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A NATSPEC branded worksection is more than just a specification tool; it’s a strategic asset designed to support your marketing and sales goals by encouraging designers to specify your products in building projects. When used effectively, it becomes a powerful instrument to minimise product substitution and secure your brand's place in project specifications. Let’s explore how understanding and leveraging this tool can elevate your product visibility and adoption rates.

Understanding Building Specification Clauses
Designers rely on four types of building specification clauses to detail the requirements for their projects: descriptive, reference, performance, and proprietary. Your NATSPEC branded worksection falls under the proprietary category, ensuring your products are explicitly specified by trade name and performance criteria. As part of the National Master Building Specification, your branded worksection includes up-to-date standards, building codes, and tailored product information. This provides a dependable foundation that not only aids designers in specifying your products but also mitigates the risk of substitution during the construction process.

A Strategic Tool for Designers and Consultants
Your branded worksection is an opportunity to engage with designers directly. Offering to assist them in completing your branded worksection saves them time and reduces their risks while fostering a relationship that positions your product as the go-to solution. This proactive approach distinguishes you from competitors, making your product indispensable in the specification process. Designers value streamlined workflows, and your assistance strengthens their confidence in your product’s reliability and compliance with Australian standards and regulations.

Boost Visibility with Marketing Applications
Integrating your branded worksection into your marketing efforts amplifies its impact. Use it in presentations and sales meetings to showcase technical specifications, performance benefits, and compliance features. Distribute copies at industry events or include them in targeted email campaigns to reinforce your brand’s credibility. Providing decision-makers with detailed, trustworthy information increases the likelihood of your products being specified in their projects, reinforcing your value as a preferred supplier.

Influencing Product Selection
Your branded worksection is a template for seamless integration into project specifications. Its inclusion ensures consistency, accuracy, and compliance while blocking product substitution through NATSPEC’s product substitution clause. By defining your product’s performance characteristics and quality, you can safeguard its place in the project lifecycle, from design to completion. This control not only prevents disputes but also strengthens client trust in your brand.

Leverage NATSPEC’s Digital and Training Resources
NATSPEC offers digital tools to make your branded worksection accessible on various devices, enabling collaborative work and on-the-go modifications. This flexibility ensures your team and clients can easily manage and update specifications as needed. Additionally, take advantage of NATSPEC’s training programs to enhance your expertise in creating and promoting specifications. This knowledge empowers your team to make the most of the branded worksection’s potential.

Elevate Your Market Presence
A NATSPEC branded worksection is more than just a specification document; it’s a marketing powerhouse that builds credibility, supports your sales efforts, and influences product selection. By understanding the specification process, engaging with designers, utilising marketing opportunities, and leveraging NATSPEC’s resources, you can turn your branded worksection into a tool that drives success. Use it strategically to position your brand as an industry leader and ensure your products are consistently specified in building projects.

Next month, NATSPEC will release the second 2021 update to the National Building Specification. This national master specification, which includes all Branded Worksections, is updated every April and October to ensure it accurately reflects current regulations, standards and industry practices.

Only an up-to-date specification can appropriately respond to the needs of the design and construction industry. Updated information protects specifiers and their clients. It facilitates communication between each party and helps to assure everyone involved that decisions for products, materials and techniques are safe and in line with current regulations. This can improve the quality of the final build.

Product manufacturers like yourself are also protected by accurate, up-to-date specifications. All NATSPEC Branded Worksections are updated with their corresponding generic sections. This means that the product featured in your Branded Worksection can continue to be used safely. Twice a year, Product Partners receive the updated Branded Worksection, and as a Product Partner you should have your NATSPEC branded worksection link on your website, which is generated from the NATSPEC website, Branded Worksection page, and will automatically update to your website each April and October. This is an excellent reason to keep in frequent contact with NATSPEC subscribers. Each update your Branded Worksection is a new selling point for you as a Product Partner. Working with a Branded Worksection, architects and specifiers have all the advantages of a largely pre-filled document featuring your product’s relevant information. On top of this, they have current information about regulations, standards and practices and how these apply to your product. 

The NATSPEC October 2021 update is a new opportunity to make the most of your Branded Worksection. Use it as a tool in your presentations to sell your product knowing that the information in your Branded Worksection is accurate, up to date and reliable.

Your branded worksection template is a powerful tool that can play a vital role throughout the entire lifecycle of a building. It helps not only during the design and construction phases but also throughout asset management. Here's how you can leverage your branded worksection at each stage:

1. Asset Creation: The Beginning of the Journey

In the asset creation phase, which involves creating a new asset or upgrading an existing one, a product may be selected or deselected. The decision to include or exclude a product often involves several stakeholders.

• Design Phase: This is when designers select products relevant to the project, often based on building type. They also evaluate competing products within the same category.
  
  

• How to Leverage Your Branded Worksection: Promote your product early by using your branded worksection to demonstrate how your product aligns with the building type, regulatory standards, and any specific client requirements (e.g., low VOC levels). This helps build brand awareness and positions your product as the right choice.
  
  

2. Documentation Phase: Streamlining the Process

During the documentation phase, your NATSPEC branded worksection becomes a crucial resource for specifiers, making it easier for them to select your product for their project.

How to Leverage Your Branded Worksection:

• Your worksection can be downloaded easily from SPECbuilder for NATSPEC subscribers, and from NATSPEC’s website and your own website for non-subscribers.
  
  

• Product Partners can support specifiers in completing the pre-edited worksection template, which strengthens relationships and reduces specification preparation costs.
  
  

3. Construction Phase: Minimising Substitution Risks
   

The construction phase is where your branded worksection helps reduce the risk of product substitution. Clear product specifications make it harder for contractors to substitute your product with a competitor’s.

How to Leverage Your Branded Worksection:

• Clearly define your product’s characteristics and requirements, which help prevent substitutions during construction.
  
  

• If substitutions are proposed, your branded worksection can present your product as the preferred choice by emphasizing quality, value and performance characteristics. Also, the product substitution clause located in section 2. Products, sub-clause 2.1 General can be used to block substitution.
  
  

SUBSTITUTIONS in 0171 General requirements sets out the submissions required if the contractor proposes alternative products. Refer also to NATSPEC TECHnote GEN 006 for more information on proprietary specification.

4. Operations and Maintenance Phase: Ensuring Long-term Relevance

As the building transitions into the operations and maintenance phase, your branded worksection continues to add value by ensuring all necessary information is included in the Operation and Maintenance Manual (O&M Manual).

How to Leverage Your Branded Worksection: Provide essential product information to be included in the O&M Manual, ensuring easy reference for future maintenance.

5. Asset Renewal and Rehabilitation: Simplifying the Renewal Process

Asset renewal or replacement is a significant phase where work is done to restore or rehabilitate existing assets without altering their capacity.

How to Leverage Your Branded Worksection:

• Use your branded worksection to demonstrate your product’s compliance with industry standards, making it easier for stakeholders to choose your product for renewal or replacement work.
  
  

• Your branded worksection offers a simple, standardised template for this phase, simplifying the process and making your product the go to choice.
  
  

Are You Promoting Your Branded Worksection Effectively?

By understanding how your branded worksection fits into each stage of the building lifecycle, you can maximise its effectiveness as a marketing and sales tool. Engaging with stakeholders at every phase, from design to asset renewal, ensures your product remains front and centre throughout the building’s lifecycle.

Conclusion: Your branded worksection is more than just a specification tool, it’s a strategic asset that supports your product at every stage of a building’s life, enhancing visibility and increasing the likelihood of being specified.