The Shortlist Episode 68: Middle of Six Book Review!

We're shaking things up with a special "book review" episode of The Shortlist! This week, Wendy Simmons is joined by Middle of Sixers Susan O'Leary, Lauren Jane Peterson, and Grace Takehara to explore insights from three influential reads that can inspire AEC marketers.

Grace reviews Conquer Your Rebrand by Bill Kenney of Focus Labs, offering strategies to build strong, enviable B2B brands. Susan shares key takeaways from Seth Godin’s This is Marketing, focusing on authentic connection and purposeful messaging. Lauren Jane discusses Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland, reflecting on the challenges and triumphs of the creative process.

If you're looking to boost your creativity, sharpen your marketing strategy, or rethink your firm's brand identity, this episode is your CliffNotes for some Middle of Six-recommended reads.

CPSM CEU Credits: 0.5 | Domain: 2

Podcast Transcript

Welcome to The Shortlist.

We're exploring all things AEC marketing to help your firm win The Shortlist.

I'm Wendy Simmons, and today we're talking with Susan O'Leary, Lauren Jane Peterson and Grace Takehara for a slightly different format of our podcast.

We're doing a book review, or I should say we're doing a books review because everyone picked a book to talk about, and we're gonna share, share what we liked, share what we didn't like so much, and hopefully there's some takeaways for our listeners out there.

Thanks, everyone, for joining us.

Hi.

Hi.

Hello.

Hi, Wendy.

For our longtime listeners, we'll see if they can tell the difference between my voice and Susan's voice, we're sisters, and even to myself, what I hear is on the microphone.

It's a little bit shocking how similar we sound.

So anyways, that's kind of a fun little tidbit there.

But let's get into this conversation because I think three books to cover in the amount of time we have for this podcast is going to be jam-packed.

First of all, whose brilliant idea was this?

Does anyone want to claim responsibility for thinking about this idea and why we thought it might be fun to share some books with our listeners?

I feel like it was spurred from a conversation that we had as a team and it just snowballed into this.

And we all, all three of us plus Wendy and the team agreed that we're always looking for inspiration for things outside of our specific AEC industry that just kind of sparks creativity or seems relevant.

And we just wanted to share what we learned with others.

So it seems like a good natural topic and conversation to have.

Yeah, Grace, I feel like this might have been spurred from when you did as well, from when you did a book review on social media.

True.

Yeah, I think we're piggybacking off of that.

Well, Grace, since you were willing to share, do you want to go first and tell us about what book you read and we'll, I'm sure, have some questions along the way as you kind of unravel it for us.

Yeah, absolutely.

So my book, I'm really excited about.

It is piggybacking off of a creative conference that I attended back in early October 2024.

And it's called the Circles Conference.

And I went to one of the days was a workshop day.

And there was a workshop presenter that works at an agency called Focus Lab.

And his name is Bill Kenney.

And he so happened to publish a book this year called Conquer Your Rebrand, Build a B2B Brand That Customers Love and Competitors Envy.

And this seems like an incredibly relevant topic.

We are in the B2B space.

And I just wanted to kind of explore and expand upon what Bill presented at his workshop and dive in in the book form.

And literally fell in my lap.

He gave everybody that attended the workshop a copy of his book.

And I was like, all right, this is my sign to dig in and learn more.

Was there anything about Bill's presentation that definitely pushed you over the edge to say, oh, I should read this this full book?

I think it's always a good sign when you're nodding a lot during a presentation or a workshop and you're either learning a lot or the content that's being presented resonates heavily.

And I think that I was hooked when Bill really highlighted the process of creative work.

And this applies to AEC marketers working in house, and working, being in such a collaborative space with technical folks, developing proposals, developing social media content, all of the different hats that marketers wear.

And hearing Bill say very clearly that creative work is hard work and the people are a huge part of the process.

And I was like, ooh, yeah.

Like, in our consulting world, the work that we do, the deliverables, is definitely the outcome that we're achieving, but we're working with people throughout that process.

