The Shortlist Episode 77: The Short(er) List: Welcome to the Short(er) List!

Welcome to the very first minisode of The Short(er) List, our new spinoff series where Shortlist favorite Becky Ellison takes all the too‑silly, too‑real, too-extra conversations that don’t fit in the regular Shortlist episodes, and serves them up in bite-sized podcast treats. In this introductory minisode, Becky chats with Wendy Simmons, Middle of Six founder and host of The Shortlist (plus our modest but heroic producer Kyle Davis) about everything from TV confessions, to podcast addictions and soothing end of day affirmations. We also manage to reflect on creativity, leadership, trust, and what it means to work with a team full of “weird little pirates” sailing a surprisingly successful ship.

If you want to laugh, feel seen, or just hang out with your favorite Middle of Sixers for a few minutes, tune in – you’ll feel like you’re sitting at the lunch table with the chillest and funnest AEC marketers in the game.

Podcast Transcript

Welcome to The Shorter List. Hi, I'm Becky Ellison from The Short List Podcast, and I am going rogue, because apparently some things are just too silly, weird or extra to fit into our regular Short List episodes.

So we are bringing those conversations, rants and other fun stuff that was too spicy for TV to you in bite-sized little podcast treats, hosted by me and featuring all of your favorite Middle of Sixers.

I'm here today with Wendy Simmons, the founder of Middle of Six and host of The Short List. I stole our producer, Kyle Davis too. Hello, Wendy.

Hey, Kyle. Kyle never says hi, but someday I'm going to get him. How are you guys doing?

Hi, Becky.

Doing great. A little bit stuffed up, but I'm hoping this is actually a really good thing. Maybe our listeners will like this new version of Wendy, so I'm going with it.

It's very intense.

It's got gravitas. It's rock and roll. It's very like Stevie Nicks.

I don't know. Is that a comment? I love her.

So we recently recorded an episode of The Shortlist, Your Wonderful Podcast, which I have greatly enjoyed being on many times over the last couple of years in which I interviewed Wendy listeners, for those who are not aware.

And there were so many questions that I wanted to ask that we did not have time for. So I thought we're kicking off the shorter list, minisodes, that's what this is.

I will ask those questions to get to the heart of the important information that the people really want to know.

For example, what TV shows are we watching, Wendy? Do you even watch TV? I feel like your life is so perfect that you don't even bother.

You probably don't even have a TV in your house. Just a huge painting.

Well, right. Yes, that's what I aspire to. And I did do an experiment two or three years ago, which was no TV in the house.

I was trying to be very millennial. Isn't that a thing? Like you just like watch stuff on your laptop.

Kill your TV, man.

Oh, I don't know. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know. And I did try that because I think life is short and I want to go outside.

That is my mantra. And we spent so much time in front of our screens and I'm always saying, gotta get outside. I gotta touch grass.

I gotta see the blue sky, all of that. So that was my attempt. But I just want to say that the experiment sort of failed because I realized if you don't have a giant screen, you are on a little screen.

And then your whole family is just looking at their little screens. And that's not better. TV is better.

You know, it's like have a community experience here and watch something together and have something to talk about and not just be like, so what do you see on TikTok or Instagram or whatever?

Oh, man.

Also, I'm not actually on TikTok. That was just me trying to be like kind of cool.

But no, I think that is cool at this point.

Yeah, okay. So I do have a TV now and that does mean that I have watched some things and the thing that I just finished watching, which I am however many years late to, was Game of Thrones.

Just now?

It was a big, woo!

I know. Where are my dragons?

See, like what decade am I living in?

Winter has come and gone.

And it was so fun. It was so fun to watch something and I had heard the chatter. You just absorb things by being a human, right?

And so all of these phrases and names, I was like, oh, that's what that is. I felt like six or eight years too late. Totally enjoyed it.

It was pretty intense for me because I'm, I like to keep things kind of light, you know, but that is not.

Wow, interesting choice.

It's not light. But I watched everything, you know, and I'm proud of myself. And it has teed me up to watch some more like intense things like True Detective, that's what I'm watching now.

Again, just, you know, going deep, way back.

