In the 'triiibe'

Marketing guru Seth Godin mentioned it once only, in a single blog posting; if you prepurchased his next book, Tribes: We need you to lead us, you would be invited to join a private and closed group of individuals on an inside track. He originally on July 29 set the target to close entry to the group to be August 10, but a few hours later announced that entries would close at 11 a.m. on July 30. With an incredibly short deadline, I hesitated not a second to commit the $14 at Amazon to pre-order the book. This night, I received the promised email inviting me into the closed group. At latest count, Godin's Triiibe has 827 members, suggesting to me the number will head up somewhere above 1,000 but below 2,000 before all the the numbers are counted.

Of course, Godin and his book publisher have played a brilliant marketing game -- they've presold these books, and sold them to a group of people who, sensing a place of inside leadership, will popularize the concept in blogs, marketing materials, and other communications, virtually assuring an incredible marketing launch come the book's formal release in October. Meanwhile, the early adaptor triiibalists, for want of a better word will have bragging numbers with low identification numbers and status as leaders in our fields. (I sense I am one of just a handful of people in the group connected with the AEC industry -- noticing just one person so far in the space served by this blog; someone affiliated with the SMPS Boston Chapter.)

The ground rules for Godin's closed triiibe group include the fact we are not to post stuff within the group out in the general public, spam other members, engage in overt self-promotion, or otherwise irritate the community. We'll be booted out if we do. Equally, we are not to lurk, sitting quietly and not speaking up. We are supposed to share our thoughts and insights, and cross-fertilize our imagination and experience. The result is as you can expect a somewhat egotistical, high-octane marketing community (which I can brag and say, with 100 per cent truthfulness, you can't enter, at least now.)

Does this kind of, for want of a better word, mass exclusivity, have a place in construction industry marketing? I'm not sure. As I detailed in my last post, most successful AEC firms thrive on a solid word-of-mouth reputation achieved within sectors and activities of influence rather than conventional marketing models. We're far less interested in hiring an architect, general contractor or sub-trade who has a cool image, than one we know will do the job really well, reliably, and on budget, and with good working spirit during the process. Although there are some exceptions, most of our projects span relatively long times of intense and sometimes potentially confrontational interaction -- just doing our work really well, with good spirit, creates an indelible brand in the minds of our customers, and it is simply a matter of building on the word-of-mouth dynamics to find new and repeat business. In other words, we don't really need to do much 'marketing' if we do our work well.

Still, it is nifty to belong to an exclusive, private group, The Triiibe.

(How to) dare to be different

This image is from an intriguing blog, http://www.rte50.com, which follows Planning Commissioners Journal editor Wayne Senville as he travels across the country. You may find niche ideas and perspectives by looking outside your home community.

A couple of blog entries previous, I posted a question from a recently established central Florida general contractor, in business four months, asking me how they could escape the crunch of price competition. Before composing my response, I visited the contractor's website -- a truly professional, well-thought document, graphically appealing, which expressed credibility and experience.

I yawned.

Not out of disrespect, but out of marketing sadness. They were another general contractor, not particularly new, not particularly different, and certainly capable of doing seemingly anything. They hadn't discovered the power of uniqueness, of the niche, of that 'something special' which sets the extraordinary from the ordinary, so I had to bring the bad news. Essentially, I said, bug your friends and family, and your previous clients from before -- they'll give you a try, and perhaps pay a little more than the others. Eventually, you'll be able to build your reputation and connections, and a satisfied client base, and you'll thrive with your repeat business and referrals. Then, there is little wrong with boring conventionality.

So how do you escape this trap from the start? Think fine tuning. Think narrow. Think niche. Then test your assumptions. Before you go off the deep end, see if anyone will buy what you have to sell (without investing piles of money or up front capital in the process). You won't have 100 per cent certainty when you start, but you'll be a whole lot better off than the person who says, "I can do anything -- just give me the chance."

Now, if you think I can suggest the specific niche you should start at in some ready-made checklist, you are engaging in wishful thinking. But I'll still push forward with some thoughts that will give you clues to answers which will work for your own business.

Geography

Can you be the "first of" within a distinctive geographical area?

The wider your focus, the narrower the geography. "We are the general contractor for Halfway, Oregon," might work if you truly are the first contractor there. (Some people with long memories will remember when Haflway turned its name to half.com for money and computers, as part of the late 90s dot.com era Internet marketing gimmick.) Think neighbourhood, community, ethnicity, or the like in defining your "first of".

Specialization

Can you be the "first of" within a specialty, say, for a tongue in cheek example, "We are the first water-free mechanical contractors?" You could be the first contractor who focuses in hypo-allergenic construction, "The peanut-free contractor".

Service uniqueness

Are your hours of service, payment terms, or procedures unique, and of special value to the people you are serving?

For example: "Our hours of business are on weekends and from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. overnight, only." (Marketing cleanups, commercial fit-ups, and the like.) Or "pay us anything but cash" -- and co-ordinate in advance a valuation scheme to convert the in-kind goods to cash or barter value elsewhere.

Affinity

Can you tie your marketing with a respected, recognized organization with influence, and link your business to theirs."We are the general contractors of . . . Church". (In this case, in exchange, you might agree to tithe a portion of your revenues or profits to the church building fund.)

Now, you think you have the right idea. How do you know if it will work in practice? You need to put your thoughts to the test. The more radical, the more creative and the more wacky the idea, the more likely you are to have incredible success -- or an incredible flop. I recommend you try a few things to validate your thoughts before diving in deeply. The challenge in testing your thoughts is to come up with some realistic way of seeing whether people will actually buy what you have to sell, before putting any money into the process. Be wary of people who say: "That's a great idea -- let me know when you are ready." After you spend a few million bucks setting up, you go back to the same people and they will often say, "Maybe, later.". . .

But there are ways you can test without burning your budget.

Has the idea worked elsewhere (in other similar communities?)

Talk to people int he communities, listen, and see first hand the idea in application. Is the demographic similar to yours. You might even find an affiliation with the business in the other community is possible and meet someone moving to or related to someone in your area. You can then test with these potential clients.

Can you get people to pay you a deposit or even the whole price up front for your idea. (You could offer a pre-payment discount)?

This is actually how I got started. I had the idea for a local publication, but didn't know if it would work. So I went around and sold enough advertising, and collected enough up-front cash, to publish the first issue. The printer and design house were surprised when I showed up with the certified checks for the prepayment of services at their end: They had been burned too many times by wanna-be publishers. I'm still in the business 20 years later.

If you can't get money, can you get a contract or written commitment from a few clients for the service?

This again proves seriousness.

Will big name or well-recognized local or market sector leaders support your idea; do they think it is good and worthy of their recommendations?

If they say 'yes', you have a shot.

Now, I'm not advocating in the testing phase shouting from the rooftop to announce your launch; but equally, I don't think you will get far if you are worried about secrecy to the point you think someone will steel your brilliant idea if you open your trap before you get started. Few will. But I wouldn't test unless I am ready to launch right away or in the near future. Procrastination will, indeed, invite competitors to set up in your space.

You will never be completely 'ready' but there is a time to get off the fence and jump in the water.

Note I am not advocating blindly rushing into things, but equally, you should appreciate you won't be able to firm up everything and enter the business with 100 per cent confidence of success. Somethings you can only learn by messing up, by making mistakes, and just getting started, so you've got to go forward.

There. That is my simple start-up advice. Think specialty, focus, uniqueness, and then test your assumptions shortly before launch. But don't be afraid to start up by breaking all these rules -- if you have lots of friends and connections who respect and know you, and will give you business to start. Then, indeed, boring and bland may be best. You don't need to rock the boat when it is full.

The Construction Marketing Blog

This string-man image from Moggs is the illustration for CMG's Construction Marketing Blog posting: Construction Advertising Artwork: When You Absolutely Need Cable You Can Trust"

The Construction Marketing Group in London, England, has started the Construction Marketing Blog. I suspect this is largely a search engine optimization move -- my blog had displaced CMG from its leading place on the search engine rankings under "construction marketing" keywords. As well, Construction Business Development, also in the U.K., has started its own blog.

Regardless, you'll find some useful material within the blog -- which clearly qualifies for a permalink under this blog's listing criteria, so I'm setting the link in place tonight.

Getting started

Construction at the University of Central Florida in Orlando appears to have a a bright future with rising enrollment, even in the current housing slump. This image is of the new recreational centre under construction. Trouble is, for local contractors seeking work, is that price competition is intense and brutal.

Here is another question received in response to: "What is your number one construction marketing concern?"

Q. We are a young company and have just really gotten started in the last four months (we’ve existed on paper for two years). Our focus is commercial construction, specifically retail construction in Central Florida. Our largest challenge is getting clients and jobs. The jobs we learn of are generally from reporting agencies like McGraw Hill, Construction Data, etc, so we always have a fair amount of competition when submitting a bid. It’s a rough in the hard bid world. Any ideas?

We’ve been trying to grow relationships with one on one office visits, lunches, and cold calls with prospective clients too. We’ve had some success with this approach, but we just can’t seem land jobs with such heavy price competition. How do we overcome this?

Clearly, when you are responding to public projects, openly advertised (and available to the commercial leads services), you are going to be facing intense price competition -- especially in a depressed market. The problem is that the only way around the price competition is either exceptional specialization or exceptional branding, or both -- and the branding I am talking about is reputational, not superficial.

You know you have achieved success when clients call you back for more, and/or refer colleagues to you. So the first place I would go looking for business is among people you really know and who truly respect you from previous projects, perhaps at your former employers (however of course you must not do this if you would violate contractural agreements or the like).

Another approach to consider is to define your niche -- you must be quite specific here -- and then look at ways you can focus your marketing message upstream within that niche. Say, you are confident you can build schools well -- you would want to join the relevant associations/chapters for your sector. The wider and bigger the sector/market, the less this approach will 'work' simply because your entrenched competitors are likely to already be there.

This gets into the Unique Selling Proposition concept of marketing. If you are not number one (or number two) in your segment, you are not going to command attention -- so, again, you will be among the crowd bidding work on price! If you really are first in the space, you can 'own' it. In business, an excessively narrow niche may not be viable to support your entire enterprise, but it may give you some power and identification and draw out useful business.

In other words, from a marketing perspective, if you cannot draw on your existing relationships/reputation, you will need to dare to be different, to be focused, and to specialize in a visibly unique area -- and then you can command higher prices, which will be augmented as your reputation grows. Remember, your unique area can be geographically defined, by sector or specialization, or by something else. It simply has to be unique and relevant to your business (and your potential clients' real interests and emotions.)

Selling insurance

This image is from the website http://www.1-toolbelt-10.com of Lanzo, Lutz & Associates, Inc. in Cheswick, PA.

Yesterday, in place of the regular email Construction Marketing Ideas newsletter, I invited readers to answer this question: What is your largest single construction marketing challenge. We received many responses, and I'm working today and tomorrow to send out individual emails which, in many cases, will of course also serve others through blog and newsletter entries.

Ted Lanzo, of Lanzo, Lutz, Insurance Brokers in Cheswick, PA, wrote:

I don’t know if this is what you are looking for, but being in the insurance business, it is difficult to reach construction people or should I say businesses to insure, given they don’t seem to follow the same patterns as the average person.

1) They don’t or rarely use email, reading is not a strong suit, they’re hands on
2) They seem more disorganized, estimated taxes many times go unpaid
3) They seem to lack good management skills or they don’t care as much about learning good management techniques to grow their business

Yet they need insurance to get on any job site, so how do we reach them. I was going to do a one page newsletter, with a business tip or tool tip.

We have a website http://www.1-toolbelt-10.com/ that is the same as our vanity phone number 1-Toolbelt-10.

Ted Lanzo

These are excellent questions

The thing I've noticed about most successful insurance brokers is that they thrive more on the relationships with existing clients than in the marketing to new clients; and that most successful insurance companies find a way to market so that they are at the centres of influence of their community. Newsletters, websites, and direct marketing/selling are an uphill grind. You need to get word of mouth and natural marketing in place. (Though I generally like your website, and e-letters and other resources are helpful in maintaining relationships or building them once your initial marketing position is established.)

