1. THE JOURNAL OFTHE SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES VOLUME 34, ISSUE 6, DECEMBER 2015
CAREERS ISSUE
18 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

2. CONTRIBUTORS
9 Effective Event Networking
LINDSAY 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 Following
BILL 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-Chief
Marketer 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 Résumé
NANCY 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 Up
KARIN 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 Spotlight
KAREN 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

3. Writing for the Win: Don’t Just Write the Story,
Celebrate the Outcomes 10
Brand Marketing to Boost Your Firm’s
Marketing ROI and Visibility 14
How to Build a Webinar Following 16
PROMOTIONAL
ACTIVITY
For far too long, writing in the A/E/C
industry has been largely focused on
project features and superficial elements
of the story, as opposed to reporting
on what really matters—the outcomes
and benefits provided to our clients. As
communicators, marketers, and writers,
it’s critical we put on our reporter’s hat
from time to time and write about what
really matters: value.This is often easier
said than done.
Features vs. Benefits
Think about this from a client’s perspective.
Any firm can design an 80,000-square foot,
three-story ambulatory surgery center
comprised of brick and concrete with eight
treatment rooms, two imaging suites, a
well-lit lobby with ample daylight, and 100
parking spaces. Right? But can every one of
your competitors do so and reduce patient
waiting times by 20 percent? Or improve
average patient recovery times by 38
minutes? And prove it?This is how you can
demonstrate the real value of your firm’s
services. So how do we get there?
The Information Food Chain
In most cases, marketers are at the end of
the information food chain—usually the last
to know. We’ve all been there. We’re often
the last to know that a project has been
started—much less completed. How many
times have you found out about a project
a year after completion and exclaimed,
“When did we get that project? I could’ve
used this in a recent proposal!” While the
reasons are many and varied for marketing
not being in the know, one reason is
glaringly obvious—marketing is often not
looped into the process from the get-go. If
that is the case, how can marketing begin
to know what the positive outcomes of a
project are to effectively promote it and win
more work?
Dive Deep for the Owner’s Real
Goals and Objectives
In order to measure the positive outcomes
of our firms’ services on a project-by-
project basis, we need to have a clear
understanding of the owner’s goals with
measurable objectives from the very
beginning of the design process. (Think
like a public relations professional!)
However, this is challenging, as architects,
engineers, contractors, and designers
aren’t trained to think like PR pros.
Designers are enthralled with the actual
process from day one, and marketers don’t
have a seat at the design table. Therefore,
designers do not dive in to define actual
measurable objectives, as it’s not top of
mind or taught in most design schools.
For example, Client A tells your architect
it wants its new building to help the team
work faster. That’s one goal for the project.
As service providers and designers, we
shouldn’t accept this as the owner’s final
answer. Dive deeper. Define what “faster”
means to them. How much faster? In what
time frame? What subset of the staff?
All of these deep dive questions help to
define measurable design objectives,
which then enable the design team and
marketers to effectively capture actual
outcomes later.
Other examples of measurable objectives
obtainable during the design process
include:
Client X wants its staff to be able to work
faster with its new space, initiating 20
percent more jobs annually by 2016
ClientY wants to reduce square footage
10 percent per employee by 2016
Client Z wants to reduce wait times 40
percent by 2020
Marketing and Design Should
Collaborate from Day One
Collaboration with marketing early in the
design process results in better design—
and project case studies. Who would’ve
thought marketers could have such a
Writing for the Win: Don’t Just Write the
Story, Celebrate the Outcomes
By Tracey A. Gould, M.S. IMC
10 SOCIETY FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

4. hands-on role and positive impact on the
design process? It’s quite simple. Include
marketing in pre-planning, charrettes, and
programming sessions with the owner and
the design team. Keep them in the loop
throughout the entire design process. Not
only will they have a better understanding
of the project to craft a better story later,
but they can add true value to the design
and the project team by offering insight on
how to get to the root of the owner’s goals
and objectives—which results in better
design.
Crafting insightful project stories that
demonstrate real value, benefits,
and positive outcomes will compel
decisionmakers to want to learn more and
move them along in the sales cycle so
much faster. Owners don’t want to read
about materials, scale, and lighting, per
se.They want results—real, measurable
results.They want to know how you can
solve their problems through design.These
are the real stories that should be evaluated
and celebrated within promotional
collateral, proposals, interviews, as well
as online.This is what our clients and
decisionmakers really want to read about.
This is what will motivate them to selection
and get you to the win. n
Spanaway Lake High School addition, Spanaway, WA;
for Erickson-McGovern Architects. Andrew Buchanan,
www.subtlelightphoto.com.
MARKETER DECEMBER 2015 11