The Shortlist Episode 94: What it's Like to Engage with Middle of Six

Have you ever wondered what it’s actually like to work with Middle of Six? In this episode of The Shortlist, Principals Wendy Simmons and Melissa Richey answer one of the most common questions they hear from AEC firms: “How does this even work?”

From the first meet-and-greet conversation to onboarding, discovery sessions, project check-ins, and final deliverables, Wendy and Melissa walk through how MO6 plugs into teams to provide strategic marketing and business development support. And in classic MO6 style, they're transparent about the challenges many firms face before bringing on extra support, including back-to-back deadlines, budget constraints, team personalities, and even the fear of letting an outside consultant see behind-the-scenes.

Leave those worries behind and hear first-hand how bringing on an outside perspective can add tremendous value to your in-house team.

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 Principal Marketing Strategist Melissa Richey to discuss what it's like to work with Middle of Six. Hi, Melissa.

Hi, Wendy.

This is going to be a different type of podcast episode for us. We have not gone this deep, I would say, related to Middle of Six, our marketing consultancy company.

We're always talking about our clients and using some of our work or our experiences as examples of how other AEC marketers could work.

But now we're going to take it in a different direction and talk a little bit about what it's actually like to work with us. We're not putting some blanket statement out there that this is what it's like to work with other marketing consultants.

We don't know. This is just about our process here. If listeners could think back to a couple of episodes ago when I made Melissa reintroduce herself to everyone, because you probably hadn't done it formally since season one.

Right?

Your long list, your many tasks, responsibilities, things that you do, did include this part of meeting with new clients and answering questions and getting them engaged and getting our team teed up to work with them.

So now, I guess, is the deep dive into that bullet point that you said.

Yes, I manage the team and I work with clients on strategy, but we also have to do this big part, which is talking to new clients, telling them about what we do and how we might all work together. So should be fun to expand on that a bit.

And since we both do it all the time, very equally.

Listeners will get to hear from both of us a lot on this podcast, both kind of going back and forth and sharing how we approach that and answering the questions that we get, which are not hard questions, but I'm curious how we're going to be able to

summarize it here in this 30 to 40 minutes. So in prepping for this podcast, I was thinking about how it's interesting in our line of work that a lot of our clients are very comfortable working with sub-consultant partners or sub-contractors.

I mean, for example, RGC clients contracting with another firm is just par for the course, right? That's what they're doing all the time.

Architects bringing on engineers all the time.

Yeah. So it's not a foreign concept to have a teaming partner, to bring someone on. But I do think there's like, it's not as clear of a path to bring out someone for the marketing piece, or at least that's the sense I get.

Melissa, do you hear that too? Do you feel some barriers?

Yeah, I do. Maybe it's because we as marketers in AEC do things that our clients already have in house. So there's maybe that's what the rub is, but it does seem like there's a little bit of a difference in the client's mind of bringing us on.

And also, even different than, I mean, I hear from folks all the time, well, our IT consultant will help with this part or whatever, or we'll need to reach out to our HR consultant.

So there are consultants working in many parts of the firms, but marketing just feels like a little bit of a different animal. So, hence the reason for this podcast.

We thought maybe just being really transparent and sharing how we approach it would help folks understand how they might engage and maybe a lesson learned also if you're working with other consultants too.

Where transparency is a huge part of our style, our working style, we like to share as much as we know, we think it does kind of help everyone get to the next level.

So part of that wondering that I hear from clients is like, how would we even bring in a marketing consultant? How does this work? It feels like there's this long string of questions in their mind, like, how could you get our stuff?

How would you engage with our team? How do you know what we worked on? All of these how, what, where, when, why.

How are you gonna know what we do and what projects we've worked on?

Those are very common questions at an initial client meet and greet.

So, maybe not, we don't have like one simple answer or maybe, Melissa, do you have, do you have a one-liner that's really easy to say how we do?

I don't know that I have a one-liner, but I talk about it being a collaboration that just like if you were kicking off a project with your own in-house marketing team, there would be a meeting where we all come together and talk about what are the

things that are relevant. What do we need to know? Where do we find that information? So it's a back and forth.

It's a learning on both sides. It's asking questions. It's having someone to pull content, which maybe that's part of the block for people.

