BuiltEnvironment

Compelling stories for A/E firms -- are they possible?

I have recently read two thoughts that stuck with me. Interestingly, they would almost seem to be contradictory.

I found the first one in an online interview with Pilar Alessandra, a screenwriting instructor. She said:

"For me, story is action plus emotion. It's a series of interesting choices strung together, incited by emotion, or resulting in emotional consequences."

I found the second in an article written by Mike Reilly, FSMPS, and published in the July 2014 issue of the SMPS Marketer magazine. Reilly wrote:

"Good storytelling requires that we take a risk, and business communication is risk-averse."

I think this is one of our biggest conundrums in marketing for A/E and related firms: the marketing folks understand the need to involve the reader, that people like to buy from other people they like; but the technical folks insist on sticking to the facts, and only the facts.

The marketing folks are Hans Christian Anderson, happily telling of the ugly duckling or the emperor and his new clothes; the technical folks are Sgt. Friday writing up his report of a witness interrogation!

Marketers want to establish an emotional connection to the potential client while technical people want the statistics and specifications to speak for themselves, with no emotional component.

But more and more recent studies tell us that all purchases, whether products or services, have an emotional basis.

I think a large part of the problem is simply that the technical folks are afraid to risk exposing their real selves to prospects. After all, many of them went into technical fields so they could bury themselves in the details and not have to deal with others except about the technical details.

So how do we reconcile this difference in understanding and approach when crafting SOQs, proposals, technical articles and other extended business communications?

I once told a very senior civil engineer (40+ years of experience) who admitted that he was not good at writing proposals because he hated to do it,

"I'll make you a deal: I will let YOU design the wastewater treatment plants if you will let ME write the proposals."

Surprise, surprise -- he was happy to make the agreement.

I believe the answer is to recognize that each person is an expert in the specialty area for which he is employed. That means the technical people have to admit that marketers know more about marketing than they do, because that's where our training and experience lie.

If I suggest that we need to humanize our proposal and/or our presentation if we want to be selected, it is because I know the client needs to make an emotional connection in order to choose our team. So we have to provide the selection committee with stories, not just specifications and statistics.

If I suggest that we need a story about overcoming a challenge, rather than just a dull recitation of the roadway's length, right-of-way width, number of lanes, whether there was a median and if it was planted and irrigated, it's because I want the prospect to be able to form a mental picture of what we're talking about.

If I suggest that we want to list people's hobbies in addition to their degrees and licenses, it's because I want the prospect to see our team members as people with whom he wants to work.

These days, compelling stories are what make clients choose consultant teams. If technical staff will produce superior technical sections and let the marketers craft compelling stories for the non-technical sections, presenting staff as actual human beings who will enjoy working with that client, we should have more wins with less stress.

New cow at Schlotzsky's -- no name

(Austin downtown cow art collection)

It's about the person, not the equipment

 

When I was in 8th grade, I started studying the violin. In the beginning, I played an average instrument owned by the school. I wasn't allowed to take the instrument home for a night or a weekend until I could play a song that my parents would recognize.

I remember being absolutely certain that if I had a better violin than what the school provided, I would sound much better.

Then, a high school student came in for the day, and was assigned to help me with some technical issues. He was very good, and after a while, he took my violin and played the piece himself.

Whereas I had been making a somewhat musical noise, he was actually making music! It was wonderful music, at that. And on my average school violin!

I learned that day that a good musician could make beautiful music even with an average instrument. And this also went for areas other than music. As photographer Peter Adams once wrote:

"A camera didn't make a great picture any more than a typewriter wrote a great novel."

When I was 18, I got the opportunity to play a real Stradivarius violin for a few hours at a shop in Pittsburgh owned by a wonderful man named (appropriately) John Note. In 2 hours, I learned that a musician both talented and skilled, which I was by that time, ACTUALLY COULD make more beautiful music on a better instrument.

If was still mainly the talent and skill that mattered. But if you give a talented, skilled person the proper equipment for the job, they can turn out a better product than if they are working with the wrong or inadequate equipment.

In the June 2014 issue of Marketer, Linda Mastaglio wrote that "We market people with ideas." This leads me to believe that, in our A/E/C marketing efforts, we should use more space to describe the people we propose for our team, and what they bring to the table, and how they have track records showing great creativity and innovation, and less space telling how wonderful the firm is or providing too much irrelevant detail on completed projects.

For example, it is nice if the project manager is a talented designer, and will recognize whether a design is good or bad, creative or pedestrian. But if that manager also has great management skills, these are much more relevant to the role he/she will play, and need to be discussed at some length in addition to the project details that demonstrate their technical knowledge and experience.

If the project has inherent challenges, a discussion of how individuals on the team have met those challenges on other projects, and the creative solutions they developed, is more relevant than a description of how "the firm" met those challenges on previous projects.

Because firms don't meet challenges. They don't plan, design, permit or construct projects. PEOPLE plan, design, permit and construct projects.

So it is more important to tell THEIR story than the firm's. The equipment the firm provides and the processes the firm has in place are secondary to the education, skills, training, and technical accomplishments of the people you are proposing, and how they will marshall all of that to produce an amazing project that will exceed owner and user expectations and needs!