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KP Unpacked
KP Unpacked explores the biggest ideas in AEC, AI, and innovation—unpacking the trends, technology, discussions, and strategies shaping the built environment and beyond.
KP Unpacked
Your Social Media Strategy Sucks
In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP and Jeff tackle a critical question inspired by one of KP’s recent LinkedIn posts (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kpreddy_why-are-aec-firms-social-media-posts-a-steady-activity-7287558443270299649-RJW8/): Why are AEC firms’ social media strategies stuck in a loop of project announcements, staff hires, and work anniversaries?
KP shares his thoughts on how these firms can break free from uninspired marketing to create messaging that truly resonates with clients and drives business. Along the way, they reflect on the importance of thought leadership, storytelling, and having a distinct point of view in a crowded marketplace.
Key takeaways include:
- Why project wins and staff milestones fail to attract client interest.
- How AEC firms can develop problem-solving narratives that stand out.
- Why leading with expertise, not prestige, is crucial for success.
- How podcasts and other content strategies should be designed to engage, not just exist.
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All right, welcome back to KP Unpacked. This is my opportunity to ask KP Reddy, the CEO and founder of KP ReddyCo, and also the founder of Shadow Ventures. One question, kp. When you posted that on LinkedIn, what were you thinking? Sounds like a call from my mom.
Speaker 2:Like what were you thinking? Sounds like a call from my mom. Like what were you thinking?
Speaker 1:KP. This is your mom, this is your mom.
Speaker 2:What were you thinking, son?
Speaker 1:What were you thinking about If we don't know each other? My name is Jeff Eichholz. I'm a senior advisor at KP Ready Company. I'm joined, as always, by KP Ready again, our CEO and founder, and also the founder of Shadow Ventures, and we do get together once a week to unpack one of KP's LinkedIn posts. And if you're not following KP on LinkedIn, you should be. My question to you is why aren't you following KP on LinkedIn? Because he posts, usually multiple times a day, about what he's seeing, what he's observing, the conversations that he's having around the AEC world, the built environment world. Sometimes it has to do with investing, sometimes it has to do with startups, sometimes it has to do with business models current business models, future business models. There's always something interesting.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, he's just stirring the pot, but it's our opportunity to come here once a week and talk about those things. Sometimes he's just stirring the pot, but it's our opportunity to come here once a week and talk about those things. So, kp, we've selected another topic, another post. I'll read it out. It's a pretty short post. I'll read it out and then you and I can talk about it. You ready to go?
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:All right. So, as we're recording this, you posted this about two days ago, so for those of you that are listening in a time-shifted manner probably from the year 2030, look back to about January 22, 2025 to find this particular post. Why are AEC firms' social media posts a steady stream of project wins and completions and staff hires or work anniversaries? Is this what your clients are looking for to make your phone ring? Is this for project lead generation, employee recruitment or both? All right, I've got a lot of thoughts about this, but let's start with your thoughts well, let's actually before we start with my thoughts.
Speaker 2:Okay, are there any interesting comments in the comment section that we can call some people out on? Okay, because this one did get a lot. You know, some of my posts get less reactions and more comments, which I always find fascinating because I just kind of usually I usually react and then comment, but some people just comment right, right these.
Speaker 1:You have a good number of comments here. I mean more, more than usual, as you're pointing out. Um, let's see the. There's one from lucas gray that says this is what happens when you mostly have architects or engineers leading the marketing of the firms. More firms should hire marketers with marketing backgrounds and educations. More firm leaders should trust their marketing team to craft better messaging. I know Lucas really well. We've worked together in the past. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:So I think there's a foundational thing. He has a question like why don't they? And I think there's some pervasive thing in our industry we value our lack of. If I'm a civil engineer and I don't have landscape architecture in house, I will hire out the specialization. Sure. If I am an architect and I need a lighting consultant, I hire out the specialization. Sure. If I am an architect and I need a lighting consultant, I hire out the specialization. Okay. So within our little circle of friends, so to speak, we have a high degree of respect for specialization and the value that those people bring to the table. Where we have a gap, sure.
