THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES VOLUME 34, ISSUE 6, DECEMBER 2015

CAREERS ISSUE18 STORYTELLER-IN-CHIEF

22 GETTING TO KNOW SMPS CEO MICHAEL V. GEARY, CAE

28 WHAT MAKES YOU WANT TO COME TO WORK?

30 LET YOUR CAREER FLOURISH SIDEWAYS, NOT JUST UP

CONTRIBUTORS

9 Effective Event NetworkingLINDSAY L. YOUNG, MBA, CPSM, is a marketing consultant with nu marketing in Haysville, KS. Reach her at 316.680.3097 or lindsay@numarketingllc.com.

10 Writing for the Win: Don’t Just Write the Story, Celebrate the Outcomes

Past president and president-elect of SMPS Virginia, TRACEY A. GOULD, M.S. IMC, is the director of marketing for Noelker and Hull Associates and a 1st Place Zweig White Marketing Excellence Award recipient. Reach her at 520.907.1977 or tgould@noelkerhull.com.

14 Brand Marketing to Boost Your Firm’s Marketing ROI and Visibility

SYLVIA S. MONTGOMERY, MBA, CPSM, is a senior partner at Hinge, a marketing and branding firm for professional services. Montgomery is a co-author of The Visible Expert, Inside the Buyer’s Brain, and Online Marketing for Professional Services. Reach her at 571.238.5378 or smontgomery@hingemarketing.com. or follow her on Twitter @BrandStrong.

16 How to Build a Webinar FollowingBILL READER is corporate marketing director at NTH Consultants Ltd. in Northville, MI. NTH is a geotechnical, environmental, and facilities engineering consulting firm. Reader can be reached at 248.324.5252 or breader@nthconsultants.com.

18 Storyteller-in-ChiefMarketer contributing editor NANCY EGAN, FSMPS, focuses on image and content development for firms in the design community. She writes on workplace issues, urban design and architecture, and professional services marketing. A past president of SMPS, she can be contacted at 310.943.7294 or egan@newvoodou.com.

21 Sidebar: Think RésuméNANCY EGAN, FSMPS, and MARJANNE PEARSON

Marketer contributing editor MARJANNE PEARSON is recognized as an industry pioneer in talent, leadership, and business strategies for architecture and design practices. She can be reached at 510.452.1460 or mp@talentstar.com.

28 What Makes You Want to Come to Work?MICHAEL T. BUELL, FSMPS, CPSM, is the client development director with CCI Mechanical, Inc., in Salt Lake City, UT. He is also a national speaker, adjunct professor at the University of Utah, and co-creator/faculty of SMPS’ Business Development Institute. Buell can be reached at 801.541.3440 or mbuell@ccimechanical.com.

30 Let Your Career Flourish Sideways, Not Just UpKARIN DOUCETTE is regional inside sales manager of a 10-person team with Jacobs in Asia. She works primarily in Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, and Malaysia. She can be reached at karin.doucette@jacobs.com.

34 Off to a Good Start! Preparing New Coordinators for Success

JENNIFER K. MCGOVERN, CPSM, is mid-Atlantic regional marketing manager at VHB in Vienna, VA. She can be reached at 571.389.8171 or jmcgovern@vhb.com.

37 Bookshelf: Successful Project Management for A/E/P and Environmental Consulting Firms, Second Edition by Ernest Burden

SCOTT D. BUTCHER, FSMPS, CPSM, is vice president of JDB Engineering, Inc., in York, PA. Butcher is a trustee of the SMPS Foundation and was the 2014–2015 Foundation president. He can be reached at 717.434.1543 or sbutcher@jdbe.com.

39 SMPS Member SpotlightKAREN B. CARR, CPSM, LEED AP, is director of marketing & business development with Stafford King Wiese Architects in Sacramento, CA. Reach her at 916.930.5953 or karen_carr@skwaia.com.

40 My Turn: Sometimes It Takes Courage to Help Clients Envision the Future

DAVID ZATOPEK, AIA, is a practicing architect and a vice president of Corgan in Dallas, TX. Zatopek’s areas of practice include master planning and design for higher education, technology, civic and cultural clients. Reach him at 214.757.1677 or david.zatopek@corgan.com.

6 SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

EDITOR Ed Hannan (edhannan@gmail.com)

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Mark Buckshon, CPSM (buckshon@cnrgp.com)

Nancy Egan, FSMPS (egan@newvoodou.com)

Matt Handal (matt.handal@traunerconsulting.com)

Linda Mastaglio (linda@twi-pr.com)

Craig Park, FSMPS, Assoc. AIA (craig@craigpark.com)

Marjanne Pearson (mp@talentstar.com)

Michael J. Reilly, FSMPS (mreilly@reillycommunications.com)

SMPS PRESIDENT Paula M. Ryan, FSMPS, CPSM (pryan@jgaeng.com)

CEO Michael V. Geary, CAE (michael@smps.org)

PUBLISHER Christine Chirichella (christine@smps.org)

SMPS MARCOMM Jaime Flores, Vice President of Marketing and Communications (jaime@smps.org)

