As the year comes to a close, the team at Middle of Six is looking ahead to the trends, themes, and indicators that could shape AEC marketing in 2022. This special extended episode features a roundtable discussion between Wendy Simmons, Melissa English, and Allison Tivnon. We break down the challenges and opportunities of 2021, preview the year to come, and offer up some predictions on the continuing evolution of the AEC industry.
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Podcast Transcript
Welcome to The Shortlist.
We are exploring all things AEC marketing to help your firm win The Shortlist.
I'm your host, Wendy Simmons.
In each episode, I'll be joined by one of my team members from Middle of Six to answer your questions.
And today we have an extra special episode where we actually have two Middle of Six team members because we wanna talk about year-end wrap-up of 2021 and what we anticipate seeing in 2022.
So for this conversation, I've invited Middle of Six principal Melissa English and our pursuit strategist Allison Tivnon to provide a rundown on what our clients are saying and just kind of any inklings we have that might be helpful for principals or marketing professionals as they start planning for 2022.
Hey, Melissa.
Hi, Wendy.
Hey, Allison.
Hi, Wendy.
Thank you for jumping on the podcast.
This is a little bit of an adventure for us today.
We have two microphones and three voices, so we're gonna do our very best.
But we've been thinking a lot about what a really interesting year 2021 was, how in many ways it was very different from the last great recession that we went through.
And what does that mean for the future for AEC, the industry, and also all of our marketing cohorts out there?
I did a little brainstorming at the end of this year thinking about what are we seeing and what might be able to be summarized up.
I came up with four buckets of categories, and as Allison and Melissa and I were talking through them, they added to it.
I'm not sure, do we have four and a half, or do we have a full five categories we're going to go through?
But I think we should just step through them and talk about what we're seeing and what people might think about as they're making their plans for next year.
Great.
I'm excited.
I used to go to all these economic forecasts where this one particular economic forecaster would always say, the great thing about being an economist is you can make predictions and you don't have to be right.
So I'm going into that with this mindset.
So the first item we had on our list was the demand for in-house talent.
This bucket is pretty wide-ranging, but I just want to start off by saying that from my experience, this recession that we have come out of based on the pandemic feels quite a bit different than the great recession that was related to the housing market crisis in 2007 to 2010.
I actually started in the industry in 2008, and I was one of the last groups at my firm, new hire groups, to come on before they actually started making some really tough cuts and doing layoffs.
And I guess maybe as a young professional in a new industry and seeing what the tough choices that were made at the firm I was at, how that was happening, it was stressful and emotional and it was challenging for sure.
And now seeing actually this kind of grab for marketing talent we're experiencing right now feels like night and day.
Melissa, Allison, I mean, what was your experience in the past and what are you seeing now?
Well, I think part of it is a lot structurally different this time, where this recession, the government stepped right in with stimulus checks and funds to our businesses.
So it definitely lasted a lot shorter period.
And the housing market is still red hot where housing was the bubble that burst.
So in 2008, I had been at my firm in the industry for, I think like five or six years, but I had been through a recession, the.com recession in 2001.
I guess I'm showing my age now.
So it definitely feels different.
I was fortunate that yes, there were a lot of layoffs at my old firm in the 2008 recession, but no marketing staff.
But that was definitely the unusual case.
I was hearing from colleagues at other firms left and right that they were being laid off.
I think one of the things that's different this time, at least I hope this is different, is that firms see the value in those teams and knowing that they need the marketing team to bring in the next project.
Another thing that's very different that we're seeing as a big signal for 2022 is inflation.
We're seeing construction costs go up, labor shortage, so labor costs are up, material availability, so costs are up.
So I think that might be one of the reasons people are keeping staff on is that they know there's a labor shortage, so you need to hang on to the resources you have.
Melissa, I completely agree that there are some pretty significant differences between the last recession and what we're seeing now.
And you're right to call out the housing bubble.
It truly was an economic crisis, and it had some direct impacts on our industry because the built environment was so directly affected by it.
What I'm seeing right now is that because this is pandemic related, this is uncharted territory for everyone, including private companies, publicly held companies, the government, economists.
Nobody really knows what tomorrow is going to bring.
And while in some ways we're seeing increases in some sectors within the AEC industry in terms of the amount of work that they're chasing and having opportunities to chase, we're also starting to see the tide shift, which is something that I was expecting to happen, which is you've got local governments, cities, counties, even at the state level, that are starting to look at the books and the budgets for next year and are having to make some decisions on what's going to get prioritized and what isn't.
And that's even with the American Recovery Plan Act, the ARPA funds, and maybe build back better if that does get passed.
