) neighbourhoods

Image from the Generation5.ca site; while the site has a Canadian domain registration, it has data on every U.S. neighborhood with a ZIP+4 code.

Generation5.ca offers some fascinating demographic insights for both Canadian and U.S. neighbourhoods. Enter your Canadian postal code or U.S. ZIP plus 4 code and you'll find a snapshot of your community.

The relevance of this information to marketers is obvious -- especially if you have a retail-focused business and a would like to receive a good idea of the demographic mix of your ideal clients.

A Man in Transition -- and the Unsolicited Offer

Las Vegas architect/consultant Craig Galati, a principal at the consulting firm Lucchesi Galati, writes a great blog -- and has self-published two simple but meaningful books (they are also inexpensive) with insightful gems. I doubt his books could be profitably published by a conventional publisher -- but this is the era of the "long tail" and now individuals and micro-markets can find expression previously considered impossible. Craig graciously sent me a review copy and I think blog readers will find it worthwhile to purchase the book. (the link below takes you to Amazon.ca, where I will earn about 40 cents on the transaction; if you are in the U.S. you can find the title at Amazon.com.)

Here is an excerpt from one chapter, The Unsolicited Offer. I mentally associate this with the "cold call" but of course that is not exactly what Galati is discussing.

Every day we receive unsolicited offers from people selling services and products. Do you pay attention to them?

The essence of a successful unsolicited offer is offering something of value to someone who also sees it to be of value.

An unsolicited offer shouldn't need to be sold, just offered.

So how does this happen? first of all, I do not believe the shotgun approach works. Trying to sell something you think is valuable to the masses is difficult -- or it takes a ton of money to accomplish.

I've found that to make an unsolicited offer to work, you must be good at two things.

• Clarity-- understanding what you have to offer, to whom it would
  be valuable, and why it would be valuable;
• Timing -- the ability to sense within the marketplace when what you have becomes valuable to someone else.

The first one is relatively easy. You can determine what you have to offer, and though research you can develop a sense of who may value your offer. You just need to be careful that your passion for the offer doesn't taint your objectivity.

Getting the timing right takes patience, thought and practice. It also requires that you get out from behind your desk and meet people and it requires that you keep up with current trends and issues within your marketplace.

If you can get really good at these two points, then the unsolicited offer, targeted successfully, can open doors for you that you only previously imagined.

I still very much recall one time where I put the "unsolicited offer" concept advocated by Galati into practice. When we were establishing the GTA Construction Report in 1999, the then Toronto Construction Association chair essentially invited me to leave town. (It didn't help that he was also the then the publisher of the Daily Commercial News and Construction Record -- a competing publication.) He also said he wouldn't mind if another competitor, McGraw-Hill, also went away.

After leaving the belligerent meeting, I told my newly hired editor who was waiting outside the room that beginning with the first issue, we would do our best to publish a positive story about the TCA in each issue regardless of their feelings towards us. And I picked up the phone and made a cold call to McGraw-Hill's Toronto office.

A month later, we had entered into an informal relationship that continues to this day (now with MERX in Canada.) In exchange for copyright permission to reproduce construction business leads data, we provide them with useful promotional considerations. It is a cost effective and useful alliance that has continued for almost two decades.

I think this is an example where, as Galati suggests, timing and clarity coincide for a truly effective unsolicited offer.

About this blog's advertising

You may have noticed various advertising links on this blog. Some are extensions of our service to our print publication advertisers; others are Internet ads served by Google. My reading on blog/Internet advertising, especially for publishers who wish to convey an authoritative message, is to limit or ban advertising totally -- but we, after all, are in the publishing business, and we sell advertising for a living here.

Nevertheless, the actual revenue from the Internet advertising is minuscule and I certainly am not seeking to make the ad sales here my primary business. But it is useful to experiment with the different available online advertising models; understanding the processes, their effectiveness and relevance of course is useful for any business, whether you are selling advertising, or purchasing it.

Reciprocity -- the real thing?

This image is from Henry Goudreau's marketing email for his $399.00 Marketing Tool Belt.

Marketing consultant Henry Goudreau has sent out (and granted me permission) to republish this marketing email:

Mark (Editor's note: This is an auto-generated personalization)

The Law of Reciprocity means to give and take mutually, to return in kind or even in another kind or degree. The law of reciprocity simply means that when someone gives something, you feel an obligation to give back.

Interviewing prospects using the Law of Reciprocity.

When interviewing a potential referral source or client, ask questions that will educate about the prospect and their needs. One question that I ask all potential referral sources is this: "What is the biggest challenge in your business that you are currently facing"? The goal is not necessarily to fix their problem, but to provide them with support through an article or referring them to someone who can assist them in their area of challenge. Purposefully look for opportunities to provide information that is helpful to others.

