The Shortlist Episode 73: Planning Ahead for Award Submittals

Award season can sneak up fast, but with the right planning, your next submittal doesn’t have to be a scramble. In this episode of The Shortlist, host Wendy Simmons chats with Julie Flattery and Lauren Jane Peterson, two experienced AEC marketers who have led dozens of award submissions from inside architecture firms.

They break down what makes a submission truly compelling, starting with early planning and thoughtful project selection. From evaluating ROI to capturing project data before it disappears, the best submittals start long before the deadline. Julie and Lauren Jane also share practical advice on quantifying impact, crafting standout narratives, and aligning content with what jurors care most about, including innovation, sustainability, and community value.

Whether you’re chasing an AIA award or crafting a marketing win, this episode is your roadmap for award submittal success—without the last-minute chaos.

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 Julie Flattery and Lauren Jane Peterson to discuss advanced prepping for awards and medals.

That seems like a very niche topic.

Hi, Julie.

Hi, Wendy.

Hey, Lauren Jane.

Hi.

Advanced prepping for awards and medals.

This might sound familiar, we've talked about awards and medals on the podcast before.

It's such an important part of a marketer's job.

And we thought we could revisit this with Julie and Lauren Jane because they both worked at architecture firms.

And when I think of awards and medals, I think of architecture awards.

Of course, there's lots of others, and we'll hit on some of those.

But thank you both for joining us today to go through awards and medals 2.0.

Yeah.

Thanks for having us.

Great to be here.

It's a fun topic.

It is a fun topic.

And before we get in to the topic at hand, I thought we could, on the theme of winning and winning awards, I like to think of, sometimes we win things and sometimes we learn things.

And maybe we're just learning all the time.

But can we start off with just a little warm up here about things that maybe you've been learning recently, award related or not, anywhere you want to go with that.

Just curious, what have you been learning?

Julie, you're smiling.

You have some wins and some learns.

Well, I guess one thing I'll say is, I've been learning the joys of working with a team.

Because before I joined Middle of Six, I was on my own and all of a sudden now, I have all these people that help and pitch in and have opinions and people to brainstorm with and run things by.

And it's just been such a pleasure to know that it's just not me out there alone swimming.

Yeah.

Well, I'm so glad that you're here and it's fun to have you as part of our team as well.

And it's been a long time since I was a marketing department of one or was out on my own.

But something I really appreciate being part of the Middle of Six group is having this talent, these ideas, the people who have patience on a day when I've run out of patience or critical eye and fresh set of eyes on things.

I mean, all of that is super wonderful to have.

So thanks for being part of it with us and bringing your good energy.

Lauren Jane, any lessons learned?

Things that are top of mind?

Or is just everything is so perfect, you're hitting home runs left and right?

Well, something that has been in the ether for me lately is a couple of different transportation submittals, and I had never worked on a transportation submittal before.

So I just so happened to be on two similar themed submittals.

And that's fun.

It's fun to work with different types of engineers that I had never worked with before.

You know, you think you've seen it all, and then you learn that another job exists, of course.

So that's a fun new thing.

You know, when you're working as a consultant, you see so many things, and it's fun to see something that's new.

It broadens our perspective on the world, right?

Like, oh, yeah, I haven't taken a deep dive into this for a long time.

Or Julie mentioned, she's like, gosh, I used to do these transits and middles all the time, and I love them.

They're so interesting in how it impacts the community.

So it kind of refreshes the energy you can bring to a project like that.

Yeah.

Well, we're always learning.

And I do like to think of sometimes things are great, and you just feel like you're crushing it.

But even when it isn't all perfect, we are learning along the way and taking note of that to figure out how can we change, how could we be better, I feel like that's really in line with what we're going to talk about today regarding awards and medals, right?

Of all the awards and medals we've put together, what are the lessons learned and the best practices that we would bring or we would share to a new marketer or even a season marketer out there?

So let's get into this topic.

And speaking of awards, can I just brag a little bit on Middle of Six?

We just came back from the SNPS Rain Awards for the Seattle Chapter and walked away with an award for the best brand identity for one of our clients.

So congrats to, well, Lauren Jane, who is the designer on that, which is incredible.

