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Aaron Wright built an impressive resume on the technology side of construction with major firms like Robins & Morton and Hoar Construction. But his passion for all-things-building transcended his role and inspired him to explore all facets of the industry. Wright always saw a need for a platform that was dedicated to construction video content and three years ago, The Construction Channel made its debut.

Wright entered the industry at a point where virtual construction technology was taking off and digital streaming was in a breakout stage as well. It was a tough sell in an industry where traditional marketing methods reigned, but the more Wright saw the industry evolve, the more he was convinced that his idea could provide a new means for building brand recognition, winning projects, and attracting new talent.

The Construction Channel now has over 23,000 YouTube subscribers and it continues to find new applications for AEC video content with a storytelling focus. In this episode of AEC Marketing for Principals, Wright joins hosts Judy Sparks and Katie Cash to tell his story, and talk about the impact that niche video content is making on the industry as a whole.

What You Will Learn:

• Aaron Wright’s story and why he created The Construction Channel
• The role of construction-focused video content in recruiting
• B2B applications of content on The Construction Channel
• Why you should use video to tell your brand story
• Different types of content that The Construction Channel has produced

Resources:

• Website: www.constructionchannel.tv
• Twitter: @constructtv

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As an international, best-selling author and the authority on emotional intelligence, Brent Darnell works with technical seller-doers in the AEC industry to help them master critical people skills and become service-focused leaders. Emotional intelligence plays a significant role in the workplace today, but it is not what it seems at face value.

Emotional intelligence is the art of understanding and managing your emotions and understanding and managing the emotions of others for the best outcomes. Once your team members can master the use of emotional skills like empathy and assertiveness at the right time with the right people, your organization will transform and gain forward momentum.

In this episode of AEC Marketing for Principals, Brent Darnell joins hosts Judy Sparks and Katie Cash to talk about training AEC teams in using emotional intelligence, and how that has an impact on the health of your organization as a whole. Never underestimate the effect that nuanced changes can have if they are learned and turned into habits on a large scale.

What You Will Learn:

• What is emotional intelligence
• How emotional intelligence is being used in the workplace
• Nuanced changes that can make a significant impact on clients and selection committees
• Company-wide emotional intelligence training and its proven results
• The impact of emotional intelligence training on sales and marketing

Resources:

• Website: www.BrentDarnell.com
• Twitter: @brentdarnell

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When you are marketing and selling professional services to Owners, it’s important to know what they are looking for and how your AEC marketing strategy should reflect that. Smartegies recently conducted a survey in order to better understand procurement processes, buying preferences and online habits of some of Georgia’s most coveted public sector and institutional building Owners. These individuals are habitual buyers and key decision-makers who have spent countless hours running through stacks of proposals and sitting through many presentations to find the most qualified candidates for their projects.

The procurement process has changed over the years and with shorter sales cycles, an abundance of relationships, and an increased number of specializations, Owners are placing more weight on categories that were not nearly as important in the past. The marketing-centric culture that the AEC industry has adopted is creating a level playing field, and Smartegies’ goal with their study is to help you gain an advantage by crafting a response that has everything Owners want to see.

In this episode of AEC Marketing for Principals, hosts Judy Sparks and Katie Cash talk about the biggest revelations that their survey produced, and distill the statistics so that you can adjust your marketing and proposal strategies.

What You Will Learn:

• How to win work with institutional and public sector Owners
• Smartegies’ survey of Owners and its results
• What has changed in the procurement process and what remains the same
• The significance of AEC marketing and brand strength in the digital age of the AEC industry
• How to see your proposal through once your firm makes the shortlist

Resources:

• Download the Owner’s Survey Here: https://smartegies.com/architects-engineers-contractors-owners-really-think-sales-marketing-efforts/
• Website: www.smartegies.com

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As the Assistant Vice President of Facilities, Design, and Construction at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Scott Jones runs a progressive operation that oversees all of Georgia Tech’s design and construction projects. The institution consistently releases around $450M-$500M in AEC projects per year, and competition to be awarded those contracts is fierce.

Jones is very transparent about what he looks for in AEC partners – good listeners, relevant experience from the project team, ability to deliver as promised. So if you are interested in chasing Georgia Tech projects, visit the Georgia Procurement Registry where all of their opportunities are posted. The scope and scale of the projects vary drastically, so it is important to understand the needs of each project relative to your AEC firm’s team, expertise, and capacity before submitting a proposal.