Speaker 2:It does not appear to be the same way when it comes to marketing and business development and sales. They are outside of this circle and we don't respect them. We don't believe it's an actual profession.
Speaker 1:I think there are some that have that point of view.
Speaker 2:yes, it's like oh, you're really good at talking to clients and you play golf. You're a business development. Oh, you're really good at putting proposals together and you're really good at PowerPoint. So now you're our head of marketing.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It feels like that a lot.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think it does. I think it does and I think there are a couple of other fundamental things going on here as well. And the other is that I spent a number of years on the SMPS speaking circuits of the marketing people for the AEC firms always wondered you know, maybe I was doing a workshop or maybe I was doing a keynote at a conference or something like that. You know, you look around the room and you see, you see the like the marketing coordinators. Generally speaking, the marketing coordinators were, because because that is is sort of the lowest marketing role, if you will, within the firm. Usually those were usually early to mid-20-somethings.
Speaker 1:Maybe, 24, 25, 26 years old, something like that time, having spent more than 30 years in the in the industry.
Speaker 1:I often wondered if those folks had come out of out of college, had graduated with a marketing degree, come out, found a job at an architecture firm, an engineering firm, wherever it was they were. Maybe they thought, oh, this is exciting, look at these cool projects that they do, and then realize that in these firms the majority of marketing is reactionary. The majority of marketing that's done in these firms is responding right to an RFP or an RFQ or something like that. So I think there's this fundamental issue in the industry where, hmm, how much marketing are we really doing? But then the other part of that right is this mentality that I mean, you started in civil engineering, I started in architecture, and neither one of us are doing either at this point. But there's this mentality that we're the experts and people hire us to be the experts and they do. But how many of those people that are hiring you to be an expert care about that latest project or care about that award that you've won, or something like that, versus the problem that you're helping them solve?
Speaker 2:Are they?
Speaker 1:hiring you to win an award? Are they hiring you to solve a problem?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean, I think in our own experience, right, we decided a couple years back that linkedin was our spot, right, right, um, I do some stuff on twitter. If you're in vc, you might follow me on twitter, but outside of that, no one is engaging with me on twitter. We decided that twitter was not our place, um, so we stopped doing it yeah, I gave up on dancing on TikTok quite early, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that too, you might've given that longer.
Speaker 2:I broke my hip? No, but I think so. If you think about that, right, if any of these AAC firms, if they stopped posting on LinkedIn for a year, would it actually have an economic impact to them?
Speaker 1:I think maybe not. And that brings up another really great point when it comes to their marketing and you call it specifically social media here. But let's expand it further right, their emails or their website, their websites. In particular, the majority of architecture and I'm going to say this because I feel like you know, having spent a lot of time in the profession and having multiple degrees in the profession, I feel like I can throw gently throw architects under the bus, because been there, done that, but the majority of the architectural websites out there, I believe, are designed for other architects. Look at what we've done and I think the same thing is happening in a lot of the other social media. Look at what we've done. We won this award, we finished this project Fantastic. Is that what you're? You know it goes this project Fantastic Is that what you're you know? It goes back to that question Is that what your clients actually care about? Or they do? They care about and value you and pay you for the solutions that you develop?
Speaker 2:Yeah, A hundred percent Right. So it's a good segue to one of our guest speakers this week, mark Teixeira, former baseball player turned real estate developer.