And so I think we're going to see a cascade domino effect start to occur where we still have bond money out there, we still have projects coming out of the pipeline, but it's the new starts that I think are going to maybe dry up for a little bit, not forever, but maybe a couple of years as local governments start to reassess their spending for a while.
And to the point about inflation, we've got, I think we're on track for like over 6% inflation across the country, which is pretty breathtaking at the rate of which it's going.
And we're nearing the end of the year where we're starting to talk about bonuses, as well as pay increases in the coming year.
And you combine that with a really tight labor market, and we are going to find ourselves in a quandary pretty soon.
Yeah, that's a good point, Allison.
We are seeing a real tightness in the labor market.
What do you make of that?
I think part of the reason why the labor market is so tight is because we're seeing musical chairs all over the place.
You've got folks that are having to make lifestyle choices that require them to be at home.
Their company that they're at might not offer remote work, so they're going elsewhere to look for it.
Also, because of inflation, maybe their paycheck just isn't cutting it right now, and their current company isn't paying them what they're worth, and so they're looking elsewhere.
I don't think it's a matter of us saying, well, there's not going to be work tomorrow, so let's stop hiring and let's start buckling down.
That's not what our companies are doing right now.
I think there's just a ton of speculation happening right now about what tomorrow is going to bring.
And because the IQ around business development and marketing has elevated in the last 10 years, they know that this is not the place to start making those pretty significant cuts to protect the bottom line.
Another thing that we're starting to see is a trend of marketers within our profession starting to take the leap into other types of marketing.
I've seen it here locally where colleagues of mine that have been in the AEC industry for a long time are all of a sudden announcing that they're working at a law firm or at a real estate company.
Some are even jumping over into the great unknown of widget selling and working at firms that are actually selling products and not just professional services.
So I think there's a lot of folks that are starting to expand out their horizons and try new things.
And I think the threshold for bringing on talent that maybe doesn't check all the boxes in terms of job requirements is increasing as companies are starting to get desperate for that talent.
We're seeing 11 million job openings right now.
That's a lot of positions to fill.
So people are willing to take a chance on someone who maybe has skills that are under developed in one area, but are really strong in others.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
My next question was going to be about where can we find marketers to bring into the industry?
You know, Melissa, do you have some thoughts on recruiting from outside?
Does that new perspective help us?
Is it challenging because of kind of like the learning curve to get up to speed?
Well, yeah, I mean, I think ideally you would love to have someone who has AEC experience so they can hit the ground running, but that may not be an option.
So thinking about what skill sets you need, maybe social media is where you really need to fill a hole.
So that could be from a different industry.
Also thinking about what are the qualities that make a good marketing coordinator or marketing manager if you do a lot of proposals.
So people that can roll up their sleeves and get things done and don't get hung up on someone not answering their question that they can keep making progress on something and kind of figuring it out and doing what needs to be done to get the job done.
So that kind of dogged determination is a good skill to be looking for.
Then just talking to other marketers that you know, if it's from your client, if you're working for architects, talk to their marketing director or other people in your network and just put the feelers out there to see what's happening.
You know, maybe there is someone that's not happy and is wanting to make a move and is not actively looking.
So just working your network, but you got to be clear on those priorities.
And I mean, the downside of someone with zero expertise in AEC marketing is that is a burden on your staff to bring them up to speed.
So being realistic about how much extra time that's going to be or how can you spread that load around, but being real intentional about what you're getting into if you're looking for folks with no AEC experience.
Documentation is really important.
I'm seeing a lot of firms taking the time to do that right now to get those processes in place to try and help make that easier.
In addition to that, I think that there's also a lot of folks that have great copywriting experience.
Maybe it's not an AEC, but they know how to get to know a subject well enough to speak about it.
And more and more, I'm seeing firms realize how important that is to be able to tell the story around their firm, the why them, why their projects matter, and why it's exciting to work in the built environment or architecture, engineering.
I have a friend who works for catalogs writing about clothing and products.
And unless you work for like the J.
Peterman catalog, that gets a little boring after a while.
And I had a friend saying, well, could someone like me jump into the industry?
And I know her, she's an incredible writer.
Yep, I think there's definitely a good possibility that you can find a job in this industry.
So I think that there's going to be an emphasis on the storytelling aspects, as well as the hard skills like in design and knowing how to edit and time management, things like that.
Yeah, that kind of reminds me of journalism degree.
So a lot of firms do a lot of recruiting in the architecture, engineering and construction management job fairs at our universities and colleges, but starting to think about how are we making that happen for marketing, PR, com, journalism type degrees and letting new graduates know of our industry.
Okay.
Well, we want to get on to the other predictions on our list.
But just to summarize that, we are definitely seeing a grab and demand for in-house talent.
And because there is just a limited supply, we're really kind of at a 20 to 30 percent deficit in marketing people with AEC experience.
