The start-up marketing challenge (3)

John Poole in his Constructionomics blog addresses the question: How do you get work as a new construction company? He writes from first hand, live experience, and says it is more than rough -- especially in the current economy -- it is more like the Ironman than the marathon.

Above anything else, a network of potential clients is probably the most advantageous resource for a new company. If there are people for whom you have delivered work in the past while working for another company, a new firm can approach these folks and try to drum up some business. The potential client will have a better feeling about this new firm because, although they are new, there is at least some history of past performance which will establish some confidence in the mind of the client. So that's avenue number one - hit up your past clients.

But what if your network is sparse because you are in a new area or you are working in a slightly different market than one you have worked before? Well, this is where you need to pound the pavement like a marathon runner. You also have to explain to any potential clients what features and benefits your company offers. Construction services are not a commodity, they are unique to every organization. Your company must have a competitive advantage in the marketplace in order to get off the ground. Of course low price can be one of these advantages but there also has to be more. Something creative, something new, something to differentiate yourself from the ranks of ho-hum organization doing similar work.

In his post John describes leads services (he has signed up with one but not received any work, and pounding the pavement). For one public project, he found 25 competitors at the site meeting (for a $100,000 job). I've heard worse -- up to 50 or 60 have shown up for some Ontario projects. Can anything be harder than this?

So to sum it up, it's difficult, not impossible, but difficult. I suppose persistence is the key, but you will certainly be no stranger to a strong dose of frustration.

My sense the biggest challenge John and other people have is that they haven't yet found their Uniqueness. If you are one of many competing for the jobs out there, you will be fighting a pretty tough fight -- this is brutal stuff with insane price competition , qualifications barriers, and if you have the misfortune to be in an area with organized crime and corruption (like Quebec), you may have to work with evil people.

John has part of the answer in his well-written blog. It can be a healthy differentiator and relationship builder, and it humanizes his business, making him more than another number. And, yes, some decision-makers will go the web and check you out, so if you are writing useful stuff it will help.

The challenge in start-up is to combine uniqueness, solid existing relationships, and a lot of sweat. Its how I got started 20 years ago, and I have never regretted the decision.

The start-up marketing challenge

Start-up architectural, engineering and construction practices/businesses have the standard "experience" problem plaguing prospective employees either just getting started, or starting a new career.

You don't have experience, and no one will give you a chance without experience and verifiable references. This is especially painful for public projects, where supposedly the competition is fair, but you require a bond, and surety companies won't touch you with a ten foot pole.

If you are a renovator, designer, or the like, how are you going to stand out from the clutter of really bad hacks, willing to work for next to nothing, and what kind of clients are you likely to find who will give you a chance, who don't know you already?

Obviously, every year, many businesspeople surmount these challenges and successfully launch their businesses. Generally, you can overcome the start-up challenges with a combination of these traits:

You have experience, connections and knowledge (and relationships and reputation) in the area you wish to serve.
This occurs for example when you have been an executive at one company and are starting out in the space as a competitor. Your suppliers (and, if you are not subject to non-competition agreements) your clients know your integrity, reputation and capacity. The advantage of suppler connections cannot be understated. I know of one roofing contractor who got his start because suppliers, knowing his character, extended 90 day credit, and he could get bonding for small jobs (again based on his reputation and personal assets). So he then went to bid public jobs, undercutting the competition, but not worrying about cash flow with supplier support, thus building his reputation and market potential.

You have lots of money
Yes I know this is the quickest way to lose it, but you can certainly start a lot easier if you have money to lose. The danger is you will probably lose it if you are not really careful. My suggestion: Read the third option on this list before spending any of your money and starting up. You need to establish your business on the hard knocks of reality before it hits you in the pocket-book.

You learn/know how to sell directly
You will not be successful at a start-up unless you can sell. Plain and simple. You cannot get others to do this for you (the exception is a partnership between two people who know each other well, have plenty of experience in the business, and fit all the qualifications as a team for the first route above. Then, of course, as a partnership, you are treated as "one" and thus are defined to have selling ability.)

Note I didn't say you have to like to sell. If you get your business of the ground you can hire others to help you on the selling function, but you simply won't be able to lead unless you can do it yourself.

Early stage selling may involve canvassing, cold calling, knocking on doors, and calling every friend or near friend you have. If this is too sickening to do, just try the same techniques to find a job!

You have a defined, unique focus and niche
This is an important principal in marketing, even at start-ups. You need to know what you want to do, and be willing to drill down and stick to it. The more specific, the better. You can't do everything, and if you want to dabble at several unrelated things at the same time, you will struggle.

You should follow your strengths, doing what you enjoy, and what you are really good at doing.
This is going to be a rocky experience, frustrating, challenging and fraught with failure and defeat. You need to have the stick-it-to-itness and ability to rebound or you will give up before you get too far.