And the whole team and a great client for being willing to take a deep dive into their brand and some calculated risks or stretches, you know, however you want to call it along the way that would make it stand out as something that our peers and the community would appreciate and celebrate.

So that's, we're fresh off of that.

It's perfect timing for this award conversation.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I also was thinking in my head when Wendy mentioned the awards and us winning an award, the sound of like, whee, you know, yay, like a little crowd cheering.

It's so fun when we get to walk across the stage, or whatever it might be, or even just sitting in the room and having been nominated, even when we don't win, and just cheering on the others who are getting that chance to be up there.

I mean, that's really so exciting.

It feels like the pinnacle of doing all of the hard work.

But obviously, there's way more to why we would submit an award, or why a firm would go for an award, and it's much longer lasting than just that moment up on the stage too.

So, I was curious, Julie or Lauren Jane, either one of you just want to sort of tee up this topic for our listeners, like, why are we talking about it?

It's not just that moment where you get to clap, and the applause, and the tears, and the background, but there's more to it.

So, either one of you want to share?

I can give a little intro.

So, Julie and I were meeting and strategizing around this conversation, and I brought up that when I was in house, doing awards and medals was one of my favorite tasks.

And it brought me a lot of sense of fulfillment and joy, and it was a really great creative stretch project that I got to work on alongside a few other marketers, and alongside our quote unquote champion, our in-house project team member who was really invested and available, and decided to commit a lot of their resources to that.

It was my favorite job when I worked in-house, and when Julie and I were discussing both being in-house marketers and architecture, that was a commonality, and it was really great to talk about our common experiences, and both of our enjoyment in doing it, and we want to record that and maybe share some of our bits of information with whoever is listening, and hopefully impart some wisdom or some fun takes.

Yeah, that's great.

How many awards do you think that you've worked on in your AEC career?

I don't know.

I would assume in the 50s.

Oh, yeah, that's a good, that's a high number.

And Julie, you're nodding your head yes, too.

So what would you guess with your bazillion years of experience?

Yeah, that was about the number I was going to come up with, too.

Yeah.

I mean, I think where I've worked, we've been very selective about what we go after, so we're not just constantly submitting.

But if I think about the length of my career, I'd say 50 sounds about right.

Well, that's a lot of great experience between the two of you.

I have done many more awards and medals since being at Middle of Six.

And we usually submit for at least one a year, probably at least two a year and maybe five or six, just depending on how things go.

We are also very selective because it takes time, energy, resources, money, and all of the things to do that.

But we also, and I'm sure we'll get into this, like really want to celebrate the work.

And it's really wonderful for us to reflect back and think through the project altogether.

It kind of comes full circle, starting with whatever strategy we went off on a particular project.

So yeah, I would guess maybe 30 awards, but that feels like a lot.

That's more than I would have thought.

Yeah, I was like, oh, I've done a dozen, but I've probably done a dozen here at Middle of Six.

So there you go.

They stack up.

I'm sure between the three of us, we have lots of tips to share.

So let's get into that.

To start off, what do you think is the kind of end game for submitting an award besides winning, besides obviously the pat on the back, but what are some of the reasons that you would choose to submit, take that time to submit an award?

One of the things we've talked about at the firms I've worked at before is in addition to winning, as you say, and getting your work out there into the world, it's also team appreciation.

It boosts the morale of the team to know that they've created a project that your company wants to celebrate and that your clients want to celebrate.

So I think that is a really nice way of thinking about award submittals at times.

And also, although there are a lot of, like in architecture, of course, there are the AIA awards, and we all know about those awards.

And that's awards, submittals that you do, where you're with your peers, and that's who sees those awards.

I think another reason is, from a marketing standpoint, to reach beyond those peer awards and to look at the areas of expertise your firm has and maybe think about what awards you could submit for in those arenas.

Not only because it really feels like an award for your client, but also because if it is your area of expertise, like say you do affordable housing and you go after the NARO award, if you do that, then people are learning about your firm that may never have known about you.

And so you're also potentially getting new clients by receiving these awards.

And there's usually a big to do and announcements and publications and things like that.

So you're getting your project out there in myriad ways.

And you're also thinking your client.

Something I'll add to that is it can be great for recruiting.

And we hear many, many times that that is a challenge, right?

