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<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" media="screen" href="/~d/styles/atom10full.xsl"?><?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~d/styles/itemcontent.css"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:gd="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005" xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0" xmlns:feedburner="http://rssnamespace.org/feedburner/ext/1.0" gd:etag="W/&quot;CU8GR3s6fyp7ImA9WhRUFk8.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813</id><updated>2012-01-26T16:23:46.517-08:00</updated><category term="facebook.com" /><category term="Mark Paskell" /><category term="Rain Making&quot;" /><category term="teamwork" /><category term="subtrades" /><category term="Mel Lester" /><category term="seminars" /><category term="Mark Parlee" /><category term="constructionmarketingideas.com" /><category term="Ford Harding" /><category term="lead nurturing" /><category term="referrals. plumbing" /><category term="strategy" /><category term="privacy" /><category term="Construction marketing video" /><category term="telemarketing" /><category term="internet advertising" /><category term="weekly construction marketing ideas newsletter" /><category term="speeed" /><category term="&quot;Charles H. Green&quot;" /><category term="consultants" /><category term="&quot;readers choice awards&quot;" /><category term="&quot;Norm Brodsky&quot;" /><category term="scams" /><category term="EllisDon" /><category term="personality" /><category term="&quot;search engine marketing&quot;" /><category term="Yellow Pages" /><category term="best construction blog competition" /><category term="&quot;change orders&quot;" /><category term="construction blog" /><category term="marketing extremes" /><category term="gift cards" /><category term="directory advertising" /><category term="&quot;search engine marketing&quot; keywords" /><category term="greed" /><category term="electronic newsletters" /><category term="maturity" /><category term="marketing budgets" /><category term="sports business" /><category term="marketing priorities" /><category term="&quot;customer satisfaction&quot;" /><category term="North Carolina" /><category term="names" /><category term="&quot;Jeffrey Gitomer&quot;" /><category term="labour brokering" /><category term="compensation" /><category term="engineering" /><category term="sales systems" /><category term="Bruce Firestone" /><category term="construction marketing 101" /><category term="corporate culture" /><category term="networking" /><category term="marketing and sales" /><category term="&quot;marketing priorities&quot;" /><category term="canvassing" /><category term="Seth Godin" /><category term="trade shows seth godin" /><category term="consistency" /><category term="websites" /><category term="leads service" /><category term="ethnicity" /><category term="government work" /><category term="innovation" /><category term="nationalism" /><category term="door-knocking" /><category term="Brooks Act" /><category term="email marketing" /><category term="meetings" /><category term="blogging" /><category term="rfps" /><category term="testimonial letters" /><category term="sales letters" /><category term="Verne Harnish" /><category term="domains" /><category term="&quot;business expansion&quot;" /><category term="resolutions" /><category term="displays" /><category term="&quot;awards programs&quot;" /><category term="referral letters" /><category term="Feedburner" /><category term="&quot;email marketing&quot;" /><category term="&quot;gift giving programs&quot;" /><category term="Tennesseee" /><category term="&quot;employee ownership&quot;" /><category term="construction marketing cliches" /><category term="copyblogger" /><category term="&quot;business planning&quot;" /><category term="leadership" /><category term="delegation" /><category term="shareholding" /><category term="creativity" /><category term="SWOT" /><category term="systems" /><category term="corporate sales" /><category term="vapourware" /><category term="trade associations" /><category term="&quot;business planning&quot;  &quot;annual plan&quot;" /><category term="podcasts" /><category term="signs" /><category term="productivity" /><category term="Northern Ontario Construction News" /><category term="lessons learned" /><category term="focus" /><category term="multifaceted marketing" /><category term="&quot;Steve Yastrow&quot;" /><category term="risk taking" /><category term="Washington" /><category term="internet forums" /><category term="&quot;lunch and learn&quot;" /><category term="Adam Hudson" /><category term="effectiveness" /><category term="community service" /><category term="&quot;authority blogging&quot; branding" /><category term="decision-making" /><category term="turning away business" /><category term="brochures" /><category term="logos" /><category term="personnel" /><category term="&quot;Search Engine Optimization&quot;" /><category term="trade shows" /><category term="twitter" /><category term="employee ownership" /><category term="con artists" /><category term="communications" /><category term="receptionist" /><category term="direct marketing" /><category term="fear" /><category term="bid shopping" /><category term="&quot;Power curve&quot;" /><category term="writing" /><category term="Construction Marketing" /><category term="pay per lead" /><category term="market share" /><category term="authenticity" /><category term="Nashville" /><category term="financing offers" /><category term="introspective marketing" /><category term="prequalification" /><category term="&quot;strengths and weaknesses&quot;" /><category term="McGraw-Hill" /><category term="relationships" /><category term="AGC" /><category term="senses" /><category term="Finessing" /><category term="psmj" /><category term="&quot;first impressions&quot;" /><category term="Construction Specifications Institute" /><category term="career choices" /><category term="construct canada" /><category term="&quot;maintaining contact&quot;" /><category term="iPod" /><category term="pace" /><category term="rainmaking" /><category term="J.D. Power" /><category term="Africa" /><category term="building  supplies" /><category term="growing  pains" /><category term="&quot;Sims Wyeth&quot;" /><category term="Craig Galati" /><category term="backup" /><category term="home shows" /><category term="market research" /><category term="prospecting." /><category term="advertising truthfulness" /><category term="client surveys" /><category term="fairness" /><category term="&quot;cold calling&quot;" /><category term="financial information" /><category term="redesign" /><category term="&quot;Michael Stone&quot;" /><category term="keeping promises" /><category term="effort" /><category term="persistence" /><category term="patience" /><category term="construction marketing live video" /><category term="&quot;net promoter score&quot; &quot;BtoB Magazine&quot;" /><category term="Miele" /><category term="niche marketing" /><category term="differentiation" /><category term="sidelines" /><category term="journalism" /><category term="Tag Lines" /><category term="Vermont" /><category term="specialization" /><category term="Craigslist" /><category term="trust" /><category term="directmarketing" /><category term="Bobby Darnell" /><category term="client focus" /><category term="&quot;Net promoter scale&quot;" /><category term="change" /><category term="&quot;sales audit&quot;" /><category term="Steve Flashman" /><category term="photos" /><category term="viral marketing" /><category term="globalization" /><category term="follow-up" /><category term="best blog" /><category term="Construction Specifications Canada" /><category term="sales objections and closing" /><category term="&quot;recruiting salespeople&quot;" /><category term="conferencing" /><category term="emotions" /><category term="social networking" /><category term="metrics" /><category term="&quot;conrad black&quot;" /><category term="polling" /><category term="consulting" /><category term="&quot;sex in marketing&quot; women in construction marketing video" /><category 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/><category term="&quot;Stephen  Denning&quot;" /><category term="references" /><category term="Jack Stark" /><category term="dress code" /><category term="&quot;Sonny Lykos&quot;" /><category term="Service Roundtable" /><category term="video environment" /><category term="&quot;Habitat for Humanity&quot;" /><category term="&quot;authority blogging&quot;" /><category term="ethics" /><category term="&quot;customer loyalty&quot;" /><category term="Matt Handal" /><category term="customer satisfaction" /><category term="workshops" /><category term="Sonny Lykos" /><category term="philanthropy and marketing" /><category term="generosity" /><category term="pay-per-lead &quot;directory advertising&quot;" /><category term="collaboration" /><category term="&quot;net promoter score&quot; &quot;customer service&quot; &quot;Fred Reichheld&quot;" /><category term="accountability" /><category term="Key Performance Indicators" /><category term="immigration" /><category term="n" /><category 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term="&quot;The Process&quot;" /><category term="poverty" /><category term="&quot;sales qualifying&quot;" /><category term="masonry" /><category term="&quot;surviving hard times&quot;" /><category term="&quot;Joey Asher&quot;" /><category term="chaos theory" /><category term="small projects" /><category term="manipulation" /><category term="Thanksgiving" /><category term="Generation Y" /><category term="advertising" /><category term="Dan Ariely" /><category term="enjoyment" /><category term="risk" /><category term="inspiration" /><category term="public speaking" /><category term="&quot;news release&quot;" /><category term="&quot;sales qualifying&quot; BNet" /><category term="&quot;business planning&quot; &quot;corporate coaching&quot; &quot;annual plan&quot;" /><category term="mechanical contracting" /><category term="clothing" /><category term="in-branch marketing" /><category term="&quot;Clare Ross&quot;" /><category term="sales testing" /><category term="branding" /><category 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term="inc" /><category term="&quot;business planning&quot; &quot;business mistakes&quot; &quot;business expansion&quot;" /><category term="konstructr.com" /><category term="Holiday Season" /><category term="Design and Construction Network" /><category term="linkedin.com" /><category term="details" /><category term="plumbing" /><category term="gatekeepers" /><category term="Open book business" /><category term="Construction Marketing Ideas video" /><category term="respect" /><category term="print advertising" /><category term="rote" /><category term="linking" /><category term="editorial advisory committee" /><category term="online advertising" /><category term="marketing blogs" /><category term="OCA" /><category term="integrity" /><category term="anniversaries" /><category term="architecture" /><category term="reciprocity" /><category term="cri" /><category term="wired bids" /><category term="entrepeneuriship" /><category term="pricing" /><category term="value" /><category term="experimentation" /><category term="responsibility" /><category term="Public-Private Partnerships (PPP)" /><category term="sponsorship" /><category term="smart marketing" /><category term="sales projections" /><category term="Open-Book Management" /><category term="salary vs commission" /><category term="environment" /><category term="integrated marketing" /><category term="postcard service" /><category term="Jack Stack" /><category term="crm" /><category term="&quot;experience economy&quot;" /><category term="inspections" /><category term="&quot;Marcus Buckingham&quot;" /><category term="sales preseentations" /><category term="change order boat" /><category term="feedback" /><category term="measuring" /><category term="&quot;Mission statement&quot;" /><category term="blogging marketing" /><category term="preconceptions" /><category term="FMI" /><category term="hiring policies" /><category term="&quot;Alfie Kohn&quot;" /><category term="free estimates" /><category term="inbound marketing" /><category term="sales compensation" /><category term="scarcity" /><category term="recession" /><category term="American Subcontractors  Association" /><category term="lead generation" /><category term="alliances" /><category term="vacation" /><category term="CSMPS" /><category term="&quot;Henry Goudreau&quot;" /><category term="&quot;Michael Gerber&quot;" /><category term="renovation pricing" /><category term="fencing" /><category term="media relations" /><category term="interdisciplinary relations" /><category term="book" /><category term="television" /><category term="marketing conventions" /><category term="listening" /><category term="recruiting employees" /><category term="contract size" /><category term="passion" /><category term="SEO" /><category term="crisis management" /><category term="marketing symbiosis" /><category term="&quot;social networking&quot;" /><category term="&quot;Mike Jeffries&quot;" /><category term="wikinomics" /><category term="online surveys" /><category term="&quot;Countryside Publishing&quot;" /><title>Construction Marketing Ideas</title><subtitle type="html">Information and ideas for marketing and promoting your construction or construction-related business.</subtitle><link rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/" /><link rel="next" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default?start-index=26&amp;max-results=25&amp;redirect=false&amp;v=2" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><generator version="7.00" uri="http://www.blogger.com">Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>1726</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ConstructionMarketingIdeas" /><feedburner:info uri="constructionmarketingideas" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/" /><feedburner:emailServiceId>ConstructionMarketingIdeas</feedburner:emailServiceId><feedburner:feedburnerHostname>http://feedburner.google.com</feedburner:feedburnerHostname><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DEUDQXczeCp7ImA9WhRVE0g.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-2210726201007425719</id><published>2011-12-27T05:24:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2012-01-12T00:17:50.980-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-01-12T00:17:50.980-08:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="construction blog" /><title>The 2012 Best Construction Blog competition</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://constructionnrhroup.wufoo.eu/forms/the-best-construction-industry-blog/"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="220" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-twdylQK3eB0/TvnGPosCgpI/AAAAAAAAEd4/gjJfbShgGW8/s320/contructionlawnc.jpg" width="320" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_2089250472"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://constructionnrhroup.wufoo.eu/forms/the-best-construction-industry-blog/"&gt;&lt;b&gt;Nominations are open for the 2012 Best Construction Blog competition.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
