The Shortlist Episode 96: The Marketers!

What type of AEC marketer are you? Are you the Eagle Eye, catching every compliance detail? The Octopus, juggling a dozen priorities at once? The Cheerleader, keeping your team motivated? Or maybe the MacGyver; the marketer who always finds a way to save the day?!

In this special episode of The Shortlist, the entire Middle of Six team jumps on the podcast to discuss "The Marketers"—MO6's wildcard personalities that celebrate the strengths and superpowers that make AEC marketers so unique and invaluable. Through personal stories, shared experiences, and plenty of laughter, the team spills the tea on how these traits show up in their daily work and how to leverage these strengths without getting pigeonholed into certain roles.

Listen in, see which character sounds most like you, and take the quiz at middleofsix.com/wildcards.

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 the entire Middle of Six team for our first ever full group podcast episode, Holy Cow, Here We Are. This is amazing.

Technically, we are missing one very important person, but things happen, but we're really considering this the full group.

We've never done such an exciting big podcast, and I want to ask for permission from our listeners to, we're recording on Teams, we do not have nine, 10 microphones. I know you probably think we're that amazing and we have 10 microphones. We don't.

So Becky and I are on the mic. You're going to hear our soothing, lovely voices, and you're going to hear also wonderful, cheerful voices from the rest of the team, but it's going to sound a little bit different than some of our podcasts in the past.

So bear with us, pretend this is a live episode. And hey, everyone, thanks for joining us. Kyle, Melissa, Susan, Becky, Grace, Katie, Hannah, Vanita, you're all here.

Yay!

Everybody say hi. Hi!

Hi Wendy! Hello!

Hello.

Oh, that's Grace's voice. That's great. Well, thank you all for being here.

Becky. Yes, Wendy. Becky, the host of The Shortlist available wherever you find your podcast is joining me.

This is so fun. We're both on our fancy mics here. Becky, I'm going to put you on the spot.

I'm going to, yes, I'm going to have you tell our listeners what we're talking about today.

For anyone who just hits play and doesn't even look at the title or the description of what they're going to be listening to, no, you just are loyal shortlist listeners.

What could we possibly be talking about where we're like rally the whole team, get together, get on the mic? It must be like how to design an org chart for progressive design build team in 10, 11 meetings or less. Is that it?

Or maybe it's the what to do with all the free time you have in your day now that AI is doing all your proposals for you. This is amazing. We're just sitting around, I don't know, getting pedicures or something.

Becky, what topic are we talking about?

If you could make a PDB org chart in less than 10 meetings. We are talking about something that should excite fans of the wild cards, our series of six characters that you interact with during the pursuit process.

We are opening up and getting personal. We're holding up the mirror because today we are talking about the marketers. Marketers are, of course, the sequel to the wild cards.

And they are a set of characters that represent us, the AEC marketers, because we all have our little quirks and obsessions and special talents. And we thought, you know what?

If we can laugh about all the interesting personalities that we interact with on pursuits, we can also laugh about ourselves.

So in case you are the one person on Earth who hasn't heard about it, the six characters of the Marketers series are MacGyver, the Eagle Eye, the Cheerleader, the Octopus, the Head Chef, and the Tortured Artist.

That's a great setup. Yes. And that is why we need all of our marketers on this podcast, because we're talking about the marketers.

And how we're going to do this format a little bit different than normal is that we're just going to hear from everyone on the team and have them share a little bit more about the marketer that they most align with, and maybe some tips for being that

marketer wild card and not getting pigeonholed into only one job, or if you're the octopus, all the jobs or whatever it might be. So we're going to take a minute, or we're going to take 45 minutes, and go through all the marketers here and hear from

the team. And you'll get to know them all a little bit better. And hopefully, along the way, we'll drop some tips on how we have survived. And maybe you can take some of those home for YouTube.

So how you can all survive. Here we go.

I wanted to start with one of my favorites and most appreciated marketer, which is the Eagle Eye. Show of hands. And for listeners, you just have to imagine.

Show of hands. How many Eagle Eyes do we have on the team? We got one, two, three, four, five.

Okay, good. Kyle, I'm gonna pick on you. Tell us a little bit about this Eagle Eye character.

