Was your product the leader in your industry several years ago but now competitors have stolen your crown? Did you occupy more market share and specifications than other companies? We will explore why once dominant building product manufacturers fall in specification rankings and how they can regain that mojo.

Perception Affects Product Specifications

As the old saying goes, marketing a product is a battle of perceptions. The brand new, super popular, product of the moment may become the antiquated, obsolete, on the verge of extinction product next year. The pager, palm pilot, fax machine, and brick phone died slow and painful deaths on their way to the recycling station or landfill. Building products are evaluated on several levels and those that are seen as no longer useful are no longer specified.

Commodity products like masonry block and wood can be made distinct by adding value through extra features, such as quality, performance enhancements, or warranties and extended service. It can be incredibly difficult to change a specifier’s mind if they have used the same window, carpet, or paint product for decades. Good luck!

Effective sales and marketing involve explaining a building product’s “full package”. The number one paint in the industry may also be the most expensive. The cheaper alternative may offer a longer warranty. Second hand perceptions can also have a major effect on product specification. If a project team uses a roofing system that fails on a major commercial project, they will certainly tell their friends and colleagues about the bad experience. If marketing is a battle of perceptions, then how did your product get left in the dust?

Your AIA Course Is A Dumpster Fire     

First of all, you better have a free AIA continuing education course as part of your marketing plan or your toast. Face to face AIA courses, online AIA courses, and webinars are the three delivery formats that should be considered by building product manufacturers. While there are several excellent AIA courses offered by manufacturers, there are also AIA courses that look like they were forged in the Dark Ages.

Stale presentations that looked like they were designed in 1994 can negatively affect your brand. Product reps should have the most up-to-date presentations when they meet with the decision makers. A sure sign of a bad course is if the primary delivery format is PDF. Although a PDF is good as a supplemental, a read-only PDF is an antiquated way to educate architects about your products. Reading a 60-page Word doc about a product to obtain an AIA CE hour is about as fun as going to the dentist.

 Online AIA courses should be in HTML5 format and include voice over, video clips, and other 21st century technology. Face to face AIA courses should be in widescreen format, contain few bullet points, and be loaded with amazing photos of your products. The less text, the better. Updating your AIA course is a major strategy to not get left behind.

You Bet LEED Wouldn’t Succeed And Are Paying The Price Now   

Several building product manufacturers probably thought LEED was going to flop. When LEED was launched back in the 1990’s, there was reason to believe that LEED might not be adopted by the industry save for a few tree-huggers. A few decades later and LEED has become an integral part of the construction industry. Yet, some manufacturers continue to avoid meeting LEED requirements and their competitors have left them in the dust.

So, why should building product manufacturers care about LEED? Green-Building is becoming the norm and even mandatory for several types of government, state, and municipal projects. According to a report by Dodge Data, there will be significant increases in green building projects over the next few years. Sixty percent of the projects moving forward over the next 3 years would be defined as green building projects. The top triggers for the green building projects are client demands and environmental regulations. 

Building product manufacturers have several opportunities to get specified on LEED v4 projects. The LEED v4 rating system was launched in 2013. As of 2019, there are more than 90,000 commercial projects that are LEED certified in over 165 countries. LEED is not going away. LEED projects can generate healthy revenue for product manufacturers who have the right tools and resources available. If you’re late to the game, no worries, we’ll catch you up on the most cost-effective strategies with the highest ROI. Here are suggestions to keep your head above water.

Health Product Declaration (HPD)

The Health Product Declaration (HPD) provides a single reporting format that is accepted as documentation to meet the requirements of various certification systems, standards, and assessment tools, including LEED, WELL, and the Living Building Challenge. The HPD offers high ROI considering it can be used across multiple rating systems. The HPD does not assess or certify products, materials, or substances. It is not an assessment of product performance; and doesn’t identify whether a product is “good” or “bad”.

For an HPD to meet the requirements for the Materials Ingredients LEED credit Option 1, the threshold level for product ingredients must be at least 1000 parts per million.  In addition, all chemicals must be “characterized” – or must provide the percent by weight, and the role or function that chemical or substance fulfills in the product. Finally, chemicals or substances above the declared inventory threshold must be “screened” – or must be reviewed for hazards based on the HPD Priority Hazard Lists with the results disclosed.

Firms that design LEED v4 projects will typically have a Director of Sustainability, a Transparency Champion, or point of contact who will be engaged in receiving, reviewing, and helping select LEED compliant HPDs. They will review the disclosures in detail to ensure that they meet the LEED v4 requirements. In the Division 01 section of their product specifications that discusses substitutions, firms might state that if an HPD is required for a specific project, a substitution will be rejected if it does not have an HPD that meets the quality requirements.

LEED v4 Product Documentation

Architects may have a difficult time specifying your product if you don’t have LEED documentation. LEED Documentation ensures you have the tools to get specified on LEED projects. LEED data sheets and LEED product data help specifiers in product selection. LEED docs should provide a credit-by-credit list of product contributions. The information is ready to plug into existing product sheets, intended to be listed side-by-side with existing information for previous versions of the rating system.

Be Proactive Or Quit The Specifications Game

Finally, building product manufacturers must be proactive, they can’t sit idly back and wait for the phone to ring. Product reps must hit the streets every day with the goal of getting specified, representing their company and products honestly, and maintaining their professionalism. Reactionary selling is a sure way to lose. Manufacturers must be involved in the process early.

Product reps should be polite, engaging, and honest. Failure can be a great teacher so newbies to the industry shouldn’t be off-put by being shut down early in their career. Learning a product line and how to engage with the design community is an on-going process. Here are a few tips for veterans and newbies.

Know your product inside and out. If you can’t answer a question, get back with the design professional later. Never lie or exaggerate about your product. Architects have bull crap detectors and you’ll never be invited back to that firm again. Managers should fire underperformers and product reps who can damage a brand.

Product reps should be able to intelligently discuss their products 3 part guide specs and LEED contributions. No-cost LEED exam prep is available to products wanting to know the basics about LEED. Product reps should be proactive about learning new regulations, requirements, codes, and laws that can affect their company.

In conclusion, the three reasons why your building products are not being specified may include: you have a lousy AIA course, you don’t have proper LEED transparency documentation, and your sales and marketing team is not proactive. These issues can be remedied and open more specification opportunities for your team. How often does your company update its AIA course? How many products reps in your company are LEED professionals?