Speaker 2:Great conversation. He told all our people in the mastermind group, when he hires architects, engineers, contractors, what he's looking for is problem solvers. He's not looking for all the other stuff, he's looking for people. He coached our group. He's not looking for all the other stuff, he's looking for people. And he coached our group. He said become very good at solving problems and you will do well in the industry. And that's coming from everyone's customer, the real estate developer, saying solve problems for them. And so I think when you're selling expertise, there's a certain level where you graduate from. You know it's Art Gensler, you're hiring Art Gensler. Right, it's Frank Gehry, you're hiring Frank Gehry. And, yes, experience is good proof points. But nowhere did they say like here are the top challenges we had at this project. Riff away the project's profile and just maybe distill it down the problems. And then, for some reason, if a prospect is scrolling through the feed, they go. Oh, I have that problem.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Right, I have that problem. I have this permitting problem. I have a site condition issue. That that sounds like these guys have solved it for me before. Then they might actually like I think I put the phone to ring in quotes because I don't know if phones actually ring anymore, but, as I quoted, quoted it, but I think that does get people engaged. You know the poor marketing people at these firms that are told and you know what they know better. I think a lot of them know better. It's just like well, the boss is telling me right you know I I thought it was fascinating.
Speaker 2:I always find this fascinating across industries the Happy New Year's images that are put on LinkedIn and you know all those things right, I stopped sending those emails out Happy holidays, happy New Year emails because you're sending them out en masse. They aren't that meaningful. Instead of doing that, I spend a few hours texting important people in my life and wishing them a happy new year Seems more authentic and real, right, but no, they're told by their boss, like you better, happy holidays everybody. You know, and, and so I think the why of you know, why are they doing this stuff? I think it's partly because, uh, it's just activity, but I think it's mostly because there's a lack of strategy. Let's just keep doing the thing that we're doing yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1:maybe maybe it may be lack of strategy. I think it is at least flawed strategy. There's something that you just said that's super important. You know it's the. I've solved this problem before, right, and so I'm looking at somebody's marketing because, you know, if you're in professional services, it doesn't matter architecture, engineering, an attorney, you know somebody like that. If I'm looking to hire a professional, I'm looking to hire a professional that has experience solving the problem that I have right now. Right, that's what that's.
Speaker 1:That's what you were you were talking about a minute ago and, if you know and I used to, when I would be out on the speaking circuit and talking about commoditization and things like that and consulting with, with firms on those kinds of topics, I would hear so many firms that would say you know, the, our value proposition is the is the quality of our design, right? So, like an aesthetic thing, quality of our design. Oh, really, I've never heard of you before, right, and you know, I guess at that point, if we're again, I'm going to stick with, I'm going to pick on the architects, because that's my people but, if, if you say the quality of our design look at this project we just completed, right in our social media or website.
Speaker 1:Or say the quality of our design look at this project we just completed, right In our social media or website, or whatever, the quality of our design. Right, that's our selling point, that's our value proposition. Then we start to get into the area of star architects. Right, how many people are actually being selected because of the quality of their design? The school board is not doing that, or very few school boards are doing that. And if they're actually going out and going, oh, who really does this? Versus knows how to design safe places for our children to learn, or whatever the things are? My argument against that is always well, it's the quality of our design. Really, I don't know you. I've heard of you. If I'm a person that actually has a budget, that actually has a mission, that's met by the aesthetic, purely by the aesthetics.
Speaker 1:The design of this project and I know some of the architects out there are going well, that's not everything that quality of design is. It considers all the program and all that. Fine, I get it right, I teach this stuff. But what you're putting forward is look at this pretty thing that we designed. Most of the people that are looking for pretty design things already know hmm, I want calatrava. Or when zaha was still alive, I want zaha. Maybe I still want zha. I want gary. You mentioned frank. They they already have this short list of artists, basically, that are also going to be able to execute on the the technical aspects of their projects. You know you need are also going to be able to execute on the technical aspects of their projects. You know you need to. You need to be presenting more thought leadership in your marketing than you do celebrating yourself. Every one of your clients is looking at your marketing or social media, whatever it is, through the lens of what's in it.
Speaker 2:For me, yeah, you know I've been involved with a few projects in my life and I quickly figured out. When hiring an architect, I asked the contractors.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Like who was responsive.
Speaker 1:The architects hated it when you said that. By the way, yeah, who.
