The construction industry loves a winner.

Design competitions and award programs are deeply ingrained in the culture of architecture. Architects look to awards winning projects and products for insight into what the ever-changing norms of their industry are.

This creates opportunities for building product manufacturers to gain exposure and plaudits for their products by being associated with award winning projects. It is also a chance to garner goodwill among customers.

One of my clients took advantage of this recently by helping two of its customers enter an award program. The client is East Coast Lightning Equipment, Inc. (www.ecle.biz) and the competition is the Lightning Protection Institute’s Innovation Award. East Coasts customers are small to medium sized contractors that do not have marketing programs. So East Coast offered to have me prepare the nomination for the customers.

Results: Both of the nominations I prepared won top honors! The winning projects, including my client’s products, will receive widespread publicity. My client and their customers, and their customer’s customer (the building owners) will get bragging rights and material they can use social media, websites, advertising, and other promotional programs. My client’s customers appreciate the marketing support they received.

And I get to tell you this story.

Size of Firm

I have heard many sales managers tell their sales team to "focus on the larger design firms". But as I see it, pursuing the big firms can be a big mistake.

It is easy for a sales manager to assume that a sales call on a 100 person architectural firm should generate ten times the sales revenue than can be made from by calling on a design firm with just ten people on the staff. If each sales call takes the same amount of time to make, a salesperson would be foolish to waste time on the smaller firm.

But assumptions like these are based on averaged results, and they work only if a rep sells "average" products to an average architect. Yet there is little incentive for a building product manufacturer with average products to bother selling to design professionals; they should be focusing on the end user (contractor) and their distribution channel. Typically, it only makes sense to market to design professionals if you can offer a unique sales proposition. And if you have a unique sales proposition, you are no longer looking for averaged design firms, but for design firms with specific needs that your specific product can satisfy.

Here is the math that makes more sense to me. The 100 person firm has 100 people who can stand in the way of you making your sale. A ten person firm has only 10 people you have to deal with. Or, to state it another way, you may have to deal with a lot of people in the big firm before you find the decision makers. In the small firm, you have a better chance of finding the right people more efficiently.

I don't have the data to prove this, but I suspect the value of construction put in place per employee is about the same regardless of the size of the design firm. If ten people turn out ten projects a year that cost $10 million each, that is the same construction value as the large firm where 100 employees turn out $100 million of construction.

I know we can all think of cases where these ratios don't apply, but on the average, they make a lot of sense, especially when we understand that the larger projects done by the big firm often take longer to move through design, permitting, and construction. More, the sales rep might find more competitors knocking on the door of the big firm, diminishing the rep's odds of success.

So what should the wise building product sales rep do?

Get strategic.

Find the firms that need your products, and focus on them regardless of the size of the firm.

Realize that you are not selling to design firms so much as you are to individuals who can champion your product within their firms. Then find the right individuals and build relationships with them.

However, some building product manufacturers have an economy of scale that makes the big jobs that only big firms can do the logical choice. If your firm can sell rail cars full of materials but your competitors can’t, then going big is the right strategy.

Happy hunting!

File Name Structure

Sometimes my suggestions may seem like I am just being fussy. But the details are important.

I suggest you establish a format for naming downloadable files that you put on your website. Using the same format for all of your downloads will help you find them in your files; this is especially useful if more than one person does the uploading.

More importantly, consistent naming protocols will help your customers locate the file they want once it is on their hard drive.

Magazine Articles: The general format I use is similar to the way a citation would be made in a footnote, if you consider the brand as the author:

Brand-Publication-ArticleName-Year-Month-REVISION OR VERSION IF APPLICABLE.format

For example:

Waterson-ConstructionSpecifier-DoorCloserHinges_ANewApproach-02021-06.pdf

Technical Documents:

Brand-DocumentType-ProductName-OtherInformation-Year-Month-Date.format

For Example:

Waterson-InstallationIInstructions-CloserHinges-SeriesK51-2021-05-23.docx

Alter these recommendations as you see fit. For some product lines, it may make more sense to list the product name before the document type. Just be consistent.

