The Monday Morning Building Product Advisor
Issue #135

Here’s what usually happens after a lunch-and-learn.

The team eats… someone asks a question about your warranty or something… someone grabs the leftover sandwiches… people thank you as they leave… and the person who helped you set it up walks you to the elevator.

Afterward, no one feels like they owe you.

You’ve probably heard that bringing lunch helps build relationships and earns goodwill. That’s true! It’s a good way to get your foot in the door. But after 29 years of eating those sandwiches, I can tell you that’s never the thing that changes the balance.

It’s not that architects are an ungrateful sack of so-and-sos. Both sides just understood the arrangement from the start.

A fair exchange doesn’t make anyone feel indebted.

Everyone in the conference room knew the deal before you even set up your laptop.

You bring lunch and maybe a CEU, and we give you an hour of our time. It’s a fair trade that ends when the hour is over. We ate the sandwich, and you got our attention.

But gifts are different, and there’s some research that explains why.

Back in 1971, when I was a wee bairn, Cornell researcher Dennis Regan ran a famous experiment. People thought they were rating art with another participant, Joe, who was actually part of the study. During the session, Joe left and returned with a soft drink for the other person, even though no one asked. Later, he asked them to buy raffle tickets.

Here’s what’s interesting: Without the drink, people who liked Joe were more likely to buy tickets. But when Joe gave them a drink, it didn’t matter if they liked him or not.

Think about that…

The unexpected favor made a bigger difference than being liked.

Our whole industry focuses on being liked: being friendly, responsive, remembering names, and bringing good donuts.

But this 55-year-old study shows that an unexpected favor can do what being likable alone can’t.

So the real question isn’t whether you should give, but why what you’re giving doesn’t feel like a true gift.

There are 3 conditions, and your lunch doesn’t meet any of them.

Robert Cialdini, an expert on this topic, put it simply: “If what you give to somebody is meaningful, tailored and unexpected, that’s really the best you can do.”

Think about your lunch-and-learn in terms of those 3 points.

Was it unexpected? It was scheduled 3 weeks in advance by their office manager. That’s the opposite of unexpected.

Was it tailored? You used the same slide deck you gave in Kalamazoo last week, with the same two pizza choices. Nothing in our hour together was made specifically for us.

Was it meaningful? Cialdini says a gift should have the recipient’s name, not the giver’s. He shares an example: a hotel gave him personalized stationery, which made a real impression, unlike the usual company-branded items that don’t mean much.

Now, think about what your company gives architects: pens, notepads, koozies, and tape measures. Every one of them has your logo on it.

Here’s how we can apply Cialdini’s ideas to architects.

The architect’s name goes in the title block. Anything you give us that ends up in our specifications & drawing set carries our name, since that’s how construction documents work.

So that’s the goal: Give us something we can actually use in our documents.

Let me clarify what I’m NOT saying…

I’m NOT saying you should stop doing lunch-and-learns.

They work, just not always in the way you might expect. The lunch gets you in the room with 25 or so shiny architect faces, and that’s valuable because it’s not easy. But it doesn’t create any obligation.

If anyone leaves feeling they owe you, it’s only because you did something in that hour that was unique to them.

Here’s the opportunity in front of you:

You probably visit job sites a lot more than we do.

Think about what that means. You see our drawings come to life. You notice which details get ignored, which get questioned, and which are improved on-site. You know what happens to our documents after they leave our office, or at least you should. But we’re often left guessing.

No one else can give us that insight… Not our consultants, not our contractors, and definitely not another rep using the same presentation for every firm.

“I was on a jobsite last week where someone built your sill detail. Want to see what the installer actually did at the corner?”

That’s meaningful, tailored, and unexpected. It only takes a photo and a few minutes, and it might just end up in our standard details.

There are plenty of other options [and none of ‘em come with sausage and pepperoni].

Next time you’re sitting in your truck wondering if it’s too soon to contact a firm you haven’t heard from in 6 weeks, this is the list you want. Here they are, sorted by what they’ll cost you.

Things that cost you a few minutes.

• Share an internal lead time problem before it goes public. Yes, before. We usually find out from everyone else right after it’s too late to design around it.
• Tell us how the plan reviewer in our jurisdiction is actually interpreting that new code section. You’ve been through it with four firms this year. We’ve been through it once.

Things that cost you an hour.

• Take a detail we send you, have your technical team mark it up, and send it back. Not your standard detail… Ours, with our title block still on it. That’s the purest version of everything I’ve described, because it’s literally a gift with our name on it.
• Pre-edit your spec section to our office master. Our numbering, our format, with the choices we’d have to make already flagged. It shows up looking like it came from inside our office.

Things that cost you something bigger.

• Tell us when the competitor’s product is actually the better choice for a specific job. 😱
• Name your product’s weak spot before CA finds it. Every product has a challenge somewhere. Tell us where yours does while we can still design around it, instead of letting us discover it with a contractor standing there.

Those last two might cost you a project today, but they’ll earn you trust for years.

Here’s how to keep this approach genuine…

There’s a way to do all this that feels insincere, and architects can spot it right away. It’s when a rep gives just to create a sense of debt, then keeps score. You can hear it in the follow-up: “Well, after everything I’ve done for you…”

Here’s a test I recommend, similar to one I’ve shared before.

Would you still send it if you knew for sure we’d never specify your product?

If your answer is yes, go ahead and send it.

If not, then it’s not really a gift, and we’ll see it for what it really is.

This week, your challenge is to pick one architect and give them something that meets all 3 of Cialdini’s conditions. Something you’d still give even if you knew it wouldn’t benefit you.

The irony is, it usually comes back to you anyway. But that can’t be your reason for doing it.

Hit reply and tell me which one you picked. I’m curious which of these actually gets used in the field. And if something good comes out of it, I’ll share it in a future issue […with your permission, of course].

Final thoughts:

• One more thought about branded swag… According to Cialdini, gifts with your logo don’t work, yet most manufacturers spend quite a bit of $$$ on them. I have a drawer full of those pens, and I couldn’t tell you the name of the rep who gave me any of them. [OK, except the ones I worked with a lot as coaching & training clients. :)]
• Architects almost never say “I owe you one” out loud. Instead, it shows up when your email is answered first or when you get a call during Schematic Design rather than after the specs are written. You might never get thanked for what actually made a difference.

That’s it for this week!

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

Neil “Still-Likes-Donuts” Sutton
Architect | Speaker | The Product Rep Coach

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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 would like me to present at an upcoming group meeting, get in touch, and let’s talk!

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