Paul Scott has joined us to offer advice on marketing for the next few issues while Alan Gayle has a break from this column. Paul has worked in sales & marketing in construction for 20 years and now runs his own business called Front Elevation. He begins by explaining why we can’t Do It All.

My garden shed is of no significant architectural interest and certainly to my knowledge contains no traces of natural stone whatsoever.

I was rummaging through it last weekend and, after a lot of blaspheming, various abrasions and the treading on the garden rake act, I came across the tin of white gloss I was looking for.

This Eureka moment was followed by the discovery of another half full tin of the same paint, which partly concealed a further quarter full tin.

Now, clearing my shed has been an extremely high priority for more years than I care to remember. But, rather like your ‘marketing’, it’s all too easy to put off to another day.

I come from what we might call the sales & marketing ‘coalface’, having usually carried this out as part of my routine plate-spinning act that accompanies hitting my own and my sales teams’ budget targets.

The fact that so few companies were doing any marketing whatsoever led me to start my own business.

So what I would like to cover this month is an exercise that all companies can try, from the independent contractor to larger organisations: The Case Study – the marketing equivalent of tidying the paint shelf rather than re-organising the whole shed.

Whoever you are and whatever you do, no tender or quotation should go out without the humble case study, in hard copy or as a PDF attachment. After all, the best advertisement for what you do is what you do.

Here’s what’s involved.

I recently visited a high profile natural stone project for one of our accounts. I wanted to interview the client and take a few photos. While the mobile phone or tablet will sometimes suffice to take pictures, a better quality can usually be achieved with a camera.

Let’s for a moment rule out your picture making the cover of Rolling Stone. Most cameras with a half decent lens and the ability to produce an original image of

1-2MB will be fine for your case study. Try to get as much daylight on to the subject as possible and don’t get too arty in Photoshop.

Another little tip: Do not use a picture taken just when Fred has removed his hard hat to scratch his head or his hi-vis to unscrew his thermos flask. Think of health & safety – these pictures are going into the public domain and say a lot about you. Also think about the background. Have a little tidy-up before you take the picture to eliminate as much clutter as possible.

The project I visited involved a client who was ‘absolutely delighted’ with the finished building. While we might come across the occasional project where security (or ego) is an issue, the majority of clients are delighted to see how proud you are of your work or products and are happy for the project to be photographed. If the client is sensitive, it is not essential to put addresses or even locations on case studies.

Now, if your client, main contractor, architect, accredited installer (whoever) is really happy, this is the time to ask for your ‘quote’. A few words from a happy client will adorn your case study and hopefully find its way on to your website next time you update it (a subject for another day, perhaps).

So you have a few photos and, if you can get one, a quote from a happy client. Now write your own technical contribution about your work, add the name of the architect and client, the value of the project and the sector it was in (private commercial, public, domestic). Job Done!

Now the really clever bit. If you supply the stone or finished masonry for others to fix, how about offering your case study to them? If all of their quotes and tenders go out accompanied by case studies mentioning your products or services, how is that for some free marketing.

But back to my shed. I have to come clean (with the aid of generous lashings of white spirit), I didn't actually clear it out myself in the end. I got the job sorted by getting a ‘specialist’ in. Gregor, a guy with a white van. In 30 minutes he had divided the whole shed’s contents into two piles, one to keep and a bigger one to throw away. He even tipped the contents of the three identical tins of white gloss paint into one. On the side of each tin were the words Do It All. It seemed a poignant message, because despite our best intentions, sometimes we can’t. Anyway, didn't Do It All disappear some years back?

Paul Scott has worked in sales & marketing management within all sectors of the construction supply chain for 20+ years. His experience covers merchants, distributors, manufacturers and specialist contractors. A Fellow of The Institute of Sales & Marketing Management, he set up Front Elevation in 2011 to offer a fully integrated business development service to all sectors of the construction supply chain. Front Elevation was specifically established to help companies of all sizes to raise their profile offering ‘Marketing for companies that don’t do marketing’. Its client portfolio includes specialist stone contractors and quarries.