Keep your brand name visible at the front of the url. This way, when someone is looking for it in their hard drive, the first word they see is the brand you are promoting and they are looking for.

Do not use spaces in the file name. The computer can read them, but a person might not recognize where a url begins or ends.

Standards for Building Product

Many building products are specified by reference to standards that are written and published by industry associations. I am frequently asked for assistance in interpreting standards and to help building product manufacturers assure their products are in compliance. This can be a challenge, however, when a standard is defective.

For example, a door hardware manufacturer asked me to help them comply with Builders Hardware Manufacturers Association (BHMA) A156.18 - American National Standard for Materials and Finishes. The standard is widely used in specifications to help designers indicate what is required and to assure that products furnished by various manufacturers are compatible.

I had little difficulty classifying most of the client’s finishes, but was stumped by their dark brown powder coated finish. It seemed described by the Finish Description for BHMA Code Number 695, “Dark Bronze Painted,” but I needed to know what shade of dark brown.

Bear with me as this gets complicated.

695 is in Category A that, according to the Standard, “shall match BHMA match plates…”. BHMA sells a set of about a dozen match plates, but not one for 695. The standard, however, says that Finish 613 is the “Primary Equivalent” for 695.

613 is in Category B, “finishes that are unstable… and cannot and do not match from one alloy or form of material to the next and from one manufacturer to the next.” (Emphasis added.)

We are left with the statement, “Contact individual manufacturers for other finish samples.”

I don’t fault BHMA for its lack of a definition of Dark Bronze Painted, there are too many finish materials and possibilities to define them all. But I do criticize them for creating a Product Code that is meaningless. They don’t pretend to have a standard for pink hardware, so why do have a phony standard for Dark Bronze Painted?

Diversity is Essential to Building Product Manufacturers

The architectural industry, like many others, is trying to shed its long tradition of being a white men’s club. If you sell specified products, your organization needs to pursue diversity goals as well. Here is what one leading architectural firm is doing; perhaps you can model your strategy after theirs:

Perkins & Will, a major architectural firm, has just published a white paper on the impor The document, titled “Perkins&Will and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) released best practices for creating and implementing comprehensive diversity programs for U.S. firms in a white paper titled “Creating a Culture of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion [J.E.D.I] in Your Architectural Practice.”

In the paper, authors Gabrielle Bullock, FAIA, and Bill Schmalz, FAIA CSI, maintain that architecture firms must rigorously uphold J.E.D.I. principles to remain relevant to clients, attractive to talent, and competitive in an increasingly diverse world.

“Our industry and society are facing an unprecedented convergence of crises. Economic, health, environmental, social, and racial justice challenges have presented us not just with an opportunity, but also a responsibility, to address them,” said Bullock, who has served as director of global diversity at Perkins&Will since 2013. “We can elevate the industry by challenging the status quo and reimagining the future by looking through the J.E.D.I. lens.”

The authors outline seven easy-to-understand steps, such as articulating a vision, identifying a leader, establishing a network of partners, and developing tools to effect positive change at both the educational and professional levels. If followed, the steps promise to help firms of any size make measurable progress toward social and cultural competency.

“The profession is long overdue in addressing these topics,” said Schmalz, a member of the Perkins&Will LGBTQ+ affinity group in Los Angeles. “We are hoping this paper gives firms a process and the tools they can use to achieve success in creating a culture of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.”

In addition to outlining best practices, the white paper calls for the urgent establishment of J.E.D.I. programs within every U.S. firm. The reasons, the authors argue, are clear: First, demographics in the United States are changing—and rapidly: Today’s professional workforce is made up of more people of color, more women, and more openly LGBTQ+ people than ever before. Second, clients seeking architectural services are increasingly diverse and, consequently, more likely to hire teams who look like and identify with them; a firm’s failure to reflect the diversity of its clients is a failure to meet its clients’ needs. Third, architects have an imperative, as social visionaries, to use the power of design for the greater human good.

