Last week I was honoured to speak to an audience of construction product marketers at the Building Centre in Store Street in London, about the role of the Architect in the specification process.
I’m grateful to Ross Sturley and the folks at CIMCIG for giving me the opportunity, and for making an ideal forum for me to announce that from the end of October I shall officially be a freelance marketing consultant.
More about that later, though I am already taking bookings, so if you’d like to discuss an opportunity, just get in touch.
Here is the slide deck for the talk, and below you can download my White Paper on Talking to Architects where I expand on the themes presented in the talk.
Talking to Architects: A White Paper
If you’d like to read my white paper about architects as specifiers, you can download it here
The paper has been produced under a Creative Commons license, by which you are free to share (please do) adapt and make commercial use of the work, provided you attribute it to me. The illustrations in the paper are provided by me or others where stated under the same terms, which are outlined here in full detail.
If you have any comments on the paper, or the slides, please do contribute them below.
Many thanks to all the people who contributed their views, ideas and images to this presentation, including David Sharpe, Andy Matthews, Rob Easson, Wesley Farren , Dan, Mark Schumann, Plaice Design and Joe Martoccia.
Interesting article, I think the timing element is crucial. As architects we may have a need for a product and want to know more but I have not even started to think about the ironmongery when I am still at the drawing board sketching initial concept ideas. That said when the time is right and I have contact details to hand I will give that person a call.
So to suppliers I would say, sometimes think of the longer term view. We may not need your help today but we will need you 3 months down the line. That’s when I seek out individuals I have built up a relationship early and then give ‘the insulation man’ or ‘cladding man’ a call. Often it’s the person that I remember and not always the ‘product’
Thanks for your insights Stefan. Very good point about the importance of relationships with individuals.
Hopefully product manufacturers are asking themselves ‘how can we get our people who have these relationships online so more people can find them?’
Very infromative Sue, just wish I caould have made teh seminar.
I just read your article on talking to architects. It’s very informative from my point of view as a supplier of bathroom products.
Hi Danny,
I’ll be giving some workshops in the new year, and have several other bits and bobs on the cards so keep in touch and perhaps you can come to a similar event soon.
I’d like that Sue, if you could keep me informed.
Thanks Sofia, glad it was useful
Interesting paper Su! The point about making data about a product easily available is spot on… if we have to register and then find out the product details are in an unsuitable format (hint we want DXF) we will probably look elsewhere. Suppliers have to make it easy for us to include their product.
The principles and ideas you have outlined also work in many industries not just Architecture!
You can’t design potentially using a product if those selling don’t know the cost of it. This comes up time and time again
At crosswater, all our brochures have rrp including vat on them, for architects and designers we can offer pc sum price or guide price to give you a more realistic cost for your project.
Whilst it is understandable that companies want to protect their commercially sensitive information, it does make doing the job rather difficult. Good for you David.