What Is Your Commercial Construction Company Obsessed With?
Mar 30, 2010 Topics: marketing tips
Coty Fournier
I hope every design and construction professional finds this post and shares it with everyone they know whose out there trying to survive or thrive in this market. I just read a fantastic book called Rework. It was written by the founders of a highly successful software company called 37 Signals, and it will inspire you to rethink the way you run your design or construction company. It’s a quick read with no B.S. and it punches you right in the face with unconventional advice on everything from the way you should handle your hardest-working employees to the way you should treat your biggest customers.
Although I see many applications to the architectural design, engineering, and construction communities throughout this book, there are a few sections that really spoke to me as I look back to the various positions that I have held in my career on both sides of our industry’s buy-sell equation – as well as my current role helping companies to market themselves on the web with JobSite123.com.
One of these is a section on the out-dated, ineffective, waste-of-everyone’s time called the company Mission Statement – and all of the related narratives that are strewn together to supposedly represent who you are as a company. If every company’s mission statement and descriptive narratives are meant to help the customer understand who you are and what you stand for (relative to all of your competitors) – then why do they all look identical? (Gasp! It’s true!) Read yours. And then read what your competitors write about themselves. Swap out your company names and see if there is any real difference. We just don’t like to admit the similarity because we are all sincerely passionate about our own firms and our desire to do right by our customers. But in the end, we literally describe our services in a “commodity-like” fashion and then sit around frustrated when we are treated like commodities.
The problem isn’t in the intention. It’s in the cliché. Virtually every construction company on the planet has a mission statement that references the following 4 things: (1) high-quality work, (2) delivered on schedule, (3) on budget (4) by experienced people. Sound familiar? Of course it does. It’s so familiar – it’s expected – and therefore provides no differentiation whatsoever. Those 4 things are now the assumed end product, not the service you are pledging to provide during the process. So what does that mean for commercial construction companies out there? It means you are now forced to define the service you provide in an entirely different way.
Can you do it? Can you tell a compelling short story about who you are and what you do without referencing anything about quality, schedule, budget or the experience of your people? If you can – scrap your mission statement and descriptive narrations and write a 30-second commercial about that and be done with it. Frame that 30-second commercial around every RFQ submittal, sales presentation and marketing pitch you make. If you can’t get away from using those 4 words – you may be in trouble.
Need help? Another section of Rework could point you in the right direction. It talks about defining what the people in your company are obsessed with doing – as opposed to what they are committed to doing. Obsession is a much more emotional word and therefore evokes an entirely different experience. When someone is obsessed with doing something, there is a compulsive and relentless automation to their behavior that drives a pretty predictable outcome. You don’t want to bet against an obsessed person. They’re freakishly successful. Shakespeare was obsessed with the elegance of the written word. Einstein was obsessed with the nature of light. Larry Bird was obsessed with mastering the outside jump shot. Steven Spielberg is obsessed with mesmerizing story-telling. Zappos.com is obsessed with phenomenal customer service. Apple is obsessed with producing killer technology that people want.
At JobSite123.com, we have obsessions. Here are some of ours to help inspire you to identify yours:
- We are obsessed with free. With every new feature or functionality, we bust-ass to figure out how we can deploy it to our customers for free. While most companies are trying to figure out how to charge their customers for something – we find a way to make things free.
- We are obsessed with answers. We want every user to find instant answers to their most common qualification questions. This requires an obsession with knowing the most common questions and creating an opportunity for users to provide their answers.
- We are obsessed with cool. When someone is looking at JobSite123 for the first time – we want one of their emotions to be “Wow! This is cool.” Cool makes people want to tell others.
The idea is to identify what your people are obsessed with doing better than any possible competitor. Whatever they are obsessed with doing, they will do naturally with ease, and attract other like-minded people to join your team. You don’t have to be a movie-maker or a technology company to incorporate this philosophy into your marketing plan – the same rules can apply to your architecture, engineering or contracting firm. Most companies get it backwards. They identify the customers they want and then try to “window dress” their people and their credentials to appear highly qualified in the eyes of those prospective customers. Do the opposite. Identify, celebrate and empower your people’s natural obsessions. And then look for those customers who value those obsessions. When a customer values something and you can prove that you are obsessed with delivering it better than anyone else – they will bet on you.
Tags: architectural design, commercial construction companies, engineering, Rework