“Human society is complex, multicolored, and multicultural. Architecture firms must reflect this truism, authentically, in everything they do,” said Bullock. “Not only does their future success depend on it; the future health and well-being of entire generations depend on it, too.”

Developing Your Product Data Sheets

Colin Gilboy, publisher of the 4specs.com product database, issues a monthly newsletter with tips about selling building products to construction specifiers. In his February 2021 issue, he offers the following:

Several months ago the 4specs newsletter focused on Product Data Sheets as an effective way to communicate the product information needed to be specified or included as a substitution.

I had an email from Michael Chusid, RA, FCSI - a specifier I know in Southern California and a member of SCIP - the independent specifier organization. Here is what Michael wrote to me:

"Your newsletter stresses the importance of data sheets. I quite agree. I have attached a draft of a datasheet I am currently preparing for Waterson, a new door hardware company with a new type of multifunction door closer hinge; the page layout has not yet been completed.

Waterson Product Data Sheet

"I fear that the document may be too lengthy, but I felt a need to include all pertinent technical data because it does not yet exist on their website or elsewhere.

"I faced many translation challenges to write this:

• - Cultural and linguistic - Taiwanese to US English

• - Manufacturer orientation to specifier/user orientation.

• - Heavy industry OEM orientation to a nimble construction industry orientation.

• - Fragmented information to a coordinated presentation.

• - Vague marketing approach to a strategic understanding of features, benefits, and limitations.

• - Technology transfer to North American standards and practices.

"My goal is always to simplify a specifier's work. For example, the product selection table the client gave me was organized by product, and one had to search to find out which met project requirements. I changed the table so that someone could go into it based on project requirements such as door size and weight, and be led directly to the recommended product.

"Another objective is to help the project team avoid problems in design, installation, or usage. For example, product limitations are clearly identified. I added language that can be cut and pasted into a CSI-format specification. And, since design professionals are also visual thinkers, I created images that will help with product evaluation.

"Fortunately, the client is committed to getting things right, and has been a joy to work with."

————

By the way, I strongly recommend all building product manufacturers get listed in 4specs.com.

Your Brand Ambassador

I serve as a brand ambassador for many of my clients because I speak with the authority of decades of architectural practice and use the language of the construction industry.

An example is my presentation to Glasscon, the international conference explored trends in the use of glass in construction. My session dealt with closers for glass doors. The presentation was sponsored by Waterson, makers of closer hinges.

Videos of the session are now online:

The first segment explores the need for door closers and their many applications to building performance and safety.

The second segment assesses the various types of door closers or their suitability for glass doors.

Top Reader Requested Advertisement

An advertisement I created is one of Architectural Products Magazine’s top reader requested ads this year. This honor goes to just a few of the hundreds of ads that appear in the magazine. The full-page ad for Ceilume appeared in the July 2020 issue.

The tabloid-sized ad uses the junior-page wrap format. This includes a half-page ad with the main message surrounded by smaller news items illustrating the product’s diverse applications.

The main message challenges architects to Break Their Habit of using mineral fiber ceiling panels without considering Ceilume’s superior product. The ad was intended to provoke a response, and I am glad the results prove the merit of the approach.

Branding and the value of a photographic portfolio

One of the services I provide to building product manufacturers is assistance in building a portfolio of photographs of their products and projects in which the products are used. The photos are often the bedrock upon which sales, promotion, and advertising campaigns are built. My clients generally recognize the utility of photos, but do not understand that a portfolio becomes an asset that adds to the value of their companies.

Ceilings Plus provides a case in point. The company was a leading producer of innovative ceiling products until it was purchased by USG in 2017. I followed the acquisition carefully as I had been responsible for Ceilings Plus’s marketing (as a consultant and then as in-house marketing director} for nearly 20 years until shortly before the purchase.

