“Hidden proprietary specifications,” the ones where you’ve provided the architect with a specification that “locks out” your competition, will only work once or twice. The architect, or your competition, will catch on. You’re setting the architect up for embarrassment if you convince them to use this approach. A better suggestion: Get your product named as the basis of design, and list a couple of additional manufacturers.

Don’t work to exclude other products on trivial grounds! In fact, you may be better off if your best competitors are named in the specification, so you’re not competing against inferior products. If you work harder and provide better support to architects, you’ll get your share of the work. But set an architect up for a public bid protest over a closed specification and you’ll risk losing a long term valuable relationship.

Download our small article on the topic of Naming Your Competitors.