The Eagle Eye Marketer is got their very large, what is that called?

Magnifying glass. And they are taking the deep dive, examining all the details, going big on all the requirements of all the submittals, all the rules. And their tagline is, I heard the RFP in my last six emails, which we've all been there.

We've all been that person. We've all said that. And or sent those six emails.

The Eagle Eye asks clarification questions like a lawyer arguing a Supreme Court case. They can quote, page four of addendum two, remembers who is at the walkthrough and proofreads the RFP questions.

They also noticed that in the previous bullet, there was a missing serial comma. Again, I guess we're using our imaginations, but it was indeed missing. And I did indeed notice.

Me too, that was one of my copy editing marks when I was reviewing a proof and I was like, oh man, I got caught.

Well, that's the sign of the Eagle Eye, right?

It's like you didn't even read the next bullet because you're just so locked in on every individual character.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we need the Eagle Eyes for sure.

Have you always been one?

I would say not. My Eagle Eye slash obsessive-compulsive tendencies started to come out in college, just making order out of a chaotic world or something like that.

So that's when I really started noticing those tendencies in myself, and it's only gotten worse and or better, depending on how you view it over the subsequent decades.

I'm going to go with better, but that's just my vote. What are some signs that you or maybe a listener listening is an Eagle Eye? Maybe doesn't even know it.

Yeah, you crave order and control.

You alphabetize your CDs which don't exist anymore, or your books which also don't exist anymore. Maybe you have a strange discomfort or aversion to breaking rules or going against the grain. You take highly organized and detailed notes.

Maybe you iron your t-shirts, you fold your underwear, you count the steps when you go up a staircase, stuff like that.

I check the box on all of those except for ironing my underwear. It doesn't happen. Well, that's great.

We appreciate the Eagle Eye. I think that, I mean, when you were kind of listing off, not the list of how you can identify, but just the characteristics and that can identify or can recite page four of the addendum number two.

Everyone I see on my screen, I know that you too, we're really good at practically memorizing those documents. And we just so appreciate the Eagle Eye.

And I know I said that you don't want to be pigeonholed, but this is a skill that you should just continue embracing and use, and know that other people also appreciate it when they are like overworked, over tired, you know, and they just need a good

Or trying to make sense of a massively complex and confusing RFP with multiple similar questions and multiple different areas of the document, things like that.

Yeah, all right.

Well, thanks for teeing up the Eagle Eye. And I just want to invite the Middle of Six team at any moment, if I ever give anyone a chance, who can chime in to and speak, if there's anything that you want to say.

But thanks, Kyle, for getting us started. I want to move on to our Octopuses. Octopuses is the proper way to say that, by the way.

Who's an octopus? Give me a show of hands for this highly visual format. One, two, just two.

Look at Grace doing the tentacles.

Tentacle wave.

All right.

Well, Grace and Hannah admitted to being our octopus characters. So, who wants to share, define, describe the octopus? What makes an octopus marketer?

Yeah.

I can share in the, maybe I'll pass the baton to Hannah with one of my tentacles, one of my eight.

Yes.

Great.

So in my experience, you imagine an octopus with eight different tentacles, and that really plays into the definition.

So the octopus, we've defined it as somebody that's resourceful and has capacity to support and juggle multiple tasks, projects and initiatives at once. And they always have something, their tentacle and something else.

So in every direction, so maybe there's a deadline over here, a new initiative over there, or a favor for a colleague somewhere in between.

So again, you have your tentacles, your hands and a lot of different things that are supporting a lot of different initiatives and you're constantly juggling. Hannah, what do you think? What do you identify with the Octopus?

Yeah, I agree with you, Grace. I think on top of that, the Octopus probably enjoys juggling multiple tasks. It breaks up the workday.

You're not just focusing on one task. It kind of helps break up the day and do a lot of different tasks that hits different parts of your brain. And so I think there is some enjoyment that you get out of juggling multiple tasks.

Hannah, do you think an Octopus is the same thing as a marketing Unicorn?

I don't know.

That's a great question. I think Unicorns are seen as being able to do everything, and I think maybe Unicorns end up being Octopuses in some way. That's exactly what I thought too.

I was rocking my brain about that question too. And I was thinking that Unicorns, I think, end up being Octopuses or Octopi. Is it Octopuses?

It's Octopuses.

I worked at the zoo.

Our leader, Eagle Eye, has already made that very clear.

Thank you, Wendy, for cleaning that up. Zoo verified.

But I think that they're identified as bringing a variety of skills to the table, which is why they're tapped and maybe even identified internally by the HR team or even technical teams that are like, ooh, they're great at graphics or great at comms.

So you get tapped even beyond your department sometimes, I think, as Octopuses.

Right. If you've ever showed up to a career fair to man the booth or plan the holiday party or, I don't know, a million other things that just feel like marketing adjacent, it means that you're showing your Octopus style.

And we were like, yes, get there, Grace, you can do it. Speaking of planning great parties, Grace is our number one party planner. And she's doing that while she's leading a proposal and doing social media and recording a podcast.

So there you go. Let's see, what else?

Is there either of you, Grace or Hannah, or maybe anyone else, if you have an answer to this, but you have tips for juggling so many tasks without getting burnt out or dropping a ball from one of those eight tentacles.

Like any tips for our listeners?

Yeah, I can start. I would say like try to stay organized and prioritize tasks. Everyone has their favorite tools.

I would say it doesn't really matter what tool you use, just that you're comfortable and you're efficient. Using those tools to stay organized, communicate clearly with your team, whether that's internal or external.

I'm a huge advocate of over-communicating rather than not. And don't be afraid to delegate tasks and lean on the support from your team. I think that can sometimes be really difficult as AEC marketers.

We want to do it all, but I think there's strength in numbers and being able to rely on your team.

Delegation, that is a really important thing, right? We have to remember we can't and shouldn't do it all. So that's our support for the octopus out there.

All right. Moving on to another favorite character and someone we really could not live without. We need this person or people or squad.

We need the cheerleaders. I think we have a lot of positive, happy people who are just willing to get through it and put on a happy face and get to the deadline, all that stuff.

Susan, Susan, our operations manager who doesn't do a lot of the things that the rest of the team does, but certainly has a big hand in team organization and getting everyone together. Can you tell us a little bit about the cheerleader?

What are they like?

Well, yeah, exactly what you're saying. The cheerleader is the team player, they're the sounding board, a little bit of a people pleaser. They're to be steady and not stressed during the tough times.

They can make the hardest criticism sound like a pep talk. They apologize for the tight turnaround. Even when you send your content, you've had two weeks to do it, but they're there cheering you on, getting you through those deadlines.

And for me personally, I think cheering on the team. Even though I'm not working on a lot of those projects myself, I am right there with you guys cheering on the wins and all the awards and all the things that the amazing team does.

So yeah, I'm definitely the cheerleader in that way.

Yes, I think that you are a cheerleader and you also, a big piece of your role is the recruiting and interviewing people and getting the sense of the vibe and do we bring that positive energy to the work?

Because as we know, AEC marketing can be really hard, very hard for sure. Do you have any advice for fellow cheerleaders, especially that part where maybe you can like, you're yet just worn out?

I don't know, just like not bringing up the energy or feeling the expectation that you always have to have that positive energy?

I mean, I honestly think that cheerleaders kind of naturally have that vibe, right? They're positive, they've got the energy and they're ready to bring it. I don't really have a lot of times where I kind of dip down and have to pull myself up.

I think that naturally, I have a positive spirit. I'm always thinking, we got this, we're going to get through it. The only way to get done is through it, right?

And kind of thinking about, it's all going to work out, it's going to be okay. So I try to relay that to the team too. And just having everybody know that I'm here, I've got your back, I'm ready to help out and keeping the vibes positive.

We have a great team and when I do recruit, I'm always letting everybody know that they're walking into this amazing group of people who have your back, and that is something that people get really excited about.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, thank you for being our cheerleader and for finding more cheerleaders to be on this team. That's awesome.

Okay, we're moving on to probably the most popular marketer that there is, which is the MacGyver. We did an episode, a podcast episode, all about MacGyver hacks, which is pretty exciting.

And we have someone that literally looks like the MacGyver right here. This is Melissa. You all know her.

