The Shortlist Episode 71: Pushing the Boundaries on Pursuits

With selection committees tasked with reviewing eight, nine, or even a dozen proposals at a time, it takes more than polished boilerplate for an AEC firm to stand out. Sometimes the winning move is a bold, experimental, and 100% client-focused approach that not only shows off your qualifications but also your team's enthusiasm and understanding of the project.

In this episode of The Shortlist, Wendy Simmons sits down with Melissa Richey and Becky Ellison to explore what it really means to "push the boundaries" in AEC pursuits. Armed with more stories than we could fit into one episode, these proposal pros share standout examples of teams that went all-in with bespoke themes, creative leave-behinds, and connection-building interview tactics.

And because time, budget, and resources are always a factor, the conversation also dives into when to go fully "HAM" and how to weigh risk versus reward. For marketers and business developers who might be hesitant to try something different, the Middle of Six team offers practical tips and a reminder that a little boldness and ingenuity can go a long way.

CPSM CEU Credits: 0.5 | Domain: 4

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 Melissa Richey and Becky Ellison to discuss pushing the boundaries and pursuits.

Hi, Becky.

Hey, Melissa.

Hey, hey.

Hi, Wendy.

Oh, hey, Melissa.

Hi, Becky.

This is a fun topic that we get to explore today.

We talk about pushing the boundaries all the time as a group at Middle of Six.

When is the right time to do something a little bit more?

Maybe we just start with defining what this means to us.

You know, what are we talking about when we say push the boundaries?

Because it could be visual, it could be about the messaging, it could be about performance in the interview.

I don't know, Melissa, do you have any thoughts on how this shows up for AEC marketers and why you might be considering to do something like push the boundary on a pursuit?

Well, yeah, I think it's ultimately a way to help your firm and your team stand out.

So that might be because you're the underdog for the project.

So you want to pull out all the stops to make your submittal or your interview memorable for the client.

Maybe you're the incumbent and you want to make sure you're not sitting on your laurels.

So you're really going to show the client that, yes, we're the favorite, yes, we've been working together forever and yes, we still value you as an important client and we're going to really make this pursuit shine so you remember why you like us.

The proposals, they have to do a lot of heavy lifting for our teams, even if you're pre-positioned or I don't know, if you're the new kid to submitting the proposal, it has to do a lot of work.

With that, you have to make that first impression really quickly.

That tends to lead to the design side.

That's where it comes to my mind first here.

So I don't know if we want to even start with the cover or strategy before you get into the design piece of it.

But where are you, you know, Becky, maybe you can speak to this.

When do you feel like you have permission to push the boundary on the pursuit?

Well, working on the consultant side, obviously we need to have permission from the client ultimately, because, you know, as Melissa said, when you're working on a pursuit, you have a goal.

Your strategy is to break through the pack or to remind them, we work together, whatever it is that you're looking to do.

And if you need to stand out to accomplish that goal, then when you take a look at most construction pursuits, proposals all have kind of a formula.

They all look the same.

They're all just pages and pages of like maybe two columns of text.

There's a picture every page, every other page.

There's tables.

It's just sort of the same thing.

So just as much as the text that they're reading over and over again can say the same thing, the design of a proposal is very often the same thing.

So in order to break through that noise, one great way to do that is to put together a proposal that is more of an experience, I would say, to put some effort into the design so that the person reading it is kind of like, wow, from the second they take a look, they look at the cover and they know, okay, this is going to be, here we go, settling in to read this experience.

So yeah, it absolutely does start with the first impression, which is a fraction of a second.

They know if they're going to be interested in this right away, and that's exciting.

I can think of past examples, and we will probably get into some of these past examples that we've done at Middle of Six or before we were here.

But just to clarify, pushing the boundaries doesn't necessarily mean just taking one piece and blowing it up.

There's like this bigger, over-

arching visual strategy as part of a big effort like this.

And maybe we do need to get into an example to make this more real for our listeners here.

But it's not just necessarily swapping out the layout from portrait to landscape.

That's not necessarily pushing the boundaries so much.