USG has gradually swallowed up the Ceilings Plus brand. For the first year after the purchase, Ceilings Plus continued promotion under its own name as a brand of USG. Then it became USG’s Ceilume product line. Now, just three years after the change in ownership, USG’s most recent full line catalog mentions Ceilings only in some of the fine print but not at in headlines or sales copy.

This type of multistage brand transition is not unusual. In the automotive industry, for example, Datsun became Datsun by Nissan, then Nissan Datsun, and finally Nissan.

Yet the photographs used to support the brand have not changes as rapidly as has the brand. Of the 94 project photographs shown In USG’s Ceilings Plus Projects Gallery, 63 of them are images that I had obtained for Ceilings Plus during my tenure. The catalog has a greater percentage of new photos, but still depends heavily on photos from as long as 20 years ago.

This demonstrates that a portfolio of photographs is an important part of the assets of a building product manufacturer. The valuation of Ceilings Plus certainly included technical knowhow, a talented team, and production facilities. Yet it also was buying the credibility of having an impressive portfolio to inspire designer and demonstrate that the firm could deliver.

Seeing how quickly USG is abandoning the Ceilings Plus brand identity, one wonders if the enduring photographic assets might be more value than the goodwill attached to the brand name.

Building Safety

As an architect, I feel obligated to notify owners or managers of public buildings when I detect a hazard. For example, this floor-mounted door stop was located so far from the wall that it created a trip hazard. I pointed this out to the office manager and suggested an alternative; I am grateful that the manager promptly removed the hazard. When you see hazards, please do not ignore them.

Promotion to Architects builds Relationship with Contractors

One of my clients, a building product manufacturer, has me doing promotional work among architects, including placing publicity in the design media and lecturing at conferences. These efforts have not gone unnoticed by the manufacturer’s customers - the specialty contractors who install the manufacturer’s products.

This is demonstrated by a letter my client received from a contractor:

“Just wanted to thank you guys for all of the industry outreach you do! This article was forwarded to me by one of my best customers. Things like this validate our industry and are extremely helpful! It is very much appreciated.”

My client sells generic products, and contractors can buy from many suppliers. Yet my client builds loyalty by providing outstanding service, providing leadership on industry technical committees, and creating end user demand through my promotional efforts.

Put another way, “Your customer’s customer is also your customer.”

Rethinking Building Product Sustainability

Fires in the West, Hurricanes in the East, and it is clear that the effects of climate change is no longer a discussion about the future. I challenge the building products industry to totally rethink:

1. What products can you offer that address the needs of building to resist fire, flood, lightning, and other rampaging forces of nature?

2. The embodied energy, resiliency, and sustainability of your products, from raw material extraction to end of use to reuse.

3. What fundamental changes in your organization are necessary, not just to reduce your environmental footprint, but to create beneficial impacts on the environment?

If you would like to discuss this, contact me for an open and frank discussion.

Using Keywords in Press Releases

Keywords may be useful in search engine optimization of websites, but should press releases be written to take advantage of keywords?

After studying this, my answer is:

Instead of manipulating keywords to attract machine readers,

I will focus on using language to communicate with human readers.

Should I Pay to put a Spec on one of the Spec Platforms?

Several companies that publish master specification libraries will publish a manufacturer’s proprietary guide specification section… for a fee. Manufacturers frequently ask me if they should buy into one of these spec libraries. Here is my brief reply:

1.  Participating in a commercial specification system should be seen as an adjunct to publishing your own guide spec, not a replacement for it.

a. The commercial systems place emphasis on creating a spec section that fits their own formatting and style; this sometimes places the system's own need for consistency above your needs to clearly present your product.

b. The commercial system may not be available to all specifiers. The specifier should spend time understanding your product and their project needs, not learning to navigate an unfamiliar specification platform. In contrast, most specifiers will know how to edit a guide specification written in CSI format and published in a .doc format.

c. Once you have attracted a specifier to your product website and the specifier has decided to use your product, it is risky to introduce the specifier to a commercial specification system where the specifier might discover alternative products.