It's like we don't replace your marketing people. We still need someone inside your firm who can go and grab that resume or get the login to the back end of your WordPress website.

Like there's still got to be someone who's pulling information because yes, it is true. You're not sitting there in your office next to you with access to all of that. Sometimes we solve that by getting that access.

We have clients who give us VPN access to their marketing server. We have clients who we get SharePoint files from them.

We've even had some folks that have given us access to their open asset or their marketing database or their CRM to go pull things ourselves.

But there's definitely a little ramp up period where we get to know where those things live and get to understanding of your systems.

Yeah, so we feel really confident that we can help guide the process to getting the information we need to create some efficiencies and to help us be really effective in our role.

But we still need to talk through that with the client because they are just thinking about internally, we have all of these projects, our photos are named with only numbers and not project names.

Everything lives in Joe's mind, how are you possibly gonna read his mind, we have to go chase him down or whatever that might be.

So there's a, feels like there's this long list of things that is kind of swirling around for the client to land on, how are you actually gonna get in there and help? So Melissa just listed 10 different ways that we can get access.

I just would like to put to rest the fear that we know how to get the information. I also think a lot of marketers, just even in-house have these skills of being able to search and open PDFs or search in files.

And I mean, there's lots of ways that we're, I think even in-house, you would be looking for information. We use all of those same tricks and tips too, and packaged in-design files with links.

I mean, there's just a lot of way to find the information, but we're not going into any project, just shotgun approach to tracking stuff down.

We actually have a bit of a process to make sure that we're setting everyone up to be successful once we get going.

Melissa, should we just kind of talk through the steps of our process follows typically of meet and greet and what we share back and forth, and then if a project needs a discovery and then how we meet throughout the project, maybe that's a good way

to frame it up and walk through some of those details. to frame it up and walk through some of those details.

First of all, how do people then find us? How do they reach out to us? Where are these coming from?

Hello at middleofsix.com is a great way to reach us.

You can email us. That is often where inquiries come in, but I feel like Wendy, you and I have folks that we know in our networks that will reach out to us individually.

Maybe we ran into someone at an SMPS conference or any other form of professional association and meet folks that way. So sometimes it's a one to one. I certainly get people that will contact me on LinkedIn.

So that is another way. You can also reach out to me or Wendy or anyone on the Middle of Six team through those channels. The initial outreach often comes over email.

Yeah, that's great.

Sorry, this is a shameless plug, but we're going to do it because it's such a common question to get. So there's going to be a lot of like, this is how you reach out to us and we're inviting folks all the time.

I think even on this podcast, we're like, send us a question. We're happy to answer and we do answer those questions. And the same thing goes with speaking at a conference.

You want to reach out, let us know. And it's amazing how sometimes one small conversation two years ago turns into finally, there's kind of that bigger reason to do a project together.

So, we're very open to that and we do lots of sharing even before there's like necessarily an official project to do. But when we get that initial inquiry, we kind of figure out who is the right person to reach back out.

If it came to us one on one, obviously we're just going to respond. But sometimes if it's at that hello at Middle of Six, it needs to go to someone who's best suited to answer some of those questions. So, Melissa, which hats do you wear?

I tend to get a lot of the proposal inquiries, interview prep, websites.

And I feel like that kind of splits between both you and I, both because we both managed website projects, rebrand projects. I feel like we've both run that. So sometimes it's also, we've got pretty wide overlapping skills between you and I.

So I think there's some element of that. I've worked with a lot of engineering clients over the years. So sometimes it's that, but you have engineering clients as well.

And you used to work at a general contractor, so you get GC inquiries. But I've worked with so many now that I probably get them just as much as you do.

So sometimes it's also a matter of who's got capacity to have that meeting quickly, because that's something that's important to us.

If someone reaches out, we want to always get back to you within a day, and then hopefully be able to schedule that first interaction, or what we call our meet and greet, within a matter of a few days, ideally.

Yeah, absolutely. We do want to respond within 24 hours, if at all possible. Obviously, sometimes proposal deadlines can just be at the wrong moment to do that.

We're going to be very responsive. And then it does seem like inquiries come with some time sensitivity to them, too. That's usually the, there's a trigger on the client side where like, we need something or it's go time.

So we want to be there for them, you know, they've been waiting, yeah, waiting a while to reach out potentially.

