Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Marketing your Product to Specifiers



This message arrived today as an email, copied to the Architect's designer, project manager and project Principal.  All the particulars, including names and companies are redacted to their <titles> or <positions> to reduce potential embarrassment.

Some background:  The project is a California Public Works project, subject to California Public Contract Code, which requires naming of multiple manufacturers.  All DTR work is prepared using MasterFormat 2012 numbering (six digit format).  The section in question is our work, not a manufacturer pro forma.  All products, including alternates and substitution procedures, are selected or are otherwise approved by the Architect.  All research on qualifying alternates (five total are listed) is performed by the DTR team.

It sounds very much to me as if <Sales Representative> is expecting to be specified as a sole source, (regardless of possible violation of state law and liability to the Design Team and Public Owner), as a quid-pro-quo for supplying some product data to the specifier.  But I might be misreading his intent.  Perhaps he is trying to protect our firm's liability.  In any case, I feel fortunate to learn that he and <Product Manufacturer> are willing to continue to work with us, in spite of our discourteous behavior.  Redemption is possible in this life after all.  He is anxious that I understand his intent, so it's a good thing he has expressed it clearly and concisely.

I offer this to you for your observations and recommendations.  Architects, how would you feel to receive a message like this from a Sale Representative?  Specifiers, any thoughts?  Sales Representatives, is this a good marketing practice, or something to avoid?  How are Sales Representatives compensated for time spent with designers?  Are the requirements of public contracts well enough known?

I am very interested in your comments, so feel free to leave them below.  For the present, we are offering no response to <Sales Representative>, although this is subject to reconsideration.

From: <Sales Representative>
Sent: <Wednesday, February 19, 2014 10:59 AM>
To: <Specifier>; <Architect’s Project Designer>
Cc: <Architect’s Project Manager>; <Architect’s Project Principal>
Subject: RE: <Product Name> specification

John,

The basis of specification for this project is <Product Name>, however your listing of the other manufacturers as approved equals now means there is no standard for a real basis of design.  As a basic courtesy, if you are relying or requesting my time and expertise to develop a proper specification that meets your client’s needs, I would hope that you would at least list the other vendors not as equals, but under the typical paragraph used by many other spec writers.

A.     Requests for substitutions will be considered in accordance with provisions of Section 01600.

Or something similar, that requires the other vendors to meet the basic qualifications of the base spec.  Here you are asking other companies to prove that their product is “equal”. – The burden is on them -   This allows you to cover your bases and protect the specification, the intent of design as well as your firms liability against client issues, etc. 

<Product Manufacturer> and myself invest many hours and resources to assist the <Architect> with very detailed information to ensure that your clients receive what the design intent of the project requires.  If you are willing to accept any product, regardless of quality or ability to meet the design intent, what is the point in spending the effort detailing the <conditions> or <material types>?  I want to continue to work with you and <Architect> and hope that you understand the intent of this email.

Best regards,


<Sales Representative>

3 comments:

  1. As a product representative, I can't say I see anything wrong with his response. It is succinct and polite and keys in on what I have a growing concern over in my day-to-day job: marketing to architects. Even though architects and specifiers don't buy products, their influence and being a key component in building product marketing make them a necessary equation in our sales process.
    Requiring multiple contacts and years of relationship development takes time, patience and money do finally get listed as a basis-of-design product. The requirements of California Public Contract Code, design firm requirements or other that requires the listing of multiple products unfortunately takes the design intent of the architect and whittles it down to just one thing: price. The general contractor, while assembling his price to the owner in hopes of winning the bid cares about two items in my proposal: my product (being listed in the specifications) and my price. If the shoe fits and I'm "on sale", chances are, I get the contract.
    I may have my (too young to be a) curmudgeon hat on here, but I have a growing disdain of this type of sales knowing that all of my hard work can be substituted out by someone approving submittals that may not know the design intent of the architect or the true performance characteristics of the basis of design that was intended to be installed on a project.
    I thank you for publishing this piece and hope that many other product reps, as well as project designers and specifiers speak up in my response.

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  2. If I thought that every manufacturer or product representative that I spoke with would be, as you say, "expecting to be specified as a sole source... as a quid-pro-quo for supplying some product data to the specifier" I wouldn't talk to anyone. I really wouldn't.

    And that would be bad for all of us - Owner, Architect, Contractor, Subcontractor, Manufacturer, Product Representative, Specifier. And this email does seem like that is what is expected.

    This goes both ways - I once had an architect ask me if we could list 2 different window manufacturers as "basis of design" (on a public project where I had to list at least 3) because both of the reps he'd met with were so helpful. Instead, I asked which one he based his drawings on, and told him we had to list that one or none as "basis of design." ; ) There's a bit of a lack of understanding out there about what basis of design means.

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  3. I believe that the sales representative has a valid concern. But further, I would ask whether the specification he wrote for the project could actually correctly describe the attributes of all three products listed. If not, I hope that the project's specifier took on the task of correcting the spec. This, unfortunately, does not happen in many (most) cases. (I acknowledge that this is extremely difficult to do.) And specifications riddled with inconsistencies or conflicts are one of the biggest reasons an architect's ability to "hold the spec" is weakened. This goes to the rep's comments that there is now "no standard for a real basis-of-design".

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