Molly Dall’Erta, Project Manager (molly@smps.org)

Michele Santiago, MS, Director of Marketing (michele@smps.org)

Linda Smolkin, Content Specialist (linda@smps.org)

DESIGN TGD Communications (tgdcom.com)

ADVERTISING SALES Christine Chirichella (christine@smps.org)

123 N. Pitt Street, Suite 400, Alexandria, VA 22314 TF: 800.292.7677 • smps.org

The Society for Marketing Professional Services represents a dynamic network of 6,000+ marketing and business development professionals from architectural, engineering, planning, interior design, construction, and related specialty consulting firms located throughout the United States and Canada. The Society and its 50+ chapters benefit from the support of 3,250 design and building firms. SMPS’s mission is to advocate for, educate, and connect leaders in the building industry.

Marketer (ISSN 0 199-3690) is published bimonthly (February, April, June, August, October, and December).

©2015 Entire contents copyright by SMPS with all rights reserved. Partial quotation with attribution is encouraged, but reproduction in whole or part is strictly prohibited. All material submitted for possible publication becomes the property of SMPS. The views expressed in this publication are the opinions of the authors and not necessarily of SMPS. Letters should be addressed to the editor or publisher; please include your name, address, and phone number. Marketer reserves the right to edit all submitted material.

Postmaster: Send changes to Marketer, SMPS, 123 N. Pitt Street, Suite 400, Alexandria, VA 22314-1588.

Member annual dues are $390, of which $27.50 is allocated for Marketer subscription; nonmember subscription rate is $115.50.

CONTRIBUTORS

Featured Photographer ANDREW BUCHANAN is an architectural,

interior, aerial, and land design photographer in Seattle, WA. Buchanan offers compelling, graphic images of built environments to design and marketing professionals, hotels and resorts, developers, magazines, and advertisers. A member of SMPS Seattle, reach him at 206.715.3641 or andrew@subtlelightphoto.com. See his work at www.subtlelightphoto.com.

United States Postal Service Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation (Required by 39 USC 3685)Publication Title: Marketer; Publication No.: 42-3890Filing Date: 9/30/15; Issue Frequency: Bimonthly (Feb., Apr., June, Aug., Oct., Dec.); Issues Published Annually: 6Annual Subscription Price: $27.50 as member dues, $115.50 nonmemberMailing Address of Office of Publication and Headquarters: 123 N. Pitt Street, Suite 400, Alexandria, VA 22314Publisher: Society for Marketing Professional Services, 123 N. Pitt Street, Suite 400, Alexandria, VA 22314Business Manager: Michele Santiago (address above)Owner: Society for Marketing Professional Services, 123 N. Pitt Street, Suite 400, Alexandria, VA 22314

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MARKETER DECEMBER 2015 7

Planning your career used to be linear. You’d start at the junior level, impress your boss with top results and smarts, and earn the attention of an influential manager to gain visibility and move up the ladder.

That vertical path was flattened and elongated by the matrix organization; now we work as peers across functions.

This affords us limitless opportunity for lateral or sideways career growth. You can exploit, resize, upscale, reframe, and redefine your role and transfer across functions that fit your core competencies.

As you consider your career path, be clear about what you want and why it’s attractive, yet keep your options open. You never know your creative breadth.

I recently had lunch with a former colleague, a young engineer who just joined a client organization. He had been interviewing with various firms to explore market needs and see how his skills were perceived. His new employer seized on a skill that my colleague had undervalued—his ability to think abstractly in solving hard technical issues and to look for business solutions this way. In his prior role, the engineer had worked within set technical parameters; in his new job, he sets them.

My colleague was unaware of his abstract thinking acumen; it was something he did automatically. But his career is broadening because he was open to the possibilities.

There are myriad ways you can grow sideways. Here are some practical examples.

Know and repackage your core competencies. These often aren’t reflected by your academic degree(s) or certifications. They are your core behaviors, knowledge, skills, abilities, and motivations. In my role, they are measured in hard areas such as managing vision and purpose, or decisionmaking, and in soft areas such as innovation management, organizational agility, and interpersonal savvy.

Depending on where you are in your career, you might rely on some of these more than others. Repackaging your core competencies can allow you to move upward as well as across functions and industries—say, from transit planning to sales, or from engineering management to business management.

Rescale your current role. Although she was a successful marketing manager for a San Francisco architectural firm, a junior colleague felt stifled. Once she shifted to sales with a commercial developer, she thrived. The role gave her larger prospects and more space for her self-directed, assertive style. She kept the same skills base, but rescaled and reframed it to fit a large-client portfolio in a more mature market.

Extending your capabilities can often be simple. At a conference in Pasadena, I met a woman whose job had been inputting data to a complicated project management database. She started suggesting simple improvements to its functionality so updates would be less time-consuming. The database was modified and she was asked to train users. Soon she was travelling across states and interacting extensively with project delivery teams and IT experts. All she did was suggest a business improvement to streamline her current work, but it brought an exciting career expansion.

