BIMgarry BIM Ross - Persuading Your Team to Leverage Con-Tech

No, you're not the Wolf of Wall Street. Neither that car salesman that sold you the car you're still paying off today. For that matter, none of us come close to the amazing ego of Glengarry Glen Ross. After all, it's not what you went to school for, it's simply not what you want to do with your life.

And I don't blame you. Sales and persuasion on one hand can be sleazy, underhanded, annoying, or even manipulative. On the other, it is there to find people's problems and connect them with solutions. I've done both.

But you and I know the reality. As construction tech enthusiasts, we live on the edge of the industry every day. We geek out over the next big gadget or software to improve the way we do things, Star Trek and the Jetsons practically on our doorstep! However, living on the edge means one thing... where's everyone else...?

Your tech isn't going to do anything if there's no one around to use it with you. It's for this fact that people on the edge need to be plenty familiar with the ancient art of sales and persuasion. Otherwise, nothing changes! It's just you and your precious.

We have to sell every day to our coworkers (while we're at it, add friends and family). We have to sell ourselves to get a job, for the company to get a client, for anyone to be convinced of doing anything at all! This couldn't be more true for adopting the brand-spanking-new-pain-in-the-butt technology that you're all gung-ho about. We're already doing it whether we know it or not, so why not sharpen this axe? I'm here to give you some basics.

Pre-Reqs to be a BIM-Slicker: Reading People

These are the foundations on which the build your sales skills. Nothing you read past this will help unless you learn the basics of charisma and engaging conversation:

"We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less." Diogenes

Listening intently to understand is your most powerful tool. It goes beyond hearing the words, rather in order to understand the message behind the words, intonation, and body language. If you can mirror that, people are much more likely to connect on an almost primeval level. There are many people more qualified to speak on this topic (check out this TED talk from Celeste Headlee).

Second to listening is knowing how to ask great questions (only achievable after -you guessed it- listening). This skill will help you go deeper than someone's surface statements and uncover their true needs and desires. Warren Berger is a reliable expert on asking dynamite questions.

If you get these two right, you could probably stop right here! Listen constantly and intently to what your project managers, engineers, and subcontractors are saying. Ask great questions that pull out the real problems so you can match them with real solutions. No real BIM-slicker is going to leave it at this though...

Know the Audience - Identify the Need (or better, the Pain)

Listening and asking questions is critical for the first step in a sales process, after all, "...know thy enemy (or friend) and know yourself..." isn't longstanding wisdom for nothing. There's only one problem...

You see the pain and struggle plain and clear, but they don't. This is especially true for longstanding struggles that people simply take as "the way it goes". People can see the cost of changing as higher than the benefits changing gives. Why give up something you already know (and annoyed with) for something that is completely foreign? This concern should be factored into your solutions and your persuasion, changing directions is costly.

Find out your audience's motivations and how the pain they are experiencing runs directly in the way of those motivations. Unless the problem is clear, there is no reason to change. The executive is going to be concerned with the competition and large risks; the layman is going to want more efficient steps (and safer ones) to complete their job; a project manager will want easier access to the answers for their questions; the superintendent is going to want their job to run on time. Take moments at every interaction to put yourself in their boots, what would you be motivated by to succeed in their job?

Then use it against them (nicely). Remember to sufficiently focus on the problem before you jump giddily to the solution. Make sure they clearly see what's wrong with the situation. They'll be much more open to hearing what you have to offer if it's delivered in a way that doesn't insult them or make them feel inferior (back to this important point later). This can be done with metrics, asking questions that make them express their own problem, and testimonials from people who have experienced similar situations. It all depends on your audience.

Identifying the pain can be like the Snitch: hard to spot, quick to move, but catch it, and you all win.

KISS Your Results

Most of the decision-makers you will be trying to convince are dominant individuals. These are high D in a DISC profile, and make up the majority of top-level leadership in most companies.

Here's the thing: most of these people care about the WHY we need it (the problem) and the WHAT it does for them (the result), and very little about the how.

Let's be clear: how the solution will be implemented is still an important part of the presentation, but it is not the priority. It is to show the competence to implement and that it fits well with how the company operates. Just enough to prove that "we know what we're doing here".

How many labor hours will this save? Will total costs be lower to achieve the same results from before or better? How much will this reduce general conditions on our projects? Will this mitigate risks to costly pitfalls in our projects? These are the things people like to see when making a case. If you can, grab data points from local companies who have practiced what you're looking to bring in. McKinsey may also give you some ammo.

So Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS). No one cares about the bells and whistles, they want the results! I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, it is a hard pill for me to swallow too. It's all right though, feel free to geek out with me if you didn't have the chance to!

Relationship Beats All

I wanted to make this abundantly clear before I make my next point. It doesn't matter a lick what your solution does to help if your co-workers don't think you're on their side. Relationship building and mutual trust are the strongest things you can do in sales (and also one of the hardest). This is why you get that distaste for that car salesman, you know his motivations are not in your best interest.

Help them and, more importantly, let them help you. Asking for help from others makes them a part of the process. I once heard a great tip:

When you're moving into a new place, introduce yourself to your neighbor, then sometime later ask them for something mundane yet immediate that they can lend to you. Why?

They'll know that you need them as much as they need you, and the temporary tip in the balance brings people to ease. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, but no one wants to feel totally inferior or out of their territory. Good relationships make people feel like they're on equal footing: even if you know lightyears more about BIM, they got you on structural steel fabrication. Making sure to express your interest in them will be returned in kind.

Spending time out in the field is one of the best ways to build trust with your teams. That trust will translate to trust in hearing out your solutions. A talk I attended in AU2019 from Cliff Cole and Ross Wagner really drove this concept home to me. While my personality type tends to focus on getting the job done, stopping to really understand my co-workers helps in the quest to bring solutions to their problems.

When The Well Runs Dry

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." - Lots of People

Let's replace "horse" with: "contractor", "designer", "engineer", "sub", "owner", "layman", or -plainly- "any living creature on this planet". I'm not advocating for simply giving up on the first rejection, try everything you can to be there for your team (see previous section). But you need to know when to hold em' and when to fold em'. When pain hasn't been felt hard enough, the cost of attempting to change someone's biases is higher than the benefits of winning them over.

In this case, you need to bow out. You're not doing anyone favors preaching to the fleshy equivalent of a wall. There are people out there who are more receptive to your message and solutions, but you won't find them unless you stop trying with the group who just doesn't care.

Image without substance is a human fault, and construction companies are not immune. It's in every company, just more so in some than others. You'll hear plenty of people nodding their heads to "innovation" and "embracing new technology" in front of an owner to get the job, but when it comes time to use it, they're the first to shy away or shoot it down. Keep a keen eye out for this double-speak and call it for what it is- ConTech hypocrisy. They'll want your pitch in 10 years when their well has run dry and it's too late.

Shiny Object Syndrome

As someone who enjoys looking at what's happening on the bleeding edge, it's easy for me to get caught up in "the big new thing that will revolutionize your business" and have something new every week to show the company. We must remember instead to not oversell.

When you pick up every new shiny toy to bring in for show and tell, it cheapens the act. If everything is so special, sooo revolutionary, and sooooo worth implementing... then nothing is. It's important to remember that you can't win every battle, rather you're much more likely to win if you've picked it meticulously and strike at the right moment.

Try this at your next group conversation (if you are typically talkative, this will strike nerves): say as few words as possible and listen intently. The next time you choose to make a point, the room will go silent to hear what you have to say. If you're stepping out of silence to say something, then it must be important. It's a fun trick (just make sure you're not inanimate or grumpy-looking so everyone knows you're ok).

What's the most pressing issue in your business that can be solved using a certain technology (see Pareto's Principle for what I mean here)? What technologies honestly need a little more development? Does this fit seamlessly into your current processes, or will the business have to be overturned to make room for this (and is that worth it)? Take a real honest look and only propose technologies that will make a real difference in your productivity. Your audience will take you seriously.

ABC: In Closing

There can be a balance here. Construction companies serious about innovating would put a small percentage of yearly gains into an experiment fund where either one specialist or a team of tech-savvy people test out the latest and greatest so long as the cost is under a certain threshold and put under a trial period. Larger purchases such as equipment would then be brought up for group consideration. This keeps the bureaucracy of leadership from choking your company's innovation and willingness to try out new ideas. A sort of brainstorming-in-action. A small downside of a hundred here or there is worth the possible upside of greater efficiency.

A point to construction tech providers: let go of restrictive policies that make this experimentation hard or impossible. If your product is good enough, they'll stick around. If it's not, listen to your customer some more. All of this tech is great, however I don't think it's worth it's salt unless it has the ability to improve the businesses of everyday contractors. You have tech advocates in this company, throw them some ammo.

Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither is your technology-forward construction company of the future. It takes great relationships with your people, fact-based arguments, and listening for the core issues your peers have everyday. Patience and a sound case goes a long way.

What are your tips I've missed? We all improve together, so let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading!