Forgive me in advance if this topic has been posted before.

Would you be willing to share whether or not you have personally worked within or your company has established a commission-based sales environment? I know it’s rare in the A/E/C industry but I wonder if there is a successful example of this. The thought is that it will separate the real rainmakers from those who cannot sell at all. There are a lot of variables and models to choose from. I’m not necessarily for or against it. I just want to have all the facts and potential pitfalls.

Thanks for your feedback.

Several responses echoed my own.

Although obviously I am not in the AEC industry directly, I have worked on the commission vs salary issue for many years in the publishing business and also have studied where the different formats work and where  they don’t.

In general I believe commission sales is problematic for professional AEC practices especially for business development on long cycle projects (which most ICI stuff is, of course).  Where commission is the norm is within the retail/consumer marketplace — the classic “Tin Man” selling siding, driveway paving and the like.  AEC practitioners, especially seller/doers will likely rebel against models where they must live on commission UNLESS they are true owner/partners and assume total responsibility for operating the business.  (After all, in a start-up situation, the owner/doer essentially is working on 100 per cent commission because everything is his/her responsibility and there is no income unless sales come in.)

The publishing world where I inhabit lives in two places.  Many publishers recruit and pay on a commission-only basis but I’ve moved away from that model because I believe it invites an environment where the reps focus purely on short-term sales and don’t work on developing long-term relationships.  However, I do my best to set hiring criteria/standards so that the reps would only be hired if they could actually perform on a commission basis.  In fact, we have two tracks, the commission and the salary, and when the sales rep achieves quota effectively he/she is working on commission.  At that point, the rep is “free” to set working hours and conditions but (and this is the good thing) the commission-earning rep has the discipline and habits of a regular employee so attends meeting, follows procedures and generally contributes to the business as a team member rather than someone out for the quick buck.

This issue is debated back and forth, but I think unless you are ready to give true and total ownership, commission won’t fly in professional practices.

Related to this point, however, is a question:  If commission won’t work in professional practices, and there is plenty of evidence that the most important element in repeat business is the relationship between project managers and staff and the client (in other words, the technical rather than sales staff), how do we (a) hire people with strong business development and rainmaking capacities and (b) how do we “motivate” technical staff to take charge of business development when opportnities stare in their face.

For the former, I can recommend Ford Harding‘s resources.  His organization specializes in developing rainmakers and in helping companies in the recruitment a special kind of sales representative:  The person with professional practice designation who is also great at selling.

Other resources include personality testing (I like salestestonline.com), an employee-ownership and open-book management business culture and possibly some staff training and internal bonuses/referral gifts for non-sales employees.  (Small amounts of money can work wonders in this regard. For example, we have a line in our office for accounts receivable which is only staffed part-time.  Rather than allowing the calls to go into voice mail, I bribe employees with a $5.00 phone answering bonus.  I could have been “efficient” and simply routed the line to the administrative desk, but this solution engages all the employees in the office with the account collection/client service function.  It has radically improved client service and our ability to pull in cash from people wanting to pay their bills by credit card over the phone.)

Here is the original newsletter:

Is there a right and effective way to network, and if there is, where does networking fit in environment of construction marketing and sales?

I thought about these points as I suffered, somewhat painfully, in my tuxedo at the networking reception at the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) convention in Boston last week.

Few situations, frankly, make me more uncomfortable than standing in a crowd of hundreds, where the purpose is to make connections, renew acquaintances and “network”.  At times like these, I simply like to head away to a quiet corner or (better) back to my hotel room.  I’m utterly uncomfortable in this sort of social situation.

The next day things turned out much better when I reached out to someone with whom I initially networked through my writing and journalism skills.  I proposed to him that a book may be lurking beneath the surface and told him I had recently discovered how to successfully publish books as well as newspapers (and blogs!)

He responded enthusiastically.  I can’t name the person right now, nor describe the book topic, but it is certainly relevant to this e-letter.  It turns out that despite my lack of social functioning skills and ability to “work the room” I am actually quite a good networker.

My initial connection with the SMPS colleague occurred within the frame of reference of “what can I do for you”, not “what can you do for me.”  It turns out that I could make a contribution to his business and relationships right away.  It didn’t take him long to offer to reciprocate. This attitude earned true networking business points.  I frankly and truthfully told him that he could do absolutely nothing for me right then because the markets where I offer services didn’t correlate with his own network, but I still offered to help out as much as I can (and did.)

