Getting your product specified by consultants and electrical contractors

The consultant says "send your catalogue, we will see", and nothing happens. Consultants write the makes they know, because their name is on the drawing and a failure lands on them. So getting specified is not persuasion. It is making your product as easy to check as the incumbents. Give the consultant data to paste, two running sites an engineer can visit, and one technical person who answers. Then help the contractor's material submittal pass when your make is offered as an equivalent.

Why a consultant writes the same makes again

A consultant's specification is seldom written from scratch. Each new project starts from the last one, so the approved makes list travels forward with it. Changing a make means taking a risk for a client who is not asking for it.

That has two consequences. Getting into one consultant's master specification puts you on projects you will never hear about until a contractor calls. And you do not need to replace the incumbent. The realistic aim is to be the second or third name, which is all a contractor needs to bring you a price.

This is slow work. It pays on projects designed now and built later, not on the tender closing this month.

What a consultant needs before your name goes in

Here is what an electrical design lead looks for, roughly in this order:

• Technical data in the consultant's terms. Ratings, dimensions, materials and load tables, in a data sheet to lift values from. A brochure with photographs does not count.
• Running sites. Two or three installations of a similar size, in the consultant's city if possible, where the consultant's engineer may visit and speak to the site electrical engineer. Ask the site's permission first.
• A named person. An engineer from your side who replies to a technical question the same day and can come to a site meeting.
• CAD blocks and weights, so your product can sit in the drawings and the structural engineer can allow for its load.
• Proof of the tests the consultant asks about, organised so the right paper is found at once. Our note on keeping test certificates ready covers that folder.

Which tests and approvals your product needs is for the consultant, the certifying body and your own adviser to confirm.

A specification clause a consultant can paste

A consultant prefers a clause that two or three makers can meet, so the client sees a choice. The usual form is a performance clause, then a list of acceptable makes. Hand over that clause, written fairly, with your product's values where the blanks would be. Here is the shape of one for cable trays:

Cable trays shall be of the perforated or ladder type as shown on the drawings, fabricated from galvanised steel of not less than ___ mm thickness, with side rails of ___ mm. Each tray size shall carry the design cable load at the support spacing in the manufacturer's load table, within the deflection stated there. Bends, tees and reducers shall be factory-made by the tray manufacturer. Before supply, the contractor shall submit the load table, the galvanising test report and a sample length for approval. Approved makes: ___, ___, ___ or equivalent approved by the consultant.

A filled-in line, with values invented for illustration only, might read: "galvanised steel of not less than 2.0 mm thickness, with side rails of 50 mm, carrying 60 kg per metre at 1.5 m support spacing within 5 mm deflection." Your own figures come from your load tests, not from this example.

A clause like this does the consultant's work and is fair to your rivals. That is why it gets used. A clause that only your product can meet gets deleted.

The contractor's material submittal

Electrical contractors are the second route in. When a specification says "or equivalent", the contractor may propose your make in a material submittal, and the consultant approves or rejects it. Make that submittal easy to approve.

Give your contractors a submittal pack that mirrors the consultant's clause line by line: your value against each requirement, with the supporting paper attached. A submittal that is approved once becomes a reference the consultant remembers. And never cut your price to a contractor in return for "pushing" your make. If the submittal fails, the contractor blames you, and the consultant remembers that instead.

Imagine a cable tray maker in Dankuni

Imagine a maker of cable trays and fittings in Dankuni, near Kolkata. For years the owner sends MEP consultants in Kolkata a brochure and a price list, and asks them to add the firm's name to their approved makes. Nobody does. The owner offers a contractor a sharper price to propose the firm's trays for an office tower in New Town. The submittal comes back rejected: no load table, no galvanising report, no site the consultant could visit.

So the order of things changes. First come load tests at the works and a load table for each tray size. Two clients agree to let their site engineers take a call. Then comes a fair specification clause for cable trays, with one of the firm's engineers named as the contact. With a cable maker that does not compete, the owner offers a joint technical session to one consultancy's design team, on tray fill and support spacing. The first consultancy declines; its design lead says the team is committed to two big hospital jobs. A smaller firm accepts. The load tests and the session cost about three weeks of an engineer's time and a hired hall, with no order promised. That firm's engineer visits one of the sites afterwards. On its next commercial project, the trays clause carries the Dankuni make as the third name, and a contractor asks for a price a month later.

When chasing specifications will not pay

Skip this route if your product is sold on price through dealers and is not named in drawings. Skip it if you cannot send an engineer to a site meeting. A make that is specified but unsupported loses its place at the next project. And a maker with no running installations should get those first, through contractors and plant buyers, before asking any consultant to take a risk.

Choose the three consultancies and the one site

Choose three consultancies that design the kind of project your product suits, and one running site you could show them. Put your load table or data sheet into their terms before the first meeting; turning test results into sheets a consultant can use is sales collateral development. The faster routes, such as dealers and plant maintenance buyers, are on the electrical equipment manufacturing page and can run alongside. If your make keeps losing at the specification stage, tell us what you need.