Georgia Tech is a leading, global research institution that prides itself on using cutting edge innovation which also includes pioneering design and construction technology, methodology, and materials. In this episode of AEC Marketing for Principals, Jones joins hosts Judy Sparks and Katie Cash to discuss opportunities for AEC firms at GT, how projects are funded, and what GT looks for in AEC partners.

What You Will Learn:

• How and where to find all of Georgia Tech’s opportunities
• The importance of weighing project scope and your AEC firm’s team, expertise, and capacity before submitting a proposal
• What Jones and his team look for in successful candidates during the proposal process
• Where the funding for Georgia Tech’s AEC projects come from, and how it impacts the selection process
• The importance of highlighting your project team instead of your portfolio during the interview phase
• The PDC and their involvement in the selection of design firms and involvement in design projects
• Why design firms should form a collaborative unit with a local production architect when seeking work from Georgia Tech

Resources:

• Georgia Procurement: http://doas.ga.gov/state-purchasing/georgia-procurement-registry-for-local-governments
• GT Design & Construction Office – https://facilities.gatech.edu/design-construction
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dsjonesaia/
• Twitter: @ScottJonesAIA

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In this day and age, you have the ability to build and scale your business without a sales force, and AEC firms are finally adopting an innovative approach to digital and inbound marketing after seeing it work in so many other industries. Developing an effective marketing plan starts with putting the right people in place because your marketing leaders need to maintain a strong grasp on current trends, tools, and technologies, as well as how they fit into the big picture—fundamentals that Brenda Christman has built her entire team around. She is a marketer who started on the ground level during a massive industry transformation, and everything she learned was brought into the next role, tailored, and implemented to drive growth and revenue for the firm.

As Christman got higher on the ladder, Hunt Companies took an interest in her proactive, forward-thinking marketing mindset and it became clear that she was the missing link in their leadership team. Hunt Companies is a global enterprise and holding company with over six thousand employees, managing a broad spectrum of real estate-focused businesses from developers to management companies. But, every AEC firm—large and small—can benefit significantly from having an ambitious and capable marketer who is driven by innovation. Christman’s job is to maintain the image and communications across Hunt’s vast array of affiliates and subsidiaries while finding new ways to increase the effectiveness of her team members on an individual basis.

In this episode of AEC Marketing for Principals, Christman joins Judy Sparks and Katie Cash to talk about building your marketing strategy and team around an innovative marketing leader, and how your firm will benefit from doing so.

What You Will Learn:

• Brenda Christman’s role as the SVP of Marketing for Hunt Companies, and how your AEC firm can benefit from hiring a veteran marketer
• Current AEC marketing trends, tools, and technologies and how they’re being used by leadership
• How to hire ‘smart’ when choosing new candidates for your marketing team
• The benefits of giving your team flexibility and trusting them to get the job done

Resources:

• Website: huntcompanies.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/brendachristman

The Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission (GSFIC), was created by a constitutional amendment in 1972 and is responsible for the proper application of proceeds from general obligation debt and the issuance of all public debt by the State. No agency or authority can incur debt or employ other financial or investment advisory counsel without Commission approval.

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Serving as the Deputy Executive Director of Construction of GSFIC, Marvin Woodward and his team help other state agencies with infrastructure and capital projects by facilitating funding, overseeing the procurement process, providing design review and project management services, and managing the warranty and complaints for projects. The GSFIC aims to be the State’s premier resource for financial and construction management services where the scale of these state projects varies drastically from project to project. Each year, the GSFIC is involved in roughly $1B in projects around the State and works with countless service providers from the AEC industry.

All state projects are advertised on the Georgia Procurement Registry and administered through a standard qualifications-based two-step selection process. GSFIC’s goal is to connect highly qualified AEC firms with projects that are a good fit while creating a highly competitive bidding process.

In this episode of AEC Marketing for Principals, Woodward joins hosts Judy Sparks and Katie Cash to discuss the projects GSFIC handles, what they are looking for in AEC partners, and how your firm can win work with the State.