Reciprocity is a basis of trust and a basis for legitimate power. The principle is that others will reciprocate in kind based upon the way you treated them. The world gives you what you give to the world.

Reciprocity isn’t always instantaneous, therefore persistence is vital. Even if you’ve found yourself saying, "I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work", don’t give up. At the appropriate time you will reap a harvest. By understanding and using the power of reciprocity, you can improve your relationships and avoid mistakes that can permanently damage your relationships. In life and work, you get what you give.

The Results Are Amazing

When I get contractors to start using the Law of Reciprocity it is amazing the results they start receiving. prospective clients now see them in a different light. Instead of selling them the old-fashion hard way, they allow the law to do it for them. The prospective client now views them as a resource and expert instead of "just another contractor." This makes them the contractor of "choice."

That is why I've included in the Contractor's Marketing Tool Belt http://www.hgassociates.com/about.htm<http://www.hgassociates.com/marketingtoolbelt/> a very special report that details how to unleash the Law of Reciprocity with white papers and reports. Why become a victim of the economy or "Occupational Slavery" when you can start thinking outside the box and capture new clients.

Good hunting!
Henry Goudreau
HG & Associates, Inc.

The advice here is sound -- my only (real) problem is what we find when we go to the link, which I said I would reference but, sheepishly, did not check before requesting his permission to reproduce his email. I found a blatant solicitation using conventional mass web posting marketing techniques for a $399.00 "Marketing Tool Belt".

Woah...

This is NOT reciprocity applied the way I believe, for any meaningful long-term relationship development. This is appealing to emotions, and asking for money, for a quick fix!

Goudreau's selling model may work here, and his Marketing Tool Belt may indeed be good value -- and I'm sure he will honor his money-back guarantee if you request it. There is also indication that the type of offer he is making is a very rational and healthy intermediate stage in developing the continuum between initial blogging and website information generosity, and finding meaningful long-term high value business relationships. In other words, an offer such as this might be the ideal thing for people to try out a service pending a larger and more expensive relationship (something that I believe Goudreau offers.)

But my approach to reciprocity is much more patient, slower, more relaxed and less mass-marketing oriented. It also, I hope, is sincere. If anyone thinks that the purpose of this blog is to create an environment where you will immediately pull out your credit card and send me $400, you are obviously not reading the same message I'm writing. But indeed it has a lot to do with the principal of reciprocity -- it is just that the reciprocity will happen when it is right, not when it is pushed on you.

The audacious entry

An argument can be made when you enter a new space/market, you can benefit by taking risks and stretching things. Take the arrival of J. Sullivan of Bankable Solutions on the contractortalk.com forum for example.

He posted some observations, initially with a link back to his site, until he had his wrists slapped gently. Contractortalk.com after all sells advertising -- and it isn't really interested in having non-contractor businesses freeloading on the forum threads. Members of the forum are also protective of their space; they seek to help each other out but are not really interested in reading other people's self promotional stuff.

Over some months, I've learned to respect the rules of the game at contractortalk.com and other Internet forums. They can be powerful places for marketing, but you need to respect the culture there -- and listen to the mood. Occasionally I've posted backlinks from the forum to my blog, when I believed the posting would be exceptionally interesting and relevant to forum readers. But I've proceeded cautiously, almost always asking the forum administrator to review and approve the posting before publishing it there. (It helps, of course, that without request, I also link back to the forum from this blog -- and I can track anywhere between one and three visits there from here each day.)

So why, then, do I find J. Sullivan's arrival on the Contractortalk.com scene so interesting. He wasted no time -- setting himself out as an expert -- and letting everyone know who he is with some useful tips, down-to-earth language, and enough information that some people there are already talking to him about using his marketing services. He risked things a bit, stretching to the edge the acceptable marketing boundaries, but forum participants accepted he had something useful to offer and 'voted him in'. He gained mo e marketing traction there in a few days than you might with weeks of conventional advertising, and with the leverage of multiple (qualified) readers that transcends word-of-mouth.

Internet forums should not be underrated as a marketing environment -- the communities can be passionate about their subject, receptive to new ideas, and often have the money to purchase what you have to sell. But if you want to sell stuff by participating on the forums, read the rules carefully, watch the guidelines, and then, if you are ready -- and have something useful to contribute -- don't be afraid to join the fray (and, I would argue, without fearing stretching the forum's Terms of Service and advertising/marketing guidelines). J. Sullivan's blog, by the way, is http://banksolutions.blogspot.com/ (I won't permalink it because it focuses on general marketing rather than construction-specific issues.)