Someone once told me time is a flat circle.

That's what we're digging into. So I do watch some TV, and it is actually kind of nice to just like turn your brain off, be entertained. I can't read anymore.

You know, you just need a little bit of a break. So I'm not going to hate on television.

Good for you. That's great. I, wow, I have seen Game of Thrones.

I saw it so long ago that I don't remember anything about it other than a few things, you know, like so it's fresh for you probably still.

Yeah. Very questionable activities.

Sure. Yeah.

I thought it was like, did I hear anybody's children watching this? I really hope not. I can't remember that detail.

Like not appropriate.

So you're you're a podcast listener, I believe, is that you're a podcast host.

So you must be listening to podcasts surely. Like what? How bad is that addiction?

It's a bad addiction when the team shared their wrapped and everyone's like how many thousands of minutes they were listening to.

I think mine for Spotify was something like 55,000 minutes. And then it went to the part that said 44,000 of those minutes for podcasts.

I was like, oh, that's a lot of minutes.

I mean, I'm probably sleeping through a lot of that. I'm sure that there's some that's like, oh, that just went for eight hours overnight. Well, I was like, I was just listening to something.

So I'll admit that it's not active listening necessarily. But I always say, I need more music in my life. And I love our team because you all share, you know, playlists or just talk about what you're listening to.

And I have gotten much better to listening to music as I work. But that I just want to say, there I am. I'm behind in the music area, but heavy on the podcasting.

Kyle is letting me know that that equates to approximately 733.3333333 hours of time spent listening to people talk, which is impressive.

That's a lot. I wonder how many podcasts are just like people falling asleep and they think that like people are listening to it, but they're just yakking people to sleep. That's beautiful.

Listeners, if you fall asleep to The Shortlist, please write in and let us know. That would be really strange.

I think it's a compliment. Well, I hear from other podcasters. I'm sure you hear them talk about it like, oh, people fall asleep to my voice.

That's so nice. It means like I'm a place of comfort. I mean, I'm not expecting that from anyone, but I won't turn it away.

You do have a soothing voice.

It's nice.

Thank you.

Yeah. I think I could fall asleep. Well, I mean, I don't know.

I know you. So like it'd probably wake me up if I heard you talking as I'm trying to go to sleep.

You'd be like, Wendy's talking. What am I supposed to be doing? What's happening?

I don't think anyone could sleep to my voice because I feel like my voice is very animated.

It's like all over the place. Like it's not a good... I could try to be comforting.

It's okay, everyone. Take a deep breath. Relax your shoulders.

You've done enough for the day.

I love my podcast that night. They tell me, you've done everything you need to do. It's okay.

You can breathe. Take a deep breath. Like, sorry, everyone.

That's what I need in my life.

That's good stuff.

Very calming.

Oh, yeah. Check out our ASMR for marketers series. We've only put out one video so far, but...

Like I thought it was a great video.

And then when I watched it, I was like, oh, this is actually really calming me. I used it like it was a little bit of therapy. So I knew what was coming in it.

I still like needed to watch it like five times. Like, okay, I feel better now. More of those, Becky, please.

And if anybody wants, I will record a marketer decompression end of the day podcast for you, which is just affirming that you've done everything you need to do.

Yes, please.

We're not actually saving lives, even if it feels like it, we're not. It's all okay.

That's really good. I think we all need to hear that in a loop.

Yes.

Wendy, do you have a dream for your life?

Becky, is this crazy to say or a tempting fate?

I'm living my dream.

Oh, my God.

Or maybe that's like, got a dream bigger. I don't know. I am.

I really, I feel so fortunate. So many places to go with that, but obviously like starting a business and getting to like, try something and having it be successful. Like I pinch myself all the time on that.

You know, I don't attempt at all to take credit.

Maybe in the early days, Kyle, we can take the credit for the early days, but then we have to hand it off to everyone else who is, who's joined the team since then because that saying or whatever, that trope in the world, which is like, you know,

it's the team, it's what they bring and all that. It's so true. It's like, if it were just me by myself, it would be such a sliver of what we have here.