Realistically, not everyone is cut out for business, and even if you are, your first "choices" may be bad. You need to figure out what you really want to do, and be willing to pay the dues. It isn't easy. But the rewards of success make it all worthwhile.

Finding your way: Self employment, start-up focus and marketing

Yesterday, I had coffee with a friend who I've known for many years. Formerly employed by a major corporation, over his life, his pay cheques have probably been much larger than mine (we've never discussed specific salary or income levels: bad manners to do that, of course.)

He's seen shifts, changes, bumps and grinds, and experienced the painful reality of corporate life: When decisions are made outside your control, you can be victims of corporate misfortunes not your fault.

His challenge now: He doesn't know exactly what to do, and his explorations in starting up in business for himself have had their share of disappointments.

He started work co-ordinating a renovation project (he is skilled with his hands as well as his mind). Even with a proper contract and clear processes, things went truly bad when the homeowner suddenly decided that the project would end mid-stream, immediately. Pay -- including the thousands of dollars for ordered and delivered kitchen cabinets? "No way," the homeowner said. Lawyers say he is well covered by the contract, and with changes impending increasing the small claims limits within Ontario, he is waiting a couple of months to file the legal papers. But right now he has $7,500 in kitchen cabinets.

"There are people out there willing to work for virtually nothing, and I've been offered $1,300 for the cabinets," he said. "I don't know if this is for me?"

I started the conversation, before knowing this story, asking him what he really enjoys and is good at. He said he could be a great consultant, and maybe he could be a great renovator. Well, those are two rather different career tracks.

I have a potential business/career opportunity in the consulting space. This blog (and my own expertise) are leading to plenty of initial inquires, but I haven't found a way (yet) to effectively guide these potential clients. The problem in part is that many readers here are very small businesses and start-ups (like my friend) without much money for full-scale consulting services. We need to have a system to process the leads and guide the qualified ones for revenue-generating services.

But I have an existing business, and right now the marketing from this blog is focused on guiding potential clients to the services we currently offer. They are useful, of course, but quite specialized, and I sense that while they could be of value to many readers here, the blog isn't really the best way to refer the potential clients to my current business.

I proposed to my friend that we could build a consulting business, in part, by rethinking this blog's lead management system. He expressed interest. But I didn't rush the decision.
I probed deeper to get a real sense of what he really wanted to do.

Does he really want to be a renovator, or does he really want to be a consultant (or does he want to go back to the corporate space?) Is one bad experience as a renovator dissuading him from a really rational career choice? If that is the case, I suggested he join the relevant home builders association, and budget some money (about $3,000 to $5,000) for marketing to build a brand and distinguish himself from the low-ballers. It won't be easy, I told him, but it is the way to go if he really wants to work in that field.

I explained to him that I have always had the good fortune of being "dumbly narrow". In other words, from when I was 10 years old, I knew that I wanted to be a journalist and publisher. It took a while to fulfill these visions, but ultimately I found my way. With the decision in hand, I developed the necessary supporting skills and eventually had my own business.

I could push him to work on the consulting project, and he might be really good at that, but equally I listened to his "heart" and realized that it is wrong to sell this too hard.

So what should he do? Where should he focus? And how can he make the commitment to the course he wants to take, with the ups and downs, and the frustrations and economic risk?
These are easier questions to ask than answer. It is easy to say "go where your heart tell you to go" but there are still painful choices. Life isn't easy at the start-up stage; and things go wrong.

Construction Marketing: Leads and sales when you are just starting out

You don't need fancy marketing materials in the start-up stage if you are willing to burn some shoe leather and have a simple, defined niche and service offer (and, better, you enjoy your work). The contractor using this note claimed he could earn $10,000 to $20,000 in sales in less than four hours canvassing. I haven't been able to validate the claim, however.

Many new businesses start during recessions and the often are the most successful and viable enterprises when conditions recover. Often, you start your own business during hard times because you have nothing to lose -- you have lost your job -- and you know you have the talent and ability to succeed.

The challenge is you don't have piles of money to waste, and you need to get business, fast. Unless you have some rich relatives to back you (you might, in which case you are blowing their money, not your own), you must preserve every cent you have and decide how to use your time and resources effectively.

This blog is not a general source of business start-up advice; I focus purely on marketing issues here, but that is part of my advice. You need to focus your energies in a specific niche and area of expertise, framed within a geographical or social market space. In other words, you can "do everything" if you wish to offer handyman services (minor work under $5,000) within a rural community or defined (small) urban neighbourhood. You are not going to succeed if you try to do everything and go after big jobs in a wide area (assuming, in the first place, you can obtain licensing or bonding to get this type of work at the outset.)