So getting that introductory call or the meet and greet, as we call it, on the schedule and going, what do you like to accomplish in the meet and greet?

And then I'll fill in with anything else that I, it was like on my must learn list for those calls.

Yeah, sometimes a client will reach out with a very specific thing. We have someone going on maternity leave and we need, you know, someone to step in and help fill in the need.

And then other times it's something like, I know I need help with my marketing, but I don't really know what I need. So part of it is, you know, what is the nature of the call?

When someone has a real specific need, then I really start digging into, you know, tell me about your company size, how many, if it's say for a website, well, what's the status of your current website? How old is it?

What are the challenges you're having with it? And kind of getting those types of, you know, foundational pieces, like what are their pain points? Trying to understand, what are we trying to solve for?

What is your ultimate goal? And then digging into those various details, like what has changed since you launched your last website?

Is there a big initiative on the horizon, like a anniversary or a big milestone or change in leadership that is driving the schedule of when we want to get this done?

Schedule, also a very big thing, because sometimes there is a little bit of a disconnect between what a client or potential client perceives as a schedule should be for, say, a website, to what is realistic in us kind of knowing the things that tend

to slow website projects down. So schedule is a good one.

Usually, at the end, I tend to ask about budget, and it's not uncommon that the client doesn't know, especially for something like a website or a rebrand, because it's like, I don't know what the budget is, because I just really have no idea how much

That's a good point that you bring up kind of midstream there where you were saying how you'll be asking questions about, is there something that's triggering this or an event you're trying to hit, a milestone, because I have found that maybe they're

reaching out about, I don't know, a website project is a great example, and they haven't thought about timing it with something else that's coming up. They're like, oh, yeah, well, our 75th anniversary is going to be in April.

And not that those things have to go together, but actually there can be a lot of positive reasons to time them.

And you have to be smart about that schedule that you're building and it has to be reasonable and everything, because then you can get a lot of, what would you say?

I feel like you get a lot of bang for your buck when you have multiple things rolling out or lots of reasons to talk or guide people to something like a website through an anniversary campaign.

So by asking that question, you might even discover that they weren't thinking that way, but that makes a lot of sense and it gives them something, a little more purpose for that project.

Yeah, or if the project is something where you're going to want to get perspectives from a group of different offices, like finding out like, is there a time when this group is coming together, where we could then be there and plan to bookend before

or after and get to know those people. So just really trying to get a good lay of the land at that meet and greet.

Asking lots of questions, getting their understanding of what their current state of marketing affairs are, like what does their team look like, what volume of work do they go after.

Just trying to gather as much information to just get a general understanding of who that client is, what types of clients they work with, what types of projects they go after.

Yeah, painting the picture because then that helps us respond to with providing more detail about the services that we provide. I use a shorthand saying often in meet and greets and probably other places too when folks ask like, what do you do?

And I'll say, we do everything your in-house team does. And I don't know if that's a great way to describe it because, A, maybe they don't have an in-house team.

Right.

You know, it's not very fair, but I still like to think in those terms is that we are, we all came from being in-house, we're very comfortable with the wide variety of things that can be placed on a marketer's plate when you're in-house.

So to me, that's my shorthand version. Listeners, tell me if that works, if I should stop using that or not.

I also use that one.

I've also been recently thinking, maybe that's not the best answer because what an in-house marketer can do can really vary from firm to firm or even like region of the country, because we do get inquiries from folks from all over the US.

So I've also started to think that maybe that's not the best answer. It was an easy shorthand answer because we do so many things, but it may not be giving the client or potential client the information they need.

So that is part of the point of this meet and greet is to uncover those things that are challenges for them in their marketing and business development activities.

So the shorthand part of that, of like the things that we feel like we're doing that a lot of in-house marketers are either doing or in charge of are like proposals and pursuit support.

And often, or I would say when we're really lucky to get to be part of like the business development strategy or pre-positioning or client perception surveys, brand perception surveys that help position a firm to win new work.

So, you know, getting ahead of the proposal process, think of those things as being, you know, depending on the size of your team, your marketing folks are thinking about those things.

And, you know, that can lead into like, you know, in-house teams are coaching for an interview.

Sometimes, you need and want to bring in training just at a higher level, not higher meaning better, but just kind of like a broader overview of the process instead of when you're just focused on a pursuit.