I don't know, either one of you kind of want to talk about how you get to that point where we're like, we're going to blow this one up.

Or we recommend, hey, hey, team, what do you think about this?

And having those kind of strategic discussions.

I can think of an example, Becky and I worked on together.

It was for a general contractor, and it was for a private school.

And this general contractor had built some schools, but it had been a while.

And they had some connections to the school.

Their family members had gone to school there.

Their family had donated money.

So there was some history.

But they weren't thought of as necessarily the top school builder in the market, looking at who they were competing against.

And so we're talking about the pursuit and how much they would love to get back more into that type of work and would really love to be able to work at their alma mater.

And so that kind of was the entree to, well, let's do something to make this team stand out.

Could we go ham and totally brand the proposal to something that's going on with this school?

So we took our cues from the school and, Becky, what was the school's theme for the year?

Their theme for the year was, Come As You Are, which of course said to us immediately being the hip, cool grunge fans that we are.

Nirvana, baby.

So we took a look at the project and the school and what they were all about.

And they had kind of, I mean, they had leaned into that as well.

I mean, there was definitely, they had done some videos that had, you know, Nirvana music to it and whatever.

And we thought, let's take this to just like a million next levels.

So the president of the company that we were working for actually attended that school back in the 90s.

So we thought, what a wonderful, this everything's coming together, right?

For this to be, why not just theme it with like grunge and alternative?

And like, let's go all out.

Let's go Nirvana on this.

Why not?

So I, you know, when when Melissa told me like, go ahead and go ham, I feel like I'm just like a leashed dog just waiting to like run free and bite everyone.

But like every now and again, she'll say, just go ham, sky's limit, do whatever you want.

And I'm just, you know, so I, I, I set to researching, which was very fun and was not at all work because it was just reminiscing.

And we went into this whole just theme.

We themed it to, you know, the school and their vibe and all of their thematic stuff that they were doing with this Come As You Are campaign.

And that that looked like flannel on the background of some of the pages.

That looked like the the font from like Nirvana's album titles is, you know, being used as like section headers.

I had think like, you know, duct tape with like Sharpie written on it, with that sort of grunge look throughout the proposal.

We had old school photos of our of our company president when he went there, that sort of thing.

And it was just it was wonderful.

Like we we really just went went all into this like gorgeous 90s grunge design that showed that, you know, we really cared about what it was that they were trying to say and trying to do and their theme for the year.

Like we were really saying, hey, we're in this.

We cared.

We took, you know, an extra step to really look into what you are doing.

I heard from both of you in how you described the like permission to go ham, which is what we say a lot here at Middle of Six, probably because of Becky.

It's a favorite phrase.

Thank you.

You get what we mean.

You know, go wild, go nuts, whatever that might be.

But there was permission on our client side, the GC, wanting to do something different, having energy, probably good knowledge.

It sounds like obviously with the CEO having gone to that school, the research that everyone had done to understand, hey, this nirvana theme is not wildly different than what the school is already doing and talking about.

So it felt like there were these little hairline cracks that would allow some more creativity and that opening to push the boundaries.

That's probably the starting point, having some receptive audience and confidence that this is not going to be a disaster, I guess, is what we're going for.

We don't want to put all that energy into something that strikes the wrong tone or misses the mark.

Yeah, we definitely considered that.

So we did spend a little time and I think it was maybe on the school's YouTube page.

They had videos of the kids singing, Come As You Are, and so I was like, they're leaning in on the theme as well, so we feel good that this will be well-received.

That is the feedback they got.

They were shortlisted for the interview, unfortunately, they did not win the job, but the school complimented them on the proposal.

They loved it.

They said it was so interesting, so fun to read, so fun to review, so it still left a positive impression.

So if you didn't win the job, at least you made a good impression.

We won their hearts.

Yes.

And did you feel like in this case, or maybe if you think of all of the really creative proposals that you've worked on, do you have to like deviate from the expectations or, I mean, obviously, we can't deviate from the questions in the format.

How do you go ham and also make sure everything is perfectly compliant?

Are there like red flags of pursuits that would not be a good candidate for that based on the requirements?

I mean, the first thing I think of is I don't think you can do that on an SF 330 if you're going after a federal project.

Maybe you could add some color to the tables on the 330, but I don't think that kind of client or that type of pursuit response format would lend itself to doing anything that bespoke.

That is a great point.

Do you think it's a more private developer or I mean, the school project you were talking about was a private school, so it feels a little different than when we're submitting to agencies.

Yeah, no, not necessarily.

You're making me remember one for a parks district, which I guess you could make the argument of all of the public agencies.

A parks district is probably the most fun, because you go to parks to recreate and have fun.

But another general contractor, and it was for a parks district that was creating a community space that I think was going to have like tennis courts and gathering spaces.

And so we went with a sports theme and it was fun.

The team was into it.

We're like, OK, you want to stand out kind of the same type of conversation.

And then we're like, OK, how else can we add this in?

And was like, OK, did anyone play sports?

And people did.

So we asked for them to send us pictures of them as kids playing sports.

And one of the project managers was a coach for that district with his kids.

So we got some photos of him coaching his kids.

So it was pretty fun.

And we themed that throughout the proposal, made the resumes kind of like a baseball card.

And then when they went to the interview, we actually printed the baseball cards and they handed them out.

It was an in-person interview and they were going to walk around the site.

So that was a way for them to introduce themselves.

And that one, it did go over well.

Client was responsive and receptive to that.

And they ended up winning the project.

So knowing that audience pretty well and having buy-in across your team to sort of go all in feels like a couple of the things that you can confirm in your mind.

Yet this one feels like a good project to put that extra effort.

Because making baseball cards and gathering photos from your team's houses, you know, however they're sending those in, all of that, it takes extra time, extra work.

We all know there's not usually a ton of just extra time floating around, but we can get easily trapped into just producing the proposal that's requested like every single one, but we're missing, missing an opportunity there for sure.

Becky, what about like, as Melissa was talking about, the park district and theming it towards parks, I just immediately thought about all the school proposals I've done, where my boss or my group I was working with really wanted it to be themed to the school, to the elementary school, the Whittaker Wolverines, or whatever, you know, it's going to be.

But I don't think that's what we're talking about so much.

I mean, that, or maybe that's just on one end of the spectrum.

There's cheesy, and then there's like really creative, that pushing the boundary level.

I don't know, how do you avoid going into the cheese mode?

I think the most important thing is to make it something that will resonate with them.

You want to think about your client.

You want to understand their brand.

Who are they?

Cheese is relative, I would say.

I mean, maybe you're doing a proposal for a cheese company.

That would be my absolute dream.

Tillamook, call me.

I hope that you would always kind of get a sense of your client when you're doing a proposal.

Do that research, go to their website, see what do they care about, what are they doing, what do they say, who are they?

An example that comes to mind is we did another proposal for that same general contractor that we did the Nirvana School one for.

For a company that makes tabletop games, which was something I knew nothing about, but we thought we have to do something special for them because they're a fun company, they do a fun thing.

This is not a boring client, right?

So I learned more about Dungeons and Dragons than I ever thought I ever, ever would.

And that is what we decided to theme the proposal as.

A shadow grows on the wall behind you, swallowing you in darkness.

It is almost here.

What is it?

What if it's the Demogorgon?

I went beyond Ham on that one.

I researched everything about this tabletop gaming world.

I talked to people I knew who were gamers.

I did the resumes as like this.

If you know anything about Dungeons and Dragons, you're going to just love this.

But we did like the little, you know, the strengths and skills for each person was like, is this person a chaotic good or like, you know, whatever, that sort of thing.

And we did a little rundown of each person.

And, you know, the backgrounds of the pages were like tabletops.

And we just went, we had the 12-sided dice, the whole thing, like, and in order to avoid this seeming, you know, cheap or cheesy or whatever, I made sure that it was true.

This was authentic.

Everything that we included in this proposal was based on something absolutely real that I thoroughly researched and I knew was connected to their brand, so that when they're, you know, paging through this, there's going to be somebody on the other end of that proposal who would know, oh, that's not a real thing.

