Building Relationships & Momentum for the Future

Learn How to Make Business Development Work for You!

February 13, 2019

Strong and effective relationships are essential to personal and business success, but how can you transform meetings and introductions into long lasting business relationships? Find out how on February 22^nd from 3:30 PM- 5:30 PM at The Mattabesett Canoe Club, 80 Harbor Drive, Middletown, CT, 06457. Register to learn how to make those relationships work for you and your company’s business development.

Our guest speaker will be Julie Brown, founder of business development company JB|BD. Julie helps firms increase their market visibility and lead generation through strategic thinking and thoughtful relationship building. She is a passionate relationship builder, having spent the past 18 years building a powerhouse network, which has rewarded her with friendships and connections leading to measurable business growth for her clients. Julie believes in the power of connecting people, and is now on a mission to help professionals build their businesses by overcoming their fear of networking.

The Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) was created in 1973 by a small group of professional services firm leaders who recognized the need to sharpen skills, pool resources, and work together to create business opportunities. Today, SMPS, nationally, represents a dynamic network of 7,000+ marketing and business development professionals from architectural, engineering, planning, interior design, construction, and specialty consulting firms located throughout the United States and Canada. The Society and its 60 chapters benefit from the support of 3,250 design and building firms, encompassing 80% of the Engineering News-Record Top 500 Design Firms and Top 400 Contractors.

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For further information, please contact:

Marta Dabrowski, CPSM

SMPS Communications Chair

marta.dabrowski@wsp.com

(860) 815-9424

Teaching Presentation Skills The Graceworks Way

Join SMPS for Our First Program of 2019!

January 17, 2019

Are you ready to take your coaching skills to the next level? Let us teach you how to coach The Graceworks Way®. This interactive program will equip you with advanced skills to educate, motivate, and bring out the best in your presentation teams. Attendees will learn how to coach individuals and teams on their delivery, strategize and develop optimum content and lead a proven presentation preparation process, including how to help your team practice and prepare for Q&A sessions. Join us on January 23^rd from 11:30 AM- 2:00 PM at The New Haven Lawn Club, 193 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511. Register to learn how to take your team’s presentation skills to the next level.

Our guest speaker, President and CEO of Graceworks Carol Doscher, has trained thousands of professionals globally to make that vital human connection in sales presentations, client meetings and lectures. Featured in The New York Times and on “Bloomberg Television,” Carol also has published numerous articles on presentation and communication skills.

The Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) was created in 1973 by a small group of professional services firm leaders who recognized the need to sharpen skills, pool resources, and work together to create business opportunities. Today, SMPS, nationally, represents a dynamic network of 7,000+ marketing and business development professionals from architectural, engineering, planning, interior design, construction, and specialty consulting firms located throughout the United States and Canada. The Society and its 60 chapters benefit from the support of 3,250 design and building firms, encompassing 80% of the Engineering News-Record Top 500 Design Firms and Top 400 Contractors.

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For further information, please contact:

Marta Dabrowski, CPSM

SMPS Communications Chair

marta.dabrowski@wsp.com

(860) 815-9424

SMPS CT PRincipals Program: Beyond The Plan

Challenges and Solutions to Strategic Planning, Implementation, and Budget

November 19, 2018

So, you have a strategic plan, but now what? How does a firm take its plan from creation into successful implementation and execution? Join SMPS CT for our annual Principals Program—Beyond the Plan: Challenges and Solutions to Strategic Planning, Implementation and Budget—to discover best practices for avoiding common mistakes, engaging stakeholders, and measuring and monitoring your strategic plan’s progress. Gain a better understanding of the process, learn creative ways to overcome challenges, and engage leadership during this interactive session on November 28, 2018 from 8:00 AM- 10:00 AM at OFI, 28 Garfield Street in Newington, CT. For more information and registration, check out our website.

Our guest speaker, Kayla McCause, CPSM, a well-respected leader in the AEC Industry, has held a variety of leadership positions, specializing in developing and executing creative marketing and targeted business development strategies, implementation, and coaching. In her current role as a Business Development and Marketing Strategist at Dragonfly AEC Consulting, Kayla works with design and construction firms through a wide range of services, including market research, situational analysis, branding/messaging, and target pursuit strategies and implementation.

The Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) was created in 1973 by a small group of professional services firm leaders who recognized the need to sharpen skills, pool resources, and work together to create business opportunities. Today, SMPS, nationally, represents a dynamic network of 7,000+ marketing and business development professionals from architectural, engineering, planning, interior design, construction, and specialty consulting firms located throughout the United States and Canada. The Society and its 60 chapters benefit from the support of 3,250 design and building firms, encompassing 80% of the Engineering News-Record Top 500 Design Firms and Top 400 Contractors.

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For further information, please contact:

Marta Dabrowski, CPSM

SMPS Communications Chair

marta.dabrowski@wsp.com

(860) 815-9424

Confessions of a Content Whisperer

Extracting Data from Technical Experts and Google Analytics

October 23, 2018

Marketers juggle multiple tasks—proposals, presentations, trade shows, and content marketing. But pulling teeth? Yes, that too! Especially when it comes to extracting information from technical experts. Join SMPS CT to equip yourself with practical tools on how to obtain technical content, what to do with it, and how to measure its effectiveness using Google Analytics (GA). The event is being held on Friday, October 31, 2018 from 11:30 am – 2:00 pm at the Baci Grill, 134 Berlin Road, Cromwell, CT.  Registration is open until Friday, October 26th.

Danielle Gray will present the session. She is the owner of DG Marketing Company, a professional services marketing firm committed to contributing and creating genuine, humanized marketing that listens and solves instead of tells and sells. Learning objectives include: identifying subject matter expert (SME) personas and their motivations; what your team needs to know before contributing content; outlining five methods to extract content from your technical team; and identifying and locating the basic website and social media metrics that inform strategy in GA. We will also discuss methods for presenting complex analytics data to leadership and create a sample monthly GA report for internal use.

Known for her reliability and humor, Danielle is a Content Marketing Strategist with over seven years of industry experience composing proposals, writing content, running email campaigns, and generating leads online. She helped her former design-build firm grow website visits by 88% and contributed over $150 million in revenue from leads generated from the website in just three years. She also speaks around the country about content generation, the importance of digital marketing and social media specifically relating to the AEC industry.

The Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) was created in 1973 by a small group of professional services firm leaders who recognized the need to sharpen skills, pool resources, and work together to create business opportunities. Today, SMPS, nationally, represents a dynamic network of 7,000+ marketing and business development professionals from architectural, engineering, planning, interior design, construction, and specialty consulting firms located throughout the United States and Canada. The Society and its 60 chapters benefit from the support of 3,250 design and building firms, encompassing 80% of the Engineering News-Record Top 500 Design Firms and Top 400 Contractors.

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For further information, please contact:

Marta Dabrowski, CPSM

SMPS Communications Chair

marta.dabrowski@wsp.com

(860) 815-9424

Emotional Intelligence in Action

Turn Challenging Situations into Great Opportunities!

September 17, 2018

Does the thought of working a room leave you feeling apprehensive? Do you find yourself scanning the crowd in search of a way out rather than a way to connect? If you answered yes to the above, then join SMPS-CT for an experiential learning session devoted to harnessing emotional intelligence on September 26, 2018 from 3:00 to 6:00 PM at The Town & Country Club on 22 Woodland Street in Hartford, Connecticut. Registration is open until Friday, September 21^st.

Guest speakers, Ellen Feldman Ornato and Jenny Drescher, Founding Partners of The Bolder Company, will draw from their 30+ years of facilitation and coaching experience to guide participants through a series of practical exercises. Understand the dynamics of emotional intelligence in action, by learning how to read a room. Build self-awareness, utilizing aspects of your own emotional intelligence to develop business, inspire, and lead. Turn challenging business situations into great opportunities by employing the same results-oriented method for handling the emotional side of business relations as The Bolder Group’s clients—including EW/USESI, St. Francis Hospital, AARP, The Construction Institute, SMPS, and Middlesex Hospital—have.

The Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) was created in 1973 by a small group of professional services firm leaders who recognized the need to sharpen skills, pool resources, and work together to create business opportunities. Today, SMPS, nationally, represents a dynamic network of 7,000+ marketing and business development professionals from architectural, engineering, planning, interior design, construction, and specialty consulting firms located throughout the United States and Canada. The Society and its 60 chapters benefit from the support of 3,250 design and building firms, encompassing 80% of the Engineering News-Record Top 500 Design Firms and Top 400 Contractors.

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For further information, please contact:

Marta Dabrowski, CPSM

SMPS Communications Chair

marta.dabrowski@wsp.com

(860) 815-9424