We're going to see a rise in the compensation and recruiting efforts to bring people on board.
But we recommend looking outside of the industry and looking for new graduates and bringing them in to AEC.
I don't know that a lot of people think about going into that when they're in college, but maybe they should, maybe to check it out and be inspired by all the things that keeps us busy in this industry.
So moving on to our next prediction, we titled it Regretted Reliance on Virtual Interviews, because I think people were appreciative of them in the beginning.
Obviously, it's much better than a phone interview, as Melissa has shared, but it's really hard to make that connection on the screen.
And as we've all gotten used to being in five to 10 Zoom meetings a day, we're really on screen, on camera so much of the time.
So, unfortunately, what we're saying here is, we're still going to see more of this.
Our public agency clients really need to provide that access for safety and equity reasons.
And even if they aren't loving it, we've heard from many of the public clients that they'd love to get back to in-person interviews.
It's just not totally feasible at this time.
You know, Allison, you've been coaching several interviews, and you've even done some interview training.
What are you hearing from our clients, our general contractors and architect firms, and how they're prepping for interviews?
I think that there's just a greater level of awareness that you have to present as an even more cohesive team when you're in a virtual environment than when you're in person.
And that can be anything from having shared backgrounds behind you, making sure that you're all dressed in the same way, whether that's business casual or formal or informal, of course, that you're rehearsing.
I think rehearsing is probably even more important right now because passing that baton to the next person to speak is just clunkier when you're in a virtual environment.
I think also it's that there's a greater awareness of storytelling.
Again, to go back to that word, there is a divide and you have to figure out a way to bridge it.
When you are looking at someone through a screen, you have to bring more energy, you have to smile more, you have to really practice active listening and not thinking about what you are going to say next.
But I think you also need to, you need to paint a picture more vividly than when you're in person, when you can use your hands and you can read body language and you can tell when to push on the gas pedal and when to let up on it.
So it's definitely more nuanced.
I think that firms are starting to realize that they do have to get really sharp when it comes to this type.
They have got to increase their IQ around how to do virtual interviews because they probably did lose some projects in the beginning.
I think everyone maybe felt like they flubbed a really important interview because they took for granted that the virtual environment was going to be the same as being in person.
It only takes a couple of losses like that before you realize maybe it's time to invest in having someone come in and coach the team and get everyone on the same page.
I think there's also a lesson learned that I experienced.
I had a client who went to a virtual interview and unbeknownst to us, there was like eight people on the panel and all of them had their cameras and mics off except for one, which was the owner's rep who funneled all of the questions in.
So that was a good lesson learned for me too when we're asking our shortlist questions about what platform, who's going to be on the panel is to advocate for having cameras on because it's really hard to make a connection to someone's initials in a black circle.
So I think that was a great lesson learned that we want to be advocating and letting the client side know that we need to see you when we're presenting virtually.
Here's a tip for marketers out there.
It's probably a good idea to dust off your in-person interview checklist.
I was recently coaching a team and it was in-person.
And just getting my brain back into the line of thinking about what's the room going to be set up like, how are we going to sit?
Which order are we going to sit?
Who is standing and moving and doing certain things or whatever that is?
And I know that we believe we'll be in the virtual interview arena for some time, but you'll probably see a mix of those and more in-person interviews will come up.
And so just to be prepared and not necessarily have to invent it on the fly, go back to your strategies from two years ago and remember that there are still some good best practices and preparation and seeing the room.
You know, if the owner will send you a picture of the setup, you know, those things can help make sure that whether you're in-person or virtual, you have a great interview experience.
Yeah, I just coached an interview that was in-person, masked socially distance for a smaller community outside of Tacoma.
And so with that team, I was like, we have to practice in-person because you guys are going to have to emote past those masks, use your hands more, hope you have really expressive eyes because half your face is going to be covered up with that mask.
So kind of being prepared for all of that.
And it was true that it was kind of having to remember all of those different logistics when you're in-person combined with not getting the full effect of being in-person.
So just a note here, Melissa and I recorded a podcast episode focused 100% on virtual interviews, best practices, awkward things we've seen, things to avoid.
And so that episode is coming out in January or February.
So keep your ears peeled for that one and subscribe and become a follower of The Shortlist so you don't miss any of our new episodes.
So another prediction that we can piggyback off of the virtual interview platform is really doubling down on business development training.
So whether that's talking with your teams about the importance of pre-positioning, what does that look like?
How do you actually do that when you can't really see people very often in-person, connections are harder to make.
And then also through the full business development process of anticipating an RFP and what it looks like to present a really compelling story and then interview a person.
It's all kind of that part of that circle.