What You Will Learn:

• Marvin Woodward’s role as Deputy Executive Director of Construction of the Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission
• Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission (GSFIC) and the types of projects they facilitate
• What GSFIC looks for in potential AEC partners
• How to gain visibility with GSFIC
• GSFIC’s selection process and what it takes for an AEC firm to make the shortlist
• Who composes the typical selection committee

Resources:

• Georgia Procurement Registry: http://doas.ga.gov/state-purchasing/georgia-procurement-registry-for-local-governments
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marvin-woodward-68772221
• GSFIC: https://gsfic.georgia.gov/

There is a common misconception in the AEC industry that sales, marketing, and business development all serve the same purpose, but ‘sales and marketing’ are not synonymous and they represent completely independent efforts in your growth strategy. In this episode of AEC Marketing for Principals, Judy Sparks and Katie Cash have broken down each term so that you can understand the different roles they play in reaching new inflection points at your firm.

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The only terms that can be appropriately grouped together are sales and business development, because biz dev is just a stilted version of the term ‘sales’ and they mean the exact same thing. Your sales efforts refer to growth opportunities pursued by the seller-doer or member of the sales team on a one-to-one basis, and they are embodied by direct exchanges with your clients or prospects in an attempt to move the needle.

Marketing is completely independent of that process. While sales includes everything that is done one-to-one, marketing is conducted with a notion of one-to-many, because it embodies the communication of your brand to your entire target audience. Marketing controls the way your brand is elevated and projected across a wide variety of channels, and when it is carried out in tandem with successful sales tactics, the seller-doer can start collecting market-qualified leads and drastically improve his or her close ratio.

If you are not aware of the distinct differences in these three concepts, it will only cause confusion, deficiency, and missed opportunities within your AEC firm. This is a battle for business between firms and the AEC firms that understand the different applications of sales, business development, and marketing efforts are going to see more success. In this week’s episode of AEC Marketing for Principals, you will learn the differences among these commonly misused terms, and how they fit with current AEC marketing strategies and trends.

What You Will Learn:

• The difference between sales, marketing, and business development
• Current AEC marketing trends and strategies
• Challenges your AEC firm might face in ramping up your marketing efforts
• Using marketing to cut through the noise and reach your target audience
• ABM and how to practice it

Resources:

• Smartegies website: https://smartegies.com

Episode 8:

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In the engineering industry, mastering the art of communication as an individual can help move the needle for an entire organization. At Morrison Hershfield, Scott Steiding did just that. He became well versed in the language of his technical staff and leadership, which led to successive prosperity, heightened brand awareness, and strong, inter-departmental collaboration within his AEC marketing and engineering community.

There are benefits to this on many levels, both internally and externally, but as a Vice President and head of sales and marketing, he found it to be a necessity just to get his ideas in motion. In the highly analytical environments of AEC firms, data-driven concepts must be at the core of any marketing pitch. Once Steiding was speaking the engineer’s language, his scope became larger, and his goals loftier.

In this episode of AEC Marketing for Principals, Scott Steiding joins hosts Katie Cash and Judy Sparks to talk about marketing as a company-wide effort. He breaks down some of the key strategies which separate them from the competition, and he discusses all of the tools and moving parts behind those strategies.

What You Will Learn:

• Empowering sales, marketing, and business-unit leaders with data tools so they are better prepared to go to market
• How to measure sales and marketing efforts against true ROI
• Leveraging third-party perspectives to differentiate your AEC marketing strategy from your competitors’
• Strategies for creating a forward-facing AEC marketing plan
• Data capture, reporting, and tools to make it efficient

Resources:

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/scottsteiding
• Twitter: @ScottSteiding

Oftentimes, when we talk about digital marketing with our clients and prospects—that is, principals of AEC firms and their teams—we see an immediate glaze go over the faces of the people in the room. Why? Because there is a widely held assumption within the AEC industry that digital cannot solve real business challenges like lead gen, driving sales, or recruiting top talent.

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While we agree that it is unlikely any of your prospective clients will send you an electronic check online as a way to engage your engineering services, we also know that digital strategies have been proven effective for reducing cost per acquisition, driving biz dev, and attracting highly qualified candidates for hard to fill senior-level positions within firms.

We often hear complaints from within an organization that the leaders of the firm are slow to adopt digital marketing strategies because they don’t understand the technology.

The reality is, most of the leaders in our industry are technically trained and operationally focused. They did not grow up in the digital age. Many of our clients are CEOs of architecture, engineering, and construction firms in their 50s, 60s, or older.

They did not have the Internet when they were working their way up through the ranks, and they certainly didn’t have social media.

But, they’re not old fashioned by any means. They simply need somebody to explain how any strategy—digital or not—is going to make a difference to the firm’s bottom line.

It has been our experience that once we are able to make a tangible connection, they are not slow to adopt. It is actually quite the contrary.

