Anne Scarlett has authored over 50 published articles. They are organized by topic in the sidebar to the right. Often, Anne expands upon these topics, presenting to audiences in intimate training sessions as well as at highly-attended conferences. In addition, her insights are frequently quoted in A/E/C industry publications. Representative articles include:

Internal marketing structure and motivation

TOUCH PLANS— MAKING SURE YOUR CLIENT CONTACT STRATEGY IS EFFECTIVE AND WELL-EXECUTED

Help your firm’s leadership and technical staff to remain in close touch with prospects and clients.

Keeping in touch— regularly and authentically— with clients and prospects is an essential marketing strategy. To non-marketing professionals, this responsibility is overwhelming. For this reason, client relationship management (CRM) systems were created. Yet, rarely does everyone use this software effectively. How can you, as a marketing professional, help your leadership and technical staff to make the touch process systematic and automated in practice, but memorable and sincere in perception?

I suggest meeting with each of the key players on an individual basis, to help them create their own personal touch plan for the year. But, first, facilitate a group session ...

GO FOR THE WIN-WIN-WIN BY LEVERAGING THE VALUE OF ORGANIZATIONAL INVOLVEMENT

Tips for marketing professionals to make your firm’s organizational involvement easy and effective.

We often reiterate, “Everyone in the firm is a marketer.” As marketing professionals, we must provide “everyone” with the tools and guidance to best support the firm’s marketing efforts. Visibility is one essential marketing ingredient, so it’s no surprise that active exposure within non-profit organizations— civic, professional, social— is an excellent way for individuals to contribute to the firm’s overall marketing activity.

To make this happen, review your firm’s existing organizational involvement program, or consider spearheading a new initiative. Based upon your firm’s available resources, size, and structure, you may opt to collaborate with another department, such as human resources, in ...

MAXIMIZE YOUR COACHING POTENTIAL

Tips for marketing professionals to be effective, motivational marketing coaches for their internal colleagues.

By streamlining professional coaching approaches to create a realistic program of your own, AEC marketing professionals have the opportunity to provide informal coaching to internal colleagues. The more you elevate your own skills in the art of coaching, the more you will also be able to elevate others’ marketing confidence, performance, and results.

Your current role already has multiple facets. Taking on a more structured, meaningful coaching role may require a shift— postponing, reducing, or altogether eliminating a few other responsibilities— in order to carve out time to coach a few promising internal coachees.

When developing your coaching process, keep it ...

NURTURE YOUR STAFF AND REAP REAL BENEFITS

Training will dramatically boost the quality—and retention rate—of your employees.

I was overcome with pride when an engineering client recently stated: “We want to significantly grow the quality—not necessarily the quantity—of our people.” It’s true; scrambling to recruit new hires is not always the best way to accommodate an increase in workload.

Quality is the operative word. Is success measured in terms of growth? Often, yes. And is growth defined through an increase in revenue, an increase in profit, or a combination of the two? Think about this: A firm can reasonably double its revenue in about five years, but potentially remain (yikes!) stagnant in—or even (double yikes!) ...

GET RESULTS THROUGH SAVVY MOTIVATION:

Communication techniques for effective delegation.

Lessons of love can be applied in the workplace. Who knew? In the Five Love Languages, author Gary Chapman identifies five ways to communicate positive messages to a romantic partner – by speaking in a language that best connects with the individual. His theory is that people receive love (a.k.a. positive reinforcement) in different ways. Once you discover their individual preference, then positive reinforcement will be sent and received with far more clarity.

In our professional lives, at one time or another we’ve all had people reporting into us (direct reports), while we also have someone that we ...

GO TEAM MARKETING!

Three steps to achieve the best results from your firm’s marketing team.

While you were earning your technical degree, how many classes did you have on the subjects of marketing, communications or sales? Conversely, how many classes do you think members from the marketing department had focusing on geotechnology or hydrology? Both questions likely received the same response: few to none.

With two unrelated paths of education and experience, it’s no wonder that the relationship between technical and marketing folks requires some tender loving care in order to be most productive. Speaking as one of ‘them’ – a former business development director with ‘only’ an interior design degree ...

GET YOUR DUCKS IN A ROW

Learn the importance of motivating and coordinating the marketing efforts of others.

When describing your marketing role, do any of these terms come to mind: cheerleader, mom, nanny, nag, coach, coddler, politician, disciplinarian, beggar, peacekeeper, spiritual leader? Marketing sometimes requires these sub-roles. Yet, some people view them as beyond the scope of their ‘real’ job which, in turn, can be frustrating.

Because this is a service-based industry, day-to-day marketing activities can become ‘personal.’ Sensitivities arise, egos flourish. When do you encounter resistance from the firm’s staff and leadership? Is it when you propose holding consistent marketing meetings? When brainstorming new public relations activities to build your brand? When seeking approval to spend ...

GET ‘EM OUT OF THE DARK AND INTO THE LIGHT!

Imploring all A/E leaders to be inclusive with their business development and marketing professionals

As a consultant, I sometimes encounter this odd situation: AEC leaders excluding their marketing and business development staff from strategic decisions and financial performance information. (That statement in itself seems strange, as I’d like to think that marketing/business development is such an integral function that those professionals are considered a vital part of leadership/ownership).

While this industry has finally evolved to recognize that marketing/BD is essential rather than a ‘necessary evil’, some leaders are still keeping important information from marketing/BD. I am guessing at their ‘reasoning’ behind this counterproductive approach:

-Preserve morale: If the financials are in bad shape, leadership does ...

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