Should you start your own business?

I've been following (and enjoying) John Poole's Constructionomics blog as he struggles with the challenges of unemployment and is now at the early stages of starting his own business. Recessions are often the best time to open a business because you simply can't afford bad habits and if you are determined and skillful, you can find opportunity.

But you need to find the opportunity, of course, and that is the challenge for anyone who is uncomfortable with the selling occupation. Starting up, unless you have some incredible good fortune, you will need to sell -- and it rarely is easy, especially when you don't have a track record.

John has wisely (but I deliberately put wisely in small type) chosen to use resources like SCORE, operated by the SBA. Experienced businesspeople, unless they live in the government space, tend to be a little wary of government assistance programs. Yes, you can access them, and if you play the system well, make good money in that space, but it can be an uphill battle as you battle bureaucracy, existing relationships, MBE rules, and the like.

I'm happy to note that quite a few readers are googling this blog through my references to the Brooks Act. Anyone hoping to sell construction design, engineering and project management services should read this stuff carefully because unless you are well connected, you won't gain access to direct government business and you will be relegated if you are "lucky" to be an underpaid sub-contractor for much government infrastructure work.

Sure, it is easy to tell a budding entrepreneur what won't work, but what will? Here things get complicated because the advice I gave myself would not necessarily resonate with others. Before I started in business in 1988, I had a secure, relatively high paying government job, which I quit to sell real estate. But I made that truly risky move at the end of a boom, where neophytes in the real estate industry could do well. (I simply don't know how well someone just starting out as a commissioned Realtor would do now.) The decision proved wise in an important way: I needed to learn how to sell to be in business, and that is just what I did.

Can you overcome lack of selling ability/experience and knowledge with great marketing? To a point, yes. Great marketing (including great blogging) often creates opportunities, and it is wonderful to receive the invitation to propose a project, or have your call returned quickly because a previous or potential client recognizes you from your marketing. But if you can't ask for an order, and actually go out and find the business, all the marketing in the world won't do you much good.

My advice to John would be to be ready to accept a commission sales job, whether it be canvassing, telemarketing, or whatever. Not as a permanent career, but as a base for learning some of the realities of selling. Spend three to six months doing this stuff and you'll at least understand the basics and receive some rudimentary sales training. Perhaps take a few different jobs -- no one is going to hold it against you -- and cross fertilize ideas and insights.

My next piece of advice is going sound like sacrilege in relation to my previous posting (and with respect to the misfortune befalling anyone who tries to canvass at my home.). I think anyone starting out in the construction industry has the best chance by seeking and winning smaller residential jobs, and the best and most inexpensive way to win these is to pound the pavement -- yes canvass! You certainly don't need to worry about the Brooks Act!

(You can assemble a crew of inexpensive subs and suppliers to do the actual work, of course.)

John and others should take this advice with a grain of salt. I am not the oracle of brilliance and one thing is clear, there are many different paths to business success. It is good to get started.

Selling 101

This Contractortalk.com thread, Selling 101, starts off with a simple question:

I'd like to learn sales. What are some of the basic things that separate a good salesman from a bad one? Any good book recommendations would be helpful as well.

Responses range from the simple to the complex.

I suggest that the contractor who, in good times, "relied" on referrals and repeat business is actually in the best place to succeed through effective marketing and selling. The reason: If your underlying business practices are healthy, if clients truly enjoy doing business with you, you avoid the uphill battle of constantly having to fight for new business as clients generate referral and repeat orders.

But you still need to learn the basics, and you need to have the persistence to overcome the initial problem. No doubt about it, when you have to market or sell directly -- rather than rely on referrals -- you will seem to have to work much harder for much poorer results. But you will still be in business when conditions improve.

Selling and buying

Blogger Gary Vaynerchuk doesn't need to make cold calls to succeed -- he shows how, by demonstrating how to make a cold call in this video posting.

Most of us, most of the time, don't like to sell or be sold anything. However, most of us like to experience things, to share news (gossip?), and to be entertained. So how do you find new and profitable business, then?

These thoughts run through my mind as (a) I initially turned down but may eventually do business with someone who wanted to pay me for a link on this blog, (b) fellow blogger Seth Holdren posts a fascinating video showing how you can "monetize" your blog, and (c) I thought how Gary Vaynerchuk, giving the advice on monetizing a blog, actually is achieving the objectives of achieving his business objective without selling anything. That is, others are now posting and reviewing, and observing the blog, in an ever-expanding network.

