INSIDE CSI
Joy Davis, CSI, CCPR
Roses are red
Violets are blue
If not for your boxed lunch
My project’s doors would be screwed
I’m thinking about producing a line of cards for architects and specifiers to send to product representatives. We could establish “Recognize Your Golden Reps Day” on the calendar, and take a day to appreciate those who make a design professional’s job easier. Possibly, firms could buy particularly helpful representatives coffee—in a to-go cup, given representatives are always coming or going.
I recently visited CSI’s Metropolitan New York and Allentown chapters to present
“Can This Marriage Be Saved? Relationship Advice for Product Reps and the Architects Who Need Them.” (Download the slides from my Slideshare account at tinyurl.com/trustcsi.) We spent hours discussing a few deceptively simple statements that were drawn from CSI’s Construction Document Technologist (CDT) program (www.csinet.org/CDT):
- Specifiers don’t buy products—they evaluate, select, and specify them.
- Product representatives should be “trusted advisors” to their clients.
- Architects are looking for representatives who are honest and ethical.
CSI’s Project Delivery Practice Guide (PDPG)—the main source for the CDT exam—makes it all sound simple. Relationships are never simple, though, and architects and the product representatives helping them are in long-term, complex, trust-based ones.
Both parties have roles to play in creating a strong relationship. We often focus on what representatives must do—be honest, be ethical, and take all the content available on the manufacturer’s website and turn it into one coherent solution to a very specific problem. Oh, and accept phone calls at strange hours.
Let’s not overlook what architects and specifiers need to do: know the project’s requirements, and listen when a representative is trying to explain something. There is not a rep in the world that can help an architect who does not listen. (Or only listens when the words are, “That violates the warranty.”) In other words, please put down your phone during the boxed-lunch presentation. And please call the representative and ask for an opinion when the substitution request arrives.
CSI cares about the relationship between architects and representatives. It is the only organization welcoming both specifiers and manufacturers, and encouraging relationship-building between them. CSI believes manufacturers can help solve many of the challenges specifiers face when designing high-performance buildings. A strong relationship between these groups benefits all.
If you read CSI’s strategic plan (found at www.csinet.org/strategicplan), the first core value listed under the mission is: “A diversified membership base of allied professionals involved in the creation and management of the built environment.” One way CSI lives this value is by providing unique education for representatives. It helps them talk to specifiers and architects. This is why CSI is:
- releasing the Construction Product Representation Practice Guide, the latest in its series of guides (www.csinet.org/store);
- again hosting the Product Representative Academy as part of the CSI Academies in spring 2014
(www.csinet.org/academies); and - offering the Compliant Document Review Program to help manufacturers ensure their guide specs conform with CSI formats and guidelines
(www.csinet.org/CDR).
Many CSI chapters, like Metropolitan New York and Allentown, also find time to offer training to representatives. They set aside sessions at product shows and include events in their regular calendars. These chapters are telling representatives they matter.
I did not list any of the many opportunities representatives have to sponsor an event. CSI is much more than a chance to put the company logo on the sign by the check-in table (although we really appreciate it when a representative does that!). Besides, I think it can be easier for representatives to find the cash to support CSI’s initiatives when they already feel like they’re a valued partner in our relationship.
Are you making room at the table for the representatives who help you? Do you take the time to let them know how much you appreciate them? One of my favorite blog entries was written by Liz O’Sullivan, CSI, CCS, CCCA (tinyurl.com/cpj23cn). In explaining how products are specified, she writes, “We’re all in this construction industry together. The primary goal that all of us have is to get a building built for an owner, and to make a living doing it.”
If there’s a golden rep in your midst, please take the time to thank that person, or to recommend him or her to your colleagues or on LinkedIn. Perhaps instead of the limerick I opened with, I should try one in the form of a haiku:
Substitute denied
Specified product stays in
Rep knows what I need
Joy Davis, CSI, CCPR, is CSI’s communications/community/web director. She helped develop and now manages content and daily operations for CSInet.org, and trains leaders in the 65+ chapters using the institute’s microsite system. Davis has grown CSI’s web community on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and in the blogosphere; she also uses platforms such as Flickr and Slideshare to distribute CSI’s content. She has presented her “Social Media for Construction Professionals” program to chapters, architectural firms, and manufacturers, both in-person and by webinar.
