The previous article suggested why it can be a good idea to
share your IP with clients. Having a reputation for being smarter, faster and
better than your rivals can make your phones ring even when markets are quiet. Following
some suggestions, I thought I should follow up with a recent example and use it
as a case study of how relatively easy it can be and the rewards it can bring
to your business.
The little blue book.
I spent just over three years helping to get Cockram
Construction established in Queensland. During that time it grew from one (me)
to some 30 construction staff and $100million of work. There were lots of contributing factors and
having access to good people and leveraging an excellent reputation elsewhere
were certainly instrumental.
What was also instrumental was targeting a niche
and positioning the business as the ‘go to’ people in the space. One
illustration of how that was done was what I came to call ‘the little blue
book.’
Cockram had some considerable expertise interstate and
internationally in the delivery of physical containment laboratories (PC Labs).
These are essentially positive or negative pressure sealed labs, used for
research (typically) into micro-organisms which can do us a lot of harm. They
are very expensive; full of complex services and if they don’t seal or
otherwise fail certification, they are useless for their purpose. So having a
builder who knows what they’re doing is essential.
Cockram, like many businesses, didn’t spend a lot of time
sharing its IP widely. Finding out more about PC Labs wasn’t easy, until I came
across a Powerpoint presentation which had been prepared by one of Cockram’s
experts for a client briefing. The
beauty of the Powerpoint was that it was very visual and it had pretty much everything
there, but expressed in layman terms. Clients could understand it and
appreciate that the presenter knew their stuff.
To me, the presentation had all the makings of a showcase
publication, designed to share these smarts with a much wider audience. It
really wasn’t too difficult to take this presentation and its images and
convert it into a small publication – the intellectual content was largely
already there. It needed some expansion and editing but observing the KISS
principle meant not letting a simple idea turn into an epic.
The ‘Brief guide to PC Labs’ went through a lot of internal
review and met with predictable resistance: chief amongst which was a perceived
risk that by publishing the insights, Cockram could be giving away its
intelligence. But if a company is prepared to share its ideas and insights via
Powerpoint presentations, what was the difference between putting it in print?
At least, that’s how I argued it… and got away with it.
The first edition was published in 2011 in a small
pocketbook format. Hard copies were distributed to likely clients of PC Labs nationwide.
Electronic copies were likewise distributed. Feedback was instant, with a
number of Cockram’s research clients commending the little blue book. It also
made Cockram the ‘expert’ in the eyes of the public sector, who in Queensland
knew little of the firm. But next, Cockram were being invited to give
presentations to all personnel who may be involved in these types of projects.
A group known as TEFMA (Tertiary Education Facilities Managers Association)
wanted to circulate a PDF copy to all their members throughout Australia, New
Zealand and the Pacific – and their members are the exactly the types of
organisations that need to build PC Labs. Copies of the first edition ran out
due to demand (how many of you can say that about your standard corporate
brochures?) so a second edition was released in 2012.
More than these direct responses, it helped cement Cockram’s
reputation for excellence in the field of complex, services-rich construction
projects such as PC labs or advanced imaging facilities and hospitals. In
Queensland, it catapulted the company’s reputation for specific skills within a
clearly defined market in a way that no amount of ‘traditional’ or organic
business development strategy could.
There’s just something about releasing a book, however
small, that says volumes about your authority and confidence in your subject
matter. Releasing the same content in electronic format only just wouldn’t have
had the same effect. This little blue
book wasn’t instrumental in helping Cockram grow from a standing start to a
$100m per annum business in three years during a downtown, but it certainly
helped when it came to the company’s reputation and awareness of its specialist
construction abilities.
And so far, not one competitor that I know of has tried to
copy the idea.
(You can download a PDF copy of it if you’re interested by
clicking this link.)