And Middle of Six has had several clients over the last year engage us for training and conversations or even just, hey, can I pick your brain on this?
Here's what the challenges I'm experiencing with my team given our situation.
And so we expect that more investment and resources towards that training will happen in 2022 and we really support that whether you do it internally or get an outside resource for that sort of thing because business development and prepositioning is the key to successful marketing.
So Melissa, when it comes to business development training, what should firms focus on?
Well, I think part of it needs to be what are your goals for the year?
What do you want to achieve?
And then working backward from that, are there any deficiencies or weaknesses or just some skills that need to be brushed up on?
I think it's important to be realistic.
I think sometimes we get really ambitious and we create this big plan and there's too many different elements and then very little or none of it gets done.
And that doesn't feel very good at the end of the year and it doesn't feel like you're making meaningful progress.
So being clear on what your team can accomplish.
I'm going to say it now more than ever.
Sorry, everybody.
Now more than ever, we need to have proof.
And this is something that I think has fallen way too hard on the shoulders of marketers and not enough on the shoulders of the business developers as well.
We need photos.
We need people that can really speak to what it is that distinguishes us from our competition.
And we also really need to know what are the shifting needs of our clients.
Right now, supply chains are an absolute mess.
And this is not only affecting like the when, it's affecting the if.
Like, for instance, there's a project that's been in the pipeline for over three years, out in my hometown, that is upwards of $30 million.
At least that's what it was in April of this year.
Who knows what it is now, because we haven't done the cost estimating on what the inflation has done to the price of materials, the cost of labor, the labor shortages.
And so we've got clients that are extremely nervous that they're not even going to be able to start very large anticipated projects.
And that causes a lot of anxiety and heartburn and fear amongst our clients.
So I think a question that business developers have to get good at answering is what can we do to truly help them address those concerns in a way that's going to get those projects up and off the ground and going.
And if that's that you have built out lay down facilities and you've got room to pre-order, order really early to get materials in house so that they're there when they're needed.
Or if you have really good relationships with your suppliers and have an in to get someone on the phone quicker than your competition can, you know, all of those little things are something that you should be saying really loud.
And maybe even we start grabbing testimonials from our suppliers to talk about, I really enjoy working with ABC firm because they they make my job easy to get them what they need.
You know, I think we need to start thinking really creatively about how we're going to be addressing and neutralizing the fears of our clients.
That's a really good point, Allison.
Business development at its core is about building relationships and part of that is helping your clients and the people you're connected to solve their problems.
So you create that bond that eventually you become the first person that they call when they have an idea or a need or could use your resources and that turns into future projects.
So by business development people or anyone in the industry using their own expertise, what they're seeing, anything that they can share, it really kind of informs if you get to have that coffee visit with a client or just a general check in, you're able to kind of share your expertise and make their job easier.
You're doing something that's really simple on your end, but can be incredibly valuable to your clients or others that you're, you know, are part of your business development.
We had a question from a listener, and I think this could be a nice place to fit it in, in case Melissa or Allison have any thoughts on this.
So this listener is a single marketer in a small rural firm, and she was just wondering in general, you know, what best practices we might have related to business development, and probably marketing strategy in general.
But when you just have limited resources, or your team is dispersed across, you know, a greater area, just because of where you are located in your state or city.
So how that's related to business development training is often we're bringing in a lot of people from the firm to make sure that everyone has BD as part of their job, right?
So anyways, I just want to kind of tee that up in case either of you have any thoughts on that.
Remote work used to be kind of a novelty that was discussed, but never really followed through on in any real way, unless someone who was in a position to make demands that their firm could make the demand to work from home.
For the most part, you were absolutely compelled to be in an office, and that is just not the case right now.
One, because the CDC is telling us to be careful about it, but another is because people realize they can do the work, and their employers have realized they can do the work remotely.
And I think we've also started to learn how to make tethers and connections more efficiently in a remote environment.
And so even if you are rural, I think your ability to engage with potential clients, potential teaming partners, other fellow marketers is greater now because there's almost an entire world of business development that's happening in a virtual environment.
If you decide you want to live out in the countryside next to a river or be able to ski 50 days out of the year, and you normally wouldn't be able to do that because you had to be in the center of a city to get your job done, that's not always the case anymore.
And I think that one, that means that we can have more control over our work-life balance, more choice that maybe enhances our personal lives.
But I think for owners, it also means that your net is way bigger because you can bring people on that are not in the same proximity as you, but will feel like they are.
And as long as they're committed to traveling out there on occasion to get to know the other staff and the city itself, they don't need to be within even driving distance to be able to be an effective part of your company.
Kind of came to my mind was definitely what Wendy mentioned, that everyone in your firm or on your team has a role to play in business development.
