ARCxl was designed by architects for architects and their staff but also attracts others in the construction industry. It includes a growing set of freely available tools that allow more productivity and profitability. While ARCxl has always included a product manufacturer directory, we know that direct access to building product consultants and representatives introduces improved service and efficiency. This provides representatives a unique opportunity to build relationships with architects rather than relying only on impersonal corporate websites that often frustrate us.

As you probably know, we as architects generally don’t like cold-calls, so this is not an opportunity to make online cold-calls. It is instead an opportunity to build your personal brand and receive voluntary inbound connections with design professionals in your region — and exactly when we are most likely to be making our product decisions.

ARCxl efficiently targets your market by location and products based on the information you include in your profile and the interests of designers. With your included photo, design professionals are more likely to recognize you at trade shows and other events or when you walk into our office. This is a genuine opportunity to build your personal brand within your region.

With ARCxl, architects in your sales region arrive on our site with many varied search engine results for many different reasons, not just a search for the product line you represent. Once on our home page your contact information becomes available regardless of their original search and without the need to go through an impersonal corporate site. But when they are specifically interested in your products, MasterFormat numbers are used to filter out the products they aren’t interested in. Architects get to product information from your personal digital business card. Not the other way around.

As architects we understand better than anyone the search terms we use. Our constantly increasing traffic comes largely from search engines such as Google. An architect searching for a metal parapet coping detail will find our website at or near the top of an organic search page. In other words, they will find you through us. Our broad search engine results are far superior to the narrow search terms of a single product type.

ARCxl could be described loosely as a social networking site, but one that allows building product representatives to reach outside your professional silo, and invite connections with architects and others making product selection decisions.

I have remained a practicing architect and this is a real world example of frustration I ran into very recently. I was writing a paint specification that called for epoxy over block filler. I wanted assistance selecting the best filler for the application. After a number of Google attempts using variations on epoxy I finally Googled a well known paint manufacturer and clicked contact info. Instead of contact information, up came a registration form I’m expected to fill out before I can send an email message that might result in assistance sometime in the unknown future. But I’m writing the spec right now and want my questions answered right now. What I don’t want is more junk mail and email this form will generate. I scour the page looking for a phone number without success and point out to an ARCxl developer that this is exactly why product reps need our services. It is only after scouring the page several times in disbelief that there is no phone number that I finally locate an 800 number in tiny print. I reach a technical advisor. He answers my questions and agrees to forward specifications — but they didn’t arrive. Probably because he’s not on commission. So they didn’t get a proprietary spec — something that could cost them tens of thousands of dollars and the local rep a commission.

While click-count is a relatively new phenomenon, brand recognition is measured in centuries. The manufacturers you represent have been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to build their brand recognition. What have you done to build yours? Your livelihood depends on the ability to build relationships with decision makers and staff. You need to be accessible, familiar and recognized in your region. ARCxl offers you a very unique opportunity to build your personal brand in addition to the products you represent. Real-time direct inbound contact is how we as architects want to rely on you. A cold call is how we don’t. Recently a successful regional sales manager used adjectives that included: “phenomenal, fantastic and a no-brainer,” to describe the ARCxl concept. We couldn’t have said it better.