The Monday Morning Building Product Advisor
​Issue #126

In 1958, David Ogilvy’s small agency landed the Rolls-Royce account.

He knew this was his big chance. He didn’t brainstorm or gather his team around a whiteboard. Instead, he spent 3 weeks on a task that few in advertising did back then, and even fewer in sales do now.

He read.

He read engineering documents, technical reports, and reviews in the motoring press. He did 3 weeks of homework before writing a single word.

In that stack of documents, he found a sentence. A technical editor reviewed the car and used a plain, precise phrase to note how quiet it was. Ogilvy used it almost word-for-word. It became known as one of the greatest headlines in advertising history:

“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.”

The surprising thing is that Ogilvy didn’t write that line. He found it. The most persuasive sentence for the Rolls-Royce was already out there before the world’s best copywriter took over.

Someone just had to do the reading.

Now let’s talk about your product.

Your marketing team gives you phrases like “industry-leading,” “high-performance,” and “best-in-class.”

It’s OK, you can admit it. You’ve used those phrases in meetings. We all have. But, after 29 years on the other side of that table, I can tell you what happens when you do.

Nothing happens.

By our third year of school, architects learn to stop trusting drippy adjectives like that.

We believe in verifiable specifics, because they prove you’ve looked at the details. “Superior moisture management” sounds salesy. But if you say something like, “The sill flashing terminates the WRB without a reverse lap...” This sounds more like someone who’s read the installation guide, maybe even more recently than we have. That’s who we feel we can trust as a guide or resource.

Your “clock” is in the documentation, I promise.

It’s hidden in the tested-assembly report that no one reads. Or the installation guide… or the ICC evaluation report. Maybe it’s on page 35. It could be a number, a tolerance, a detail, or a test result.

Any of these might end up addressing the specific concern your architect has this month.

Your marketing team won’t find that detail.

No shade on the marketing folks reading this. Each of us has our jobs to do.

The marketing & executive teams will likely read those documents for liability, but not for headlines. And they’ve never seen an architect’s reaction when a rep quotes a detail from memory. You have. It’s your job to find that specific, just like it was Ogilvy’s.

Before you start searching, here’s a quick warning: the line only works if it’s true and if it matters.

Ogilvy didn’t just pick the biggest fact about how quiet the car was. He chose the one that answered what luxury buyers cared about. An architect designing a school gym may not care about the exact decimals of your acoustic rating right now. They might focus on bigger things first. But when that’s exactly what she needs, then it’s ALL that matters. It is the same fact, but a different clock.

Reading tells you what’s in the documents. Researching the architect tells you which line should be the headline.

Here’s your assignment...

[Wait... What's that? Yeah, I know. Nobody said there’d be homework. But seriously, try this…]

• Set aside 90 minutes this week.

• Pick your 3 most-specified products.

• Then, dive into their technical documentation like Ogilvy did with those engineering reports.

• Go through it all, with your pen ready.

• Find a plain, verifiable statement that answers a question an architect in your region is facing right now.

• When you find it (and you will), get rid of an adjective and lead with your product's “clock.”

When the Rolls-Royce chief engineer saw Ogilvy’s headline, he supposedly said: “It’s time we did something about that damned clock.”

See? Even the engineer couldn’t argue with it. And that’s the point. Nobody's going to argue with a specific.

🔔 Resource Alert:

I built a short Clock Hunt worksheet you can use alongside the 90-minute assignment.

• What to pull & what to skip

• The four places these attention-catching facts usually hide in architectural product documentation

• A test for whether the fact you found is a clock or just trivia.

Reply with the word "CLOCK" and I’ll send it to you.

Final thoughts:

• If you do the worksheet and send me the “clock” you find, I’ll tell you if it would work on me.

• This issue pairs well with the wall section idea from a couple of weeks ago. The section shows which question the architect focuses on. The clock is the fact that answers it. First, research the architect, then research your own product.

• I still see “trusted by architects nationwide” in outreach emails. If you have that in your marketing, back it up with snippets from testimonials.

• Thanks to all of you who responded to last week's survey. You've helped guide what I'll write about in the coming months. And if you meant to respond, but forgot, you still can: here's the link. There are just 3 questions that'll take less than 60 seconds. I'd love to hear from you.

That's it for this week!

Here's to building more than just buildings, and see you next week,

Neil "Watchin’ the Clock" Sutton
​Architect | Speaker | The Product Rep Coach

=======

P.S. Do you really want inside an architect's head?

When you’re ready, there are 3 ways you can start working with me:

• Product reps: If you want to be better at connecting with architects, reply, and let's chat.
• Business owners or Team Leaders: You can book an Architect Connections Training for your team. Reply, and I'll send you the details.
• Speaking: If you need me to present at an upcoming group meeting, get in touch, and let’s talk!

=======
​If this was forwarded to you, go to → mmbpa-newsletter(dot)carrd(dot)co ← so you don’t miss the next lesson.
​=======