Say you're targeting a particular city and there's a junior-level architect or engineer or the project engineer if you're a construction firm, task them with attending the virtual city council meetings and finding out what's going on about that project you've been tracking, breaking it up into pieces that everyone can take a role in that capture planning and doing that research.
So it doesn't all fall just on that single marketer's shoulders.
I'm personally not from a rural town, but all of my extended family live in little farming communities in Iowa.
And one thing I've observed from that is that definitely there's a lot of community.
So thinking of ways that how you're active in your community or out and about in your community are ways for you to connect with people to learn about what's happening and what might be coming down the pike.
All right.
Well, before we leave this topic, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on how much training and how often are you getting requests for a certain amount or you have any recommendations if someone said, hey, I want to implement some business development training.
What does that look like?
There is such a thing as training fatigue where your staff kind of roll their eyes at the next invite that they see in their inbox saying, you will attend this meeting and you will learn this thing.
And while you might learn something in the course of the training itself, the memory of it fades really, really quickly.
And I think people are kind of over that.
They're done sitting in rooms and brainstorming together and whiteboarding things only to have it kind of disappear once they're back at their desks or in their homes doing their jobs.
I think what people want right now is if they're going to be trained on something, the follow-through has to be that it's actually affecting in-house processes.
You are not only being equipped with knowledge, but you're being equipped with new ways of doing business that are going to fundamentally change.
And that's why the training was needed.
So it's not just about getting people in a room to talk about the merits of proposal writing.
It's also, what are you going to give me to help make it easier for me to do that?
I think that there is going to be more of a demand for some follow-through on the other side of all of these trainings that we're starting to see firms want to give to their staff.
Yeah, it really has to be a firm-wide initiative.
If only three of the 20 people go through the same training, then it's hard to implement a new process.
So making sure it's equitable and implementation and follow-through is there.
Some firms approach it with a training budget every year.
So if you're worried about training fatigue or people not wanting to do one more training, kind of getting some feedback, if you have an annual review cycle, you might insert a question about what type of training or resources, or if there are areas of weakness they've observed in the firm that you think would benefit from getting alignment.
So I think being intentional about talking to your teams and not making it an environment where people are dreading it, but that they're seeing the value in the training.
Another great thing too is that not everyone can attend a training.
I know everyone here has had that experience where you get into a room, you're so excited that this training is finally happening.
And let's face it, there was like two people in particular, you're like, they really need this training and those two people didn't show up.
And it ended up being a great conversation and a lot of good takeaways.
And the two people you felt needed at most weren't there.
Now that there's a lot of trainings that are happening virtually, you can hit the record button.
And now you've got that.
It's not just for the folks that weren't able to make it then, it can also be for the folks that you're going to be onboarding or promoting into new roles.
And that's an asset that didn't really exist before this shift to remote work and virtual learning.
Yeah, I think even with the turnover we're seeing with folks changing firms, that's another great way to keep that training alive as you move forward with your team.
So in 2021, we definitely saw a significant bump in training across proposal writing and interview coaching and business development topics.
What are some reasons that you might attribute to this big jump?
I think that there have been a lot of breakthroughs in the last two years as people come to terms with the fact that their counterparts on the other side of the table are human.
We're seeing their lives by virtue of cameras in their kitchens, we're seeing their kids in the background, we're seeing their pets camera bombing them during meetings.
I think that this increased understanding of the human element deepens our understanding of the true underpinnings of business development and that success occurs when you make true meaningful connections with your clients.
And I think that it's also due to companies being hungry for future work with all the uncertainty ruling so many facets of our lives, it's only natural that there would be a certain level of anxiety around where the next project is going to come from.
And so when you combine those two things together, I think it really lights a fire in companies to both get better at bringing in the work, but also get more meaningful in how they're doing it.
Moving on to our last prediction, this one's pretty interesting and exciting to me as someone who's always trying to push what proposals and qualifications look like and what that experience is like.
So we expect or we really, really hope to see folks embracing immersive interactive proposals.
What does that mean?
I mean, obviously, you can insert a video and put hyperlinks into InDesign, no problem.
That's been around for a long time.
But taking it to the next level where your proposal invites people in, maybe it's a website, microsite.
There's lots of ways digitally that you can bring people into the storytelling that you're doing.
And so there seems to have been a resistance to go in this direction in AEC, at least from my perspective.
We see other markets and other industries kind of embrace that a little bit more.
For example, if you are working in web development, they're going to have much more of kind of an interactive selling process, right?
To show you what they're going to do.
And I think there's been some resistance in AEC because we have these proposals that have the requirement to be compliant, and they have to fit within these boundaries of eight and a half by 11, and whatever it might be.
