Just another way to make you think about marketing + strategy differently.
October 26, 2010 at 11:04 am · Filed under Business Development, Marketing, Social Media, Strategic Plan, Strategy
I’m quite often asked why I pay such attention to the tiniest details on Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets. Details such as Joe Public from X Company was “frustrated” or “thrilled” with something. Well, for most of you it should be obvious, it’s important to have a personal connection to someone. If you don’t organically have one because of years working together – then you must create a connection – and quickly. Facebook is not just for your teenage daughter.
I have a Facebook (personal), Facebook Page (business), Twitter Account (personal @lillychiu), Twitter Account (business @morgan_global) and a LinkedIn account – that as of recent has been my favorite. I peruse, publish and prance around all these during any given day. I use them to both disseminate information and to acquire information and as of this morning, they are my most valuable strategic planning tool.
Resources like LinkedIn allow you to search for commonalities and find individuals whose social relationships support your strategic plan. I have been known to email people out of the blue on LinkedIn about advice on something – and I always get great responses. Just 1 interconnection makes people feel at ease and breaks down barriers that normally exist.
Social media has become the favored method for disseminating information and while most companies have large media groups – they still get the most current news out fastest using social media. Check out Ms. Lori Ann Cox @ FIU http://www.facebook.com/#!/LoriAnnMichele who delights us every day with tidbits of information about FIU as it happens.
While we think of social media as requiring us to PUSH out content – you can just as easily TAKE IN content. Next time you have a large presentation; meeting with a client; or as a follow up to meeting someone for the first time, I encourage you to do some research and learn a little bit about them. I guarantee you that your next interactions will be much more valuable – or in my case, it allows you to have a first interaction with minimal “shock” factor.
One final word of advice – take everything you read into consideration along with other sources of information. Social media can’t be your entire strategic plan.
August 5, 2010 at 6:29 pm · Filed under BD, Business Development, Client Relations, Marketing, Strategy, Uncategorized and tagged: BD, client relations, marketing professionals, Strategy
Last night I was reminded AGAIN that we can lead our clients and colleagues to “water” but darn it you can ever be sure they will “drink”. Old habits are hard to break and this economy is forcing those individuals and firms that are innovative and flexible to the top of the pack while others are just lingering – despite the best advice.
We’ve all been there. At some point or another you’ve either worked with a firm or an individual that does not see the pattern in behavior. Things happening over and over again and they just dont’t understand what went wrong or why they weren’t successful in a project pursuit.
Knowing what went wrong in a lost pursuit is critical. Most people don’t know what went RIGHT much less what went wrong. So many firms continue to make the same mistakes; continue to under perform and continue to miss the mark. They are not listening to the lone voice in their offices telling them the truth. (Usually that’s the poor marketing professional – they deserve a shiny medal for their valiant efforts to be heard).
The most difficult conversations your firm will have are those that involve in-depth internal analysis. These are not personal attacks on individuals, not assessments of individuals’ successes rather they are an in-depth look at how your firm and its deliberate actions are perceived by the world at large.
Your marketing staff may have long decided they will not give you this feedback anymore because of past experiences, but rest assured the best of the best will always be willing to give you feedback on 1) how you are perceived vs your competition and 2) what needs to be done to improve how your message is perceived. Why principals and market leaders are not listening confounds me.
Your marketing professionals are insightful individuals who can bridge the divide between you and your clients – they should be at your right hand ready to help you and your firm connect the dots and bring you closer to your prospective clients. Take a look at your own firms – is this how you interact with your marketing and business development professionals ? or are your interactions about forms, deadlines, rpf’s, and brochures ?
As a strategy consultant I sit at the right-hand of many principals, CEO’s and market leaders and frankly find too often that they are not engaged with their own marketing professionals. They do not put in the extra effort to ensure they have addressed all the issues at hand. Why is this ? Who’s created this dynamic ? have the marketing professionals created this or have they, the principals ? or are some marketing professionals just not suited for this type of interaction with principals ?
Decisions are made within silos, that are again within silos, within firms and there isn’t a CRM that can bridge that invisible divide – much less a marketing professional.
It’s time to take long hard looks at the companies and individuals that help define our successful strategies for pursuing work, whether they are engineers, marketing consultants, bd staff, etc. We must foster and develop those that are successful and clear out those that are not achieving our intended goals. If it’s not working now, it’s not going to work 3, 6 or 12 months from now either.
Take the time to listen to your clients, engineers, project managers and the community at large – every detail is important.
August 2, 2010 at 3:27 pm · Filed under BD, Business Development, Marketing, Strategy and tagged: BD, Business Development, Client, Connections, Relationships
Sometimes we forget to take the time to really examine the multiple layers and multiple levels of connections and relationships that we have access to. In fact, I take that back, I don’t think we forget at all. I believe we just don’t take the time to have meaningful conversations with our clients, colleagues, competitors and the like. These multitude of connections create a constellation that is critical to our success.
The next logical question becomes what is a meaningful conversation. Unless you are chatting with friends, most of us spend our time having conversations that are ultimately business related. Those conversations are meaningless unless you can dissect them and create a map or diagram of this constellation. Where does this person fit in the constellation. Who is he interacting with ? Who are his clients ? What does he do in his time off ? Who does he want his clients to be ? What projects has he lost ? What projects has he won ? What is important to him/her ? What makes them hesitate ?
Once you begin to diagram this constellation you will then have a valuable resource in hand. In the future it is much easier to reach out directly to those that have pertinent information that can be strategically helpful. Having said that it takes a lot of effort and time that is not easily quantified. You must also be able to share yourself with others.
This interchange at times makes people down right uncomfortable, but if done well makes you an invaluable resource for your firm, clients and colleagues. This is not business development as we have known it in the past, it is strategic organization of random bits of information that one day in the very near future become strikingly valuable.
I was asked recently what makes me good at what I do, and I said simply: I listen, ask the right questions and candidly answer the questions that are asked of me. Finally, I never forget even the slightest detail because everything comes down to he who remembers the small detail that tips the scale in your favor.
July 31, 2010 at 8:17 pm · Filed under BIM, Construction, Design, Management + Operations, Marketing, Social Media, Strategic Plan, Strategy and tagged: AEC, BIM, marketing, Revit, social media, Strategic Plans, Strategy
Our industry creates plans (even if they are ill-prepared) for all sorts of things: marketing plans, market sector plans, business plans, operational plans – now the lucrative sustainable operations plan. But when was the last time you heard of a firm creating a BIM or Social Media Strategic Plan. I’ve actually recently been asking clients and non-clients in the AEC industry and not one to be found.
I make the correction between BIM and Social Media for a specific reason. Both have become increasingly prevalent in the language of the AEC industry and while principals and marketing professionals alike are thriving in social media platforms – let’s not forget that there needs to be a strong business/market oriented strategic plan for these initiatives. Although frankly we as marketers love to do what we love to do – it still needs to be a thoughtful coordinated effort.
BIM on the other hand has seemingly creeped into our AEC practices as a source for closing the deal. Technology clearly sets firms apart these days – and clients have figured this out. So today, he who BIM’s the most in a presentation wins. What happens when the project is won and project managers and operations directors find themselves racing toward a BIM start-up for a project. The solution in most instances is to head to the resumes and find someone who has the words BIM or REVIT on their resume and send out an offer letter as quickly as possible. The other solution is to immerse your most technologically inclined young people in the fastest BIM and REVIT training ever seen.
On both instances – social media and BIM it seems we are starting to see missed opportunities. The correlation between both is striking: 1) you do not want your newest employee working on your most critical 1st BIM project, yet we do this routinely; 2) you do not want a marketing coordinator or inexperienced industry person at the helm of your firm’s social media voice.
In terms of BIM, the more experienced the team working on the actual BIM drawings the better the outcome. Why ? Because they are being forced to make design decision that have great implications for the project at a much earlier phase of the project. If those decisions can be made properly then time, which is the most valuable component of a project has been saved.
In terms of Social Media, the more experienced the team or individuals creating the social media voice of the company the most productive the outcome. Today’s Twitter accounts for even the most random firms are full of followers that even the most seasoned PR and Marketing professional for die for. When was the last time the editor and writers of blank magazine were reading your random thoughts 0r interacting with you. Both a very dangerous and lucrative situation to be in.
Imagine this, if the Editor of the Wall Street Journal were coming to your firm – would he be sitting with your marketing coordinator chatting ? Probably not, then why would that person be the voice of your social media presence online?
Social Media and BIM require a strategic effort and a detailed approach that must be detailed out to support all the other firm initiatives. The amount of resources firms are spending on BIM and Social Media continue to grow – why would we think it doesn’t need a strategic plan?
July 31, 2010 at 7:42 pm · Filed under Graphic Design, Marketing, Web Design and tagged: AEC, branding, interactive, marketing, online, social media, web design, website
This morning I opened up an email from a colleague in the construction industry that included a link to the online store of this company HEMA. HEMA is a Dutch department store. While it’s not unusual for me to get really interesting examples of ingenious marketing from clients and friends – this one was unusual, a furniture store ?
In this IKEA generation – I had to check it out. Could they be more entrancing than IKEA ? What ensues after you click on their product page is probably the more interactive and ingenious marketing I’ve ever seen – and it was thanks to a computer programmer somewhere.
So I invite you to click on this link http://producten.hema.nl/ and watch as the page entertains YOU — then ask yourself, would a client remember my website ? Does my website really provide an experience ? or is my company just using our website as a list of projects and people.
As designers and architects you would think that we would have found a way to step out of our comfort zone and find a way to express ourselves differently with our online presence – in fact what we have actually accomplished are websites that all look the same for the most part (granted some have better project examples than others). Marketers across the nation are rushing to update websites and using competitors websites as examples, when we should really be thinking and looking outside our industry.
Social media is following the same pattern. Have you ever clicked on a Twitter site or a Facebook Fan Page and all you see is the company talking about themselves ? How UN-interesting is that ! Your online presence is only interactive if you have knowledge or resources to share – those resources and knowledge can’t always come from your company. Companies who share blogs or observations from principals or employees are certainly way ahead of the game but frankly we know only your competitors read it.
So turning back to the HEMA furniture site http://producten.hema.nl/ I can’t remember the last time I was surprised, entertained and just down right smiled when I opened a website. Kudos to HEMA, their marketing team and computer programmers it must have been a hell of a meeting when this was presented – I’d love to know how they got it approved.
Take a look at your website and your competitors websites — what do you see ?
About HEMA. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam. Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands.
