David Koren

SMPS Boston Article on Me

I'm going up to Boston in 2 weeks to give a talk on strategic planning.  In their April Newsletter, they were kind enough to do a little profile of me. Mostly it's a Q&A that the author did on the phone, translated into an article. But I think it's a pretty nice little piece.

Bringing it all back home

I'm the closing speaker at the SMPS Northeast Regional Conference ("The Business of Innovation") from May 2-3. To conclude the conference, I'll be talking about strategic planning as a way to bring all the talk and learning about innovation back home so that marketers can work to transform their firms. Here's the blurb that I've pitched to the folks putting the conference together:

Bringing it all back home
Developing a strategic plan to lead your firm to marketing success

We all know that creating a strategic plan is essential to success, so why do so few firms have one? Well, it's probably because you haven't written it yet!

In this two-hour closing workshop, we'll review the essentials of developing and working with a strategic marketing plan:

· Running a planning meeting
· Writing the plan
· Making assignments
· Following up
· Sharing the plan with staff members
· Empowering marketing staff to own the plan
· Using the plan to evaluate opportunities
· Evolving the plan over time

As part of the workshop, each participant will write a one-page strategic plan for their firm—and leave with an action plan to work with firm principals to complete and implement the plan.

The Marketing Inferiority Complex

NOTE: This is the draft of an article that I've just written for the next issue of the online newsletter of the SMPS New York Chapter.

Let me begin with a story... A few years ago, Gensler hired Bob Quintana, a local affiliate of Tony Robbins, to run a one-day motivational/sales training workshop for about 40 staff members. We met on a Saturday in a large multi-purpose room that we had designed for one of our clients. Personally, I was a little bit apprehensive about the Tony Robbins style, but I went into it with an open mind, and found a lot of the training to be quite useful—the goal-setting exercises, the personal warm-ups, and, especially, the culminating activity of the day, breaking boards.

After a day that alternated between introspection and rah-rah exercises, we were each given a 8”x10”, 1/2”-thick piece of plywood. We were asked to write on one side an obstacle that we were facing in our careers, and to write on the other side what would happen to our careers if we could break through that obstacle. I wrote on one side, “marketing as secondary to design,” which popped into my head as an obstacle I was facing—that I saw marketing as a support function, rather than as a collaborator with design and technical professionals. On the other side, I wrote “increased influence,” which would surely be the result if I could just learn to see marketing and design as equally important partners in building the business of my firm.

They gave us a demonstration of how to break the boards, Bob cued the high energy music, and each of us, in turn, broke our board. I've never looked at the relationship between design and marketing the same way again.

As President of the SMPS New York Chapter, I talk to a lot of marketers about their jobs and their career development within their firms. “They just don't appreciate me.” “I feel taken advantage of.” “My principals don't see the value that I bring.” “You're not going to believe what they did this time...” I think we've all been there, at one time or another.

But we all have it within our power to change the roles in which we are cast by our principals. But first, we have to change our own beliefs about our jobs and the value that we bring to our firms.

Many marketers feel beset by “tasks” (production, administration) when they really want to be doing “strategy.” “If I could only get past these tasks, I could be a strategic partner to my firm's principals,” I've heard many marketers say.

Your firm's principals have expectations of what you do, and how you do it. The challenge for each of us is not only to fulfill their expectations, but to exceed them. You have to get the production tasks done, and then look for ways to add value to your firm that your principals can see and appreciate. One easy way to add value is through online research, Googling the client that your firm is pursuing (without being asked!) and providing your principals with intelligence that they can use to understand the prospective client and their needs. When you take the initiative and do this, you demonstrate that (1) you care about the same things your principals care about, (2) you have the intelligence to find information that is valuable, (3) you are driven, and (4) you can provide more value than just typing, collating, and stapling. You're saying a lot, without saying a word.

That's only one example. My point is that, in order to change the perception that your firm's principals have of you and your role, you have to find a way to deliver what is expected, provide something more, and have it recognized as adding value. In order to figure out what the “something more” is that you can provide, it helps to see yourself as a strategic partner to your firm's principals.

You aren't overhead. You are a strategist. Change your own perception (while still getting the job done) and you can change the perception of everyone around you. As Gandhi said, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” If you want to change your situation, start by changing yourself.

My Introduction/Keynote for THE Marketing Event, November 4, 2005, 8:45am

Welcome to THE Marketing Event!

I'm David Koren, the President of the SMPS New York Chapter for the 2005-2006 season.

On behalf of the SMPS Board, our Professional Development Committee, and everyone involved in this event, I want to thank you for being here and being a part of this event.

We've never attempted anything like this before. And it's fantastic that so many of you have come out and committed to spending the day with us. With your help, I know we can make this event a huge success—for our chapter, for this community of marketers, and I hope for each of you personally and professionally.

The fact that each of you is here demonstrates a commitment on your part to your career as a professional services marketer, and it also shows a commitment on your firm's part to your development as a professional.

Let me just say a few words about what this event is really about…

Marketing in our industry is a tough job… for a number of reasons… Deadlines, lack of structure, lack of an established career path, and in some cases a lack of appreciation or understanding of what you do from your principals.

But marketers and the marketing effort is vital to the success of our firms.

Though it can often seem like you work in a proposal or presentation factory, the role we play—or that we can potentially play—is far more valuable.

Marketing, at its core, is a critical strategic function of any business. Marketing is about identifying where you want to take your firm, and putting processes and messages in place to help you get there.