We see these contradictions all the time in business. Most successful contractors, architects and engineers, win most of their business through repeat clients and referrals, even public RFP stuff is often wired in favour of one organization or another.

Going out and selling stuff -- actually phoning people cold, or even simply asking for business, seems unpleasant, to be avoided, and disturbing. If only we could make the clients come to us without doing that sort of thing, we think.

So we are paralyzed with inaction when the phone doesn't ring (except for someone trying to sell us something.) Or we seek to buy the answer through advertising: We pay someone else to send out our message, with the hope that potential clients will call us. We measure our success when this happens.

Our challenge then, is to find a way to market like Gary Vaynerchuk, to reach out -- to actually sell -- in a way that transcends the simple one-on-one selling experience, and gives you leverage so that you can, indeed, get people to call you who hear about you from others, who hear about you.

Solutions?

Publicity
Can you hire a publicist or do you have the knack for getting the media interested in your business. The selling here will be the 'pitch' to the relevant media outlet, or the outrageously innovative idea that you can spread virally.

Blogging (passionately)
That's me. I'm good at this stuff and the blog is reaching higher rankings because of its success.

Hiring someone else to sell for you
Yes, it would be nice to get someone else to make your cold calls, but I think you are unlikely to be successful unless you make some yourself -- you can delegate this work, but you can only do that once you really appreciate what is involved.

Initiating community service and networks (being a leader)
Look what Tim Klabunde is doing in Washington.

The Construction Marketing Paradox: Easy work or hard effort?

One of the most important paradoxes in sales and marketing is that you are most likely to succeed if you need to put the least amount of effort into the process.

In other words, if your marketing or selling are hard to do and require much thought, time, and physical and mental energy, you will more likely fail than if you can achieve your results almost without trying.

Yet, almost inevitably, unless you are very intelligent about it, when you give up (fail to persevere) because things are too hard, you fail.

I've seen this paradox countless times over the past few years. Here are some examples:

The great feature or the crappy one

Most of our revenue arises from special printed advertising features profiling businesses and organizations. Suppliers are invited to support their client with advertising. The great features almost seem to sell themselves -- we send the notification to potential advertisers, and they call, email, or fax in their order right away.

My sales reps are jubilant, of course. I tell them: Put some extra effort into that feature for anyone who doesn't respond. It will seem like a lot of work, but you'll sell more.

Conversely, some features just don't work. The company isn't well respected by its suppliers, and they are simply not interested. Sometimes out of many calls and much effort we can coax a few sales. But the whole thing is more a waste of time than anything else.

The fast yes or the slow 'no'

Similarly, in setting up the features, some companies who qualify for the service say "yes" quickly (Others who don't qualify also often want the service -- we need to know when to turn these potential clients away to avoid the bad results in the first example above). Others who qualify hem and haw, finding one excuse after another. Sometimes these difficult potential clients are worth pursuing, but I often see the extra effort produces diminishing results.

Who is more responsive?: The inbound referral or repeat business call or the outbound sales call or blind RFP submission.

You know the answer to this one already. When someone calls you (sometimes out of the blue) and asks for your services because they have done business with you before, or been referred, your chances of success -- at your price -- are high; when you have to seek out the business, they are low. This is why things are often frustrating to established businesses with backlogs who have been relying on repeat and referral business and now have to begin marketing and selling their services. What had been easy becomes hard, and expensive.

So you may be tempted to give up. And that leads to the second part of the paradox: If you don't try hard enough -- if you fail to persevere -- you will often fail as well. This is because, if you trace the roots of your success, you can see seemingly easy business links to genuine perseverance in difficult conditions.

As an example, one of our major ongoing contracts originated during the height of the early 1990s recession. It was an easy call -- the organization representative phoned me -- but only occurred because I had remained in business through some really hard times, doing really sloggy work and selling, just to scrape by. If I had closed my doors before the easy call had arrived, I would never have received it.

Is there a solution to the paradox? Yes, and the answer can be summed up in this phrase:

"Do what you love doing, and do it really well."

The idea is to create circumstances where what would be hard and risky work to others actually is both easy and enjoyable for you. You simply need to align your personal interests and passions with your market's and then you will find it easy to attain great results.