I don't think that that's any surprise to a marketer or, you know, professional working in AEC that recruiting can feel like a challenge.

And I'll speak for myself and I say, I want to work on a team who's also winning awards, right?

That's not the end goal is just to win awards, but it feels nice.

It feels exciting to be part of a team that's winning, right?

Who doesn't want that?

So it can also be seen as a great recruiting and like long term marketing and recruiting strategy.

Yeah, so business development and recruiting.

I'll just add here because I will never forget this quote in a website discovery meeting.

Kyle was there.

He remembers it too.

But the president of a very large, well-respected engineering firm said to us, we don't go out and do work to win awards.

We just win them because we do probably some wonderful swear word.

You can bleep that out.

Great work.

Great work.

And I just like that feeling like, hey, we're doing great work.

We're not doing that work to win the awards, but heck, if we're going to do groundbreaking, first of its kind type of things, we're going to put it out there.

And so that's really great for the BD side and the recruiting side.

Once people get to know your firm better and can see what you've accomplished, it's very exciting.

So plenty of reasons to go for awards, to spend that time and energy on it.

And Julie, you mentioned not going for everything.

So what are some of the considerations that you go through before deciding on a particular award?

Well, time, of course, people have to have the time to put it together.

So if you've got a small marketing team and you're in the middle of seven pursuits, you have to think about if you're able to take that on.

I think the costs can have a lot to do with it.

I know there's certain award submittals, like for K-12 work.

There's an A4LE has an award called the McConnell Award, and that is a hefty endeavor.

And it comes your first shortlisted, and then you do these live interviews that are filmed, and there's a whole bunch to it.

So you really want to have confidence in your project and that it meets the criteria that they're looking for.

Because a lot of award semilars do have quite stringent criteria.

And like for the McConnell, that's just one example of something that where it's not just about the finished product, it's about the entire process.

And so if you haven't documented that, and you don't have a really good story to tell about the process, then you might want to back away from something that's that expensive and think of other K-12 awards you can get.

So those are a couple of things.

I'm sure Lauren Jane's got some ideas too.

Yeah, I mentioned the project champion, right?

The lesson learned for me is on award submittals where we didn't have a quote unquote champion or a really strong buy-in from a principal.

As a marketer, you do your best to understand and get a deep dive into the project and gather all the information that you possibly can.

But at the end of the day, it's extremely helpful and really makes it a break-in if you don't have somebody from the project side, particularly someone in leadership who is helping to steward that award submittal along and bonus points if they're actually involved in the project.

Yeah, so I'm hearing a lot about gauging that level of effort, whether it's, I mean, both sides, marketing side, you know, your technical staff, their side to be able to contribute and weighing that out, probably with some years of experience to understand, like, does this rise to the level of being award-winning?

And what will it take for us to package up all of these stories and pull the data and the other important components to making a great award submittal?

That comes a little bit with experience, but also you can, and speaking from Middle of Six's experience, put it on the calendar.

Yes.

The awards are usually held at the same time every year.

They shouldn't be a huge surprise, right?

And we just did that exercise at our retreat, where we were mapping out 2026, you know, ahead of us.

And there's a sticky note for the different award programs we're going to work on.

So that can help make it feel like at least you could do some planning on that level of effort piece.

That's a really good point, Wendy, about that they come out the same time every year.

I hadn't forgotten about that, but it's true.

You can plan way ahead if you want to.

Well, yeah, maybe I'm going to skip ahead to something we were going to talk about later on, but I mean, that's exactly what Middle of Six does for planning our own awards, where we finish the project and we start writing the awards medal.

I mean, not all the time.

Not everything rises to that level, but I'd say, I don't know, Lauren Jane, since you've been involved with that pretty well, is there anything that you want to share?

But like, what's the inkling that we are getting when we're working on a project?

We're like, this, we need documentation.

You know, we need to start getting things in order.

Yeah, so my ears perk up when the project has a lot of buy-in from the client.

That's probably the first indicator.

When they're really excited, and maybe they want to make either a bigger change or a small change that has a really big impact, right?

Those are great things that start to build a story, which we can talk about later, but start to build a story for why the project matters.

So my ears burst to perk up when I hear the really big excited buy-in, and then other factors that might be notes for me, in my head, that's like, this could be an award submittal, are when we present options for moving forward on projects that could be a bit of a design push, or maybe there's a technology component that is new, right?