Speaker 2:Like? What was the RFI process like? What was their response rate, how quickly? You know how clever were they when you had, you know, unforeseen site conditions. How clever were the engineers in coming up with solutions in a timely manner. And so it's almost like you know, if I was going to architect, I was going to post like how great we are. Here's some testimonials for contractors that have worked with us.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Right About how responsive we are and how their you know their CD set. You know, wish I saw cd set like this all the time. That made my life easier. You know, like, whatever it is right, uh, whatever you think your value prop is to to turn it into, to that thing, but, um, I think it's this very insular. Here's what we it's like prestige posts, right, yeah, yeah, versus, I mean a version of what you just said, right, hey, by the way, we realize we don't work in an ivory tower. We're really good, and someone brought up this point. I said look, let me tell you about AI, let me tell you about remote work. Will not benefit from AI and remote work are the ones that find value into walking into their kingdom of cube farms and seeing all the minions that work for them and defining themselves about the size of their firm and their office space and their kingdom that they have created.
Speaker 2:If they derive value from that, ai is not going to matter to those people right, that's right yeah and so I think some of this um, you know this, this stuff around the projects like who's it really for it feels like the marketing department is just trying to make leadership feel good, right, like oh yeah, great having themselves on the back yeah, so I think it's, it's foundationally with you know, when it comes to strategy. I think you and I have talked about this. You know, all of a sudden, everybody has a podcast right uh, like we've stated before, we're the number one launching, yeah right, we're the number one podcast in aec.
Speaker 2:Look it up everyone, um, and so you know we get hit up on these, like you know. Hey, how do you guys do podcasts? And I'm like you gotta have something to say, right, you know you can agree or disagree, but you know I've always got something to say, um, and I think it's. You know it's clearly part entertainment but partly, you know, being informative, but you know. So what are they going to do? Get watch these podcasts and talk about their latest project.
Speaker 1:Yeah, interview Like what is the content Right. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:I'm happy because we'll continue to be the number one podcast in ADC. Yeah, because they got nothing.
Speaker 1:They got nothing to talk about right, I was just consulting with one of those firms that you were talking about, because we do help some of some of the people that are trying to to start things, trying to launch things, uh, some of our partners, we, we consult with them, maybe we help them launch. We we have, uh, producer ethan um, who's, by the time you're hearing this, he's already worked his magic and he works his magic for some others as well. But that's what you're saying is exactly right. Right, the conversation goes oh, what equipment do we need? And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:You know I can give you some equipment specs. It's going to be a lot lower and a lot less expensive than you expect because, yes, you need to have good audio quality, but you can get that in relatively inexpensive equipment you need to have if you're doing video. You need to have good lighting quality and good video quality if you want somebody to watch it. But at the end of the day, if you sound good and you look good, you don't have a take, you don't have anything to say about anything. Nobody's going to continue listening all the way through the episode, nor will they come back for the next episode.
Speaker 1:So you know, spend, spend ten thousand dollars, if you want, on a studio, or a hundred thousand dollars on a studio, or there was a time where I was trying to build a mobile studio. None of that matters. If you don't have a take and and to your point, right, you can. You can build the the best studio and have the best equipment. And if all you do is is the verbal or the video version of what you said here in your linkedin post, you're going to be selling that stuff on on ebay or marketplace or whatever within a couple of months well, other than leadership is like, hey, we've got a podcast, like that's all they care about.
Speaker 2:we've got a podcast, yeah, yeah, for what then I mean? So I think that's also. I think you know, smps has always just been a curious beast to me Because, like, did it form to really improve how marketing is done in our industry? Or did it form because AI and everybody else would not let them in? Like, was it a I'm going gonna take my ball and go home thing? Or was it really because I think you know we have some friends at smps, but I think they're playing at a level that the industry's playing at, versus really leading the industry to say, hey, how are you thinking about this? And really, really developing people? And partly, I wonder sometimes, you know, if you took a good marketer at an architecture firm and they were really good, I don't know if they would stay at the architecture firm.
