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Written by George Compton and Paul Cunningham.

This article was originally published in the June/July 2011 Foundation Drilling Magazine, the Magazine of ADSC: The International Association of Drilled Shaft Contractors. Reprinted with permission.

• Involve everyone in your organization
• Assemble the skill sets to market on your own
• Think about getting some help for that extra push from a professional

Imagine a typical construction firm, with no Marketing Department, no Director of Marketing, and little marketing effort except what the principals and a few key individuals can muster when time permits.

Some construction firms have the luxury of dedicated marketing and business development departments. Many organizations get by with cooperative efforts by talented individuals who have developed skills outside their specialties. It is these skills which contribute towards the marketing of the company’s expertise and professionalism.

Everyone can contribute to the marketing of the organization!

Project superintendents, for example, often serve as ‘ambassadors’ to the communities they work in. A superintendent whose highway project, runs alongside a neighborhood with a extremely active group of 'sidewalk superintendents' may use his public relation skills as frequently as his construction skills. Adjacent neighbors and curious bystanders can often be counted on to oversee the project from their side of the fence. The superintendent should plan on spending a fair amount of time talking with and answering questions, politely running interference so the task at hand; 'on time and under budget' can be accomplished.

“Good Morning, this is ABC Construction Company, How may I help you?”, a positive, professional receptionist is the first person many of 'Joe Publics' the people on the other side of the phone are introduced to within the organization. This person is the voice of the company. Customers prefer a pleasant, professional, helpful, voice on the other end of the phone. We all know that trying to undo a poor first impression of your business is no way to start a successful relationship.

Do you have an Accounts Payable specialist who is paying untold invoices each day only to be interrupted to field phone calls from vendors looking for payments? These vendor phone calls seldom arrive at a convenient time: nonetheless courtesy and professionalism with a measure of patience may often be required to insure the organization is reflected in a positive light.

Consider the Accounts Receivable specialist collecting from your customers, walking the fine line between “Give me the $#@% Money’ and ‘We look forward to working with you again!” These vital individuals represent the company on a daily basis. AR Specialists contribute best by developing positive relationships with their counterparts at the company’s customers. Construction is a relationship based business, positive relationships result in positive results across the board, and especially while trying to collect money!

Are the following quotes commonly heard around your office: “Do you have any current photos we can use?”, “How about a little background on the workers performing the work?”, or “What are the specifics of the project itself?”

The jobsite is a great photography location with great characters, intense action, massive elements and dramatic angles. The Engineer, taking progress photos, week in and week out, is measuring and reporting the project progress. A site visit can mean 50 to 100 photos just to measure the work. Progress photos have a practical use internally, but can also illustrate the essence of what is possible to a prospective audience. If you are going to take photos you may as well take good ones.

A financial analyst, who is talented not only with spreadsheets and the accounting platform, may also enjoy the opportunity to acquire desktop publishing and presentation software expertise.

What about the IT person, no doubt proficient with systems software, but perhaps Social Media as well? Becoming aware and proficient in the flourishing Social Media environment of today will provide a significant boost too your companies communication and marketing efforts.

Need data to fuel your marketing communications outreach? Start reading in reverse. (The IT Guy, The Analyst, The Engineer…)

Our competition exhibits, publishes, advertises… Why not us?

Is it fair asking your receptionist, superintendents, accounting staff and your technical people to contribute to the marketing process through these indirect roles? Is it good business to know that they in their daily duties are working towards marketing the company?
You bet.

In a small company a few talented people who can take the photos, write the text, arrange the layout and design while also interfacing with the associations, editors, advertising departments, et al. may successfully market their organization. Hundreds of construction companies rely on such a process. This formula of finding talents, combining skill sets and taking advantage of opportunities can present your organization with the means and a method to delivering your message.

The assets you require to market your company may be closer than you think.

Currently doing your marketing in house but considering a little extra to get your message out?

