11
O P I N I O N
Another brick in the (marketing) wall Clients want to learn about your firm’s capabilities, resources, and experience, but only as it relates to them and their projects.
O ne of the best-known songs in the Pink Floyd catalogue includes a voiceover that says: “If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you haven’t eaten your meat?” The same can be said about marketing when we’re talking about best practices, processes, and methods to our madness. There’s a reason why old sayings like “don’t put the cart in front of the horse” still ring true to this day. Melodies have structure, processes have steps, puzzles have pieces, and walls have bricks.
Javier Suarez POP MARKETING
Here are some things to consider in your marketing and business development efforts: 1)The research brick. Websites, archives, annual “It is entirely up to us to engage them in our conversation, but making it all about us before them is essentially asking for the pudding before eating our meat.”
At AEC firms we are full of ourselves and are not afraid to show it. The most popular slide at a presentation is “About XYZ Firm,” and we absolutely love to talk about how amazing we are and the array of wonderful things we have accomplished. This approach usually overshadows one tiny little detail: It’s not about us, it’s about them! Of course, clients want to learn about our capabilities, resources, and experience, but only as it relates to them and their projects. It is entirely up to us to engage them in our conversation, but making it all about us before them is essentially asking for the pudding before eating our meat.
See JAVIER SUAREZ, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER July 10, 2017, ISSUE 1207
Made with FlippingBook Annual report