Speaker 1:I think that depends on how much agency do they have? Right To your point earlier, right, if you get a really good marketer that comes into an architecture firm, they start working there. If the leadership is ramming down their throat, hey, we're going to boost our egos.
Speaker 1:basically we're going to talk about our projects. We're going to talk about our hires, our latest acquisition, whatever, whatever from the point of view of ego rather than what does this mean? How does this benefit our clients? No, I think that person is is gone within a couple of months, but I think, if they have the agency to come in and say you know what, everybody that listens to this podcast, or everybody that sees this, the social media posts, or everybody that, um, everybody that clicks on this on our website, is going to be viewing this through the lens of what's in it for me. What does this mean for me? So we need to do these things and that's allowed right.
Speaker 1:They can talk about the problems that they solve and other things like that. They can produce thought leadership and things that matter to their client base then I think.
Speaker 1:I think they stay, but you know you've got to, you've got to break out of that mold and I think you know. To your your question about SMPS, I think it's a little bit of both. You certainly have people. You certainly have people in the smps ecosystem that are are I'm going to put this in quotes pushing the envelope, because pushing the envelope in in the aec world is is basically square in the middle of the envelope from 15 years ago in other industries.
Speaker 1:In 2014, I wrote an article that appeared on the AIA National website. It was the title was something like how to find clients using social media. This was cutting edge. This was the most Now you're just bragging, I am this was the most read article on AIA Nationals website in the year it was published, and what I wrote in that article was so far behind the rest of the world, other industries in the world that it was sort of laughable, right. I couldn't even believe they wanted me to write that article, but it was to. To our industry. It was cutting edge. But five years, which is a millennium in social media time, right, but it was five years at least behind the rest of the world, and I think that's one of the problems that we have, you know, to your point is we're driven so much by this is the way we've always done it that doesn't doesn't allow us to to push envelopes and firms and you know, with their social media or the websites or or other things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you know there's a part of my book where I talk about it's no longer about leading your company, it's about leading markets, right, it's about really leading industries, and I just think about some of the big opportunities that exist in our industry, whether it's data centers or whatever. You know, if I was in all this data center work and architecture firms are not benefiting because nobody cares. It's a big box, right, right? So the first architecture firm that says, hey, we make, we make data centers amazing, or our data centers get built faster, like whatever it is, you know, hey, elon musk built the data center in 19 weeks, we can do it in 18 like this, comes out with a bold position on how they can help the data centers and they'd win all the work. They'd win all the work.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the things that we've been talking about and if I go too far, we may have to ask producer Ethan to cut some of this out but one of the things that we've been talking about is the opportunities around. The fact that a hurricane flooded Asheville you know all kinds of things is horrific, but the opportunity for innovation is ripe. Somebody is going to go in and hopefully somebody is going to go in and say there is a better way to build homes in California, whatever that means. So when, when things like that pop up, we have opportunities to push those, push those ideas, to push through that. Unfortunately, what's going to happen on a lot of fronts is the formation of committees formation of committees.
Speaker 2:So it's so funny. It's so funny to bring this up. So, um, on twitter, a post that went viral was from a guy named chris sacca. So some people might know chris sacca. He did a stint on shark tank. He was the first general counsel at facebook, made a bunch of money at facebook. Um, he now runs a venture capital firm called Lower Carbon Capital and Lowercase Capital and he does a lot of climate investing. This is a lawyer. He's not an architect. He's not an engineer. He did a post where he did a video. It was an interview with Tim Ferriss. It's probably partly why it went viral. If you don't know who tim ferris is, then you know he probably shouldn't be in marketing.