So how do you achieve this level of connection? First, the obvious one -- see if you can provide an insurance program with your local construction associations. Remember there are many specialized groups and organizations. One successful insurance broker here, for example, couldn't connect with the local mixed construction association, but found a place within the local general contractors' association -- sponsoring, for a minor fee, their annual Integrity and Ethics Awards (and providing lots of face-to-face meeting time both with the association's board members and other participants.)

You can also build out from your existing client base. I notice you have testimonials. These are really helpful. You might wish to put these on a static web page, with links back to the testimonial-givers' own websites. Of course you can ask for referrals, but you might go a step further and sponsor/co-ordinate some kind of marketing party or event to help your existing clients attract new business (and of course invite the people who you think might also benefit from your services).

Finally, I've seen an increasing trend within construction associations and groups to have at least once a year hands-on parties and events; again, the direct connection and involvement with potential clients is probably more effective than printed materials and the like (though I can reassure you that really high end potential clients -- the ones that will provide you with the most business -- indeed are readers.)

In our years of business, where we publish features about construction businesses supported by their suppliers, we've found that we almost always can sell ads to the featured companies' insurance brokers. They aren't purchasing the ads because they believe the advertising will (directly) attract new business. They simply appreciate the best way to build the business is to maintain the connection and support existing clients with energy and respect -- and these informal relationships invite the behind-the-scene referrals and recommendations that are the real source of long term success in the insurance business.

Why best is much better than good (or better)

Cuil.com arrived on the scene to beat Google as a search engine with some really successful public relations hype. Alas, Cuil is not the best search engine. It isn't even that good. And therefore it will likely fail.

Yesterday morning, I read with some excitement that a new Internet search start-up, http://cuil.com/, would take on Google to beat the search engine giant with the depth and quality of its search. The new engine, started with several million dollars in funding, also started with quite a PR bang. But, alas, Cuil is not the best. It isn't even that good (or better). With just a little less than 100 per cent modesty, I tested it with something close to my heart, the keywords "construction marketing". Cuil couldn't find this blog. Google now usually puts it within the top three entries. So there.

Now, maybe my example is just a little personal, but with several billion dollars in capitalization and the well-known fact that Google has torn holes through its competition (which is anyone who earns significant amounts of money by selling advertising), I'm going to go way out on a tounge-in-cheek limb and say that Google has the best search engine. Because of that, and all the money the company makes, it is attracting the best software engineers, thinkers, designers, and, dare I suggest, office administrators, janitors, and maintenance mechanics. So "best" just keeps on getting better.

Eventually, the story may have a less-than-stellar conclusion. Top dogs eventually get knocked down to earth. Upstarts indeed are better (or best) in their niches, and eventually one will overcome Google --just as the Roman, Greek and British empires declined. But at their peaks truly successful businesses are truly formidable. Mess with them at your own risk. I wouldn't try (as a start-up).

So we come to the point of this blog. If you want to be really successful in business you have to be the best at what you are doing (or at least in contention, say the top 10 to 20 per cent). And you need to surround yourself with the best employees, suppliers and clients. If you accept mediocrity, you are doomed.

(OK, there are exceptions, as the owner of a third generation refrigeration contractor celebrating its 75th anniversary told me. "If the (refrigeration mechanic) has a ticket, we hire the guy -- even though his work may be mediocre and his personality sucks. The labor shortage is that severe in the trades. Of course we put the person on construction jobs, out of site of the public and customers, and keep a close eye on him. And if there is a downturn, he is the first to go.")

How do you find great employees, suppliers, and clients? It helps to have them in the first place, and to treat them with absolute fairness and respect (and that certainly doesn't mean propping up weak performers at the expense of the better employees -- you'll drive your business back down to mediocrity if you do that.)

Other suggestions:

Find your passion, and live it. At heart, I've always been and will as long as I live, be a journalist. I really enjoy digging out stories, learning, understanding, and seeking out the truth. I'm sure this helps our product quality, since we publish newspapers and websites where journalism is important.

Hire top performers. Fair pay is important, but isn't the whole thing. If you create an environment of opportunity, growth, and respect, you can still find great talent to work with you.

Work in less-than-crowded spaces. A couple of years ago, I set out to be the leading blogger on Construction Marketing. It helped, of course, that no one else at the time happened to be blogging on the topic.

This week, I took a break from the usual Construction Marketing Ideas newsletter and sent a brief note with this question: "What is your number one construction marketing concern?" Already several readers have responded -- and your responses will help me define future newsletters and blog postings. I'm also inviting comments and reports of experiences with Pubic/Private Partnerships for stories I'm writing in Canada and for The SMPS Marketer.

Rethinking the cold call

Are these guys wearing proper safety gear? The image is from the site mainstreetconnect.com, where Steven Cull offers a cold calling/lead development service from Chicago, Illinois. A similar service, focused primarily for the construction industry, is offered by Construction Business Development in the United Kingdom. Does it make sense to use an outside vendor to cold call on your behalf? I'm not sure -- if the callers achieve success and the cost per worthwhile lead is justified, these services may be of value for your business.

Perhaps the most overly abused, misunderstood, and ineffectively handled concepts in selling and marketing is the cold call. In our perception, the cold call is just that -- an intrusive 'invasion' of space from an uninvited person who knows nothing of our business and wants to bother a senior decision-maker to make a 'pitch' for something he or she doesn't really want or need.


OK, I know, no one in sales really thinks that way, but you would have to wonder when canvassers drop by the office (or in the residential environment, knock on the door, uninvited), or phone us at work or home, with their pre-programmed script and mindless selling blather.


I hate it.


But cold calling doesn't have to be that bad; in fact, it can truly take you to the heights of business and selling success -- if you think about things in a truly different light. That is, you really have something of immediate and practical relevance to he person you are calling; something that would legitimately get a 'wow, this is news and important to me' response.


Clearly, you aren't going to get that just by grabbing a business directory and calling every name on the list; or walking down the street, knocking on every door, or phoning everyone in the book. This type of cold calling is much more thoughtful, specific, and relevant.


My favorite example, which I've cited several times, is the cold call I made to a major organization back in 1998. I had been at a meeting where some key people we were seeking to do business with virtually threw me out of their office, and then said they wished the other organization would 'leave town' too. So I called 'the other organization', cold! I didn't know anyone there, had no previous relationship with the business, but certainly had some interesting news to share.


We met, and formed a business alliance that continues to this day. (I won't cite details in this blog because some stories, no matter how interesting, cannot be shared in public.)


So, say you have a new technology, building material, resource, or idea. Clearly the best way to approach things is through relationships and referrals, but you might be in a position to actually know something immediately relevant to the business you are calling, because you know your market, the business, and its competition. Call them -- and share your observations. You'll connect.


A point to make here is the misleading 'sales training' line that selling is a 'numbers game'. In this thesis, the more people you call (bother!) the more you sell. So you call and call, and hope things will stick.


In some industries/sectors this argument might work well -- if you really know your stuff. A few weeks ago, a sophisticated and I believe successful investment advisor phoned me, cold. He left a message. I courteously returned the call (which I will do whenever I'm not overwhelmingly busy) and explained that my wife makes all the investment decisions in our family, she does her own thing, and, no, I am not introducing him to her. Then I asked him about his success rate with the cold calls.


He says he disciplines himself to do the calling for an hour a day, three days a week. He says he can calculate over time how many leads he calls convert to business, and it is worthwhile. And it may well work like that, if your market is wide enough, your offering is relevant enough, and you have the confidence and maturity of someone who has achieved success in your business -- this comes over really quickly on the phone, I can assure you.


(However, I am becoming immune to investment advisers and others who use lead generators -- cold calling telemarketers -- to set the stage for their own work. They are passing the buck to someone else, and it is not just annoying, it is irritating to me.)


I would argue that you will get much better results, overall, if you research your proposition, and if you are going to cold call, either have something directly and immediately (and almost exclusively) relevant to the person you are calling,and/or an offer/proposal that is so good that it is foolish to ignore.


If you are, instead, going to play the "numbers game" remember, you have to have enough numbers to play with in the first place, or you'll burn through all your leads and be left with very little to show for your wasted effort.

The Readers' Choice Award -- a special blog

The Readers Choice Awards recognize the most-respected construction related businesses in Ontario. We've set up a blog to highlight these awards; you may find you can use the blog as a marketing resource for other special initiatives in your own business.

We've been experimenting and expanding the marketing applications of blogging technology. See the new Ontario Readers' Choice Awards blog, reporting on the special annual initiative where we invite our readers to select the best businesses and individuals in key industry-related disciplines.

Of course, you can learn about the Readers' Choice Awards in our printed publications, and we send out faxes and e-letters, as well as invoice stuffers and direct mail pieces. But the blog has special advantages and capacities.

• It is easy to maintain and update
  
• It doesn't cost anything to operate (and takes very little time to develop/maintain)
  
• It extends the scope of awareness of the awards program.
  
• The process of setting up and including content in the blog took just an hour or two. In our case, with an existing Google Blogger account, we simply created the new blog under the original account and uploaded using built in resources the necessary logos and content.

Can you use the same technology/resources to develop materials for specific projects or initiatives in your own business? I think so. And if you do, please let me know -- we may be able to provide you some additional free publicity at this blog!

About PPPs and Infrastructure Ontario

We're writing articles for the August and September issues of Ontario Construction Report about Infrastructure Ontario and Public/Private Partnerships. This material will set the stage for another article I will write later in the year for The SMPS Marketer about the opportunities and challenges about the PPP business model across Canada and the U.S.

I've surveyed our Ontario readers for comments -- if you are out of Ontario and wish to comment as well, feel free -- your observations will be saved for the upcoming SMPS article.

Some thoughts about blogging

Chase's Chase Marketing and Bob Kruhm's North Carolina Construction News blogs are their own responsibility -- but are easy to set up and maintain through the blogger.com system.

Bob Kruhm, associate publisher of Charlotte Construction News and Triad/Triangle Construction News, has started his own blog North Carolina Construction news at Northcarolinaconstructionnews.blogspot.com. He is the third person closely connected to our business to blog. Chase, in St. Catharines, On, has been publishing Chase Marketing, for several months. And of course you are reading this blog.

Without much experience or technical knowledge in blogging, Bob asked me for assistance last week in setting up his blog. Initially, I sighed. The last thing I want to do is to oversee and co-ordinate individual postings from everyone in this organization. Then I discovered some of the magical capacities of the Google-owned Blogger.com system. With it, you can set up multiple blogs, and then assign different people and posting rights for each blog.

While Chase operates his own blogger.com account, we decided at our regular weekly staff meeting that a special blog for the Readers Choice' Awards (in Ontario) would be helpful. So I set up a blog title for that initiative -- but here, the challenge is the maintaining and updating of this blog requires more capacity than simply posting blog entries. So I discovered I could also control 'administrative rights' that give me the option to give additional powers in layout, design, and co-ordination -- and I granted these to Chase for the new blog, which is still under construction.

These resources are intriguing and useful for businesses such as ours which encourage a high degree of individual responsibility and thinking among employees and contractors. By opening and overseeing the blogs centrally, you can maintain a good sense of what is going on while allowing enough freedom and independence for your team to express their own thoughts. I haven't worried about the suffix .blogger.com for branding -- while Google's system allows you to restructure things and host your blog on your own domain, the branding significance of the .blogger.com designation is minor, at least in our industry.

As for Bob and Chase's own blogs, they express their own thoughts, imagination, and perspectives -- I neither edit, nor even suggest, what they write about.

