Allow Professionals to be Professional

SMPS Missouri Valley Regional Conference 2024 (Pictured left to right - Gabe Lett, Holly Bolton, Frank Lippert, Andrea Story, Lindsay Young)

You are an A/E/C professional marketer. You work for professional architects, engineers, and construction experts. Your firms typically have professionals who take care of payroll, accounts payable and receivable, IT and other technologies. The firm does well when everyone does their job and executes tasks based on their skills and expertise.

The Marketing Squeeze
As a professional marketer you have specific skills and expertise that are unique to you. It is why you are hired, or maybe why you should have been hired. But this marketing gig is often a frustrating and sometimes confusing role to tackle. Unlike IT or payroll, somehow marketing is an area where firm owners, usually design or construction experts, like to meddle. Too many professional marketers get hired at A/E/C firms, but never do any "real" marketing. They quickly become proposal coordinators and graphic artists. Eighty to ninety percent of their daily tasks become centered around proposal writing, coordination, and graphics. Whatever time they have left over may get spent on actual marketing. If a lucky marketer spends time on marketing tasks, firm leaders pick it apart or reject it. These tasks include market strategies, website UX, brand image and integrity, social media campaigns, video marketing, and others. So, what is an A/E/C professional marketer to do?

Let Me Take a Look at That Bridge for You!
Let's flip the script and see what it might look like if the shoe were on the other foot.

• How would a professional architect respond to a marketer looking over her conceptual designs, redlining them to death?
• What would a professional engineer do if his marketer decided to give the client advice on the structural integrity of their bridge?
• How well would a construction project manager respond to a marketer signing off approvals for sub-contractor pay requests?

You see, we need to allow professionals to be professional. Engineers are meticulous about engineering design. Architects are picky about their concepts and reports. Contractors are stingy with their budgets and schedules. Marketers are perfectionists when it comes to marketing.

Stay in Your Lane :)
If you are reading this as an A/E/C technical professional or firm leader, please hear me! It takes the whole team to make the ship move. Your expertise and leadership are vital to the firm's success. However, it slows you down and the firm when you try to play the role of the marketer. Your participation is needed and appreciated but stay in your lane. Trust your marketers to be experts in marketing. Listen to their advice and trust their judgment. Here are a few steps to take.

1. Hire marketers who like to do marketing! Hire proposal coordinators who love writing and coordinating proposals. Don't confuse the two.
2. Hire enough staff for your marketing team so all aspects of marketing your firm receive attention. About three percent of your total staff should be in marketing. That's about a one-to-thirty ratio.

Step Into Your Power
If you are reading this as an A/E/C professional marketer, believe in your skills and expertise! Your firm needs you and needs your unique voice. Do not allow yourself to get sucked into tasks you are not meant to complete. Lead your firm in marketing! Move the culture toward excellence in marketing. Here are a couple of pieces of advice.

1. Learn everything you can about your firm, what you do, who you do it for, and why! You cannot market what you do not know.
2. Share your ideas and share them often and freely. Your firm needs your voice and perspective. Be optimistic and do not give up on great ideas!

Win - Win - Win
If all the professionals are allowed to be professional, then we have happy employees and leaders growing together. Leaders - lead. Designers - design. Marketers - market. The firm succeeds, everyone makes money, and society benefits!