Using Competitions as a Marketing Tool

By Karen A. Davis

“… for someone who is young and who has no experience, the only way to get big projects is through competitions.” Bernard Tschumi

There are hundreds of design and construction competitions sponsored by various trade magazines, professional organizations and industry groups. Maybe you have never entered a competition or it’s been years since you have. Consider including competitions in the overall marketing strategy for your company. If you’re short on client projects, or even if you have ample workflow, entering a competition is a low-cost way to promote your name, explore new ideas, and motivate you to try new project types.

Competitions can inspire and offer an opportunity to be more imaginative. Your current projects may have very tight budgets, or your creativity may be stifled by the requirements of your client. A competition can be a design exercise – or a charrette – for you and your employees. Think back to those “open-ended” projects you had in college – no funding restraints, loose client requirements, and a little time to dream.

Once you enter the competition, the design can be included in your portfolio to highlight your capability in that particular niche. Does your body of work have a high concentration of office projects, but you would like to work more in hospitality? A competition sponsored by a hospitality design magazine can allow you to sharpen and show your skills in that market segment.

Utilize competitions as cost-effective marketing tools. They typically have no or relatively low-cost entry fees, and are an excellent way to get your work in published. In most cases, even runners-up get their name listed as an honorable mention. Once published, reprints and press releases can be sent to clients and potential business partners.

Plan ahead to include competitions as part of your annual marketing efforts. Create a calendar of upcoming calls for entry, including registration dates, binder requirements, and submission deadlines.

Bernard Tschumi, quoted at the beginning of this article, won the 2001 competition and commission for the New Acropolis Museum in Athens Greece. Tschumi estimates that he wins one out of four competitions he enters. Learn a few of his strategies in the Architect magazine article “Playing to Win.”

© Copyright – Karen A. Davis. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Moving Past No

by Karen A. Davis

I just began reading I’ve Seen a Lot of Famous People Naked, and They’ve Got Nothing on You! by personal trainer to the stars, Jake Steinfeld. In his book, he talks about his relationship with director, Steven Spielberg, and I discovered something new: Steven Spielberg was declined admission to both the University of Southern California and UCLA film schools. (He was turned down by USC three times.)

A few pages into the book Jake says of his friend, “Sure he’s brilliant and talented, but like the rest of us, he struggled until he found his niche and his genius was recognized.”

Well, most of us know how the story progressed. Spielberg became such a great filmmaker that USC had to take notice, and the university awarded him an honorary degree in 1994.

We view celebrities’ lives through the mainstream media’s filter, and typically what we see is the result of years of diligent, hard work. Sure, some have it easy and quickly rise to fame, but in most cases they are the ones who fall the hardest. For those whose careers endure, conventional media doesn’t really show us the struggle: the planning, reworking of the plan, the closed doors, and the tears when things don’t happen as expected. What we see is the end of the movie, or the beginning of the sequel – how it all turns out after the plans fall into place.

Whether you’ve been let go from a job, moving into a new career, working to get your own company off the ground, or if your long-standing business is experiencing lean times because of the current economy, stay focused on your strengths. Make sure you have solid goals and objectives in place for the job hunt or for developing new business for your office. If you’re working from an old plan, take it out and revise it, recognizing that the methods you used a year or two ago may be outdated.

Determine your niche: the place where you fit – and thrive – in your field. Are you defining your position, or are you letting someone else do it for you? Determine what you do best, work to make yourself the best in your niche, and promote your craft every chance you get. When you move yourself to the top, your audience will have no other choice but to recognize you as the best.

© Copyright – Karen A. Davis. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Reach Beyond Your Contact List

Live networking is key to building your business. You must establish new relationships and put yourself in the right places at the right times in order to position yourself for the upturn in the economy.

It's important to reach outside of your current contact list and explore new resources for networking. Architects, attend an Engineering convention. Construction professionals, try a Real Estate trade show. Listen to the trends and ideas presented at their events. Our building industry fields are certainly interrelated: Facility Managers need Contractors; Builders need Interior Designers.

Building Industry Resources has compiled a listing of upcoming conferences, trade shows and other events where you can meet building industry professionals, network, and expand your reach throughout the industry. Get your free networking guide: Building Relationships 2009

Maximizing Social Networking for the Building Industry – Part 2

(Read part 1 here)

by Karen A. Davis

Social networking is a productive method for meeting colleagues in your field or across the many professions of the building industry. Since reading part one, I hope you’ve developed your plan to increase your presence on the networking sites and updated your profile with professional information and a few personal items, too.

The next step is to make your presence known to potential business partners and clients. When attending a live networking event, you introduce yourself to people in the room and join the discussions taking place. You’ll do the same when you network online.

Don’t be a wallflower, but don’t wave around the business card, either.Participate in conversations, and start your own. If you say things people want to hear, they’ll join you. As in live networking, the more engaging you are, the more people will gather to hear what the buzz is about in your corner. And, as in live conversations, you have to listen - actively.

