Recently, I pulled out my copy of Ford Harding’s “Rain Making” to see if I could find a bit of inspiration for an article. The following made me stop reading and look out the window, hoping for clarification. In fact, it made me wonder if Mr. Harding and I were looking at the same A/E/C industry. Here’s what he said:
“When times get tough, however, and the boss has to make layoff decisions, who will he hang on to? His marketer. And what about when promotions are handed out? Then again, marketers will get the lion’s share.”
I was dumbfounded. This is so foreign to the way the A/E/C industry I know operates!
In my experience, when times get tough marketers are the first people to be laid off. When times improve marketers are the last to be called back or replaced. And promotions? Forget about it. A 100-person A/E firm might have 12-15 technical people at associate or principal levels. But marketing staff rarely reach such levels, and then generally only one at a time.
Most of this has to do with how individual contributions are understood by A/E firms. Most A/E firms are so driven by the quest for billable hours (direct labor) that they recognize direct labor as the sole contribution to the firm’s bottom line. Marketers are seen as making no contribution to the bottom line because they rarely, if ever, have billable hours. None of their hours are billed to a client.
This viewpoint totally ignores the fact that, if marketers are not doing their job, technical folks will have no place to bill their hours when their current projects are completed.
I was suffering one part confusion, one part anger and one part disbelief.
Then I figured it out. I had my "aha!" moment.
“Rain Making” was obviously written for technical professionals (architects and engineers) who have no marketing background, on the assumption that anyone who wants to become a successful marketer can be taught how to make that happen. Harding meant that when times got tough, the boss would lay off the guy who was just an engineer and keep the engineer who could also market. When promotions came around, the engineer who had marketing skills would move up ahead of the engineer without such skills.
Of course, this ignores the fact that many engineers entered the profession to bury themselves in the details and never have to talk to anyone, and many architects were taught that marketing is a demeaning activity.
So, y’all can go out and make rain. I’m going to market my fool head off while I still have the energy to actually DO the work I bring in!
In the meanwhile, I’ll leave you with this joke. I tell it every time I find a lot of engineers in my workshop audience, and they look at each other and nod to each other that I’m correct and they’re comfortable with that. The joke goes like this:
Q: What’s the difference between an introverted engineer and an extroverted engineer?
A: An introverted engineer looks at his shoes when he speaks to you; an extroverted engineer looks at YOUR shoes when he speaks to you.
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