You can nominate your own blog or others you think are worthy.&amp;nbsp; To qualify, blogs must be maintained and updated at least weekly, have enough recent postings for proper judging evaluation and be from the architectural, engineering or construction industries.&amp;nbsp; I reserve the right to disqualify any blog which appears to be spam or primarily built for search engine optimization (though of course SEO is a valid reason to post a blog.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1666439398"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://constructionmarketingideas.com/blogchange/"&gt;&lt;b&gt;You can read about the 2011 entries and finalists here&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, and especially view a link&amp;nbsp; &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://constructionlawnc.com/"&gt;Melissa Dewey Brumback's Construction Law in North Carolina blog.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-2210726201007425719?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/piOS7gJS6zA" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/2210726201007425719/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=2210726201007425719" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/2210726201007425719?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/2210726201007425719?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/piOS7gJS6zA/2012-best-construction-blog-competition.html" title="The 2012 Best Construction Blog competition" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-twdylQK3eB0/TvnGPosCgpI/AAAAAAAAEd4/gjJfbShgGW8/s72-c/contructionlawnc.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/12/2012-best-construction-blog-competition.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DUAARn4yeip7ImA9Wx9aF0k.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-7044772474217808096</id><published>2011-03-10T01:02:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-03-10T01:02:27.092-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-03-10T01:02:27.092-08:00</app:edited><title>Backup in websites and Construction Marketing</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-wFq8kPK4kM8/SiEJ4WiItOI/AAAAAAAADJA/TOa34UTfm2Q/s1600/iStock_000003086571XSmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="200" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-wFq8kPK4kM8/SiEJ4WiItOI/AAAAAAAADJA/TOa34UTfm2Q/s200/iStock_000003086571XSmall.jpg" width="133" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;About 15 months ago, I migrated the primary &lt;a href="http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Construction Marketing Ideas blog&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; from this site to one on a server under supposedly under my control, using WordPress software and templates.&amp;nbsp; When I switched things to the new site, I considered whether to redirect the posts here to the new location, and essentially shut this blog down -- but decided instead to leave things alone, perhaps posting less frequently.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The decision to leave this blog intact (in general) has proven to be wise -- especially after things went very wrong last week on the new blog.&amp;nbsp; Suddenly, spam comment postings -- previously blocked by the blog's software -- started pouring into the in-box.&amp;nbsp; Meanwhile, the "load time" to update and maintain posts increased to the point that the blog became nonfunctional.&amp;nbsp; Worse, as I researched the problem, I discovered a totally unauthorized individual had gained access to the blog's back-end control panel as an "authorized user".&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Fearing the worst -- that a hacker or some malicious individual had gained access to my blog -- I started working on defensive measures.&amp;nbsp; As one solution after another failed, I reached the "nuclear bomb" stage when I decided to clean out the entire server -- saving what I could, but essentially erasing every file, database and posting.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I then installed security software, new blog software and tried to reload the postings I had been able to save.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The problem remained as bad as it had been originally.&amp;nbsp; Worse, my Internet Service Provider (ISP), asked me to take my business elsewhere, saying my problems were causing serious problems in email transmissions for the service provider's other clients.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I dug into the problem even deeper, asking an offshore consultant to set up a parallel blog with exactly the same software on a totally different server (the consultant had the foresight to set this blog to be invisible from the search engines to avoid duplicate content penalties.)&amp;nbsp; His conclusion:&amp;nbsp; Everything worked fine, so it must be my ISP.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
This indeed turned out to be the case.&amp;nbsp; Suddenly, yesterday morning, everything started working properly on the new blog -- and the ISP sent me an email saying, indeed, they had discovered the problem at their end.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Of course, I have many hours of rebuilding to do.&amp;nbsp; I need to reset the links, features, and other elements of the new blog and (more significantly to readers here), catch and correct cross links which may now lead to defunct or non-existent pages).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
As for the ISP, I'm following through on their recommendations to move to a dedicated server with an upstream host.&amp;nbsp; This will give me some more control, ability to expand, and lower costs overall.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Of course, I'm glad I didn't close this blog down in making the transition because it has been able to continue throughout the problem and backup data and resources here will help me in the rebuilding at the new blog site.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-7044772474217808096?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/7m1gtpddXOA" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/7044772474217808096/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=7044772474217808096" title="2 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/7044772474217808096?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/7044772474217808096?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/7m1gtpddXOA/backup-in-websites-and-construction.html" title="Backup in websites and Construction Marketing" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-wFq8kPK4kM8/SiEJ4WiItOI/AAAAAAAADJA/TOa34UTfm2Q/s72-c/iStock_000003086571XSmall.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>2</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/03/backup-in-websites-and-construction.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;C0QFQngzfSp7ImA9Wx9aEkk.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-809718671820020136</id><published>2011-03-04T04:21:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-03-04T04:21:53.685-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-03-04T04:21:53.685-08:00</app:edited><title>Price, relationships and value</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-vEyHPSARrWQ/SgK3YChZ9RI/AAAAAAAADFQ/PNXz1TimAuE/s1600/iStock_000007074029XSmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="200" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-vEyHPSARrWQ/SgK3YChZ9RI/AAAAAAAADFQ/PNXz1TimAuE/s200/iStock_000007074029XSmall.jpg" width="131" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Last night, before our sons' hockey team started playing, an entrepreneur updated me on his construction marketing challenges.&amp;nbsp; He distributes an environmentally effective LED lighting system -- in fact, a few years ago, he was one of the first to the market with this low-energy lighting model, and discovered (with some incredibly positive media publicity), distributors clamoring at his door for the opportunity to sell his product.&amp;nbsp; In other words, as a true early adaptor with positive publicity behind him, he had found (at least temporarily) the holy grail of business/entrepreneurship -- a market so strong that individuals would actually pay him for the right to sell his product.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
He rationally, then decided to focus his marketing strategy on finding more distributors.&amp;nbsp; And things worked quite well for a while -- until problems started happening.&amp;nbsp; The distributors started selling other competitive products, they wouldn't listen to him, and he found it harder and harder to find new distributors.&amp;nbsp; This seemed puzzling at first, because demand for the lighting product seemed to be increasing and the whole concept has approached mainstream interest.&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Finally, as he experienced the "great recession" last year he learned the painful truth:&amp;nbsp; His product, once at the leading edge, had become normal -- and high volume manufacturers especially in China were producing variations, perhaps of much lower quality and durability, but at certainly lower prices.&amp;nbsp; How could he compete.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, I'm supposed to be a construction marketing expert but I cannot tell anyone how to run their business (except, perhaps, my own).&amp;nbsp; The more I listened to him, the more I sensed he was working on things which might be sidetracks to the main issue.&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Clearly, unless he wishes to work for coolie wages, he won't be able to compete with those low-cost Chinese products, and he won't be able to compete with high volume orders to major distributors and retailers.&amp;nbsp; He can compete by being ahead of the curve, truly the most knowledgeable in the industry, and selling to other early adaptors and visionaries.&amp;nbsp; He also probably can compete by plugging his product in the service area, by building strong relationships through appropriate influencers.&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
He confirmed that, indeed, his "best" market channel is through renovation contractors as this is where his product has a natural entry point.&amp;nbsp; I suggested he engage with local home builders and renovations groups.&amp;nbsp; This requires however significant hands-on effort and relationship building.&amp;nbsp; (I advocate in my Construction Marketing Ideas book that you prepare for three to five years of time-based effort in this sort of association marketing before you reach the point where you have a naturally sustainable network of relationships). &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Now, this sort of work and effort -- with painfully long commitment for relatively small volumes of business (one local market would take much effort) -- is of course not the equivalent to the great "high" at the early stages of this individual's business, where opportunities seemed to beckon and the whole world seemed ready to join him in enthusiasm for his product.&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But the problem is sustainability.&amp;nbsp; Unless you are truly fortunate or exceptionally brilliant, it is truly difficult for any business to maintain this early-adaptor lead, especially when your product/service loses its entrepreneurial advantage and becomes available more as a commodity.&amp;nbsp; In fact, it is truly hard to sustain any really powerful concept or market position, unless you have exceptional resources, agility and staying power, because competitors will nip and attack -- sometimes resorting to expensive litigation or dirty tricks.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
