Hi Friends,
We made it! Happy 2023!
My subject line this month may have been inspired by the two days I spent over the holidays completely immersed in a fictional story aboard Disney’s Galactic Star Cruiser. Yes, I was THAT mom.
For my readers, who are parents of teenagers, you know the struggle can be real when adjusting to the reality that your precious little ones have grown up. You are no longer the coolest person on Earth, and your ideas for “fun” almost always produce an eye roll or crickets if they are feeling polite. Nevertheless, I was determined to wow this kid before bidding farewell to 2022. So, I thought, why not? He loves Star Wars, and I love him.
Well, it worked, and for two days, I watched my 15-year-old join the Rebel Alliance and make new friends from across the galaxy who shared his love for everything Star Wars. I knew I had succeeded when I heard him say to another kid, “I think this is the best thing ever invented.”
No one does brand and brand experiences better than Disney. So, I willingly dressed as an intergalactic princess from Planet Hoth and completely immersed myself in the Disney Play app. The app used A.I. and automation to communicate with me and reveal new clues to unlock the next part of the immersive story customized based on my choices at every touchpoint. Unsurprisingly, I now receive ads on every social media platform promoting things related to my digital interactions while on property. Scary but true.
And the whole time, I was thinking to myself, “Disney has the best marketers in the world.” How does Disney create demand for these incredible experiences that lure people out of their comfort zone AND motivate them into paying a premium to be part of it?
What if AEC firms knew how to market as well as Disney?
Imagine a world (in a galaxy far away) where billable teams are trained to deliver consistent branded experiences across all business units, service lines, and geographies. This is where marketing and business development teams align and work together to protect and grow their branded empire. Imagine doer-sellers becoming seller-doers because marketing teams can provide them with pre-qualified leads, all generated online in their absence.
Well, you don’t have to imagine because these are just a few examples of what the savviest AEC firms are doing already.
Disney’s Imagineers create incredible settings to differentiate the Disney customer experience but don’t be fooled; they are designed to drive revenue. I would venture to guess that their Imagineers would not be characterized as “technical staff,” and their marketers would not be considered “overhead.” All “cast members” are aligned and trained around the same goal. This simple yet powerful way to unite internal teams (most of whom will never meet in person) is a genius branding move that pays dividends in delivering consistent experiences, which drives demand and premium pricing. If Disney can do this with their 200,000+ employees in multiple countries ranging from seasonal, hourly staff to C-suite executives and everyone in between, why do most AEC firms struggle with delivering consistent brand experiences across their platform?
In my consulting practice, one of the most common complaints we hear from AEC firm Owners and marketers alike is how each office, service line, or market vertical seems to have individual brand personalities depending on the people involved. Even in the smallest single-discipline firms, some of my clients struggle with duplicating the client experience among different team members. The truth is that “brand living” is the most critical and complex part of branding. The difficulty to differentiate is further compounded by the fact that nearly 100% of my 200+ clients would say that what makes them TRULY different is one or more of these things: their people, their processes, their expertise, and my personal favorite, their responsiveness.
While these claims may be coming from a genuine place, keep in mind that your audiences are likely hearing the same messages from you and all your competitors. The best way brands can separate themselves from others in the same category is to deliver consistent, reliable, and outstanding customer experiences that make customers loyal to your brand. The only way to do this is to better understand your customer’s needs. This is not the responsibility of just the C-Suite and marketing teams. In my opinion, if you are willing to be on the payroll, being a brand ambassador should be a requirement at every firm.
In large multinational enterprises where there are shareholders to answer to, marketers are accustomed to being held accountable for brand investments. However, the AEC industry wasn’t built that way. Instead, the AEC industry has always been a relationship business, so naturally, a sales-driven culture and marketing departments have been primarily focused on sales enablement (i.e., proposals, sponsorships, tradeshows, events, and other things to support sales teams and seller-doers).
The AEC business has changed significantly in the past three years. The way you go to market should also. Your buying audience is getting younger, and they build relationships differently. We have an industry full of smart, talented, and dedicated marketers who, with the proper support and training, can help elevate your brand and drive waste out of the sales pipeline. I know this because I have lived through this transformation.
In 2010, I found myself negotiating the pouring rights contracts with the Coca-Cola Company on behalf of LakePoint Sports, a sports-anchored mixed-used development that had yet to break ground. I had been in business less than three years, and it was just two other employees and me at the time. Until now, most of our revenue was derived from services related to traditional sales enablement – pursuit strategy, RFQ/P production, presentation coaching, etc. So, landing the Agency of Record contract for what would become the largest youth sports tournament destination in the U.S. was the first significant growth milestone for my firm. You could say the project “put us on the map.”
I distinctly remember the brand manager from Coke explaining that they would need to understand the potential revenue derived from the marketing dollars I was seeking to justify the sponsorship ask. He explained that he could lose his job if he couldn’t show ROI on the authorized spend. So, there I was, a veteran AEC marketer twenty years into my career, and I had no idea what this dude was talking about. I had spent my career learning “This is the Way” from architects, engineers, and contractors with operational expertise and solid business intuition but no formal training in marketing or sales.
So, no, I did not know how to demonstrate how the world’s most recognized brand would benefit by placing its logo on my scoreboards at a ballpark in Emerson, Georgia. Seriously, at the time, even people from Georgia hadn’t even heard of this tiny town with less than 1,500 residents.
All I had to sell them at the time was 1,400 acres of undeveloped dirt and a vision, but I needed to convince one of the most sophisticated marketing brands in the world to write a big check.
Imposter Syndrome starts to set in, and I remember having to make a choice – fake it or make it. I’m not a very good actress (or poker player), so I took a deep breath and confessed, “I’d like to know how other successful properties have demonstrated this to you, so I don’t waste your time. Can you provide me with examples? I honestly haven’t been asked for this type of information before.”
From that point forward, I decided my professional purpose was to elevate the AEC marketing profession. It began with investing heavily in my people and sending them to the best B2B marketing training opportunities I could afford. My team members and I became certified in account-based marketing, content marketing, inbound marketing, HubSpot, and we all started to have deep relationships with Google’s algorithm. Then, my team and I put this knowledge into practice for our clients over the next decade. The results have been astounding. Finally, we started teaching “The Sparks Way” to other AEC marketers who want to elevate their game.
I knew the day would come when AEC marketers would need to learn skills beyond proposals, tradeshow activations, and organic social media posts. The savviest AEC marketers are shifting gears and bringing fresh ideas to the table that drive revenue and produce ROI. I knew there would be a day when the industry would need to rely on the B2B marketing strategies that other service industries adopted more than 20 years ago. What I didn’t know was that a global pandemic was just the thing to accelerate this progress.
We could not be together anymore, but firms still needed to find leads, nurture relationships, and ultimately win new business.
For the first time in my 30-year career, I started to see the most brilliant people I know (AEC Firm Principals) turn to their in-house marketing professionals and ask for their ideas to drive the 3Rs: Reputation, Relationships & Revenue online. At last, the Rise of the AEC Marketer!
So, in celebration of 15 years in business, we are bringing together our most innovative clients and colleagues to share their stories of success at SmartWIN23: Speed to Market with Account-Based Marketing. We thank them for trusting us and stepping out of their comfort zone at times to allow us to help them grow. I would also like to thank PSMJ|Resources, Inc. for their continued support of our mission and commitment as our event’s Title Sponsor. I am humbled to be associated with a brand I have admired my whole career.
I hope everyone reading this letter can relate to some part of it. I encourage you to take the first step to learn from these high-growth CEOs and Marketing Executives from the industry’s leading brands and be inspired to put your firm light speed ahead of your competitors in 2023!