You know, they're making fun of us.

And I thought, no way, we're not leaving room for any of that.

So every single detail was very true to the brand and what they do.

And that was really fun.

And we got really good feedback on that as well.

Yeah, and we had to do a little education for the project team.

I'd say that would be a caution.

If you are going to do this, you have to make sure that people that are going to ultimately go in front of that client know what those different things mean.

So some of the Dungeon and Dragon personality types kind of sound negative, but they're not.

So we had to kind of send them to the D&D website so they could go read about it and understand that, no, like the chaotic is not bad.

It's good.

So there is that part that you can't just go off in marketing and then send the team and then have them step in it.

You got to bring everybody along.

Yeah, that's a good reminder.

And that research that, Becky, you've already mentioned a couple of times, the more you can understand that you're not infusing something that's old or outdated, if it's beyond your area of knowledge, because you're going to hand that right over to the team as they go into the interview.

So, kind of creating a whole fresh set of recommendations and strategy for the team to run with, based on the proposal being the inspiration part.

So, a little more effort.

All right, well, what if you don't have time to go as wild as you want to do, or you think that the project has space to do, you don't have time or can't get buy-in from your team, or maybe worse off, your idea gets shot down along the way from someone who wasn't bought in.

Are there ways you can go smaller and still get a lot of impact?

Yeah, absolutely.

You always, again, want to research the client and see what is going on in their world.

So one way to speak to them, to kind of speak their language, is to literally look at the things that they're saying, the words that they're using, their themes, their visions and projects, what it is that they want, their goals.

And then you can use some of that wording in your proposal.

I mean, make it big and bold, big, huge call outs.

If their motto for the year is forward to the future, then you could slap that right on the cover, forward to the future of this project or whatever.

Use the words that they know, use their branding.

That's something that a lot of AEC firms will do already.

We'll brand every proposal to the client.

Some don't.

Some always use their own branding.

But if you are one of those firms that never has branded to the client, give it a shot.

Maybe, you know, if they have wildly different colors and, you know, fonts and a different look, then you give it a try.

Brand that proposal to them so that when they open it, they'll recognize it.

They'll say, this is familiar.

They know us.

Oh, okay.

This isn't about them.

This is about us.

It's a subtle psychological trick there.

Photography, storytelling, things that kind of speak to them on a personal level.

You know, if the client has a specific focus that you can connect your personnel to in some way, if they're like a restaurant chain or something and you've got a superintendent that makes a hell of a cheeseburger, you know, that would be a great story to pop in there.

And that costs you nothing except a little phone chat with the superintendent, get the details, take a picture, pop it in there, there you go.

You don't have to spend weeks and weeks crafting a masterpiece.

It can just be like little little nuggets of truth and understanding of the brand.

I've always found that the big ideas, they need some time to implement.

They can often come too late in the process.

It can turn into like, oh, there's opportunity to be creative and it's exciting for the marketing team.

But it actually just turns into something stressful because it doesn't feel like we can implement it as much.

So, picking up that note that Becky said, a quick phone call with the superintendent might give you that little nugget that can become an icon or a little call out on their resume.

That's a smaller level of effort and it still can start to stand out from the standard resumes that look the same in every school proposal, right?

There's nothing changing there.

So find those big ideas or even latch on to the littler ones earlier in the process.

It gives you a better chance.

I think another thing is maybe you don't have the time, but you've got the idea during the proposal stage.

So maybe it's something you can execute during the interview.

Even just like the earlier example of the Parks District, maybe you didn't have time to theme the whole proposal, but you could make the little baseball cards for everybody for the interview, or people had to have grandma mail their photos from Iowa.

Or grandma.

They didn't make it in time.

So maybe there's an opportunity at the interview to take that theme.

Depending on how much information is out there about your project, some of these ideas might be really easy to latch on to.

They might just be right there in a strategic plan, and others require a bit more of the insider intel.

We've talked a lot about being so well pre-positioned that you have that inside information so that you can be prepping for this.

I mean, this is why on a really major pursuit, you might have a year to get ready for that.

