Welcome back to the Bold Brands show.
On today's episode, we're chatting with an AEC marketing pro I've known for years, Perrin
Olson.
Perrin, FSMPS, CPSM, CCMP is a fractional CMO with Alt CMO, providing marketing strategy
and leadership for construction and technology companies.
Previously, he was the CMO for the REX One brands, REX Construction, REX Engineering, and
REX Technology, which includes SuperDroid robots.
Before Rex, Perrin led the marketing, sales, and client relations teams at MyIT as their
chief strategy officer.
I met Perrin over 15 years ago when he began specializing in construction marketing and
led the construction marketing firm, The Brand Constructors, and became a nationally
recognized thought leader.
He's spoken and written extensively within the built and tech industries, and in 2014, he
wrote The Construction Executive's Guide to Brand Marketing.
He's a frequent marketing.
and construction technology podcast guest.
for the first time on one of mine, Perrin, welcome to the Bold Brands show.
This is fun.
Appreciate you having me on.
Yes, sir.
Well, on this show, as we talked, we like to go kind of deep on a topic and bring in a
guest that will kind of stay focused in one lane, especially around AEC.
And of course, today we're talking to you all about marketing and fractional CMO work.
Yeah, that's what I love to talk about.
Construction marketing is definitely something I can talk about.
Well, of course, Perry's a New Orleans guy and Perry, as you know, you're on my short list
to join us for this live episode that we taped in New Orleans a few weeks back, but my
apologies for not being able to work you into the panel.
So I was excited and committed to getting a chance to touch base with you here anyhow.
So glad to have you on the show.
just means you gotta come back to New Orleans or I'll make it out to Denver.
That's not definitely my bucket list too.
For sure.
Definitely some of my favorite food in the country in New Orleans.
So let's jump into it.
I mean, you've spent most of your career working in marketing roles with AEC and other
firms.
And as we mentioned in the intro, you're now part of a fractional CMO team.
know, I've personally largely kind of worked in entrepreneurship, but I've bounced back
and forth a little bit for working for other teams and going out on my own.
Now you're finally doing the entrepreneurship or sort of the fractional side.
Why is that the right fit for you today?
I've always kind of had that untruthful spirit, but didn't really have the risk tolerance
for a long time.
A lot of the firms I worked with were very small.
I would kind of sat in that number two seat.
And one of the things that I've always had the owner tell me is you think like an owner,
you'll be an owner one day.
So it's always kind of in the back of my mind.
But the fractional thing was very appealing.
It's been kind of my radar for a while.
It's the right blend to me of the multiple clients from the agency world that I started.
Uh, but not so many that is overwhelming and I can get in a lot deeper than a typical
agency, which I know you've got that background in as well.
That's on the agency.
kind of kind of drive by, you come do a rebrand, you might work for them for six months or
even a year and then you're done and you don't kind of see what happens.
You don't see the, it, it blossomed.
don't, you can't make real changes and things like that versus when you're internal, you
can make some of those little small subtle changes, like change out two words on the
homepage and see what happens and tweak this and things like that.
And you kind of evolve with it.
So.
It's that kind of good blend of, you know, the in-house of seeing the smaller, my new
details, but I kind of get bored having one client or one brand.
When I first went internal, was a mentor brought me in and he's like, you know, what are
you worried about coming in and doing this?
Cause I was his first market director and it was my first internal job.
I'm like, I'm kind of scared to death to work with one brand.
I'm used to working with like 25, 30 at a time.
And like what we have a new spinoff we're doing, we're building a SaaS stuff.
I'm like great too.
I was like still scared to death.
So.
It worked out well and I ended up kind of doing some other things outside of marketing,
sales management, and even heading up all of our non-technical operations.
So I learned a lot more about the business side of things.
And it was kind of direct time.
And even my time when I was at Rex, kind of jokingly told people I was an internal
fractional CMO because I had three companies and eight brands that I was overseeing, which
is a small team of three to four.
So I kind got my teeth.
cut my teeth on it's kind of what that would be like.
And I kind of ran it like an agency.
We actually had plans potentially building out, like we were calling Rex marketing and
bringing in outside clients, but you know, never right the opportunity.
And I just kind of made sense.
The, the go on my own, I joined Altimo as a principal and actually brought SuperGrode with
me.
was my first client.
So I stayed with them for a good six months until it just didn't make sense anymore.
But you know, they're doing good things.
I'm not going to work with some other great companies now.
Yeah, I've always found that, you know, my initial agency days, we did a ton of website
work.
So similarly we would make that website and then we wouldn't talk to that client again.
You know, maybe we'd support the hosting or something or do some, some updates here and
there, but we weren't regularly consulting with them.
And I love the more relational kind of, interaction with clients so much more than just
kind of the make a thing and move on.
And that was even the issue I had with consulting because when I went internal to kind of
keep that blood going and stuff, I was still doing some kind of freelance consulting.
when I first went internal, I actually an IT firm that specialized in construction.
was actually what got me into construction.
was a referral from them in 05.
So I was kind of a free agent in between.
So I had a couple of freelance gigs that I was trying to finish up before I came on board
and actually had to start part time.
But I started bringing some of my marketing clients who were coming to become IT clients.
They're like, go do as much consulting as you want.
Just take a PTO day if you got to do it, whatever, just be fair.
So it worked out really well.
So one of the things that was struggling with it on the consulting side was because I had
that day job, I like, I'd go do the consulting, they'd pay me whatever, 10, 15, 20 grand
to do a good brand audit strategy and all that.
And then I'd check it with them a month later, three months later, nothing got done.
And it just drove me nuts.
So then I started working through like, all right, well, I'm to stay on.
And part of my agreement is I'm going to stay on for three months or six months.
So we're going to have check-in meetings only for two weeks or a month and nothing.
You know, I can get them to a point.
then as soon as I essentially finished, nothing would happen.
And, you know, so the fractional helps me keep those things going and, you just get the
strategies kind of going.
One of the best ways I've heard, you know, the difference between a marketing consultant
and a fractional marketer is.
We have to live with the decisions we made.
We can go put a strategy in and in six months, we're eating our own cooking, we're not
just hitting that thing, that strategy and running out the door.
But we still get the nice blend of one foot in the company, we know who they are, which is
really cool because I sometimes get a call from a CEO, like, hey, I had an idea and I know
them well enough that I can have an informed conversation with them versus if I was a
consultant, I know them well enough.
They'd have to get me back if I even knew them once.
They have to give you back up to speed, what's going on and stuff.
I kind of give them that little, I don't think, I don't know, you know, this is best
practices thing.
I couldn't give them a real answer, but now I can give an answer pretty much on the spot
because I know them.
I know what's going on.
I know the moving pieces.
know the people.
So that's a really cool feature.
I think it's just really powerful.
And I kind of get more in the business.
Like I've always kind of had that, you know, marketing blends into the business
conversations.
And one of my clients calls me his business.
So it's been fun.
Yeah, I love that.
I always say that the fractional CMO is a really good fit for somebody who is like maybe
has marketers and maybe understands marketing, but they don't really have anybody to lead
marketing.
So like you said, somebody to hold the team accountable, but also then you're sort of
being held accountable to your advice because they're coming back to you after that
thing's done.
for what's the next thing and how did that work and is that actually impacting us
possibly?
Yeah.
And that's where I think fractionals fit in construction really well.