You love her. Melissa, tell us about the MacGyver.

The MacGyver, they can create things out of nothing. So we give the tagline of the proposal is due in five minutes and the file crashed, wake me up in three.

This is the person that is just resourceful and knows how to fix an InDesign file that keeps crashing or you got that PDF that someone marked up in Bluebeam and it's not showing all the text and you like take it into Photoshop and you flatten it and

you make a fresh PDF. Just all those hacks you've learned over the years that people come to you because they know you're gonna figure out a way to fix the file or make the deadline or figure out how to make tabs out of scraps of paper. You're right.

What do you think is the best part about being a MacGyver?

Feels pretty good to be the one that can save the day and make things happen when other people are freaking out because things aren't working out. You can be the one that brings that calm, like we got this, we're gonna figure it out, we can do this.

Yeah, a really valued team member. I'm sure it's the one that everyone else is like, what would we do without, fill in the blank, Melissa?

What would we do?

Are there any downsides to having that pressure or if people just start to rely on it and get sloppy and like, well, Melissa will fix it, no problem.

Yeah, I mean, that pressure can build up or maybe as you're getting further along in your career, you don't know all the newest and latest great things that Illustrator can do.

So I think there's like this pressure to feel like you always know everything that's happening in the design programs we use and then that pressure of being able to do it or people thinking you're so good that they literally give you two seconds and

you're like, okay, this actually is going to take me a little longer. So there's that pressure of, you know, you can't always work a miracle or the stress that comes to you having to make that miracle happen.

Yeah, and you have to, I guess, be good at communicating what you need.

And if you've attended one of our like wild card conference sessions or, you know, just kind of experience that we do talk about, like the whole purpose of having these characters is to create a shared language that we can say, hey, here's what I

need, here's who I am. I see you're exhibiting that behavior, whatever it is. So, you know, the MacGyver probably needs to be able to set some boundaries and be like, well, we made it this time. We survived.

We didn't die. But I don't want to live that every, you know, four days when the next proposal is due. And I think Becky would say, actually not the number one reason why we created these was for shared language.

She would say for hilarity and funny laughing, because we also need that. What do you say, Becky? We might as well laugh instead of cry.

So, here we go.

Definitely. We even made them into stickers. I know like no one can see this right now.

No one can see it. But we like it's, you know, we just thought this was fun. Honestly, it made us laugh and we wanted to make other people laugh.

But yeah, shared language, etc. Totally. Yeah.

And I'm still waiting for my marketer's T-shirt.

I know.

I don't know.

What do I have to do to get one?

I'm haunted by this.

I'm just going to mention it like about every month.

It's going to manifest now.

Right.

Okay. Well, Becky, since we were already just chatting and you chimed in here.

Becky, let's talk about the tortured artist. Are you a tortured artist? I hope you're not tortured.

You seem like a happy person. But I feel like you also look and I identify with this tortured artist on the sticker here. So tell us about them and tell us about yourself.

I am no longer tortured.

I'm happy to say, I guess like page limits and restrictions can be torture. I have a pathological need for like balance and spacing and symmetry. So like when I have to let that go, it's unpleasant for me.

But the tortured artist cares deeply about art and is now trying to marry rules and restrictions to creativity, which can be very difficult. Having to look at AI-generated art is torture. There's torture.

I suppose torture is not a necessity, but we've defined the tortured artist as they approach every design task like they're exhibiting at Guggenheim. They do hand sketches, mood boards and a charrette to design a 50 by 50 pixel icon.

They present 48 options in the first draft of a brand refresh. I don't know anyone who does that. Ha, ha, ha.

And of course, their tagline is revised logo, underscore final, underscore really final, underscore final final, underscore V2, which I think we can all relate to.

So this is everybody who comes from the art world and is now being squeezed into the AEC world.

Yeah. Well, tell us more about that. What is unique about being a graphic designer and then being squeezed into the AEC world?

Best part about being a graphic designer in AEC is that approximately two-thirds of the time, your client knows and accepts that they are not themselves a graphic design expert, and they will respect and be amazed at the work you do.

And the other third of the time, well. We value all of our clients in Middle of Six. Yeah, it's nice to work with people who don't know what it is that you're doing.