But we think there's an opportunity as people are getting much more comfortable in the digital world and we're seeing more things on our screen as opposed to print it out on our big office printers that maybe there's an opportunity to really kind of show your team and their experience often a more digital way.
I've had this question many times.
So why can't AEC proposals just be automated?
I mean, our databases have the option to make the resumes and shoot out the project pages.
Yeah.
Why do we even need proposal coordinators?
Why the heck are we spending hundreds of hours creating these beautiful but bespoke proposals?
I'm sure both of you have some thoughts on this.
Part of what we're talking about here is a true shift into something that's better.
And we saw this probably the last real time we saw this in proposals was when InDesign was introduced into the industry.
And we went from word proposals into a software that allowed us to be way more creative with the end product.
And that pushed the envelope, and it got us to be better at telling the story.
It also created a heck of a lot more competition because some firms invested the time and resources in training and hiring for those skill sets.
And they also invested the time and resources into creating the assets that would go into it.
And so I think what we're seeing right now is the same thing.
Some folks are going to invest the time it takes to learn how to make a microsite, hire staff that can help them, or trainers that can help them think through how to do that most efficiently.
And you're going to see firms that are like, how in the world did we miss this one?
We did all of this pre-positioning.
We put so many hours into the proposal and into our interview.
How did we miss it?
And in the debrief, maybe it comes out, well, I'm sorry, but this other company just really blew it out of the water with this, whatever it is, microsite, immersive interactive proposal.
And that's when I think you'll see others saying like, well, we got to catch up.
And then after a while, instead of it being a novelty that's only used on a multi, multi, multi-million dollar project where you're willing to make those types of investments, you'll see firms of all sizes that are embracing the technology, not because they want to necessarily, but because they have to.
Yeah, I think anything that we're doing to strive towards making it easier for the client to see why they should pick you is worth it.
But at the same time, that can be scary as far as like the more interactive type of online microsites.
I think if you're using things in your design process or your construction process like fly throughs and virtual reality models and other types of virtual design and construction, then kind of makes it a natural flow for your proposals to be more automated and allow that information to be shared.
But if you're a firm that's not doing those things, then maybe the super interactive proposal is not the place for you to be striving towards.
Kind of back to Wendy's question about is it worth it or why aren't proposals automated?
Well, even the best AI can't put forth strategy.
And I think that's what makes a proposal stand out, is the strategy and the thinking and the how can we tweak this and make this stand out better.
And that's where automation, I just don't see that being an option for a computer program to do.
No, not at all.
We talk about the value of business development and marketing professionals.
And part of that is that they take the time to really get to know their company and they take the time to really get to know the competition and they take the time to really get to know the clients.
And you can have software that can aggregate together all of your assets and plop them into a certain order.
But you're going to be missing a lot of the nuance that is the thing that's going to differentiate you from your competition.
But I think one other thing we need to mention here is that there are bells and whistles.
There's a lot of technological advancements.
There's a lot of appetite for trying new things.
But we also have to just be realistic in that if you throw a new tool at a very busy proposal coordinator and say, I want to try this, and you have a two week deadline, their hair is going to catch on fire.
So I think we also have to realize that as we're delving into these new areas and exploring new ways to wow our clients and tell our story and win the work, we have to be building in time for our staff to learn how to do it well and not just bulldozing through the already very large list of things that they are responsible for getting done.
Well, yeah, and I can certainly imagine an environment where someone says, well, let's just have the VDC technician help with that, or our IT person knows how to build websites, and that will strike fear in your marketer because they are losing control, and then some emergency on a project comes up, and then the marketer is left with this half built site, and the deadline is looming.
So that's the caution is, it always seems good in theory to, well, we'll just have this other person that does another thing for the company help, but sometimes that makes it even more stress-inducing for your marketing team.
It can, and Melissa, it also, there could be something really wonderful there, because if you tie in those two types of staff together, maybe they come up with something that's really great, and they end up having relationships with each other that prioritizes what they're working on.
And who knows, maybe the whole format and catalog of people that work under the term marketing starts to shift and grow.
Kind of reminds me of the linkages that are happening between HR and marketing.
So maybe the linkages are next between the VDC team or the IT team and marketing.
Wouldn't that be awesome?
I think there's some value in having just like so many things in life, a spectrum here and proposals are no exception.
You don't need to create a microsite when a scope letter is perfectly acceptable and actually answers the question and gets to the heart of it in the most efficient way.
Often, qualification packages can be cut sheets that you've thought through and tailored slightly but are really kind of just solid and you know that the quality is there.
Same thing with resumes.
And then you get to the other end of the spectrum and you may be just throwing out all of the standard practices you have in favor of something that's very creative, highly targeted, and is providing the platform for your team to be very creative in how they're answering the questions.