In my book, the Architect's Essentials of Marketing, I half-seriously compare marketing to the FORCE from Star Wars. It's an energy that binds your firm together and enables you to get where you want to go. Sure, marketing has to do with proposals and presentations, but it also has to do with every interaction anybody has with your firm or its people—from the way the receptionist answers the phone to the way a project manager conducts a meeting to the way your voice mail system works. It's all marketing.

There's a quote from marketing guru Harry Beckwith that I absolutely love: "Marketing is not a department. It is your business." 

Given this fact, isn't it ironic that, as marketers, many of you probably feel like you live under an avalanche of RFPs, that you work too many hours, that you'll never get promoted within your firm, that your job and your life is just not what it should be.

The fact of the matter is that we all have it within our power to change the way we are perceived within our firms, and to change the way our firms think about marketing.

But if we don't take ourselves seriously, we can't expect the leaders of our firms to take us seriously.

We are vital to the success of our firms. We provide value in ways that the leaders of our firms can't always see. We are communicators. We are collaborators. We are strategic thinkers. We do whatever it takes to get the job done, whatever it takes to help our firms bring in business.

So, what does this have to do with the event today?

We wanted to create an event that would bring the entire community of marketers in New York together. It's great that you're all here. The group of people in this room is the core of the marketing community in our industry in New York. And, by extension, some of the most important people in our industry in New York.

Today is about professional development. And professional development is about more than just learning. Today is about learning, but it's also about building community. The people in this room are your community. We are your network. We are your peers. We are the group who understands what you're up against, the challenges you face, your role in your firm.

Through embracing and connecting with this community, we all become better professionals, and we can all define our own career paths by understanding the roles that others play in their firms.

For me, that's what today is about. Building and growing our community of professional services marketers in New York, and providing everyone in this room with a greater sense of connection, and a greater understanding of your job, and what is possible for you in your career.

That said, I have to ask, how many of you are SMPS members. Put your hands up.

Why is this important? Because the SMPS is the professional organization for people who do what we do. It's our club. Without the SMPS, we are just individuals who happen to do marketing for architecture, engineering, or construction firms. With the SMPS, we are a community of marketers.

How many of you are not SMPS members? Put your hands up.

We want you to join. We want you to be part of our club. We promise that it'll be worth it. There are a number of representatives of the SMPS here today. Please talk to them about membership.

Ok, now… Let me see the hands of the SMPS members again. Good. Now, how many of you are members of a committee at the SMPS?

This is your club. This is your community. If you talk to the many committee members that are here, you'll find (I hope) that they'll tell you that you get out of it what you put into it, that the value of being a member of this professional organization, and this community, comes from participation. That if you're active, you meet people, you interact, you learn, you grow.

If you're not active, you get a bill each year, your firm pays it, and you're a "member." But what are you really getting out of membership?

If you're not on a committee, join one. We've got representatives here from every committee in the chapter—programs, professional development, communications, public relations, membership, special events, sponsorship.

Committees are the engine of the chapter. Committees drive the chapter and push us forward.

This is our organization, and it can be whatever we want it to be. Committees are where ideas come from, and committees carry out their ideas. Get involved, grow within the organization, and be part of where we're going as a community.

Hail to the Chief

It's finally happened. I'm president of something for the first time in my life. Now what do I do?

My old friend Natalie (the former president) convinced me to run for Vice President/President Elect of the New York Chapter of the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) in June. I won. Then, in mid-September, she stepped down as president to pursue a career outside the design/construction industry as a personal trainer. So I'm left holding the bag. In fact, when I last saw Natalie, she gave me two large bags filled with stuff that I'm responsible for as president--boards and and easel and a big binder of rules and regulations.

Now I keep asking myself, "What am I supposed to be doing?" I promised at the last board meeting (when Natalie officially resigned) that I would do some kind of mission statement or something, giving some indication what my presidency is going to be about, what this year is going to mean for the SMPS. I've got some ideas... but I haven't done it yet. This is something that seemed like it was going to be a fun thing to do when I first had the idea to do it, but I've been procrastinating. This has become that one thing on the list that I don't want to do. I'll do everything else on the list, dancing a merry dance around this one, putting it off, putting it off...

I was supposed to have a year of being vice president before being president, a year to figure out what the heck the organization is about and where I want to take it. Now I've got to dive right in, set some priorities, and start being presidential, dammit. At my first event as president, a networking event, I nearly wore myself out shaking hands, talking up the organization, advertising future events, and selling raffle tickets.

It's not that I don't believe in the organization. I do, very much. It's just that I feel blindsided by this new responsibility, and I'm not quite sure what I want to do now. I'm sure I'll work it out. I'm sure I'll come up with some kind of compelling vision to lead the organization forward.

The SMPS is a professional organization for people who do marketing for the built environment--in other words, architects, engineers, construction folks, and other consultants. Marketing in this industry is still a relatively new thing (architects, for example, didn't compete with each other on fee until 1970) and marketers in the industry have a lot of special challenges. Very often, they're working in isolation inside a firm of people with a totally different career track, working for somebody who generally has no idea what they do or how they do it. Marketers in this industry are also an eclectic bunch, generally having degrees in areas related to English and communications, the arts, politics, or art/architectural history. What makes a marketer good at what he or she does (it's generally a she, by the way) is our ability to communicate and collaborate with the other individuals in our firms.

I think my year as president needs to be about igniting the passions of SMPS members... about inspiring the members of the organization to take charge of their careers, step up within their firms, get active in the SMPS, and do what they want to with their lives. That sounds like a good thing, right?

More on this as it develops...