Marketing success -- the essense

Steve Yastrow's books are worth reading. You will also find value in his blog at http://yastrow.com/index.php

Great marketing, in my opinion, starts with great employees delivering the product or service that clients are amazed and entertained as they do business with us. Your marketing resonates when, as Steve Yastrow advocates, employees and clients are in harmony, with each other and the larger community. When this connection is complete, you have the magical strength of exceeded expectations and solid word-of-mouth referrals. Then you can extend your reach with various forms of publicity and sometimes advertising, and see your results skyrocket.

So how do you do this in practice? Here, things get a little tricky, because neither clients nor employees (nor the larger community) are seeking textbook perfection. If you run your business with such a tight ship that employees are systematically forced or coerced into doing the 'right thing' you'll defeat yourself -- people can see really quickly through plastic 'friendliness' and insincere remarks like the famous "Have a nice day!"

And, in any case, the so-called 'wow' factor might be just a little over the top at a typical architectural, engineering or construction office. I mean, you want your calls returned properly and problems fixed or resolved with courtesy and respect,but you aren't expecting a dancing choir of "customer service" every time you send in a proposal for a quotation or invite response through an RFP. You certainly want competence, job site respect, cleanliness, and -- most importantly -- just the right amount of sensitive imagination where you discover you can save a little money or you know in advance that some expensive change-orders may be required, and you can see the general and sub trades are working together in a co-operative approach with the design consultants to minimize their costs or stresses.

The point is all of these things happen sometimes subtly, almost in the background, and when you have it right, your clients almost take them for granted, just confident that you are delivering the goods and that you aren't taking advantage of them. They call you back, then, and are willing to serve as positive references, and your insurance broker and bonding company representative hear this stuff in the background, and they learn you pay your bills and fix problems promptly, so your bonding limits are increased and you can grow, and win more and better projects.

I'll share some examples of how these pieces fit together; they in themselves may seem disjointed but when I'm done you'll get the idea.

• In Florida, in Absolute Aluminum's supplier-paid magazine, the company includes a page of head shots of its employees who have served in the military, coupled with a brief patriotic thank you message. While I suspect this message would not go over well in parts of Vermont, it is probably perfect in Venice, where many military families live. The employees feel recognized as special, they receive connection and respect from their fellow residents, including the families of military service personnel on active duty. In Venice, would you feel good about doing business with Absolute Aluminum for your sidings, gutters, or pool enclosures (especially since the entire service process is entirely satisfactory)? You bet.

  
  

• In Thunder Bay, Ontario, Finn Way General Contractor Inc. puts together the most comprehensive and well designed responses to RFP documentation I've ever seen. Through tabbed links, all the essential requests and documentation requirements within the RFP are addressed (you can't skimp on the mandatory requirements) but Finn Way goes a step further, with detailed employee descriptions, colour project photos, and piles of testimonial letters carefully selected to reflect the project they are quoting. Virtually every RFP they answer is followed with an invitation to bid -- and of course Finn Way uses common sense and only submits the RFPs where it thinks it has a reasonable chance of success.

• Finally, a story from our own business. Through an association event, we discovered a fascinating and important project under construction -- and the key decision-makers were in the meeting. We arranged the feature; but unfortunately one of our employees made a serious error --linked to a sudden deterioration in performance. We addressed the employee problem quickly (he left quickly, on good terms, and is now doing work he really enjoys) and the client, initially disturbed, has become an enthusiastic supporter of our business.

Note that just doing fancy RFPs putting veteran's pictures in your marketing materials, or having fast-acting human resources policies will create the marketing chemistry I'm describing here. But I sense the companies which get it right all share in common:

• Really solid hiring and human resources policies; encouraging the kind of employees with initiative, respect, and community-centredness to apply and stay with the company.
  
• Consistent and cohesive marketing materials that connect the competence of their employees to their communities and markets;
  
• The ability to resolve problems quickly, best at the front-line employee level, but if anything goes wrong there, with a management that can quickly see and correct the difficulties when they arise.

Note that great marketing, indeed, need not be expensive. Marketing materials can often be supported through supplier co-op funding (and if you get it right, the suppliers who are contributing to your marketing budget also gain from the process -- I can assure readers here that anyone who buys an ad to support their client's advertising feature in one of our publications will be treated with respect and offered free services and resources far in excess of the cost of the advertising.)

You, too, can find your harmony -- and enjoy the success that is possible with great marketing effectiveness.

A truly great day

This image from the page "How to Change the Corporate Culture" at http://www.beyondlean.com is on a site dedicated to lean manufacturing, which may have different requirements than most AEC businesses. But the observations are still useful.

Some days in business, things work just the way they should. And, as I prepare to turn the computer off tonight, I sense that dynamic in our organization and truly am grateful. Tim Klabunde, in an excellent posting in his CofeBuz blog, describes Four Steps to Changing Corporate Culture. His approach is much better than what I went through as this business contracted through three painful years of decline and dissension -- and hit bottom in November 2006, about eight months after we began implementing the necessary cultural changes with the guidance of consultant Bill Caswell.

The reason I'm really happy today is the amazing idea generation and initiative shown by our employees, along with co-operation, sharing, and respect. Best of all, new people want to join the business and are ready to go through our rather stringent pre-hiring procedures to qualify to join the team. All of this, of course, is translating to respect for our clients and this is creating the marketer's dream -- repeat inquiries and business.

I realize now that a great business needs some key structures and controls, but the biggest thing you can give employees is freedom. Therefore, in our case, the most important operating system is our hiring policies. The employees who join this organization must have the ability to thrive in an environment of limited supervision -- and that includes respecting and working well with each other. (This is why it is so important for prospective employees to work with us long enough for the current employees to decide and 'vote' on whether the potential employee fits in.)
I've noted several times in this blog -- and cannot understate it -- that your employees are your marketing department. Yes, in some cases, especially where there is a skills shortage, you may have to hire less-than-perfect people to get the job done. In these cases, you need to find a way to keep these employees away from your clients! But I would argue your business will be stronger in the long run if you slow down your hiring, and only accept people who really are great at what they do, and great at working with each other.

I can't share all the good news today -- no one in their right mind broadcasts every internal business development in a public blog! But I'm truly impressed with the quality of the emerging corporate culture.

Video meeting test a success

Today, for the first time, we built in a video feed from justin.tv for our internal staff meeting. Far flung employees and contractors could see me live -- and reported that they enjoyed the visual impressions as the meeting progressed. There is no charge for the service.

At today's internal sales meeting, just as we were about to start, I decided to test whether we could use the live broadcast feed capacities of justin.tv effectively. I emailed the meeting participants (including some guests), and within minutes they could visit our video portal site at http://www.justin.tv/publisher1 and watch me. No, the video production qualities were limited -- and this is obviously not a fully functioning video conferencing approach as you can only view one person, one way. And if you are concerned about security and privacy, the format doesn't work as well -- anyone can view, and in fact, we had one outside guest who noted on the instant messaging screen attached to the system that the meeting was utterly boring (it should have been, because it really was an internal business meeting.)

Nevertheless, I found the resource useful, easy to operate, and rather simple to use in part because my laptop has a built in camera and it 'knows' when to turn itself on for the video feed.

I will use this technology at our other internal meetings, with several employees and contractors at remote locations. Except in exceptional circumstances where sensitive matters are discussed, there is no reason for the meetings to be 'private' so you are invited to view for yourself. If you wish, tune in at 1:30 p.m. on Monday for the next show!

Wisdom: The challenge of choosing a great consultant

Should your business hire a consultant (or consultants), and if so, how do you decide whether you need one, and if you do, who is the right person for the responsibilities?

The answer is you most likely will achieve some incredible value from consultants -- if you choose the right one.

Great consultants bring wisdom, practically framed, to your business. They've "been there, done that" and -- if they've earned their stripes through enough years and grey hairs -- seen enough business cycle ups and downs to be able to read the tea-leaves of the current environment accurately. (Conversely, however, a very youthful consultant may be the best person to hire if you wish to connect with technology, new media, or youth markets.)

The problem you have in selecting a consultant, however, is that the best marketers of consulting services are often NOT the best consultants. The bonafide success and fame of the widely known experts means, if you can get any of their time, it will be very expensive, or distilled through underlings who may have been trained in their systems, but don't have consultants' own magic leadership abilities and insights.

Similarly large consulting organizations -- and many freelance consultants -- will trot out tried and true (but boring) business planning and procedure methodologies, almost as if they are lifted from the textbooks. In part they are right -- the basics are the same, regardless of who you use or pay; you'll probably be educated in a planning/systems process, SWOT analysis, and the like, and these templates apply for everyone.

Word-of-mouth referrals, of course can be excellent sources of insight into the quality of consulting services, especially if these relationships are built through your relevant trade organizations and groups (where smart consultants make a business of networking effectively). The advantage here is that the consultants you use really understand your specific business -- and, yes, there are differences between a residential roofing contractor and a multi-city architectural practice!

You can of course elect to contract with a general business consultant, or hire specialists for specific responsibilities/problems, or use both approaches. A good generalist consultant (with knowledge and understanding of your specific business sector) will be the best, in my opinion. You could supplement the consultant's resources with other services.

How much should you pay? Here things get a little interesting, because I think you can 'pick the brains' for about 60 to 80 per cent of the consultant's real value for free! Most good consultants offer free seminars, inexpensive books, and other resources which distill their thoughts and approaches to business in an easy-to-understand format, and they are usually available for some basic free phone or email consultation. It is simply good business for them to provide these services -- they know that they may impress you, and build enough of a relationship with you, that you will contract with them. (Incidentally, this is how i would work with the big name or famous consultants, people like Michael Gerber or Jeffrey Gitomer: Buy some of their books, perhaps, read the free stuff on their websites or e-letters, but don't rush to spend thousands of dollars for their more complex and expensive programs. You will be far out of their league, I expect, to get really powerful direct and immediately relevant insights for your particular business from them.)

Finally, remember that even the best consultants are not always right, all the time. Be willing to trust, and accept the advice, of consultants you respect, but bring your own thinking into the process; listen, respond, consider, and reflect, then act.

(A personal plug: Could I be a qualified construction marketing consultant? No one has paid me for the service yet -- so maybe it is a little premature. Then again, I'd be happy to work on the condition that you pay only if you are satisfied that you receive real value. You can reach me by email at buckshon@cnrgp.com.)

Making professional staff accountable

Bill Caswell leads a seminar on Making Professional Staff Accountable. The result, for me, are insights in how to measure our employees' success in client relations and marketing.

Yesterday, in the midst of the challenges and chaos of multi-tasking as our business grows, I took three hours for a program by Bill Caswell, "Making Professional Staff Accountable". I thought the topic would be peripheral to our business -- but relevant for this blog; especially for mangers at architectural and engineering offices, responsible for supervising talented professional employees.
Indeed, many of the people in the room with me live in different spaces -- including managers at law offices, and government crown corporations. But Caswell addressed some of the major issues I've been struggling with in building out your business plan: How do you ensure your team achieves the highest level of performance, and how do you measure this effectively?
Underlying these observations (and explaining the relevance to this blog) is the fact that perhaps 80 per cent of marketing success within the construction industry is defined by the quality of your actual work product and, in creating that product, the quality of your employees and their relationships with each other and your clients.
To summarize a simple non-mathematical equation:

Great employees + great work quality + great relationships = great marketing.

(The equation of course is NOT mathematical because the employees, quality, and relationships all build on each other; that is, they attract each other so the actual numbers on the left side of the equation will multiply rather than simply add to marketing effectiveness if all is working the way it should).

Caswell advocates establishing for each job some very simple and easily measurable performance indicators; no more than three, which can be assessed quickly and simply. The assessment of these indicators should also be simple, with only three choices: Exceeding expectations, Meeting Expectations, or Not Meeting Expectations (which can be translated to a traffic signal, with Green, Orange and Red indicators).

In defining these expectations, Caswell emphasises, "Only items over which the employee has control should be measured". This is vital -- you can't impose stuff on your employees without giving them the power to decide, to act, and be in control of their responsibilities, if you wish them to be properly accountable. In defining expectations, obviously the priority should be on the client interests -- that is, the person/group to which the employee reports (or, in the context of this blog, the interactions of the employees/business with your clients). Again, Caswell uses some common sense -- he advocates you focus on the most important 80 per cent of the job responsibilities in developing these measurement tools; you can spend much time worrying about the 20 per cent remaining, but it doesn't really matter in the scheme of things.

The expectations with a feedback loop from the clients then are incorporated into the quarterly employee evaluation. This evaluation, Caswell notes, should not be tied to compensation -- that should be assessed separately. (This is wise, of course, because evaluation systems quickly can be 'gamed' when money is involved!)

Some of my colleagues in the room enjoyed the theory, but pointed out problems. The concepts might be nice in theory, but how do you implement them in a unionized work force, or within a government bureaucracy, where individual managers really don't have the authority or control to implement these processes. Caswell acknowledged these limitations, but added that people can make changes within their own scope of responsibility, and when they do, the larger organization often takes positive notice.

Of course, since I own the business, I don't have these constraints, and in general I like the approach. I'll summarize my take-aways (though if you investigate this stuff you may find other things of value):

• Many measuring systems are quite complex, with gradations and multiple scoring. The "three choice" model, essentially: Less than satisfactory, satisfactory, and more than satisfactory, is appealing because it is simple -- it won't be hard for someone to give a simple check-box on a report sheet -- and lends itself to really easy to follow graphical dashboard images (the traffic signal).
• The suggestion that not more than three things be measured for each employee, and you only measure the top 80 per cent of relevant performance elements, again, keeps the process simple and easy to follow. This also means it is much easier to act/resolve and fix problems.
• Finally, and most importantly to me, I can see how this measurement system can link the employee performance to our marketing assessment.

If we have a very simple measure of client satisfaction, we can tell if our employees interacting with the clients are getting it right. Of course, this process is not exactly the one described by Fred Reichheld (Net Promotor Score) and you will notice earlier postings in this blog questioning traditional intrusive client satisfaction surveys. My sense, however, is that we won't impose on clients and can get some very good feedback (maybe 80 per cent of what we are seeking) with the truly simple three-choice satisfaction question, allowing room for comments.
I will test the concept in the next couple of weeks and see if we indeed have the means to gather meaningful, and quick, assessments of client/employee quality and satisfaction.

Growing pains

I'm happy to have this problem, but I'm swamped. With two, in fact virtually three, unfilled positions here, for the last couple of weeks I've been 'filling in' on different jobs while overseeing the hiring process and doing my best to keep a forward thinking management perspective about the business (see next post).
Of course there are some advantages/efficiencies in doing everything. Yes, I can meet a client, handle the sales process, and gather the information needed to write the story, all at one efficient call. And the cross-fertilization of ideas and insights keeps me grounded and connected to the business.
But the biggest lesson today is a reminder how how much work I ask our employees to do in their day-to-day responsibilities. This is helpful because, when you get good at delegating, you also can get good at dumping -- just sending the workload, stress, and pressure downwards without allocating or allowing enough resources for the people who actually have to do the work. (Of course the converse applies; although I would never expect anyone to consistently work with the intensity I'm experiencing now, I know we can often do a lot more than we expect, if we are organized and ready for the challenges.)

No points for originality

Ford Harding's blog posting: No Extra Points for Originality in Rain Making is worth bookmarking because it concisely summarizes or links to some of the simplest and most effective prospecting methodologies for rainmakers -- and provides simple shortcuts to make the process easier.

The 'tipping point' in choosing employees

Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Wink, has a new book in the works where he debunks many of the assumptions of hiring and recruiting key employees. The speech cited here provides some useful insights and clues that may change your thoughts about your employee selection process.

Guru Malcolm Gladwell, in a rather fascinating speech, outlines an observation that the practices used for selecting key employees in most organizations are badly flawed. His best example, the NHL Hockey "Combine" -- the workout session just before the entry draft, where potential NHL players are put through a series of tests and evaluations, to allow scouts some 'objectivity' in determining who plays where. Trouble is, says Gladwell, that success in the tests at this pre-draft event have no correlation to success as a player.

Worse, he says, a similar process used for the National Football League in the U.S. includes an intelligence test. You might think, he said, that you would need to be at least moderately intelligent to play well at the NFL level -- after all, the game at this level requires strategizing, complex player move analysis, and the like. Guess what, he says, the people who scored "dumbest" on the intelligence test actually are the true stars on the field. (This leaves me with some intriguing thoughts about whether certain stereotypes about football players are indeed true.)

Ok, does this translate to the professions and the like? Well, he says, conventional 'metrics' used to assess teachers' performance seem to lack correlation with real ability; ditto for lawyers and police officers. The problem is that the testing criteria try to ascertain certainty to something that isn't so easy to measure -- the best meaningful measure is, indeed, performance on the job.

In other words, I would speculate, if you want to find great teachers, set up situations where anyone can 'teach' and then evaluate their performance at the work, and if they are good, give them some teacher training.

This gives me reassurance that our model for employee selection is indeed on track. We ask prospective employees to do stuff -- initially, answer a questionnaire, then, if they make it through the screen, to actually work with us on a brief trial, before hiring them. Resumes, interviews, and tests have places in the hiring system, of course, but they are not the key issues. "Can you really do the job?" we ask, and seek to learn before hiring anyone.

The video is quite lengthy but worthy viewing.

McGraw Hill to bid for Reed Elsevier? (2)

Here is a further news item on the suggestion that McGraw-Hill might be interested in Reed Elsevier. This Washington Post article notes that they originally believed McGraw-Hill had interest in Reed's construction titles, but the scope of interest may have widened.

In my heart, I'm not sure of the validity of this story, because as far as I know, McGraw-Hill had been following on roughly the same track as Reed in believing that the future does not lie in conventional print/advertising based publications. Sure, I understand, McGraw-Hill had no plans to ditch its existing titles, including regional construction magazines, Engineering News-Record and Architectural Record, among other. But McGraw-Hill didn't want to acquire or develop significant new print titles, regardless.

Reed may be following the lead of Thomson Reuters which had the foresight to get out of print media several years ago, focusing on value added databases and electronic services. The question is, if you are a leading player in a field you know is about to rapidly decline, do you get out or do you hold on? Your existing properties can still be 'cash cows' if you slash costs, cut resources, and adapt the brands, but you have the messy business of laying off employees, and shrinking your operations to adapt to the changing environment. So, it seems logical that you would try to find a buyer who can see value in the underlying assets, who is not afraid to be ruthless to turn them into profitable operations. Again, it doesn't make sense to me that McGraw-Hill would want to play that role.

So who is spreading these rumors, and why? The answer could relate to 'inside' employee tips and reactions with self-preservation in mind; or it might simply be that indeed McGraw-Hill is kicking some tires -- heck if your largest competitor is ready to open its books for review, would you not want to take a peek at them?

At ground level, I see these developments as natural and inevitable trends as the publishing/media industry continues to experience seismic shifts under the combined pressure of media convergence, the increasing value-focused emphasis on Internet advertising, and the breakdown of traditional models/priorities within conventional media. If you are a consumer of construction news and information, or purchase advertising to serve the industry, you need not worry -- you'll find you will continue to get more for less: with (perhaps temporary) exceptions where local or specialized circumstances exist -- which is why the large media players within the industry are changing to find new avenues for their businesses.

The perfect close

Some really simple, and really useful, advice on "How to Close the Deal — Perfectly" here in this posting on Geoffrey James Sales Machine blog on BNet.

McGraw Hill to bid for Reed Elsevier?

This article, McGraw Hill plots bid for Reed Elsevier, in The Telegraph from London, England, is intriguing. For those unfamiliar with the competitive landscape in construction industry advertising and publishing, the story is could be compared to Coke preparing to bid to buy out Pepsi -- with Pepsi arranging the financing to make sure the deal goes through! (Or, since I'm not sure whether Coke or Pepsi are number one or number two in the marketplace, Pepsi offering to purchase Coke.)

Presumably the lawyers involved are aware of regional competition/anti-trust legislation for the world-wide publishing giants within the construction industry. Both businesses have a significant -- in fact -- leading presence within both the print and online markets; reading between the lines, Reed Elsevier wants 'out' of advertising-dependent businesses. Maybe Reed Elsevier sees the writing on the wall here and sense that relying on advertising revenue is not the way to go, possibly because of the power of online pay-per-click media like Google and other niche alternatives. I'm also intrigued because my understanding is that McGraw Hill has for several years decided to focus its new venture resources away from print media, recognizing the future is in online services. (In Canada, McGraw Hill has aligned itself with Merx, this country's leading online portal for online bidding/tender and business development opportunities.)

What will this news mean for you? If you are a consumer of either McGraw Hill or Reed's leads services or their publications, (that is you are an advertiser, rather than a free reader!), you conceivably will expect one of the the competing titles/services to merge/disappear within another. Alternatively, another bidder (unknown in this article) might appear and continue the competition.

We'll watch this story closely.

Resumes, tests, interviews, references, and hiring

Increasingly, I'm a firm believer in the importance of systematic and rational approaches to hiring. Brad Smart's approach to Topgrading holds real resonance here -- by focusing our efforts to hire people within the top 10 per cent of ability and commitment, we are much more likely to be a successful business than if we just hire 'okay' people to fill vacant positions.

In one of his papers, Smart reiterates his opinion that "Most Personality Tests are Shams" and answers the objections of his recommendation for lengthy, tandem, interviews, that "Topgrading Interviews Take Too Much Time".

Smart and I agree that the quick and conventional interview provide far too much opportunity for 'faking' and dressing up your personality/competence for the work. I am not sure about whether tests are absolutely useless, however. Since the test we use for sales employees is relatively inexpensive, (http://www.salestestonline.com/) I wanted to see how much results would change if a candidate retook the test shortly after the original testing.

In the first case, the prospective candidate scored modestly well, but below our arbitrary thresholds. Without my consent or permission -- but without knowing the test costs about $35 to administer -- he went ahead and retook the test himself, and passed. In the second situation, a candidate for a writers' job phoned me this week to see if we were going to give her application further consideration. As we are in the final stages of evaluating candidates for this work, I said that we wouldn't take it further, but then engaged with her the idea of testing for the sales job. (Our sales positions are highly compatible with writing skills, and anyone who is looking for a writing job willing to 'sell' herself on it, might be an ideal candidate for our business.

In any case, she quickly took the test, but the test's validity algorithms kicked in, and the test results came out inconclusive, with the observation that she might be undergoing exceptional stress.

I invited her to explain; and said she could take the test again; but this time, answer as she really is, not as she wants to appear. This time around, her results scored truly low. (But she emailed me later in the day to say she had just been awarded a satisfying career and she had noticed she was receiving several offers out of the blue-- suggesting to me that her job-finding radar in fact was in high gear.)

These results might scare a validity expert -- how can one obtain very different results from the same test within days? Does this degrade the test's utility in the hiring process? To use a very bad pun, I think Smart (or anyone else) would be dumb to use this type of test as a key or final determining resource about who to hire. We simply put it in the middle of our screening process for public candidates, and as a first stage 'review' for people we have some interest in, but wish to evaluate quickly before going further. (These can include referred candidates, call-ins, and the like.)

In one case, for example, a very long-standing employee from our major competitor called us with tales of woe at his organization. He wanted to work with us. The conventional "do you understand the job" screening process is obviously unnecessary here (the competitor uses many of the same business models and practices as us -- in fact, the competitor's company founder is one of my former employees). My phone interview with this person took some interesting turns, as I gathered competitive intelligence, validated observations, and tried to figure out what to do if we hired the person -- who would come from a totally different culture. Not sure about what to do, we administered the test, and he scored less than the hiring threshold. I now had a third-party justification to not hire him.

In the second instance, the marketing representative at one of our major clients referred a relative. You really can't brush off someone like this -- so, after we followed the preliminary steps, we offered the online test. The candidate fared poorly. We could extricate ourselves from the awkwardness of not hiring the relative of a major client by sending our good client the test results.

Finally, the test is really useful and powerful in motivating potential candidates who do well to move forward to the final stages -- the working evaluation.

But what about interviews? Short and sweet phone interviews have value, I agree, in narrowing things down, but I wouldn't ever want to make a final hiring decision based primarily on an interview. You can miscue and misunderstand potential far too easily. But I agree with Smart's critics that complex and lengthy interviews are a pain for everyone -- both for the managers and colleagues doing the interviewing, and the job-seekers themselves.

Our solution, one that I think is practiced by just a few businesses, is to forget the full-scale interview cycle, and invite candidates to do some paid work for us.

We're going through that process with candidates for the editor right now. Our normal approach is to offer a freelance assignment to people who send in interesting writing samples and hire the best of the lot -- but this time around I took things a step further. I divided our editorial salary budget up, and offered one month freelance contracts to the two finalists. We can really see who works best, both in objective talent, and in ability to work with the team. And everyone is treated fairly -- the 'loser' still gets a decent cheque for the writing work.

In our system, frankly, up to now, the weak spot has been the reference checking process. Candidates who have fared well through all the tests and evaluations are truly tempting to hire without 'bothering' with the reference evaluations, but I now can see that I could have avoided virtually all of our mis-hires with proper reference checking. (Notably the mishires weren't that bad, objectively; while they worked with us they worked quite effectively -- and left without too much of a fuss when their problems became apparent.) We do our best to get around reference problems now by really focusing in the pre-screening that reference checking will happen at the final stages; this helps to cut some of the candidates who dress things up, but we need to have more discipline in the reference evaluations.

Why is this stuff so important to your business and marketing? Consider the cost to your company of bad employees; ones who don't get along with each other and the clients on an interpersonal level or who are simply incompetent or lazy at work. If you are a client, either current or potential, do you really like doing business with organizations full of second-rate people? If you are building a truly effective marketing plan, you really need to focus on finding really good employees.

In conclusion:

Hire carefully. Use a pre-screening questionnaire before even really looking at resumes;

• Use personality/sales tests carefully -- these should never be your final tool but I believe they can be effective in screening or evaluating 'special' candidates, or as part of a systematic hiring process.


• If possible, create a realistic (paid) working assignment in place of multiple interviews. You won't be frustrated with lengthy and tedious interviews, and your employee candidate will be happy to go through the process.


• Don't skimp or avoid reference checking. Even organizations that have a policy for legal reasons not to provide references will always give a positive reference to a truly good former employee. You need to ask, or have the employee set up the call for you, however.

Looking beyond the obvious

Our business is highly decentralized and most of our employees, including myself, work primarily from our homes. But we have a real office and one employee there, Amanda Arthurs, who is expected to arrive at 8 a.m. and leave at 4 p.m. She oversees the office, answers the phone, moves the paper, and generally keeps everything in order.
When I am in town, I will visit the office for an hour or two each day; sometimes, when circumstances warrent, I'll spend longer there. And when Amanda is away, I'll sit in her desk, fielding the calls and doing a not-terribly-good job of administering things.
(These strategies are appropriate at our business size. Amanda and I both agree that as we grow we will add administrative employees -- in fact, a few years ago before reaching the bottom/turnaround point marked by the beginning of this blog. we had three people working in the office at administrative duties.)
So, yesterday, in the office, Amanda happened to be on the phone when the other line rang. I picked up the call. The person calling wanted to make sure we had a paid subscription renewal in hand. I asked for the information necessary to verify the renewal, then asked a question: "I know this is a little presumptuous, but would your business like to be featured in our publication." This afternoon, I received a call and an answer: "Yes". It is too early to measure the economic impact of this call, but I expect we'll see revenues of between $5,000 and $10,.000 from it.
So, what is the company president doing answering routine clerical calls? . . . Yes, you guessed it, there is serious business to be done when you get down to earth, in connection with your clients, and away from the ivory tower of the so-called executive suite. (Of course, we are also changing policy because of this discovery -- all subscription renewal inquiries will now be forwarded to our advertising sales team for follow up!)
If you are the boss, the owner, the 'big shot', I can tell you right now there is nothing wrong for you to spend some time riding in your company's delivery trucks, or helping your tradespeople on the job. And you will really gain some awareness by sitting for a while at the receptionist's desk, fielding the routine inbound calls. You will also of course win the respect of your employees.
If you are the boss, keep in touch with the real world by doing some real jobs, not just boss things. You'll be much more connected to your business -- and your markets -- and you'll be surprised by the insights you gain.

Effective alliances -- the marketing power of co-operation

This image is from the absolutealuminum.com website in Venice, Florida. You'll see many clues within the website about this company's effective marketing approaches -- but there are even more ideas in its quarterly magazine.

I have rarely seen such effective (and economically inexpensive) residential construction marketing as the work of Glen Kohlenberg at Absolute Aluminum in Venice, Florida. Glen, who goes under the name "Carport King" within the contractortalk.com forums, has put together an alliance of non-competing businesses and, together, with supplier-support for advertising and production costs, they publish a quarterly magazine, "Home Improvement Time" and mail it to thousands of qualified readers within Absolute Aluminum's market area.

In reviewing the sample magazine (and collateral marketing materials) Glen sent to me, I recall this impressive posting within Contractortalk.com that drew this initiative to my attention.

When you receive it notice all the supplier logos on their products. They came to us wanting to feature their products in our magazine. We figured why not because we use their products anyway.

This paid for the last est summer edition in full. We had no out of pocket expenses. This is why co-branding works and then when you add the marketing alliance with other business in your area to sell other products that you are talking about here everyone wins.

In another posting, Glen says his company distributes 260,000 copies of this magazine at an average cost of 60 cents per copy -- representing an overall budget well above $100,000. But note that Absolute Aluminum, definitely the dominant presence within the publication, doesn't pay a cent of its own money -- and everyone is happy with the highly measurable results.

Ok, this model won't work for a small start-up. You need to have real influence with your suppliers -- it helps to purchase several million dollars worth of materials each year. But variations of it will work for most businesses, regardless of size. You just have to figure out where your market is, and where your alliances are. If you are a larger business, Glen's approach is simply brilliant and probably worth writing him a check for some consulting time.

In fact, as publishers, this co-operative marketing is the basis of our own business. We strategically integrate the marketing objectives of our clients, encouraging supply-chain co-operation to fund powerful publicity for featured companies, while respecting and supporting the suppliers who pay the bills.

(This blog, in fact, has its roots in our initiative to serve our clients, regardless of size, with the highest quality marketing advice and suggestions we can provide. It has now thankfully grown a little beyond its original local focus. We, like Glen's business, appreciate that the essence of marketing success lies within the way we treat our clients -- and initiatives such as the Absolute Aluminum's quarterly magazine are successful because they build upon the underlyin effectiveness and client focus.)

The more things change . . .

Some time ago, I posted this article on scribed.com. Plenty of people there say they like it. What do you think?

Ten basic business principals: The more things change, the more they stay the same

One thing I've had the good fortune to learn as my hairs grey is that some basic principals apply through time and that when you think something is wrong somewhere, you should review the basics before trying to reinvent your solution. So, I will dare to outline my top 10 business guidelines(and I think you can do the same type of exercise for your business).

1. Most entrepreneurs receive dozens of ideas each year; only a few are worth investigating, and even fewer are worth implementing. Occasionally, we hit a home run.

2. 80 per cent of what we do counts for 20 per cent of the value of our efforts. The inverse also applies. Yet overly blind assessment of this rule is dangerous. An example: We can find that 80 per cent of our marketing call efficiency is achieved by working on the phone rather than meeting clients in person. But yesterday, I saw the value in knowing the exception to that rule, when I met in person with someone important (a meeting that could have been handled on the phone easily), and into the room walked someone with insights of incredible value to our business.

3. Accidents happen. All the time. Plans are meant for constant change.

4. Often you will find your best insights in places you least expect. So it is good to shake things up. On the other hand, you probably know what works best for you. So do it. (I for example always write better in the early morning rather than in late afternoon.)

5. Perseverance and talent are both important. You will be sure to succeed if you have both. You are doomed to fail if you have neither. But if you think you can succeed by persisting without talent, pick a career that requires very little brains or skill, please.

6. You have to have fun to succeed. Sure parts of your work may -- and probably are -- painful, but if you really don't enjoy what you are doing, find out why, really quickly, and change things. Don't do stuff just for the money.

7. It is really dumb to put anyone 'down' while you are acting high and mighty. It drives people nuts and makes enemies. I know I've done it, to my permanent regret.

8. It rarely helps to hold grudges. Sure, we should not be wimps if we are attacked or mistreated. But it is important to know when to move on.

9. People change. Listen to the changes. If you can help fix the problems (if there are are real problems in the people you know), it doesn't hurt to help. But if they are going downhill and don't get it, remember that they can pull you -- and others who shouldn't be pulled down -- as well. You will have to make the break.

10. People stay the same. Basic principals apply. Respect and recognize others and appreciate that great relationships are the essence of great business. New and old, through good and hard times, the entrepreneur who understands appreciates the basic rules of respect and integrity will succeed as fly-by-night operators come and go.

Selling without selling

A glance through the Amazon references to How To Sell Without Selling : A revolutionary approach to building business - without leaving your comfort zone suggests that, indeed, today I achieved the objective of selling without selling. Marketing is largely about creating the environment when people want to buy from your organization, naturally, and with that, are far less price-sensitive or interested in shopping around with your competitors.

Today, on returning from vacation, I went to work, catching up on writing, the recruiting process for our new editor and salesperson, and taking some calls. One, a local business around for 35 years, wanted information about advertising, and quickly agreed to a full-scale feature.
Then another person called, representing a major Toronto developer. As Amanda was on the other line, I fielded the call -- the person calling the office wished to confirm that her company's paid subscription renewal had arrived. I took down the details, then remarked: "We'll look into this, but since I'm the company president, I'm going to ask you a big question: 'Would you like us to publish a full-scale feature about your business." She quickly said, in fact, that their business had participated in similar features with other publishers, and provided me with the name of the vice-president responsible for the decision.

Then, I returned a third call, someone who advertised in a previous feature, and wanted to receive some pictures. I explained that we didn't own the artwork; we would have to refer to the general contractor responsible for the project, and then, yes, I asked the question: "Would you like us to feature your business in the paper?" Again, no final decision -- I really didn't expect it on this call -- but this lead is much warmer than a traditional cold call (and I had an entertaining and friendly email exchange with the marketing co-ordinator for the general contractor as we fulfilled his request.)

Note something interesting here -- with the exception of the first call, a genuine in-bound advertising inquiry, the other communications related to matters far from the primary source of revenue for our business; but with a quick question or two, I gained sufficient connections and insights to offer our primary service. And this 'selling' is almost magically effective, because
although I am definitely selling -- and asking for the order -- I am doing it far from the stereotypical 'salesperson' place.

Why? The people I've been talking with today already have a warm feeling about our business. In one case, we served a client with some extra care in responding to a special request. In another, a major developer obviously values our publication sufficiently to make sure that the subscription renewal is processed! Surely, we are not intrusive or unreasonable in proposing to deliver even greater value to this organization, and others in the community.
Conversely, one of ours sales representatives today emailed me today to say the representative of a major national association declined to have a feature produced in our publication because of privacy concerns. Our sales representative asked what we should do, other than propose a feature where the association would need to pay for its publicity. I emailed her this response:
(disguising some elements here to respect the association's privacy):

Maybe we forget the ‘selling’ of the feature, and focus on the relationships. Like doing a story each issue on a leading (association members) – recommended by the association. This would be handled as an editorial rather than sales thing – but of course we could approach the (member) after the profile is done and see about a feature about his/her business!

/

The point of this posting is increasingly I think that most effective selling occurs in a non-selling environment; in that natural space where people are comfortable in relating to you and your brand. And sometimes salespeople will be much more effective if they turn the sales machine off for a while, and think about the needs of the people they are working with -- the actual sale will come later, when the relationship is truly established.

In the AEC environment, of course, this means that my 'mantra' that every day with every client is your marketing opportunity -- and when your marketing is strong enough, the selling is easy because the relationships are natural, effective, and respectful. Now I've just got to find someone who can help out here.

The old websites (gone, for something better)

As we move forward in building new, high-quality websites, we've decided to discontinue the old sites associated with our publications' Internet domains. These sites, originally built in 2005, haven't been maintained or updated properly in recent months and, I believe, now add little value to anyone. In their place, we've provided a referral link to this blog and key contact information so people can find us if they search or click on the old sites.

I'm looking forward to our new site format developed by Web Empowerment Solutions, which, I believe, will provide a solid and effective Internet experience.

The marketing process

Mike Burgelin sent me this email yesterday:

Hi, my name is Mike Burgelin owner of EmployeeLeasingQuotes.com. I would appreciate any linking opportunity from your site. We work with small business owners, primarily in the construction and trades industry. Our job is to help them find an employee leasing company that can lower their workers’ compensation costs and handle all the non-profitable tasks of dealing with payroll along with other employee related administrative headaches. I would also be open (if you are interested) to writing articles in these specific areas for your site. I currently write for maintenance magazine for my marketing business and have been designated an expert author by ezinearticles.com. Thanks for any assistance you can be. Please contact me if I can help you.

My initial reaction: Achhh, another person, seeing our high Google rankings, seeking to piggyback on this web presence for some free publicity. And indeed, I'm pretty sure this is what Mike is seeking to accomplish.

But I took some time to dig through his reference points, to this article list in Maintenance Supplies Magazine, and some of the writing is actually quite good. For example, note this quote from Cold Calling: The Wrong Approach.

As a distributor, you have salespeople cold calling on you. How do you react? How much time do you give the salesperson? Let's assume you need office supplies, ink cartridges for your copiers, etc. Will you take 30 minutes to sit with the salesperson? Do you think you will even keep their card?

An alternative

On the other hand, would you open a letter hand-addressed to you from the owner of the local office supply business? What if this person explained who they were in the community, provided a list of local customers and presented a few free tips on how you could save money along with a great business offer. Do you think you would remember their name? Would you be more open to a conversation with them?

I agree with Mike 100 per cent.

So I dug into this a little further, and discovered Mike's other site, Marketing Formulas, Inc., which has some useful articles and insights.

About Special Blogs . . .

You'll notice a new sidebar link category -- Special Blogs: Ones I watch closely. This small listing incorporates a new Blogger feature allowing me to post a snippet from the blog's most recent entry.

My decision on which blogs receive this special attention is subjective, but generally, involves these considerations:

• Is the content so useful that I frequently cite it in my own entries?


• Is the blog maintained and updated with significant frequency and consistency? (Some blogs I monitor would qualify for this special placement if the blog is updated more often.)


• Has the blog been around a while? Some relatively new blogs I'm monitoring closely -- but I think you need to earn your space here with an on-going commitment to the process.

So, right now, I've included Ford Harding, Tim Klabunde and Michael Stone's blogs in this short list. If you would like to nominate other blogs for inclusion, let me know -- and I'll continue to post hyperlinks to all AEC/Marketing related blogs in the general list.

Here is the Blogger video tutorial explaining how to use the Blog List function:

The E-Quip Blog (Mel Lester)

Consultant Mel Lester has started E-Quip Blog: Practice Management Insights for Managers of A/E Firms, which obviously qualifies for a permalink. He's started his blog by including entries from previous issues of his newsletter, with recent topics including Hiring the Right Rainmaker (a relevant topic for me, since I am assigned to write on that topic for the fall issue of The SMPS Marketer), You Are What You Measure, and Uncomfortable With Sales -- You Should Be.

In his first blog posting, Lester writes:

The E-Quip blog, I think, fills a gap in the blogosphere. I'm not aware of another blog devoted to practice management insights for managers of technical consulting and design firms (if you know of one, let me know). Your feedback on how to better address that need is coveted. Thanks for tuning in. I hope you continue to come back to this space and join the dialogue.

Here is a link to Lester's website: The Business Edge -- from Ideas to Implementation.

Pricing woes?

What do you do when your competition starts dropping prices to unreasonably low levels? This Contractortalk.com thread addresses the issue. Some participants say they don't drop their prices; they have enough diversity in their product/service lines that they can get their price on some element of their business, even if competition is hurting others. Others create a three-tier pricing model; "Good, better, best" with differing service options (and set the Good, or lowest, price to match the competition). And still others make judgement calls, dropping the prices when they need to to keep the business flowing.

I'm truly wary of price reductions as a business survival/strategy, unless, of course, you can reduce your costs sufficiently to cover your overhead and earn a profit even at the lower prices (something I think most of us would find hard to do right now, especially with rising fuel costs.) Some people, I realize, take 'unprofitable' work in tough times to keep some cash flowing, but this is a dangerous, capital depleting exercise. You may need to make some hard decisions about reducing your labour and operating costs and hunkering down (or stepping up 'quick fix but low cost marketing approaches such as contacting previous clients or in some cases, canvassing for business).

In Vermont

This image is from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation's Waste Management Division -- specifically, its construction waste reduction pages.

Vivian and I are in Stowe, Vermont for a four day mini-vacation while Eric is at camp. I'm not completely skipping work -- with high speed Internet in our vacation resort, and phone links, I can keep in touch with the business.

Looking around here, we can see signs of the U.S. economic challenges. While this community is on the surface prosperous, and the place we are staying is part of a relatively new development, I don't see much active construction under way anywhere around me. And there are lots of Canadian license plates in the parking lot here, in part because our (tourist) dollar goes so far, trading above the U.S. currency. Vermont's state government announced a two day 'sales tax holiday' this weekend to give a boost to retailers; so we of course headed into the stores on a rainy Sunday to purchase clothes and groceries, inexpensively.

I watch the news about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These times separate the contractors and sub trades and suppliers with marketing smarts and business discipline from business owners who don't quite understand what to do and how to do it. (But I hasten to add that many failures occur despite rather than because of the business owner's own actions -- as much as we all should be acknowledge responsibility for our circumstances, only an arrogant and not very bright person would blame anyone else for failing.)

Vermont reminds me of one of the U.S.'s great strengths --it is an incredibly diverse nation; with differing cultures, social and political values. Vermont's culture of independence and liberalism, and its back-to-nature beauty cannot be over-stated. If you haven't visited this state, you should consider it as a worthy destination.

A look into Northern Ontario

Here is a link to the July issue of Northern Ontario Construction News (NOCN).

If you are in the NOCN service area, (Canadian postal codes beginning with "P"), you can receive the next 12 issues without without charge or further obligation.

You can also reach NOCN Publisher Leslie Greenwood directly at 888-432-3555 ext 215 or by email at lgreenwood@cnrgp.com.

WIFM

This posting in the SMPS Georgia Chapter blog, Smarter Internal Marketing, touches on one of the most important principals in any marketing initiative, considering the WIFM (What's in it for me?)

Sarah Mackley writes:

As marketers we try to focus on getting buy-in from everyone all at once. However, logic tells us you will never get everyone to agree. So why do we struggle so much to get approval from those that disagree with us? As I’ve continued through my career I’ve realized that if you focus on what you CAN do versus what you CAN’T, success comes so much easier. So the next time you find yourself stressed because you can’t get an initiative through, focus on those individuals you can get buy-in from. It’s amazing how quickly those that opposed the initiative come around when they start to see the success it brings.

Sarah's right.

The choices we make

Some not-for-profit organizations, especially those serving disabled candidates, such as the Endeavour Foundation in Australia, pay the costs of trial employment to see if the disabled candidates can handle the job. This makes sense, but I am intrigued that we are the only business I know that believes, instead of a battery of interviews, finalist candidate(s) should be paid to work for a few days, at least. This seems to me a much fairer, more meaningful, and ultimately more cost-effective evaluation system.

Approximately 200 people have sent us resumes in response to our invitation seeking a new Ontario-based sales representative. The numbers are matching our expectations -- about 10 to 15 per cent follow through by completing the introductory employment questionnaire, we invite a few to take the online sales test, and then even fewer move towards the paid working test -- the final stage (before thorough reference checking) before we make our decision.

We can predict the overall results, but not the details -- and here is where things get interesting. On Friday, two of the Candidates passed the sales test, but both approached the situation in intriguing and unusual ways.

I became aware of the first candidate when he commented on a blog entry I had posted, with his own suggestions. Then we exchanged emails, and only then I realized he had applied for work with us. Good approach. This is a selling career, and we obviously are more likely to be interested in working with someone who stands out from the crowd and thinks for himself -- and yet shows respectful creativity with the potential client (employer).

The second candidate also communicated with me -- our questionnaire letter invites advance communication, and provides both my phone number and email address. (We only do this for sales work; generally someone 'selling' services as a writer, designer, or administrative assistant won't get the job.) I liked the communication, and felt encouraged by the initial phone conversation with the candidate. So we sent him the online sales test -- and he failed; not miserably, but his scores were below our threshold for further consideration.

Here is where things get interesting. On his own initiative, and without requesting my permission, the prospective employee went ahead and took the sales test again -- and passed with flying colours. On one point, I should be unhappy, both because this employee spent about $40 of our company's money on the second test, and because it suggests indeed the test results can be 'managed' by thinking about the questions carefully!

But I looked at it another way -- if someone is creative, intelligent, and resourceful -- and goes ahead and works to solve the barrier -- then he might indeed be the person we are looking for to join our organization. In any case, the test, questionnaire, and phone interview don't decide the issue -- the working test/evaluation is the most important stage in our hiring process.

What about the others who completed the questionnaire? I will review these responses tomorrow and Monday, but some are, well, really bad. Like they didn't even 'get' the questionnaire -- and didn't bother calling or emailing to clarify its intent. We don't eliminate from consideration anyone who completes the questionnaire but doesn't communicate in advance, but it counts as a minus. At least we only have to read 10 to 20 questionnaire responses -- not the remaining 180 to190 resumes where the candidates didn't do anything when invited to follow up to their initial application.

Meanwhile, two candidates for editor are in the midst of their working evaluation. I won't post publicly on our observations of their relative performance, but the process of really giving prospective employees working assignments rather than hiring them right after interviewing makes so much sense to us, I wonder why it isn't standard practice for most businesses. Interviews can be manipulated, gamed, and wishful thinking sometimes overrides reason and true working effectiveness -- and the approaches to overcome these weaknesses, including multiple interviews in different circumstances, consume so much management (and prospective employee) time and energy, why not pay them for the time and have them do some real productive work! If they are any good, they will produce enough value during the working time to enhance the business -- and if they can't produce any value, I can assure you that the small cheque you write in saying 'goodbye' is worth every cent.

Great businesses, to me, have solid systems and processes -- they also are ready to think differently, creatively, and be ready for surprises. And the employees we wish to hire hopefully share these values.

In Timmins

The Timmins Gold Mine Tour, a tourist attraction. This story in the Timmins Daily Press describes a retail construction boom, as the city of about 40,000 benefits from its resource/mining base, including gold.

I'm in Timmins today, probably the northernmost community with city-type resources (Wal-Mart, other big box stores, etc) in Ontario. Timmins is enjoying a healthy economic boom in part because of its nearness to a wealth of mineral resources -- including gold. (It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that in the current economic environment, a community with gold mines in the immediate region is a good place a construction business to be.)

To make things more interesting personally, this visit gave me the opportunity to see one of my nieces and her fiancee, just days before she becomes a mother. She moved here several years ago in search of a teaching job after completing her education degree; and settled.

Reflecting the local boom, house prices are skyrocketing -- but by southern standards, things are surprisingly inexpensive. Timmins has good road and rail connections to the rest of the world, so transport costs here are reasonable -- in fact, this is perhaps why it has become a hub for mining and exploration companies working in more remote regions.