This blog is a great example: I enjoy journalism and writing (and although I can use some excellent editing from people around me, including my wife) I am reasonably good at the writing craft. This passion led me into the publishing business and allowed me to keep going, even when things got really tough, when I needed to roll up my sleeves and write even more intensively and competently. In hard times, people have called and done business with me because of this ability and passion.

If things are getting difficult for you, take a few minutes to think about the activities, experiences and hobbies or vocations you really enjoy. You should build your business and marketing around these interests.

Your challenge is to then find ways to connect your passions with your potential clients. This is why I like association-based marketing so much because in any sizable group, at least some members will share your interests, and you can participate in (or even better, start) a committee or sub-group to express them.

If you follow this simple suggestion, your hard effort will actually become easy -- and you will have learned the answer to the Construction Marketing Paradox.

Buying and selling

Consider two superficially equal situations. In one case someone in authority calls you and says: "I would like you to do some work for us." You get the job, do your work to the highest standards, and receive repeat business, year after year. Your client is buying.

In the second situation, you approach someone and say: "I can do this job for you." You are selling. You conduct yourself with the highest level of integrity, deliver exactly what you promise (and even more) and certainly are providing essentially the same service as in the first, buying, example.

Is your account secure? No, because no matter how hard you try to deliver the service in the right way, the relationship is defined by the fact that you sold it, and not that someone decided to call you in the first place. Sometimes obvious -- often unseen -- forces are tearing away at the relationship; perhaps 'buyers remorse' but perhaps, more significantly, your clients don't see the same level of value when they sense they've been sold something, rather than when they decide to call you and buy.

The question then is, should you give up on selling? Well, if your phone isn't ringing, if your current and previous clients aren't buying anything you have to sell, then you have a choice: Close up your business voluntarily, or go bankrupt.

Then, can you get potential clients to want to to buy? Obviously, you need to do good work, but can you (without selling too hard) encourage people to call you, to refer business, to try new things when you've done business in the past? The answer, thankfully, is 'yes', and that is where really good marketing enters the picture.

If you build your reputation -- your brand -- to a high enough level, you will receive the 'buy' calls -- you can then deliver the results your clients are seeking, and you will win more referral and relationship-based business.

The big challenge here is that most construction-related businesses, in hard times like we are enduring, have trouble finding enough people to buy -- and so are tempted to go out and sell. Yo may rush to bid jobs outside your scope of knowledge and relationships, you may pester people hoping for a nibble, you may chase at straws, or (worse) you may start knocking on doors, hoping someone -- anyone -- will answer and say 'yes.'.

Or people from marketing companies might call you and try to sell you stuff. You say, no, but then, some break through the resistance and you buy, but you ultimately are often unhappy -- the same way people seem to be unhappy when you go out and sell your services.

Solution: Think marketing -- smart marketing. Think creative, innovative approaches to create enough value and good-will that the right people will sense you know your stuff, that you will deliver on your promises, and you will honour your commitments. Then you don't have to sell anything to encourage people to buy.

Price, marketing, and sales (for those of us who hate selling)

Michael Stone in his most recent blog entry reiterates that the quickest way to business failure is to try to match the pricing of low ballers.

Low ballers have been in business since at least 1907 that I know of. My Grandfather and I used to talk about his early years as a carpenter. I remember him telling me about the owner of a company he worked for during that time and how the guy was always cussing the “Low Ballers”. So, this is something we just have to live with in this business. Remember, you can’t control them so don’t worry about them. It is a waste of your time and energy.

Stone rightfully advocates that you should market only to people who will pay your price, and suggests you learn how to sell more effectively. He also promotes his useful book, Profitable Sales, a Contractors' Guide.

I agree with Stone, mostly. Certainly you need to have some understanding of basic sales principals and approaches, and we are 100 per cent in agreement that you can't win the battle by lowering your price. Stone is also correct in that you must market to the right people and avoid the low ballers with some qualifying questions and controls.

However, I advocate that effective marketing using your natural talents, skills, and abilities can largely override your need to be great at selling, and that great selling, in itself, without underlying product and marketing skills, is also a road to disaster.

Here, personal experience in the school of hard business knocks has taught me the lessons about the limits of great selling ability. Great selling skills, without underlying marketing and product quality sensitivity, will take you places you probably don't want to go.