Let Your Career Flourish Sideways, Not Just UpBy Karin Doucette

30 SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Sidestep gaps you can’t fill. I am intuitive and often know the right solution or the way to it, so I was attracted to doing consultative selling. I learned there is an art to building the right level of rapport with a buyer and knowing when to ask them to pay for your solution. I don’t do that well; I also lack the ability to fill the gap, so I continually gave my solutions away. Making a living as a consultant isn’t right for me! My mentor at the time had sage advice: “If the suit of clothes doesn’t fit you, just find another suit.” I shifted from direct selling back to indirect selling and it suits me well.

Be adaptable. A company I worked with for many years shrewdly rode global market shifts by flexibly reorganizing itself and redirecting internal priorities with little advance warning. Employees were expected to adapt quickly and succeed in foggy, sometimes uncomfortable business cycles. The company expected everyone to be comfortable with ambiguity. Those who couldn’t adapt, left.

A smaller former employer prized people who could take on multiple hats by seeing a need and raising their hand to fill it. The geotechnical department manager recognized there was no formal leadership for the growing administration staff. He drew them together and shaped

a multidisciplinary group that added meaningful value to our business. Do you see an unfilled need in your company?

Take time. You might be at a career crossroads due to layoff, transfer, discontent, or because you’re following your spouse’s transfers. A young professional with a degree in science moved from defense sector R&D in England to pharma project execution and then professional services sales in China. After returning to the United Kingdom, he joined a specialist employment agency and was flexible about where his career could take him. While he explored the possibilities, he took time to find the right culture and position in a high-end organization and, at the same time, developed a broad personal network.

Frame your role. The best professional services sales people I’ve met aren’t sales people. They’re relationship managers. Winning revenue is almost a byproduct of the client’s satisfaction with the business value received. The salesperson needs to be transparent, ethical, and skillful in forming a meaningful business relationship versus promoting services and solutions. Similarly, understand how your client frames the project you’re pursuing. On a transit tunnel project I once helped to bid in

San Francisco, we asked the client if theirs was a transit project or a tunnel project. After they said tunnel, we fine-tuned our win strategy and changed our project manager—and we won.

Express your ideas. Career growth can be this simple. A now-successful inside sales manager was noticed, and quickly mentored, in part because she was the only person to speak up and make smart observations at a business meeting.

As a very junior staffer at a petrochemical industry publication, I proofread the publisher’s speeches and articles. When I thought his concepts were unclear or his phrasing might be misinterpreted, I’d suggest changes. The publisher was responsive. Within a year, I was offered the role of assistant editor.

Follow your heart. Two years ago, I brought a young structural designer into my team. He had graduated only a couple of years earlier and was already an award-winning bridge designer. But he saw a fit with sales, saying that creative writing was deeply satisfying to him and important in his career.

Develop champions. Many of us want a mentor. If you agree with the six degrees

Downtown corporate office interiors, Seattle, WA; for Twist Architecture & Design and Edifice Construction. Andrew Buchanan, www.subtlelightphoto.com.

MARKETER DECEMBER 2015 31

of separation theory—namely, that each of us is only six people away from any other person in the world, then you have many options for finding one! My first mentor gave me provocative advice that I remember every day: “First, look for the right work environment, then find or create the position you want in it.”

When I talked informally about mentoring with MBA students at a local university last fall, I advised them to demystify the title of mentor. It implies top-down guidance and interaction, but it’s really two-way. You want guidance and support and a mentor wants to help you to bring more value to the organization.

Your obligation to a mentor is to be clear about what you need right now from that interaction. Areas you should explore together include hurdles to moving forward; what you do/don’t enjoy doing; your gaps and ways to fill them; and how your skills and strengths could add different value.

The inside sales colleague who spoke up in the business meeting told me her mentor advised her to sit with supervisors and managers she has worked with and have them candidly describe her strengths and weaknesses. It was intimidating, but eye-opening.

Learn how to succeed. Filmmaker and comic Woody Allen once quipped that failure is just delayed success. To me, there is no failure when it comes to your career: There are just different pathways to fulfillment. A transit sector sales guy who’d joined my former firm via acquisition was insecure during his first few months. He explained, “I know what to do, and I was successful in my old job because I knew how we made decisions, how much latitude I had for independent action, and how success was measured. Now, those signposts are gone, and I’m unsure how to succeed.” One of my responses was to connect him to peers around the organization. Through this affinity group, he learned how to succeed in that culture.

Are you taking sufficient initiative to let your career flourish? Explore your company’s intranet. Be active in SMPS. Join affinity groups on LinkedIn. Talk informally to different managers to learn their issues and business approaches. Quiz colleagues in different functions.

I’ve had the good fortune to work in marketing and sales capacities on five continents. I see that growth-oriented people want the same things—to learn new ways to express their creativity and be rewarded for their efforts. You can stay where you are and still do that—sideways. n

Downtown corporate office interiors, Seattle, WA; for Twist Architecture & Design and Edifice Construction. Andrew Buchanan, www.subtlelightphoto.com.

32 SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES