The Shortlist Episode 72: Expanding into New Markets

Expanding into a new geographic market can be an exciting growth opportunity—but it’s not without risk. In this episode of The Shortlist, host Wendy Simmons is joined by principal Melissa Richey and associate principal (and first-time guest!) Julie Flattery to talk about what it really takes to open a new office or grow your firm’s presence in a new region.

Together, they explore common drivers of expansion—like client demand, economic diversification, or key staff relocations—and share real-world stories from their time working in-house at AEC firms. The conversation includes practical tips on conducting research, aligning internal teams, building awareness, and setting realistic timelines.

Whether you're helping lead the charge or supporting the strategy, this episode offers insights to guide your next move—and a reminder that marketing should be part of the conversation from day one.

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 Melissa Richey and Julie Flattery to discuss breaking into a new location.

Hi, Melissa.

Hey, Wendy.

Hey, Julie.

Hey, Wendy.

Thank you for both being here.

For our listeners out there, you might recognize a new voice on the podcast.

This is Julie's first time on The Shortlist speaking with us.

Welcome, Julie, glad to have you here.

Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Tell the listeners a little bit about yourself, your role at Middle of Six, the quick bios so folks get an idea of who you are and what your experience is, and that will probably lead nicely into some of our conversation today.

Sure.

That sounds great.

Well, let's see.

I'm Associate Principal at Middle of Six, and I started a little over a month ago, which I can't believe it's already been over a month.

That's kind of crazy.

And also, let's see, I was in a client meeting recently, and they were asking me how long I'd been doing this, and I said something like a bajillion years.

And I really have been in AEC marketing since the beginning of my career.

I have a heavy emphasis on architecture.

I almost said on market texture, which is kind of a combination of architecture and marketing.

I have a special emphasis on architecture, but I have worked for construction, engineering firms, all kinds of firms in this profession, interior designers, landscape designers.

So I'm really excited to be here, and I'm really excited to talk to everybody today.

Yay.

Well, like I already said, I'm excited that you're here too, and glad to have you joining Melissa and I on this conversation, because some of our most strategic podcasts have to do with this high level business development where marketing really gets to have a seat at the table, thinking through strategy.

You've already shared so many great stories, your experience from that bazillion years in AEC.

And so now we get to extend that to our podcast listeners too.

So today's topic, I mentioned it in the intro, right?

Breaking into a new location, that's kind of a short version.

What do we mean by that?

What does that mean?

It's really, I think we're focusing on the geographic location.

If you are part of a firm that's trying to expand and grow in a certain way.

And I wondered, Melissa, would you mind teeing this up for our listeners about what we're getting at here?

What does this mean?

Why would a company be thinking about this and potentially how it might be impacting the marketing folks and BD folks?

We'll dig into all of that, but maybe tee it up for us to start.

Yes.

Opening a new office is a way that you can pursue growth for your firm.

It's a way to diversify.

So one particular geographic location might be receding and another might be growing, and it might be a type of work that you're competitive in or project location where you're already working.

So it's one way that you can keep the growth going as you weather different economic storms, kind of to combat that proverbial, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

So you can spread those baskets across different states, different cities, different areas of the country.

Having a new office also provides opportunity for new people to join your company.

That's a way to attract new talent, retain talent.

I know I've heard clients say, oh, well, we opened an office in Vermont because someone moved there and they wanted to keep working for our firm, so we gave it a shot.

I've also heard where someone's client, that they have a really deep and strong relationship, is opening an office in a new location and they want you to come along with them.

So those are some of the reasons that I've heard why folks want to open an office, reasons why you might want to do it, to just add that diversity to your company.

Probably not an ad hoc decision, off the cuff.

Let's hope not.

I know, right?

It's a thoughtful, expensive endeavor.

And like I said, I would always hope that marketing and business development folks are part of those conversations strategically, so that not only do they have a heads up that it's happening, but can advise and potentially do research and other things.

We'll get in there more and talk about how marketing can support this sort of effort.

But it does sound like the company leadership sees an opportunity for any number of reasons why they might want to expand and grow and take that risk for that great opportunity.

You know, Julie or Melissa, have either of you worked at a firm that had decided to open up an office and have you gone through that personally yourself or you were working through all of those logistics?

I actually have.

I worked with a firm that had a very strong presence in Seattle.

And they also had a very strong presence in K-12 and historical architecture.

And they ended up opening an office in Portland.

And it was one of those stories where all the stars were aligned because they knew that Portland Public Schools was going to have a bond coming out to fund all their historic schools in town that needed modernization.