One way to overcome these problems is to redefine the price/value/relationships matrix.&amp;nbsp; It is how I survived brutal competition, increasing industry anger about our sales techniques and methodologies, and technological changes, which have really cut to the core of the traditional business-to-business print media market.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Of course, sometimes I reflect on the "glory days" when sales seemed to arise almost effortlessly and the wild and exciting adventures of earlier business ideas where we (briefly) caught the publicity wave and had people virtually begging to do business with us.&amp;nbsp;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-809718671820020136?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/mA0kPvZUlxM" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/809718671820020136/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=809718671820020136" title="2 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/809718671820020136?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/809718671820020136?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/mA0kPvZUlxM/price-relationships-and-value.html" title="Price, relationships and value" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-vEyHPSARrWQ/SgK3YChZ9RI/AAAAAAAADFQ/PNXz1TimAuE/s72-c/iStock_000007074029XSmall.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>2</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/03/price-relationships-and-value.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;A0cHRX47eSp7ImA9Wx9aEU4.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-6896481674017186058</id><published>2011-03-02T23:57:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-03-02T23:57:14.001-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-03-02T23:57:14.001-08:00</app:edited><title>The power of respect</title><content type="html">&lt;table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ZhJIzGdR7iY/TW9JQo55c8I/AAAAAAAAEYY/SRftHJeNH1M/s1600/respectrevolution.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="242" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ZhJIzGdR7iY/TW9JQo55c8I/AAAAAAAAEYY/SRftHJeNH1M/s320/respectrevolution.jpg" width="320" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.respectrevolution.com/respect_revolution/index.html"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style="color: blue;"&gt;Bill Caswell's Respect Revolution is one of my primary resources.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;"Respect" is an interesting and challenging concept in defining relationships, both in business and personal life.&amp;nbsp; The concept advocates that you acknowledge and sometimes even honor indivudals whose views may diverge from yours and who might even be hostile to you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In business, and in life, the respectful attitude has some rather major advantages, even though these may seem counter-intuitive at first impression.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
With respect, you disarm the competition and diffuse anger.&amp;nbsp; Now anger isn't always a bad emotion but if you let it get to your head, you can do dumb things, especially in a competitive situation.&amp;nbsp; By respecting the competitor, you elevate yourself above the dog-fight and make it easier for neutral individuals (who might otherwise have to choose between you and the competitor when, otherwise, they could work with both of you) to take sides.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
This respectful attitude is why we've made the Page 1 story of the upcoming issue of Ottawa Construction News into a highly positive article about a business owner who has expressed strong opinions against our primary business/selling model and has taken actions which certainly have not helped our interests.&amp;nbsp; (I'll post the link when we publish the paper, next week.)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The respectful attitude, combined with a second principle of mature thinking, accepting responsibility, are cornerstones of my personal value systems.&amp;nbsp; I consider "attacks" and hostility to me and my business to be important sign-posts and review whether I need to make changes in response.&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
These values don't make me into a push-over.&amp;nbsp; For example, we continue to conduct business the way we think best even if some disagree.&amp;nbsp; As well, if someone tries to cause harm to me through underhanded, illegal or unethical practices, I'll fight back with all the skill and resources I can apply.&amp;nbsp; Guess what -- I generally win, without stress, these competitions,&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-6896481674017186058?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/NYP4tf24GKM" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/6896481674017186058/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=6896481674017186058" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/6896481674017186058?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/6896481674017186058?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/NYP4tf24GKM/power-of-respect.html" title="The power of respect" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ZhJIzGdR7iY/TW9JQo55c8I/AAAAAAAAEYY/SRftHJeNH1M/s72-c/respectrevolution.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/03/power-of-respect.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;C0MGQHgyfSp7ImA9Wx9aEEs.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-3289886939497979790</id><published>2011-03-02T02:23:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-03-02T02:23:41.695-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-03-02T02:23:41.695-08:00</app:edited><title>Rebuilding your business:  Some guidelines</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-NordkAKNyKg/Sy9kdHXAf4I/AAAAAAAAEM4/UKfazAjALt4/s1600/iStock_000004213862XSmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="200" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-NordkAKNyKg/Sy9kdHXAf4I/AAAAAAAAEM4/UKfazAjALt4/s200/iStock_000004213862XSmall.jpg" width="168" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;In the current &lt;a href="http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com/http:/www.constructionmarketingideas.com/breaking-and-playing-by-the-construction-marketing-rules/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Construction Marketing Ideas blog&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, you can read some simple guidelines -- based on hard experience -- on how I moved beyond conflict to discover opportunity.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I've learned that, while in business we need to stand up for ourselves if competitors or others seek to bring us down, equally, we need to respect and grow from the experience, which sometimes requires a healthy dose of humility.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-3289886939497979790?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/iPLfBPofdEs" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/3289886939497979790/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=3289886939497979790" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/3289886939497979790?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/3289886939497979790?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/iPLfBPofdEs/rebuilding-your-business-some.html" title="Rebuilding your business:  Some guidelines" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-NordkAKNyKg/Sy9kdHXAf4I/AAAAAAAAEM4/UKfazAjALt4/s72-c/iStock_000004213862XSmall.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/03/rebuilding-your-business-some.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;CUADQn48cSp7ImA9Wx9bGUs.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-4879016531122515229</id><published>2011-02-28T23:16:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-28T23:16:13.079-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-28T23:16:13.079-08:00</app:edited><title>The Construction Marketing Ideas newsletter</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-28uvq7FXmIo/Swp0yxsdTRI/AAAAAAAAEIc/bxyWwnqhzH8/s1600/iStock_000004185175XSmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="200" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-28uvq7FXmIo/Swp0yxsdTRI/AAAAAAAAEIc/bxyWwnqhzH8/s200/iStock_000004185175XSmall.jpg" width="133" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;This morning, a few thousand people will receive the latest&lt;a href="http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001D6Rc9wl0agtotzU4_ctm9CpoLA17xdpT"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt; Construction Marketing Ideas newsletter&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp; You can register (and receive the newsletter beginning next Tuesday) &lt;a href="http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001D6Rc9wl0agtotzU4_ctm9CpoLA17xdpT"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;here&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The newsletter this week tackles and reports on some of my ethical and business failings.&amp;nbsp; Yes, I've made plenty of mistakes -- almost at one point, putting my business near the edge.&amp;nbsp; Ironically, the start of this blog also marked one of the most dramatic turn-arounds in business I've ever seen.&amp;nbsp; (You can find clues in the "about" box at the &lt;a href="http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;new Construction Marketing Ideas blog&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; or go into the deep archives of this blog.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-4879016531122515229?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=itNNgkCRHKY:nVx-naOzbv0:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=itNNgkCRHKY:nVx-naOzbv0:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=itNNgkCRHKY:nVx-naOzbv0:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=itNNgkCRHKY:nVx-naOzbv0:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=itNNgkCRHKY:nVx-naOzbv0:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=itNNgkCRHKY:nVx-naOzbv0:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=itNNgkCRHKY:nVx-naOzbv0:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=itNNgkCRHKY:nVx-naOzbv0:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=itNNgkCRHKY:nVx-naOzbv0:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/itNNgkCRHKY" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/4879016531122515229/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=4879016531122515229" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/4879016531122515229?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/4879016531122515229?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/itNNgkCRHKY/construction-marketing-ideas-newsletter.html" title="The Construction Marketing Ideas newsletter" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-28uvq7FXmIo/Swp0yxsdTRI/AAAAAAAAEIc/bxyWwnqhzH8/s72-c/iStock_000004185175XSmall.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/construction-marketing-ideas-newsletter.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;CkYFRn88eSp7ImA9Wx9bGEQ.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-3202667121274504162</id><published>2011-02-28T02:48:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-28T02:48:37.171-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-28T02:48:37.171-08:00</app:edited><title>The Best Construction Blog competition: The final week of voting</title><content type="html">&lt;script type="text/javascript"&gt;
var host = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://" : "http://");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + host + "constructionnrhroup.wufoo.com/scripts/widget/embed.js?w=1Mtl6YPRjDW7eM2t9k0ROiwuslashU2wuBe2DJa8vdwKDZNY2hTU=' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
&lt;/script&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
The final week for popular voting for the &lt;a href="https://constructionnrhroup.wufoo.com/forms/the-best-construction-industry-blog/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Best Construction Blog&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; competition is approaching.&amp;nbsp; The polls will close at the end of the day on Monday, March 7.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can vote for as many blogs as you wish, once from any email address. (This means, yes, if you have more than one valid email address, you can have more than one ballot.)&amp;nbsp; It is okay for you to campaign to get out the vote.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Parallel with the voting, a judging panel is evaluating the blogs which entered the competition and the three judges will report their opinions by mid-March.&amp;nbsp; We'll translate the results into the most popular blog, the blog favored by the judges, and the overall winner and runner-ups, and build a story on the results in the spring &lt;a href="http://www.dcnreport.com/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Design and Construction Report&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
