If you don’t vote for me, you can check out the blogs and links listed there (including friends of Musings @matthandal and @melissabrumback among others).  Each of those listed provides a great insight into different aspects of construction, from law to marketing.  Even if you don’t vote (and I hope that you will), read some of these blogs, you will certainly learn something.

Thanks again to Mark and to all of my readers and contributors that make this blog fun to publish.

As always, I welcome your comments below.  Please subscribe to keep up with this and other Construction Law Musings.

PS- Guest Posts will start up again next Friday with what will be a great one!

© Construction Law Musings- Richmond, VA is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 U.S. license.

While much has been (rightly) made of the marketing and business opportunities of social media and Web 2.0, as a construction attorney, I still cannot beat face to face interaction for fun and client development.  My view is that contractors (and legal clients in general) are more likely to trust and therefore hire those that they know personally.  Friendships can and do grow into attorney client relationships.

This is particularly true with the construction industry in Virginia (and presumably elsewhere).  Contractors and subcontractors are more likely to work with those they know, whether through an association like the AGC, or a breakfast meeting.  The recent convention refreshed many of these in person bonds and acted as another reminder of why I am so active in the organization.  In short, while a web presence is necessary, I would not give up the personal aspects of marketing.  Not only are a smile and a handshake a great combination for business development, they can, and do, lead to friendships that go beyond the potential business.

Thanks to all of you that said “hi” at The Homestead.  I appreciate the old friendships strengthened and the new ones made.  I also got to put faces to many folks that I’d talked to on the phone or interacted with online.  I really do enjoy meeting people in the Virginia construction industry and hope that we’ll catch up again soon.

As always, I welcome your comments below.  Please subscribe to keep up with this and other Construction Law Musings.

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This week, Musings welcomes back Mark Buckshon of the Construction Marketing Ideas blog to Guest Post Friday. Mark publishes several regional construction industry newspapers and websites. He can be reached at 888-432-3555 ext 224 or by email at buckshon@cnrgp.com.

Recently, in co-ordination with my business’s primary business consultant Bill Caswell, we coordinated a Webinar, Taking Your Construction Business to the Next Level. The participants enjoyed the event and discovered value in Bill’s insights, but I know I must give myself a large “F” for preparation and testing.  I simply did not allow enough rehearsal time to fully understand the Webinar software, so when our guests were waiting for the program to begin, I fumbled over technical details and we couldn’t use all of the online Webinar software’s functionality.

After the event, Caswell said he didn’t enjoy the lack of face-to-face interaction with participants.  They could communicate by text messaging but, even though DimDim’s advanced software allows a second camera and the ability to switch microphones, the rules of the game are different when people are located in many different locations (and in my rush to overcome the technical problems from lack of preparation, we couldn’t access these useful functions.)

DimDim’s software is free for Web presentations with 20 or fewer participants, and its fees for larger events and greater functionality are truly reasonable.  You can access the service at http://www.dimdim.com.

I made another mistake in the event’s advance marketing.  I tried out various types of event promotion software and went past the stage of reasonableness to overkill in repeated promotional messages.  One reader  sent me his forthright opinion.  “I’m really getting tired of your repeated Caswell promotions,” he wrote.  Following up to my apology, I communicated:  “BTW, I truly appreciate this because it raises a question:  When is there “too much” marketing?”

His response:

In response to your question, as Seth Godin says, “It’s all about me….me, me, me.” Readers are only interested in themselves (myself included). I believe there is a frequency “line” you can cross by marketing too much. Below the line represents value to the consumer (because you are making me aware of the product) and above the line represents meaningless (you’re wasting my time) promotion. Each of us draw the line in a different place, but we do draw a line.

So, it seems I over-marketed the event, while under-preparing the technical aspects, leaving the presenter in a frustrating situation where he had to proceed in a framework of discomfort.  Will Bill Caswell ever want to do this sort of thing again?  Will I want to go forward with other Webinar-type programs in the future?

The answer, in part, is that if we don’t try new things and learn from them, we cannot grow. But you can never prepare too much and if you are using various marketing methods, you should never forget that even if they are readily available and easy to use, you should always respect the frequency and volume of messages you deliver.

Lessons learned . . .