So there's just getting to be in that, I don't know, that place and surrounded by the team that we have. I mean, what an amazing place to work. I feel that way.

I think the team feels that way too. So it's kind of cool. It goes both ways, right?

We're all feeling.

We do. Can confirm. Yeah.

Feeling good about that.

And it's true.

The team is important and the team is everything. But I think as we've all seen on a very large scale, leadership is important. The person in charge certainly makes quite a difference.

And I think since the beginning, you started off on a very audacious quest to start Middle of Six. And you rounded up a rag tag team of absolute weirdos and brought us together. And somehow you're able to manage.

I think listeners, you've heard from almost all of us, but we're very interesting, left of center, weird, like creative people with like all kinds of like neuroses. And like, we're just like, we're art people, you know?

And I'm wondering, Wendy, like, how do you manage? How the hell do you do it? Managing to keep us all, you know, from losing our minds every day and still cranking out an incredible amount of excellent work.

I'll say we do a great job, you know? And I think that is something that you do, clearly.

Well, yeah, again, they do say like culture comes from the top and business books will tell you everything that's wrong with your company is because of you. And I hate to say it is true. Any of the weaknesses, I'm like, that's me.

I see it, not that I'm doing anything wrong, but it's the way I set my priorities or run my schedule. It's just the general vibe. So there's a lot that's good.

And then there's some things I'm like, oh, I want to correct that because it's like in me. And I see that trickle through the whole group.

So I always work to, you know, just be really intentional about what I am doing and bringing to Middle of Six, you know?

I mean, I feel like, and I have a shirt, you will have seen it if you've been at a Middle of Six retreat that says, hold on, let me overthink this, because that is what I do. I arm wrestle with myself all the time.

I'm like, do I just embrace the overthinking or the, you know, how much I care or having my hands in too many things? Or do I need to try to like evolve? And it's just a battle.

And it's not like a battle I want to avoid, but it is constant because I think what I'm getting to is you're always kind of like fighting with yourself. You know, you're not a one person company, you're a team, right?

So how do you make the best of all of those elements? And the thing about running a business is like, it's nonstop, it's all the time.

So buckling down all the time and trying to like hone, it's hard, but also, you know, I see, I just have to, all I have to do is look around and be like, oh, but it's working. Look at this, you know, so it's very exciting.

And then the other piece that I just feel like is secret to our success and maybe others out there with their teams feel this too, is the trust that we have in our team. Do you trust me?

I trust you.

When we are all feeling good, no matter how much work or how little work, you know, all of the things like how spread thin we are or ambitious we are, or feeling bad about ourselves because we didn't quite get as much done as we wanted to, whatever

that looks like, the trust is always there. And I feel like that's where we feel good. Like no matter what else is happening. So, Becky, I see you nodding your head, you know, Kyle's kind of smiling too.

It's like, it's the heart of it all.

It really is because we trust each other. We trust you. I think there's, yeah, there's a lot of trust going every which way.

And that's crucial because yeah, we work on deadlines. I mean, minutes count, seconds count sometimes. Like we sometimes have to do things that we didn't know how to do.

And we have to just figure it out on the spot. And there's always like somebody on the team that knows something and we can piece together, help each other out. I mean, that is very crucial.

And I think like that it is also necessary to have that trust going from the team to the leadership as well, because we trust you, we trust Melissa.

I mean, like we know you're not going to surprise us with like weird business decisions that is going to put all our lives in chaos, you know, because you're very like open about communication. Like we know where we're going.

I feel like we're the crew on a ship and like we know where we're sailing and everybody's got their little ship job, you know, and we're just like the most successful, weird little pirates on the sea. That's my answer.

We're the pirates. All right. I love that.

In this 10 year journey now, what would you say has been your favorite Middle of Six moment?

Oh my gosh.

Impossible question, by the way. But there have been some great standouts, you know, lots of little moments that just feed my soul as a marketer and as a human and as a person, you know, all that stuff.

But it's going to be hard to top being able to go to the Amplify Conference. I think it was 2024 where Middle of Six won four awards. I, it was incredible.

And we won the first ever SMPS MCA Best of Show award, which is a Golden M whole. I mean, I wish I could just like sometimes put myself in a bubble and just feel all of those feelings again because it was so incredible.