Those are other factors that tell me, hmm, okay, so there's buy-in, there's excitement, there's some innovation, there's potentially some technology here.

It's time for me to, I've probably already been documenting it a little bit, but it's time for me to pay a little bit better attention, document more things, and start gathering any kind of data that's available from the beginning and asking lots of questions.

I think also with architecture, it's pretty clear from the beginning, if something that you're about to design is going to be award-submittal worthy.

And so architects usually have a very good idea early on.

And that's something everyone can really take note of, because as we were just saying, you want to plan ahead.

So when you start a project like that, that you think, oh, this is going to be beautiful, it's got all the sustainability features, the client has great ideas, they're very tuned in to design, that sort of thing.

Then you know, this is something we really want to pay attention to for the life of this project, and get our stories down for submittal in the future.

Yeah, so I heard from both of you, like, there's a little gut instinct that happens, it kicks in, you're like, this just feels right, so we should start planning and making more detailed notes, and probably even orchestrating some level of reporting out.

I mean, for Middle of Six, that is, what are the current analytics?

What can we track?

What's the baseline?

And maybe on the project side, it's thinking about user experience, or what were the current issues or challenges the team was facing, so that you can start tracking the numbers or anything that's quantifiable on how those were solved or resolved at the end of the project.

I will say it is good practice or best practice to always make some notes of projects.

And anytime you hear some good data or anything happening, just to keep track and whether that's in something like Dell Tech or, you know, in your own marketing server, you never know, right?

Sometimes you get a really good sense of if a project is going to get submitted for an award, but you don't want to be caught off guard not having documented some of the things that you wish you would have had later.

Right.

It's hard to go back.

So, you know, you want to pay attention and keep notes for for most projects, just in case.

And in the case of buildings, you want to start photographing things too.

I mean, if there's really a robust and very cool community process where, you know, you've brought kids in or, you know, you've done something really innovative, then not only writing about it, but taking photos of that.

A lot of award submittals will want things like that.

So anything you can document both ways, verbally and visually, I think is a great way to get going.

Once again, marketing needs to be there, involved from day one.

Absolutely.

You know, you celebrate the win after the interviews, and the kickoff happens, and marketing probably wants to start hearing those stories from the start.

Absolutely.

We always want to be looking for opportunities to collect data and or soft metrics, right?

How many people attend at a community event?

Are there opportunities from the architectural team or the project team to even just ask questions, to get some basic feedback written down or logged somehow?

Because those things can all be extremely useful later on.

And really, you know, this reaches beyond award submittals, right?

I mean, this can come in handy for every proposal you do, for every interview you do.

So it multitasks.

I used to work for a general contractor, and they had what they called bimonthly project meetings.

So you could, every project, every other month, they would have open invitation to anyone in the office to put on their PPE and come out and get a tour of the project.

And basically like an OAC meeting, but for the internal staff.

And accounting would go and marketing would go people across from different projects so they could learn best practices.

But I'm mentioning this because that was built into their system.

But the takeaway was that marketing could come with an agenda that also listed all of the project highlights.

What's happening?

This many cubic feet of concrete were poured and here are all these details.

And those were a gold mine also for later on in the awards and medals.

So the project team is collecting that data.

It is going into databases, but being able to see it in real life, snap some photos, it's a great collection for awards and medals, or maybe even just proposal case studies and that kind of stuff.

Hey friends, quick question.

Is there an award program that you'd love to submit a project for if only you have the time to pull it all together?

Well, that's where Middle of Six comes in.

We help architects, contractors and design teams craft winning awards and medals, from strategy and research to writing and layout.

We know the ins and outs of juried awards like AIA, DBIA, NAOP and the AGC.

Heck, we've even been judges for local and national SNPS awards.

Whether you've got a draft that needs polishing or you're starting from scratch, we've got your back.

Because let's face it, your amazing project deserves more than a last minute scramble.

If you're ready to get noticed, and maybe clear a little space on the shelf for that next trophy, head over to middleofsix.com to learn more.

So we've mentioned a few of these things already, but let's dig into what the key components are that really make or break awards and medals.

Julie, you mentioned photography.

Do you want to go into that even more?