(If you check back, you'll notice the results will continue changing -- at least until the polls close.&amp;nbsp; This chart is updated in real time.)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="color: blue; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://constructionnrhroup.wufoo.com/forms/the-best-construction-industry-blog/"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: large;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;You can vote at this link.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-3202667121274504162?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=7tEXjD6DOQs:Ox8BuIZqpEA:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=7tEXjD6DOQs:Ox8BuIZqpEA:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=7tEXjD6DOQs:Ox8BuIZqpEA:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=7tEXjD6DOQs:Ox8BuIZqpEA:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=7tEXjD6DOQs:Ox8BuIZqpEA:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=7tEXjD6DOQs:Ox8BuIZqpEA:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=7tEXjD6DOQs:Ox8BuIZqpEA:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=7tEXjD6DOQs:Ox8BuIZqpEA:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=7tEXjD6DOQs:Ox8BuIZqpEA:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/7tEXjD6DOQs" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/3202667121274504162/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=3202667121274504162" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/3202667121274504162?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/3202667121274504162?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/7tEXjD6DOQs/best-construction-blog-competition_28.html" title="The Best Construction Blog competition: The final week of voting" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/best-construction-blog-competition_28.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;CkEDSX0yeCp7ImA9Wx9bGE8.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-7083968920027938600</id><published>2011-02-27T07:31:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-27T07:31:18.390-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-27T07:31:18.390-08:00</app:edited><title>Construction Marketing Ideas on Facebook and LinkedIn</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-pZSpX3ylZxE/Sglc1ieZ8HI/AAAAAAAADGg/AQeMo7iZZ-4/s1600/iStock_000006124601XSmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="169" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-pZSpX3ylZxE/Sglc1ieZ8HI/AAAAAAAADGg/AQeMo7iZZ-4/s200/iStock_000006124601XSmall.jpg" width="200" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;You can follow Construction Marketing Ideas on &lt;a href="http://www.facebook.com/constructionmarketingideas#%21/pages/Construction-Marketing-Ideas/230286491330"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Facebook&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;LinkedIn&lt;/b&gt; (as well as &lt;a href="http://www.twitter.com/cmiblog"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Twitter&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I generally focus my blog postings here and on the "new" &lt;a href="http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Construction Marketing Ideas blog &lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;site, but the LinkedIn group has close to 1,000 members and the FaceBook page has several hundred supporters.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-7083968920027938600?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/Z7LUD9I1Los" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/7083968920027938600/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=7083968920027938600" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/7083968920027938600?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/7083968920027938600?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/Z7LUD9I1Los/construction-marketing-ideas-on.html" title="Construction Marketing Ideas on Facebook and LinkedIn" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-pZSpX3ylZxE/Sglc1ieZ8HI/AAAAAAAADGg/AQeMo7iZZ-4/s72-c/iStock_000006124601XSmall.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/construction-marketing-ideas-on.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;CkAMSHg5fSp7ImA9Wx9bF08.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-5984586522453885303</id><published>2011-02-26T03:46:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-26T03:46:29.625-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-26T03:46:29.625-08:00</app:edited><title>Your best construction marketing ideas</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ID36GGpCptI/SdsuloTb6tI/AAAAAAAADAM/0POSQF0pNMY/s1600/iStock_000004904224XSmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="155" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ID36GGpCptI/SdsuloTb6tI/AAAAAAAADAM/0POSQF0pNMY/s200/iStock_000004904224XSmall.jpg" width="200" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Some days, I scratch my head.&amp;nbsp; Construction business owners waste a small fortune of money on crappy marketing -- then conclude that marketing is a waste of money.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, if you used a crappy contractor, sub-trade or supplier, you would rightfully conclude that the contractor, sub-trade or supplier were a waste of money -- but I doubt you would take down the entire trade or industry.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Of course some industries (and marketing practices) are better than others.&amp;nbsp; You really should not expect good value when you visit a used car dealership or time share sales office.&amp;nbsp; In the same light, many of the marketing "solutions" sold by intrusive telemarketers and spam mailings are, well, crappy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So how do you make the right decision and choices?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;Word of mouth&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Yep, it is the basic, oldie but goodie.&amp;nbsp; If you receive positive feedback from friends, colleagues, clients and even peer-group Internet forums, you are probably safe.&amp;nbsp; The key here is to validate the word-of-mouth and be sure it is genuine and not a creative marketing ploy.&amp;nbsp; I've seen some consultants show up on forums, appear to build a good name for themselves, and then blow away their good-will when they show their true selves.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;Your existing clients&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Take them out for lunch or coffee and learn about their interests, their value, and which marketing messages they follow.&amp;nbsp; This will take some careful listening as people will often put on a different public face than they really are in their head.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;Books, seminars and conferences&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
These can be cheap (you can read my &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/Construction-Marketing-Ideas-architectural-construction/dp/0981081606?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=httpwwwconstr-20&amp;amp;link_code=btl&amp;amp;camp=213689&amp;amp;creative=392969" target="_blank"&gt;Construction Marketing Ideas book&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=httpwwwconstr-20&amp;amp;l=btl&amp;amp;camp=213689&amp;amp;creative=392969&amp;amp;o=1&amp;amp;a=0981081606" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /&gt; for as little as $20.00 if you request &lt;a href="http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com/the-construction-marketing-ideas-book/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;the PDF version from my website&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;) or outrageously expensive.&amp;nbsp; Use your common sense.&amp;nbsp; Sometimes the most expensive option is the best but it doesn't need to be.&amp;nbsp; Take your time and think about where you are going.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
(If you are wondering where you can find the money to pay for your marketing, look at where you are wasting it now.&amp;nbsp; Start with the Yellow Pages.)&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-5984586522453885303?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/2grj51lif_w" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/5984586522453885303/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=5984586522453885303" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/5984586522453885303?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/5984586522453885303?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/2grj51lif_w/your-best-construction-marketing-ideas.html" title="Your best construction marketing ideas" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ID36GGpCptI/SdsuloTb6tI/AAAAAAAADAM/0POSQF0pNMY/s72-c/iStock_000004904224XSmall.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/your-best-construction-marketing-ideas.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;C0cFSXk6eip7ImA9Wx9bFk8.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-5576451935075234956</id><published>2011-02-25T00:03:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-25T00:03:38.712-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-25T00:03:38.712-08:00</app:edited><title>Learning about construction marketing integrity</title><content type="html">&lt;table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dCLgQZCwmbY/TWdhuiB5FTI/AAAAAAAAEYU/ALVAtRWitfE/s1600/serge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dCLgQZCwmbY/TWdhuiB5FTI/AAAAAAAAEYU/ALVAtRWitfE/s1600/serge.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;Serge Massicotte (right) receives the General Contractors Association of Ottawa Integrity and Ethics Award.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;In today's other &lt;a href="http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Construction Marketing Ideas blog&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, I tell the story about the winner of an Integrity and Ethics Award who sought to bring our business to the ground because of his perception that we lacked integrity and ethics.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The ironic story has some rather surprising observations, including the recognition that this blog started when I began to figure out what I needed to do to change our business values and relationships.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="color: blue;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1638164410"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com/http:/www.constructionmarketingideas.com/the-biggest-marketing-lesson-when-your-worst-enemy-is-really-your-friend/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;You can read the posting here.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-5576451935075234956?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/ncHUXYVAw3k" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/5576451935075234956/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=5576451935075234956" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/5576451935075234956?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/5576451935075234956?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/ncHUXYVAw3k/learning-about-construction-marketing.html" title="Learning about construction marketing integrity" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dCLgQZCwmbY/TWdhuiB5FTI/AAAAAAAAEYU/ALVAtRWitfE/s72-c/serge.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/learning-about-construction-marketing.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DUMCQXw-fCp7ImA9Wx9bFUk.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-6294926804756383720</id><published>2011-02-24T03:37:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-24T03:37:40.254-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-24T03:37:40.254-08:00</app:edited><title>Free or fee (some more thoughts)</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nbntdWPZEPg/SbOX1SmZUPI/AAAAAAAAC5M/1Njh2kACtpE/s1600/iStock_000002070731XSmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="141" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nbntdWPZEPg/SbOX1SmZUPI/AAAAAAAAC5M/1Njh2kACtpE/s200/iStock_000002070731XSmall.jpg" width="200" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;As a journalist/writer, the norms are generally that we don't pay for interviews, especially when the publicity serves the the interests of the person we interview as much as our own.&amp;nbsp; The challenge, rather, is to fend off offers of "free editorial content", which of course are initiatives by publicity seekers to obtain the effective credibility of free publicity rather than pay for advertising.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So, I felt some shock yesterday when an industry expert recommended by a client association for a profile on the industry said he would only conduct the interview if he is paid.&amp;nbsp; My initial reaction:&amp;nbsp; "No way, Jose" and in fact I can write the story without this person's expertise.&amp;nbsp; But I'll probably pay him because (a) he insisted, (b) he validated his value by insisting on the fee (and his credible references) and (c) because his fee is reasonably modest -- about what I would pay a freelancer for extensive note-gathering and reference research.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Can these observations provide you with some construction marketing insights?&amp;nbsp; Well, I hope you question the marketing challenges and realities of "free estimates" for anything more than simple ball-park figures to qualify your potential clients and the incredible frustration and mental energy waste in chasing bids, especially in a declining market.&amp;nbsp; Of course, equally, you also need to respect the conventions -- asking to be paid where the norms are "free" is risky, so you should be confident of your reasoning and secure in your understanding of the business value/proposition you are delivering if you put a price tag on something you give away.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
