Kevin Price, Host of the Price of Business on Business Talk 1110 AM KTEK (on Bloomberg’s home in Houston) recently interviewed…
Chad Harvey, Executive Director, Mid Atlantic BX. In August 2011, Harvey joined Mid Atlantic BX, after having previously served as the Executive Director of the Modular Building Systems Association (MBSA), he has served as an association executive for more than a decade.
Tell me about your firm (number of employees, location, type of companies you work with, etc.).
Celebrating its 75th anniversary, Mid Atlantic BX is a trade association dedicated to connecting the construction industry in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey. With its products and service offerings, MABX supports the business development efforts of its members and promotes the growth of the construction industry. MABX provides real-time, online access to thousands of regional new construction projects annually, along with project blueprints, specs, addenda, bid lists and other pertinent bidding documents.
From online, industry-specific services to the Construction Buyers Guide, Construx magazine, industry-specific training seminars and networking events, Mid Atlantic BX connects the construction industry from project concept through completion.
The headquarters is located in Harrisburg PA.
Tell us your story about reaching C-Level executives to do business?
MABX has an annual membership of between 900-1000 construction and design businesses. We learned that many of the C-level executives for our member companies were either unaware of our organization or had yet to become involved. To engage these individuals, we created the MABX Executive Series of luncheons where we would invite leaders from the PA State Government to speak to and meet C-level executives from our member companies.
So far we have held three Executive Series luncheons. The speakers for each event have been Governor Corbett’s cabinet members from departments that directly impact the construction industry. We’ve had the Secretary of the Departments of Labor, Transportation, and Environmental Protection.
These events are slowly growing in popularity, and we’ve been able to get key decision makers more familiar with our association and the value it brings to their organizations.
Do you know of other examples of businesses being creative in this endeavor?
Most of what we see is the traditional lunch, golf, or other activity approach.
What lessons, if any, do you derive from these stories?
The main lesson is that to reach C-level individuals, we needed to offer something unique and worthwhile. Most of these men and women have very busy schedules, and we needed to provide something of value to their businesses to get them to participate.
Once we did interact with the executives, we learned that they were very interested in what we had to offer. These connections allow us to show decision makers the importance of a membership to MABX, and will help us retain more members.
Contact information:
Mid Atlantic BX
2501 N. Front St.
Harrisburg, PA 17110
(866) 499-2665
midatlanticbx.com