So, I know in-house teams can also provide that type of training, but it would probably be on their list of responsibilities to be thinking about, you know, what does our team need to be effective in that way.

Yeah, and I think the other point on training is that I hear this a lot and it's 100% true.

I know, especially if our contact at the client is in marketing or BD, I know you're going to say the same things that I tell my teams, but for some reason when someone from the outside tells them that they listen.

So, I'm like, you are absolutely right.

And that's also why we're going to get with you before we do this training and make sure that we are in alignment with what is your process and we are going to adapt our training to reinforce what you're telling them.

So, we are also kind of your advocate of, you know, I know this is what Sarah tells you already and this is what we need to do.

Yeah, that's such a good point. The purpose of Middle of Six is to support the marketing and BD teams.

We may be hired by, you know, a marketing director or hired by a owner of a firm depending on, you know, the structure or who is reaching out, but kind of at our heart. And one of our reasons for being is supporting the marketing team.

We know from being in house, how spread thin you can be. And we are not here to make your life harder.

It is all about making your life easier, better templates and cleaning things up or advising if we have advice to give, you know, it's not like we're always coming into chaos. You know, sometimes we're just here to do a job and get that proposal in.

So yeah, you're totally right. Like the marketing teams in-house, they know their people. They know the wild cards that they're dealing with.

They've been potentially fighting the rehashing the same battle again and again, trying to make some progress and then, you know, just having an outside perspective can be really valuable.

Yeah, we try to keep these meet and greets to 30 minutes.

So we kind of talked about a lot of things we may cover, but what happens is sometimes we hit our 30 minutes and we're like, I think we maybe need to have another meeting before they start telling you about one of these needs and a person who's a

decision maker or big influencer isn't at that meeting. So sometimes we schedule another meeting because especially those times where it's kind of like I don't know what I need, but I know I need my marketing to be better and we're not going to

necessarily identify what that is in a 30 minute meeting. So sometimes there's another meeting where we, you know, reflect on what we heard and come back and get a little more specific or granular into what we might need to dig into to help you.

Yeah, that could be a good moment for Melissa or I to invite one of our senior designers or someone who would be very well suited.

The nice one of the many nice things about our team though is just the different areas of expertise where they've either worked in the past that may be very similar to this new client's request or they just have a special skill that would be valuable

so we can start to expand our team if there is a second meet and greet or a follow up meeting. Then that also allows the client side to like, okay, let's broaden this too. Let's get a few more principles involved. Let's start getting buy-in on.

Really, it's relationship building, starting to have some trust because I think once a project is going, there's a lot of trust on all sides that we're like, okay, we're all going to do what we said we were going to do.

And it takes a little bit to get there, or at least a few times to get people on board with bringing in the outsider. So, you know, we have the meet and greet. There's probably something that Middle of Six is following up with too.

Maybe it's our consulting agreement and some wrong pricing for the things that we discussed.

We kind of keep that part loose initially, just to give the client an idea of what the cost to engage would be and where the value is, you know, for them to be making all kinds of decisions and that.

But we like to move to a next step before we get very specific on pricing out a project.

I think that this is just about making sure, same with a construction project, that you have a clear scope of work before you commit your GMP, you know, so that there are no surprises at the end of the project. That is the same, it applies to us too.

We need to work together to define what the project is actually going to require. We can staff it properly, build that schedule. Melissa, that you talked about.

So that's discovery. That phase is discovery for us. A proposal pursuit project, that's not going to have discovery.

So we push that all off to the side. But almost everything else we do has a discovery phase. Melissa, share a little bit about what discovery looks like.

Some of the things that we might rattle off in that meet and greet about like, how long does it take to prep for it? You know, who would be involved? What's the purpose of that whole session?

Yeah, so part of discovery, usually the first step is a kickoff meeting where that might be with a smaller group, maybe just marketing or BD and maybe one of the principles or a decision maker where we start talking about, okay, who are all the

people we need to get their perspectives? Let's just pick a website project, you know, okay, who's going to be people that we need at a meeting who are going to give preferences related to visuals? Like, what type of color palette?

What type of photography style? That's one big part of Discovery. Another big part of Discovery on a website project is the writing piece.

That is something that Middle of Six does is we write all the content for our websites.

That's not to say that the client may not go and change things or edit things, but that's one thing that's really different about hiring Middle of Six for your website is that we are AEC focused, so we understand what you do and we know the questions

to ask. So we get in that kickoff meeting, kind of understand who are the voices we need in the room to figure these things out and specific to website.

We try to keep the group tighter because if you get too many people at a discovery session, there's so many voices, it's hard to get kind of consensus and move things forward, but it's just got to be that like perfect amount so that the, depending on

how big your firm is or how many offices you have. So the voices are being heard. So what comes out of discovery is something that is represented of your company as a whole.

So for discovery on a website, we've done them in as short as two-hour virtual sessions. We have done them in half-day in-person sessions. I think we maybe had like two half-day in-persons for a client a couple of years ago.

So really scaling that to one, the size of the group and two, how much work we have to do if we are combining a website with a brand refresh or a full rebrand, that's going to be a bigger level of discovery that might need to take place over a couple

of different sessions or if it's a little bit tighter where the brand is already good and messaging is that you have a good brand messaging foundation and we are more just really writing the content for the website, then that can be a tighter

Well, I have been in a couple of two-day discoveries and that sounds like a lot when you just say it like this, but I think there's a ton of value that comes from, especially when you're working on branding and a website sort of falls into that.

It's like an outcome of a branding project often. We want to know, we want to be a sponge, we want to absorb as much as possible, and four hours is not enough sometimes. That's just the honest truth of it.

So for those longer discoveries, projects that can justify having that time, and I know it's taking time on the client's team side as well.

It's not nothing, we take it very seriously, and plan an agenda that includes things that are sort of icebreakers in getting to know each other.

That might be a happy hour on the first evening of it before we really get started, but some time to break bread, talk, get to know each other on a personal level so that we can be more comfortable and enjoy the process throughout the project.

So that's kind of an element, a soft element that happens with discovery.

But the facilitated conversations and having more than just a couple hours on a teams meeting, we can meet with different groups, have them be smaller groups, six or eight or 10 people, instead of trying to meet with 30 or 40 folks in a big town hall

style meeting where the people that we're talking to get to really share and be heard. We don't want to miss certain contributors because of the format of the meetings, that they didn't feel like they could or weren't comfortable.

So we just like to, when we're planning it with the marketing or whoever's being our liaison on the client side, we are thinking about who's gonna be in the room, what are their titles, what is the tenure, making sure that it's grabbing a great

cross-section of the company so that that will help with buy-in later on as recommendations come out. And it's a good moment to slow down so that we can go fast through the project when it's time to go.

You know, we've set that foundation really well.

Well, often we give people pre-work, so there may be questions we ask people to think about. We try and recognize that different people have different ways they like to give input.

Some people are just like, you asked me the questions and I'm gonna rattle things off. Other people want to get the questions in advance and have time to think about that. And then we also try to give different ways for people to contribute.

So we use a virtual whiteboard. Even when we go in person, we've moved to virtual whiteboard. So that one, we use it as part of our record keeping and then it's already electronic.

So even if the client's answering questions, we're usually using the virtual stickies to add that to our slides that are in the mural session. But then anyone that's in the room during discovery can also just go and add their comments there.

And then of course, with virtual discovery, then that is one of the means for providing the input. And then you have access to that, so you can go back to it. So there's also people that I needed that time to be in that room and hear that and absorb.

And then I'm going to give you some feedback afterwards. So that's another way is just trying to be really open to having different ways for people to provide input in that discovery.

Yeah, that's a good reminder about the homework piece. And we're thoughtful about providing that for folks who do want to think ahead, but also not, we're always aware of no one has any extra time.

We're not going to put fluffy projects on their plate, and we're not going to ask them to do things that they just did. Like maybe you've recently had an employee survey on that. We are not going to rehash that.

So that's part of those things that get ironed out in the kickoff meeting when we can get really nitty gritty about what's already been done and what do we need to know and the marketing and other folks are feeding us this so we can all make great

use of that discovery time. And the other piece that is very likely to be happening is just that confirmation of the scope so we can give a really solid price and a schedule built on the right number of people and learning those client preferences.

They want every meeting in person. That's a different approach than if everything is going to be virtual and you know, what's the pacing of the projects.

