I’ve always been somewhat of a Green builder.  Growing up and coming of age in a cold climate, I learned to  prefer 2 x 6 exterior walls for additional insulation.  We use to catch rainwater in an old cistern and pumped it out to water the garden.  We were squarely in the working class, so we re-used nearly everything and built for function way more than form.

Green idealism has been around for years.  But it wasn’t until recently with the surge in energy prices and the discussion about global warming that becoming Green is a necessary business strategy.  Customers look for some kind of tangible “green” symbol on anything and everything.  They now care about where the product was sourced, where it was built, the sustainability of the materials involved, etc.

I have always felt much of the recent green trend is just that - a trend with a defined shelf life.  With that sentiment, I do think a realistic greening of our industry is upon us.  This is an important shift in public perception.  I recently joined the U.S. Green Building Council and am diligently working towards the LEED AP certification.  Sustainability is upon us, and fighting the tide is a losing battle.  Although I could tell clients that Building Science has been a passion of mine since I was a teenager, there is nothing like the proverbial letters after one’s name to verify and qualify that statement.  I am beginning to feel like a credential collector, which is something I never thought I needed in this industry - but I believe that sentiment is no longer correct.

Our clients don’t just want a contractor - they want an expert partner that can guide them through the maze of questions and regulations.  They want someone who understands tax credits enough to point them in the right direction.  They want a contractor that cares about where the product was sourced, how sustainable the process was in both harvesting and building the end result.

As contractors, we can never be educated enough.  Building scientist (BS), renewable energy guru (REG), tax credit understander (TCU), sustainable product sourcer (SPS) - and, oh yeah - be able to build a facility on time and within budget with no punchlist.  Sheesh!  These are all letters that we now must, in some way, put after our name.

It is unfortunate in some aspects, but true and incredibly exciting in others - our industry has grown up and continues to do so, and we are quickly being considered more of a professional service than anything else.  We always use to wear multiple hats in our companies, now we may need multiple heads to wear all of them that people expect of us.  Let’s not fear these new expectations put upon us, but rather embrace them as a sign that we are succeeding at our goal, and are looked to for expert guidance and advice.  That alone is a powerful change in perception.  Trust me, it will take some time to get used to.

One sidebar to the recent presidential election that I believe is monumental in importance yet hasn’t garnered much press is the incredibly successful use of the internet in a major national campaign.

President-elect Obama’s online machine was staggering in its size and scope, and clearly demonstrative of the pervasive capabilities that the internet has to offer.  Rather than being told – in one-way fashion – what interests one should have from conventional print, television and radio sources, the internet allows the customer to drive the focus of the campaign.  Now we may not be running for national or local office, but those of us in the construction business have a lot to learn about fully utilizing this vast and economical resource.

If we were told by a marketing expert that for relatively little cost we could understand our clients’ desires better; grasp what is key in their decision making process; pre-filter potential clients and ultimately appear more substantial as an organization, we would ask to whom we write the check.  The funny thing is the web offers these capabilities to us as we speak.  I believe it is time to wholeheartedly embrace the next generation of the web and make your site an interactive business development and management tool.

While having some web presence, it could be argued, is better than none at all, I tend to disagree with this sentiment.  Many of us simply place our hard copy brochures electronically on our site and call it a marketing expense.  Something is better than nothing is about all of the thought that goes into it.  But there is vast potential for learning about your clients without much effort.  Industry specific newsletters (some offered by professional marketing firms or done by yourself with considerable effort) can be sent to those who choose to receive them from your site.  While to the recipient the newsletter is free, to the business owner the information provided is priceless.  Every article that your client navigates to; every supplier site they are sent to; every extra click that a particular link receives is logged and presented to you as useful data.  Which past projects are the most popular and should be used more extensively in your print marketing campaigns?  What “green” or bathroom products receive the most hits?  What demographic actually comprises your online market (or your potential customer market) that you may not even notice from the corner office?  Which services receive the most hits? 

The data from an interactive website can be used to help focus a marketing campaign and to more clearly define where the nuts and bolts of building are intersecting with the customers’ desires.  No information is perfect, and many of the “clients” poking around on your site may be tradesmen, dreamers or competitors simply e-surfing.  In some cases, the data may even be skewed somewhat.  But there is nothing like getting quality information and feedback from potential, current and past clients that are not answering a ho-hum survey, but actually choosing to spend time the way they wish to in the comfort of their own homes or offices.  The strength of this possibility cannot be understated. 

Let’s move our websites from the “old internet” to version 2.0.  You may be surprised at what you will find.  In the case of a campaign, there may be some 40 million or people willing to donate $5 to your cause.  In the case of our businesses, we aren’t asking for donations, we are asking for something even better – real data from real clients about what is important to them.