Speaker 2:So, um, you should google you should, yeah, but he basically goes on. It's like this aggressive rant about like, hey, you know, in la, right now, if you want to get a expedited permit, you can do so if you just if you build exactly what was there, yeah, and he's like we just saw a bunch of tinder boxes burned down. So, in order to get an expedited permit, you can only build what's there. So you're just going to build what just burned down. But this makes no sense. We should be thinking about concrete and aluminum flashing. This is a lawyer, for God's sake, wasn't an architect, wasn't an engineer, and he rants for like 30 minutes on this topic and it goes viral and I look at it and go cool, chris Saka, but a little bit like who are you like? A little bit like who are you Other than Tim Ferriss? Lets you run your mouth. That was such an amazing opportunity for leadership, right? So, yes, these are all terrible things that happen, but if you're selling expert services, they need you to develop an expert voice.
Speaker 1:Experts lead.
Speaker 2:Right and so like. Even if you look at CNN and they're talking about the updates on the fire, I haven't seen an engineer, an architect or a builder anywhere on TV, none. So I don't know like I mean, I think it's just, I think you know, like many things in marketing, it's like you have to ask yourself like, why, like, why am I doing this?
Speaker 1:And why does?
Speaker 2:it matter and have a point of view, and I think partly too, the conservatism may kick in where, oh, I'm not comfortable having a point of view.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I could be part of it.
Speaker 1:It could very well be. You know, I talked last night for a few minutes with one of my former graduate students. She graduated, um, I guess, last May, so she's been out about a year and uh, I ran into her. You know how are things going, where are you working, you know those types of things, and I remember her project in my class Um, it's really interested in materials, building, materials, research, and you know she was asking me hey, do you know anybody here? Do you know anybody there? I need to find a place where I can do research and we can think of new ways to use materials and develop new materials and things like that.
Speaker 1:I said what are you doing on LinkedIn? What are you doing? Even you know, and and she took this point of view, which is kind of part of her personality and it's not that unusual for students or recent graduates like, oh, why would I talk about that on LinkedIn? Because somebody needs to, and if you really want to want to get involved, if you really want to to be noticed, you have to have a point of view and put it out there and talk about things that matter to the people that you're trying to reach, um, you know, and so in in some sense, um, she's no different than a firm. Have a point of view Podcast, social media website, whatever it is. Have a point of view that's going to matter to the people. Or maybe it stirs the pot with the people or it resonates with the people, whatever it is, have a point of view that's going to get noticed by the people that you want to work with.
Speaker 2:Now there's another thing I think about, like now post reactions. It's a vanity metric. It doesn't mean much of anything right Necessarily. It tells you a little bit, not a lot right.
Speaker 2:I find it fascinating when I see CEOs of AAC firms that manage 2,000, 5,000-person companies and I look at their LinkedIn posts and they have 48 reactions and five comments. It's like you literally have an amazing network of employees. How are they not one? Why aren't you engaging with them in a different way to be involved in the social media strategies? And then two like if your own employees aren't interested in liking and commenting on your post, I'm not sure who else is going to do it.
Speaker 2:You know it's like when Satya Nadella at Microsoft posts something on LinkedIn, he gets like a million whatever's right. But Microsoft posts something on LinkedIn, he gets like a million whatever's right. You know all his employees are probably clicking on it because they know right, they're tech forward people. They know, like they get the alerts that their boss just posted something, they're liking it and commenting on it, and then all their customers are available. So I think it's fascinating when I see these big firms post something and they get like 10 reactions. It's like you have 2000 employees and the best you got was 10 reactions. That just shows a lot of a lack of strategy.
Speaker 1:A lack of strategy and a lack of engagement. Yeah yeah, it is telling. I mean, I'm not of the opinion that that employees should be required to like or comment on the boss's post, necessarily, but if there's such a disconnect right that they don't care, we don't care enough about our firm's work that we're paying attention to it.
Speaker 2:I would say I would never mandate people to do something yeah but it is. That is I consider that career limiting behavior. It doesn't take a big effort no, it doesn't right, click, right. Yeah, take, take five minutes out of tikt TikTok to like your boss's post, so to speak.