Those are things that we figure out in Discovery that lands a little bit into like company culture type stuff. And then we, you know, wrap up Discovery. Very common.

There's a recommendations and findings. So with the recommendations and findings meeting that can come after Discovery, we're summarizing what we heard from the client.

You know, rehashing what the purpose is, what the goal is that we're trying to achieve here. And in delivering our recommendations for moving forward, everyone gets a chance to get aligned. You know, did we hear correctly?

Did we take something too strongly? Should that be weighted less? And it's just a really great moment for confirming that we are moving forward in the right direction.

So that's another little detail that I think clients really appreciate getting that. There's also usually deliverable connected with that, and they kind of get a recap of the work that everyone's put into it thus far.

Before we get into the new pieces. Okay, so then moving forward, there's the actual real hard work part.

The fun is that we're happy hours done. We are doing project check-in meetings, and everyone's moving towards a goal of completing on time and under budget, all that stuff.

Melissa, what's your approach to figuring out the right cadence for project meetings and how those are handled?

Typically tends to be weekly meetings that most projects benefit from a weekly check-in, having that accountability piece. It's make sure everyone's making progress, everyone knows what's going on.

So I can't think of a project where we weren't meeting weekly for check-ins. And sometimes it's 30 minutes. Like, I mean, sometimes we get on, okay, yep, yep, yep, everyone's done everything.

Great. Okay. I mean, we've had ones that have been as short as 10 minutes.

Yeah.

Whenever I suggest like, well, we could meet every other week. And I would say almost all the time, the clients are like, let's meet weekly to start. We could always free up some time or cancel a meeting.

And so that has just become the way we do it now, because I hear on the other side, they're like, we also want that accountability check-in. You don't want too much time to pass. Everybody's schedules are really busy.

And if you miss one, then maybe it's not a month till you've met. So yeah, that's why that weekly check-in is just key in the process. And it allows us to, everyone to be very nimble, adjust these micro adjustments throughout the project.

There's no, I'm a big fan, no surprises. Everyone should be informed throughout. That is accomplished in those weekly check-ins and just keeping the project moving as planned.

Depending on what project we're delivering, there's also an element as we're moving towards the very end, which is how is this going to be implemented?

You know, we've probably talked about it in some forums earlier on, but then there can be some very deliberate implementation type meetings.

And maybe that brings in other people, IT or HR that is going to be sharing this information or woven into other things.

So, you know, that's another round that might look a little different than a regular project check-in meeting, but getting focused on how something is rolled out. This is all, of course, not applicable to an RFP.

I think we're going to have to circle back to kind of our approach to onboarding a client for the RFP process, but, you know, for these longer-term projects, we don't need, no one needs everyone in the room for every project, but a core group of a

couple of Middle of Sixers and two or three folks on the client side can make for a really efficient process. So that's, you know, kind of how we end up finishing strong. And then we also have, like, a project closeout process.

Everything that we create at Middle of Six is actually for our clients, right? So you will get packaged in design files, you know, brand guidelines, packaged so you can edit them. You know, we're not...

Export of every version of the logo you could possibly need in every file format.

Back in, log in to your website. You know, a training meeting on how to use the back end of the website. And then, you know, we always are available for helping if, oh, gosh, you know, we couldn't figure it out how to do this.

Jump on a call.

Yeah. Yeah, we kind of are always on call after that initial engagement, you know, even after that initial client meeting. You know, we're in the loop.

We're connected now. So, yes, absolutely. You know, we will keep copies.

We have everything that we've created. That's important for us, but we don't want you all, you know, to have to be requesting every single item. So there's a process that we go through to make sure you have what you need.

And that's also kind of getting us organized and cleaned up. So, you know, we maintain a marketing assets folder for all of our clients so that we have that information and we're not needing to ask for it again. The best we can.

We try really hard. We don't want to ask for things twice or three times. So we spend a little bit of time at the end, just making sure we're super organized because the next project is likely coming down.

Maybe it's in a week or maybe it's in a year, but we'll have that stuff available when it's time to go again.

All right, so I kept pushing off the RFP part, but it's a huge part of our work and, you know, we really like it and it does help us, you know, kind of like live our mission of helping AEC firms win.

So, you know, it's a piece of it for sure. And that's where I think we kind of go back into like a phase after the meet and greets, which is the new client onboarding.