So how do we manage the process?

How do we make it as enjoyable as we can be?

How can we let the creative ideas flow, but also make progress?

And so Bill's workshop was all about that, and especially emphasizing kind of the people and bringing them along the process of creative work.

And I was like, that is extremely relevant to the work that Middle of Six does, but also it really echoed experiences that I had in-house.

Right.

So this, you know, pulling from your in-house experience and then thinking about what we do now, you can see a lot of parallels and jumping off points that you could take from Bill's recommendations.

What are some of the key topics or, you know, section headers or however you would want to organize this to kind of take our listeners through what he explores in more detail?

Yeah, he does a really great job of first defining what brand and identity is.

And so that's really the first few chapters is really diving into what those definitions are in the creative space and especially in, you know, the marketing and communications work and branding work that we do.

And then he jumps into the process of getting through once you have identified the need to maybe re-establish your brand or your identity, kind of retool it.

What is the process that it looks like working with an agency to define that, going through reviews, all of that, and ultimately the deliverable, which is where the finish line that we're all really excited for.

But a bulk of the book is kind of the process and the messiness of it and embracing the process.

And so it's really a playbook of, you know, building your brand and bringing along either the technical folks in your firm, the leadership in your firm, or in our case, our clients along for the ride.

And just walking through the process and what to expect.

Embracing the process.

That sounds like it gives us a little permission that it might be messy.

It might be messy on both sides, you know, that group.

Is there a few things that you thought, ooh, I want to try that.

I want to implement that or I want to bring this to the team.

Yeah, yeah, I love writing handwritten notes while I'm reading.

I'm just still on the physical nature of that.

And so I wrote down some quotes that really stood out to me and maybe it'll be helpful for our listeners when they're presenting the importance of brand or identity to their team and maybe not getting the buy-in that they would really desire.

You know, people jumping on board, investing time and resources towards these efforts.

But this book really emphasizes, and I think does a good job of stating why it is a value prop and what value it brings beyond ROI.

And so there's some quotes that maybe will resonate with Lauren Jane, Wendy, Susan.

So feel free to jump in.

But the very first quote of the book is, when a company grows, everything breaks.

And I thought that it that's kind of an intense first quote, but it does highlight that when you are a successful company, you have to have brand and identity at the center to be able to scale up as you're growing and to be able to continue on with what's made you so successful.

And so that really was a great, I think, first quote, first takeaway from the book that, you know, when you're successful and you're scaling up, it's important to really be mindful of your brand and identity and do the steps that you need to, to make sure that that's the core of what y'all are marching towards in all of your efforts.

Another quote that I really enjoyed was, in a very saturated and competitive landscape, brand is a key ingredient in outperforming your competitors.

And I think that we experience that in proposal work, we're literally judged and competing on a numerical basis of against other firms.

But we all know that the AEC realm, there are a lot of really strong firms out there.

It's hard to make a decision when there's eight maybe pursuers on an SOQ and all of them are super qualified.

And think of your brand and identity as a differentiator.

And I thought that that really spoke to just holistically, the importance of brand and identity, but especially in the AEC realm, it can be something that can be really key to help you stand out, you know, beyond the absolutes, which is your capabilities, qualifications.

Well, I have a question for Grace, because when it comes to me reading books or listening to books, I'm always kind of curious about what the commitment is.

So maybe you could tell us a little bit of how long did it take you to get through the book?

Is it, you know, is it huge?

Or can you finish it in a couple of weeks and, you know, just have time for the next book?

So great question.

This is actually one of my big pros of this book, was that I found it very approachable, very easy to read, and it did not take me much time to get through it at all.

If you sit down, if you're a very focused reader, you could probably get through it in a couple hours, to be honest.

And if you're more one of the skimmers, one of the really awesome features of this book, cause I think that Bill did a really great job knowing who the audience was.