So with photography, I think planning your shoots very carefully is really important.

And to plan them efficiently, I think, is to come up with a story first.

What story are you going to tell people about your project?

What were the project priorities?

What are the themes?

If you were going after award, what are the themes of the project that you would want to demonstrate?

Because your photography needs to respond to that.

You know, I've so often had to talk about, say, a community room on a particular project, and the only photos I have to talk about it are empty rooms.

And that doesn't really reek of community, you know?

And sometimes, you know, it's hard for people to get people into their shoots.

But if you're telling a story of safety and security, you know, how do you show that in a school?

Perhaps you show multiple views into classrooms from, like, an admin office and from an entry and into that classroom, you get a photo that shows all of that, and then that speaks to that particular subject.

So thinking about what those stories are that you want to tell, I think, is a great way to enter into a photo shoot to make sure that everything you've got supports that story.

Absolutely.

And I will add that one of the bigger components that make or break a submission is if you have a good story, right?

What is the North Star for the project submittal?

What's the North Star for the project?

And often we don't have to make that up when we're submitting for the award, right?

That is the often problem that the project team has been trying to solve from the beginning with the client, right?

They heard that there was a challenge and there were constraints, and that challenge and those constraints create that North Star.

So really talking to the project team, sometimes it's three years ago, four years ago when the planning was happening, but really trying to talk to the project team, and either you were there when those conversations were happening so you could document it, or somebody hopefully has documented that those conversations were happening, and what story can you tell, right?

Based on the actual challenges and constraints that were part of that project.

So making sure that you have a story is incredibly important.

And I will say that several architecture awards programs have a window of years, multiple years that you can submit for the award.

So if your submittal does not shortlist or it is not awarded the first year that you apply, you do have a unique chance to tailor your submittal for the next go-round.

You might revisit that storytelling, right?

How do I need to shift things?

What can I say to make a better impact or a stronger statement?

And also keeping in mind that the jury is different, right?

Every year, that's a new jury.

So there will be different eyes and ears on your submittal.

And considering that and knowing that you have a chance in many cases to try again.

That is such a good tip.

I never think about that.

But obviously, you can have a second go for the right kind of project and think of it as a fresh opportunity.

I've had the pleasure of being on a few award juries, and I loved it.

Loved every second of it.

Loved seeing the work, loved reading the writing, understanding the data that they pulled, seeing the graphics that support.

I mean, it's a wonderful way to volunteer your time and your expertise.

But I've done that.

And the reason why I mention it is that to that story telling, the photography can do a lot for sure.

But in every case, when I was just like, this is a home run awards medal, was that the story telling was so immersive.

It feels the opposite of what most project descriptions look like.

It is not that at all.

It's really about the experience and like getting you in that space or in the head space of whoever was working on that project.

And so I think that supports both of those ideas, like Julie said, start with the story and then, you know, continue to kind of build that out through the graphics and take the viewer and then fine tune it as maybe in the next year, when you submit, there's more data too.

There's more ways to say to prove the point to make it stronger.

But from a jurist view, I definitely would say those are some things that kind of make or break the submission.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.

One of my key takeaways that I wanted to share today was to remember the juror's perspective.

You have been looking at this project for years, most likely, when you're submitting the award, and things might feel pretty obvious to you, but consider spelling things out a little more than you might be inclined to at the very beginning.

Make the challenge very clear.

Make the strategy to address the challenge very clear.

Make the execution clear and the results.

And then ensure that you're tying the execution and the solution back to the original challenge.

Make all those things really clear so that the juror doesn't have to work for it.

That's a great thought.

And also, Wendy, you had mentioned something about experience.

I love that word, because that's really true.

You want the people who are looking at this award submittal and reading about this award submittal to experience it as though they are a user themself, somebody who's actually going to enter into that project.

So I love that idea.

And I think that sometimes with the writing, you are very limited on word counts in word submittals.

And so that's another plug for photography and graphics, because you've got to have...

I mean, I did, I mentioned the Nero Award earlier.

I did that award submittal for a client, and we had 15,000 characters.

Oh, goodness.

To tell, yeah, to tell, to answer pages worth of questions.

So there you are, you know?

Like, okay, I have to tell this really great story and 15,000 characters, I better have some backup.