Yeah, get us your packaged in-design template, get us some good go buy proposals for the pursuits you intend to use us for.

And then maybe this is also not the greatest description, but I like to say we run a pursuit, probably the way your marketing team does. We are going to read the RFP and outline it in a proposal matrix.

We're going to have a kickoff meeting where we have someone from the client's marketing team, the project manager for the project, and then Middle of Six pursuit manager.

Sometimes our graphic designer will sit in on the kickoff meeting, but then we run through the requirements, and who's doing what, who's the team, what projects are we going to include? Then we run through what is the schedule.

We're going to have the same thing. Usually it's a weekly check in on a proposal too, for the same reason that we want to make sure people are making progress on their deadlines.

We do drafts, some people one, two, three, pink, red, gold final, but we set those schedules for when those review meetings are going to be.

We specify whether we're going to do reviews of the draft of the proposal in Adobe Share for review or Bluebeam. Depending on client preferences, we're able to flex to that.

Then we all part ways and start making progress on the draft of the proposal.

That is the time where, okay, you gave us your go-by, you gave us the end design template, but we're not finding a resume for this person, or they said this project was in that proposal and it's not. Can we pull that?

The marketing person, can you pull that for us? A little bit of that back and forth, us determining what we have, what are some gaps on boilerplate, here's some good go-buy content, who's going to adapt that.

So get all of that lined out and then just start making incremental progress and having those review meetings. So hopefully, that's how things are being run in your firm, but I know that's not always the case.

So I think that is a benefit, especially marketers, if they are trying to do that, and it's just not happening.

I think sometimes having Middle of Six come in, it helps, again, having that outside perspective being like, oh, we see how this can be a more smooth process, like we're a little bit less stressful when we've had this first meeting and we all know

what's expected and we all know when we're gonna meet again. So I think there's a lot of value in that. And then I think the other great thing is Middle of Six is a team of 11 people.

So if you're a marketer, a one, and it's all on you, we've got people that can share the load. We've got designers who can figure out that complex org chart that got discussed at the meeting or just can't get this graphic to look right.

We've got someone who can tackle that for us. So I think it's a really great value to bring us on because you just get the expertise and perspective from a lot of experienced people that have been doing this for a lot of years.

Yeah, maybe that is an answer to that early client question was like, how do you possibly do this? And we have the unfair advantage of we have a lot of people. We have a lot of hands.

We can actually do more in a week than most marketing teams can.

Obviously, we're not bigger than all marketing teams, but we're also not already pre-booked with all of that work that, if you're a large firm across the country, you might have 20, 30, 40 marketers, but everyone is busy, right?

So we do have more space, which is good.

And then for smaller teams, like you said, Melissa, there's a lot of value and just a lot of expertise and extra hands, and you know, you maybe you're leading a proposal, but you do want our help with a piece of it. I mean, that is absolutely doable.

We work with clients in all sorts of fashions. Most of the time, I do think it's the most efficient, effective and satisfying process for everyone. When we just take on the whole RFP, ourself we'll do it.

Like Melissa said, just like you would, but we're doing it, right? And keeping you totally in the loop.

But from kickoff to production and interview prep, we're just happy to own the whole thing and let you breathe a sigh of relief and not have to be in it too much. But still a little bit, right? Like, what would you say?

15, 20 percent? We need a bit of marketing time if we can get it.

For clients that we do proposals with pretty consistently, their level of effort tends to go down as we get more and more of their resources of resumes, projects, past proposals, you know.

We have some clients that we've been the consistency as they've had turnover in their staff. So sometimes I've sat in meetings where I'm suggesting what projects should go in the proposal because I've gotten to know their portfolio so well.

Right. You do a few school proposals like, well, we got to get Jim on there, you know, or whatever it is. So proposals are a great place for us to engage in.

There's a tip. There's some advice that I say a lot. It doesn't always go this way.

This is the best case scenario in my mind. But when someone's thinking about us for proposal work, I say, consider bringing us on for a smaller proposal or one when you're not overwhelmed. I know it's not what you're thinking.

You're thinking I need Middle of Six for the overflow.

