Doug Bevill
"Mindshare" is a marketing term that describes the amount of customer awareness surrounding a particular product, idea, or company.
How are specifications related to gaining and keeping the attention (Mindshare) of those who might select your product: the architects, the engineers, and the specifiers?
Building Product Specifications are much more than words on a page in the spec book. Specifications are the key to achieving and increasing the mindshare of your products for the architects, engineers, and product specifiers, distributors, subcontractors, General contractors, and Owners that will recommend or buy your products. Think of the top brands that you intuitively know in each MasterFormat® section, those that are repetitively listed as either basis of design, or an approved equal on project after project.
The key reason for their success is because they forged a strategy early on, combining their marketing communications and sales execution to focus on the power of specification, using the best tools of their time. Many of the brands in our industry have been stalwarts in the project specs for over one hundred years.
Who are the industry’s “Direct” and “Indirect" Influencers, and why must a BPM understand them?
Years ago, for strategic reasons and staff training, I broke the building team into their operational and monetary roles in relation to Building Product Manufacturers (BPMs).
- Indirect Influencers are the architects, specifiers, and engineers charged with the research and specification of commercial building products.
- Direct Influencers are the general contractor, subcontractors and distributors and facilities managers, those who buy the products.
Why is so much attention placed on the Indirect Influencers? They do not buy anything and getting their attention is time consuming, hard, and expensive.
When the BPM’s products and brands appear in the three-part specification document, related to the appropriate MasterFormat® section as an approved manufacturer, the general contractors (GCs) will request quotes on all the approved manufacturer’s products named by the architect, specifier, or engineer. These Indirect Influencers are the gateway to the people with the money and power of decision making and purchasing going into actual construction. (In many cases, the first verifiable awareness that you will receive that your products are specified will be from your local product supplier, i.e., distributors, subcontractors, ETC, seeking special pricing and other project support.)
Whether you are a small or more substantial BPM, the fact that you have been named as an approved manufacturer in the project specifications has captured not only the architect’s mindshare but has increased each subsequent member of the building team’s attention on your product as well. But how do you make sure your specifications are seen by Indirect/Direct Influencers?
Build Your Spec Strategy:
Specification strategies are hard, time consuming, and can be expensive, but the effort and dedication of human and financial resources will pay off in Spades. In 2018, The American Institute o f Architects (AIA) made public a research document titled: The Architects Journey to Specification, which is the result of input from the AIA constituency on how they want to interact with building product manufacturers related product research, one on one collaboration, down to the decision on why and how to specify the BPM’s products.
Focus your strategy in two areas:
- Remain a trusted advisor to the AE and specification community.
- Deliver product content across different platforms and media.
Trusted Advisor: Being a trusted advisor to the Indirect and Direct Influencers who specify and buy your products is simply good business. Putting the architect, engineer, contractor, or distributor’s best interest first is paramount over a quest to get an order. It will lead to more specifier interactions, specifications, and orders for your company. Simply put, if your product is not the right fit for what the specifier, general contractor, or distributor is trying to accomplish, it is to your benefit to recommend an alternative, even if it is a competitor’s product. An altruistic approach to specification and distributor sales will serve you and your company well for an exceedingly long time.
Product Content Delivery Platforms: According to the AIA study, the content delivery platform that architects, engineers, and specifiers prefer to use is your company website. The reason for this is clear and sensible. Much of the content on third party content delivery platforms is not up to date. It is not the fault of the content provider, with all that manufacturers have going on in day-to-day business, things just fall through the cracks and content is not updated in those platforms.
Also, many of these content providers do not allow for a range of styles, or media of content the specifier may need. The one place that the manufacturer’s content is or should be guaranteed to be up to date and most complete is on the manufacturer's website. As they say in the SaaS world, your website should contain your product’s Single Source of Truth (SSoT) with current performance criteria, testing data, and other critical product performance attribution. Influencers are searching for products 24/7, your site might be viewed now, even as you read this. Are your specifications up to date?
For building product manufacturers, successful product specification strategies will result in escalating lead generation for your distribution and subcontractor customers. This will culminate in a growing order backlog and higher-margin sales for building product manufacturers, unlike transactional value engineering (VE) sales approaches. Getting your product listed in the specifications leads to increased mindshare among your direct influencers, which is the ultimate in customer support. Your orders are their orders!
Find Your Tools, Focus on Content.
24/7 Access to Specifier Relevant Content:
Making sure that your website has the most accurate and up to date specifications, catalog information and other relevant media at the specifier’s fingertips is important. Using email marketing and instruments like Google AdWords can make your specs easier to find for the right audience.
Most architects and engineers are using one of a few products specification research and editing platforms:
Deltek-MasterSpec®️ and Specpoint, formerly MasterSpec®️
Specpoint, different from the legacy MS-Word based offering, is a SaaS platform that offers an alternative workflow for architects and engineers that is based on product assemblies. As with MasterSpec®️, manufacturers can pay to have their specifications listed in their library and available to those firms that pay to use the Specpoint tool.
RIB SpecLink®️, formerly BSD:
SpecLink, like Specpoint, is a subscription-based specification research and editing platform that offers architects and engineers access to a master library of product specifications. SpecLink offers a more traditional specification workflow to the AE community than Specpoint. Like Specpoint, BPMs can pay to have their content listed in SpecLink’s master library and available to their paid users.
Conspectus Cloud
Conspectus Cloud is a SaaS based product of Conspectus, Inc., established in 1992. It is the largest independent specification writing firm in the US, with a rapidly growing staff of professional specifications consultants. Conspectus has been serving the architectural and engineering community by producing high quality specifications for thirty-two years and is currently averaging over three hundred projects annually.
Five years ago, Conspectus, to improve internal collaboration and accuracy, which culminates in an overall higher quality, more efficient deliverable for its AE customers, created Conspectus Cloud – a specification platform designed by specifiers. In July of 2023 Conspectus Cloud was offered to the general AE community on a subscription basis and has a rapidly growing user base.
In June of this year, Conspectus Cloud announced a partnership with 4specs, the largest and most active aggregator of BPM websites in the nation. Together, Conspectus Cloud and 4specs has collaborated in the creation of its Specifier’s Portal, a customizable microsite that allows specifier access product to specifications in Conspectus Cloud, for inclusion into the AE user’s projects. Additionally, it provides direct links straight to relevant specifier content from the manufacturer’s website, without wasting an architect or specifier’s valuable time having to comb through the BPM’s website.
In full disclosure, I am the General Manager of Conspectus Cloud. This said, I would recommend to manufacturers reading this blog that you look at all three of these editing/product exposure solutions. As much as they seem similar, they engage with the AE community in diverse ways. AE firms choose only one platform and historically stay with it. Knowing this, manufacturers attempting to reach a wide range of product specifiers should have their content on at least two of these, if budget permits.
The Goal is Simple
Being named as an approved manufacturer in the project specifications will virtually guarantee you a seat at the table on bid day. It will also engage your distributor and contractor customers to think of your brand and products over your competitors, with whom you share shelf space. When a BPM makes specification the hub of their go-to-market strategy, that increased Influencer mindshare drives leads and growth.
About the Author: With over 30 years of industry experience, Doug Bevill is the General Manager of Conspectus Cloud, a product of Conspectus, Inc., and specializes in consulting with architects, engineers, contractors, and building product manufacturers on general strategy.
Doug is the former General Manager of MasterSpec® and has held executive positions with Falktwoods SEMCO, a leading manufacturer in energy recovery technology, The Hager Companies, a global door hardware manufacturer, President of BIMobject Inc., and Senior Director at McGraw-Hill Construction.