You know the types of business I am describing here -- the ones where door-to-door canvassers push junky or sometimes fraudulent services on unsuspecting clients; where boiler room phone teams exploit weaknesses, and where high pressure 'closers' don't let go until you are roped in to buy stuff. Some so-called sales gurus still advocate these hard-rock techniques, advocating a business style reflected by the 90s movie, Glengarry Glen Ross.

Most likely, if you successfully operated a contracting business during good times and are struggling now, you fit into an entirely different category. You are great at your craft or trade, you provide impeccable service, and clients really appreciate your work -- so much that, when things were good, you had a backlog of work, and absolutely satisfied clients.

Now things are hard, and clients are scarce, and the low-ballers are out there, and the leads services are providing crap, and you are struggling. What should you do?

You need to appreciate that your business brand is your greatest asset -- and your brand is your reputation and the trust people have in you. Your strategy should be to develop, maintain, and build on that brand through your marketing methodologies, to the point that clients continue to return to you for more work, and refer others.

The challenge is to avoid relying on referrals and repeat business -- but to systematize the process so you can generate enough repeat and referral leads through your marketing initiatives. You can achieve these results through organized marketing strategies far more effectively and sustainably, in my opinion, than with strong sales abilities (which, if you are like me, you may not have, or wish to use.)

Rainmaking, confidence and selling.

Glengarry Glen Ross is a classic example of stereotypical selling practices. Do they work? Sure, sometimes, but as Chase points out in his blog, you really succeed when you reach the point when clients start calling you -- or, more accurately, they are so comfortable doing business with you they don't feel they are being sold anything.

Chase, in his blog posting, "You know you are reaching to success when people start calling you" reports on the moment of success for anyone involved in sales and marketing: When you reach the point where clients call you, rather than you them, when you are invited to do business instead of selling yourself (and your soul).

Of course, we all know this is the way things are supposed to work -- You build your business reputation to the extent that word of mouth and repeat business generate most of your clients. The other conventional marketing resources: Advertising, canvassing and cold calling/telemarketing, and response to public bids/opportunities or use of leads services have their place and presumably can top up your numbers (or help you to get started).

This leads to another paradox; if the most effective selling is achieved without pressure, with people calling you rather than you forcing your way into their space, does your business need salespeople or can you get by with some friendly faces and good technical or trade skills?
Here, we discover another irony -- for most successful contracting and AEC professional businesses, "selling" seems inappropriate and most do not hire or contract with people who define themselves as sales reps. But I don't know of any contracting or professional business that survives for long without "rainmakers"; the very special professionally/technically qualified people with a gift for bringing in the business (sales!)

Of course, at the most fundamental levels, company founder/principals handle these selling responsibilities, but when they engage in the business development work personally, it often doesn't seem or feel like "selling" either to themselves or their clients. This is because as business owners (or senior partners) we are thinking from a perspective of confidence and equality with our peers. Also, we can see the entire picture, hopefully, and thus draw connections and links that others may fail to see. This type of "natural selling" is so subtle that it doesn't feel like it is happening -- but it is wonderful to implement in practice.

Perhaps the weakest and saddest sales reps are the ones who see the owners and "decision makers" as mysterious all-powerful forces with some superior status or position, who then proceed to call rotely to "everyone on the list" hoping someone, anyone, will buy! These individuals just don't get it. Rainmakers are confident -- and competent -- in our speciality. We are experts within our knowledge area, and regardless of our trade/profession, we exude this confidence to our business owner counterparts. They sense this confidence, and do business with us as partners/colleagues, not as "clients" or "decision-makers".

For example, the owner of a company that paves driveways may have barely a high school education and look way out of place in a suit and tie, but when he appears at the doorstep of a senior business executive whose driveway needs paving, he, not the executive, is the expert on paving driveways, and he knows it. And if he has done his work well, he will have served or worked with some of the executives peers, who he can reference naturally. He takes the lead within his area of knowledge and the other -- and I use the word "other" deliberately here -- executive understands this, and defers/delegates to him within his area of expertise/responsibility.

