Masonry Magazine August 1998 Page. 7
FROM THE PRESIDENT
I don't think that anyone will doubt that given the opportunity, construction customers prefer to use masonry. Regardless if they're residential buyers or commercial buyers, masonry is their material of choice. In fact, many of masonry's competitors such as tilt-up struggle to make their products look like masonry.
Our industry spends millions of dollars promoting the use of masonry. Beautiful four-color advertisements are found in construction customer magazines depicting the grandeur of our products. We attend trade shows, conduct architect informational programs, run design award programs and develop masonry design manuals and brochures.
So why is it that since our customers want to use masonry and that we spend millions promoting our products are we losing market share?
We are losing the battle to tilt-up, because as an industry, we have failed to unify our efforts against our competitors. Masonry has many intrinsic advantages over other construction methods. The design features alone are enough to sell our products. Unfortunately we have let ourselves be reduced to selling on a square foot basis. Why? Mercedes and Cadillac's don't position themselves against a Ford Escort. Obviously, a car is a car. They both get you there... but Cadillac has been successful in convincing you that "It's a Cadillac." As an industry, we will never be successful in convincing our customers to use masonry regardless of the cost unless we can all sell and promote together. Brick, block, union and open shop all promoting the same message. The hardest part is to convince everyone to put their special interests aside and promote masonry versus competitors such as tilt-up.
As mason contractors, we have been at fault, more than most, in losing our advantage to competitive construction methods. One common link to our industry's customers is the mason contractor. We have the ability to promote our industry directly to the customer more than any other segment of our industry. However, we don't! Mason contractors typically sit on the sidelines and often wait until a project is designed with masonry. Then we all bid on the project in a feeding frenzy to out bid one another.
Unfortunately today, many sub-quality mason contractors are awarded jobs because of the unrealistic bids that they submit. A recent case at Fort Bragg, North Carolina points out the difficulty we face. A project was designed with masonry. A general contractor using bids from a mason contractor incapable of building the project won the award. Unfortunately having been awarded the job, the general could not find a reputable mason to do the work at the ridiculous price. So the general decided to do the project himself and hired masons off the street. The project was done incorrectly and the Corp of Army Engineers is now discussing replacing masonry on future projects. They did not look at the other projects being successfully built at Fort Bragg with reputable mason contractors.
As mason contractors, we must get in the promotion game. That means we must do the highest quality work with no exceptions. We must walk away from doing a "down and dirty project." We need to promote the advantages of masonry to our customers, even if we don't get a project for all of our promotional efforts. We must stop looking at the mason contractor that competes with us as the enemy. I am a union contractor because it's in my company's best interest. My enemy is not the non-union contractor down the street. No matter how much a union business agent tells me, my real enemy is the tilt-up or precast contractor. My partner is the mason contractor who does quality work for a fair price.
I challenge every mason contractor and mason contractor chapter to become active in promoting masonry. As mason contractors, we need to pull our share of the promotion burden. I will seek to challenge the MCAA to take a greater leadership role in masonry promotion. We will redirect association resources to develop programs that sell quality masonry and craftsmanship. We will challenge our chapters to join with us in training contractors in how to sell quality masonry.
If mason contractors don't get into the promotion game, we will continue to spend millions in promotion while losing market share to other industries that are unified.
Mason Contractors Must Get Into the Promotion Game
Donald Larsen
President, Mason Contractors
Association of America