And they also had met the client, Portland Public Schools, because they had come to Seattle to tour all the projects, all the K-12 projects.

So they decided that it might be a good idea to try to get in on some of some of the new projects that PPS was doing.

And so they decided to open the office, and they had some staff that had formerly worked at the firm and had now been located in Portland, joined that office.

So they had the connections.

I mean, really, it was just, they had everything going for them.

But right when they opened the office, the bond didn't pass.

So it would be another year before it went out.

And that's when they hired me.

And I think that's where marketing, we get into marketing, right?

We start talking about that because my job was to help position them in a year to get one of the first projects that came out.

And by that time, we had only two people left in our office.

It was me and an architect.

So we did all that positioning and we got help from our Seattle staff and we did get the first job.

I am curious, do you want to go even more into that story?

I don't know how much you feel you can share here, but it is such a cool example of them having a strategy and thinking that there was going to be work there and then having that delay.

And what do you do with that time?

How do you build that up?

And I think whatever you could share would be interesting for our listeners.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, I think although initially that the bond didn't pass the first time seemed pretty devastating when you go to invest and start a new office.

You know, that's a lot to have to hang out for another year.

But we had work in Seattle that people could do.

And so in a way, I feel like maybe if that had if it had passed the first time, who knows, we might not have gotten the first project because we did do so much work and we had a big marketing campaign.

We knew that one of the high schools would be one of the first high schools on the bond.

And so we went to that high school and we did a whole volunteer program with their freshman class called Freshman Academy.

And so we got to know the school, we got to know the kids, we let the kids design their own spaces.

PPS heard about us doing that and they came in and asked us to further work with the kids to develop other projects in the school.

And it just was just ended up being this very successful endeavor, although that can be a very expensive endeavor too.

So you really have to have faith in what you're doing, and the company has to be on board.

We brought in a lot of volunteers to help us because freshmen, that's 250 kids that we were managing.

So we were able to meet all the subs in town, because they all came in and helped us and they were so great.

And I think that's one thing about AEC is that if you do start an office in a new town, you do have the support, like everybody knows each other and people are happy to be on your team and people are very welcoming.

So we had a lot of support there, we brought Seattle staff up to help out, and it just turned into this really fun thing, a very feel good story for all of us.

And I think if you can combine feel good stories with your marketing, it's even more fun.

So yeah, we were in that position, in a good position already.

But then one other thing we did, and I think this is really important for people to hear is that we were at every meeting, we were at neighborhood meetings to talk about what they wanted for their schools.

Sometimes we were the only architects at these meetings.

And so people, everybody at Portland Public Schools and the schools themselves knew us.

They'd be like, oh, there's Julie and Glenn.

We did a lot of work and we are very dedicated to it because we really wanted it.

Now I'm realizing we absolutely could have a whole episode just on this as a case study.

I want to know and prepare Melissa too because I'm realizing thinking back to some of our other podcasts and conversations about firms you worked at where they were doing a new office because of people moving, employees moving and satisfying that.

So let's not forget to come back to that.

But I'm thinking that with Julie's great example, there's probably some questions and we can use it a little bit like a case study.

The first thing that came to my mind or of the 10 questions I want to ask you, Julie, is, okay, was there a budget for this effort to start up this?

How did you put some parameters on there?

How did you do the pitch that this was going to be a good use of resources?

Let's go on that trail and then I'll jump over to some other awesome question that's probably very deep too.

Well, I'm sorry to say we didn't start with the budget.

That would be way too organized, wouldn't it?

I mean, I met with the College and Career Counselor at the high school, and she had this dream and she shared it with me, and it was to teach freshmen about careers and different careers, and she thought architecture would be the best one to start with, and we could cover all aspects of it.

So if we wanted to bring in subs, that was perfect.

She wanted it, told me quite frankly, she wanted it done over a five-month period, once a month for five months, and I thought, wow, this is huge.

So I went to Seattle to present this to the principals, really not with even a complete understanding myself of how much it would cost, but we had a plan, like I went back to our Portland office and we said, and at the time there were four of us when it first started, and we said, okay, here's what we think we can do.

We can bring in volunteers because we can't manage all the students with just a few people.

And I had a guest room in my apartment building that I knew people could stay in.

And we were opening our houses up to whoever came into town from Seattle to help us.

So we had come up with a lot of ways to minimize what the cost would be.

And so we went in and I presented it to the principals, and I was a little bit nervous, I'll be honest with you.