2. The commercial specification systems usually offer to write the spec for you as part of your participation fee. They do a good job with standard products. But if you have an innovative product, the commercial system's writers may not have the time or motivation to work with you to understand your product's unique features and benefits, how you go to market, and your exposure to product liability.

3. Participating in a commercial specification system is an advertising decision. At the "point of specification" (POS), a specifier that uses the commercial system will turn to the system's table of contents and might pick your product.  This is great. However, the decision to participate in the commercial systems must be made in comparison to other promotional and advertising expenditures.  Placement at POS works for products that are spec-driven, but does not reach designers, job captains, or other decision makers involved in product selection before the stage of spec writing.

Chusid receives CSI Award

The West Region of the Construction Specifications Institute presented Michael Chusid its Wilbur Johnston Memorial Award at its regional conference earlier this year. The annual award is given to an individual that "has made notable contributions in the advancement of the construction sciences, construction specifications, and to the education of those in the construction industry..."

Chusid's award citation reads,

In recognition of significant contributions to the development and advancement of innovation construction materials and methods as consultant to product manufacturers and trade associations; for your work on the MasterFormat 2004 Implementation Task Team; it's widely used training materials and working as a CSI Webinar Presenter for "Guide Specifications, a Marketing Tool for Manufacturers and Sales Representatives."

Defective product specs: A disaster waiting to happen.

I do a lot of work in the Lighting Protection industry. So I got excited when I saw the websitepre-engineered gazebos and shade shelters. The manufacturer's website offers a "lightning protection kit" for its shelters, but few details.

So I contacted them for info, and here is what happened:

1. The customer service rep did not know they offered lightning protection.

2. Then the rep sent me a link to the same website from which I made my inquiry.

3. When I asked for detailed info, the company sent the following:

LIGHTNING PROTECTION KIT:

1)   All lightning protection shall conform to Class I requirements (materials necessary to protect ordinary buildings not exceeding 75’ in height) as outlined in the LPI Standard of Practice, LPI - 175 (2008 Edition Standards of Practice) and NFPA 780 Booklet (2008 Standard for the Installation of Lightning Protection Systems).

2)   Air terminal(s) shall be solid copper, ½” diameter with tapered top and threaded base.

3)   Terminal receiver shall be horizontal mount threaded bronze base unit.

4)   Wire shall be 28 strand, 14 AWG, ½” minimum rope lay copper cable connected with brass or bronze couplers.

5)   Ground rods shall be 5/8” x 8’ copper clad minimum.

6)   Contractor to ensure lightning protection is in compliance with local building codes.

This spec is a disaster waiting to happen. Here are a few of the spec's defects:

- It references obsolete standards,

- The copper components specified are incompatible with the company's steel and aluminum roofing and will corrode.

- Some of the dimensions given do not meet the standard, and others are oversized and expensive.

- The horizontal mount specified will not work on the manufacturer's sloped roofs.

- The manufacturer says to be "in compliance with local building codes," apparently unaware that few building codes address lightning protection.

I suspect the manufacturer thinks they are doing their clients a convenience by offering the kit. Maybe they are making a good faith effort to make their buildings safer.  But clearly, lightning protection is outside their expertise, and they a is selling a product that may not work as intended.

The company has positioned itself and its customers for an "attractive nuisance" lawsuit.  Imagine a child playing in a park when a thunderstorm approaches. The child sees a shelter with a lightning rod and takes refuge in it.  When the child, under the shelter, is injured or killed by a lightning strike, the attorneys will take the manufacturer, the installer, and the property owner to court. The architect or engineer, too, if there is one.

BOTTOM LINE

There are no minor components to a building. If you are selling something outside your expertise, get the advice of someone competent in the field.

A Remembrance: Steve Caporaso

He was there, at almost every construction industry trade show I attended, for years.  Our encounters were always brief, but sincere and meaningful, and over time evolved into a friendship. We exchanged ideas and business leads and swapped news and stories from the front lines of building product marketing.  Now he is gone, and I miss him.