I was going to be reading this, which was, you know, potential future clients, really busy, business owners that maybe don't have all the time in the world to read something super, super dense, is that at the end of each section, which are four sections in this book, there are key takeaways from each chapter.

So it's really nice, like even if you're just kind of glossing through the content, at the end of each section, there's a really nice recap of what was covered and kind of the key takeaways that you can put into motion or just know.

So I would say that not a huge commitment.

Well, I practically know the answer to this question by your quick overview here, but since it's a book review, I will ask you, would you recommend this book?

And since there's a couple of audiences, whether you're the in-house marketing group or someone on the consulting or agency side, are there any differences between those groups and if they'd find this book valuable?

I think across the board, yes, both for folks that are in-house, but then also folks that are more on the consulting side.

I think that for the in-house folks, this book is extremely relevant and important.

One, if you're considering hiring a consultant for a specific brand effort or marketing effort that you are wanting to invest in, it really has, there's specific chapters about what to look for when you're hiring a consultant.

And I thought that that was really valuable from the perspective of the reader and maybe the client side of things.

I also think that there were good reminders throughout for in-house folks, and then in our work too, of what do you need to bring either leadership, your marketing director, your clients along with you along the ride, and for the expectations of them, and how, you know, it can be daunting to ask your CEO of a company, what do we want to be, or who are we, how do we want to make people feel?

And this book did a really great job of talking through why those questions are important, and maybe some people will see that as fluff, but it talks about how those are really essential questions to ask in order to differentiate yourself and really create a brand and identity that's authentic to what you're doing that is lasting.

So I thought that there was really helpful tips, both for in-house folks, that will find this relevant, again, for working with leadership and also just kind of knowing the best practices out there and what to look for when you're hiring maybe a creative agency or a consultant to come in, but also, especially in our work at Middle of Six, I thought that it did a really great job highlighting the experience and the process of working with, you know, our clients in this brand work that is so essential.

And ultimately, it is really fun, even though it can be at times a little hard or feel like, oh, are we really making progress?

But ultimately, you're making really great progress.

And it was reassuring to read this book to know that the pros, folks that are working with firms that are going after venture capitalists, you know, that they also struggle or work through these kinds of ups and downs of the branding process.

So it was reassuring to hear that.

Well, I can't wait to read it myself.

And from a few perspectives, obviously, you know, Middle of Six does a lot of this branding work for our clients, but we strongly manage our own brand and are constantly looking at that and assessing, is it right?

Does it reflect it?

And I am, you know, the business owner who would be making that decision.

When is it time for a brand refresh?

Or so I'm sure there's many questions in that book that will be helpful for me.

Thanks for sharing this one, Grace.

It sounds like it was a home run.

Absolutely.

And shout out just for inspiration.

And if you're looking for just creative inspiration, all of that, I would recommend checking out Focus Lab, which is the creative agency that Bill Kenney helped found and is still leading.

And they do a lot of great work.

It's not specific to AEC work, but it is B2B work.

And just the way that they write about their projects and the way that they present their products and their deliverables is pretty neat.

So shout out to Focus Lab.

Nice.

All right.

Well, let's move on to our second book in the list.

Susan, are you ready?

I'm willing to share a little bit about the book you read.

Why don't you go ahead and tell our listeners what you selected?

Yeah, sure.

The book that I read is called This is Marketing by Seth Godin.

He's actually written probably like 18 books and has quite a history in marketing.

He has a blog that you can also check out, and he's done workshops around the world.

He used to, I think he started in the.com, worked at Yahoo, and then has since started several businesses.

So he has a lot of experience, and this book is, well, it's kind of interesting.

I was looking for something that was going to be a little bit more on inspiration for creativity.

I love those kind of books, but it was a little bit too vague.

It wasn't really finding anything.

So I came across this book, and I read the back of it, and it really intrigued me.

So the back said, this is the chant you've been waiting for, the opportunity to bring work you care about to people eager to engage with it, pay for it, and talk about it.

I believe that the only way to make a difference is to truly see and understand the people you seek to influence.

Once they're fully engaged, they will be happy to help you spread the word.

This book will change the questions you ask, the things you noticed, and most of all the work you're able to do.

It will help you make things better by making better things.

Your work matters.

Make the ruckus.

So that was interesting to me.

And one thing that I really like about this book is that it's actually kind of a funny, short little stocky book, but lots of chapters in it that are very quick read.

You know, it's really easy to just kind of get lost in the book and the time will fly by.

So, that's always a good thing for me.

The emphasis throughout the book is really that the purpose of marketing is to help people you serve get to where they want to go.

So that involves creating honest stories and stories that really resonate and spread.

So the main message is like the old way of marketing at people is over and now we're marketing for people.

So, the way that you do this is essentially by finding the smallest viable market and then answering the question, what are you trying to change?

What's your promise?

Your promise is directly connected to the change that you seek to make and it's addressed to the people that you seek to change.

So, who do you seek to change?

Can't change everyone, so who is it?

So, the idea is to like be very specific on who your audience is and find that market.

So, this again, the book is kind of Marketing 101, I guess you could say or definitely how it's changed over time.

But it gives you kind of these steps to assess your business and it could be anything.

They give so many examples throughout the book of failures and successes in business that kind of speak to the point that they're trying to make.

But whether you're a non-profit or no matter what your business is essentially, that you can follow these steps to really be specific and be authentic.

That's a good overview of the book and I was in preparation for this thinking, gosh, have I actually read a Seth Godin book?

And I scanned my memory, looked through my Audible subscription and I was like, gosh, I have it.

I'm really surprised because every conference I go to, all the time on my LinkedIn feed, really great captions and quotes are showing up on social media attributed to him and his advice.

I mean, he is a, I don't know, he'd hate this, right?

Like the grandfather of this topic, but he's definitely very established and very well respected.

But I haven't read this book and I'm sure that it does feel like that foundational knowledge that could be really helpful, especially if you're a student of marketing or earlier in your career, as opposed to a lot of us here on the mic have been practicing for a while.

Did you have a sense, Susan, did you feel like this was targeted to people who are practicing marketing?

Like this is a book for marketers or business owners or just general information?

Yeah, it feels a little bit general.

It's kind of like knowledge for everyone who is, I guess, running a business and working the marketing side of it, right?

So that could include many people within the business.

But it was a little bit general and that might be one of the cons of the book, right?

It's not AEC focused, obviously, that's kind of a hard thing to find, but it also is just a little bit generic, I would say.

Mm-hmm.

So maybe a great book for a group of people to read before they go on a retreat and they're going to have that foundational knowledge and think about their brand and their company.

Grace, you have something to add or a question for Susan on this book?

I do have a question.

I'm curious, Susan, I know you have a few lessons from the book, but is there anything that you learned, something that you learned from reading this book that you're bringing that kind of changes the way that you approach your work on a daily basis or anything that you're going that you're like, oh, like I want to implement that in my day to day at Middle of Six?

Yeah, that's a good question.

It's funny when I started this book, I thought it would be a little bit more that way.

Like, oh, okay, there's going to be step one, do this, da da da da da.

It wasn't so much like that.

It was definitely more about thinking about personas and building that out and understand who your audience is and ways of doing that.

Again, with all these different examples from different companies and how they take that knowledge and when it works and when it doesn't.

So I would say that for Middle of Six, the books resonated because I felt like, oh, we are very intentional about the content that we're creating and making sure that it resonates with our audience.

I mean, the perfect example of that is the wild cards, right?

Like taken from real life experiences, inject some humor in there, and then bring together these beautiful illustrations, and you've got the whole package, right?

So in reality, I was reading the book and kind of thinking like, oh yeah, we've got this.

So that's a good feeling.

Well, Susan, then in your opinion, would you recommend this book?

And what was the, like you just asked Grace, what was the lift on reading it?

Was it an easy read?

Do you need to get out your highlighter and start making notes throughout?

What would you recommend and what's the level of effort for people who might be considering it?

Yeah, I would say that this book is, I would probably rate it a seven or something.

It was a very quick read.

It's really, like I said, really easy to just jump in and kind of get immersed in it.

It just moves really quickly.

And a couple of things that I loved is that at the end, he provides a list of kind of questions to ask yourself when thinking about your marketing.

So that was like a nice reference in the back.

And then he also includes a list of other books to read.

So I feel like it's a great starting point.

And there's so much more that you can obviously, he's got 18 books.

So there's lots more that you could read and learn.

And overall, the lift is pretty light.

It's a quick read.

All right.

Well, good.

So anyone who feels like either themselves or their team or maybe their spouse needs a primer on marketing, hand that book over and they should get up to speed pretty quickly.

And it is like from one of the experts in the field.

So thank you, Susan.

All right.

Next up on the book review list, Lauren Jane, what did you choose to read?

Yeah.

So for my book, I chose Art and Fear, Observations on the Perils and Rewards of Art Making by David Bales and Ted Orland.

They are photographers, but the book references art from a much more general standpoint, making work, photography, writing, art in general.

And I was given this book by a friend who loved it and wanted me to read it.

I have a strong art background and I have a art practice on my own, but it's not only relevant for me outside of work, but also in work.

I do lots of art practices in my job and in my life at Middle of Six.

That includes some design work, but also writing for clients.

I would say most marketers listening to this podcast do at least some writing.

That's a huge part of a marketing role.

So marketers listening to this might do some writing or even some visual design work.

And non-marketers, but people involved in marketing, conversations or projects listening to this podcast, also probably do a lot of writing.

That might be a cover letter or content that goes into a proposal, etc.

So that, I feel like, makes this really relevant for anybody doing that type of work.

And I want to start by saying there's a quote that starts the book off by Jean Fowler, and it says, Writing is easy.

All you do is sit, staring at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

Yeah, we can relate.

You know, the whole point of the book is that fear and doubt can really disrupt and derail the creative process and our creativity and our work, and can hold you back from even maybe starting.

The author dives into fear of failure, perfectionism, and outside pressure that can hold us back.

And I think everybody could relate to how maybe that plays out in their personal life, but also at work, right?

So this is a little bit of a motivational book of sorts.

It's not cheesy.

I didn't find it cheesy or kitschy at all, but rather left me reflecting a lot about my own fears and my own processes and quirks.

As I dive into projects for my own or for clients, it touches on the creative process, how we jumpstart our projects.

It touches on feedback and embracing feedback from others as we grow and not being afraid of hearing feedback and not taking it too harshly.

I mentioned the fear of failure.

That's a big thing.

You know, there are times where we can take risks, whether that be a holiday gift or maybe in our personal lives, if we're practicing some writing, you know, maybe you're writing a book or maybe you're doing some other work in your personal life.

And those are times to take risks and not be afraid and just keep making work.

Right.

A few relatable snippets in addition to that quote that I read at the beginning are the first one says, even talent is rarely distinguishable over the long run from perseverance and hard work.

It's a reminder that making work and doing the work and just cranking it out goes so, like such a long way, you know, just doing the work can get you so far.

And the other snippet that I want to leave with the audience is to require perfection is to invite paralysis.

I love this book.

It's, it's little.

It's easy to read, gives you some good snippets.

I was able to pick it up and put it down and get some good bits from it and think about them, chew on them and walk away and come back.

So, yeah, it was, it was a great read and isn't so work driven or marketing driven and was a little nice break.

Yeah.

Lots of takeaways, it sounds like.

I'm curious on the, since the book in the title is observations on the perils and rewards of art making, are there tips throughout to how to deal with those different areas of fear, like failure and perfectionism?

Is it organized in that way or do they kind of address that?

Does the author address it in a different way?

It's almost story format.

So the author says, embracing feedback is a difficult thing.

Here are some anecdotes or some stories to that.