Over the next couple of years, we’ve found ways to do business with each other, and help even more people in the process.  These initiatives have proven to be selfless in the extreme, but equally self-serving, if only as a byproduct of our friendship rather than a direct business relationship.  I’m sure if we approached our relationship with the attitude:  “He’s scratching my back so I had better scratch his” the whole thing wouldn’t work.  We are simply taking genuine interest in each other and showing mutual respect.

I certainly can still work on improving my social event skills.  They are the pits.  But these basic networking rules still apply for anyone.

• Don’t worry about what you can get; focus on what you can give.  Your success in networking is defined by how much you can help others more than how much you can help yourself.

• Where possible, focus your networking in areas where you enjoy the environment and initiative.  While I am extremely uncomfortable in social/crowd situations, I don’t find it difficult to interview and write for association newsletters and magazines.  This skill opens me to many practical networking opportunities.

• Remember, effective networking leads to relationships, and relationships are the effective junction between marketing and sales in the AEC community.  Reaching out, even if you are initially uncomfortable, into an environment where you can meet and connect with others will ultimately lead to useful clients and business opportunities.

Still, I hate standing alone in a crowd.

Here are two responses I received (I certainly won’t name the people here becasue, if you met them publicly, you would be amazed to think they found networking and meeting people anything but easy).

I just read your most recent CMI newsletter, and I couldn’t agree with you more.

Through my involvement in (association name removed) at various levels, I have become known to many as (what they think) a great networker, but in reality, I feel exactly the same way you do.  I feel more alone in a crowded room than anywhere else.  I have managed to maintain the facade of somebody who can work a room, when in actual fact, I only work the room as a means of finding the exit.  Like you, I would rather be in a corner or as you say, “better back in my hotel room”.

Like all of us, I can talk when I have to, but I have great difficulty opening a conversation with strangers or even those folks whom I know, but only see once a year.  Once I get past the “Hi, I haven’t seen you in ages. How’s the family. How’s business.” I am usually at the point of trying to figure out how to extricate myself from the situation without insulting anyone.

I’ve attended various seminars telling me what to say in these situations, but quite frankly, I feel foolish following through on the advice that I get.

I have built my business from my network, and in all honesty have never seriously tried to market myself or my business.  I have always tried to market myself by letting my deeds do the talking.  At this point I am still doing O.K.

I just thought that I would let you know that you are not alone in your feelings of crowded rooms of people you are supposed to be able to talk to.

Another person (again, well-placed and highly successful within the industry) also reported to me:

I too along with most people was never comfortable in a crowd, I tell my kids that there was a time when I was extremely shy, and they look at me with extreme disbelief!

Like most things it is only through practice and determination can you overcome the “uncomfortable in a crowd”.

I am working on an initiative to provide a resource for people who find the “crowd” difficult.  Undoubtedly, the best networkers may be those who find the experience particularly challenging.  However, by considering the needs of the others first and using our natural talents and abilities — and some hard practice — we can overcome these challenges.

Our Boston hotel experience is providing amusement for our son, Eric, who enjoys watching the Suite Life of Zack & Cody, a Disney series set in a fictional Boston hotel.  Ironically, the external shots for the “Tipton Hotel” in the series are actually of the Hotel Vancouver — shades of small-world deja-vu (as I grew up in Vancouver.)

We arrived in Boston about 10 p.m. last night to the beginning of an unanticipated saga that will test the principles of client service and the “customer experience”.  I won’t name specific hotels here yet because of my general practice not to speak negatively about individual businesses and because this story is still unfolding.

To say the least, after getting a little lost in the downtown Boston traffic grid, we finally arrived at our prepaid hotel to find two friendly bellmen waiting to take our bags to the lobby.  Then, on check-in, the night clerk handed me a letter and said, because of flooding earlier in the week, the hotel could not provide the level of service it expects as a standard for its clients.  We would receive accommodation at another hotel and the bell staff would help us in the transfer.  The night would be free (and our pre-paid room would be reimbursed).  We could move back into our pre-paid room the next day.  The letter of introduction from our home hotel to the replacement hotel said I am to receive a free night plus one phone call.

As the first hotel’s bellman drove our car to the alternative location, I learned some things and obtained some insights into how to handle the situation.  I won’t discuss the specific details publicly here but they showed the wonderful undercurrents of possibilities when you listen, connect and communicate.