I know our usual tip is when you have that space constraint, use bullet points, but sometimes the bullet points doesn't give you that immersive experience.

So yeah, that's a real challenge for sure.

It was tricky.

Because we spoke a little bit about photography, I also want to plug the idea or the suggestion to potentially have a, you know, if you have a nicer camera that your firm has access to, or you have access to and the budget, to hire a photographer to come out for community events or any type of alternative programming that's happening at the project.

So if, let's say we're talking K-12, like Julie was saying, there could be some sort of community event happening, right?

It could be that maybe the project team is conducting a post-occupancy evaluation and they are back in the school.

And obviously, you need to go through and get permissions and navigate that.

But as long as you have that, those can be fantastic opportunities and actually some of the strongest photos that could get submitted in an award.

Because the programming is in action, right?

You're seeing really how the space is being used, and that can oftentimes really support the message that you're trying to get across in your submittal, right?

We programmed the space X way to solve the problem.

And here is actual evidence of the users in the building using it this way because we solved it for them in an effective manner.

So if you have access to potentially hiring a photographer to come with you to those types of events, great.

If not, use your best phone or your best camera that's available to you and take some video snippets or photos or both that you will likely be able to use later.

Keeping your finger on the pulse of what's actually happening in the community with that space, whether it's a school or community center, etc., can provide a lot of opportunities for awards material.

I think that's particularly important in public projects.

Everybody wants to see equitable uses of spaces and inclusive uses of spaces.

And so what Lauren Jane's saying is really true.

And I've actually have a couple of tips on that too that people can think about if they have it, if they're sitting here right now going, oh no, I didn't take pictures of the process, you know.

Oftentimes, the schools do, for example, or the clients do.

So that's one thing you might look into.

And I know for a McConnell Award submittal, we actually were able to find on a school social media post they had International Students Day and this really great common space that we had built.

And the school let us use their social media photos.

So there's things like that that you can look into that might help if you forget to document or are unable to.

Sometimes you might not know that there's an International Students Day happening at the school.

And also during construction, I think if there's really, you know, like historic projects can be an example of really needing some backup, you know, like masonry reinforcement and that sort of thing.

So contractors will often take really nice photos during the process.

And also sometimes the clients do.

I've had, I know Portland Public Schools, I did a lot of proposals and award submittals with their projects.

And they have a campus photographer who goes out and documents really beautifully all these different phases of the construction process.

So there's lots of innovative things you can think about too.

That's a great tip, Julie.

Thanks.

I don't think marketing could ever have too many photos.

And since we all have these really fantastic cameras now in our pockets all the time, maybe a tip is including a link, an upload link on one of those OAC meeting agendas or somewhere that the team is kind of constantly thinking about and hey, just drop them there.

And I know sometimes I get photos back from an event and they took four or they only sent me four.

I was like, I could have like 30 to choose from.

Take a bunch more from all the angles and wider cropping than you think because we can always zoom in and get in there.

But yeah, smart to be thinking about if you're not collecting the photos yourself, like work and then you scrounge them up later on.

And that's probably a lesson learned that next year you just want to be at more of those things so you can get them yourself.

What are some of the most difficult criteria to meet when you've worked on award submitters?

Other than the 15,000 character?

I will say the megabyte restriction can feel difficult to navigate.

You're using, you know, we just talked about all these photos that we want, and all these, like, high quality graphics.

And then sometimes, it's like, oh, that is a huge, enormous file.

So I always reserved much more time than expected to, on export, typically from InDesign, go into the export settings and try to get the photos as big as possible while still getting the file size under the limit.

So, you know, that is a juggle.

You, hot tip, don't just rely on the compression tool from Adobe Acrobat that can often compress things too much and you don't really have control over that.

So if you have time and space, which I recommend budgeting for, you can juggle the photo export in a little more custom way from InDesign.

So that is in a weird way, a constraint that I think other people may not have considered or people non-marketing don't consider.

Yeah, you don't want to leave things to the last minute and realize that you might be over your limits.

An awards middle deadline is like any other deadline.

People, we just want to use every second we have, which can mean don't forget to export everything in advance to see how it's tracking.

And maybe, I'm sure we've mentioned this tip before, but if you're uploading to an online portal, don't just look at the questions and things, but you might need to test the upload.

