Because of the current economic climate our publication has started a series of discussions with professional individuals meant to engage our readers with relevant companies and their representatives in order to discuss about their involvement, what challenges they have had in the past and what they are looking forward to in the future. This sequence aims to present a series of experiences, recent developments, changes and downsides in terms of their business areas, as well as their goals, values, career history, the high-impact success outcomes and achievements.
Scott Anderson is the founder and CEO of BPM Growth, a company that represents a new kind of digital strategy service that greatly accelerates a Building Product Manufacturer’s project spec rate. The radical idea is to satisfy the needs of digitally savvy architects and designers — the key decision makers driving growth. A properly constructed “digital sales funnel” will unleash this hidden sales force and close more business faster than ever before It’s the most powerful yet underutilized strategy in the industry.
More details about the industry, the company and Scott’s experience as an entrepreneur can be found below:
What’s the story behind BPM Growth?
The holy grail for an entrepreneur is to find a wholly underserved market and provide it with affordable solutions to their greatest pain points.
I think I found one of those.
Building Product Manufacturers (BPMs) are the folks who produce the tens of thousands of “jigsaw pieces” that become a building as designed by an architect. BPMs are highly specialized and range in size from mom-and-pops to multi-billion-dollar enterprises.
I’ve been deeply involved in digital marketing since the Clinton Administration.
I ran ecommerce for Vitamin Shoppe for over 6 years and have had my own agency for a very long time. A few years ago a good friend asked that I help out his brother’s business. They make very high-end concrete sinks, tables and bartops — the kind you see in W Hotels, PF Changs, trendy microbreweries and places like that.
While studying how the construction industry really works I uncovered a cavernous gulf between what digitally savvy architects need to get their jobs done versus how the manufacturers go about selling their goods. Architects make most product decisions and can specify specific brands if their design calls for it. Manufacturers do an insanely poor job of generating architect awareness and demand.
BPM Growth exists to bridge that gap. I design and build custom “digital sales funnels” that empower architects to easily discover a manufacturer’s products and then design them into their digital project specification documents. It’s a new customer-driven sales pipeline that works concurrently with the old fashioned salesperson-driven pipeline.
What was the most difficult part of your experience in the early beginnings?
Finding manufacturers who are ready to embrace the solution I offer. There are two major factors that contribute to this problem.
Educating the market is by far the biggest challenge. Most of these manufacturers still adhere to the salesperson-driven growth model from the 20th century. Many are multi-generational family run businesses, so it’s very hard for them to see beyond “how Dad built this business.” The concept of establishing a customer-driven digital sales funnel — think ecommerce 101 — is an alien notion. So there is a heavy educational component at play.
The second core challenge is the intrinsic timeline of the construction industry. Projects take years to go from vision to finished structure. So a key product decision made by an architect in, say, Month 6 may not show up as an order till Month 18 or 24. Many manufacturers basically wait for orders to come in from purchasing agents with zero upstream visibility into projects in the design phase. So they are not appealing to the actual growth driver — the architect or building owner who makes the product selection.
What are you most proud of regarding your business?
That it actually works. Meaning that even limited dollars spent on carefully selected “digital funnel” initiatives really do add incremental business deals to a company’s pipeline. The ROI on these investments can easily be 10x if they’re done correctly.
What is your vision for the future of BPM Growth?
Long term I want to build a subscription-based business intelligence capability that is focused exclusively on the needs of the building materials manufacturers. It would be the next logical step in their digital evolution. I envision a Siri-like “business analyst” as a conversational mobile app that any manufacturing executive could use to understand exactly what results their growth efforts are producing and how that is likely to manifest as orders and revenue.
What’s your advice for the businesses that are trying to adapt to this economic climate?
Don’t give up and, most critically, don’t clam up. The biggest market share winners in any industry have always been the companies that sensibly invest in growth during recessions or times of general headwinds. The opposite is also true.
The key is understanding what “sensibly” means. For building product manufacturers it means embracing the inexpensive but highly leverageable digital opportunities that are just sitting there.
What books do you have on your nightstand?
I’m currently reading Michael J Fox’s newest memoir “No Time Like the Future”. That guy has been through more than most, so I find his perspectives to be valuable.