That's pretty exciting to work on, too.

What about bringing, Melissa, since you mentioned it, bringing these things into the interview?

Again, avoiding something that will feel gimmicky or may not resonate with the committee, but do you have either of you suggestions or experiences like getting the team comfortable in bringing that theme forward and how far do you take it?

Costumes?

Wow.

No.

Oh, man, but I have definitely worked with some teams before where they will say, you know, the competition, the last time they all came wearing, you know, I hear a bunch of that.

I don't know that, can't really, an interview doesn't come to mind where I can remember costumes making it in for my team.

I don't know that that always works, but it's definitely something people consider.

I think we jokingly said on the Nirvana themed proposal, does everyone want to wear a flannel or anything?

And it was more kind of a ha ha ha.

Like, I think you've got to kind of judge the comfort level of the team.

Like, that was half joking, because I think they are too professional of a firm that they would not go for that.

Yeah, truthful and tasteful is the key.

Yeah.

If you put it out there, you get the chance to hear feedback.

And maybe, it's almost like a casual brainstorm.

Maybe it's not that idea, but it leads to the winning idea that comes as people kind of share some other options.

Yeah, and you can't totally abandon it at the interview either.

Like, the slides we put together for that interview used the same branding, so you can't just put in a totally bespoke proposal and then just go back to the normal thing at the interview, because that would feel like, what was that?

What was all that for?

Yeah, carrying that theme forward.

Well, what are some ways that you feel like it's been successful in bringing that theme forward?

Agenda, placemat, boards, pretty straightforward.

Others?

You can have icebreakers that are themed to the project and or the client.

I think Wendy, you actually suggested a little bit ago that for a school project, that the team go around and share school stories and see if they can get people talking about that sort of thing.

I've definitely seen that done.

I worked in-house at a company where we had a really important interview, and the team decided to run the interview as if they were having a project meeting, as if they had already won the job, and they were having a project meeting, and the interview panel was just peeking in on the meeting.

That was something they did, not just as a gimmick, but they did that because they knew that there were some particular details that were very important to this interview panel, that they needed to know how this project was going to be run.

That's exactly why they did that sort of thing.

I've seen choose-your-own-adventure game show style interviews where they sort of made a literal Jeopardy!

game board of here's all the topics we're going to talk about, and they would go around the interview panel.

What do you care about?

What do you want?

So that we were only addressing what people wanted to know about.

And there's so many opportunities to theme that to the project that again, you've got to discuss this with the team.

This can't just be something that marketing did in the proposal, and then it goes away.

But these interviews are just like the proposal.

You're interviewing several teams, they're all saying the same thing.

You've got to find a way to stand out and speak to them.

And doing something bold and different, stepping outside the box can really make the difference, especially when they're hungry and tired and they want to go home.

Yeah, or I was going to say maybe you're going first.

And that feels like if you're the first team to interview, you need to be the most memorable, because they're going to hear from a couple companies who are sort of saying the same thing.

So, just showing that outward effort up front will help you be more memorable towards the end of the interview process.

And I think for pushing the boundaries in an interview, that doesn't have to all be on the marketing department.

That can be the team.

Maybe if you're the underdog, hey, why don't you guys do a 30% design of the road or prepare a site analysis graphic to show what you're considering are the key issues on the project.

You know, there can be technical design and execution type of work that the team would work on.

So another thing you could be talking about in the proposal, okay, we're making it totally themed to the project.

Now you all get dug in on the project so that you have something really impressive to talk about at the interview and show that you're already working on the project.

Pretty common that interview teams can feel nervous about making strong recommendations when they don't have all the information.

But I see a trend going for interviews that they are a bit more conversational.

Panels want to meet the team they're going to work with and understand how they communicate.

So to your point, Melissa, letting them go ham on the recommendations and also knowing that it's a bit of a conversation.

They don't have to say it so emphatically that this is the only way, but that can be a real winning strategy to just demonstrate how you'll be as a team and bring some creativity to.

Maybe there's a wild card idea you bring in that as part that feels like it's pushing the boundaries.