After my meeting with a local contractor here today, I will return home -- then Vivian and I will head off to Vermont tomorrow for a four day break. However, I expect to be able to continue blogging during the vacation.

A (marketing) hole in one -- the quick blog

Hole 9 Yards, a landscape contractor in Ontario's Niagara region, wanted a website -- quickly. So Chase set up a blog for them. It is a work in progress, but it took just a couple of hours to get the site in place -- and it already has some useful link-backs to help in the search engine rankings.

Avid golfers may find the this blog's headline a little deceptive -- I'm sure without some extremely low probability events, this blog for landscaper Hole 9 Yards in Canada will not win any awards for immediate effectiveness. On the other hand, Chase created this marketing blog within a couple of hours and it will enjoy link backs from at least two other blogs, virtually ensuring a higher search engine ranking. And the work to replace the 'stock' Wikipedia text with some locally relevant news and images should only take a few moments (in fact, if you go to the blog via hyperlink some weeks from now on discovering this posting, you may find the placeholder copy has long been removed.)

Here is Chase's original email to me regarding this imitative:

Mark,

A friend of a friend saw my Facebook profile update which listed my blog. They checked it out and mentioned to their friend who has a landscaping business the idea of creating one to promote their business. I got a call this morning asking if I could create a blog for them to use for marketing purposes.

Here is the draft I was able to create using only a business card which is the only marketing material they had. You may want to consider offering a service of creating marketing blogs for other companies who do not have the resources to get a web based presence.

http://hole9yards.blogspot.com/

Thoughts?

Last night, Chase sent this follow up note:

Mark,

I agree more local and relevant content is needed. Al and his wife are actually working on pulling together some photos of jobs they have done and getting me some of their company vehicles etc.

I am hoping to get the stuff up by the middle of next week.

After Al saw what I had put together he called me about 8:30 tonight and offered to beat any quote I got for my new driveway and take $500 off of the price. My initial goal was to simply offer to help a friend’s friend, good karma I guess.

Chase.

You can set up your own simple blog/website within minutes by following the log in and set up instructions at one of theblog service providers. We use blogger.com. It has an advantage, in my opinion, in that it is owned by Google. You shouldn't expect people to begin calling you right away, and it is important to maintain and update the blog on a frequent regular schedule for the search engines to recognize it properly. But if you don't have a professional website, and lack a budget for marketing, this is something of a no-brainer. We'll be glad to help our advertising clients with more personalized free instruction on the best way to use these resources.

The refugee's dream

David Karami and his son at a construction project in Thunder Bay. David and his wife Negar arrived in Thunder Bay in the early 1980s with nothing but a will and drive to build a new life away from the horrors of political repression and life-threatening violence in Iran.

David and Negar Karami feared they would lose everything -- including their lives -- when they made their way out of Iran in the early 1980s, after the Islamic revolution. As Kurds, the Ayatollah's henchmen confiscated their property and some of their relatives were murdered. They escaped, a young couple, penniless, using fake identities, crossing through to Turkey then France. And, through one relative's connections in Canada, they landed in Thunder Bay, Ontario, in 1983.

Fast forward 25 years -- Karami's business, Finn Way General Contractor Inc. completed $28 million in business last year; and is likely to reach $50 or more in the next few years. The Karami's have built an incredibly successful, substantial business, through the sweat of their brows and the intelligence and resourcefulness that define the best of the Canadian dream and adventure. Their two children have an entirely different life than their parents -- their eldest son, 17, is heading next year to Lakehead University for a degree in Civil Engineering.

In a few hours, I'll write the first draft of the story about their business for Northern Ontario Construction News. I thought about those who complain, who blame, who say we should close the door to refugees who deny Canadians (or Americans) jobs, and about the two people ahead of me in the line at the Thunder Bay Airport hoping to get rich by purchasing lottery tickets. (I chose instead to purchase a Globe and Mail and New York Times.) Where are the real opportunities, choices, and options? And why do so few people see the opportunities that are right at our hands, even while others despair and complain.

Yesterday, I asked a question: 'Where is the owner?" about a struggling business in another community. Today, I found the answer: With entrepreneurial resourcefulness, hard and smart work, we can all achieve greatness despite apparent adversity and horrific challenges.

And, thankfully, I'm able to make it my business to find and report on these stories.

It's good to be home tonight -- tomorrow I head in the air again, this time to Timmins.

Where is the owner?

Yesterday, I experienced a story beneath a story -- and now have a real dilemma. I cannot disclose specific details because my meetings and interviews were to write a positive advertising-supported editorial feature, but as I discussed the company's history and story with the people associated with the business, I sensed (and they acknowledged) there are major unresolved challenges,
What should I do? Obviously, I have an assignment and will complete it -- and will write the positive story, but I sense the problem is deeper and more fundamental than any positive advertorial story or simple quick-fix marketing solution. Someone, I think, will need to make tough decisions. In the end, these decisions must either be made by the shareholder(s) or -- if things fail and the business needs to seek bankruptcy protection -- the courts or creditors.
In this story, with the limited knowledge I have, I see the incredible challenges that occur when you combine traditional processes, "leave it alone" leadership, diversification that creates some stability in hard times, coupled with over-diversification that prevents a business from defining its focus and marketing priorities. I also see the real problems that occur when a business's leadership is incredibly skilled at the actual art or trade of the business, but is over its head in the sales and marketing aspects.
My challenge . . . Should I go over the employees' heads in the room, and call the owner? I know him, not too closely, and I'm confident he has the basic business skills and talents to oversee successful enterprises. In favour of acting: If I were the owner, I would want some independent feedback -- I might know generally that there are problems, but not be sure of their scale and reality. In favour of remaining silent: This isn't my business, I haven't been mandated to interfere in its operations, and I really don't know enough to engage myself effectively in the issues.
Last night, thinking about these issues, I decided to use my favorite solution when I have a difficult decision -- I slept on it. But this morning, the problems remain; I am not sure exactly what to do, maybe reflecting the reality of the situation facing the business I saw yesterday.
What would you do in these circumstances?

Travelling days

I'm in Sault. Ste. Marie now on the first of four days travel this week that will also take me also to Thunder Bay and Timmins. The travel is happening because of a confluence of circumstances: Our son Eric is at summer camp, Air Canada offers a "fly anytime, anywhere, in Ontario, at one fixed price" pass, and we are in the mist of hiring a new editor and don't have our network of freelance writers set up yet for the Northern Ontario Construction News. And, of course, Leslie Greenwood here completed her sales work so effectively that, indeed, there are advertising features to research and write -- five altogether -- requiring the stories to be written.

I expect I'll gather many subjective insights and lots of material for the blog this week but my entries will be fewer and less detailed than usual; while most hotels now have high speed Internet, the time spent 'getting around' (and the writing for the papers I must do) depletes blogging energy.

What lead sources are working? (3) -- The power of focus

Further email exchange with Marc Sylvain of Sylvain Contracting in Salem, NH.

Me: Marc, thanks for these observations. I will post the remarks. An interesting question is whether you can add strategic product lines compatible with your core business, which can then be effectively sold to your existing client base. It seems if you could maintain your overall volume AND bring the referral/repeat business more in line with the industry norms your business would be beyond incredible!

Marc: We are actually doing the opposite of that. In the last 10 years we have slowly phased out remodeling, additions, garages, roofing, etc.

After reading a book by Jim Collins called "Good to Great" (Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't) he says to ask a couple of questions to yourself.......What can I be the best in the world at? And what drives your economic engine?

That is why we now specialize in Replacement Windows (Not new construction windows) Vinyl Siding (Not wood siding or fiber cement) and pre-fab sunrooms (Not stick build rooms or additions).

We have added decks back in our mix because if you build a sunroom you probably want a deck off of it. We also do about 5- 10 roofs per year for past customers. We only do easy, straight forward roofs.

Jim Collins also talks about having a Hedge Hog concept. A Hedge Hog worries only about the essentials and ignores the rest.

Marc Sylvain
Sylvain Contracting
http://www.sylvaincontracting.com/

I am not going to argue with Marc's success. With a clear focus, well-defined business operating systems, and a business that sells largely once-in-a-lifetime services, the marketing and sales systems he uses with a diversity of lead sources but relying far less on repeat/referral business than the industry norms obviously makes sense for him. His depth of analytical understanding of what works and what doesn't and his willingness to share his numbers with others shows that he understands what is important in business to succeed. And of course lead development from home shows is certainly a lot less offensive to me than the intrusive yet in many cases highly effective canvassing business model common in his industry niches.

I will stretch myself on a limb, however, to suggest that with his very well defined measuring resources and Key Performance Indicators tools that if he set his priorities to increase the ratio of repeat/referral business while also increasing his overall sales volume, his profitability and business satisfaction could skyrocket. Strategically implementing communications/client service measures to improve his overall client experience (which I'm sure is generally quite satisfactory now) may yield results far in excess of the actual costs. Maybe, for example, instead of pouring money into home shows, he can set up project completion parties with his recent clients, with food and refreshments for the neighbours. I sense that actively engaging his current and former clients in the marketing process -- beyond the obvious use of street signs and conventional proximity marketing resources -- might produce some surprisingly rewarding results.

He may of course have tried these client involvement suggestions and found they don't work nearly as well as the home shows and other resources (or he is using them effectively and this explains his level of repeat/referral business.) Regardless, he is far ahead of most contractors in knowing his numbers, and sticking to his principals, and accordingly his business methodologies are worthy of respect and recognition.

What lead sources are working? (2)

I sent an email to Marc Sylvain upon posting the previous reference. Here is his response:

10 years ago my business was 100% referral. Once we passed the $500,000 mark it started to go down. We still do quite a bit of referral and past customer business though. It's down this year so far but last year we did $1,390,000 in past customer business and referrals.

Quite frankly if you want to do more than 2 or 3 million it won't be done with referrals alone.

As for past customers.......unless they move we don't side or replace the windows in their homes more than once. Surprisingly we do have a few customers with more than one sun room on their home.

Marc Sylvain
Sylvain Contracting
http://www.sylvaincontracting.com/

An interesting question, which I have asked Marc, is whether strategic product line extensions or additional offerings might be co-ordinated to create more repeat/referral business opportunities.

What lead sources are working?

An image from the Sylvain Contracting website. Marc Sylvain says he gets 7.7 per cent of his business from the website -- but why is his referral/repeat business so much lower than industry norms?

Marc Sylvain of Sylvain Contracting in Salem, New Hampshire, has started a Contractortalk.com thread, "What lead sources are working?" with a frank report on his six month stats.

Home Shows $290,569 (38.1%)
Referrals $111,257 (14.6%)
Internet Lead providers $97,861 (12.8%)
Direct Mail $88,714 (11.6%)
Past Customers $59,813 (7.8%)
Our Website $58,920 (7.7%)
Site Signs $28,376 (3.7%)
Newspapers $23,717 (3.1%)

Sylvain's business focuses on vinyl siding, replacement windows and three and four season sun rooms.

Several other contractors responded; some surprised how much his business depends on home shows. Others may be surprised by the extremely open disclosure of business information -- you can quickly calculate, for example, his total business volume over the past six months from these numbers (something some business owners would prefer to keep under wraps). As well, notably this open posting in a contractors' forum on the surface has little 'value' in reaching the end user/home consumer market in New England.

Of course, the numbers show other things -- Sylvain knows his business and has solid measuring and tracking systems; he truly can calculate where his leads are originating and (significantly, though it doesn't show up here) his true cost per lead. With his numbers, he can manage his marketing a whole lot more effectively than others. And of course, he doesn't lose any business by sharing with others in the industry -- even if his direct competitors read and analyzed the numbers, they would be several steps behind him in business development and strategies.

You may also notice a couple of other interesting points here:

• One contributor expressed surprise that referrals and repeat clients generate surprisingly low lead volume.

"Marc, how can you increase your referrals and past clients? I would think this could be easy for you with a special program. Do you have a newsletter? e-mail address?

