Principal Stephanie Craft attended the SMPS Sacramento Luncheon recently, where a panel made up of three public sector staff discussed what they valued most in consultants. Here are the top three take-aways.

Sherlock knows that perception is reality. While working on the job with his unsuspecting culprits, he asks six questions to continually investigate his client’s perception of his firm’s service.

The ability to listen, and listen carefully, is a skill that seems to be scarce these days. Conversational “blah blah blah” is so common, there’s a day to commemorate it! April 17th is Blah Blah Blah Day. Defeat the disregard of dialogue with these three tips to improve your listening skills.

Hootsuite is the tool to save you time and energy as you keep your AEC firm engaged with your customers on social media.

AnyList is primarily known for its ease of sharing and organizing grocery lists and recipes, and truth be told that is exactly why we love it. But it is just as easily used for any list you can think of: to-dos, must-see movies, books you want to read ... the (Any)list goes on...

Effective marketing materials aren't just about how they look. Getting to that final, streamlined product includes many crucial steps. These are our top five.

As marketing professionals, we often dedicate hours of our lives to scrolling, sifting, searching, and scrolling again. To what end? Sadly, we’re probably trying to find correct information online about the things we care about. But with Google Alerts, it doesn’t need to be this way.

What is public relations in our industry? PR is often seen as an advertising mechanism, intended for general publicity. While that may be true in other industries, in the AEC industry we view PR as a support tactic to win work and enhance your firm’s image. Ideally, it is an activity that supports and influences your client base to develop a long-term relationship that results in winning work.

Are you afraid to emerge from your winter hibernation unable to contact new prospects? Don’t be afraid. Get ready to feel confident when preparing to contact new prospects!

Time management is critical for the success in any organization. Unfortunately, we humans are not always great about managing time (ahem). For a successful project, managers need to juggle people, deadlines, tasks and requests – all while putting out multitudes of fires along the way. Timeneye is a powerful, user-friendly tool that helps with all the juggling.

Julee Attig, CPSM is a marketer in love with her craft. Not only does she find joy in her work, she loves sharing it in the form of a CPSM study group using Markendium material as a guide.

“The research that this book is based on is so applicable to both marketing and technical staff for professional services firms,” explains Keri Hammond, FSMPS, CPSM, “It is specifically written for individuals at professional service firms that want to become a rainmaker.”