Certainly, things haven’t been perfect so far at our back-up hotel.  When we were showed to our assigned room, we found it hadn’t been made up!  I’ve been charged $9.95 — twice — for high speed Internet here when it is free at the original hotel.  My wife had a restless and uncomfortable sleep.  She also will be stressed today as she must execute the transfer back to our original hotel with our son in tow while I attend the SMPS Build Business Conference (the business reason for this trip, of course.)

If you’ve correctly guessed that I now expect our four day hotel stay in Boston to be VERY inexpensive, you are 100 per cent correct.

I’m sure in the end we will be treated fairly and respectfully.  (That is why I am not naming names, now.)  But are we “owed” this level of service — and if you are a contractor, do you owe your clients what may seem to be over-the-wall and expensive accommodations when something goes wrong which isn’t your fault at all.  (Our original hotel cannot be blamed for exceptional rains/flooding in downtown Boston a few days ago.)

I wish I could have a simple answer to this question.  It is fascinating how many people with disabled accounts on the Google AdSense forum complain about terrible “customer service” since you can’t readily reach anyone at Google to resolve issues or solve problems when you lose your AdSense account.  As a volunteer on the forums, I often remind these people that they are not actually Google’s customers, since Google pays publishers for AdSense, not the other way around, and it is their job to provide great “customer service” to Google.  How should you then provide “customer service” in the AEC industry context, where suppliers and clients often intermingle in less-than-obvious hierarchies and things are never as clear cut as they seem?

(Brief interruption — someone just walked up to me and asked for this hotel’s wireless password and I gave it to him without question.  What am I doing?  Don’t I remember that saga involving a two-week click bombing attack which occurred on my account from a free hotel lobby public WIFI access point?)

While this story is jsut beginning, I think you can rarely go wrong by being extremely pro-active in client service and you might wish to extend the same level of courtesy to your key suppliers.  Certainly, you are wiser to take a portion of your marketing budget to improve your service and responsiveness than to pour it into advertising, sales calls and the like.  You don’t need to be a wimp, in my opinion, for the con-jobs and gimmicks that “dissatisfied clients” can play on you — you have the right to value some cients more than others (and some suppliers better than others) as long as your decisions are not based on illegal discrimination categories.

Take some lessons from the hotel industry in your business/client service practices, however, and you’ll be far ahead of the majority of AEC businesses when it comes to marketing effectiveness.

The late Sonny Lykos introduced me to Steve Yastrow, whose insights into the client experience have shaped my views here.

Craig Park

Craig Park’s most recent blog posting, “Seven Steps to Reconnect” addresses the challenges of rebuilding and re-establishing potentially long-lost relationships.

This can be hard work, but is certainly easier than cold calling (assuming of course your relationships were positive and concluded well).  Still it takes discipline and organization to achieve the results you are seeking.

I hope I’m not stealing his thunder (and copyright) by giving away the final three steps.  (You can learn the others, of course, and their context, by reading his blog).

Step #5: What’s new and what’s changed?—exploring their current situation is critical—roles, focus, and even the “economic reality” (a nice way to say “how is this recession impacting you and your business?”) because learning their challenges is the critical to moving the business-to-business business to the next step.

Step #6: Book a meeting from a meeting—after all we’re both in this for “business” notwithstanding the professional friendship that comes from shared project experience—because unless we commit to building the relationship (“How can I help you?”), and the best way to reconnect is face-to-face. So don’t leave the call without a definite, time-defined, agreement to meet. Apply same strategy to that meeting as well.

Step #7: Share information willingly and freely—nothing builds trust better than helping a client win more work—whether “relevant” technical information (good), news in their market (better), or leads for opportunities (best). Helping clients succeed is the brand of the best consultants.

Step #7 should not be underestimated.  The difference between a pushy, irritating sales representative and an effective business-building consultant is whether your communications have giving and sharing at root.  If you are just using rote techniques to pitch your services you might-as-well apply for a minimum wage telemarketing job (and never call me!)

Can you recommend best practices for collecting testimonials from clients and publics?

Testimonials are great tools for providing a reference in our marketing materials, but they are often difficult to solicit. Any tips for amassing those warm, fuzzy comments without annoying your clients or your project managers?

At least four other members responded.  As I’m pulling information from a semi-public source, I won’t identify anyone here but the suggestions are really quite good and relevant to anyone who appreciates the value of testimonials.

First response

I usually write the testimonial myself then present it in “draft” form to the client/owner to approve. I also try to keep these drafts brief and to hit only one or two significant points.