And they were a little bit, I mean, it wasn't like, they weren't going, yay, this is an amazing plan.

But they knew that it was probably going to work.

And so they decided to go ahead and do it, and we would just start tracking the costs, and we would cut, you know, minimize the costs as much as we could.

And I think the fact that so many subs helped us in town, that was huge, I mean, really huge.

Definitely.

And also because we weren't really busy in Portland, we were able to devote the time to come up with all the plans for each session, and that helped a lot too.

We weren't impeding on people's billable time as much as possible.

Well, it's really wonderful to hear that other people saw the potential.

Even if the vision wasn't perfectly clear, they saw like, no, this has legs.

They had some confidence there and to give you the resources and to let something, a big idea grow like that is so exciting.

I feel like it's every marketer's dream that they would have the stars align in there in that way.

It really was.

Yeah.

I'll never forget the day we got the job.

We were just jumping up and down.

We couldn't believe it.

It was so exciting.

And we felt like we had really accomplished something and what we had set out to do actually worked.

And I think everyone in the firm felt really good about it.

There was no animosity about it or anything.

Everybody was very happy with the results.

And we grew from there.

That's such a great, great example of coming into a new location, having one expectation of what the work was going to be in front of you, and then being able to pivot and move and make the best of potentially tricky situation for someone who wouldn't be so creative to think of that idea and then implement it and put that hard work into it.

It's a great success story.

And then kind of going back to this, like our subject of breaking into a new market, I guess we've skipped over the part, but you have to have done some research, right?

Is there work there in this market?

What is it going to look like?

And I'm curious, Julie, in your case, and maybe, Melissa, you have some other examples too, but were there other markets that at the same time we were trying to break into?

Are there other elements related to that effort so that all your eggs weren't in the one basket in the new market itself?

Well, I'm afraid that most of our eggs were in one basket, but we did have the historic portfolio.

And we knew that there were plenty of historic buildings.

That was actually our second project, was the Vancouver Barracks, and that was a really lovely historic project in Vancouver, Washington.

And so we knew we had that in our back pocket, but we were very much focused on the schools, and we got quite a few of them over time, of course, because they do like to spread out the work when it's public.

Yeah, sure.

But you were going in already with a niche in the need that the client had, and they had already expressed interest in your firm in the other market.

So there was a compelling reason presented.

Exactly.

Yeah.

One of the most wonderful things about that public work too, that you can win, is that you can see where the funding is, and you can know once the bond did pass, that you could win one and maybe win another.

So it doesn't feel quite as risky as when you only have to go into private side of work when you're exploring a new market, that sort of thing.

So having the research knowledge where some of the funds are is a good piece going head into that expansion.

Very true.

Melissa, let's go back to you and talk a little bit about some of your personal experience helping a company expand, whether it was at Middle of Six or previous life.

The strategy behind it and potentially the early on strategic decisions with marketing advising or not being invited.

I don't know if that's the case, but it can happen.

My story is a little less immediate gratification.

It was a scenario where a principal in the firm wanted to move back to the hometown that he had spent his early career in.

And so it was more of a like, this is happening sort of thing brought to marketing.

And so we learned the hard way that that city was provincial.

That city didn't want to hear about our projects on the west side of the state when they were located on the east side of the state.

If you're not from Washington, you may not know this, but Western Washington, Eastern Washington are almost like two different states.

And so we were going in with what we later heard in debriefs or kind of more back channels that we were coming with our west side portfolio and our west side billing rates and thought that was going to play in Eastern Washington.

So it was a long slog of beating our head against the wall and just finding that this person's roots as a young person in their career was not playing well as a person in the kind of twilight of their career.

So we realized that we had to find some local folks that knew that market, that were known by the agencies that we wanted to work with.

And that was when we started gaining traction, was hiring a senior engineer and a senior landscape architect that were established in that market and had their relationships.

And that's when things started to shift.

And that's when marketing got a lot more involved because we had a senior engineer who needed to go out and win work.

And I have such a soft spot for this person because they just really leaned in and saw that we knew what we were doing marketing-wise and could really coach him along and help him and tell him the questions to ask when he met with the client and then how we were going to turn that into strategy based on those answers.

So it took a longer time, but it did take off and then it was kind of off to the races.

And then it was a matter of trying to find people to do all the work that he was winning out there.

So, yeah, a little delayed gratification and how it came together.

If you had a lesson learned from the slow start or just trying to promote this new or younger person, what would you do different from the very beginning?

What would you recommend a company thinking about?

They have someone that they value, wanting to be a new place.

