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In today's marketplace, marketing has become a complex and sophisticated task rooted in strategy. It is one of the elements essential to any design, engineering or construction firm's ultimate success.
Gone are the days that firms could depend in the phone to ring with a client on the other end offering the next job. Today's marketplace is one filled with:
- More competition for less work
- Larger firms competing for smaller jobs
- Clients asking for free, up-front work
- Fees becoming a major selection criteria
With these facts in mind, this article has been created to assist readers in developing a program to motivate technical staff to market and reward them for their success. This article will address questions such as:
- Why is technical staff's participation important to the success of marketing?
- Who should participate in marketing?
- How can I motivate my firm's staff to market?
- Does my firm need an incentive program for marketing participation?
- What are the benefits of an incentive program, and how can they be structured?
- How have incentive programs helped and worked within other firms?
 MARKETING IS ESSENTIAL
When asked the question, "Why is marketing important to your firm?" Kenney and Associates has heard responses such as:
"Clients forget if not reminded of our firm and its unique abilities. In addition, clients move to other concerns once our firm has delivered a project. Keeping in with past clients serves as an important reminder that our firm is ready to serve them again when the need arises. Also, referrals from past clients are more likely to come our way if we keep in touch."
"Competition is ever present and getting stronger. For every day that a firm neglects to market, five others have attempted to take our place. Nowadays the number of jobs are limited, and the number of qualified firms continues to grow."
"Firms are getting down to the essentials. We are becoming more disciplined, more focused and more careful about spending our available dollars. That means that marketing, as with every other aspect of our firm, must become more efficient. This results in everyone participating in marketing."
"Clients have become less accessible. They have been barraged with materials from consultants to the point where it has lost impact. Firms need new ways to reach people."
What this all means is that the more people within your firm you can have participating in marketing, the more results you'll see. This does not mean that everyone will have the same marketing job. It simply means that everyone on your staff must take responsibility for marketing and have a specific marketing assignment.
The most important person to actively involve in your firm's marketing is the CEO. Neither the marketing director nor the marketing principal is really number one. The CEO may not lead the team (the key word is team) on a daily basis, but he/she must set the tone, inspire and articulate the mission. The marketing person's role is to then execute "plays" that support and move the team closer to the mission/vision. Without the CEO's support active participation, maximum results will not be reached.
Most people think a team consists of the CEO, principals, project managers and the marketing director. However, there are other staff members who have just as much influence over the success of your marketing program as do core marketing team members.
Every staff member should participate in marketing--- from your administrative staff to the principals. The key to success is to clearly define each individual's marketing roles and responsibilities.
When embarking on a program to involve all staff in marketing, the marketing director should:
- Evaluate/analyze each person on the staff to determine their strengths and weaknesses.
- Determine where they fit and will be most productive and effective in the overall marketing program
- Relate to your firm's staff members in concepts that they can understand-use terminology that they use in their jobs and analogies that they can relate to.
- Inform each marketer of his/her individual role on your team as well as the marketing roles of all other staff members. Consider writing a marketing job description for each individual.
- Inform each person what is expected of him/her. They must understand the overall marketing goals vs. specific task goals.
- Make sure every member has proper training.When you are learning a new sport,you take lessons and practice. The same applies for marketing.
- Provide proper feedback in each team member's performance.This feedback must be honest and point out success as well as areas for improvement.
MOTIVATING STAFF TO PRODUCE RESULTS
Motivating is one of the most important aspects in moving your marketing program ahead and keeping your firm's staff involved.
The following five issues are key motivating factors in the workplace
- interesting work
- advancement
- appreciation
- feeling like a part of the organization
- job security
Other factors include:
- job satisfaction
- pride
- increased self esteem
- professional status
- achievement (challenges)
- praise
At the beginning, it is important to determine what the motivation will be for keeping your technical staff involved in marketing. This can be accomplished through a five-step program.
Step 1-Goal Setting
- Determine the "hot buttons" for each individual.
- Make goals attainable
- Involve staff in goal setting-people don't go against their own ideas
- Focus on methods as well as outcome
- Make the goal "owned" by the individual.
Step 2-Training
- Provide group, as well as one-on-one training. For example,conduct a group seminar on basic marketing skills. In addition,provide individual presentation training sessions.
- Practice, practice, practice-training must be an ongoing activity.
- Vary training opportunities by utilizing in-house resources(such as in-house seminars, tapes, books, etc.) as well as out-of-house resources (conferences, consultants, etc.)
Step 3-Monitoring
- What gets measured gets done! Make goals measurable
- Encourage high performance
- Establish regular marketing meetings-communicate through the group to the firm.
- Issue quarterly marketing reports indicating successes and progress towards firm goals.
Step 4-Rewarding
- Match the reward to the person's needs
- Money is often the first thought-finders fee, bonuses, salary increases, profit sharing. Consider alternative: time off, tickets to a play or sporting event, dinner at a new restaurant.
Step 5-Praise
- Must be ongoing and consistent
- Praise in public
- Provide constructive criticism in private
This five-step program is a continuous cycle. Once initial goals are met. A new set of goals for each individual must be established, so that the individual always has a clear objective and focus.
With this new mentality in place, your new team is ready to go on to the next phase-establishing an incentive program that will produce results. We will address this phase in our next column.
Kenney and Associates has specialized in marketing for the built environment since 1986.
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