Join groups within your chosen networks. LinkedIn and Facebook both have numerous sites for architects, real estate and facilities professionals, designers, and builders. Consider joining discussion groups related to your hobbies also. You never know when someone there might need your professional knowledge. If you haven’t found a group that addresses topics you’d like to discuss, you can start your own.

When you make your way to a discussion group, don’t just jump in and say, “I want to connect with businesses.” Well, isn’t that really why we’re all here? And don’t just post stuff about your company. Like I said in part one, nobody cares about your business unless you can help solve a problem they’re having. Participate in discussions, responding to questions that are asked, sharing your expertise and experiences, or offering to direct people to the right answer. Many times people will post an award or article in which they’ve been featured. Don’t just read it. Congratulate them on a job well done.

Feel free to ask questions. I’ve found that fellow group members are quite open and honest about matters of business and are willing to share their knowledge. Post links to interesting articles that you’ve read or written, and comment on how the information can benefit others. Again, actively participate, and people will find you.

Use your online connections to schedule offline meetings.
Keep a calendar of upcoming building industry events and network online with people who might attend. You can make plans to meet them at conferences, workshops and tradeshows. You’ll already have something to talk about when you get there, and you can discuss potential employment or business ventures. You can also create your own offline meetings in your area through Meetup.com.

Get a grip and manage your time wisely.Be careful with social media. It’s easy to be drawn in and have it consume a good amount of your time and attention. You don’t want to belong to so many sites and groups that you can’t keep up. Just as you may schedule time to read and respond to e-mail, it’s also a good idea to plan your networking time. You still have projects and deals (with live clients attached) to tend to and complete in a timely manner.

My series on social networking for the building industry will continue, and I will devote separate articles to the sites on which I’m most active: Twitter, Google Blogger, LinkedIn, Facebook and Ning. I’ll also explore other social media sites, discovering how they can be a useful resource for collaboration among architects, designers, builders and real estate professionals.

© Copyright – Karen A. Davis. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Maximizing Social Networking for the Building Industry – Part 1

by Karen A. Davis

You’re getting acquainted with the social networking scene. Maybe you’ve signed up for accounts on LinkedIn, FriendFeed or BrightFuse. You may have even made a few friends on Facebook or started following people on Twitter. “But,” you ask, as so many do, “what’s the point in all of this? How can I use social networking and its numerous sites – with new ones popping up every day – to promote my business? Is it really worth my time?”

Since I began networking online, I’ve connected with several colleagues I may have never met otherwise. I live in the Midwest, and I now communicate regularly with building industry professionals across the country. Sure, it’s possible that we would eventually cross paths at a conference, trade show or workshop, but social networking provides additional media for meeting and sharing ideas. It’s a way to learn from other designers, builders, and real estate professionals, sharing information across the industry. It’s also a convenient method for keeping in contact with clients and informing them of the work you are doing, while positioning yourself as an expert in your niche of the building industry.

If you’ve only dipped your toe in the sea of social networking sites, or if you want to take full advantage of the accounts you’ve opened and increase your exposure, let’s get started:

Draw up your plan.
We’re in the building industry. We know that if we don’t have a blueprint to follow, things can go wrong quickly. So plan your “course of attack” to determine how you will participate in all of the social networking conversations going on out there. The first thing you’ll most likely discover: you don’t have enough time or energy to participate in every conversation. Choose the sites you can devote real, quality attention to.

Decide the image you want to project. Who is your target audience: your clients or others working in your field? Visit the various networking sites, and you’ll find that there are many of our building industry friends sharing information. Do you see conversations in which you can participate? If not, you can start discussions and draw others in. Remember, one of the main goals of social media is to build relationships.

What will I say?Introduce yourself, sharing business and personal information. Personal information? Honestly, nobody really cares about your business unless you can help with a problem they’re having. But, generally, people love to get personal tidbits. (Come on, you know you glance at those tabloids in the checkout line at the grocery store.)

You’ll want to start by building your profile on every site on which you participate. Forget the chronological resumes. Start with an “elevator speech.” If you only had a couple of minutes to tell someone about your business, how would you describe it – succinctly? Make it intriguing, and include a bit about how you can make a potential client’s life easier. You want to draw people onto your site, your blog or your networking page. Sprinkle in a few personal notes: hobbies, kids, pets, funny habits. Give your audience something to relate to, but be selective and don’t be gauche – it’s still business.

Don’t forget to add a picture. What would it be like to attend a live networking event and everyone wore a mask? We’re networking here and we want to see the person with whom we’re communicating.

Now, develop your blueprint for success, and tweak those profiles. Part two will continue with “Don’t be a wallflower, but don’t wave around the business card, either.” Also, watch for separate articles devoted to the sites on which I’m most active: Twitter, Google Blogger, LinkedIn, Facebook and Ning, as well as other social media sites.