Second response

From my experience, clients are very willing to provide quotes/testimonials for a job well done. To start, get a list of completed, recent stellar projects along with the associated client from your project managers and solicit the request via e-mail (tends to get a quicker response). To make it easy on the client – you can send a template, which allows them to fill in the blanks. These testimonials are fabulous for posting on your website, within proposals and award submissions etc. Good luck!

Third response

It helps to ask the the “right time” – for example when you just successfully completed a project – the client is happy and doesn’t consider this to be annoying. If you wait for a while the enthusiasm fades. With long projects or ongoing relationships, you often know it’s the “right time” when you hear your client say “you did an outstanding job, we are so happy, we are so glad we selected your firm for the project” (or something along those lines).

What helps create more powerful testimonials (rather then generic “good job!”) is to have an idea of what specifically you want each client to comment on – do you want them to comment on how smooth the process was, or how responsive the team was, or whatever it is that is important to your brand that makes each testimonial much stronger. Since everyone is busy, and depending on your relationship with each client, you may even send those bullet point along with the ask. It is often that people would ask you for the pointers anyway.

If there’s any hesitation internally on the part of those who actually have to ask for testimonials, giving then the “pointers” and explaining the importance of getting testimonials shortly after each project’s completion helps as well. But most importantly, it’s critical to communicate to the entire team why it’s critical to get testimonials (i.e., past performance is critical for future proposals and other marketing and biz dev activities).

Fourth response

For me, the challenge is to get pictures of the completed project, so I start by asking the client if it would be OK to get pictures. If they are OK with having pictures taken, then they are probably OK with give a quote.

Before talking with the client, I usually interview the project manager and account executive to ask them what was new, special and/or challenging about the project. Once I get an answer to that question, I then ask the client to comment on that specific aspect of the project. This helps to keep away from a generic comment like “they did a good job.”

Do you have your own thoughts about how to best gather testimonials?  Please feel free to comment here.

The stories combine some surprise, adventure and a dose of lessons learned.  The biggie of course is my African adventure.  Not everyone gets to live through the end of the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe civil war working on a daily newspaper, drinking (strong) beer and riding a sanctions-busting motorcycle.  Thankfully, the beer and motorcycle never happened at the same time  — however a gravel patch ‘destroyed’ the bike and my ill-fated repair efforts taught me I should never aspire to be a skilled motorcycle mechanic.

Other stories include my “cracking” of Air Canada’s Aeroplan program (causing havoc within the program’s administration and resulting in the destruction of benefits for thousands of elite fliers — bad me), the gaming of the U.S. government’s Non Preference Immigration Visa Lottery (which resulted, among other things, in my getting lost in the Pentagon’s parking lot and discovering I really like doing business in the Washington DC area) and most recently, an insanely intense two-week battle with a California “click bomber” who set out to destroy my Google AdSense account (which generates a pittance in monthly revenue but which I didn’t want to see disappear under the cloud of thousands of “invalid clicks”.)

Most likely, you have your own stories.  Hopefully they don’t get too boring.  Stories are helpful in the construction marketing process, especially if they are relevant to your clients’ needs and concerns and can relate to a memorable message.  Some drama, pathos, problems solved and solutions uncovered can bring your business to life far more than cliche-ridden remarks about “customer service”.

I suppose the stories I communicate in this blog should relate to construction  marketing successes, but I can’t get out of my mind that evening in Monrovia, Liberia, a week after a military coup when I drove around town in a commandeered taxi with a drunken soldier who wanted my watch.

Thankfully, my life is now much more boring.

While not much business occurs this time of year, one of my biggest business mistakes happened this weekend five years ago, when, as things were failing in a key aspect of my business, I allowed myself to enjoy a business-as-usual vacation.  Probably there is nothing wrong with the vacation — but I had to rub it in the face of the employee I would soon dismiss.  Maybe the problems were more optical than substantial but I failed to respect either the employee or the emotions my actions would rightfully cause.

Little things certainly count at big times, for example.  Superficial issues become truly serious when we are at crisis points and our adrenalin, stirred by the fight for survival, is at its peak.  We need to respect these qualities when we are about to drop emotional bombshells on anyone.

As I noted earlier, we need to listen to our emotions and control them, while respecting how our marketing initiatives and business practices affect and influence the emotions of our current and potential clients. Matt Handal points these basics out clearly in his powerful posting:  “What you don’t know about marketing.”

I still have much to learn.

It will be a little strange to me to wake up and not have a blog entry to post today (this entry is set a couple of days ahead of time).  On the other hand, sometimes it is good to take a break to refresh and recharge.

