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

Make More When the Marketplace Says Less

Have you taken a day to look at the total situation of your business? Look at the big picture and identify all opportunities - not just for you, but also for your clients. Sales guru, Jeffrey Gitomer, says, "Write down what you intend to do to help the customer, do more business with the customer, gain more referrals from the customer, and make the relationship with the customer a financially rewarding one." Read his article here.

Build Your Network and Market Your Business with Twitter

I have a short attention span. I skip to the end of a book to find out the ending, and it’s difficult for me to sit through movies. I often tell friends and family, “When you tell me a story, just give me the highlights.” Maybe that’s why Twitter is currently my favorite social networking site. I can get the gist of what a person wants to say in 140 characters or less (including spaces).

Marketing and business promotion have changed; you can’t just build your website, put it out in cyberspace, and hope customers will come. You should be building relationships, participating in discussions and conversions, and helping people solve problems. Twitter is a medium for all of that, and you can use it to drive traffic to your website.

Why use Twitter?
Twitter is free and simple. You can reach hundreds in just a few clicks and point clients in your direction, all in a few minutes per day.

(See, you just got loads of information in 138 characters.)

Who’s on Twitter?
No, it’s not just celebrities. Organizations and publications you know use it, too, including: ASID, Big Builder magazine, ENR, Architectural Record, Professional Remodeler, Newsweek, and the National Building Museum. And you know what? They’re following me! That means whenever I post a new article I’ve written or twitter about a project I’m working on or what I’m teaching my students, those posts come up on their Twitter feed.

There are also real estate agents and developers, architects, interior designers, builders, sustainability specialists, attorneys, magazine editors and other professionals in the building industry who share their expertise with a short post. Most often, each person’s profile (160 characters or fewer) provides a link to a website which can provide a way to contact him or her.

Who to follow?
You don’t have to listen to (read) all of the Twitter chatter; choose who you want to follow. Upon registering, you can see anyone’s followers or whom they are following. Start by following me at www.twitter.com/buildingsource (or as you might see it abbreviated @buildingsource). I typically do not follow anyone who does not post a profile, so click on a photo and find out a little about someone who intrigues you. You’ll find that I am mainly following people in the building industry, some marketing folks, a couple of news sites, and a few just for fun (like @cookbook who tweets recipes in 140 characters or less).

Once you choose a few from those on my page, select from the ones they are following. You’ll soon discover that you’ll gain followers because many are doing the same routine that you are. Also, try We Follow, a Twitter directory site that categorizes Twitter users and ranks them by number of followers.

What to post?
Post items of interest to those in the industry in general or those within your niche. What articles are you reading online? Tweet a link with an interesting introduction. What are you working on? Do a feed of the process of completing the project. Post your portfolio. Trying to sell a property? Tweet it. Got advice for colleagues or clients in your niche? Do a series of tips. Post a link to your blog.

From a conference or trade show, tweet information on the workshops you attend and the vendors and professionals you meet (they’ll appreciate the publicity, too).

Remember, as with all social networking, you should actively participate. Comment on the posts. If someone asks a question and you have the answer, respond, or try to refer him or her to someone who might be able to help. Share your professional experiences. Congratulate people on well-written articles or a creative online portfolio.

Schedule Your Twitter time
Finally, don’t try to read the entire feed coming onto your page; it can be overwhelming. Just take a few minutes each day and scan your page for helpful and interesting information. If you feel you’ve missed something valuable from someone you like to follow, put in their Twitter URL and check their profile.

Twitter can be a useful and productive method for promoting your services. Log on, be sure to complete your profile (with picture or logo), and start networking.

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

AIA Convention Goes Virtual

The American Institute of Architects 2009 National Convention and Design Exposition begins Thursday, April 30th in San Francisco, CA with the focus on "The Power of Diversity: Practice in a Complex World." If you want to attend and have not registered, there will be on-site registration beginning April 28th at noon.

If you can't make it to San Francisco, there are a variety of ways that you can keep up with the happenings at the convention online:

1) Architectural Record's web editor, William Hanley, has dedicated a Twitter stream to the AIA Convention. Follow his reports at www.twitter.com/WilliamHanley

2) Receive daily updates on all the convention events from educational sessions to parties by signing up for the Architectectural Record WebInsider e-newsletter. Find the link on the ArchRecord site.

3) Attend the convention from the comfort of your home, office or classroom. Register for the AIA Virtual Convention here. It's free! Get daily keynote addresses, attend continuing education programs (and, yes, you get AIA/CEU credits), and virtually visit the exhibitors.

Marketing Lessons from the Domino's Incident

To avoid a public relations disaster, Domino's Pizza responded quickly to a negative video posted by two now former employees. The Detroit Free Press lists what companies can do to respond effectively to negative publicity:

• Closely monitor social media



• Responded quickly and at sites where action can be taken virally



• Educate company workers



• Foster a positive corporate culture



• Set clear guidelines for employee behavior during working hours

See Domino's video in response to the employees' actions

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.