P.S.  After this posting, several readers – including Chris Hill – commented favorably, and the person who sent me the original complaint sent me a courteous email thanking me for accepting responsibility for my mistakes; showing the power of authenticity and humility in marketing. But I hope I don’t make these mistakes again.

Bill Caswell’s website is http://www.caswellccc.com.  It includes a useful free (and extremely quick) resource of answers to some of the most common and challenging business questions.

As always, please join the conversation with a comment below and contact Mark for more.  If you enjoy what you’re reading, please subscribe to keep up with the latest Construction Law Musings and check out the other Guest Post Fridays here at Musings.

© Construction Law Musings- Richmond, VA is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 U.S. license.

I wish all of my friends, family, readers of, and contributors to Musings a safe, healthy and productive 2012.

Image via Stock.xchng.

As always, I welcome your comments below.  Please subscribe to keep up with this and other Construction Law Musings.

© Construction Law Musings- Richmond, VA is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 U.S. license.

I would like to say a big thank you to Rich Cartlidge and his Green Building Envirotrends Blog for allowing me to guest post. Connections with great folks like Rich are what keep me going here at Musings. Please check him out on Twitter and explore his blog.

© Construction Law Musings- Richmond, VA is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 U.S. license.

© Construction Law Musings- Richmond, VA is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 U.S. license.

I hope that you all have a safe, warm and family-filled holiday.  Thank you for your continued support and readership through out 2011 and I look forward to spending a great 2012 with all of you, the readers of Musings.

As always, I welcome your comments below.  Please subscribe to keep up with this and other Construction Law Musings.

© Construction Law Musings- Richmond, VA is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 U.S. license.

In the meantime, I encourage you to peruse the various pages of Musings and catch up on all of the great Guest Post Friday posts from the past.

Happy holidays to you all.

As always, I welcome your comments below.  Please subscribe to keep up with this and other Construction Law Musings.

© Construction Law Musings- Richmond, VA is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 U.S. license.

Back then, I started this construction law blog on the Blogger platform and had no idea how it would grow or even if it would survive a month.  I remember checking Feedburner and being excited to find out that I had even 50 consistent subscribers.  Now, three years later, I have more of you that subscribe by e-mail than I had total subscribers in the first year.  Since that time, Musings has taken on a life of its own, mostly due to all of the great comments, guest posts and readers.  Without your input, this blog would be a much less interesting place.

A lot has happened both personally and in my area of legal practice during the 3 years of Musings.  I have moved from a medium sized firm to my solo practice.  The construction landscape has changed due to the economy.  I have expanded my construction client base and my circle of friends and colleagues, both personal and business related.  I have become a member of the Virginia State Bar Construction Law and Public Contracts Committee (where I am occasionally known as the “blog guy”).  I am also humbled to have been named to Super Lawyer’s Rising Stars and to the Virginia Business Legal Elite in Construction Law, both for 2011.

So, without further ado, thank you to all of you who read Musings.  Thank you to all of my friends and colleagues who support this blog and my construction law practice (you know who you are and it would take weeks to list you all).  And, saving the best for last, thank you to my great family for all that you do to support me in my solo career and my life in general.  You all have made the last three years of Construction Law Musings fun, rewarding and special.

Here’s to the next three years!

Image via Stock.xchng.

As always, I welcome your comments below.  Please subscribe to keep up with this and other Construction Law Musings.

© Construction Law Musings- Richmond, VA is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 U.S. license.

Among those also named to the Legal Elite in Construction are good friends and fellow construction attorneys John Owen, Tim Hughes (@timrhughes), Brett Marston and Greg St. Ours (these last two are fellow members of the VSB Construction and Public Contracts Section Board).  Congratulations to all of you who have been named top construction attorneys in Virginia and to those named in the other categories as tops in their fields of practice.  The list includes some great attorneys so I encourage you to look it over.

So, without further ado, thank you from me, Construction Law Musings, and The Law Office of Christopher G. Hill, PC to all of you who tossed my name into the ring and congratulations to all of my friends and colleagues who are named to the Virginia Business Legal Elite for 2011.

As always, I welcome your comments below.  Please subscribe to keep up with this and other Construction Law Musings.

© Construction Law Musings- Richmond, VA is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 U.S. license.