Tech Staff and Marketing Messages Requires Smart Communication

Getting technical staff to help the marketing effort remains an important goal for the industry, but engaging these professionals entails challenges. Companies are embracing a variety of training and management tools to empower their technical staff to market.

By Sally Handley

A recent SMPS Build Business Conference held in New York featured an energetic discussion by certified professional services marketers (CPSM's) on the most challenging issues facing marketers today. High on the list is how to engage technical staff in the marketing effort.

While a cherished goal for most professional services marketers, it remains one of the most difficult to accomplish. Five roundtable discussions on the topic yielded some thoughtful, clever and, most importantly, tried and tested tips and tools to assist technical staff to market:

• training
  
• coaching
  
• the match game
  
• self-motivation
  
• top-down support.

Training was viewed as the most important overall tool to empower technical staff to market. Individuals with good project management skills often rise to associate and partner levels, requiring marketing skills they may not have. Providing marketing training for technical staff is crucial to helping them overcome anxiety about this important job function.

Among the most helpful training tools are monthly lecture series that focus on marketing and financial topics that are not part of technical education. By discussing how the company won a new job or how it sets fees, technical staffers get a window into the "business" side of decision-making.

Another important training tool is mentoring - pairing a new associate with a partner. Attending sales calls with a rainmaker is one of the best ways to learn how to present the firm in its best light and how to interact with clients.

Other training tools are also helpful, such as having a how-to manual. Being asked a question they can't answer is one of the biggest fears technical staffers have as they venture into marketing. One firm developed a booklet with frequently asked client questions and the appropriate answers. Another is having clear time guidelines on how much time technical staffers, who are responsible for billable hours, should devote to marketing. Our consensus was that providing a target number of hours per month was the best solution. A final tool is having in-house seminars, conducted either by in-house marketers or outside speakers, on topics like networking, presenting, and developing phone skills.

The second approach - coaching - calls for dedicated marketing professionals to share their expertise. They often overlook just how difficult it is to make a sales call, especially for the inexperienced. Marketers need to do more than just ask a technical associate to make a call - they need to provide motivation by clearly defining the purpose for the call. Helping craft the opening statement and presenting a few strategic questions will do far more to motivate the caller than a few pesky e-mail reminders.

The third method is what we call the "match game" -- marketers making sure they put technical staff in the right situations. Yes, some people are more extroverted than others. But, introvert or extravert, technical professionals are very passionate about their work. Once engaged, they are the best at persuading a client to retain the firm. They may, however, need a little extra help in the beginning. We should not assign an extreme introvert a cold-call to an unknown prospect. Instead, this individual might be better introduced after the marketer has qualified the prospect. The marketer might even participate in the initial face-to-face meeting to facilitate the get-acquainted process.

The fourth technique, self-motivation, entails asking technical staff to think about their personal professional goals and how they relate to the firm's overall marketing goals. Let's say, for example, that a company has worked on one or two LEED-certified projects, but hasn't done much to actively pursue this work. Now let's say an individual in that firm has a personal goal of becoming the world's foremost expert in sustainable design. Developing a marketing action plan for this individual now takes on new meaning. The individual's personal professional goals and the firm's goals are now one. When technical staffers internalize the company's goals, marketing professionals need only provide coaching and support.

The last approach is ensuring top-down support. As you might expect, companies reporting the most success engaging technical staff to market are those with partners who believe in and fully support the marketing effort. That support takes many forms, from rewarding staff with bonus points redeemable for time off to more formal financial incentives. Many firms use personality assessment tests for team-building and to identify staff with rainmaking potential.

It's a lot of work, but the consensus at our discussion was clear: combining these approaches offers a very promising package to empower technical staffers to effectively market.