Everyone within your organization has something to offer the marketing process, and take some ownership of the responsibility. If you are fortunate enough to have someone working on marketing in house, they need you as much as you need them, possibly more. Corporate marketers may be expert in navigating the channels of communications, reaching the right market, design, art direction, or in capturing the essence of the message, but do they know construction? Have they ever worked on a three year project calling a 10' x 36' office trailer home for 12 hour days? Have they ever called the concrete plant looking for the last load of concrete to be told the 'truck just left' the plant?

Yes, they might be a little different, and they probably don't track as much mud into their homes at the end of the day, but they are an invaluable resource to the organization. They are helping the 'dirty boots' folks and the back office folks and the top floor guys. They’re communicating the great job you do on your clients’ behalves day in and day out. What if you keep doing a great job for your clients and nobody knows it?

The question is how can you help them to do their job better? Educate them about the decision makers. Engage their creativity with the stories of the jobsites. Show them the resources around them. Ask them what they need. Professionals in the field of marketing and business development should have a clear vision of the resources available and coordinate those resources towards a sustainable model engineered to get the word out - as efficiently as possible.

All of a construction company’s employees can and should do their part to further the successful deployment of a company’s brand name, corporate image and most importantly, corporate identity where it relates to safety, ethics, environmental responsibility and social commitment.

George R. Compton III is Principal of Construct Marketing, LLC and Paul B. Cunningham is Manager of Financial Reporting, Underpinning & Foundation Skanska

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It has been a long time since our last post but now the time has come to share some information with you.

We are working on a "minor" upgrade for CLiq which will introduce 2 new main features. Hearing our valued customers opinions on one hand and trying to keep CLiq a CPT based liquefaction assessment software on the other, we decided to include 2 new modules. The modules will provide tools necessary to perform SPT and Vs complimentary analysis against soil liquefaction.

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This article was originally published in the March/April 2011 Foundation Drilling Magazine, the Magazine of ADSC: The International Association of Drilled Shaft Contractors. Reprinted with permission.

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend four sharpening the axe."
- Abraham Lincoln

I don’t think President Lincoln meant after sharpening your axe for four straight hours, start whacking at your tree for two.

If you budget 6 hours for marketing, 4 hours will be necessary for data management and maintenance, research, preparation and organization, and 2 hours for deployment of your outreach, whatever that may be. Sharpen, Sharpen, Whack! Sharpen, Sharpen, Whack! Sharpen, Sharpen, Whack!

This means doing the little things constantly at a rate of 3:1 to the big things. When the time comes for the big sexy stuff, the effort will be more developed, more thought out, based on a larger body of work and experience over time, and your output will have greater support at the ready. Further, since you won’t be starting from a dead stop, you’ll take advantage of some perpetual motion and save some money and energy by having some assets at your disposal.

Anyway, I like Abe’s rate of 3 to 1 . . .

If your marketing starts with an idea that you need a really nice brochure, or the zippy website, or a beautiful exhibit display, you’re chopping with a dull axe. It doesn’t even mean that it starts with you need a list of good addresses to send the brochure to, but you’re getting closer.

It means that before either of those fundamental marketing elements takes place, something even more fundamental is required. If you wish be successful with your marketing, it is critical. This something critical is the belief that the perpetual effort of marketing your company and its goods or services is at the root of your firm’s survival, and that the constant vigilance for good contacts, ideas, opportunities, information and support is the foundation of the marketing effort. It’s “Always be Marketing” (Sharpen, Sharpen, Whack!) vs. “OK, time to do some marketing.” Thud.

Sharpen… This means taking a look at your marketing budget and planning on a cycle, instead of an effort to effort basis, on where you spend those marketing dollars. Sharpen: Advertising or Conferences? Conferences! Whack!

This means not just following up the leads from that seminar and conference once you get back with a nice merge letter and the fancy company brochure. Whack! Been working on that merge letter since before the seminar so it’s well written and ready to go? Sharpen. Is the brochure an asset built on refinements of prior versions and improvements? Sharpen. Did you think about and note a more direct way to convey your message for the copy in the next version of the brochure? Sharpen.