As I’m not “there” when writing this post, I cannot publish an image (yet) but will update when I return.

We assemble them quickly with generic messages and only brief communication with our clients who are usually advertising to support one of their own client’s features to demonstrate their loyalty and relationships.

These client-focused attributes and objectives are good.  It never hurts your brand to associate with successful clients and projects.  Think of this phrase:  “If you are good enough to do business with the best, you must also be good enough to do business with me.”

Trouble is, our feature-supporting advertising clients rely on us to “make up” their ad for them.  Since their expectations aren’t too high, we take the simple road:  We obtain a logo, contact information, and then add a generic “proud to support (name of client)” message.

Our designer can whip these ads out quickly and efficiently.  We send proofs to ensure the spelling and layout are okay and follow up with invoices with tear sheets of the final ad copy.

There’s nothing wrong with this, but where is the thinking, creativity, and imagination about how you can integrate the relationship with a marketing message far more important and spectacular.  It might be a testimonial, a graphic image that catches your business story or an absolutely unequivocal (and amazing) benefit you offer that your competition can’t match.  Note that our ad designers or salespeople can’t come up with these for you — and we are unlikely to discover the most effective marketing communication for you in the rush to get the publications to press.

Then how do you go from bad advertising to effective advertising?  Here, I will  outline some solutions.

Engage with professional consultants and pay for solid marketing advice. This option can be expensive but need not be. The challenge is finding good consultants.  Word-of-mouth references and referrals work well here as they do for your own business if you are doing things right.

Check similar non-competitive businesses in similar markets. Study your industry-leading peers  (one of the great values of belonging to relevant industry associations) and pick brains.

Turn back the “first version” of the ad provided by the media representative and ask for something better.  Insist on real marketing intelligence.  A good rep will refer you to someone within the publishing organization who will take some time to come up with a message that might really help your business.  (This is an imperfect solution of course, but it never hurts to ask.  In our business, you would likely end up talking with me.)

Of course, you should realize that a single one-time support ad will serve two limited but important purposes.  It will identify you with the successful project and will allow you to show your identification with the successful client.  A much more effective strategy is to look at how these two attributes can be expanded and enhanced into an ongoing campaign.

Here, I can suggest something that is mutually beneficial.  Sit down with your advertising representative, look at all the interesting projects and activities you are working on and determine the story behind them.  Then you can work with the publisher to tell the story about your business and enhance the positive association between it and your clients’ successes.  As an ongoing rather than one-time advertiser you deserve and should expect some real customer service from the publisher.

This takes some work and time, of course, but who said that success comes without any effort?

Nevertheless, we’ll still be happy to publish your “proud to support” ads without much else if that is what you want.

P.S.  The client experience is vital and while we sell these one-time ads quickly and efficiently, everyone who advertises in our print media is welcome to connect with me personally and can attend special marketing Webinars and receive a free copy of my Construction Marketing Ideas book.  (I can’t give it away if you purchase a $12.00 one month link reference here but will send it to you if you spend a few hundred dollars on advertising.)  The book, incidentally, recommends that conventional advertising in print or other media should only be a small part of the marketing process for most AEC businesses.

A few days later, the representative emailed me again.

Mark,

I enjoyed reading the post from Wed. (6/16) on your Construction Marketing Ideas blog. I think it’s a fair assessment of (Ed: name of website removed), and one shared by many first time visitors. I genuinely appreciate the feedback. It can be difficult to get an honest read when the initial audience is largely comprised of contacts with personal connections.

So, I get the impression we over-sold it a little, especially on the community pitch. It is indeed a fine line between who we know we can be and what we are at the moment. We have been successful building the brand aesthetics and have an excellent start on the content and media, but that third component of audience is only now becoming the focus of our efforts. We feel the social media functions offer a unique opportunity for firms and businesses in the AEC industry. And we are dedicated to pushing the technology and functionality to optimize the usefulness for the industry. We just need to get the industry to try it out.

While I completely understand the necessity for a full evaluation prior to making any kind of recommendation, I invite you to at least join the community and take the opportunity to test out the functionality. We could use an extra voice in our community to let us know how we can improve the tools. We even have a group focused on the development of the site – from the home page, to the KnowledgeBase, to the new community – which is open to any community member.

I’d also be happy to answer any questions you have about the team, our mission and our affiliations. If you’d like to set up a time to talk via phone, let me know.

Thanks for your time and attention.

My posting “Can you fake it until you make it” discussed the art of finessing the truth a bit to make a selling point.

