Do you have what it takes to be an A/E/C marketer?

Being a marketing professional for an architecture, engineering or construction firm is quite different than our peers in other industries. For many of us, many of our efforts are centered around pursuits and proposals rather than lead generation or promotional sales.

Also, I haven’t met one marketing professional who went to college to study A/E/C marketing and received a degree in proposal management. (If you are that person, contact me ASAP! I want to learn more.) Rather, many of us fell into A/E/C marketing and have varying degrees in marketing, journalism, business, communications, art, or something altogether.

Combine the lack of formalized, specific education with the nuisances of pursuit and proposal management makes for a unique set of skills, characteristics, and mindset to be a successful A/E/C marketing professional.

I attempt to capture all our uniqueness below based on my own experiences and getting to know and admire hundreds of A/E/C marketing professionals.

After reading through these, do you have what it takes?

Investigator

The primary skill you need to survive in A/E/C marketing is being an investigator. Problem solver, solution-oriented, etc. are fancy buzz words that most of us throw around on our resumes and on job descriptions. But as an A/E/C marketer, you are the truest problem solver. Your job is to figure out how to get that proposal submitted on time and fully compliant. Oh, and by the way, not just submitted and compliant, but that it is a winning document too.

Your investigative skills come into play from the moment you try to read and figure out RFPs to when you must creatively search through previous submittals, files, and folders to find the right information. You also will need to interview your technical staff to find out information regarding the specific project, client problems, your firm’s proposed solutions, etc.

Using these investigative skills will enable you to search for the information you need and to take what you have been given and transform it into the document your pursuit manager and principal envision.

This takes creativity. Which leads me to….

Creative

I don’t believe you have to be a graphic designer or artist to be a success in A/E/C marketing. However, creative skills do come in handy. These skills can range from laying out a simple proposal, to thinking up differentiation strategies and approaches for your pursuit. It can also come in the form of writing a narrative from scratch or taking an engineer’s technical text and editing into a reader-friendly and compelling proposal section.

There are also creative skills that don’t show themselves on paper or the screen. These include developing marketing strategies or how to coach presenters for that big client presentation.

Resourceful

With so many different assignments—proposals, website, social media, events, etc.—and often too few resources, we must be resourceful. This includes figuring out what to spend time on when, how to find extra help, or where to find the information we need when we need it.

Being resourceful means that even though you’re under tight deadlines and probably a bit stressed, you can remain positive and just figure out how to get the thing done.

This is probably one of the best skills you can have and a manager’s dream to have in their employees.

Initiative

I believe that taking the initiative is natural if you possess the skills mentioned above. Without the ability and drive to take initiative, you won’t have the drive to investigate, be creative, or resourceful.

It’s often the marketing coordinator leading the charge and pushing the proposal to get completed. You must step up, get the RFP and get the decisions made.

Organized & Detail Oriented

I think this may go without saying, but I wanted to say it anyway. A successful marketing professional will need to be organized. We often have multiple deadlines in various stages at any given time. You must be organized to keep track and not let any of the balls drop and risk missing a deadline.

Another must-have characteristic is detail oriented. There are so many details and nuances with RFPs and proposal production to keep track. While some of the other characteristics cannot be taught, I do believe that you can learn to become more detail-oriented over time.

Take me for example. When I first started out producing proposals, I had a colleague check every single proposal draft. I learned from her redlines the consistent mistakes I was making and was able to pay closer attention to my work. I feel that while I had a small bit of paying attention to details, this expertise improved over time.

What You Don’t Need to be a Marketing Professional

You will also notice what I didn’t include—outgoing, extrovert, people person—as I don’t think you need these characteristics to be a successful A/E/C marketer. I know plenty of great marketing professionals who are more introverted or call themselves shy. Heck, I even get a little overwhelmed with too many human interactions at times.

Your Turn

Do you agree with these characteristics to be successful as an A/E/C marketing professional? Did I miss any others? Let me know in the comments below.