What are some of the things that you might have them consider before they make that investment?

I would want to see more research, not just that person's own research and experience from being there before, but really digging into things.

Making public records requests, seeing who's winning the projects, requesting the proposals, going out and just pounding the pavement in that city or location beyond just the person who's moving there, but sending out a team to go investigate and having marketing, doing research as you're making those decisions and making those calls on who you're targeting.

What are their budgets?

You know, that kind of typical business development planning, making sure you're doing that when you're considering opening in a new market.

I like what you said about Eastern and Western Washington being like two different places.

And I think that's such a huge part of it, too, is you have to know your demographic, right?

Yeah.

And just because you have all that work experience doesn't necessarily mean you're going to fit in with that audience.

So, so smart to go and get people, local people to help you out and do all the research that you did.

Yeah.

And then really documenting that type of feedback we were getting because it would still happen where someone from the West side would be reviewing a proposal.

And they're like, put this project in and put that project.

And I was like, we cannot put a single project from Western Washington in this proposal.

We have heard, we have to let them know we heard them.

They don't want that.

100%.

That's so challenging to feel like you can't use a really strong resume.

It's not going to resonate with the people over there.

And it's that we have the experience.

We can't really show it.

Any tricks for, I don't know, how do you show you have the experience when you can't really show it?

That feels like an impossible task.

Yeah, I was really leaning on the staff that came on, their individual experience.

That's what we had to do.

And sometimes their projects weren't as relevant.

So then we went the extra mile in the proposal in terms of project approach.

OK, we're going to do a site analysis graphic.

We're going to do some kind of like preliminary design work to show that we're already thinking about their project.

So it put more on onus on the team over there to really dig into the projects and understand them really well, because we weren't going to win it with a portfolio.

We're going to win it from truly understanding their project and having some solutions at the ready when we are submitting our proposal.

Julie, did you have anything to add to that?

I was just thinking that it's so great how successful that was, because I think it can often, even if you bring people in who have experience, you know, their experiences with another firm and they want your firm experience.

So and so that doesn't always work.

But sometimes it does and probably all the extra work that you did, getting to know them and understanding, you know, what their desires are and helping them in advance and all of those things, weighed in a lot towards that.

But that can be a real uphill climb.

Can be defeating too for the team who knows that they can do the work and that, you know, if they were in their other primary location or whatever, they would be winning that work.

But you really, it does feel like you have to pay your dues to finally get the one or get the couple that builds it up.

Yeah, the debriefs on Pursuits We Didn't Win were really important too.

Just hearing that, a different mindset that we were experiencing than what we were used to dealing with in the market, our primary market.

So getting that feedback, documenting it, making sure when we were going after that next project with that agency, okay, what did they say in the debrief last time?

How did the scoring work?

Just trying to do as much analysis and documenting that.

So we had record of that for the next time was pretty vital.

Keeping that in a way that's easy to pull up when you want to go look for the next one or just keep it fresh of mind, like what are those things you have to do differently?

And having that long running list so you can see over time.

And that is data too, even if it's qualitative data at the end of some amount of time, you can say, this is what we did.

This is what worked.

I mean, we've got two success stories here, but they're not all success stories.

And then that could also be a proof point.

Like the investment was made, we explored every avenue.

This, you know, a different path needs, we need to take a different path from here because, you know, we've exhausted that.

Yeah, I think that particular office also did private work.

And it was a little bit of the same situation where the private developers on the east side of the state wanted the pricing to look different.

They wanted to have a price per lot in the plat or the subdivision.

So just being open to, we can't just keep doing it the same way because that works in this market.

It doesn't work in this other market.

So if we want to do this work, this is how we're going to get it.

And listening to the client and giving them what they want, it worked.

Imagine that.

Yeah.

Well, so much of winning work, whether you're really established or new to a location, is building relationships.

And folks, we have a lot of trust in people that they know and have worked with.

So, Melissa, to your point that hiring someone local who has those relationships is important, and then probably looking for ways to build relationships in small ways or win small work that you could start to prove yourself or your company.

Those are a couple other things that could be done.

I don't know if either of you had that experience where there were opportunities to win a small task order or get your foot in the door.

You want to build the hospital someday or whatever it might be, but you might have to hang a door first.

Right.

Something to keep in mind for sure.

Yeah, that's an interesting one for me too, because I have had more like say a firm wanted to get into higher ed.

And that's a tough one because there are so many people who've been doing it for so long.

And what you hear, so you start with the rosters, right?