My &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/Construction-Marketing-Ideas-architectural-construction/dp/0981081606?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=httpwwwconstr-20&amp;amp;link_code=btl&amp;amp;camp=213689&amp;amp;creative=392969" target="_blank"&gt;Construction Marketing Ideas book&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=httpwwwconstr-20&amp;amp;l=btl&amp;amp;camp=213689&amp;amp;creative=392969&amp;amp;o=1&amp;amp;a=0981081606" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /&gt; is a good example of where you can take this sort of thing both ways.&amp;nbsp; The book is free to existing client who wish it and I'll provide review copies to logical centres of influence (but generally these copies will only go out on my initiative, not the reviewer's request).&amp;nbsp; Everyone else pays and the revenue for a project, which originated as a client service initiative, is now meaningful for my business.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-6294926804756383720?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/waHyzrnXHMYT0ebnbF1D74rntC4/0/da"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/waHyzrnXHMYT0ebnbF1D74rntC4/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/G_dkbgo6Oi8" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/6294926804756383720/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=6294926804756383720" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/6294926804756383720?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/6294926804756383720?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/G_dkbgo6Oi8/free-or-fee-some-more-thoughts.html" title="Free or fee (some more thoughts)" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nbntdWPZEPg/SbOX1SmZUPI/AAAAAAAAC5M/1Njh2kACtpE/s72-c/iStock_000002070731XSmall.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/free-or-fee-some-more-thoughts.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;C0EHQnw-eyp7ImA9Wx9bFEs.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-3458177546351155924</id><published>2011-02-23T03:47:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-23T03:47:13.253-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-23T03:47:13.253-08:00</app:edited><title>The Best Construction Blog competition:  An update</title><content type="html">Here are the current results for the&lt;b&gt; Best Construction Blog competition&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;script type="text/javascript"&gt;
var host = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://" : "http://");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + host + "constructionnrhroup.wufoo.com/scripts/widget/embed.js?w=1Mtl6YPRjDW7eM2t9k0ROiwuslashU2wuBe2DJa8vdwKDZNY2hTU=' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
&lt;/script&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
The &lt;a href="http://constructionlawnc.com/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Construction Law in North Carolina blog&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; has skyrocketed to second place, but &lt;a href="http://www.markupandprofit.com/blog/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Michael Stone's Markup and Profit Blog&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; remains in the lead.&amp;nbsp; (It is okay to encourage friends, colleagues and clients to vote -- and it seems that happened with the Construction Law in North Carolina blog yesterday.)&lt;br /&gt;
Note:&amp;nbsp; The data on the graph is updated in real-time, so if you read this blog some weeks later, the results will be different.&lt;br /&gt;
Voting continues until March 7.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="https://constructionnrhroup.wufoo.com/forms/your-opportunity-to-vote/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;You can vote here.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-3458177546351155924?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=_w8uBuGHpR8:fvxMI9PLYlU:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=_w8uBuGHpR8:fvxMI9PLYlU:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=_w8uBuGHpR8:fvxMI9PLYlU:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=_w8uBuGHpR8:fvxMI9PLYlU:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=_w8uBuGHpR8:fvxMI9PLYlU:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=_w8uBuGHpR8:fvxMI9PLYlU:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=_w8uBuGHpR8:fvxMI9PLYlU:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=_w8uBuGHpR8:fvxMI9PLYlU:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=_w8uBuGHpR8:fvxMI9PLYlU:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/_w8uBuGHpR8" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/3458177546351155924/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=3458177546351155924" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/3458177546351155924?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/3458177546351155924?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/_w8uBuGHpR8/best-construction-blog-competition_23.html" title="The Best Construction Blog competition:  An update" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/best-construction-blog-competition_23.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;C0YNRnYzcSp7ImA9Wx9bE0o.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-4956345851072098842</id><published>2011-02-22T02:39:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-22T02:39:57.889-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-22T02:39:57.889-08:00</app:edited><title>The weekly Construction Marketing Ideas e-letter</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wFq8kPK4kM8/SiEJ4WiItOI/AAAAAAAADJA/TOa34UTfm2Q/s1600/iStock_000003086571XSmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wFq8kPK4kM8/SiEJ4WiItOI/AAAAAAAADJA/TOa34UTfm2Q/s200/iStock_000003086571XSmall.jpg" width="133" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;In today's e-letter, I share my three biggest construction marketing (and business) blunders.&amp;nbsp; You can subscribe at the link above, but of course will miss the details this week.&amp;nbsp; However, I'll post a summary tomorrow in the new &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com/"&gt;&lt;span style="color: blue;"&gt;Construction Marketing Ideas blog&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-4956345851072098842?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/E0KL5Omsey0" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/4956345851072098842/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=4956345851072098842" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/4956345851072098842?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/4956345851072098842?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/E0KL5Omsey0/weekly-construction-marketing-ideas-e.html" title="The weekly Construction Marketing Ideas e-letter" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wFq8kPK4kM8/SiEJ4WiItOI/AAAAAAAADJA/TOa34UTfm2Q/s72-c/iStock_000003086571XSmall.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/weekly-construction-marketing-ideas-e.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DUMESHg6fip7ImA9Wx9bEkQ.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-3402746008877666464</id><published>2011-02-21T06:10:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-21T06:10:09.616-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-21T06:10:09.616-08:00</app:edited><title>Strategic alliances:  White Paper resources</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ir3zF9-PSWM/TWJxtgUYQaI/AAAAAAAAEYQ/wWTMYe-x07g/s1600/asapwebsite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="98" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ir3zF9-PSWM/TWJxtgUYQaI/AAAAAAAAEYQ/wWTMYe-x07g/s200/asapwebsite.jpg" width="200" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;In a few minutes, I'll complete the citations, bibliography, executive summary and other final details for my &lt;a href="http://www.smps.org/Research/Content/NavigationMenu/Foundation/Research/default.aspx"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) Foundation White Paper&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; on strategic alliances best practices.&amp;nbsp; The project then moves to the editing and review stages, before it reaches publication in time for the SMPS Conference this August in Chicago.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In my research, I discovered the &lt;a href="http://www.strategic-alliances.org/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Association of Strategic Marketing Professionals&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and its related LinkedIn user group.&amp;nbsp; Not surprisingly, few architectural, engineering or construction businesses belong to this association -- our industry is usually among the last to catch on to marketing innovations or improvements (which of course gives anyone in this industry who wishes to study the activities of other businesses a real edge in marketing innovation.)&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-3402746008877666464?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/YZKbHd21RnM" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/3402746008877666464/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=3402746008877666464" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/3402746008877666464?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/3402746008877666464?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/YZKbHd21RnM/strategic-alliances-white-paper.html" title="Strategic alliances:  White Paper resources" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ir3zF9-PSWM/TWJxtgUYQaI/AAAAAAAAEYQ/wWTMYe-x07g/s72-c/asapwebsite.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/strategic-alliances-white-paper.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;Ck8HRno9fSp7ImA9Wx9bEk0.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-3232305110775332461</id><published>2011-02-20T03:20:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-20T03:20:37.465-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-20T03:20:37.465-08:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="websites" /><title>The new Canadian Design and Construction Report website</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="144" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4f2QuFjkzY0/TWD4VYpNZyI/AAAAAAAAEYM/lsl3e2L3tIE/s200/cadcrwinter011.jpg" width="200" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
We've just flicked the switch on the relaunch of the new website for the &lt;a href="http://www.cadcr.com/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Canadian Design and Construction Report&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp; This site will set the template, as well, for the U.S.-focused &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.dcnreport.com/"&gt;&lt;span style="color: blue;"&gt;Design and Construction Report&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; and is built on our successful &lt;a href="http://www.ncconstructionnews.com/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;North Carolina site designs&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Our websites are certainly not leading edge; we probably could do better to incorporate more bells and whistles and advanced interactive features.&amp;nbsp; Equally, however, we keep them from getting stale and periodically review and rebuild them to ensure they are relevant and useful to viewers.&amp;nbsp; I think in the current era, you should certainly review your website design at least annually and contemplate a major update/revision at minimum on a three-to-five year cycle.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-3232305110775332461?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/PJUsZ8QVcO8" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/3232305110775332461/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=3232305110775332461" title="1 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/3232305110775332461?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/3232305110775332461?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/PJUsZ8QVcO8/new-canadian-design-and-construction.html" title="The new Canadian Design and Construction Report website" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4f2QuFjkzY0/TWD4VYpNZyI/AAAAAAAAEYM/lsl3e2L3tIE/s72-c/cadcrwinter011.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>1</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-canadian-design-and-construction.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DUEFQ3kzcCp7ImA9Wx9bEUw.