And all of AEC is because kind of the laggards of, you the industry when it comes to
promoting marketing, especially the construction side, it really weren't adopting.
mean, when I first got into construction 20 years ago, it was sometimes hard to convince a
company to like update their website.
You know, even have a website sometimes.
then we have now the conversations more about social or even AI.
But it's, it's kind of ridiculous to have somebody tell you, I don't need a website
nowadays, but you still run across them.
I, you know, we, we still run across contract companies with our websites today in 20, you
know, 2025.
Um, but it's, you know, because there's this laggard, you know, there's in so many of the
marketers that are in AEC or proposals, not really marketing.
There's really this void now of marketing leadership.
So especially the smaller medium companies that haven't been able to groom somebody that
go in that role, you know, there's not so many to come in.
I mean, there's some great AEC marketing consultants out there, but there's just not
enough of us.
So the fractional model fits really well in this space because we can really help fill
that gap.
And I actually prefer my clients to have in-house marketers because otherwise we kind of
become the marketing in the box.
they're like, why didn't you post on social media this week?
Like, cause that's not driving effective growth.
Like let's go work on something much bigger than just a LinkedIn post.
Yeah, that's important, but that's small compared to the other things I can spend my time
on.
You don't really want your CMO making a LinkedIn post.
I love having the theme in there and helping mentor them.
It's a big part of my career has been mentoring.
you know, so it's, it's, kind of feel like I'm that bridge between the leadership and then
the marketers.
And there's, there's definitely a disconnect between just the understanding of marketing.
Sometimes it's just an age gap.
Like, you know, I had a 65 year old CFO and times like, I don't know what to do with her.
Like she's younger than my granddaughter and he just didn't know how to talk to her.
was almost like hesitant.
And I'm like, you've.
You've managed people for 40 years.
How do you not notice?
Yeah, but the gap now is wider and wider and it was their first marketer.
he's like, if she was in accounting, I'd be fine.
He just didn't know.
So that was a big part of it.
I would help explain to her, here are the business goals and here's how they tie it in the
marketing strategy and help give her the roadmap.
And she would go do the tactical work and things like that.
And I was trying to train her on contractual support.
wasn't from the industry.
So this is why we're doing this construction.
This is why this is important to the business.
This is why we're not doing this, things like that.
Maybe that's a good segue to I'm curious to hear what kind of a day to day role looks like
for you as a fractional CMO.
and juggling chainsaws and bowling balls, things like that.
It's definitely a bit of a juggle because you're going to have any fraction would have
three to five, six clients at a time.
Just that's the business model.
And spend a lot of time in meetings.
Like yesterday I was in meetings from 8 a.m.
to 4 p.m.
and they're productive meetings and some were
I was doing a story brand in the morning and then I had a client check-in with one of our
CEOs.
Then I had a lunch with a mentor and then I had a couple other just productive meetings
with marketing teams of helping them with different projects or initiatives.
So there's definitely a lot of meetings, but I don't like to have meetings for meetings
sake.
Yeah, it's, we want to say how the three buckets I say of a fractional marketer is the
marketing strategy, which you got to create and then manage and make sure it's continuing.
And then the executive leadership.
There's somebody in that seat and that's kind of speaking up for marketing and the voice
of the brand, essentially in the leadership team.
Sometimes the voice of the client, if there's not a sales counterpart.
And then, you know, the mentorship of the marketers.
A lot of them are coming in very green.
We've got a few that are, they've been in marketing for 10 years, but they're still new to
the ADC.
And they're trying to understand, you know, where is this?
So they maybe came from a different trade contractor, like a different discipline.
They're trying to just get their, get their boots dirty.
and understand what they're doing.
Yeah, I always say there is a continuum of sort of flavors of CMOs.
There's sort of the pure lead gen numbers, analytics, the very data technical driven.
And there's like on the other end of the continuum is kind of the brand and the story
side.
Maybe no surprise that I live over down that way.
But where do you fall in that continuum?
Brand positioning is definitely a big part of what I do.
find that this kind of greased the skids.
Once you figure out that positioning, it goes from there.
To the other side is the sales enablement.
I'm not a big lead gen.
I can definitely build it out and I've done it sort of because of my background
instruction.
I'm actually working with some construction tech startups and helping them kind of build
their marketing teams and build their initial lead gen and things like that.
But one of the things found is really powerful is just really getting the sales team
focused.
Who's their really their ideal client profile?
Who should they be targeting?
How do they target them?
And then how do we mix in marketing?
How do we give them some simple handout?
Sometimes it's just all they need as a follow-up or training.
Don't send the SAQ as the introduction email because engineers like to do that.
That's a fault if they request it only type thing.
just build, I would call it account-based marketing to a marketing professional.
kind of started getting them the path of account-based marketing.
And if it starts taking off, then we can build a more robust version.
Getting them to start thinking of that ABM methodology of we're not going to chase
everyone.
We're going to, we're going to tear out our clients and we're going to prioritize them and
personalize getting some of the core tenants of ABM, but we're not putting in the full
software again, definitely from the start, because that's, it's a big pill to swallow for
a lot of.
Right.
You know, I always used to joke that if you want to see the future of AEC, you can just
look at what other industries are doing right now.
We tend to be a little bit behind.
I think the joke is less accurate than it used to be because firms are definitely moving
forward more.
I'm seeing more and more CMOs in seats, especially at bigger firms.
So I'm curious what your opinion is on
Who are the right kind of firms in AEC for a good fit for fractional CMO?
The ones that know there's a void, it's when I go look for companies that are in EOS
because EOS is an entrepreneur operating system.
was big on the right person in the right seat.
Well, generally when they start aligning themselves, they realize the CFO and CEO has got
too many seats they're as they're growing.
But they're like, I'm not putting that marketing coordinator in the executive leadership
seat.
There's a disconnect.
They're not ready for that.
In many cases, they're not.
And that's where they are fractional and slided really well.
So it's kind of there's up and coming companies.
I love companies that kind of figured out how to make money and now it's just how to grow.
You know, I don't like working with companies that are trying to make payroll next week.
that's just marketing is not a short term return.
is, you know, we're going to make some money.
Let's invest our time and resources today to make money six months, six years from now.
Like my favorite clients that work with is the small trade contractor, Omaha, deciding
roofing and like within the first week of working together as a parent, I don't need your
help this year.
And we started working last year together.
goes, I need your, I want you focused on 2025 to 2030.
And that's where we're focused.
We're almost always a year out.
Yeah.
We're doing some stuff like, Hey, I got a great opportunity.
I need a slide deck for next week.
Yeah.
We'll go knock that out.
Like that wasn't really on the roadmap, but we'll go knock that kind of stuff out.
But we're constantly kind of like, what are new business models?
Like they've never done new residential construction.
So we're building out.
You know, how do we go after these home builders that fit their profile to do the kind of
rooms and siting that they want to do and really capture?
Okay.
What do we want to do?
They're adding new service lines and we're trying to figure out how all that fits in.
Not just today, but long-term, like they have a new metal bending machine they're getting
next week because it fits in line with the vision that the VP of finance and strategy and
I've been working on.
So that's what we're kind of focusing on is just how do we keep doing that?
And all starters, you know, last year we sat on it.
Where are we trying to go?
And one of the conversations we're constantly having is they're not looking at selling
anytime soon, but they know eventually that's going to happen, whether it happens in 20 or
30 years.