I think we've run into it before.

We're like, oh, it says it wants a PDF, but it only will take a JPEG in this field.

I mean, there can be some things that you run into that you're just not expecting.

So getting familiar with that form.

Yeah, that's good.

I have another hot tip, which is if it is a new awards program that you're not used to and or if you just actually good practice generally, try to click through all of the pages until there's the submit button because there might be some content that you miss.

The awards programs reserve the right to change or ask for different things.

And maybe it's not as clear in some other directions earlier that something is required.

So make sure you can click all the way through until you get to the submit button and ensure that there's no other content that you might be surprised about at the very end.

Like the option to upload a video if you want.

You don't want to see that at the very end.

You're like, oh, shoot, we definitely could have had a video.

Or I wish we would have planned from the start that we would like to include a video.

So that's something we see more of too.

I know that we're running out of time, but I'm really curious from a marketing investment and return on investment perspective for Julie and Wendy, either of you, if you have anything to say about this.

But I want to know how you've seen award wins used most effectively after the announcement, right?

When you win an award, you post about it.

But what else can you do to extend the value of that win?

Have you seen creative strategies for that?

Is there anything that you would recommend in order to continue to get as much return out of that win as possible?

That's a great question.

I think you want people to know you want it.

So one of the things that I've done is e-blasting.

That way, all of the clients, well, I'll go back to the affordable housing example.

That way, all of your other clients who are also designing affordable housing projects, see that, okay, here's this possibility for you in the future, and this is something that we can do for you.

Because like I said earlier, ultimately, you're hoping that perhaps you get some new work out of it because someone appreciates what you did for someone else.

So posting on social media and just making sure that the right people see it, and also congratulating the clients whose project it is.

I feel like when you are going after these non-peer-focused awards, I've seen clients have a level of appreciation for those awards.

That has surprised me, frankly.

I didn't know if they would care or not, but they feel so good that their own organizations that they participate in have honored them.

Yeah, those are two really good points.

And just to add on to that piece about celebrating with the client, I don't know if it's exactly the creative thing you were thinking, Lauren Jane, but we have won awards and then taken it like another step to go and celebrate with the client, whether that was, I don't know, way back in the day, delivering cupcakes with the new logo to the client, you know, after winning an award or distributing these special pins that you could only get if you won an award to the client.

I mean, these little touches with a note or, you know, maybe a bigger thing, a basket or something to celebrate with your client.

There's lots of ways to do it.

But I think it just gives you this excuse to be a little bit more free in that.

I would take every opportunity to do that business development step and reconnect and celebrate and get those good vibes.

And maybe you'll be a little bit more top of mind too when they're thinking of someone to refer for the next project.

I love that cupcake with the logo.

That was fun.

I loved it.

So cute.

Those are great anecdotes.

Thank you, Julie and Wendy.

Thank you both for sharing these real life examples of things that you have done in awards and medals and what you would recommend and what's kind of top of mind as you're thinking about the next one ahead of you.

How about we just wrap up with a few of our like best practices tips we would like to leave our listeners with before we wrap up this episode?

I'd say I approach it like a go-no-go, you know?

It's not even just about the award and the client and the type of work, but it's about, can you compete in that market?

You know, I know a lot of architecture firms that are a little bit shy because they're in smaller towns about competing in their big city.

You know, like somebody in Bellingham may not want to compete in a Seattle Award submittal because they think that they can't compete there.

So, you know, just really weigh out all the options before you dive into something like that, because it is a time-consuming endeavor.

My takeaways are ensure that you have a champion on the project side and tell your story.

And collect the data.

That's what I would say.

Yes.

Yes.

But they're all, those are all good.

Those are all good tips, right?

You have to have the time, be selective about what you're going to submit, get enough road ahead of you, possibly a year or even two, right?

Because there's lots of time to plan, get that champion in place, and that'll give you space to tell a story.

And if you include the data, I feel like it's hard for the selection committee, the reviewers, the jurists to deny that you didn't achieve all those goals.

So you're going to be in good shape.

Well, thank you both for sharing all of your ideas and thoughts with our listeners out there.

I can't wait to talk to you again about more architecture focused stuff.

And thanks for being here.

Have a great rest of your day.

Thank you.

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.