There is one other important thing here, which really complicates and challenges the picture. This seamless, seemingly 'unselling' selling requirement for any business needs to be combined with some thoughtful and absolutely non-bureaucratic planning and goal setting. You need to know and be able to project/interpret your results, and set targets and visions for your success. The seemingly spontaneous success, when people call you to order, or seem just to buy without any selling effort, needs an underlying structure and planning process, or you will fly by the seat of your pants and suddenly crash when market conditions change. You need to know why things work, and how to manage the process, if you are to succeed in the long term.

Not much of a salesperson?

Forrest Castile, of Castile Construction in Eugene, Oregon, has started a fascinating and important thread on contractortalk.com with this posting titled: Not much of a salesperson?

Ok, so it's getting clearer to me. I'm not much of a salesman. I've been busy and slowly expanding for the last 10 years, without much in the way of actually "selling" jobs. All referral work and clients who wanted to hire me. Not sure if it's the current economy, or if I've tapped out the pool I had, or if I'm screwing something up or what, but I'm getting calls, just not really selling (maybe 1/4 close ratio). What next?
1) Try some advertising? I'm in the yellow pages, and have a half azzed page-holder website that's not done yet- HELLO, GET IT DONE DUMMY!
2) Learn how to sell? This almost offends me, as I haven't had to even think about that 'til now. I used to get 90%. Without trying.
3) Spruce up the image? I drive older trucks and wear logo'ed t-shirts (usually clean), could use a haircut.
4) Gotta run- I'll check back later...

Other forum members (myself included) have contributed responses, exploring the challenges of a contractor who has built a reputation for quality, to the extent (in good times) he never lacked work -- but with the changing environment, now needs to start selling. This thread is worthy reading for anyone wondering "where has all my business gone" and seeking practical and effective solutions.

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.

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.

Selling: Working hard, smart or both

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The challenge of negative press

Countryside Publishing Company, Inc. has been the subject of hostile comments on an Internet thread for it sales practices. The company's products are in fact legitimate, and well-designed.

With more than 600 comments, this thread in The Daily WTF, "So You Hacked Our Site!?" raises some interesting and important questions. Initially, I saw this simply as a case of "slagging" on the Internet; but my eyes perked up when I noticed that the business publishing Federal Suppliers Guide, Countryside Publishing Company, Inc. of Ocala, Florida, is also very much in our neck of the woods -- for several years they've produced marketing brochures, CDs and websites for contractors and builders; using the supplier chain to help fund the work.

Unfortunately, many commenters on this thread's postings describe "Federal Suppliers Guide" as a scam. It is not, and Countryside in fact produces technically satisfactory products including its construction industry books and CDs. Some samples of their work (obtained via Google search) are referenced below.

http://www.countrysidepublishing.com/images/12-summit.pdf

and

http://www.countrysidepublishing.com/images/20-legacy.pdf

The issue here in my opinion is not Countryside/Federal Suppliers Guide's legitimacy as a business -- but the challenges of aggressive selling practices, and the potential negative fall-out from these approaches.

Outbound telemarketing and sales calls by their nature are intrusive; almost no one asks a complete stranger to call them and invite them to spend money. To be "effective"businesses which engage in processes like phone cold calling and door-to-door canvassing, develop tools to break through resistance and barriers and get the order, often leaving a sour taste behind. Regardless of the actual value or legitimacy of the actual product or service delivered (and I am not suggesting any problems with Countryside's products), the selling process leaves vibes that are less than perfect. And this is ironic, because Countryside/Federal Suppliers Guide is offering marketing tools and services for builders and contractors.

In this thread, unfortunately, Countryside is inaccurately described as a "scam" and one of the company's employees -- rightfully hurt by the inaccurate assertions -- comes on to defend the business. Ouch. This just sets off page after page of rebuttal, compounding the negative publicity.

At times in the past (and probably in the future) Countryside's business has competed or will compete with ours; we use supplier chain resources to sell our advertising features; and some people we've approached in the past have recalled experiences with Countryside (one even provided their sales contract to our representative). Searching through other web postings about Countryside, I don't find negative insights -- instead, I sense this company has built loyalty and respect among its employees.

Nevertheless, we can all learn lessons here about effective selling and marketing and the dangers of overly assertive/aggressive techniques. Here, Countryside/Federal Suppliers Guide is being put through a wringer. We must always be careful that our selling process not be so intrusive that the community forms this type of image of our businesses. In the end, while what we do/deliver is what counts the most, if the overriding emotions and impressions created about us is that we are a 'scam', we will find increasing costs and lower sales -- just the opposite of what we (and I think Countryside) are seeking to achieve.