Do you want to be a cornerstone company that becomes the company they build and attach
other companies to?
you going to be a roll-up?
It gets just kind of sucked up into an attached to a cornerstone.
And they've very adamantly say, we want to be a cornerstone.
We want our brand to stand.
Well, that means we've got to do things a certain way.
We had to start building out processes.
It'd be more, you know, build out the foundation now, even though we're probably not going
to sell in 20 years.
So that's a big piece of the conversation.
it's like, it changes sometimes there's some of those guys we were just, we just sell next
week.
We just get out of this and like, guys, that's you're just having a bad week.
Let's, let's move fast.
And, know, and that's because we have in those frequent conversations, we know the bigger
plan.
No, I can kind of steer them back and they're just, you know, they're having a bad week.
Yeah, I was chatting with the guys at AEC Advisors on the previous episode and they were
talking about how unsurprisingly the things that you would do to get your firm ready to
sell are the same really smart decisions that you make to make your firm last for 30 more
years before you ever have to sell.
it's, you know, it's, they're all connected.
And it's also good just to get the leadership team out of the day to day.
You have that whole build to sell, you build a company that you can walk away with.
Like everyone's listening, what's a good barometer to see if a company is healthy to sell?
the exact, whoever the core CEO, CFO, whatever, they need to leave for a month and like
leave.
No emails, no phone.
Like they need to be able to be gone.
If the company can sustain for that person gone for a month, the company can survive.
What they're lacking though is the long-term vision.
That's where that CEO should plug back in.
And generally, if they're gone for a month, they're going to come back with some really
interesting ideas.
Because a lot of times they've had time to unwind and kind of think back to the future, or
they've also had time to kind of talk and look around and things like that.
And it's really interesting to see when those people kind of come back.
Kind of that Steve Jobs, Apple 2.0 effect.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and it's both like a systems thing and a people thing.
So if you've got all the data in place and all the systems ready to go, but you also have
to have somebody else to step into that role and somebody to step into that person's role.
So it's a lot of things that need to be able to flex for that person to actually leave for
an extended period.
Yeah.
And that's probably the biggest issue across professional services, not just AEC, but it's
something hidden construction.
We're seeing tons of reports of the age of the field workers, know, like the average age
of field work in the mid fifties right now.
That's scary if you really think about it.
And it's not just there, it's the leadership.
And there's something companies that don't have that next generation ready to step in.
And it's getting there.
Somebody's just.
Gen X is a smaller generation, the baby boomers.
You're kind of waiting for the millennials to literally just age up.
But some of them kind of got tired of waiting and they went on their own firm, or Gen X
being the rebels, went and started their own firms anyway.
So there's this 20, 30 year gap between the executives and the directors or the management
level.
So, and that's nothing new.
I mean, since I've been in this industry 20 years, we've been at a labor shortage for 20
years and it won't be resolved in the next 20 years unless we severely get into, or
seriously get into robotics, which is reason why robotics.
tech is so prominent and accepted in construction versus other industries because we need
to fill spots we don't have versus we're not really, we're not replacing people like we
did in the industrial revolution.
So, but yeah, it's, I mean, I had a client years ago, uh, for my daughter.
So at least 10 years ago I worked with, and like the challenge is how do we transition the
brand from the fourth generation, the fifth generation on their hundredth anniversary?
That was when they were going to essentially announce the fifth generation was taking over
at the big hundred year party.
And I did, you know, we do pre pre meeting surveys and stuff.
And one of questions we asked all the employees was small contractor, like 25, 30
employees.
The question was, where do you see yourself in five years?
And nearly every one of them said retired or dead.
And like I'm driving there because the contractor about two and a half hours west of me.
And I'm like, I wasn't driving.
I was in faster speed flipping through this on the drive.
Just to clarify.
Yeah
So I'm looking at my, holy shit, this isn't fifth generation.
This isn't the owner son taking over for the dad who is a big enough feat.
Cause the dad was a bit of a, you know, well known in this local community.
It was the son and the team that doesn't exist today taking over for the team that's
currently running the entire show and has been for decades.
It's like they had two people in the office under the age of 30.
And then this owner son was in his mid thirties and everyone else was like 55 and up.
Like that's a huge transition.
And oh yeah.
They didn't see it.
They just kind of like, you know, sunscreen worth that and no big deal and we'll make this
happen.
That was their their foot.
But my gosh, you're missing the tip of it.
That's the tip of the iceberg.
You're missing everything underneath it.
And it wasn't even that, like as you really dug in, like the lawyers, the IT, the
accountants, like all the dads, people that he had hired over the decades were also
retiring next year.
So like even their support teams are gone.
So I mean, it's almost like start like it almost be easier just to start a new company.
Yeah, we helped them get transitioned and almost like, that was really when the first time
they saw like that light bulb of like, this isn't just marketing strategy.
This is real business strategy now.
Like, cause if you don't have the business place, plan in place, we can't do a marketing
strategy.
Well, I would put that in the category of pressing issues that marketers are facing in
this market that has nothing technically to do with marketing.
What else are you, any other big issues that marketers are dealing with?
I'm helping a client with a bid.
They're going after the first construction manager at Cimar because they lowered the
limits in Louisiana.
And so a friend brought me in and so they're going after this job.
It's a small contractor.
And one of the lines in the proposal says, can exclude the owner and CEO's bio.
Cause we don't care.
Like it's in the proposal and in the presentation section, it's like, we don't want that.
Well, in this company, they're small.
the chief estimator and pre-con is the owner and CEO.
So it was kind of a discussion.
That's why I got brought up even like, yeah, well that's CEO slash chief estimator
officers, whatever it really kind of came down to.
But it's, yeah, there's a void in a lot of these companies of that.
Yeah, it's just, it's a huge challenge of these businesses and just, I think one of the
challenges I've seen marketers and I've had a lot of construction marketers kind of reach
out to me over the years.
Kind of like, how do you deal with bad safety?
Like we...
somebody died in the field, how do we fix that press?
Like, you know, that's, that's a reality that you don't have to deal with in a lot of
industries.
Like you might have somebody pass away in accounting legal, but they didn't do it in the
field doing work.
know, and that is not like a reality in construction.
got, we got to handle some times and a of times it's, unfortunately it's, need to be
proactive.
Like you need to have a good name and a good reputation and some PR out there.
So if somebody does Google your name, it isn't just coming up, just all the bad stuff.
No, so that's not a challenge.
just the whole access to pictures is an issue.
know, um, I mean, architects are really great about taking photos and getting professional
photographers out there and you can put in the rendering and construction.
They generally will buy the architecture chip kind of chip in on that, but like, want to
see pictures of people doing the work.
Well, then we've got safety violations to go work, you know, work through and, um, and
it's, hard to get pictures from the field.
And there's also like a.
Many clients, they work in industrial sectors.
You can't take pictures from the field.
They don't want it for, you know, there's a lot of stuff that just the plants don't want,
or they don't want their intellectual property shared or how they're do things, or even
just 9-11 changed some of the rules.
You know, at a client I was working with way back then and, you he was, he's been in the
plants taking all these photos and stuff.
And it's all of sudden, soon as 9-11 hits, he's like, we can't take any photos, period.
get rid of anything you've ever taken our plant before because it's became national
security.
that is something, how do you sell something that you can't see?
And that's usually one of the beauties of ADC is we have all these things we can show.
mean, if you're an MEP engineer, you can show a closet full of pipes and electrical wires
and like the air ducts.
Like, yeah, it's not sexy, but man, it shows what you do.
But if you can't take a picture of it, how do you sell it?
You're going to put up the bin growing now.
Now, just let me get creative.
Sometimes you put in rendering, sometimes you mock up things.
AI is helping a little bit with that, think, because we can at least, you should be
visible.
Like, hey, this is an AI rendering of what we built due to confidentiality reasons.
Yeah, I remember one of the marketing directors that an old MEP client of mine used to
call that the building undergarments.
Like nobody wants to show the ductwork and the pipes and the wires and all that.
think firms have gotten more creative about how to show that and to incorporate like, you
know, a guy in there doing something with the things you're showing your people and it's
more than just showing the conduit, right?
yeah.
Yeah.
When I was at Rexon engineering, we did structural engineering and MEP and even still
connection.
We actually chipped in money for a big photo of the headquarters we've done.
And we got to pick a couple of shots.
So I put in there, like, I want to see the telecom closet and also based on what my
engineers had told me, what's special about this building?
like, we literally wanted a picture of like a close up of the exposed ceiling because they
had like actually designed.
what the air ducts and stuff would look like.
And then actually the telecom had a lot of stuff and building automation security.
And I get a call from the architect, why do you want to take a picture of this?
I'm like, cause that's our work.
We're not really getting judges on like how beautiful the, know, the atrium is or how nice
the, you know, the conference rooms are that doesn't showcase our work.
So if I'm paying for this, you said in agreement, we can have a couple of shots.
Just like, I haven't seen that before.
Your MEP firm's not a marketer, staff.
You know, sort of the running joke, especially in SMPS circles is like, you know, nobody,
nobody went to school for this.
There's very few programs in the country, if any specifically that specialize in marketing
for the AEC or built environment.
So if you were talking to a student or a young person who's thinking about switching
careers and, you know, interested in marketing, interested in design, interested in
something in that area,
and they're considering AEC, what would be some of your advice for them for getting
started?
It's a great industry first off.
I love the construction industry.
A couple of reasons.
One, it's cool to be a part of something that gets kind of built.
It's a pile of dirt and then a year or two later there's a building there.
There's a stadium.
There's a new road.
And it's really cool.
We're not doing it.
Did you feel a part of it?
You're part of the pursuit plan.
You're part of the team that, you know, it's the company.
And that's really cool.
It's just like, you your background design marketing.
You drive around, see a client's billboard.
You're like, look, it's like you're, you're working the wild.
You know, that's always a cool feeling.
So it's cool to be part of that.
but just the construction people and I talk more construct because that's more of my
thing.
I haven't done as much architect and engineer over the years.
Very little architects, some engineering with heavy, heavy construction over the years.
they're just good people.
You know, the, people I found out are the kind of the shysters, the bad people in
construction.
They don't believe in marketing.
So I don't really run across them.
So it's, it's, it's kind of the fact.
And there's also, there's just a lot of family owned businesses.
I love working with these multi-generational companies that are around decades, some even
centuries.
It's just cool to hear their story and helping them continue on that company.
and that's a cool thing about it.
So, but they really get in and do it.
like, just get a job doing and then get out in the field.
Like the best advice to get anyone who's new to industry is get your boots dirty, get out
in the field, meet the people there.
They'll respect you more, but you'll under have a true understanding.
of what your company's doing and why.
And just kind of, it's more tangible.
And it's also just fun to go to job sites.
I find, but it's the mistake I like, I was consulting with a company for a while and it
was one that eventually didn't implement a lot of things.
It was an MEP firm and they had hired a new marketer and business developer.
And after she was there over a year and she thought MEP stood for mechanical emergency and
plumbing.
And like literally this is the principle.
He went to his, his partner and he's like, she's got to go.
Like she doesn't get what we do.
And it's like, cause she never went into field.
Like even though like part of her onboarding was to go in the field and go like they had a
field superintendent to go check on things and progress and all that stuff.
She never went with them.
And I'm like, that's where you're to get your best education.
you really do.
And then sit back with your engineers and ask them, Hey, I saw this building today.
When you guys did, can you explain to me what happened?
What changes?
it just.
I'm like, you have electrical engineers on your team and you still thought the E and MEP
stood for emergency.
Like she just, she never went to the field.
She didn't have that tangible.
was just an acronym to her.
And it's like, you know, if you've never stood in a HVAC room, you understand in the
boiler room, you never stood in a telecom room.
Do you really understand what you're doing?
So it was just, it's all these things.
Yeah.
The best advice is just, you know, appreciate the industry for what it is.
but then just get your boots dirty.
But I know the way that we met early on was sort of through the speaking circuit at SMPS
and you've done lots of speaking.
always make it a point to sit in on your sessions when I see you at a conference.
Side point, it's been a few years since I think we've been in the same building, but.
It probably, I don't speak as much with kids.
was once my wife got pregnant with her first kid, she's kind of like, you need to chill
with the speaking.
luckily digital kind of took over on all that.
Yeah.
You kind of run in different, different SMPS regionals and conferences and stuff.
Yes.
Do you find that the speaking that you are doing still is podcasting or webinars?
Has that been a business development strategy for you at your new role?
I don't know if it always leads the leads.
I enjoy just sharing what I know, like mentoring is just a big part of it.
I really enjoy my job.
So I love having conversations, especially some like you is more like my, like you and I
have a similar background.
So like you and I can more, it's more of a friendly chat than like some of the podcasts
I've been on, like they're new to marketing or like I've been on some podcasts, like
they're like, you're niche marketing.
Tell me about niche marketing.
And I'm like, that's like, it's possible.
It's generally what I'm trying to explain to them or.
You know, construction tech kind of what am I seeing here?
Like when I was working with SuperDroid robots, was on a fair construction tech software,
like in construction tech podcasts, talking about where robots are going in the
construction industry and how they fit.
I just, yeah, the podcasts and webinars are just a good place for me to share what I know
without having to travel because I'm very involved with the kids and coach their swim
team.
you know, so just, I want to be part of them, their lives.
And as they get older and do their own things, I'll be able to do more travel itself.
Or if I can, sometimes we doubled up, like we're combining a company retreat with my
daughter's priority term in Dallas next month.
So we can do both.
So what's going to work out.
nice.
What about the tech side of things for you guys?
You know, I love nerding out on all the techie things.
I don't necessarily do all of them, but I get excited about what's happening in the
future.
Anything in particular that you're doing with AI or other technology as a fractional CMO?
Yeah, I kind of find AI has got two uses and it's similar to software.
You have your big monolith things, the LMMs like a chat, chibi tea or Gemini, things like
that.
They just kind of do a little of everything.
And then you got your very task specific things.
And I see the same thing in apps.
You have your core applications and stuff like that.
Like a Procore, one of my clients is Linarc is kind of for the smaller contract.
They do a little everything.
But then you've got your smaller comp, you know, that are like company can just take
project photos.
Marketing and AI rooms is same way.
It's like we still use the chat GBT and it's like that.
But one of the tools we just added recently, it's called press master, which I love.
And what it does is I can set up like an interview.
I type in all the criteria, what I want to do.
And then the AI agent will, I send the link to my client and then they log in and they
have a conversation with a voice AI agent.
And it's actually pretty cool.
The only challenge I've had is it has a slight pause when you, finished talking, gonna sit
and wait.
And then it waits for you to finish talking and then it kicks in.
Um, but like as it's going through it, it adjusts the questions.
So there's like, you know, eight to 12 questions, depending on the topic.
And it's, you'll say something.
I was trying to throw it off the first couple of times that it using it to see if it
worked.
And I'd bring some up, Oh, you asked me about this earlier.
And I bring it up and then it asked me to rate.
And so that was a cool way to have an actually was kind of a catalyst, kind of two parts
was one of my clients was like, we want to build a lot of content for him.
And he's just, it's a small company.
He's strapped as the owner of this.
construction tech startup.
He's like, but I walk my dogs every day and that's when he's usually doing his own reading
and his emails and reading newsletters and stuff like that.
And I was like, the idea was actually him just to do a voice recording and then throw it
through AI, translate it.
And then I would clean up the blog post and post it.
Like, what if we did it this way?
And it just, it would, it was easier for him.
So he's, he's testing it out for him.
But even my partner, he, for a couple of days, clients are like an hour and half away.
They're on the other side of.
Dallas for he lives in Fort Worth.
It's like, can he just do this on the car ride?
And so I'm doing that.
And you can also text to it as well.
But I found the voice one is a great way to get subject matter experts.
We're kind of calling this as our strategy is the anti AI.
Like we can go to chat TBC and say, Hey, write a blog post on this, give it the criteria
and knocks out a blog post in five seconds.
So we've got some SEO stuff that can do the same and they're just going to write what
other people say.
So this is our way to how do we truly get from our thought leaders in like 10 minutes.
And they can just have a nice, either they can type to it or they can talk to it.
And we can get really authentic thought leadership from them that the AI won't know.
So that was kind of our way.
So where our plan is as we continue to evolve our clients in our own content strategies,
the blend, the SEO things are just super hyped up on keywords.
And then these really thought leaderships, the next year, now we're starting to back off
our SEO ones because they're there.
And so, or we'll do a reposting.
We're kind of like pushing them back a couple of years.
So they're not on the top of the feed.
And what's that tool called that you're using for the conversational stuff?
Okay, very cool.
I'll have to check that one out.
That one's.
fun one.
I think it might just be for agencies.
I don't know if they've gone direct to business business.
I would assume they would, if you want it, they'll take the money.
But I know you're an agency too.
But if people are listening and watching this, probably like, that's a cool tool.
I've been happy with it.
And it's kind of stumbled on it.
And I'm always kind of looking for different AI tools.
And I've even started keeping this a dock with the AI prompts that I've been using and
having my team, the other fractional CMOs on my team.
We're just kind of building out this like library prompts and refining them.
Like one of the ones I put up, I'm Hey, this is going to get me really good result.
And one of my other guys, Hey, add this two lines to it just to tweak it and refine it
little bit more.
It's like, I ran the same thing again.
So, you know, think that's something that's just prompt engineering is a huge thing.
You know, people that love data and they love kind of like a lot of us in early web days,
we all kind of had to get into HTML.
Like we understand that we don't have to literally write code anymore, but you still have
to kind of train it.
Like, yeah, especially those images.
It's like, how do you.
You can't just say, me a person on a job site.
You want to get super specific about what you want.
And the more specific you can get, the better.
That's a lot of cool stuff on the AI front.
Any other big trends that you're seeing, good or bad, in the marketing space?
is AI and good as AI.
it's, you know, there's just a lot of crap out there.
And I think that's another reason why we just, how do we get more of the thought
leadership, how to more authenticity.
Um, and I think podcasts are going to get better because you kind of have to know what
you're talking about.
Like you, I can't be reading from a script right now.
Like it's the versus, and there's probably AI generated podcasts where there's a AI
interviewer and AI recipient.
There's probably some out there.
I've definitely seen some of those, you know, how to make a
$10,000 a month off a YouTube channel, you don't show your face.
it's like, is that really what we want to be doing?
Yeah.
It's so I think, you know, the intent of technology is to allow us to be more human.
and I've seen a lot of people kind of say like, I don't want AI making art.
want AI to do the stupid grunt works.
I can go do it, go do the art.
I think it's going be interesting to see what we're all talking about in 10 years, you
know, what we're really working on and where the world is.
And my only concern with all this is like,
I know you've got kids and I've got, think my kids are little younger is what do they do?
Like I'm pretty confident in my knowledge that I'm to stay ahead of AI and just my
industry expertise in particular.
The people I'm concerned about, the ones that are in college now that are trying to, how
do they get ahead of AI?
Cause AI the best way to came out about a year ago, it's probably better now.
It's on par with an intern.
You've got to train it and teach it and to ask it to do things as if you're an intern.
Okay.
So if you're an intern, how do you learn intern things?
and then know how to control AI.
And then, you know, what are the kids that are like, my girls are eight, 10, like, how are
they going to be dealing with AI in future?
How are they going to have industry expertise or even subject matter expertise if AI is
evolved another 10, 15 years from now?
You know, that's kind of my only concern with where we're going in the future is what are
people going to do for a living?
I've always said technology generally offsets.
So like if a robot comes in and offsets a welder job, it's for building a
You know, it's replacing generally dangerous while their job, but it's building and now a
mechanic's job and a computer program.
Like, yeah.
And we saw that yesterday.
We got rid of certain jobs that are no longer around anymore.
Like lighting the candles, you know, lighting the gas post for the lights at night.
We don't need that job anyway.
Have the electric lights.
Okay.
and there's some really archaic jobs that there, you know, there's gonna be people that
look at what we did in the nineties and the two thousands that are like, that was archaic.
mean, that's kind of scary to think, but you know, you and I were.
We were born a century ago.
But that's where I'm just like, where are we really going?
And I don't know if it's the Jetsons of the world that a lot of people are anticipating,
and it could be good or bad.
Technology always has both sides of the coin.
You know, as a Gen X guy, if we get all this technology and AI and still don't have flying
cars, I'm going be really ticked off.
I mean, you can take a go to space technically.
So is that a flying car?
I think that in like, I mean, when we have super trains, super speed trains, we don't have
really United States just yet.
They keep posing them.
Yeah, there's kind of things to teleportation to get to New York to LA in five minutes.
I mean, think about that would do for us.
Yeah, my wife and I always talk about like, maybe we could just get a little place in the
mountains.
And it's like, the more that I drive in the mountains, I realize how much you can like get
stuck there.
When there's one road in and out, I was like, maybe we need a helicopter.
And she's like, you're not allowed a helicopter.
It's like, OK, so we're not going to be in the mountains.
I remember, you know, in Louisiana, we don't really have mountains.
We have some hills, have levees, they're called hills.
But traveling through Boyce got some backpacking so we'd go in the mountains, you know,
the North Carolina, Tennessee and all of them.
Sometimes you're driving up to a trailhead and you look at some of these people's
driveways and like, how do they get down when it's snow?
Like I, you know, New Orleans is good, I don't know.
Yeah, so it's, but I didn't.
I am curious where technology is going to fit those kinds of things or just basic life
things that will make things more accessible.
the internet has changed people.
there's a lot of people that there, you know, this whole digital nomad.
I think if the technology was five or 10 years earlier in my life, my wife and I easily
would have a digital nomad.