This means not just following up the leads from that seminar and conference with a phone call 3 months down the line just to check in. Whack! Got a good contact management software you like and use it? Sharpen. Did you enter notes in the contact’s record during the call? Sharpen.

This also means the review of the database containing all the above contacts you’ve diligently collected over the past 5 years and keeping that asset in tune for constant use. Sharpen.

This means sending out a merge letter first class to your contacts on a 12 month basis. Yes it will help you stay in touch and hopefully remind them that you are out there, (Whack!) but also, if the Post Office returns your letter, it indicates a contact lost, moved up, or moved on. Sharpen. If you really want to put a nice edge on that axe, follow up those returned contacts, investigate and update your records. Sharpen.

This means always keeping in mind what can be done to improve your efforts. Got a great job out there? Representative work? Interesting work? Possibly a good site for getting some good Photographs? Moving lots of equipment? Maybe the scenery’s good? Get out there with your camera or get a professional to the site! Sharpen. Then you’ll be ready when its time to update that website, brochure or exhibit display, and really make a difference. Whack!

Marketing is a creative process and sometime the muses aren’t ready when you are. Keep a notebook dedicated to marketing your company. When inspiration strikes or the competition gets you thinking, you’ll have a central location to air your insights! When its time to swing the axe, you’ll have a nice sharp axe, and make a nice deep cut.

Sometimes the strike will be off the mark. That’s a drag and it ticks you off because that’s energy that could have been used towards your objective. Unavoidable. Even the best miss sometimes, but what can the miss teach you? What did you learn? How do you apply the experience to the next swing to cut deeper and wider? Even a miss can be beneficial to the overall goal.

Just as you can’t bring down a tree with one massive swing, nor can you depend on a marketing program to show any results with a chop here, and a chop there. Sharpen, swing, sharpen. How the cuts work together, in succession of the cuts before and what is to follow, is what will make the difference in the aggregate effort.

A lot of marketing efforts fail to live up to their expectations and therefore marketing fails because of the stress on the sexy expensive ad, the one-and-out direct mail campaign, or the tons of money spent on sending everyone to the big conference. Unfortunately, and unwittingly, these efforts were not failures, just over stressed parts of a marketing program with priorities out of whack.

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This article was originally published in November 2010 Foundation Drilling Magazine, the Magazine of ADSC: The International Association of Drilled Shaft Contractors. Reprinted with permission.

Your competition - they might do great work. They might attend every pre-bid meeting in a 200 mile radius. They might even attend a conference now and then. But if they’re not engineering their marketing to position their market presence in the best light, and into productive channels, they’re passively doing half the job.

When a contract get awarded in your market area and the contract recipient starts slicing and dicing through the subcontracts, do you want your company to be in or out?

When the wheels start to turn on the matter of, “who will handle this part of the job?” does your company come to mind? In the pre-bid phase, if you have established your company as a leader in the particular element of the design and a preferred work partner within the industry, you will have the advantage. Do you agree? In the design phase, would your system, technique or product be known and understood in order to be included in the spec? Can your system, technique or product or equipment save the project money? Is the market aware of this? Are your potential clients aware of this?

Let’s start at the end: How much money do you have to spend in 2011 to help build 2012?
OK. Now that the budget discussion is over. Lets talk options.

1. Hire someone.
2. Contract someone.
3. Do it yourself: DIY.

This is a preliminary decision that needs thought before any Marketing Plan discussion. The Marketing Plan conversation ideally takes place in advance of a needs assessment, but we don’t work in a vacuum so give yourself some slack. The discussion of means takes place last, i.e. do we spend our marketing dollars on 1 big fat ad in ENR or do we run an ad for 3years in Foundation Drilling, and launch a newsletter, and launch a direct mail campaign, and tune in a social media program, and get our data organized, and exhibit at the DFI and ADSC, and brand our materials like professionals? Hmmmm… All in good time. First consider your options to take on marketing seriously within your budget…

Hire
Your organization’s link between your business plan and creative means.
1. Provide Business Plan & budget.
2. Team with your hire and develop the marketing plan.
3. Communicate resources, expectations. Provide feedback.
4. Be a resource, but get the hell out of the way.
5. Check-down at the end of the cycle.