And then he touches on them from his opinion and gives some suggestions.

But it is not, these are the issues and here's how to solve them.

One, two, three.

You know, it's a little bit looser.

And it leaves you chewing on things a little bit more.

The second half of the book, I would say, is a little more dense.

Definitely you read things, you're like, oh, let me read that again.

And there's a little bit of intellectual debate happening in the book.

So not that it wasn't worthy, but I didn't find that as, I don't know, easy or enjoyable as the first half.

But both are good, and yeah, I got a lot.

I got a lot from that.

Lauren Jane, you are so in the art world, and I'm curious about David and Ted's backgrounds.

Are they, like, what art, what mediums are they in?

What do they do?

And also, how do they show up in the book?

Are they, is it pretty clear when David's writing versus Ted, or is it pretty blended?

I'm just kind of curious for the background and how they present themselves throughout the book.

As for when David or Ted are speaking, it is not clear at all.

They don't say, you know, David here, chiming in.

I actually didn't do research into their collaboration and who did what and why.

I'm really curious about that.

I want to dive into that.

Even the introduction is written from the two of them as a whole, just signed by both of them.

My understanding is that they're both photographers.

David Bales is also a conservationist.

So they both come from the photography world, but definitely speak to all mediums of art.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm going to have to check them out.

Well, Lauren Jane, you mentioned storytelling, and then I was glad to hear that because I was like, oh, Susan's book, storytelling examples, Grace's book, storytelling.

So if there's one common thread in, not necessarily the subject matter of each of these books, but in the way those authors are choosing to share their expertise, make it real.

And then something I think I heard from all of you too is that it made me realize like, yep, I'm not alone.

We're doing that, we face that, I get it.

And so that's another true line there that sometimes you just need to read something or watch something or be exposed to it to understand that you're not the only one who's dealt with this or faced it.

And there are solutions all around us if we look around and share ideas and stuff.

So I don't know, those are a couple of the things I heard listening to you all.

I think that we're at a good place to wrap this up, even though we could go deeper and deeper.

So I just want to remind our listeners what we talked about today.

Grace read Conquer Your Rebrand, Build a B2B Brand That Customers Love and Competitors Envy by Bill Kenney.

And Grace, you didn't say it out loud, but I know here that you gave that an 8.5 in your scoring.

And that's similar to Lauren Jane's review to her book, 8.5 for Art and Fear, Observations on the Perils and Rewards of Art-Making by David Bales and Ted Orland.

Susan's book by Seth Godin, This is Marketing, a classic, definitely.

She rated that a 7, mostly because it's sort of baseline stuff.

And maybe a lot of us marketers are already practicing that, but still some good foundational stuff.

So hopefully that's helpful for our listeners.

I mean, I'm going to check out all three of these, honestly.

So thank you for sharing.

I appreciate you all.

I want to say, if you read any of these books, write us.

Let us know if you liked them.

And we're always looking for more books to add to our list and read and review.

So let us know.

I was going to say the same thing.

We have a lot of readers at Middle of Six, and we've talked about doing a book club.

And we definitely share books that we like, and we did that post on social.

So I agree with Lauren Jane.

If you have book recommendations, send them our way for sure.

Nice.

Well, that's always a good recommendation.

I looked at the books on my desk, and in the last six weeks, I'm not joking.

This is unusual for me, but I've read five books, front to back.

So that's, again, I think that's a little bit unusual, but I think between our group, we're always sharing ideas.

And hey, have you checked out this?

So now I've got my next month reading already listed out for me.

Thanks, everybody.

Have a great week, and thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next podcast.

The Shortlist is presented by Middle of Six.

Our producer is Kyle Davis, with digital marketing support by the team at Middle of Six.

If you're looking for past episodes or more info, check out our podcast page at middleofsix.com/theshortlist.

You can follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at Middle of Six.

Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.

Until next time, keep on hustling.

Bye.

See you next time.

Don't be afraid, make art.

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.