Like it just, we, you know, got married, bought a house and settled in.
And like, if we didn't have that, I think her and I easily could have just done that
digital nomad.
It would have fit our lives very well.
Like what we wanted to do and travel.
Uh, things like that, you know, I've had a developer who he left off working with for one
of the locations and moved the layouts for a year.
Uh, he lived like a king because he still had his American salary and, know, it's, and he
came back with savings.
it's, uh, you know, so there's different things that I think technology really afford
people as well.
And just, I mean, now the world is so small, like, you know, there's people listening to
podcast or, know, you never would have come across your career 20 years ago.
Right.
Yeah.
And, know, I tell people all the time in my last agency, my model there was sort of to
build the empire, right?
Like hire all the people, get the bigger and bigger office.
I couldn't have built an agency like what I run now back then because the the Internet
wasn't the same.
And the best talent didn't want to be independent contractors.
They wanted secure jobs and they wanted to come into the office every day.
And and now we have
literally kind of a market opposite of that where a lot of great talent wants to be
independent and We're really just set up for a very different future
Yeah, I actually, when I do my corporate retreat in a few weeks, I'm going to meet my
partner for the first time.
We've never met.
We've been together a year and half.
We've never met in person because I mean, I feel like I know we've been on plenty of video
chats for the years.
And we were introduced by somebody we'd never met in person.
Like it was, was actually through a podcast I did was the introduction almost two years
ago that was how we got connected.
And it's just.
There's a lot of many of my clients I haven't met.
only travel, only a couple of my clients are local and there's one client I traveled with
at annual meeting, as to represent the marketing team at the annual meeting in July.
Besides that, there's a lot of my clients I haven't met.
And it's just, it's interesting of that.
And, but it's weird because of technology.
Like when I worked at Rex, I was in Orleans still, but the company was based in Chicago
and we had offices in Orlando, Charlotte, Raleigh and LA.
But occasionally I'd go to Chicago and meet with the executive team and my team.
either they work from home or generally around that area.
So I got to meet them in person, but because we had worked together for like six months
via video, we just clicked and kept going.
It wasn't a big deal.
It was kind like, oh, you're taller than I thought.
That was about it.
that was like the only means, you know, um, versus like somebody you and I met in person
and now we stay connected digitally.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One of my first clients, as I was launching bold brand was a fractional gig and you know,
sort of still on the post COVID scene.
So I, I didn't meet their CEO until we had worked together for almost eight months and, we
were both in the Indianapolis area at the time.
So, and it was, what made me think of it was when you said, you're taller than I thought.
Cause
She looked at me and was like, you're really tall.
And I was like, you're really short.
It's just a funny, funny little interaction.
Yeah, it's totally, that's the case.
And yeah, I've got my New Orleans clients, Commodum is very big in person and I was there
yesterday and another one, you know, doesn't really care.
So we just meet virtually.
Well, maybe shifting back to some branding conversation, I know sort of two branding
minds, one to another.
I think one of the biggest challenges our industry has truly is differentiation because,
the joke is like when you ask a firm what makes them different, they're like, well, our
people make us different and we're innovative and we're, you know, they say all the same
things.
So if all your differentiators are the same things that your competition are saying, then
obviously.
the industry's not really good at differentiating.
How do you look at differentiating for your clients, especially in construction?
Sometimes I just kind of listening, just asking questions and some of it was very
accidental.
More recently, sort of joined LCMO, learned more about Storybrand and started adopting
that process.
That was, you know, I was working with a client yesterday.
Like we got a lot of the blocking and tackling the basics up on, but we didn't figure out
like the theme, the message just yet.
And that's helped a lot, but sometimes that's still.
It's not quite perfect.
It's still, it helps tie together, build this kind of a theme, something to put on the
homepage, the website, something to put on the proposals, but doesn't say, you know, this
is where we're going.
And that's why it's just, it's, it's kind of the positioning.
Where are you good at now?
What is your core?
And I always want to look at operations for both where you differentiate, but also your
ideal client profile.
Cause think the travesty of marketing and sales can do is bringing in clients that are a
bad fit.
So that's why I love the word ideal client profile because it's, who's the ideal, not, we
can make that work.
You know, it's not a, we make this work profile.
Um, and even some of the better firms are in doing like ideal employee profiles.
And, you know, they're really trying to understand that culture.
And like, there's a firm here in New Orleans that really just kind of gets it naturally.
They're called the renegade.
Like that's the name of the construction company.
They changed the name from the owner's last name to renegade a couple of years ago.
They have renegade fest as a big fundraiser for their foundation.
Like that's a different culture than you're seeing in the industry.
And, you know, they just have a different vibe and.
Everyone knows it.
They're the black sheep in the market and they totally own it.
They don't care.
And, you know, and there's other companies like, um, Rogers or Brian out of Dallas that
just, they're big in the tech.
Like, so no surprise, they're building the Tesla space hotel.
Like that's, they track data centers and it's a very tech savvy company.
They're the ones actually using augmented reality in the field right now.
Like they're, they're pioneering stuff.
I met them through the robotics company and just started following their marketing.
And they do some really cool stuff and they really get, you know, they're Texas only and
they have a lot of family, a lot of second generation employees, but they're very tech
savvy, modern looking contractor.
So they own it versus you figuring construction.
We talked earlier, they're kind of the laggards industry.
if you can tech savvy is actually one of the things you kind of lean into.
Yeah, it's kind of fun is the core out.
I think the mistake you can also make marketing is trying to package.
polish the turd, as some people say, you know, you try to package something that's not
really there and it's not authentic because the marketing, the website might say one thing
if you call in and you're like, you meet with people like that's not the website.
So we've all had that with products we bought as consumers.
We've had that with farms we've hired.
Yeah.
And I think that's the worst thing we can do is really make that false representation.
Um, both the prospects side, but also the employee side.
Cause I think especially in construction, cause there's such a trade deficit of the
trades.
We need to recruit people and that's all.
kind of half our job anymore as marketers is not just how do we get a new leads is how do
we retain and recruit new employees.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, I started hearing maybe, I mean, maybe 10, 15 years ago, even when clients would
come to us for brand and website work, their leading need was to attract and retain talent
better.
wasn't about we need more clients.
wasn't about we need more projects.
It was we need the people to get the work done and we just can't get them to come to us.
So how do we how do we put out the right message?
to that team and maybe it's a good segue.
think one of the, I'm a little biased in that a lot of what I do these days is video, but
I think video is one of those kinds of tools that is a really great way to show what it's
like to work at a place for a employee testimonial or to demonstrate to clients, give you
a kind of a sample of what it's like to work with you and what your vibe, what your
company culture is like.
Are you guys leaning into video at all on the fractional side or are there other tactics
that you are kind of more bullish on at the moment?
It depends on the client.
we're editing a video, client, just my roofing client just started a new product line.
And so they just did their first install a weeks ago.
So we're just editing all the drone footage and all that stuff together.
And it's, they're, super excited.
Like they actually, they started sending out the, the not quite finished version.
It was good enough.
They just are so excited.
They started sending it out.
But, but I got a heavy silver contract that does a lot of horizontal drilling and they did
a great like.
just hype video is what we called it.
just because it was purely employee focused.
You go to a high school and you play the video, you got high school kids that want to get
the instruction.
I mean, that's that kind of stuff.