You're like, hey, we know this is probably not the option, but what if, or have you considered that, could just add to the creative conversations that's happening.

Well, I'm sure that this has happened to both of you over the years, but what do you do when a team or even at one individual is very concerned that this is going to be too risky, that you're risking the chance of winning, they're nervous about it, how do you calm their fears or just confirm like, is it too risky?

I mean, obviously we're not in the business of setting our team up to fail.

So how do you deal with that concern?

I love this question.

I think people very often worry that if we do something too weird or too wacky, we're going to be seen as ridiculous.

But I think a lot of times the result that is created with doing something really creative, like what we were talking about, is not as wacky as you think it is, very often.

And I would argue again and again, the people reading these proposals and sitting on the other side of the table at the interview, they are people just like you.

They are people who want, they want to get to lunch, they want to go home.

They have lives.

They want you to be the right one.

They want every time they open a proposal or listen to somebody speak in an interview, they are desperately hoping, this is the team, this is the firm that we want, they're going to hit it out of the park, please, please, please, so we can finally be over with this process and build the project.

So with that said, those people are reading through miles and miles of text.

They're hearing the same things over and over and over again.

If you give them something just with just a little bit of fun, they're going to be so grateful for that.

You know, I mean, imagine yourself in their shoes.

If, you know, all day, every day, it was just text and numbers and Excel and de-fact and figures and oh my god.

You would just like, you'd be so bored.

But then somebody comes along who knows your brand.

They know about the things that you care about.

Their drop in names, their mention in products.

You know, like finally, you have somebody with just a little bit of fun in them.

Because, you know, something that is often said, I think, in AEC marketing and is so, so true is that everybody is qualified to build the project.

Everyone proposing has the experience, they have the qualifications.

The client is picking the firm that they want to work with.

They're choosing the people that they want to interact with every day.

When the phone rings and it's, oh, no, it's that project again.

Who do they want on the other end of that phone?

They want somebody who's fun, somebody who gets them, somebody who's got some energy.

And a great way to do that is to capture their attention with something fun, something outside the box.

I would say don't be afraid of a little bit of comedy.

Honestly, you know, I keep I feel like I keep saying this, but in today's world, you know, the attention span is so, so short.

Everything is just swipe, swipe, swipe, you know, until something catches your attention.

The best way to do that in a fraction of a second is with humor.

So if you can just give them a little bit, you don't have to be completely, you know, wacky out of your mind, but like just a little bit of fun, you're going to grab their attention and you're going to have them on your side.

So I would say take a risk.

Don't be afraid.

You can do a good job of reading the room again by staying truthful to the client, you know, and truthful to yourself.

I mean, don't do something that makes people feel uncomfortable.

But, you know, yeah, try it in steps.

Try it just a little bit on your next proposal.

Just do something a little fun.

Be a little bad.

And then by the end of the year, you'll just be painting proposals on the sides of buildings.

I don't know.

Maybe not.

Maybe so.

I don't know.

You have to warm up to it yourself and get your team warmed up to it as well.

Becky, that made me think, like, do you feel like you need a full-time graphic designer to pull this off?

What if you are a marketing department of one?

Can you do something this creative?

Yes, absolutely.

Because someone is making those proposals.

Someone is doing the hands-on work.

Whoever that is can do whatever they can do to the best of their ability.

We have a lot of resources at Middle of Six.

We have several people who can pitch in and produce a wonderfully creative product.

If you are just one lone marketer doing the best you can, there are so many things that you can do on a small scale.

Like we talked about with grabbing their language and making big call-outs out of that.

You can put fun facts on your resumes for your people.

Just a cute little fun fact that might resonate with the client, that can be a little bit of fun.

Maybe your estimator used to be in a thrash metal band.

That's exciting.

That's never going to not get somebody's attention.

You can just tune up something.

Maybe just make the cover of the proposal really fun.

A lot of people will sort of push the cover to the side because it doesn't matter.

And yes, there's no proposal content in it, but it is the first thing they see.

So maybe invest your time in what you can do.

If you don't have amazing graphic design chops, just try using color in a different way.