To be recognized by our peers in front of our peers. I had people texting me pictures of us up on stage as we were accepting those awards and to just feel the love.

And then I got to jump on a call with our team immediately after and I tried to, I'm sure I didn't do a very good job hiding it all. But I was just going to like, I'll give you an update from the award ceremony.

It was really nice.

Look at these awards. You know, that kind of thing. It was so exciting.

And I don't know. There's just so much. I don't know how to top that.

I guess there's always something, but that was just incredible for all those reasons. So that'll stick with me forever.

That was good. We knew something was up, but when you were like, yeah, they made up a new award that didn't exist before for us.

I know. I know. Yeah.

And that was exciting. Huge kudos to you because that best of show was for our Wild Cards campaign. And granted, everyone on the Middle of Six team worked hard on that.

Kyle did all the website side of it, all the digital. Grace was doing the social media, invented events to roll things out. I mean, we pulled out all the stops.

We had the most fun as marketing people because we had to do essentially everything we wanted to do, which is rare in life to get to just go wild, go hog, go ham. What you're saying? Go ham, Becky, right?

It's not my language.

I mean, what I hear you say.

So, you know, it was a great win in that way. And then also because it was so focused on the other marketers in AEC, it was just fun to, it was like, I felt like we were giving this cool creative gift to them.

And now we've seen people dress up as the wildcards for Halloween. Amazing. Marketers and leaders will reach out to Middle of Six and feel free to do this if you're interested.

But they'll say, can I get some of those digital files and can you send me Coast Cards? We're doing our marketing summit and we want to do a whole little session on this.

I mean, Middle of Six isn't facilitating that or doing anything, but they are bringing it in and that's exactly the point. Bring it in to your team, start talking about it, use it as a tool. It's so fun.

People often are like, can I pay for this? Can I buy this? I'm like, this is for you.

We made this for you. Becky made this for you.

This is a love letter to AEC marketers. We wanted them to feel seen. We get it.

We are them.

Very cool. Then we also won at that time for a website, which is, I always put that bar, I feel like that's the hardest category because everybody's always doing websites.

For sure.

It's really hard to look different when you need to have all the best practices and this was a project that Kyle was on. Kudos to you to win at that top category. Mind-blowing.

Then, Becky had an awesome proposal design. I just felt like it was so well-rounded, this internal external campaigns and all the things we do. Oh, sorry, I'm bragging too much, but that's how much it matters to me.

So, it's just really cool and it's inspiring, and I hope it inspires other people to go for those awards.

Even if you don't end up on this stage, it's a good practice to summarize what you did and get those metrics and demonstrate your leadership as a marketer to your company and to others around you.

So, it's worthwhile and then who knows, maybe you'll find yourself up there taking home a couple M's sometime.

Ooh, that golden M, eat your heart out, McDonald's. That's the one I want. Yeah, that was really exciting because we were always this little scrappy agency that was really likeable.

Everybody liked us. We're everybody's buddy, you know? But now we've got national awards, baby.

So, it just added that boost of credibility. Yeah, I'm excited about that. Wow.

Well, I feel like we probably are out of time, although I could keep asking questions for a hundred years. Kyle is nodding vigorous.

He's like, this is the shorter list?

Yeah, this is now the extra long list.

All right, Kyle, you can cut all the parts that weren't good.

They were all good. What are you talking about? All right.

So thank you, Wendy, so much for being on this introductory minisode of The Shortlist. Thank you for letting me steal your podcast and your producer and all of these things. And I'm already having an absolute blast.

Listeners, rate, subscribe, remember to share the love, make a friend, recommend this podcast to another AEC marketer who wants to feel seen, and see you next time where we will probably take even longer and it will just become an eight hour podcast

that you can fall asleep to. So be kind to yourself, be kind to others. I hope everybody has a great day, great week. Let's make this the best day of your lives, everyone.

Yay.

Thank you, Becky. You're the best.

You're the best. Was that 100 years too long? I'm so sorry.

There are segments, and Kyle will, yeah.

Okay.

It's cool.

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.