And it was kind of, there's two sides of recruiting in the industry.
You've got your, need to recruit the high school kids and kids that are thinking of
alternatives to college, because it's not the right fit for everybody.
Then you've got your ones that somebody's been in the industry for 10, 15, 20 years, or
somebody's even 40 looking for a job change.
Like, but they, they're a little bit, they're looking at things a little different.
They're looking at is this, company safe?
And you can talk all you want on a website.
You can have the safety page and all that.
So you show a video of people working in the field.
Construction guys can figure out that country, that company's safe or not pretty quick.
Like for, you know, that if that hype video has got a safety issue and they're going to
see it.
So it's, you know, that's, that's where it's kind of, that's where I've actually found
where the, the, I got companies to do websites years ago was.
And I started to know five with that in my first three or four clients, we were all
focused on employee retention and recruiting.
I was doing the employee newsletters and the payroll slips.
so like their old school communication channels.
Construction is actually one of the few industries still printing newsletters because they
have employees that don't have email.
Or they want to make sure that the mail is getting to the families.
Like they don't want just the email going to the employee.
They want the family to see the printed newsletter with their dad or the mom in the
pictures.
Things they want to be on the fridge.
Like that was one of my client's goals is I want my employees
the put the newsletter on the fridge, like on the magnet, like that dad did this, mom did
this or uncle did this.
Like that was like, that was one of our marketing goals.
So yeah, it's, it's definitely a huge issue.
And I think video takes that to another level of just really showcasing.
I mean, and when you and I started, weren't thinking hype videos for construction back
then like that just.
No, and it go back to your different, one of the issues most architects have, you asked
them what makes them different.
Like you kind of to remind them, know, most of your buyers can't tell it between good and
great architecture.
You can't tell it.
that's, think the other challenge of selling AEC and actually any professional services,
the people that are buying your services are not experts at what they're buying.
So you're whether you're selling legal accounting, they don't know that's why they're
hiring you.
So how do you really showcase that?
And a lot of it goes back to culture.
You know, if, if you.
You should find companies and prospects that are should be like minded.
and if you can recruit employees that are like minded, it's kind of as a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
You don't have to try as hard.
Marketing.
It's really easy to me when you fix your position and you fix that story and you tell your
story because you're, it works as a magnet.
You know, it's attracting the people in, but it's repelling the bad people out.
No, it's bad people.
just a bad fit.
Yeah.
I mean, that idea is literally what my TED talk over 10 years ago was about, was the
paradox of when you deliver A plus work, it's not always received as an A plus because the
experience of how you do it and how you talk about it and how you explain it, because most
people don't know the technical differences of...
any product or service they're buying.
It's nothing special about architecture or engineering.
It's like, I just had roofing work done.
I don't know if they did a good job.
They said they did.
Right?
Yeah, you'll know eventually.
Right.
with movies.
You know, why is one movie super popular with the general public and the critics hate it?
Because the critics are looking at it from a critical eye that they're initially
knowledgeable versus the fans are just like, it's a freaking awesome movie.
Shut up critics.
Like, you know, we don't care necessarily about the camera shots.
We don't care about the cinematography.
Like you do subconsciously, but you don't care critically.
So yeah, it's all around, you know, and it's
But the difference is you're not buying a $5 tube of toothpaste.
Well, it's not that much, but you're investing millions of dollars.
And that's another thing I think sometimes construction owners, you know, take a step back
is because I've had one time I literally had a CEO, I have his office years ago and he
came in just fuming mad.
And I was like, what's going on?
He's like, Oh, we just lost this bid.
Why are they asking so many goddamn questions?
I'm like, what's going on?
He's telling you it was $120 million project.
And he's pissed off that the client's asking him more questions.
I'm like, Hey.
How much did you research that truck you bought?
I spent all these, tell me all the hours he spent.
What about the TV you bought?
Okay, put to the perspective now, TV, truck, amount of money you're spending.
Yeah, your truck's probably an $8,000 truck.
You spent how much time and you bought it from somebody you didn't know.
Versus they're gonna spend $120 million on building.
Don't you think they'll, and he's like, all right.
He wasn't really thinking, for him it was annoying.
He just thought that the client was being annoying, asking all these questions.
careers on the line, if they botch this selection, they're going to get fired.
They're going to, you know, the company might go belly up, whatever it is.
Like, and that's one thing is I think people really forget about this industry is there's
some, you know, irreversible decisions sometimes.
I mean, you can kick off a bad contractor, but now your project stalled, the waste a lot
of money, you're going to court.
We don't want to make this mistake.
You could go take a good job at a company.
You're there for a while.
You don't want to leave.
that you can get out, but you don't get the time back you spent with them.
Looks like this story that you're sharing is why a lot of people think their fractional
CMO is like their therapist.
You're not just coaching through marketing, you're helping him through life moments in his
business.
Well, me tell you another quick story.
A client called me and it's like, Hey, we got this big opportunity out of state.
And we, the client doesn't want it.
We've got the, we got a verbal agreement.
They don't want to mobilization charges.
And the mobilization for this was going to be like $150,000 because they got to move a big
rig, like big crate.
And so I was like, all right, well, if you just did this project and you built an office
in their hometown, like where this is at, would you break even?
And he's like, yeah.
Okay.
So what's the total addressable market?
for your services in that location.
Well, the location that I don't know where is Arkansas.
So that wasn't like, it was 50.
Okay, what if we moved the, you know, what's your radius?
And we started talking and his radius, I thought he'd be like a two or three hour drive.
His radius was like a 10 hour drive.
I'm like, okay, so instead of Arkansas, let's go to Memphis.
A 10 hour drive from Memphis is essentially the East coast.
We can get the almost like the panhandle of Florida, most of Texas up to Chicago, over to
Pennsylvania.
So like, now we're not talking about how to wait.
How does he get the executives?
to waive a 150,000 dollar mobilization, which doesn't actually, it does cost them money.
Like that's coming out of their profit because they're not paying for the trucks and the
wide load and all that.
Like the client's not paying for that now.
Like, but now you're talking about is we're building a new location and the head of sales
is just gonna be like, holy crap.
Like, yes, let's open a new office.
Like it just changed the game.
Like we're instantly have a new office that we can do with this one project makes us
profitable.
We get no other work.
But now we've got a rig down there.
That's in a prime position versus having extra rigs up here.
So just that's where I think that was the best use case of a fractional is, is yeah, it
was a, how do we sell this?
And he wondered, how do I sell it to his boss?
Cause he doesn't want to lose this giant opportunity.
And it's even a multi-year project.
but it's like a couple of months every year for five years.
And they don't want to pay mobilization every year to keep moving their rig back and
forth, but they really want this client or this company coming.
No, but it's like just changing the phrasing.
was like, okay, well, how do we use the store advantage?
We're already down there.
How do we, and he was already kind of thinking that, how do we get at a company, another
client a couple of months or a couple of weeks before, a couple of months after, how do we
extend the time we're down there?
It'll essentially, you know, disperse the, or, you know, share the load of that
mobilization fee.
We can get multiple clients in that area.
So we just kind of changed the game.
Okay.
Well, what if we just built an office down there and that rig lived there?
What does that do?
Yeah.
like, where it goes from we're buying the job to we're investing in a new office.
Correct.
Correct.
And now, cause that was the important part of the question.
was like, do we move it down there and leave it there?