So that at that far end of the spectrum is where I say these more immersive interactive proposals come in and so you can help as a marketer or as a principal to decide what are we looking at here?
What's the right answer?
And then but don't be afraid of the more extreme version.
So I tend to claim that AEC marketing is a little bit behind the curve when it comes to technology.
I don't know if that's totally true.
I've been in AEC long enough that maybe I've lost a tiny bit of perspective there, but I just know how a lot of other marketing is done and very, very data driven.
And when you're B to C, you're pulling data in a different way and you're pushing content directly to your customers in a different way than we do here in AEC.
B to B is going to be about thinking about those business needs and how your firm can help you with them and then going even back to that business development.
If you're looking person to person, now you're solving individual problems.
So that's why I think that we tend to lag behind in the technology because I don't have as much data on a single person's needs as I do as a whole group of people.
Melissa, Allison, you want to call me out.
Am I wrong on this trend?
Is there anything to add about how we could be leveraging technology better?
Well, I tend to agree that technology lags in this industry, but I also question whether I'm just getting stuck in my ways or whatever.
Were you going to say old?
I was thinking about saying old.
Well, I also think that it's we've got pretty thin profit margins when it comes to these proposals, which is really ironic because we waste so much time in proposal.
Well, we, as in proposal coordinators, don't.
But we've got a lot of leakage along the way to getting something out the door.
So it's like prioritizing bringing on something new to buy, to learn, and to use effectively, I think gives people pause because it's just so fly by the seat of the pants in our industry.
And it's really hard to bring something like that on.
The other part of it, to that point about I think I'm just getting old, is that we have a lot of senior staff that have been at a firm for decades that feel like they've got things down pretty good and what they do works great.
And so getting your technical crew to adopt new platforms and new technologies can be sometimes impossible.
Let's just face it, there's going to be one or two folks at your firm that just flat out will refuse to learn something until they're retired and they're gone.
And then you get the newer staff that are fresh out of college that actually took a course in something or learned how to use it when they were still in school that are going to be way easier to bring on to the bandwagon.
But I think it's a multi-year process to basically steer the ship in a new direction.
So while we're embarking on considering all these new softwares or new innovations or tools, I think we have to be realistic that it's not going to be an overnight thing or even a 2022 thing.
Maybe we start it and we get it going in the right direction.
Well, I think this is actually indicative of just an issue in this industry altogether.
It's something that I heard from the University of Washington's Dean of their architecture school, Renee Chang, and it's essentially that this is a terribly inefficient industry.
You're designing the same thing over and over, but we don't save any of it and we redesign it every single time.
So that is something actually the UW School of Architecture is digging into is how to make this industry more efficient.
So maybe that's part of why the technology adoption is a little bit laggy.
To your point, Allison, about new college graduates, that's one area where I've seen some of my clients be really full on adopting new technology is when these new graduates come in and they've learned all of these different like photo-realistic rendering programs where everyone was just doing SketchUp and they're using Rhino and different ones where you can't even tell if it's a photo or a rendering.
So I think if you're open to listening to the next generation coming into your firm, that's one way that technology adoption could be happening at a faster pace.
We already mentioned a few of these in the conversation, but I'm just curious what some of the barriers you see to using technology in the pursuit process.
I mentioned that first one of maybe the fear of being disqualified if you're going outside of the typical eight and a half by 11 box, but I'm sure there are others.
I think there's an extra risk, whether it's real or perceived, there's extra risk when you're doing something differently and you're less seasoned at doing it that way.
Leadership resistance, where they are not wanting to invest in another overhead cost or aren't convinced of the value that this extra investment will lead to.
I think that you saw that a lot with CRM conversations, which took up a lot of time, I'd say around the teens, you know, 2011 to 2019.
I think we're starting to get it kind of figured out, but there were all of these debates over CRM, Dell Tech, Salesforce, Co-Central, how to get the most use out of them, what platform to choose.
And I had so much whiplash at a few jobs I had, where they would commit to one and say, we are adopting this.
And it cost tens of thousands of dollars just to buy, let alone the staff time it took just to get it up and running.
And then it wasn't utilized, it wasn't used properly, the training wasn't as good as it could have been, and there just wasn't universal adoption.
And then, you know, the next whiz bang thing came along like, you know what, we chose the wrong platform, we're gonna blow it up and start over again.
And I know a lot of firms have went through that.
And I think that, you know, you do that once or twice, and people start to roll their eyes at the idea of bringing on any kind of new tech that is going to require a fundamental, like structural change in how they do their work.
It's just, it's like blowing up your website, you only want to do that once in a while, because the amount of time and effort, energy and mental stamina that you need to pull off something like that, you need a cooling off period once you're done with it.
Or at least I know the marketing staff do.