(Read part 2 here)

© Copyright – Karen A. Davis. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Marketing Lessons Learned from the 2008 Campaigns

By Karen A. Davis

Regardless of whether you voted Democrat or Republican in this week’s election, you’d have to agree that the political campaigns of both major parties could give us semesters worth of information about marketing. Through television ads, e-mail and viral marketing, campaign speeches and debates, the candidates aimed to sell you on their brand and ideas, hoping to seal the deal on November 4th. Here are four marketing lessons of the campaigns:

1. Tell your story. The candidates gave you their personal information, and how they came to run for office. Followers responded to John McCain’s military service, Barack Obama’s family history, Sarah Palin as hockey mom, and Joe Biden riding the train to and from Washington every day. Their resumes and life stories came out early and were repeated often.

In this increasingly connected world, we are learning more and more about each other. Through social networking sites, blogs and websites, you have the opportunity to tell your personal and professional story. Let your current and prospective clients know who you are and why you chose your profession or started your business. Be clear about the services you offer and those you don’t, developing your own professional platform. Just as a candidate would in a campaign ad, let them know what you do best. (See if you can do it in 30 seconds!) But most of all, let clients know how your skills and services will benefit them.

2. Become the solution. Obama offered change from typical Washington politics; McCain claimed to be a maverick, breaking rank with his political party for the greater good. Marketers call this the Unique Selling Proposition: how your client’s life, business, or project will improve if they choose you. Let them know what you offer that your competition doesn’t. Differentiate your business, and when they hire you, stay true to your promise.

3. Become a community organizer. Build a network of friends who believes in you and your business and will work on your behalf. Your community includes employees, colleagues, friends, and clients. Listen to their story, show them that what you have to offer is the solution to their problem (or the problem of someone they know), and they will be happy to spread your good name. As we know, word of mouth is the best form of advertising. The candidates had thousands of volunteers knocking on doors, making phone calls, attending rallies, wearing buttons and t-shirts, and posting signs.

4. Tell your story to the world. In 2008, it’s so much easier. You don’t need to pay for television or radio advertising, unless that’s where your audience is. You can utilize the Internet and wireless devices to spread your story inexpensively and build relationships. Use frequent e-mails to update clients on your company’s employees, services and projects (remember to give them a way to unsubscribe). Use a blog to link to your favorite articles or post your ideas on current industry trends. And by becoming active on social networking sites, your friends and connections can link you with theirs, thereby giving you those hundreds or thousands of volunteers who will spread your name. Just think, Obama even used text messaging to announce his Vice-Presidential candidate in the middle of the night, and it made those who subscribed feel important.

By studying the marketing strategies of an unrelated industry, you may discover new approaches not being used by your competition. Your best marketing ideas may come from the least likely places, even political campaigns.

© Copyright – Karen A. Davis. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Networking Opportunities - October 15 - 31

October.15 - RealShare San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)

October.15 - 22nd Annual University of Michigan-Urban Land Institute Real Estate Forum (Grand Rapids, MI)

October.15 - IFMA World Workplace 2008 Conference & Expo (Dallas, TX)

October.15 - Commercial Real Estate Women Convention (Houston, TX)

October.15 - StonExpo 2008 (Las Vegas, NV)

October.15 - Marble Institute of America Annual Meeting (Las Vegas, NV)

October.16 - RealShare Central Florida (Kissimmee, FL)

October.16 - RealShare New Jersey (Teaneck, NJ)

October.16 - ACADIA 2008: Silicon + Skin (Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture) (Minneapolis, MN)

October.17 - CCIM & IREM Success Series 2008 (Chicago, IL)

October.17 - AIAS South Quad Fall Conference (American Institute of Architecture Students) (New Orleans, LA)

October.19 - International Economic Development Council (Atlanta, GA)

October.19 - National Design Week

October.20 - North American Port & Intermodal Finance & Investment Summit (Houston, TX)

October.20 - Development '08: The Annual Conference for Commercial Real Estate (Las Vegas, NV) http://www.naiop.org/conferences/development08/

October.21 - Industrial Fabrics Association International Expo (Charlotte, NC)

October.21 - National Trust for Historic Preservation - Preservation Conference (Tulsa, OK)

October.22 - DEADLINE FOR ENTRY - Real Estate Florida: Women of Influence (, )

October.22 - Professional Grounds Management Society School of Grounds Management & GIE Expo (Louisville, KY)

October.22 - Wood Products Manufacturers Association 2008 Annual Meeting (Portland, ME)

October.24 - Custom Builder Symposium (Austin, TX)

October.24 - AIAS West Quad Fall Conference (American Institute of Architecture Students) (Tucson, AZ)

October.26 - National Association of Housing & Redevelopment Officials National Conference (San Antonio, TX)

October.27 - Urban Land Institute Fall Meeting (Miami Beach, FL) http://www.uli.org/Content/NavigationMenu/MeetingsEducation/Meetings/ULI_Meetings.htm

October.28 - Smarter Asset Management (San Diego, CA)

October.29 - Sustainable Development, Green Retrofit & Construction Congress (Baltimore, MD)

October.30 - Associated Owners & Developers National Conference East - Miami (Miami, FL)

October.30 - Society of Industrial & Office Realtors Fall World Conference (Minneapolis, MN)

For more events, see the B.I.R. Calendar.