And I'm like, well, if you leave it there, now we have it down there.
Like it's, it changes the dynamics of what we're doing.
Cause that was the big thing is that it's just like a five year project, two months for
every year for five years.
Well, do they keep moving the same crane, the big rig back and forth?
It's like, so yeah, it's just, that's one of the funds and that's where yeah, marketing
and blades in the business.
And, and that's the funds.
I love this conversation that I wasn't expecting that.
I thought we were going to build a sales plan.
How do we go target a couple of companies and kind of bookend his schedule?
The goal was that meeting, but totally changed.
Perrin, anything else you'd like to see our industry do differently or is there anything
at Alt CMO that you guys are doing that you think is gonna affect that?
We're just trying to build some more transparency.
Like we believe not just in the KPIs, but like people need to know what's going on.
lot of our clients even come to us and like, Hey, we've had this SEO team for years.
You know, some are the American companies that spend a of money with, and they're not
getting much, know, offshore.
Like this kind of that.
One of the things we're actually trying to build right now is an AI agent that will, you
can upload a photo and is there a safety violation?
Cause marketers last thing we want to do is put a safety violation on the homepage or, you
know, a proposal on this.
A lot of you've been around a while, you can kind of spot them, but you're not perfect.
And I've gotten photos before that I'm like, safeties review this?
And they're like, yeah, I'm like, what about that?
There's an issue in it that I'm spotting and they just safeties go through too fast.
So there's kind of thing.
I just, my hope for this industry would be is that the executives actually let marketing
be marketers.
I feel like so many times, and you've heard this too, they're boxed into this thing, go do
your proposal, go do your, like they don't really let them.
come into the seat.
There's a couple of contract companies in this country that are being led by a former VP
of marketing.
They understood the business, they've moved into that role, and now you have a
marketing-led contractor, which is really cool.
You're seeing engineering firms and architect firms allowing their marketers become
principals.
And I think that's going to really start evolving this industry.
And I'm not just trying to be selfish with that, but I think marketing obviously has a big
voice.
in the direction of the company.
And, when I started in the industry, it was very common that the marketing director or
manager was just kind of handed.
Here's the 10 year plan.
You know, have hired this consultant.
Here's the plan and go figure it And they're like, why are we opening up a new office?
Why are we doing these new markets?
This makes no sense.
And they're just told to do it.
You know, so now they're at least getting, I'm not just involved in that decision making
process, but someone were leading this process.
You know, and there's a lot of the, AEC marketing consultants, know most of the lead
long-term strategies.
Like that's a big part of their business is going in these firms and leading that five, 10
year vision exercises.
And that's awesome when you have that person helping lead it because they're not saying,
Hey, we're gonna open a new office here.
They're explaining the why like, and, they've done their market research.
So they've just, here's the opportunities and things like that.
So I think marketers have a lot to offer the business leaders if they're allowed to.
Well, speaking of that five to 10 year outlook, this is crystal ball time.
Any bold predictions for what's next in the AEC industry?
Maybe hottest market or trends or something that's going to change in marketing?
I think the biggest thing is going to be the robotics coming from that.
worked with that space for a few years and it's not going to start.
We're not replacing people with autonomous robots, but we're going to see remote control
humanoid robots in the field very soon.
And what they're going to do, they're going be the ones in the ditches.
They're going to be the ones welding upside down.
They're going be ones doing the very dangerous, like robotics they call those dangerous,
dull and dirty.
Those are the three kind of D's that we want.
if you can get humans out of those dirty, dull and dangerous places, because dull becomes
dangerous in construction.
If you keep doing those repetitive tasks, they become very dangerous.
So you get humans out of that, but you can still have the very skilled craftsman operating
the robot, kind of like a surgeon uses a robotic hand.
Why can't a welder do that?
Why can't a craftsman use a robot to do certain things that can't be done prefabricated or
just dangerous to do in a field?
So think that's going to be a big component.
Plus robots can be built a different size than humans are.
Like, you know, there's some jobs are just really good for big people.
And some are good for little people, just as very basic.
Well, robots can be small, whatever it is to be big.
So just some of them endang stuff.
So it was really cool when I was working with clients or, you know, their super duper
clients and talking to them and where those things, we use simple things like, if we had a
tool chest that just followed a laborer?
Like the tools follow them, their supplies follow them, they could hit a button and then
all the supplies came from the offload area.
the lay down yard and just showed up at their job, like where they're working, because
they're spending a lot of time just literally walking back and forth.
Like we put a pedometer on a field, the labor in the field.
They're walking 10 miles a day sometimes, just getting supplies, getting tools, getting
stuff.
Or they get a runner to essentially do it.
Well, that's a lot of wasted time and energy.
So like the whole industry is very inefficient.
And that was some of the studies we were doing was like, where manufacturing is.
making hundreds of hundreds of dollars an hour per square foot and construction is making
like two per square foot because the instant natural you're building something versus that
doesn't exist.
every day is a slightly different ecosystem versus manufacturing space.
Like, okay, if we can start pushing technology in the field, it's going to push back to
the office as well.
Now we've seen the BIM revolution and now we're seeing more of the marketing.
So like I did a demo for Joyce AI a couple of weeks ago and I was just
They take the mundane stuff out of looking at a proposal.
They can take a hundred page proposal and like, all right, here's a page and a half.
What'd you need to know?
Like, that's awesome.
Like somebody did that, you know, and, and referring here's, here's the projects that are
relevant.
Here's the people, like, you know, it essentially helps.
say get you 40 % of the way.
I'm not trying to just, I did one demo, haven't used it, but I've heard good things from
fellow SMPS members told me to go check it out.
So, and I have a client that's considering doing it, but.
There's other tools, okay, if that's where we're at now with AI, where are they going to
be in a couple of weeks?
Those are the kinds of things that just, and I don't want to make proposal pursuits
automated.
I don't want to just click a button and have the whole proposal done, but could we just
get done with the grunt work that takes us away from getting into the messaging?
And I think that's the cool part of AI is now we can actually have more really
personalized things.
Like we've been wanting to do for years of super personalized websites.
Every time you come back, the website gets a little bit more personalized.
Yeah, the technology was kind of there in the past.
Well, now it's really there because now you don't have to have everything pre-programmed.
Like you could have AI just kind of really evolving.
Yeah, very cool.
Well, parent, it's been awesome catching up with you.
I'm looking forward to seeing you again in person sometime.
But up until then, tell our listeners and viewers where they can find you on the interwebs
and learn more about alt CMO.
Yeah, best place to find us or me is on LinkedIn.
That's my most active.
And I'm pretty easy to find if you spell my name right.
Which I know will be on the title of the podcast.
So I'm the only parent also that exists until for now.
Yeah, the firm we're altcmo.net.
We've got some great content on there, both AI written and human written.
So, and one of the cool things we just published since you and I were talking was a big
SEO report we did for construction.
We took the NR 400 and ran them through all of our audits.
thought to build out something like to me as far as I know the first industry benchmarks
for SEO for construction now we're about to publish the architect engineering version as
well.
Very cool.
I'll definitely check that out and we'll link to all those goodies in the show notes.
thanks again for joining us today.
Yeah, it was a fun conversation.
It's great to catch up, Josh.
Alright, thanks everybody for joining us today.
We'll see you next time.
Thank you, sir.
I'm gonna hit stop on record here.