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-519255257785008794</id><published>2011-02-19T04:13:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-19T04:13:32.788-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-19T04:13:32.788-08:00</app:edited><title>Thinking about strategic alliances</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ylqcrg-GAGU/TV-zunjeZYI/AAAAAAAAEYI/aOYxInYmMYs/s1600/Mike+Jeffries.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ylqcrg-GAGU/TV-zunjeZYI/AAAAAAAAEYI/aOYxInYmMYs/s1600/Mike+Jeffries.png" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;My brain is decompressing from several days' writing about strategic alliances.&amp;nbsp; You can read my thoughts on the topic at the new &lt;a href="http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Construction Marketing Ideas blog.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Here, I'll simply encourage you to visit &lt;a href="http://www.closingsuccesssystem.com/about_us"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Mike Jeffries'&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style="color: blue;"&gt; site&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; if you are a contractor focused on the residential market.&amp;nbsp; His &lt;a href="http://www.closingsuccesssystem.com/referral"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Closing Success Tips newsletter&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is free -- and you'll undoubtedly find valuable insights there.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-519255257785008794?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/0KrsfQH93hk" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/519255257785008794/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=519255257785008794" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/519255257785008794?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/519255257785008794?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/0KrsfQH93hk/thinking-about-strategic-alliances.html" title="Thinking about strategic alliances" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ylqcrg-GAGU/TV-zunjeZYI/AAAAAAAAEYI/aOYxInYmMYs/s72-c/Mike+Jeffries.png" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/thinking-about-strategic-alliances.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;CUAHQX08eCp7ImA9Wx9bEE4.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-2468845040407667542</id><published>2011-02-18T04:55:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-18T04:55:30.370-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-18T04:55:30.370-08:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="construction marketing 101" /><title>Creating marketing value without giving away the store</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2OXgGhXQyew/TV5sEhBYAcI/AAAAAAAAEYA/HeOCKtir1Tc/s1600/meagain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2OXgGhXQyew/TV5sEhBYAcI/AAAAAAAAEYA/HeOCKtir1Tc/s200/meagain.jpg" width="121" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;This blog is free to read.&amp;nbsp; My book is not (unless you've done business with me and/or will help me sell many more copies.)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I don't expect you to provide a comprehensive, detailed and thoughtful "free estimate" on a major renovation or building project.&amp;nbsp; I expect you to be able to provide ballpark price ranges without playing the "what's your budget" game?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Why, then, do so many people in this business race like lemmings when someone advertises a job, crafting estimates, presentation materials and the like, when they don't have the slightest connection or history with the organization offering the work.&amp;nbsp; In these situations, you are behaving much like the unemployed (and perhaps unskilled) worker, scanning public job ads and firing off resumes -- maybe even thoughtful and careful ones -- for a temporary job, where the person who offers to work for the "lowest pay" gets it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you are in this mind-trap, you need to wake up.&amp;nbsp; Think of how your business might increase if you can induce/encourage and promote repeat and referral business (not just by relying passively on this sort of business to happen naturally) -- and you can price your work at a level which allows you a fair profit, not just to be the low bidder.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can be generous in spirit and resourcefulness, but you don't need to give away the store to stay in business. Think marketing -- think smart.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-2468845040407667542?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/5AiIL2v7wC8" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/2468845040407667542/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=2468845040407667542" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/2468845040407667542?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/2468845040407667542?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/5AiIL2v7wC8/creating-marketing-value-without-giving.html" title="Creating marketing value without giving away the store" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2OXgGhXQyew/TV5sEhBYAcI/AAAAAAAAEYA/HeOCKtir1Tc/s72-c/meagain.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/creating-marketing-value-without-giving.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;AkcNRHw-eyp7ImA9Wx9UGUk.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-207439795976639001</id><published>2011-02-17T05:04:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-17T05:08:15.253-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-17T05:08:15.253-08:00</app:edited><title>Best Construction Blog voting heats up</title><content type="html">Lots of people voted for in the &lt;a href="http://www.dcnreport.com/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Design and Construction Report&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;'s &lt;a href="https://constructionnrhroup.wufoo.com/forms/your-opportunity-to-vote/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Best Construction Blog competition &lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;yesterday -- 75 at latest count.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;script type="text/javascript"&gt;var host = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://" : "http://");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + host + "constructionnrhroup.wufoo.com/scripts/widget/embed.js?w=1Mtl6YPRjDW7eM2t9k0ROiwuslashU2wuBe2DJa8vdwKDZNY2hTU=' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));&lt;/script&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Here are the results.&amp;nbsp; (Note the results are updated in real time, so the actual votes on Feb. 16 won't match these numbers if you read this posting later.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I'll discuss the contest, its objectives and some ways bloggers can increase their opportunity for success at&lt;a href="http://www.livestream.com/constructionmarketingideas"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt; today's experimental live broadcast feed&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; at 2 p.m. EST (February 17, 2011).&amp;nbsp; &lt;a href="http://www.livestream.com/constructionmarketingideas"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;You can go to the broadcast link here. &lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Voting continues through March 7.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can vote for as many blogs as you like, but only once from each valid email address.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="color: blue;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1815389352"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="color: blue;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://constructionnrhroup.wufoo.com/forms/your-opportunity-to-vote/"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style="color: blue;"&gt;The voting ballot is here&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-207439795976639001?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=-rP2GRgzeZI:Dvy9gyjFry4:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=-rP2GRgzeZI:Dvy9gyjFry4:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=-rP2GRgzeZI:Dvy9gyjFry4:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=-rP2GRgzeZI:Dvy9gyjFry4:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=-rP2GRgzeZI:Dvy9gyjFry4:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=-rP2GRgzeZI:Dvy9gyjFry4:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=-rP2GRgzeZI:Dvy9gyjFry4:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=-rP2GRgzeZI:Dvy9gyjFry4:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=-rP2GRgzeZI:Dvy9gyjFry4:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/-rP2GRgzeZI" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/207439795976639001/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=207439795976639001" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/207439795976639001?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/207439795976639001?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/-rP2GRgzeZI/best-construction-blog-voting-heats-up.html" title="Best Construction Blog voting heats up" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/best-construction-blog-voting-heats-up.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;AkMER3k-eCp7ImA9Wx9UGEs.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-8644988399630595457</id><published>2011-02-16T07:00:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-16T07:00:06.750-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-16T07:00:06.750-08:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="media publicity" /><title>Publicity and your construction marketing brand</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0e2T-_S0Zvk/TVtGWm5wGQI/AAAAAAAAEX8/YbIdTa7ZLZk/s1600/publicity+booklet+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0e2T-_S0Zvk/TVtGWm5wGQI/AAAAAAAAEX8/YbIdTa7ZLZk/s200/publicity+booklet+cover.jpg" width="154" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;The popcorn story related in the previous two blog postings shows the opportunities (and limitations) of gimmicks and tricks to achieve publicity and attention.&amp;nbsp; If these activities match your business message and brand, then of course they can make a lot of sense.&amp;nbsp; If they are done just for the sake of achieving "viral results", well, the real value to the business is limited.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I realize that most people in this industry won't go near stunts like this.&amp;nbsp; Instead, they will play the boring concepts of publicity -- the line-em-up-shoot-em-down pictures of a bunch of executives with golden shovels at ground breaking ceremonies, or the giant cheque for a (really small) amount of money in support of the charity of the day.&amp;nbsp; There's nothing wrong with this sort of thing, of course, if you want to be safe and boring -- but if you really want to make the news in a constructive and positive sense you will need to do much more.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
No one, however, can suggest a simple publicity approach in an impersonal blog posting.&amp;nbsp; This is custom work.&amp;nbsp; It requires a real understanding of your business, your local (or national) market and your objectives.&amp;nbsp; Then, we need to overlay luck as a crucial factor.&amp;nbsp; Even the best-laid publicity plans are at the whim of the media's own biases and other events outside of your control.&amp;nbsp; (As an example, a well-planned media event scheduled for September 11, 2001 probably would have resulted in absolutely no publicity for the organizers.)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can hire publicity and media relations experts but the problem here is you need to have enough knowleedge about the media industry to properly assess their potential and abilities. Still, if you are spending money on marketing, allocating a portion of your budget to media relations and publcity makes sense.&amp;nbsp; If you are marketing on the cheap without a cash budget, if you really focus your energies and can come up with unique, creative and brand-building intiiatives, go for it.&amp;nbsp; You may achieve the best results for the smallest amount of money possible.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-8644988399630595457?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=2l9fepdl25I:yyFjOQPugfs:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=2l9fepdl25I:yyFjOQPugfs:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=2l9fepdl25I:yyFjOQPugfs:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=2l9fepdl25I:yyFjOQPugfs:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=2l9fepdl25I:yyFjOQPugfs:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=2l9fepdl25I:yyFjOQPugfs:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=2l9fepdl25I:yyFjOQPugfs:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=2l9fepdl25I:yyFjOQPugfs:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=2l9fepdl25I:yyFjOQPugfs:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/2l9fepdl25I" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/8644988399630595457/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=8644988399630595457" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/8644988399630595457?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/8644988399630595457?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/2l9fepdl25I/publicity-and-your-construction.html" title="Publicity and your construction marketing brand" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0e2T-_S0Zvk/TVtGWm5wGQI/AAAAAAAAEX8/YbIdTa7ZLZk/s72-c/publicity+booklet+cover.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/publicity-and-your-construction.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DEMGQXY7eyp7ImA9Wx9UF0o.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-6707651182658195708</id><published>2011-02-15T05:27:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-15T05:27:00.803-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-15T05:27:00.803-08:00</app:edited><title>The viral video (2)</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iRrhXOvwxI0/TVnZlzaVfdI/AAAAAAAAEX4/NGPbKF0Pyl8/s1600/popcorncellular.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="133" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iRrhXOvwxI0/TVnZlzaVfdI/AAAAAAAAEX4/NGPbKF0Pyl8/s200/popcorncellular.jpg" width="200" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;If you believed the video in yesterday's posting, you were fooled with some camera trickery and a 2008 marketing ploy by &lt;b&gt;Cardo Systems&lt;/b&gt;, in an effort to promote its headsets.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The idea of this sort of scheme is to create viral intensity and mystery, and then track back to your product or service.&amp;nbsp; Of course the question is, does it actually help you sell more stuff?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