Conversely, you can position yourself as an expert in something like (this is just off the top of my head), "heritage building repainting" if you serve a community with specific heritage preservation laws and have the relevant credentials, or "stock car garage fitting" if you happen to know a lot of NASCAR people needing that type of service.

Two practical clues to ideal focus are (a) the first project that may have fallen into your lap (perhaps from a relative or someone who knows your expertise and (b), whether you are really, amazingly, fascinated and love doing the work because the opportunity represents who you are in your entire inner self. The second point may seem absurdly idealistic when you are just trying to make a few bucks, quickly, but is actually truly important at the business start-up stage. If you don't really love your work, if you are just doing the work to survive, you are likely to live on the edge of failure permanently, or at least until someone offers you a less-crappy job. (Because most business start-ups are worse in pay, working conditions, and 'security' than the most crappy jobs.)

Next, you need to find clients. You are going to have to do it the hard way, at the start, but you can still finesse things. Perhaps you can obtain testimonials from previous clients where you worked as an employee elsewhere (beware of course of non-compete and non-solicitation requirements in your employment contract; if you have these, you may be able to get out of them, but you should be willing to spend a few hundred dollars for legal advice before you start.)

You can:

• Call friends and relatives;
• Call on your network through your church, social clubs, or (if you are established in these spaces) Internet social network sites;
• Use free advertising resources such as Craigs List;
• Canvass and/or telemarket: Can be highly effective if you are willing to burn the shoe leather, handle the rejection, and sincerely offer your service. See my earlier posting about a rather surprising canvassing success story.

You should not pay cash for advertising, and be wary of commercial leads services, at the start. First, you don't know what you are doing, and second, you will find that unwise decisions can drain whatever capital you have.

Remember you need to focus your energies within a specific niche, community, or market speciality, and if at all possible, offer a service that you really want to provide with passion, heart, and energy. Your will to work and your enthusiasm for your trade or speciality will carry you much further than millions of dollars in capital or slick marketing materials.

Surviving the recession (video)

This video, again, isn't ready for prime time -- but the interesting thing is that it took only a few minutes to produce, now that I've learned some of the basics of the Mac's iMovie software and uploading on YouTube.com.



A few days ago, a reader responded to the second Construction Marketing Ideas video with this note:

Hi,
I've watched your video on YouTube today and was very interested in some of the strategies that you described. I currently own and run my own construction business but I've only been in operation for a few months.

Currently, work is slow and it does not help with the current economic markets as they are and that is why I've begun to research better methods of enlisting new clients and work.

I was very interested in the strategy whereby you send customers letters/brochures/flyers etc stating an hour of labour for free and i would be interested to giving it a go. As i have not many previous clients, how would you recommend I carry out the task ie how do i approach the client in the flyer and what information do i need within it.

I would be very grateful if you could shine some expertise on this area of your work and provide me with some tools that i can use to gain more clients. Thanks for your help and i hope to hear from you in the near future.

Unfortunately the person who responded didn't understand the important point that the free service offer is valid for well-established businesses seeking to maintain or expand its client base; I don't think anyone starting out should rush to offer free services especially as a primary marketing strategy (this may invite people to take advantage of you, and nothing else.) Here is my response:

I think this free service approach is only valid if your business is well established and you have previous clients and wish to attract more or referral business from them. I do not recommend it as an approach to attract new business from people who have never done business with you before! You will spend much time, I fear, doing free work and not receive proper compensation for your efforts.

The challenges of building your business from scratch are more complex. Your best potential clients to start are going to be people with whom you have done some business (perhaps as an employee of another contractor). In these cases, I think you should first note who they are, and then get in touch with them. One approach is to ask for advice on the best way to get started; or for recommendations to relevant groups or associations. In your conversations, if possible, obtain testimonials about your work -- you will need these references to attract other new business. You really need to understand pricing -- rarely is it wise to build your business by being the cheapest: many people starting out under price their services (I certainly did).

In the early goings you will need more face to face and less 'marketing materials' but of course you should have a website etc. Also, be careful to ensure you specialize in a defined niche -- you must not allow yourself to be one of many!

You will find many clues in the blog and also at sites such as contractortalk.com but there is not 'get rich quick' approach here.

Now that I've learned the basics of handing a simple fixed shot video, it is time to progress to something a little more creative and complex -- and use the video resource to tell stories effectively and inexpensively.

Your start-up pricing challenge

If you are fortunate to be expanding your business during a recession, you have some real advantages. Prices are lower, and many talented people are looking for work. The same advantages apply if you are establishing a new business. In fact, you may be starting a business now because you have lost your job and think you can do things better than your former employer. Many truly successful businesses are established during hard times (many also fail, of course).

