Justin G. Roy

Just read an amazing post from Bruce Lynch at PSMJ about relationship management.  Good advice for anybody in the architecture or engineering field.

“….You probably deal with calls like this all the time in your professional life. But are you also initiating these calls yourself? Of all the clients and prospects you initiate contact with during the week, how many of them are thinking “What do you want from me?” The truth is, our egos make it virtually impossible to evaluate this accurately – but you can take steps to ensure that the posture of the person on the other end is not set before you even say hello….”

Click here to read the full post!

Great video on YouTube of Tim Sanders challenging bloggers, people, and companies to go public with their feelings about the environment and how they are changing their behavior to protect it. Why? Influencing others is the key to really making an impact for the world.

Check out the video here

Learn more about Saving The World here

Great post from Chris Brogan (I think I am quickly becoming his biggest fan) on ways marketers can use social media to improve their marketing.  Below is a re-post or re-blog (call it what you want); I thought Architecture and Engineering firms would love to have access to this list.

Also, don’t forget to check out the Chris Brogan Blog!

50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.
2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.
3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.
4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.
5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.
6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.
7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.
8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).
9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.
10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.
11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.
12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.
13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.
14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.
15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).
16. Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.
17. Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.
18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.
19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.
20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email me for a calendar).
21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.
22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.
23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.
24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.
25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.
26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.
27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?
28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
29. Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.
30. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.
31. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.
32. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
33. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.
34. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.
35. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.
36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.
37. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.
38. Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.
39. Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).
40. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.
41. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.
42. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
43. Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).
44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.
45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.
46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.
47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.
48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.
49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.
50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too.  

Please click here to view this blog from the original source.

The other day I was on a blog hosted by PSMJ, and through a link I ended at the E-Quip Blog and saw a very interesting article I wanted to share.  E-Quip is hosted by Mel Lester, who serves the Architecture and Engineering Industry.  To learn more about Mel, click here.

Mel’s article, Hiring the Right Rainmaker, highlights some very important points to take into consideration.  Here are the bullets, and make sure you click over the the full article to read the full recommendations.

• Ideally, hire a technical professional with demonstrated sales skills.
• Find someone who embodies your firm’s culture and values.
• Develop a team approach; avoid the solo seller.
• Give the rainmaker access to existing clients.
• Keep the rainmaker involved with the client after the sale.
• Establish clear expectations, metrics, and rewards.

To view the post, please click here.

A great post by Tim Sanders highlighted something I have been practicing for years now when talking to architects and engineers. 

 ”….. now I know why I have such better calls when I’m hands free. Because my hands are free to gesture and visually articulate, I’m more likely to get ‘in conversation flow’. In these calls I’m doing a better job ‘coming across’ and conveying my intentions.

Take this idea into account when you think about having an important call with both hands glued to the wheel. It’s like having an emotional muzzle on you. Think about it the next time you have an important call, interview or recording that requires an expressive audio performance. From now on, I’m going hands free whenever possible. And I mean free!”

Granted most of “Corporate America” sits in a cubicle and might breeze over this advice, but there are many small changes you can make to create energy while on the telephone.  One small change you can make is standing up from your chair when on the telephone; this makes a huge difference in the inflection of your voice!

Please click here to view the post.

“Despite Housing Crunch, Some Builders Ignore Prospective Buyers,” an article published in Sustainable Land Development Todayby Marc Lumpkin states that builders are spending millions to attract prospects, and then failing to follow up.

Here on some interesting facts on figures on a few of the shortfalls:

16% of the buyers were not greeted when they walked into a model home sale center.

Only 56% of the agents requested a registration card and permission to follow up with prospective buyers.

Only 36% of the visits actually resulted in an agent following up.

Agents followed up with relevant information for prospects only 14% of the time.

Lumpkin’s article analyzes the problem, then offers solutions to fix the problem. Given the extensive work I do with civil and building engineers focused on land development and subdivision projects, I found the information in the article quite interesting. You can read the entire article here.

When your sick, you should stay at home, says an article at The Daily News Online. The same article also says that most workers do not call in when sick, because in some cases it can be quite costly. Read the full article here.

The article includes some helpful tips on how to call in sick. Use at your own discretion. And use when your really sick, not when you’re planning on skipping off to the beach for a day:

• Do call in sick when you’re feeling miserable, need to see a doctor, are contagious or can’t think straight.

• Do make the call yourself.

• Do speak to your supervisor directly, if possible. Sending an e-mail is a tip-off of possible fakery.

• Don’t attempt to fake sounding ill.

• Do call in as early in the day as possible to give your supervisor time to plan the day without you.

• Do apologize for the inconvenience.

• Do get a doctor’s note if your illness requires medical treatment and a specified length of time off.

As a consultant to the design/build industry, working with human resource issues, I understand that an appropriate allotment of sick time is often essential to employee retention and recruitment.