That is more debatable, but if the activity is in good fun and no harm is done, then of course you gain the secondary benefits of attention and "free advertising".&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In my case, a colleague living in Hong Kong who worked with me three decades ago on the &lt;b&gt;Bulawayo Chronicle&lt;/b&gt; (Rhodesia turning to Zimbabwe) sent this video to me, before following one of the most crucial journalistic rules:&amp;nbsp; "Don't believe anything that is too strange to be true -- unless you wish to be caught by an urban legend?"&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I learned about urban legends early in my career when I started investigating what would have been a truly huge story if true. &amp;nbsp; After a few brick walls, a kind soul told me about urban legends. I learned then the&amp;nbsp; basics of cautious skepticism.&amp;nbsp; Just as urban legends an spread like wildfire on the Internet, you can usually debunk them equally quickly with a quick Google search.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So, no, ringing cellphones can't actually pop popcorn and, while there are possibly some risks from cellphone radiation, you don't need to worry about frying your brains out this way.&amp;nbsp; Better strategy:&amp;nbsp; Head to a movie theatre and eat some of that fattening, utterly unhealthy stuff -- and enjoy the show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="color: blue;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_404167356"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.seriouseats.com/2008/06/cellphone-popcorn-hoax-videos-revealed-as-a-viral-marketing-campaign-cardo-systems.html"&gt;&lt;i style="color: blue;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;One of several articles describing this hoax is here.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-6707651182658195708?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/Er3tUknC-5LCSJ8Y_2REieiEcpU/0/da"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/Er3tUknC-5LCSJ8Y_2REieiEcpU/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=PQyJvgKzBh8:BcMX3RHdkXs:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=PQyJvgKzBh8:BcMX3RHdkXs:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=PQyJvgKzBh8:BcMX3RHdkXs:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=PQyJvgKzBh8:BcMX3RHdkXs:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=PQyJvgKzBh8:BcMX3RHdkXs:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=PQyJvgKzBh8:BcMX3RHdkXs:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=PQyJvgKzBh8:BcMX3RHdkXs:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=PQyJvgKzBh8:BcMX3RHdkXs:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=PQyJvgKzBh8:BcMX3RHdkXs:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/PQyJvgKzBh8" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/6707651182658195708/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=6707651182658195708" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/6707651182658195708?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/6707651182658195708?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/PQyJvgKzBh8/viral-video-2.html" title="The viral video (2)" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iRrhXOvwxI0/TVnZlzaVfdI/AAAAAAAAEX4/NGPbKF0Pyl8/s72-c/popcorncellular.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/viral-video-2.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;D0MCRHo4cSp7ImA9Wx9UFks.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-2132464390733669270</id><published>2011-02-13T22:37:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-13T22:37:45.439-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-13T22:37:45.439-08:00</app:edited><title>Time and place: The viral video</title><content type="html">Yesterday, one of my colleagues from "way back when" sent me this video.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; We worked together on the Bulawayo Chronicle in 1978-80.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;POPCORN (This will blow your mind)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
This is probably what it does to our brain cells - like putting your head in a microwave .&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;nbsp;Check this out! And we're supposed to believe that cell phones are safe?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Click on the word 'POPCORN' below and watch. &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;object height="360" width="480"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/x5odhh?theme=none"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/x5odhh?theme=none" width="480" height="360" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5odhh_pop-corn-telephone-portable-micro-o_news" target="_blank"&gt;Pop Corn téléphone portable micro-ondes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What is wrong with this story?&amp;nbsp; You can comment now -- or I'll tell you tomorrow.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-2132464390733669270?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/Gt4Edqru06hTtoszlbbOBh_m7FA/0/da"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/Gt4Edqru06hTtoszlbbOBh_m7FA/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=WuyTUQPVrV0:dWD-ddTsKlw:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=WuyTUQPVrV0:dWD-ddTsKlw:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=WuyTUQPVrV0:dWD-ddTsKlw:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=WuyTUQPVrV0:dWD-ddTsKlw:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=WuyTUQPVrV0:dWD-ddTsKlw:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=WuyTUQPVrV0:dWD-ddTsKlw:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=WuyTUQPVrV0:dWD-ddTsKlw:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=WuyTUQPVrV0:dWD-ddTsKlw:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=WuyTUQPVrV0:dWD-ddTsKlw:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/WuyTUQPVrV0" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/2132464390733669270/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=2132464390733669270" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/2132464390733669270?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/2132464390733669270?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/WuyTUQPVrV0/time-and-place-viral-video.html" title="Time and place: The viral video" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/time-and-place-viral-video.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;CkYASX09eCp7ImA9Wx9UFkw.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-210498533627398091</id><published>2011-02-13T07:15:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-13T07:15:48.360-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-13T07:15:48.360-08:00</app:edited><title>Construction Marketing Ideas -- the busy week</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-97pqKrPPWtc/TVf1YR9xwGI/AAAAAAAAEX0/QdDNyocHAzY/s1600/clock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-97pqKrPPWtc/TVf1YR9xwGI/AAAAAAAAEX0/QdDNyocHAzY/s200/clock.jpg" width="120" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;At the other &lt;a href="http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com/http:/www.constructionmarketingideas.com/time-quality-and-construction-marketing-commitment/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Construction Marketing Ideas blog&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, I describe how busy this week will be.&amp;nbsp; So I won't write a whole lot here today.&amp;nbsp; It is going to be interesting to see how well I manage the workload.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Do you have times when you are potentially overwhelmed with conflicting challenges?&amp;nbsp; If you wish, feel free to share your ideas as a comment.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
(Note I delete all comments which are obviously set by agencies to plug or promote specific blogs or sites.&amp;nbsp; Don't bother trying.)&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-210498533627398091?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/xnW_bSpzAT8OdGtXrl-watC12hI/1/da"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/xnW_bSpzAT8OdGtXrl-watC12hI/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=zKfw9C9pxZA:DopbzSWP0gg:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=zKfw9C9pxZA:DopbzSWP0gg:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=zKfw9C9pxZA:DopbzSWP0gg:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=zKfw9C9pxZA:DopbzSWP0gg:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=zKfw9C9pxZA:DopbzSWP0gg:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=zKfw9C9pxZA:DopbzSWP0gg:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=zKfw9C9pxZA:DopbzSWP0gg:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=zKfw9C9pxZA:DopbzSWP0gg:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=zKfw9C9pxZA:DopbzSWP0gg:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/zKfw9C9pxZA" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/210498533627398091/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=210498533627398091" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/210498533627398091?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/210498533627398091?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/zKfw9C9pxZA/construction-marketing-ideas-busy-week.html" title="Construction Marketing Ideas -- the busy week" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-97pqKrPPWtc/TVf1YR9xwGI/AAAAAAAAEX0/QdDNyocHAzY/s72-c/clock.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/construction-marketing-ideas-busy-week.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;AkcER3g_eSp7ImA9Wx9UFU0.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-8900063263805909944</id><published>2011-02-12T02:53:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-12T02:53:26.641-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-12T02:53:26.641-08:00</app:edited><title>Sustainable construction marketing:  When advertising works</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C5DWjIO-tbQ/Sr_Ub-yscII/AAAAAAAAD90/3iHx3MK2PW0/s1600/iStock_000006176146XSmall%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="132" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C5DWjIO-tbQ/Sr_Ub-yscII/AAAAAAAAD90/3iHx3MK2PW0/s200/iStock_000006176146XSmall%25282%2529.jpg" width="200" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;While undoubtedly most successful construction businesses obtain most of their new business from repeat and referral clients, virtually everyone in business has the challenge of finding sustainable, predictable revenue going forward.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