Speaker 1:To comment on your boss's dance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whatever. So I mean I think, but it was interesting. I mean I don't know if there's any other comments on that post that are interesting, but you know it did get a lot of engagement and there wasn't a lot of people that disagree.
Speaker 1:So I'd say if you're a marketer out there and your boss makes you do this stuff, start asking them why yeah, yeah, perrin olson, you know that this is more agreement, but perrin olson said that those posts are safe for aec leaders. Most aec marketers want to do much more but are handcuffed by leadership which is, you know, agreeing directly with what you said a few minutes ago. Um, the uh, there's one. I was trying to find one, ethan, you'll probably have to make. I could cut here, but the Jacob Edmund has a good comment too. This, this is this is sort of taking it out of house at this point. Right, so we, we talk about okay, this is, this is what our firm is posting. Are the employees liking or or commenting on on our posts right in house? But Jacob Edmund's' comment is interesting and I have absolutely seen this before a lot. He says, hey, now don't forget that commenting on and resharing their clients' project posts with we are happy to be a part of this project is the thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You see that a lot, mm-hmm. Yeah, were you happy, you stayed up all night.
Speaker 2:You stayed up all night and got yelled at by the client. Are you happy? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, and some it's just so inauthentic as well.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Right, that's not having a take.
Speaker 2:That's the definition of not having a take. Right there, I think our lesson on this episode is before you go ramp up a podcast, talk to Jeff. Like really you know I think cause people forget like doing all this stuff it's, it's an investment, it's an investment of time.
Speaker 2:I mean it's not so much you know who cares about the equipment that's minuscule, right, it's, it's cause. So much you know who cares about the equipment that's minuscule, right, it's um, because I'll tell you, having been, having us done this, and I would say we're, you know, we're fairly successful, since we're number one that, um, that it's all about repetition and consistency and and you really have to like, stick with it, and that means it's a one-year cycle right, it's not a uh, it's.
Speaker 2:It's not like oh, we're gonna do three episodes and see what happens. It's really more about um. You know we're gonna do this every week for a year, which is how you should think about it, and if you're unwilling, if you don't think you have enough content to talk about something every week for a year as your pilot, then you probably shouldn't do it.
Speaker 1:If you don't think you have enough content to record something every week for a year you're not trying very hard?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not engaged.
Speaker 1:You're asleep at the wheel, yeah, well, I mean, if we use your LinkedIn posts as an example, right, and I think we've talked about this here on the podcast. I know we've talked about this here on the podcast. I know we've talked about this, you know, in other contexts, but you, you are most prolific in your posting when you're traveling and when you're talking to people, right, because that's, hey, this is a conversation I had. I ran into, you know you may not share the name, but I ran into so-and-so and we talked about this, and you know, here's the takeaway. May not share the name, but I ran into so and so and we talked about this.
Speaker 1:And you know, here's a takeaway if, if you're not engaged in the world enough that you can come up with 52 topics and and you know, I don't, I don't, I don't love the idea of saying here are the 52 topics we're going to talk about this year I don't, like, like that. I would prefer to be organic. We can come up with buckets and lots of different strategies, but if you can't come up with 52 topics over the course of the year, you are not engaging with your world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also, by the way, if your social media engine is not interesting when you go to do your podcast, nobody's nobody cares about the posts you're posting right now. Nobody's compared care about your podcast yeah, I mean that.
Speaker 1:That's. That's a good point too. You know, all the marketers out there can start hating on me, but I don't. You're not going to get any organic reach. You've got to drive it. Um, and if to your point, if you're posting on social media about whatever, and now you've produced a podcast episode, you're putting it out there, that's not magically going to drive a lot of listeners. Spotify, apple, whoever's audible they're not going to dry organically drive a bunch of listeners to your new podcast. It's not happening. You got to have a take. You got to have something that's worth listening to or reading, and it's not your opinion doesn't matter, right? If, if your client or your listener or your reader, whoever it is, is not interested, then your stuff is not interesting, all right. So you posted this on LinkedIn. It's interesting enough for us to talk about for half an hour.