Some thoughts about sales team motivatioon

This Linkedin.com thread offers many answers to this question: "Do you have a successful case of the sales team motivation to share with us?" Lots of perspectives, lots of ideas. I'll share my own thoughts in a future blog entry.

Salesopedia -- a useful resource

http://www.salesopedia.com

Lots of good stuff here -- because it is general, rather than specific to Construction Marketing, I won't permalink it, but you will probably find it worthwhile setting this site on your favorites for further checking.


Latest issue of the Construction Marketing Ideas newsletter has just been emailed. Please feel free to let me know what you think -- and suggest topics for future issues.

Hard-rock selling? Does it work?

The previous posting discussing cold call selling touches on an important and challenging issue within the AEC sector. Conventional selling approaches, in place of much softer relationship and word-of-mouth marketing, are relatively uncommon in the industry, except in some retail sectors (for example vinyl siding). Does it make sense to turn the tables on conventional practices and go for the gold with traditional, intensive, and often intrusive sales techniques, like cold calling?
My answer is, it depends -- and the "depends" is largely on how your selling model interrelates with your brand. There is a cliche that no one likes to be sold but everyone likes to buy; I'm not sure if that is 100 per cent true -- but some might see it as truly intrusive to bring old-fashioned persistent salespeople into professional practices, like architects and engineers.
But what if the salesperson you hire is really good -- he or she understands your business, the marketplace, and is motivated to bring in profitable and rewarding new business, freeing your 'rainmaker' executives to focus on administering and expanding the deals that are introduced effectively.
Of course, finding great salespeople is not a simple matter. I've learned some important lessons through hard experience, some of which are described in other blog entries. If you are looking to hire salespeople, you will need a reliable management system to ensure you only select and work with qualified applicants -- and, in my experience, you will need to go through up to 300 initial applicants to find one suitable finalist candidate.
The biggest challenge, after selecting a salesperson through a rigorous process, is that you then need to discover whether your business culture can handle the new approach; and give it the time it needs to succeed. These are daunting barriers to entry -- and suggest that unless the principals of the AEC practice are really into selling, they should tread carefully before changing their business style. Then again, the businesses and practices that take the unconventional risks, rationally and pragmatically, often achieve the greatest success.

Selling: Defining business practices

In looking back on the list of mistakes I made over the past few years, clearly one of the biggest proved to be allowing this company's previous strong salespeople to define our business practices. The sales leaders were certainly effective in bringing in the business, but I allowed the business direction to be determined by their values -- forgetting, to my great cost, the damaging impact that "effective selling" can have on how the marketplace perceives our business, and the quality of long-term relationships.
The reason: Each of the salespeople used their skills to achieve a primary goal -- selling advertising, largely through advertorial features, which continue to be this company's main source of revenue. Properly done, these features indeed reflect and represent real value for everyone involved -- and they are proving sustainable even as advertising shifts from print to online media. The reason is that the features can cement relations and assist the market development of successful businesses.
Fair enough; this stuff works, but how are we seen in the marketplace? Here we paid a big price in product quality and market acceptance by forgetting the larger picture of where we stand in the community.
My number one Canadian salesperson, for example, effectively 'connected' and convinced people to do business with her. She did virtually everything over the phone; even though she worked from the Ottawa office, she never went to local industry events, social functions, or simply gave 'face time' to her clients and the community-at-large. This proved to be the editor's responsibility. And when I began cutting costs, and my editor (wishing to maintain his freelance income) cut his 'face time' with the clients, things went from bad to worse. We began being seen as money-grabbing greedy people, simply taking what we can from the marketplace.
A somewhat similar dynamic operated in the U.S. I remember great efforts to 'court' a local construction trade group with the hope we could make some money through an advertising feature with their consent. When the idea died at the association's board table, my local staff just picked up and moved on -- not realizing the golden opportunity to forget the 'take' and emphasise the 'give'. They needed to bring in the sales, the features, the cash, and this soft time consuming committee work wouldn't get them very far!
I certainly don't blame my former salespeople for these errors -- responsibility, always, rests with me. Pushing for good current numbers, coupled with my philosophy of allowing much freedom and independence to employees, I didn't correct the issues -- in fact, I grew lazy myself. "I don't need to attend these meeting because either my staff will be there or we can pick up the information later by phone," I said. And so relationships eroded, people felt left out, and (I discovered later) long-established high quality connections were dissipating in an environment of acrimony and frustration.
In the past year, as working editor as well as publisher in our much smaller market, I've been able to get closer to the clients and correct things. In fact, I now see how important it is to spend time, money and resources on activities that have nothing to do with bringing in cash. Our brand image, for want of a better word, is improving rapidly. Notably, it is also resulting in new and profitable sales from markets we had previously thought as 'mature'.