But then you hear things like, well, if you start out as a roster architect, you're always going to be a roster architect.

I don't know.

You get pigeonholed.

Exactly.

So who knows if that's true or not?

But I think that's been a lot of people's experience in just that one scenario.

But then I've also known firms that have, like one firm I know, they hadn't done K-12 before and they teamed up with a firm that did in their smaller town.

And that firm ended up kind of giving them all the work.

And then before you knew it, they were doing all the schools in their town, this other small firm.

So it worked, that worked really well in their favor.

Well, a huge piece of business development is also doing a great job on the work you have.

So I don't know if anybody needs that reminder out there, but like, let's not forget, let's not get just focused on the shiny future object ahead of us, but that actually just performing really well at the work that you're doing is a good chance to get more work from there, or maybe all the work from there.

Changing gears a little bit, because we were talking about the different timelines that you all experienced.

Do you think that there's any kind of in your mind, a set timeframe that you should think about or consider or set for yourself or your group as you're breaking into a new market?

Like, what is the amount of time it takes to get established and show that it's a viable place?

Because it's a big investment, right?

It could be a leased space, staffing it, you know, time to build those relationships.

That doesn't happen overnight.

I kind of want to say it's going to vary, you know, just depending on what you go in with.

If you look at the situation with the K-12 schools and Portland Public Schools, that was a year, but that was, you know, a very set timeline.

But also, when I think about it, we got one job.

That's just one job, right?

You still have to keep going.

And I would say it was maybe another year before we had another project.

But then we really started getting work.

And we are spending a lot of time in between doing marketing, meeting people, you know, just doing all the right things to keep the ball moving forward.

Also, we had the luxury of using Seattle staff.

So we didn't have to staff up our office.

And that's something people could think about.

You know, you don't have to just go and hire 20 people because you got a project.

If you have other people you can use.

And then you can add people slowly.

And a little bit of the other direction on that is if the people in the new market were hired there locally, are there projects from the main office they can work on so that they are being utilized and bringing in some revenue for themselves while they are doing the big task of meeting people, going after work, winning projects, going after projects, not winning them.

So that's another way that you can kind of help cover that cost of a new office.

But I mean, it feels like you at least need to give people a year.

But I guess back to the comment about doing some research on what the market has for projects, then you kind of know what you're targeting.

So setting some goals and seeing that people are making progress is important.

Yeah, it's incredible how fast time goes by.

So I was assuming that you would both say that a year would be the bare minimum.

If you saw measurable success in that year, you could celebrate.

But honestly, it's going to take some time to get really established.

But having not personally gone through that with a company myself to see that firsthand, that's just my assumption on what it looks like to not be the new guy.

I would imagine some companies are like, we've been here 15 years, we've had an office in Southern Oregon or Northern California, wherever, but they still think we're the new kid on the block.

So you can take a minute.

Be, have some patience, but I think as part of a larger company strategy and then a business development strategy, if you're making these milestone targets you're getting towards and measuring as much as you can, at least you can see some incremental progress and be judging, like is this business decision really kind of penciling out in five years, look behind and see how it went.

Let's talk a little bit more than about just the marketing resources.

We've hit on that strategically, you have to do the research and it should be part of this larger plan and have the support of leadership, obviously, who's sort of like financing and approving and supporting this growth.

But then as a marketer, we all have been in-house marketers.

What are some of the things that we might be doing to support a team and saving ourselves by not feeling like we're pulled in a million directions?

Or just how can we do our best support for that group?

And let's do a little brain dump there.

I think the folks that have decided to open another office need to be realistic about what support they're going to need from marketing.

If it's an office that's going to be pursuing all public projects, there's a lot of RFPs and RFQs that don't have to be responded to.

And if your marketing team is already pretty well utilized with that in the main office, it's a big load to be like, oh, by the way, we're starting up this other office.

So that's why that kind of planning horizon is helpful.

So you can staff up with people, you can look for someone locally, you can hire a consultant to help with that growth plan.

So I think just the starting early and considering that you're going to need support from marketing, you're going to need to get new business cards for people, update the website, you know, everything in the marketing mix that's going to need to promote that you're opening this new office and the new team, and what are the professional associations that we might want to be a part of?

You know, there's just so much you need to research when you're opening an office in a new location that marketing is going to have to contribute to that.

So having the resources and space for them to do that is going to be a key to your success.

Yeah, hopefully you have framework that you can use and transfer over, but everything will need to be looked at from the eye of that market, those relationships.