This can be a challenge especially if you provide contracting or professional services for large-scale projects.&amp;nbsp; Each project consumes tremendous amounts of time and resources (and generates hefty amounts of revenue) but you can only handle so many projects at any time or your business will be stretched beyond its capacity.&amp;nbsp; On the other hand, if you "run out" of work, you are in big trouble.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Contractors (mostly in the residential space) with smaller projects have a different sort of challenge.&amp;nbsp; They need to refill the pipeline constantly and have to find new business in a reliable and manageable way.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; The challenge is finding the right leads, converting them, and then finding more. . .&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Retail-focused contractors have a clearly available resource: Advertising.&amp;nbsp; Once they've found the right media and are able to track and manage the leads the advertising generates, they can effectively control their lead and sales flow -- testing new variations and media to improve the results, and adapting the advertising volume to overall sales and lead conversion rates.&amp;nbsp; (In hard times, when results are less effective, they may need to advertise more; but they are not throwing good money after bad, because they can reasonably anticipate how the advertising will work.)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So advertising in a variety of media can make a lot of sense if you are running a consumer-focused business.&amp;nbsp; But what if you are a general contractor, an engineer or an architect looking for work on projects worth $500,000 -- or $5 million?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Here, I think a different kind of "advertising" is more effective.&amp;nbsp; You need to put yourself near the people who make the decisions and build their respect and confidence.&amp;nbsp; And then, when it is time to present the proposal, make sure you prepare a great presentation -- and rehearse it.&amp;nbsp; &lt;a href="http://www.blog-bizedge.biz/2011/02/strengthen-weak-link-on-your-interview.html"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;See this posting from Mel Lester with some practical suggestions on what you need to do.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-8900063263805909944?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/aSzKzAi1gO187lf5AWoRfuatUo0/0/da"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/aSzKzAi1gO187lf5AWoRfuatUo0/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/aSzKzAi1gO187lf5AWoRfuatUo0/1/da"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/aSzKzAi1gO187lf5AWoRfuatUo0/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=CrGuWFNpNW0:U00VEi0hVmw:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=CrGuWFNpNW0:U00VEi0hVmw:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=CrGuWFNpNW0:U00VEi0hVmw:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=CrGuWFNpNW0:U00VEi0hVmw:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=CrGuWFNpNW0:U00VEi0hVmw:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=CrGuWFNpNW0:U00VEi0hVmw:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=CrGuWFNpNW0:U00VEi0hVmw:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=CrGuWFNpNW0:U00VEi0hVmw:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=CrGuWFNpNW0:U00VEi0hVmw:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/CrGuWFNpNW0" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/8900063263805909944/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=8900063263805909944" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/8900063263805909944?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/8900063263805909944?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/CrGuWFNpNW0/sustainable-construction-marketing-when.html" title="Sustainable construction marketing:  When advertising works" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C5DWjIO-tbQ/Sr_Ub-yscII/AAAAAAAAD90/3iHx3MK2PW0/s72-c/iStock_000006176146XSmall%25282%2529.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/sustainable-construction-marketing-when.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;AkENQnw-fyp7ImA9Wx9UFE0.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-5305949852974081138</id><published>2011-02-10T23:18:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-10T23:18:13.257-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-10T23:18:13.257-08:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="best construction blog competition" /><title>The best construction blog competition:  Discovering (and fixing) the glitches</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-J4dlQDZqIgo/TVTh-R0MVEI/AAAAAAAAEXw/OtLGLLz2MnI/s1600/bestblogfeb11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="142" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-J4dlQDZqIgo/TVTh-R0MVEI/AAAAAAAAEXw/OtLGLLz2MnI/s200/bestblogfeb11.jpg" width="200" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Yesterday, on the other &lt;a href="http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com/http:/www.constructionmarketingideas.com/the-best-construction-blog-early-popular-vote-results/"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style="color: blue;"&gt;Construction Marketing Ideas blog&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, I posted the early voting results from the &lt;a href="http://www.dcnreport.com/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Design and Construction Report'&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;s &lt;a href="http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com/http:/www.constructionmarketingideas.com/the-best-construction-blog-early-popular-vote-results/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;Best Construction Blog competition&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp; The results caught me off guard.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In the contest rules, I had said you could vote as many times as you like, for as many blogs as you wish.&amp;nbsp; Unfortunately, I didn't read my own rules closely enough -- the tabulating software I use requires you to provide your email address and, once you've given it once, it won't allow you to vote again.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
One contestant, appreciating the published rule "you can vote as many times as you like", then began testing with fake email addresses.&amp;nbsp; These, gulp, were successful.&amp;nbsp; The trick if you used this method would be to create an infinite number of phony email addresses and vote again, again and again some more.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
While you could argue that allowing individuals to vote more than once is questionable, clearly it is even more questionable to allow voters to fake their identity.&amp;nbsp; This sort of "voting" occurs in countries without a democratic tradition, like Afghanistan!&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
My solution?&amp;nbsp; I amended the rules.&amp;nbsp; You can only vote once, and you need a valid email address.&amp;nbsp; If you are fortunate enough to have more than one valid email address, yes, you can vote multiple times -- but your addresses have to be real!&amp;nbsp; (This may encourage some abuse but at least the process is manageable.&amp;nbsp; I doubt even the most assertive individual will have more than five or six valid email addresses and the time and effort to set up and establish additional addresses on your server just to enter the free competition is hardly worthwhile.)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Anyways, the results are arriving and I'm sure the competition will heat up in the weeks ahead.&amp;nbsp; In the meantime, &lt;a href="http://www.constructionmarketingideas.com/http:/www.constructionmarketingideas.com/the-best-construction-blog-early-popular-vote-results/"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;feel free to vote&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and encourage friends, colleagues, employees and complete strangers to vote as well -- as long as they have unique, valid email addresses.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-5305949852974081138?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/f0gAIsqMi1EfVFBNtzf38aNSRLQ/0/da"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/f0gAIsqMi1EfVFBNtzf38aNSRLQ/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/f0gAIsqMi1EfVFBNtzf38aNSRLQ/1/da"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/f0gAIsqMi1EfVFBNtzf38aNSRLQ/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=njPDUc6F5SU:d8XyD0Yemd4:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=njPDUc6F5SU:d8XyD0Yemd4:63t7Ie-LG7Y"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=njPDUc6F5SU:d8XyD0Yemd4:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=njPDUc6F5SU:d8XyD0Yemd4:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=njPDUc6F5SU:d8XyD0Yemd4:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=njPDUc6F5SU:d8XyD0Yemd4:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=njPDUc6F5SU:d8XyD0Yemd4:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?a=njPDUc6F5SU:d8XyD0Yemd4:gIN9vFwOqvQ"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConstructionMarketingIdeas?i=njPDUc6F5SU:d8XyD0Yemd4:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/njPDUc6F5SU" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/5305949852974081138/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=5305949852974081138" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/5305949852974081138?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/5305949852974081138?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/njPDUc6F5SU/best-construction-blog-competition.html" title="The best construction blog competition:  Discovering (and fixing) the glitches" /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-J4dlQDZqIgo/TVTh-R0MVEI/AAAAAAAAEXw/OtLGLLz2MnI/s72-c/bestblogfeb11.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/best-construction-blog-competition.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;CEEDQH86fSp7ImA9Wx9UE0k.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35324813.post-93865178835705783</id><published>2011-02-10T04:57:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2011-02-10T04:57:51.115-08:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2011-02-10T04:57:51.115-08:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Construction marketing video" /><title>Live video:  Today (Thursday, Feb. 10) at 2 p.m.</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wIfGqCzxlbQ/TSHpKRkKLSI/AAAAAAAAEWw/Rhwi7Kon-vY/s1600/cmivideoscreen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="167" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wIfGqCzxlbQ/TSHpKRkKLSI/AAAAAAAAEWw/Rhwi7Kon-vY/s200/cmivideoscreen.jpg" width="200" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Hopefully, the &lt;a href="http://www.livestream.com/constructionmarketingideas"&gt;&lt;b style="color: blue;"&gt;experimental live video broadcast at 2 p.m. EST today&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011) will work this time around.&amp;nbsp; Last week, as broadcast time approach, my laptop computer failed.&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Today's video will discuss that experience in relation to a topic which is hard for many industry practitioners to grasp -- your "brand".&amp;nbsp; I'll even admit that I didn't really appreciate the meaning of branding until, after almost 15 years experience in this business, I started the Construction Marketing Ideas blog and the late &lt;b&gt;Sonny Lykos&lt;/b&gt; connected with me -- and sent me an incredibly useful binder of resources.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then, I "got it".&amp;nbsp; Branding allows you to set your pricing based on a valuation higher than the intrinsic physical (or cost-based) value of your product or service.&amp;nbsp; In other words, a good brand allows you to earn more for the same amount of effort and cost.&amp;nbsp; Hmm.&amp;nbsp; I suppose that would be rather good for your business profitability, if you can pull it off.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Of course, that is the challenge of branding.&amp;nbsp; While the concept isn't that hard to understand once you realize its importance, the successful implementation and strategies required to "build your brand" can take some effort -- and you can lose it all with some careless errors.&amp;nbsp; I'll work to show you this afternoon the basics of building and protecting your brand without blowing your budgets.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
These broadcasts are experimental so technical quality and results won't be perfect (but hopefully there will be a broadcast this time!) I'll also update you on my progress to create a weekly -- maybe even daily -- broadcast with sufficient quality to consider part of the marketing resource kit within the next five months.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: large;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.livestream.com/constructionmarketingideas"&gt;&lt;span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;You can view the show at 2 p.m. EST here.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/35324813-93865178835705783?l=constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~4/o1Cx3pokQ4M" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/feeds/93865178835705783/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=35324813&amp;postID=93865178835705783" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/93865178835705783?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/35324813/posts/default/93865178835705783?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConstructionMarketingIdeas/~3/o1Cx3pokQ4M/live-video-today-thursday-feb-10-at-2.html" title="Live video:  Today (Thursday, Feb. 10) at 2 p.m." /><author><name>Mark Buckshon</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/16968597544299489425</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="16" height="16" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wIfGqCzxlbQ/TSHpKRkKLSI/AAAAAAAAEWw/Rhwi7Kon-vY/s72-c/cmivideoscreen.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2011/02/live-video-today-thursday-feb-10-at-2.html</feedburner:origLink></entry></feed>

