Creating and communicating relevance

Last month, I was fortunate to present a half-day seminar at the annual convention for the National Association of Women in Construction. While the overall topic was marketing, the attendees had diverse roles, with only a few having the word “marketing” in their titles. It was a lively discussion with insightful participants who left me inspired.

Since joining the A/E/C industry in 2003, I’ve heard the term “marketing” used several different ways. “We’re going to market to them.” “They put their marketing spin on it.” Or my favorite—a Dilbert cartoon that concludes with the punchline, marketing is “just liquor and guessing.”

But marketing isn’t about blasting out sales messages, the dreaded word “spin,” or taking guesses while taking sips.  Here’s how the American Marketing Association defines it:

“The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

My condensed version of the definition is that effective marketing is about creating and communicating relevant value to clients and potential clients. These definitions—as I shared with the seminar attendees—make every one of us a marketer, regardless of role, because we are all responsible for providing value to our clients. We should continually ask ourselves, how are we delivering our value, communicating it, and advancing it?

Throughout our marketing efforts, we should keep in mind that roles in architecture, engineering and construction firms are service professions. Just like our A/E/C services are meant to benefit clients, so should our marketing and business development processes. That requires good listening, seeking to understand first and then be understood, customizing our approaches to each client, and providing information that is beneficial to our clients, prospects and partners.

When it comes to marketing in the A/E/C community, we’ve come a long way. In the ‘70s, “marketing” was somewhat of a bad word—firms didn’t believe they had to market and thought it was in bad taste to do so. That has changed, but we still have a long way to go, and it starts with how we define it and how we approach it.

If you’re a provider of professional services—what makes you distinct? How do you provide value to the organizations you work with? If you’re a buyer of professional services—what do you look for in consultants? What information is helpful to you? What can we do to provide more value for you?

Let me know your thoughts!

Holly Bolton, FSMPS, CPSM
Director of Marketing

Making the transition from classroom to career

I’ve been working at CE Solutions for a little over three months now, and during that time, I have reflected on what has helped make the transition easier as my path changed from a structural engineering student to a structural engineering professional.

Both new employees and the companies that hire them are responsible for creating smooth transitions from the classroom to the workplace. Two-way communication, adaptability and transparency can go a long way in easing the transition. Like with all life experiences, there will inevitably be bumps in the road, but addressing them immediately can help prevent them from developing into larger issues. It’s not just a matter of the new employee completing assigned tasks, but becoming a new member of the team.

If you represent the hiring company, it’s important to:

• Strike a balance between structure and freedom. Too much freedom may cause your new employee to feel aimless and uncertain, while too much structure may cause him or her to feel limited. This balance will be different for every new employee; someone out of college may be used to structure from classes and would appreciate it, but others may resent it. Pick a starting point and adjust accordingly based on the new employee’s comfort and competence.
• Communicate expectations for the new hire. Include considerations like company culture and technical style (drafting or design), and provide clear office standards from which the newly hired employee can work. All the while, be open to new ideas or suggestions the new employee might have regarding improvements to the office standards and practices.

If you’re a new employee, it’s important to:

• Refer to examples from projects the company has completed in the past. This will help familiarize you with company’s methodology while allowing you to think about ways to improve upon what has been done in the past. Since the methodology will be fresh and new, you might be able to find areas that could be potentially improved moving forward.
• Be clear in your work, your thought process and how you make decisions.  This not only allows senior employees to more easily review what you’ve done, but allows them to think about how their personal methods may have changed and evolved over time.
  

What tips do you have for making the transition easier? Feel free to comment and let us know what you think! 

Nathan Boltz, EI

Creating a new look for CE Solutions

Here at CE Solutions, the purpose for our structural engineering firm is to improve the quality of life in the communities where we work.

Our work can involve designing the structural system for a new building or addition. It can involve renovating or repurposing a facility. Or, it can involve analyzing an existing building or structure and providing recommendations for needed repair or strengthening.

The common thread is that each engineering solution we design supports the purpose of the structure and improves quality of life for those who use it. So, we’ve decided it’s time to improve the quality of how we represent ourselves as a company. CE Solutions has a new look that more accurately captures the purpose and attributes of our firm.

Through our process of refreshing our brand, we considered who we are as a firm and what we value, as well as outcomes of internal and external perception surveys and our strategic planning activities.

Our refreshed identity captures CE Solutions in a more symbolic way. We strive to bring a high level of care to each of our projects and relationships. The refreshed colors, fonts and mark in our new logo symbolize this care, as well as what we focus on bringing to clients and collaborators—peace of mind during the project process, successful results, and a relationship that lasts far beyond the project’s completion date.

The symbolism reflected in our logo reiterates and advances our founding principles of solid relationships, mutual respect, integrity and ethical practice.

I’m excited to unveil our new look to you today! We appreciate and value our relationship with you and look forward to continuing to be true to our purpose and help our clients be true to theirs.

Until next time!
Steve

Steve Osborn, PE, SE, FSMPS, CPSM
President, CE Solutions

Looking back, looking forward

In 2013, CE Solutions celebrated its 15th anniversary in business. We've come a long way since I started the company doing structural engineering in my basement. The CE Solutions family has grown to nine employees. We're working on larger, more complex projects. We're redesigning our logo from one I designed when I started the company to something simpler and symbolic (which I’ll explain in my next blog post). And, we've replaced our vintage web site with this one, which features the blog you're reading now!

One thing that hasn't changed is our focus on relationships and communication. With that in mind, our goal with this blog is to communicate interesting, helpful and relevant information to our clients, partners and friends in a concise format. Please let us know if you have ideas or suggestions of what we should write about. In addition, we are open to receiving guest blog submissions from our clients and partners, so please let us know if you’re interested in contributing.

In the spirit of communication and relationships, I have joined Twitter! If you tweet, I’d love to follow you. You can follow me at @SteveOsbornPE. I'll be tweeting about leadership and information related to the design and construction community. You can also follow our marketing director, Holly Bolton, who is a social media veteran, at @hollybolton.

Until next time!
Steve

Steve Osborn, PE, SE, FSMPS, CPSM
President, CE Solutions