Smarter Internal Marketing

I was reading an article in RainToday on 6 Steps for Creating a Marketing Plan that Works Best for You. (If you haven’t utilized RainToday as a resource, you should really subscribe.) The article talked about marketing to the path of least resistance and evaluating how you could make your efforts easier. This is one thing that I think too many marketers continue to overlook in their path of improving and changing things within their company.

As marketers we try to focus on getting buy-in from everyone all at once. However, logic tells us you will never get everyone to agree. So why do we struggle so much to get approval from those that disagree with us? As I’ve continued through my career I’ve realized that if you focus on what you CAN do versus what you CAN’T, success comes so much easier. So the next time you find yourself stressed because you can’t get an initiative through, focus on those individuals you can get buy-in from. It’s amazing how quickly those that opposed the initiative come around when they start to see the success it brings.

Another approach is called WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?). Are you able to really listen, so you can demonstrate how it will benefit them? Not what you feel should be important to them, but what they feel is important. For example, I hear marketers talk about needing more staff all the time, but all they do is complain about how much work they have. Take a look from the President’s perspective. Can you demonstrate how it benefits the company? What is the ROI? What is the industry standard?

When you think about it, this is what we do as marketers. So use your skills. Our job is to convince someone to use our services -- this just happens to be internal marketing. If you anticipate what is important to the person you have approached and know the questions they will ask, have those answers ready. You will begin to see a dramatic improvement with the success of your internal marketing efforts.


Sarah Mackley
Innovative Solutions Group, Ltd. (ISG)
SMPS-GA Director of Communications

BIM Recap

The recent SMPS program featured a panel of team members who worked together using BIM software on the Emory Psychology Building project. One glance around the room, filled with technical staff – architects, engineers, contractors – revealed that this topic was definitely a pace setter in our building community.

The panelists included Craig Bullock from Emory University, Paul Hedgepath from Holder Construction, David Nilsson of HOK and moderator Kurt Swensson of KSi engineering. Together they discussed how everyone worked collectively using BIM to reduce change orders, alleviate potential for costly mistakes and show the end-user their spaces in an understandable format.

One of the most interesting aspects was that, using BIM, the team was able to come together and look at the 3-dimensional model right there on the job site. This allowed them to resolve issues in real time and move forward at a substantially faster pace.

All in all, the biggest take-aways from the discussion were the following benefits of BIM:

1. Ability to visualize. Owners see their product in a consistent and easy to understand format and view changes as they occur;
2. Conflict resolution. Use of BIM reduces change orders and errors; and,
3. Cost estimating. The software assists in material cost predictions and gives the contractor an opportunity to back check their pricing.

Dowload PDF Presentation File


Caroline K. Slaten
Randall Paulson