The very first time they see a lead come through their website as a result of a digital campaign, they are eager to do it again because it’s cheaper and it takes less time.

Our goal for this episode is to share some tangible examples for how you and your team can use digital marketing strategies to advance your brand visibility, engage with an audience, influence buyers, and convert those buyers into leads that your business development or seller-doer team can connect with.

We are going to share three real-world case studies where AEC firms used digital strategies to solve significant business challenges and drive ROI as a result.

Our hope is that the ideas will help you and your team to start thinking about how digital marketing can play into your overarching goals and strategic initiatives.

What You Will Learn:

• How a properly structured webinar series can accelerate lead gen while dramatically reducing cost and time of the traditional lunch and learn
• How digital strategies can provide similar benefits to PR
• Why organic visibility of social media content is dead and Facebook is the dominant ad platform for B2B audiences
• How radio was used to attract high-quality candidates for senior-level positions within an AEC firm
• Why you cannot have a successful digital media application run by people who do not understand your business

Solving Lead Gen Challenges

Challenge 1: the time and cost of providing clients and prospects with in-person “lunch and learns”

Engineering firms, architectural firms, contractors, fire protection contractors, etc. often propose an educational “lunch and learn” session. In most applications, there’s someone within the firm who is tasked with preparing the materials, getting it approved for continuing education, and sent office to office seeking out potential clients.

It is a time consuming and expensive process. Katie shares a detailed example of how one AEC firm decided to forgo the traditional, door-to-door lunch 

About Judy Sparks

Judy is the founder, CEO, and President of Smartegies LLC. Founded in 2008, Smartegies is a specialty marketing agency that has helped more than 150 companies across North America build stronger brands, implement effective communications, and develop winning strategies and proposals. Judy has worked in B2B marketing and sales roles exclusively since 1993, specializing in the AEC industry. Judy is a true expert in AEC marketing and has a proven record of success across her 25 years in the field.

About Katie Cash

Katie is an architecture, engineering, and construction marketer with over 15 years of experience serving the AEC industry. Katie is an expert strategist who helps her clients win big projects through creative marketing methods. Katie believes in thinking outside the box and has a gift for tackling challenges by using innovative and unconventional solutions. Today, Katie serves as the Vice President of Smartegies, working alongside Judy to help clients achieve maximum impact in their marketing efforts.

In this episode of AEC Marketing for Principals, Judy and Katie discuss the marketing skill gap present in so many AEC firms, where that skill gap came from, and methods to overcome the gap and better market your firm.

What You Will Learn:

• Judy explains why the skills gap exists, especially within architectural firms where, until fairly recently, marketing was illegal. Katie explains that clients are often surprised to learn this fact, even though it has created a pervasive stigma.
• Judy discusses the stigma that has persisted around marketing for architectural firms, even after the ban was lifted.
• Judy explains that traditional relationship-building and networking have been the primary avenues for generating new business for firms.
• Katie shares how clients are slowly embracing AEC marketing principles as digital media creates a highly connected environment.
• Judy explains the difference between marketing and sales/business development.
• Judy explains why the cost of client acquisition under traditional methods has gotten out of control, highlighting the heavy expenses in order to be considered for a project.
• Judy discusses in-house AEC marketing professionals and the challenges they face in doing their jobs. She explains why the industry at large hasn’t done much to empower in-house marketers or create robust teams and how firms can support those teams through tools, training, and outsourced help.
• Judy shares the advantage of asking: “should the way we have always done our marketing evolve to meet the evolving landscape?”

Overcoming the Skills Gap in AEC Marketing

This episode of AEC for Marketing Principals features a conversation between Judy Sparks and Katie Cash of Smartegies LLC, a specialty marketing agency that works with clients in AEC and the built environment to build a stronger brand, develop winning strategies, communicate their story, implement effective social/digital campaigns, and produce winning proposals. For this episode, we discuss the skills gap found in AEC marketing, its causes, and the problems it creates. We also discuss ways to close the skills gap, the value of setting realistic expectations of your in-house team, supporting your team with various resources, and the changing AEC environment that is altering the effectiveness of networking and other “traditional” methods of AEC marketing.

Unfortunately, there is a pervasive stigma against modern marketing practices within the industry, particularly within many architectural firms. In fact, architectural marketing is a relatively new space that didn’t exist until around 30 years ago. Prior to that time, marketing for architectural firms was, in fact, illegal. Even after the ban was lifted, most firms were hesitant to embrace marketing efforts as the