Every year Hubspot hosts a conference called Inbound related to inbound marketing; a marketing strategy that hasn't hit the A/E/C field yet. They have 100's of the best speakers in the marketing from various industries come each year and give everyone the low-down on what they need to know to market your firm more effectively.
Who Should You Go See
Seth Godin - He was the keynote in 2013 and is again in 2015. He not only talks about the technical side of marketing, he brings it to the level that many people forget; marketing is meant to have you connect with other customers, and your goal is to make your customers happy.
This resonates perfectly in the A/E/C industry. Every firm needs to be delighting their customers so that they can get more new work through positive reviews and the ability to do positive case studies on your customers. You can then use these to showcase that your firm as one that delights people and cares about their clients. By doing simple things like taking the time to reach out as the project goes on or following up on how the customer likes the design or project you did for them, and making yourself seem human to them, will go a long way for customer satisfaction. Even if it isn't by phone or email is only takes a second to reach out to a client on Twitter or Facebook and if you did a great job satisfying them, it shouldn't be a problem getting them to vouch for you.
Seth Godin did a great job getting this message across in 2013 and I'm sure he will do it again, as well as give us some other great ideas and strategies to improve our ability to make clients lives better.
Mike Volpe - Mike Volpe is the CMO at Hubspot and always delivers great content on things you should be doing for marketing in his sessions. He does a great job explaining his ideas and he makes it seem very easy to implement everything he recommends.
He had a session on analytics two years ago and it delivered great advice that we could use right away, We made huge improvements in know what we should be looking at in our analytics and how to report and track them. He gave simple metrics and made it easy to attribute numbers to different parts of the reports.
Alexis Ohanian - He is a co-founder of Reddit, and I think a lot of people can learn from Reddit and how they got so popular. Reddit was able to provide people with what they want and that's why they keep going back.
I have never seen Alexis speak but anyone who was as successful as he is in viral marketing is worth listening to and can potentially give you some great ideas on satisfying your customers and making it so that website is something your clients want to keep coming back to.
Inbound this year will be in Boston. Sept 8-11, 2015
Click here to view all the speakers for this year's conference
Friday, May 22, 2015
Thursday, August 21, 2014
On Becoming an Owner: What You Need to Know
To be a successful owner in a design firm,
you must recognize at a minimum, four points:
1. The informality you have
enjoyed with your coworkers will radically change as an owner. By necessity
your professional relationship with them will become more formal and business
like.
2. Your management and
leadership style influences the firm’s ability to attract and retain top
talent. While there are examples of successful firms with autocratic
(dictatorial) leadership, the trend is clearly toward a more participative
management style among the most successful firms. Young professionals will only
stay under the strong hand of a centralized, autocratic management style as
long as it is convenient to them. As soon as they reach a certain professional
and financial level, the most capable professionals will move to a more
acceptable leadership environment.
3. You must become a team
builder. The skills needed to build an effective team are substantially
different from those required to become proficient professional designers. Some
leaders have natural talent, but most have to work hard at it.
4. The key to achieving
success in any business is directly related to bringing in new work—new
clients. Whether or not you enjoy the marketing and sales aspects of business,
you must develop your ability to manage clients, establishing and maintaining
relationships with them built on trust and mutual respect. The one who “owns”
the client has the clout, every time.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
THREE PROVEN IDEAS FOR REASSURING THE CLIENT
Winning
the job does not mean the marketing of the firm and the team is over. In fact,
the moment of highest anxiety for the client is right after they have hired you for
the job. "Did we make the right choice? Will they deliver what they
promised, or
what we thought they promised? Will we be able to get along with these people for
the next two years?
Be
sure your project teams keep the following in mind:
1. Clients always chose us for reasons other than what we
think. Debrief to find out
what promises were actually bought.
2. Communicate the results of the debriefing to the entire team
at the project kick-off
meeting.
3. Understanding the project goals is not enough. Be sure you
understand how the
client will evaluate your performance.
Right
from the start, give the client reassurances that they will be able to work compatibly
with you during the process of delivery.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Are You on the Brink of a Bad Turnover?
According
to PSMJ research, at least in design firms, people don’t leave because of
money—only about 20% cite wages as a reason for leaving and about half that
give “workplace conflict” as their reason for quitting. The biggest cause?
Insufficient recognition coupled with limited advancement opportunities.
To
ascertain your level of vulnerability to bad turnover, take the following short quiz.
It will increase your awareness of the factors that can erode employee satisfaction
and lead to bad turnover.
- Are you in a competitive labor market with lots of new job opportunities?
- Does your firm have a strong orientation program for new hires?
- Do you have a good mentoring program?
- Do you have good hiring practices that ensure you hire the right people for the right job?
- Do your employees believe they are effective in their jobs?
- Do employees believe they are wanted or needed by the firm?
- Do your employees see a clear career path and understand how to move ahead in the firm? Is the path to principal clearly understood?
- Is compensation data readily available to all staff so comparisons can be easily made?
- Are your employees dissatisfied with their pay?
- Is your fringe benefits program competitive?
- Do employees believe there is strong communication between employees and principals?
- Do your employees respect the management skills of their supervisors?
- Do employees believe they are being taken advantage of or exploited?
- Are employees given the training and resources to complete assignments successfully?
- Do you conduct regular, fair, and timely performance appraisals?
- Do employees believe they are not being informed of what is going on in the firm?
- Do employees perceive that management does not have a plan for the future?
- Are employees asked to act in a manner they believe is unethical?
Now talk
with your staff about the important issues the quiz raises.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
The Age-Old Question: Who Should be Involved in BD?
The answer, according to PSMJ’s
salary survey, is almost everyone! From the Chairman of the Board to a junior
project manager, your people need to
be involved. And who better to sell your firm and services than those who know
it best.
Here’s the breakdown of average
percent time spent on BD activities by personnel category, as reported in the 2013 PSMJ A/E Management Compensation
Benchmark Report:
Position
|
Time
Allocated to BD Activities (%)
|
Chairman of the Board
|
30
|
Chief Executive Officer
|
29
|
Executive Vice President
|
28
|
Senior Vice President
|
26
|
Other Principals
|
23
|
Director of Finance
|
3
|
Controller
|
7
|
Business Manager
|
13
|
Director of Administration
|
1
|
Director of Operations
|
18
|
Director of Quality Control
|
8
|
Director of Business Development
|
68
|
Director of Human Resources
|
3
|
Director of Computer Operations
|
5
|
Branch Office Manager
|
21
|
Department Head
|
19
|
Senior Project Manager
|
11
|
Junior Project Manager
|
7
|
Follow these tips to increase
participation from key people:
*
Senior executives. Include them in the BD
accountability list. This list provides a reminder that, without clients, your
organization is nothing. And who knows the top echelon at your best clients’
organizations better than your senior executives?
*
Director of operations. He or she
may enjoy the day-to-day in-house routine of running the office. Assign
specific BD responsibilities such as client sponsor roles to this individual.
Who else knows the full scope of services the operation can provide and war
stories to back it up?
*
Junior project managers. When a
staff engineer gets promoted to any “project manager” role, be sure to sit down
with the new PM and clearly state your expectations related to business
development. And assign a good mentor (see article on page xx).
You have a wealth of BD assets. Take
every opportunity to involve your personnel at all levels!
Thursday, August 7, 2014
5 Reasons Why You Need a BD Plan
Does your firm (or branch office)
have a Business Development Plan?
If so, does it really work? Is it
complete and functional? Do you point to it with pride as you interview
potential staff members? Does your Board of Directors consult your plan and use
it for benchmarking?
If your answers to any of these
questions is a resounding “No,” then this issue is intended for you. And if
your answers are all an enthusiastic “Yes,” then this issue can give you a way
to consider an alternate way as you update your plan.
Your firm needs a robust BD plan for
many reasons:
1.
A BD plan drives your entire business development program
2.
Developing the right business from the right clients drives your entire
business plan… and your success
3.
The BD plan allows you to benchmark your operation throughout the year, and
take corrective action where necessary
4.
The BD plan enables you to measure individual staff members’ success in
developing new and expanded business opportunities, and take corrective action
where necessary
5.
In firms with multiple offices, the BD plan provides a measure of continuity of
mission and approach among the offices
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
What’s the Secret to Nailing the Interview Q&A?
What’s the secret to nailing the questions during a project interview? Easy, ask your own questions.
A few months
ago a few colleagues and I were in Arkansas interviewing for a fairly large (at
least by our standards) project. We were among the two shortlisted firms who
had been invited to meet the selection committee.
The firm we
were competing with was an established organization, nearly 50 years old, with
numerous projects overseas, shelves of national accolades and awards, and dozens
of employees. Our firm was just two years old, very small, and had only a few
projects under the belt of the company name.
Our strength
at the interview was in knowing that we were long shots. In putting together
our slide presentation, and knowing that there would be time for Q&A at the
end, we decided to include pre-prepared questions in our presentation. We began
the Q&A period by saying to the selection committee, “If we were you, these
are the question we would be asking us.”
We focused
the questions on our appeared inefficiencies and youth, and the clear fact that
we were not the safe choice; and we turned them into strong positives. It paid
off, and we were unanimously selected for the project.
Try it
during your next interview. Here is a list of some suggested questions to
include in your presentation (in no particular order), written as read by the
interviewers.
1. Specifically, why
should we pick your firm instead of the other(s)?
2. Do you have any
inefficiency associated with performing our project? And if so, how will you
overcome it?
3. Why, personally,
are you interested in our project, other than just wanting the work?
4. What challenges do
you foresee in our project? What worries you most about it?
5. Is our schedule
realistic? If not, how do you recommend that we change it?
6. Will we be dealing
with the team here today for the life of the project?
7. When we call your
references, what are they going to tell us?
8. What’s stronger in
your firm, technical abilities or communication and management skills?
Prepare your
responses, but don’t create a script for them. You want the Q&A to be
honest, candid, and conversational. Not all of these will be applicable to your
situation, but you’ll get the idea. Tailor them for your own unique culture,
projects, and firm structure.
David Whitemyer, AIA, is a Contributing Editor at
PSMJ Resources, Inc., a licensed architect, and project manager at a
Boston-area design firm. He can be reached at dwhitemyer@psmj.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)