Tips about maintaining a relevant social media presence, how best to market your business at trade shows, and countless other assistance was available from Society of Marketing Professional Services members at the November Associated General Contractors of Alaska annual conference at the Hotel Captain Cook.
ow much would you pay to have an expert eye take a look at a contract proposal or provide insight about how to create a social media presence that makes sense for your business?
What if it were free?
It was, for the first time this year, at the 2022 Associated General Contractors of Alaska, or AGC, Annual Convention. At registration, companies were offered the chance to take part in the Business Development Check-Ups, held Thursday and Friday afternoons. The sessions were one-on-one meetings with members of the Society for Marketing Professional Services, or SMPS, and covered one of four topics: proposals; websites; marketing material/digital content; and social media.
AGC Executive Board member Saigen Harris has been eager to offer this service to members for a couple of years, but waited until the conference was back to its in-person format before doing so.
—Johnathon Storter
A dozen people signed up this year, she says, most of them seeking website and social media help.
Sarah Klebs, who works at CGC Services—a mechanical contracting company her husband owns and which is named for their three children—says she gleaned a lot from the Check-Up. She asked how to make the company’s website more relevant to customers.
“I was basically looking for what direction we needed to go with it,” she says of CGC’s website, which she described as currently pretty generic.
The advice she was given—to include project photos and add photos of people who work for the company, emphasizing the family-owned nature of the business—was really relevant, she says.
“The biggest thing was, most people, when they open a website, will only be there about two minutes. What do you really want to present to them in that two minutes?” asks Klebs.
Johnathon Storter, president of project management consulting firm Meridian Management, says he sought an outsider’s perspective of the way his business presents itself.
“I just wanted honest feedback from a marketing professional about our proposals in general,” Storter says.
How well is your business presenting itself through its marketing information and materials? These and many other questions were on the table at the Business Development Check-Ups, a new feature available to Associated General Contractors of Alaska members at the November Annual Conference.
Storter says the takeaway was that the company was doing a lot of things well, but there was room to improve in other areas. Instead of asking a company for a debriefing or testimonial, for example, asking direct questions that give specific feedback can be more useful.
“How did we do on time management? How did we do on budget management?” were two examples Storter cites.
Harris says she plans to continue offering the Check-Ups at future AGC annual conferences.
Both Klebs and Storter said they would take part again if they could.
“It was a wonderful service—and it was free!” says Klebs. “To have access to a professional for free in that area is extremely valuable.”
“It’s always valuable to dedicate time to your business’s development,” Storter says. “Your firm is going to have an image; you can control it or not.”