But when it's the first proposal, I have seen it with clients where they get a lot of confidence in what we can do and their anxiety kind of reduces when they get to sit on the sidelines and watch our process and they can provide some support and we

can work out any kinks with like, oh, we couldn't access the VPN or we're working on that when it's not a must-win giant progressive design build, a million teaming partners or a super tight deadline. Like, sure, we're happy, happy to help with

those, but maybe not for the first one. It can be a lot.

We've done it, but if we want to talk about tips to be successful, like, let's go forth with the first one not being all of the things that can be constraints of the proposal on that first one.

Yeah. So if you need to pitch that to someone to say, I think it works really well, especially like a smaller proposal, it might feel easy to you, but that's a chance for us to do all of that onboarding and get it organized before it's a fire drill.

So that's a really great way to do it for sure. Melissa, what other questions do we get?

Like, I don't know, do you ever get, is there anything you don't do or what should we not call you for? I don't know.

I get that one, which maybe is the easiest one because we do almost everything in the AEC marketing mix, but we don't do recruiting. We will certainly help you determine how many marketers you have. We could help you write a job description.

We can let you know of people that we might know who are looking, but we're not going out and recruiting and contacting people on your behalf and placing staff. Like, we're not a recruitment firm.

Right. I've sat in interviews before for firms that were hiring their first marketer, and they just needed like, well, we don't exactly know what to ask.

We know a lot about our firm, but we don't know the technical questions to ask a marketer and judge their skills. I'm like, oh, very happy to help with that. But again, it's just an advisor position, not recruiting.

I don't know.

Maybe some people think this. Like, our intention is not to work with you forever. Like, if you are short on marketing staff or have no marketing staff, we want you to have that in-house resource.

So we're happy to help. So don't be shy to tell us that we think it's time that we hire someone. Like, we want to help you and find a person that we think is a good fit.

So we're happy to help in that way.

Yeah, exactly. I think we've also had the chance to do some training for marketing aims.

When we were engaged before they had the marketer, and then we can get them settled and continue to provide guidance, and we're just slowly backing into the bushes. And that actually makes us happy. We feel like our job was done.

And I hope that means that the clients can come back to us when there's kind of the new challenge ahead of them.

Yeah, it's ready for a re-brand, or ready for a new website. You know, we would like to do some training for proposal writing or interview prep. So I think that relationship is still there, even if we're not helping you on a very frequent basis.

The other thing, maybe this is a good point to wrap up on, because we've chatted a bit.

We've given a lot of information here. People might have to listen twice or whatever.

But one point that I think is important to just say out loud, especially if you're a marketing manager and you're looking at your budget and all of that, is that, and I heard this or read this somewhere, it's like, there is never a line item for the

consultant work. Never, it doesn't exist, right? You need training at some point. I'm guessing it's not sitting in your budget, you know?

I mean, for some firms, sure. But for most firms, there's going to be a need that comes up, you know? And you may not have a line item for it, but that doesn't mean it's not important for your business strategy.

So if you ever want to have a meet and greet and talk to us and learn more about what we do, and we can provide those ROMs that can help you sort of like plant the seed for a future budget, or also just have the confidence that business owners, you

know, want to invest strategically and in a smart way in their business. But just because there is a line item does not mean it's not important. It just means someone hasn't put the line item there yet. So, I don't know.

I think that can be a hurdle for some people just wondering like, can we actually do this? And there's a lot of value and efficiencies that can be brought to your processes by getting an outside perspective, and we can go from there.

Yeah, I think lots of good comes from starting that first conversation, getting some knowledge, learning about what could be done, and inspiring what to do in the future.

I guess I'd invite anyone, not everyone, but anyone who wants to call, or say hello or check us out. Consider using a consultant. We're very open and sharing with our information.

We'd love to chat with you more. And if you've been listening to this podcast, I think you're also hearing lots of good things. So maybe that's a good warm up and this is the nudge to reach out.

But Melissa, thanks for sharing all of the details of what it's like to work with us. Probably answered that big hairy question now. So check that box for folks and yeah, we'll see you on the next podcast.

All right, thanks Wendy, thanks.

The Shortlist is presented by Middle of Six.

Our producer is Kyle Davis, with digital marketing support by the team at Middle of Six. If you're looking for past episodes or more info, check out our podcast page at middleofsix.com/theshortlist.

You can follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at Middle of Six. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep on hustling.

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.