Kind of related to that is just resources in general, right?
Your marketing team, if they are potentially short staffed, or you're trying to add more to your team, that probably means that they are doing the very best they can with that proposal demand.
And I can say personally, I'm not always the most excited to try something new when I'm under multiple deadlines, and I'm just trying to get through the stuff that I can do with the tools I have.
So that will be a barrier for people pushing beyond.
But maybe as we bring on more in-house talent, we'll have those resources and find those unique opportunities to explore using new tools and trying things out that can be folded into your just normal operating marketing toolkit.
Before we wrap it up today, I'm just curious, Allison, Melissa, any other thoughts or something that popped into your mind related to these topics that we just want to share?
Well, I have one that's been knocking around in my brain for a while that I think has big societal, real world implications for kind of the future of how we live in our cities.
And this goes back to this conversation around remote work and the tight labor force.
We've got so many job openings right now that it truly is a buyer's market out there.
And we have, we're in the midst of the great resignation, which if you go online and you start reading about the amount of people that are just straight up quitting their jobs is pretty remarkable.
We haven't seen anything like this before.
And there's a lot of conversations about why it is happening and what's driving the decision making of making people leave their jobs.
But whatever the reason is, right now, people have to listen to job applicants and what it is that they need.
And with inflation, that means a bigger paycheck.
It means better benefits.
And for a lot of folks, it means the ability to stay remote permanently.
And yeah, maybe some firms are going to say, well, we'll do a hybrid and you can come in a couple of days a week or you can work from home one day a week.
But if you have a firm that says come in whenever you need to versus a firm that says you need to be here on Mondays and Wednesdays, and you have the choice between which firm to work for, a lot of folks are going to choose the one where they have the choice.
So I think remote working is here to stay.
We're seeing a lot of the large tech companies full on just saying, yeah, we're done.
You can work remotely that are now sitting on a ton of real estate.
And this gets me to the point that I think is really, it's going to change things.
I think it's also going to present a lot of opportunity for the AEC industry is that if we do start to see remote work, the work from home take hold in a permanent way, it is going to mean that we have a lot of companies that are going to be wholesale offloading their leases and real estate holdings and determining what office space to keep and what to let go.
And that, in turn, could make for some really interesting disruptions in zoning.
Because if cities fundamentally just don't need as much commercial space, how much of that existing bill inventory could be repurposed into other uses, say housing.
And since we have like over 7 million homes that have not been built to keep up with population, one of the main reasons, if not the driving force behind housing unaffordability, we could make some serious gains in correcting that and making our cities affordable to live in and with ripple effects and quality of life all over the place.
And so what I think is a great prediction, maybe even a challenge, to folks that are in the AEC industry in the year 2022, is for our architects and our engineers and our builders to become thought leaders in how you could repurpose some of that commercial space and get new and different uses out of it.
And maybe one of those is housing.
Well, you heard it.
That's Councilwoman Tivnon's 10 year prediction.
Hope and dream.
I know it's actually both a little startling, makes me nervous for some of our clients who are in those spaces that we see probably going to be impacted first, and then optimistic about some potential real positive changes we could see in the future.
Thanks for sharing that, Allison and Melissa.
Thank you so much for adding your commentary on what you're seeing out there.
The reason why we wanted to have this conversation today is that we just are so fortunate to be able to be connected with so many firms across AEC, from large international general contractors to very small micro-firms, and maybe has one principal or just a handful of people.
And we're having those conversations, these types of conversations with them, really unique to their own specific position.
And we were just seeing some potential trends.
You can check us in a year and see what happened.
But for now, I think we can wrap that up just as a real quick overview.
The four that we hit on were the demand for in-house talent going up and through the roof, a begrudged reliance on virtual interviews, doubling down on business development training and probably other training, and then embracing immersive and interactive proposals.
Plus the overarching impact that remote work will have on our industry and everyone all around us.
Thank you both and have a great 2022.
Thanks.
This was really fun.
It was nice to get together with the three of us and kind of talk shop and predictions.
Yeah, this was great, Wendy.
I also hope maybe when we do this next year, we can score ourselves on how accurate we were for this year.
Yes, let's do it.
I'm all for being judged and graded.
The Shortlist is presented by Middle of Six and hosted by me, Wendy Simmons, principal marketing strategist.
Kyle Davis is our producer with Graphic Design and Digital Marketing by Allison Rose.
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The Shortlist is a podcast that explores all things AEC marketing. Hosted by Middle of Six Principal, Wendy Simmons, each episode features members of the MOS team, where we take a deep dive on a wide range of topics related to AEC marketing including: proposal development, strategy, team building, business development, branding, digital marketing, and more. You can listen to our full archive of episodes here.