Your real test in this environment is whether you can find and retain profitable clients. With many people out of work, some small start-ups price their services far lower than they should to remain viable. And some clients take advantage of these low prices, only often to find to their regret they've paid for more than they expect with incomplete jobs, sloppy workmanship, and perhaps unexpected liabilities.

On the other hand, many new business people are like I was at the start of my self-employment. I didn't know or appreciate how to price my services and worked far too hard for far too little money -- but still provided a really good service. The only problem is, as originally designed, the business could never grow because (outside of working 80 hours a week for something like $35,000 a year in income), I didn't have enough profits (retained earnings) to fund the hiring of competent people for reasonable wages.

Your best pricing challenge solution is to learn how to market and sell your services effectively. You need to know how to find the right clients willing to pay you enough for your work.

Do you know how to network effectively, how to advertise, and how to discover hidden clues within public leads and data to lead to hidden (private) opportunities? Some time spent developing these skills will yield profitable results and help you go beyond the treadmill of starvation-level wages.

Getting your (initial) marketing signals right

Middle Tennessee isn't Malibu, but it certainly is beautiful. Ironically, and unrelated to this posting/question, I have a sixth sense we will be working in Tennessee ourselves in the not-to-distant future.

Yesterday afternoon, a contractor responded to my Construction Marketing Ideas e-letter offer to provide answers to this question: "What is your number one construction marketing concern?"

I did have a question that you might help with. It may be a little basic, but here it goes. What is the most effective way to distinguish my company from the rest of the competition here locally? I am a builder that has spent 25 years in a very high end residential market (Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Malibu, Ca) and moved to an area (Middle Tennessee) that has a lot of “builders” that don’t even build to code (no code enforcement in the counties).

The demographics are thankfully changing with people moving in from parts of the country that are more demanding. How do I then get the message out to potential clients that there is a difference in quality and that the additional costs of building a quality product will result in a net gain for them? Many of these clients hire the “locals” thinking they are getting a good price only to find they were really buying an education in who not to hire. Any ideas that you can offer will be appreciated.

Fair question, so I took my first step in answering any question -- seeking a little insight into the person making the inquiry. I Googled the contractor's name and found a couple of tiny references, including one to what appeared to have been an expired or cancelled free ad posting. No website, and the person who had written me had used a regular personal Internet account.

So how does he expect to find any business? Has he taken even the first step to differentiate himself from the local folk whose marketing probably succeeds even if it is as bad as the now-infamous handwritten scratch note we found at our door in Canada some months ago?

Now, it is important this contractor not rush to put up a crappy website -- this requires thought, effort, and planning (or a worthy consultant who knows how to set up contractor websites!) But I think the stuff you could post here would include testimonials from previous clients (even out of state, if they are willing to stand behind their testimonials), some basic images showing the quality of his work, and if he wishes to get more sophisticated, some other differentiating marketing material. You don't get in the game unless you play on the web these days -- especially if you are looking for clients willing to pay a little more than the bare minimum.

Here is a relevant thread on the Contractortalk.com forums describing: What makes a good company website?

Note, simply having a great website still won't solve the problem here, which is even deeper. Marketing to the high end takes reputational excellence -- word of mouth is going to define success here -- and of course you can't get much word of mouth unless you have some clients in the first place.

So, it seems, he may have the classic chicken-and-egg problem. "I"m good but don't have local experience/reputation. But no one will give me that experience/reputation without my needing to beat my head against the wall on price. So what should I do?" Well, you could go on price, selectively, if you sense your early client(s) would be true centers of influence -- but the danger here is you are setting yourself up for more of the same. The other solution is theoretically really smart marketing differentiation/planning, but I doubt this contractor is anywhere near that level -- at least from what I can see of his non-website. (Unless of course he has this in mind and is actually planning and working on his strategy.)

So, is there anything else I can suggest? One possibility is joining the local Home Builders' Association. Membership fees are likely not that high, and the contractor will gain a network of contacts, the opportunity to tie in with additional resources and, if he really works at it, assume a leadership role.

Finally, the letter writer needs to be realistic. He is in Tennessee, not Malibu. Although marketing principals are consistent everywhere, markets are not. He may be able to differentiate his place in the market by selling to new immigrants to Tennessee wishing the higher level of service/quality from his former West Coast location, but is going to need to communicate to these new arrivals his expertise, professionalism, and that his pricing, while a little above the norm locally, gives a whole lot more in quality. But he needs to dress the part. Where is his website, business phone, well appointed/decorated company van/truck . . . where are the signals to the potential client that he will indeed deliver what he says he will deliver? In the long term, the delivery is always the most important thing, but at the start, you have to have your signals right -- if you don't have a pre-qualified and ready-to-go client base, that is.

Getting started in construction marketing: Some ideas from experience

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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