Interestingly, when I read this email, I mistakenly associated it with a bad case of an “overselling” error by one of our company’s own representatives, which happened to occur the same day as the relevant posting.  Somehow, in my mind, I connected the difficult internal business  incident with his email and the “memory” of a posting on this blog, and so I responded to the person who wrote me by saying: “No, the overselling problem doesn’t apply to you, it does to me.”

Well, of course, there still is a problem here because I fell for one of the commonest marketing problems and challenges — the faulty perception where we mistakenly link one cause to another effect.  The social networking site publicity seeker’s assertion:  “So I get the impression we oversold a little” didn’t have anything to do with our own “overselling” mistake, but his use of the words resulted in me connecting the dots falsely to assume he had responded to a posting I (never actually) made discussing he dangers of overselling!  And here is the real surprise.  I only realized my erroneous conclusion when I set out to research and find the purported original posting to write this blog entry — and discovered the person writing to me was writing about the challenges of finessing the truth, not “overselling” — at least the type of overselling I experienced.

Frankly, misunderstandings like this are both good and bad from a marketing perspective.   Sometimes you want people to make a faulty association (with something good, reputable, or popular) and clearly you don’t want to be associated with anything bad (crime, scamminess, spamming) and often these mistaken associations occur even though you don’t seek out to deliberately or even subtly mislead anyone.  As an example, in some of our communities, our independent publications are mistakenly associated with “official” construction association publications.  We never represent ourselves falsely.  We put a small association logo within our publication as we are allowed to (and encouraged) by the associations to show our memberships, but nothing inside the publication suggests anything more.  But some people think we are THE association publication, and I suspect, in some cases, they choose to do business with us because of this faulty assumption.  (In other cases, we actually publish official association publications or special supplements in co-operation with the relevant associations and, in these cases, of course, we let everyone know the link.)

Now, what about the assertions and hopes for some attention from the person representing the new website seeking to create a social networking environment within the AEC community.  I looked at his site again last night, and it seemed quite well designed, but I didn’t rush to log in or “join the community” This is simply because it requires more effort and identity-sharing than I’m prepared to do right now as our deadline approaches.  In any case, at the time I was reviewing his site, I thought  though the “overselling” he referred to related to something that happened which had nothing to do with his email!

Are there ways he could have received more or faster attention to achieve his media publicity goals?  (I suppose he has my attention now, but equally, now I’m committed NOT to publicize the site right away to cover my own embarrassment.  In any case, I rarely name any other organization publicly unless I can share clearly positive news.)  Possibly.  But I’m not sure any of these options really made any more sense than the direct approach.

• He could have connected through someone I trust and already respect.  This would involve reading my book and previous weblog postings and then dropping a line to that person/organization seeking an introduction.  Best of all, (and most effective) would be making that request through one of our paying clients.

• He could have arranged to advertise here in some way or another.  Sponsored weblinks here are only $12.00 a month, for example, and you can cancel anytime.  The time and effort for me to set up the weblink would “force” me to look at the site in question.  Then, if it has intrinsic merit, I probably would be happy to plug it.  (I realize there is a supposed Chinese wall between editorial integrity and paid advertising — but in the business-to-business and blogging world, the lines are much more blurred, and sometimes a little “dash” goes a long way.

• He could have created some buzz by connecting and participating in some of the existing communities and forums I belong to or even lead (such as the LinkedIn Construction Marketing Ideas group.)  Of course, he needs to be careful not to be cheesy or violate the forum guideline rules for advertising and self-promotion, especially since his organization hopes to sell advertising in its social networking group.

All of these ideas of course don’t overcome the fact that he represents a commercial business which is hoping to make money from advertising and sponsorship — and in some ways, that makes him a potential competitor to me.  I don’t really worry too much about that in deciding who or what to write about here:  after all this is a Construction Marketing Ideas blog but equally I tend to be more cautious in promoting/publicizing organizations seeking attention to sell their own wares than to truly serve the community without expectation of return.

I’ll get to the site/community the person wrote about eventually (maybe sooner than later) but leave with one parting observation.  I looked for a real physical address on the website and an explanation of the organization’s corporate organization/ownership, and couldn’t find it.  This is a yellow flag to me.  Is someone putting on airs where the smoke is greater than the substance? Maybe, indeed, there is some overselling here and I should just wait a while until the site really proves itself some other way.  But then we have the chicken-and-egg story that plagues marketers and start-ups all the time.  How do you successfully launch something new?  This is a topic for the next posting.