Contract
The hired gun that can bring some outside perspective into your organization
1. Internally establish management goals, expectations & term of “program”.
2. Define scope of program. Communicate resources, expectations.
3. Require marketing plan/program plan and budget recommendation. Provide feedback on plan and budget.
4. Strike the right balance between your knowledge and involvement and consultant’s skills and leadership. Be a resource.
5. Check-down at the end of the cycle.

DIY
Take on the marketing needs for your enterprise yourself.
1. Be honest: Can you manage and get return on a self driven marketing program on a sustained day to day basis?
Yes? Keep Reading.
No? See “Hire” or “Contract” above, or forget it.
2. Establish marketing plan/marketing strategy and budget.
3. Conduct needs assessment. Revisit Budget.
4. Prioritize program components. Start knocking ‘em down.
5. Check-down at the end of the cycle.

The Mighty Marketing Plan
The marketing plan can be looked at as a practical conversation - not some sacred document. Data is the mortar that bonds the parts of the discussion. How much Data? Again, let’s be practical. Well we’ll assume you’re not in business to do marketing research so we’ll say, “enough to build a strong stairway to the next level of business”. The same applies for any marketing program in general: Build a strong yet economical and sustainable structure.

Make sure you and the other decision makers mark the distinction between: “Marketing”, “Advertising”, “Business Development” and “Sales”. For this discussion’s purposes, it’s not important how we see these interrelated and interdependent business areas. It’s more important how those relationships are working in your company, and that they are working toward the same thing, than subscribing to some set of rules. But please have this discussion. You’ll be surprised how blurry the lines are in different people’s minds.

Marketing Cycle and Check-down
Mark what the term of the cycle will be that you are planning a marketing program for. “One ad in the Annual Regional McGraw Hill Directory and out” is not an advisable marketing cycle. Perhaps it is a personal preference, but engineering a marketing program with a set check-down date in the future has advantages. “January 15 2012 we’re all going to sit down and look at the components of the marketing program. We’re going to look at what's working and what isn't.”

This doesn’t mean however that adjustments can’t be made along the way.

Performance Measurement
With January 15 2012 in mind, (our fictional marketing program assessment date) you need to think about performance measurement now. Harvard Business School and much of the marketing profession will insist that a marketing program without performance measurement component is a waste of time. I’ll agree that performance measurement will assist in the future assessment of what is effective and what is not in your program, especially over the course of multiple cycles. However I don’t consider it a slam dunk that the time and resources spent on performance measurement for marketing will necessarily “out-benefit” the results of adjustments; especially for the small to mid-sized company’s marketing program. Instinct still has a role in business.

Decision: To measure marketing performance market or not to measure marketing performance? This depends on how many marketing dollars are on the line and what percentage you want to allow for performance measurement to determine how the remaining marketing dollars are working. Again, it is an important consideration to make at the beginning of the marketing cycle, so you can establish a baseline and set sophisticated markers, simple markers or make the strategic decision to say “the hell with performance measurement.”

More on performance measurement later. You have a marketing program to run.

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Dear Sir/Madam   I am working with FLACX3D for dynamic analysis of pile group. Modeling of pile, I use pile element method and need to know about quantity of
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Hi Deyaa, Please let me know how you would test the pile (static loading on the pile head?). Are you placing sort of vacuum between the pile base and the top
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Hey If you have the lab equipment, you have do this category: 1- you do test on the pile with toe capacity and skin friction capacity 2- you do test without
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The cost effective way to check is to perform dynamic pile monitoring using industrial standard Pile Dynamic Analyzer, Strain Gauges and Accelerometers.  
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This is the best reply to test the pile in tension inorder to know the skin friction. Putting some compressible layer will work as well. ... From:
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