Steve Caporaso was owner of Architects & Engineers Service Co., www.arch-eng-service.com, The company's representatives call on architects to present a collection of non-competing building products and generate leads for the manufacturers. For manufactures without a sales force to call on architects, it is a wonderful way to put a face to a company and get catalogs and samples into the hands of potential users.

Steve had the respect of both the manufacturers he represented and the architects he served. Steve was an established presence in the construction industry by the time I established my consulting practice, and I regarded him as an elder from whom I could get guidance.

AES, as the company is informally known, continues under the able guidance of Steve's widow, Catherine Caporaso and two of their children. I wish them every success.

Building that Grow On You?

"DARPA is launching the Engineered Living Materials (ELM) program with a goal of creating a new class of materials that combines the structural properties of traditional building materials with attributes of living systems. Living materials represent a new opportunity to leverage engineered biology to solve existing problems associated with the construction and maintenance of built environments, and to create new capabilities to craft smart infrastructure that dynamically responds to its surroundings."

What a clever acronym, ELM.  Imagine, plant a few seeds and 75 years later you can harvest the lumber and build with it.  That's not what the US Army is considering, however.

“The vision of the ELM program is to grow materials on demand where they are needed,” said ELM program manager Justin Gallivan. “Imagine that instead of shipping finished materials, we can ship precursors and rapidly grow them on site using local resources. And, since the materials will be alive, they will be able to respond to changes in their environment and heal themselves in response to damage.”

With DARPA's mission of building better killing systems, I doubt their first agenda is providing shelter to populations displaced by global warming. But maybe they deserve the benefit of the doubt.  Consider, for example,

-- Spreading a tarp seeded with spores that grow into a thick moss bed that insulates and even supports the structure.

-- Quick growing, thorny vines that grow into almost impregnable fences, but more quickly than the bougainvillea or cactus hedges now used for that purpose.

-- Airport runways that don't need mowing.

-- Toilets that make it possible to actually "shit bricks".

Frankly, most of the stuff DARPA does terrifies me, and this program is no exception.

"The long-term objective of the ELM program is to develop an ability to engineer structural properties directly into the genomes of biological systems..." (Emphasis added.) 

In other words, they propose to genetically modify ecosystems for the battlefield.  But don't worry,

"Work on ELM will be... carried out in controlled laboratory settings. DARPA does not anticipate environmental release during the program." 

The same reassurance was offered about atomic bombs.

More about ELM can be found at: http://go.usa.gov/x2syj.

Specifying By Reference or Brand Name?

When writing a guide spec for a rainscreen system, I had to include structural silicone adhesives. My client told me to specify the type of adhesive by reference to the appropriate ASTM standards. I would agree with this approach for many types of adhesives, but not for high performance structural silicone. Here's why:

Two of the leading producers of structural silicone are Momentive (formerly GE) and Dow Corning. Their product literature states:

Momentive: Do not use, "In structural glazing applications unless Momentive Performance Materials (MPM) has reviewed shop drawings for applicability and has performed adhesion and compatibility tests on project substrates, spacer materials and all accompanying accessories. Review and testing is done on a project-by-project basis. No blanket approval is given by MPM for structural glazing applications."

Dow - "Sealant should not be used In structural applications without prior review and approval by your local Dow Corning Sales Application Engineer"

It would be inconvenient for my client's rainscreen installers to have to go through a review with their silicone supplier for every project, and I suspect most of them will overlook the requirement. Few architects take the time to review submittals so closely that they will note the silicone manufacturers' limitation.

The result: The required review is not performed, and the silicone manufacture has a free pass if there is a failure on a project. All they have to tell the judge that the customer did not do the required review.

SOLUTION

I told my client to get letters of approval from leading silicone producers and make the letters part of their installation instructions. In return, the specific silicone products can be named in the rainscreen guidespec.