I have read somewhere SMPS related that it's pretty typical that a principle would be at least 50% on BD.

And I'm thinking if there's someone very senior moving into like establish a market, I'm like, whoa, they're probably 100%.

So there's a mind shift to so a principle 100% focused on BD to open a market that I can just feel the like they're leaning in on marketing and needing some support because they're just doing so much outreach and meeting people who need things, even if they eventually lead to a dead end, there's just going to be that demand because they're dedicating that much time to setting that up.

Yeah, that's true.

And that's where you start talking about a more expensive endeavor, right?

Because you've got one of your most expensive people working 100% on BD.

So how do you manage that?

And I think that's where the sharing of resources really helps a lot.

But I also want to say that being strategic about the growth of that new office is really important because I know for us, we had this funny and very, you know, a great situation, but also it was a bit daunting where three years into it or so, like one day we woke up and we had seven projects, seven new projects.

Oh, geez.

And yeah, and we had, I think, five people.

I mean, literally, like we were just saying, let's have a meeting about growing strategically because we're putting out a lot of proposals right now.

And then we just got all the jobs.

And so we were hiring, we were moving, you know, we were doing all these things and we were doing them really fast.

So and I mean, it's great.

It's a great problem to have.

Right.

But it could have, that could have backfired for us as well.

And we ended up turning down two of the jobs.

There was no way we could take on that much work.

Yeah.

Well, like you said, a good problem to have and then back to that, you have to perform on the projects so you can win the new one.

And if you are establishing a new reputation and a new market, that is even more important than ever because you cannot lean on 20 or 50 years of having done a great job.

What you're doing in that community makes a difference and people talk.

Exactly.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Well, I appreciate you both sharing your own personal experiences going through this and tidbits on what worked well and what to anticipate.

I feel like overall, my takeaway is that I really hope that these aren't a knee-jerk reaction that feels the most stressful to me as a planner for marketing.

I want to have some road ahead of me to get ready and do a good job.

I also love that both of you have success stories.

You both have success stories of like, hey, it worked out that hard work was profitable to the company.

They were able to establish something new that made employees for it very happy.

It's definitely worthwhile if there is really that opportunity and the investment of resources.

People's time to make that happen is kind of the biggest deal, and a bit of persistence to push through kind of different hurdles you might have.

I'll let you two, if you want to share kind of closing comments, anything you would think is like your takeaway from this effort.

Well, what was fun for me about this was just, it did make me sort of evaluate and or do kind of a checklist.

Like, okay, if someone asked me, should I open an office?

You know, maybe the questions I would ask are, are you able to share resources?

What kind of town is it?

Do you understand the demographics?

You know, is it a big city or a small city?

What's driving this?

And do you know that there's work for you?

And is that why you're doing it?

Have you met the clients before?

Like, I just think of everything in the story I just told and how all of those things aligned, but that isn't always the case.

I think you don't have to have all of those things, but you have to have some of those things.

So, it's just being strategic and being ahead of it, you know, and really being thoughtful about what you're doing.

And as we say, marketing has got to be involved in that because they're going to help you get there.

So, you can raise the red flag if you're like, wait, wait, wait, we don't have enough of these boxes checked.

And marketing should be allowed to say that.

It doesn't mean that you'll win or maybe you'll learn something else that wasn't shared with you, but at least I think that's probably a valid voice to have when a company is going to make a big investment.

Yeah, I think especially those times where a key employee wants to move somewhere else that's pretty far away, just knowing that it's going to be a hard road for them if they're a single person, and are they up to the task?

And do you have the runway to do that prep?

Because when you don't, it just makes it a little rougher road to get to the success parts.

Yeah, with the fact that we can work virtually, that can be a benefit because whether the person who's starting in the new spot can continue being billable in another place, or they can bring in resources, like Julie said, you can have your Seattle resources come and help you.

And there's lots of ways to soften that expense of having someone new in a location, but still you don't want to take away from them doing the research and getting out there and making those relationships.

So all in all, it's going to be an investment, but in the end, maybe you can celebrate with your team.

Five years down the road, 10 years, you're like, look at what we built, there's a whole group there.

They're a whole standalone group.

So well, thanks for digging into your stories and sharing some of those details.

And it was really fun to hear a bit more about those.

And can't wait to have you on another podcast, Julie.

First one down, you did it.

Thank you.

It was fun.

And you too, Melissa, as always, I'll see you tomorrow on the next one.

All right.

Well, thanks everybody.

The Shortlist is presented by Middle of Six.

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

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Until next time, keep on hustling.

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.