Speaker 2:It was interesting enough for people to comment on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, quite a few comments on this one. A lot of engagement, which is fantastic. So it's you know it's kicked up a good conversation. The post reads like this why are AEC firms social media posts a steady stream of project wins and completions at staff hires and work anniversaries. Is this what your clients are looking for to make your phone ring? Is this what your clients are looking for to make your phone ring? Is this for project lead generation, employee recruitment or both? That's a strategy question that we can get into another time, but there's a problem. There's a problem in a lot of this marketing that's out there, in whatever form that it takes. If you are interested in topics like this, of course KP and I sit down and talk about these things every week in these KP Unpacked episodes. We also have mastermind groups that we facilitate around all aspects of the operations and investment and innovation in AEC firms, and we have a in-person mastermind event coming up February 25th we do Phoenix Arizona.
Speaker 2:No, it's going to be a good one. I think, you know we're seeing these events really be um, engaging and interesting and yeah, I just think it's um, I don't know, I don't think I'm gonna. You know, you go to these conferences and sit in front of a speaker and half the time they're schlepping something. You know every, every speaker at autodesk university is getting you, you know, like whatever, you know who cares. So I think, just being able to engage I think you brought this up to me one time when you go to AIA and stuff like that, it's not the sessions, it's the conversations in the hallway that matter, so I think you're just one big hallway that we hang out in for a day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you, you actually we were talking about this in a team meeting today as, as we recorded this, um, you called it the anti-conference, right, that's sort of what it is, right, it's not. It's not education or CEUs, it is getting together and talking about the things that matter. Right, if, if you're an director of innovation, for instance, you're getting together with other people that have the same or similar titles and well, hey, how, what's your experience with this? How, how have you done this? What are you facing?
Speaker 1:Right, it's those, it's those corridor or at the bar kind of conversations, specifically about your work, about your firm, about the industry, that are happening for a full day and, um, they, they're very valuable and they, you know, you, you've joked about this being the illuminati of of aec and you know, I was thinking about that. After the first time I heard you say that, I thought, well, yeah, I mean the people that are currently members of our mastermind groups, their innovation leaders or construction technology leaders. They are actually pushing the direction of innovation in the industry. These are the decision makers. They have the budgets, they make the decisions, they're building teams, they're creating the directions, the strategies that firms around the world are following. So good place to get involved with that and, depending on where you are in the United States, phoenix in February may sound really good to you right now.
Speaker 2:It sounds really good to me. Right now I'm in Atlanta, if you're in. Panama City and you're shoveling your driveway from the snow. Phoenix might be a good idea.
Speaker 1:They're not shoveling their driveway. They don't have that kind of shovel. They don't have that kind of shovel. Speaking from the Midwest, where it was five degrees.
Speaker 2:when I got up this morning, you chose that life.
Speaker 1:Every day I have not driven away yet.
Speaker 1:I did All right, kp, thanks for joining me today to unpack this Again. If you're in an AEC firm and this resonates with you, why are AEC firms' social media posts so bad? There's more to the post, but you can find it. We've talked about it now for quite a while. You better be following KP on LinkedIn KP ready R-E-D-D-Y, listening to the podcast and a new feature that we have.
Speaker 1:We have we're not really calling them this, but we have podcast companions. We have an article publication that comes out for each one of these episodes. So go to kpreadyco and you can find. You can find those. You can subscribe there to get these delivered right to your the companions delivered right to your inbox. Basically, more thought leadership, more thoughts around what KP and I come here to talk about every week. Producer Ethan puts those together. They're actually a really good read. I think he does a great job of capturing what you and I talk about. That's an exciting new feature around here. So, ethan, thanks for those and for all of you out there. Thanks for listening. We'll be back again next week with another episode of KP Unpacked. I'll be joined, as always, by KP Ready. Thanks, kp, thanks.
Speaker 2:Jeff.
Speaker 1:See you next week.