Home shows are a lot of work and time yes you do show they work but I think with a little polish you could come up with some boost on the other 2.
Just some thoughts. Good luck."

• Another thread contributor explained how he is reaching beyond networking to find business:

"OK, I did only networking to date. Starting two weeks ago I installed a kitchen display in a local bank.

Friday I am buying a 14' cube van and will put a nice kitchen in it, with an espresso maker built in. All the choices I can fit will be in the van, catalogues, quartz, fixture books plus cabinet doors ect.The van will be my billboard and will be parked at busy intersections all over the Twin Cities.

I will bring many choices to the homeowner for kitchen and bath remodeling. I am partnered with a bank for loans, an interior designer, a local appliance dealer and an architect and painter. I have my own line of cabinets for semi-custom and I'm a dealer for the same cabinets.

Either I'm a genius, or I'm an idiot, time will tell. What do you think of that?"

My sense is that Marc is having to work awfully hard to feed the dragon; he has systems and processes in place which result in a steady volume of business and he knows his stuff, so he can maintain a reliable and effective business in hard times as well as good. But I'll share my concern of the other successful contractor puzzled by the relatively low ratio of repeat and referral business. My own ongoing poll (admittedly it isn't scientific, but it certainly 'feels right' from the subjective measuring I do every day), says that contractors overall receive a whopping 77 per cent of their business from repeat and referral sources, compared to Marc's 22.4 per cent.

Could it be the cultural 'push' of selling aggressively at home shows and the like is actually turning off clients; or they aren't 100 per cent satisfied with the value they are receiving? Is Sylvain's product line suited to one-time clients who don't network or communicate with their peers and neighbours? Are there process improvements he can make to achieve more "Wow, this is great" responses among his current clients to attract more referrals and repeat orders? And, finally, is he working on the alliances and unconventional/creative marketing approaches to transcend the obvious and expand/build on relationships, like the other contractor with his fit-up van and banker's relationship?

A lesson from Joe

This posting from Ford Harding: A Lesson from Joe: It’s Not about Us is a humbling reminder about our place in the world; and our self-absorbed anxieties (or visions). Although Ford took the experience as a reminder that he shouldn't think too much about pursuing opportunities and calling, I take it in a slightly wider perspective -- that we should absolutely respect the person who we are calling and the value of his/her time and priorities.

This doesn't mean be 'sucky' but it suggests that we connect where appropriate with the person's 'gatekeeper' (administrative assistant), or use alternatives to the phone and in-person visit where we really don't need to be in the busy person's face.

For example, in at least a few instances where I had a proposal/request for an extremely busy CEO talked with the AA and then put the thoughts down in paper on a fax and sent it to her. The document then lands on the decision-maker's desk, and I received the response/answer I needed. (I realize this only works if I have a prior, real, relationship with the decision-maker, or I am ready to accept a referral to someone else in the organization; I'll still be communicating with the power of the boss's office, in that case, however.)

And it reminds me of the absolute power you obtain by promptly and honorably returning calls, even when you don't see much business opportunity or value in the process. It takes just a few minutes but leaves a powerful impression on the perhaps overly self-absorbed caller!

The value of values-based marketing

Tim Klabunde's latest CofeBuz posting, A Values Based Business Marketing Approach, is refreshing and relevant, especially if you are caught in the old-style sales manipulation/"closing" approach to marketing and sales. it is especially relevant to professional services and construction businesses which (should) rely primarily on repeat and referral business, and reflects the powerful effect of going the extra mile for your current clients.

In his posting, Klabunde notes:

What it looks like

Values Based Businesses do several things that most profit and growth oriented businesses have a hard time swallowing. Here are just a few examples:

1. They always do something extra for free: I used to go to an auto shop that would always do something unexpected for me free of charge. They rotated my tires, replaced light bulbs, oiled squeaky doors; the list goes on and on. In return can you guess what I did? I never had my vehicle serviced at another shop and told everyone I knew to take his or her cars there.


2. Take on pro-bono work: Values Based Businesses help out non-for-profits, low-income families, and even their everyday clients. They do it because it is right and because they really care.


3. Finally, when they do it, they treat the non-paying client just as good as the paying client.
   They treat every client like a first class client: Taking calls and returning e-mails promptly is just the tip of the iceberg. Values Based Businesses see what their clients need and help them to achieve it, even if it is out of their scope of work.

Simple ideas, and, if you are a number cruncher, these are a whole lot less expensive than constantly trying to reach out for new clients either by responding to cattle call RFPs, hiring commission-based sales representataives, or spending a small fortune on advertising.

Great sales representatives -- what makes them great?

Yesterday, in a flash of inspiration, I drafted an email and sent it to a sampling of our database, offering a free $50 gift card for people who could recommend the their 'best' client or supplier salespeople.

So far, several people have responded with specific names, who I expect to call within the next few weeks to gain a better understanding of what makes someone in sales 'great'. I realize there are risks and limitations in this unscientific, reward-based survey. The individual making the recommendations may lack authority and simply want the gift -- and the sales reps referenced may be great at client service for existing customers, but less able to find/discover new business.

Nevertheless, I'm hoping to see if there are common denominators among the organizations which hire these representatives, and their behaviour/connection with clients.

I'll report on my interviews/findings in the weeks ahead.

Topgrading for Sales

I received Topgrading For Sales(Bradford D. Smart and Greg Alexander) today and like much of what this book advocates. The writers make the case that you should be selective and systematic in your hiring to ensure you have only "A" players on your sales team -- and suggest a process to achieve these objectives.

To me, this is a book of incremental rather than 'wow' learning, in part because we've developed our own reasonably effective sales hiring system (in fact, a hiring process for all of our positions) which effectively achieves what Smart and Alexander are advocating to avoid time wasting and the problems of resume and interview faking.

For example, the writers recommend that initial applicants be asked to complete a Career History Form which asks plenty of screening questions and thus narrows down the pile of resumes. I find the form they use somewhat cumbersome for our business -- we ask four simple questions to see if the potential salespeople 'get' the job and have enough initiative to figure out what is needed.

The writers advocate a phone screening interview (we do that), and then suggest a number of options regarding formal pre-job interviews. We've dispensed with the conventional structured face-to-face interview and replaced it with a paid working assignment. My view is the time you spend on repeated interviews to get it right costs just about as much as putting the potential employee to work for a few days, with full pay, and seeing how they handle themselves on the job. (This probably wouldn't work for businesses where every sale/action requires a long working cycle, I realize).

The authors suggest that personality tests are not valid and should not be used. Here, I disagree, with some recognition of their point of view that "Most personality tests are shams". The test we use, http://www.salestestonline.com/, is relatively inexpensive, quick, and has a real advantage in the hiring process we use because it fits very effectively between the phone screening interview and the paid working assignment. A great sales test score indicates a clear 'go' for the working evaluation (and high results on the test actually motivate the candidate to want to work for us). A low score allows us to say goodbye without any hard feelings. We may screen out some good candidates who score poorly on the test -- but in my validity checking so far, I've found the time and energy spent on these 'failures' is not worth the effort in further evaluation -- since even among those who pass, only one in two 'pass' the working evaluation.

One area the writers really have emphasised -- and I will even more -- is reference checking -- and their suggestion that the candidate be invited to call and pre-clear the references is excellent; since obviously they won't want to do that for a bad reference; and generally no one has problems sharing an excellent reference.

The biggest challenge, of course, is to have enough qualified candidates in the pipeline -- and while the writers advocate setting up some 'bench strength' the actual effective way to achieve this is still not clear to me. I'll ask.

You may find some truly useful resources at Bradford Smart's online site, http://www.smarttopgrading.com/index.cfm.

Here is a link to an earlier blog posting that explains our sales hiring/recruiting system.

Where the hell is Matt?

This youtube.com video has very little to do with construction, but a whole lot to do with marketing.

So who paid for this creative? Stride Gum. I had never heard of Stride Gum before discovering this video through my unofficial frequent flier network (that is another story, for another time.)

Here is the Wikipedia reference to Stride Gum. And here is Matt's own website.

Can we learn something about effective -- I'll go even further -- brilliant marketing here?

The marketing irony

This image of aboriginal construction trainee Mike Cockery (21) in an Ottawa Citizen article Spirit of 'long-dead Indian boy' elicits dream of First Nations youth resort reminds us the whole world is not about business and marketing.

Yesterday, in the bi-weekly Construction Marketing Ideas newsletter, I posted these observations:

Here is an irony. Our goal is to create a business so successful we don't need to sell or market anything -- yet to do that, even if we don't need to sell and market ourselves, we should, with skill and imagination.

Picture, for a moment, the circumstance where your business offers something of such great value that people are virtually banging down your door to pay you for your services. The problem you have is not acquiring clients -- it is turning away the ones you don't have the time or desire to serve. You can price your services at a profitable level, and in fact, your business is so successful that others are ready to pay you top dollar for the rights to do business with you or associate with your name.
Do you know businesses which fit this description? It might even be yours -- or at least it might have been yours -- during the boom times just a few years ago. Then, many contractors could find clients without doing any work other then their job; with the shortage of trades and high demand, you might have been successful, without even the least bit of marketing effort.

The problem of course is that when times change, the boom turns to bust, and your lack of marketing and sales knowledge leaves you in the awkward place of desperately fighting to be the lowest of the low bidders in an intensively competitive environment -- suddenly your dreams and self perception are shattered, and you face the real problem of finding a way to survive in a difficult environment.

That is where marketing and selling knowledge come in handy -- and coupled with effective "brand management" (high-sounding words for just doing your work well,and ensuring your clients are really impressed with your service/value).

Then, you can pull out your marketing tool-kit to bring old clients back for more, to attract new business and when necessary to go on a blitz to bring in new clients, fast. You need to systematize these processes with imagination and a dash of individuality; and you need to watch out for anyone selling magical solutions, either outdated hard-rock selling techniques, or quick-fix advertising offers.

Take a few minutes quietly, and visualize your perfect business. Think of the way potential clients would relate to you; hear about you, and want to do business with you. Think about what you do really well -- so much that you know in your heart you are the best in your community at it -- and how your clients respond to your results when you deliver this value. Then begin planning your strategy to leverage your current client base; and let new clients know about what you offer.

You will find the answer.

Last night, I received an answer from a person I've known many years, which adds a different perspective:

I just finished reading the July 1 issue of your newsletter.

After retiring last year as CSC's Secretary Treasurer, I became Treasurer of a social services agency in Oshawa that owns and operates a 39 bed homeless shelter, two
rent-to-income transitional housing apartment buildings and a community residential facility for parolees. We do not actively market our services and yet find ourselves having to turn away clients from time to time, especially during economic downturns. (Talk about irony!) This not-for-profit organization just celebrated (a poor choice of word) its 40th anniversary and we are not likely to go out of business any time in the near future, at least not as long as our funding continues.

I hope you had a happy Canada Day. I'll probably see you at the CSC Toronto Trade Show in February.

These observations are both humbling and inspiring and a reminder that not everything in the world works on business/conventional marketing principals, nor should it.

From the past and present to the future

Jeffrey Gitomer provides a tantalizing primer on effective sales call preparation in Predicting the outcome of a sale is easy. Sort of. I think what he suggests works best if you add an extra item (you can see the other points by reading the original story).

.5: Put your sales machine aside and understand -- really understand -- your clients' industry, and your own business.

I see far too many salespeople thinking purely in terms of the sales process, and not the environment in which that process operates. They tactically manage -- manipulate -- the situation, often so effectively they get the sale, once, twice or even more often -- but ultimately damage their business and its reputation.

The wiser approach, I believe, is to see selling in context of the entire business relationship we have with our clients and potential clients. This larger, more challenging, cultural approach may create an environment of receptiveness and repeat business where it seems that the salespeople are mere 'order takers' but, done right, they are much more than that. For want of a better phrase, they are brand ambassadors, communicating and respecting their business's relationship with current and future clients, and the community at large.