Coffee coupons, an early start and late career

Craig Cosgrove (second from right in this photo) represents Alpine Construction Supplies, an Ottawa-based business that hardly rivals Craig's previous long time employers; multinationals one of whom (Dow Chemical) employed more than 35,000 people. After a long career as a technical representative, he lost his job in a downsizing operation. He found employment -- too briefly -- at a competing multinational.

So, out of work much later in one's career than one would like, he needed to do something else -- and ended up at Alpine, which employs just a few people and has some exclusive distribution rights for specialized products in eastern Ontario.

Last night, he greeted me at an Ottawa Construction Association barbecue. I knew Craig many years ago from voluntary work we did with the local chapter of Construction Specifications Canada (affiliated with the U.S.-based Construction Specifications Institute). He still does the type of selling required to move building products from manufacturer to end-user, but as we viewed vintage cars and motorcycles owned by OCA members, he shared with me his model for selling effectiveness. As an old hand in the business, he taught me many new tricks. You may learn something here too.

1. Coffee coupons work wonders. Canadians (especially in Ottawa!) are really into Tim Hortons coffee. It is good, inexpensive, and available through dozens of locations. Craig buys books of coupons worth a couple of dollars each at Tim Hortons, and staples the coupons to his business cards. When he is meeting current clients, or job site prospects he wishes to do business with, he hands them the card/coupon combination. He says the generosity almost always brings a smile to the recipient. ("I don't need to bring coffee to the prospect but they really like the coupons," he said.) For good reason. The gift is small enough that no one is going to f eel uncomfortable (or in violation of ethical standards) in accepting it. To use it, the recipient has to at least look at the business card. And its convenience and easy transferability makes it a great sharing opportunity.

2. Service is vital, and going out of the way brings dividends. After much persistence, Craig finally received his first order from a superintendent, for an obscure product that no one had in stock locally (including Alpine). Craig scoured the Internet, discovered the manufacturer, obtained a referral to the appropriate Canadian distributor, and put in a rush order to have the product delivered within two days. The small order of course proved to be a test for something much larger.

3. Many purchases are still made early in the morning, at the job site. Craig says mcuh of the construction supply business is managed carefully by the larger contractors who have centralized purchasing operations and would never allow job site superintendents to order something, on the spot, on the morning of a job. But that leaves the remaining element of the business -- where things are still operating much seat of the pants. You get there first, you get there early, and you'll get the business. (But beware, your competitor may only be a few steps behind --or ahead -- of you.)

4. This end stage purchase point is still where the actual order occurs. Of course, it is important for product manufacturers and distributors to work with architects and specifiers -- you aren't going to even have a chance of getting the order unless your product/technology is specified -- but in the end, you need to sell the end-user --the contractor or sub-trade actually installing your stuff.

I told Craig I would like to take a picture of him to post in this blog (and later in Ottawa Construction News). Craig didn't miss the opportunity. He found a group of employees of mechanical contractor Black and McDonald and arranged to be in the same photo as them. Current/future clients? Of course.

As we wandered around the catering 'ranch' barbecue venue, Craig greeted others, including one of his direct competitors. They exchanged notes about someone they both knew who they had learned had recently been fired. He had worked at a large company for many years, lost his job, and then was hired by a competitor, only to lose his second job. I remarked that the only 'security' I have as a self employed person is the ability, to some extent, to control my own environment. But that isn't always easy.

There is something to be said for hard work, a willingness to carry on, and an appreciation that selling is a mixture of moving very fast and being very patient. Yesterday, more clearly than ever, I saw how really good technical representatives combine these qualities to achieve success for their employers. We all have lessons to learn.