Try using the colors of your client.

Try using different photography.

Show more people, people having fun, people smiling, big photos.

I mean, just step outside the box a little bit.

And I promise you, whatever you try, you don't have to be a brilliant artist.

If you try anything that is different from the norm, you will stand out.

You will.

Because in my career, I have seen 400 million proposals and 300,000,999,000 of them look exactly the same.

So just try it.

Try something small.

I'm with you.

Middle of Six is with you, marketing department of one.

Oh, if you needed that extra support, Becky says, you can do it.

And we haven't talked a ton about the written content, but we said it doesn't have to all be visual.

So there's that element too, is that a theme can be started in the cover of a letter and then popping up visually or somewhere else in the words and phrases, as you get into the projects or resumes.

So starting there, that's something.

Do you know what, something that I just experienced working on a proposal recently that made me realize this has happened many times is when you're talking with the project team and they're strategizing on what, maybe what are the main differentiators?

What does the client care about?

What are the most important issues that we want to get across so that we can win this job?

A lot of times there will be somebody who just says, you know, we got to get this job done in however many weeks or like, it's just not going to happen.

They'll put it very bluntly, is what I'm trying to say.

I don't know anything about construction.

Imagine that I do, but you'll have like a COO or like a project executive who will put it in hilariously blunt terms, this is what the client wants.

If I was you, I'd write down exactly what they said and put it exactly the way they said it in the book.

Maybe take out the swear words if there were swear words, maybe not depending on the client.

But you know what I mean?

Get those points, write them down and don't change it.

Don't soften it into like, we will work together synergistically to ensure that blah, blah, blah.

No, say it exactly the way that like Steve, the superintendent, said it.

Because I guarantee you, that is exactly what the client is thinking.

So put that in big, huge letters where they can't miss it.

Draw attention to that.

That is another thing that will stand out because everyone else is doing that, like business speak that says nothing.

You're going to say exactly what your people are saying, that they know that the client cares about that.

Oh, that's going to win it every time.

I mean, I'm winning.

That's going to get their attention every time.

We are not going to talk about this today, but some day we will talk about AI and it's making me think about how Becky is like, this creativity, the comedy, the humor and putting the energy in to be really client focused is still a differentiator.

Something that the humans can do well and can be very thoughtful and is not going to be just the generic homogenized version of a proposal, which is what we're trying to get at here on this topic of pushing the boundaries.

Probably starting with the proposal marketing sort of has the most control over that element and it's a little easier in some ways than when you get to the interview stage where you're trying to infuse that piece of it.

But I think these were all really good ideas today about how you could be more creative, stand out, stand out because your client needs you to or stand out because your company needs to go that way.

Either category that you're sitting in can be a good reason to put in that extra energy.

And then it's fun for your team.

I think creativity builds creativity.

So they may be like, hey, Becky, remember when we got to do that one?

Is this proposal in that category?

And that can get some good vibes going.

You get the first one done and then that's something that's always in the back of the teams and companies head of like, remember that time.

Like you said, is this the time to do that again?

Totally, yeah.

They try harder, I think, when it's fun.

You know, they're excited to get in there and like be part of something that's, you know, out of the ordinary.

It's, yeah, it is good for the team.

And it's so common with a lot of firms that the writing gets delayed and the stuff is going to the designer really late in the process.

And we're used to having a compliant proposal that hits all of the points.

And we're so glad we got there.

But to see what can happen if we get ahead of it might also create some good behaviors with the team.

Like, let's start strategizing early.

We're expecting this RFP to come out.

How can we differentiate ourselves during the pursuit?

So maybe in time, we'll just move all of that creativity happening earlier in the process.

Well, thank you both for sharing a couple, a three or four examples there.

I know we did not get to all of the examples we have, but this is not a visual format.

So I think we've done our job and showing some examples of ways you can go small or big and push the boundaries and have more fun with your job and hopefully win more work for your firm.

Thank you both for joining me today on the podcast.

Appreciate it.

Thanks for having us.

Thanks, Wendy.

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.

Go get them.

Go ham.

Go ham burger.

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.