They're just like, Oh God, make it pretty, make it work, make it fit, make it look nice, make my vision come to life. And then you can do that for them. And I have no clue how to build a building.

I couldn't build a building if my life depended on it. I don't know what any of these words mean, but by God, I can make your proposal look wonderful. So it's a good combination of skills.

Since I'm also a little bit of a designer, or my background is in design, well, I don't do that practice every day anymore, but I can say this, I'm gonna say it for both of us, Becky.

I think as a designer, people are like odd by what we do, and we are equally odd by someone who really knows Excel and can like put it on a giant screen and start to like do amazing things really fast.

I feel like it's torture for them to watch me do that. I'm like, I'm sorry, I only know like three commands here.

Yeah, I can add up numbers in a row, and that's about it for me and Excel.

Me too. I'm real good at that. All right.

Well, do you have any? If you could make one request, what would help designers do their best work? What would that be?

Put it out there to the technical staff.

I would say be very explicit with what you are requesting that they do. The more obvious you can make it, the better. So like draw the org chart out on paper, and take a photo with your phone and make a wish list of items.

The more you can just be like, here is exactly what I would like you to do, the better. Because a lot of times we do get this kind of like, we need an infographic here, but then we're like, okay, what do you want it to say? What's going in it?

What are we doing? We cannot read your mind. So while we do something that maybe mystifies you, it is best if you can give us a very concrete, specific list of demands, of requests.

Yes.

And we know that that also helps them think through what they actually want. So that's kind of good.

Yeah, we always figure it out. We know the drill. Trust us.

But I thought you were going to say, you just want a deadline.

I do want a deadline.

I need a deadline. I will ask you for a deadline. If you don't give me one, if you try to tell me, oh, we don't really have a deadline, it's just whenever you can get it to it, I will force you to make one up.

Confirm.

I know. I'm just like, bye, Friday. That's what I just say to Becky now.

I'm like, yeah, sure, bye, Friday. That's a good deadline.

I need a time as well, usually these days, because I'm actually booking my calendar. Regular listeners will know this, but I struggle with time estimations.

So I physically plan out my week in Outlook with blocks of time, and that is why I need to know everything down in a minute. And then it all gets changed anyway.

Right.

You have to stay flexible.

All right.

Well, last question for the tortured artist, and I'll stop torturing you, is what are your tips for staying positive and creative when you're just bombarded with the phrases like, well, just work your magic, or can I see 48 logos?

Because I'll know it when I see it, that kind of stuff. Oh my gosh. And can you make the logo bigger, please?

Make the logo bigger.

Yeah.

How do you smile? Where's your cheerleader now?

Hearing make the logo bigger entertains me because it's just such a cliche that I'm thinking, I'm enjoying this, and it's just for me. Work your magic, we hear that a lot.

Since the dawn of civilization, people have assumed that the things that they don't understand are magic. Fire was magic, the wheel was magic, medicine was magic, outer space was magic.

Magic is something made by the hand of humans that can't be predicted or quantified. And that sounds a lot like art to me. And art is the closest thing we have to actual magic, and art is what makes life worth living.

So I'll take it.

Okay. I love that.

I'm shedding a tear over here.

I mean, I think it's important to remember that, like, yeah, we're trying to get people to get jobs and bring in money and build stuff and whatever. But I mean, it is art. Art is everywhere.

Art is never generated by a robot, but art that's been generated by human beings is something that gives meaning to maybe otherwise meaningless things. And I think that's nice to be able to find that in such an odd place.

Maybe not odd to our architecture friends who already know that what they're doing is art, but.

Yeah. Well, I have heard Work Your Magic, and I have seen you and others work their magic, and it does really feel like magic. So I applaud you.

Thank you for doing that. Thanks for all the creatives out there making beautiful things, even if it is a progressive design build org chart.

The worst. I just want to see the hierarchy. Please, for the love of God, no more circular org charts.

That's not an org chart. There's no org in that chart. It's not even a chart.

And this is why we gave Becky her own podcast, because she's got lots to say like that.

I never shut up.

Okay.

Last but not least, you know, thank you. Thank you for your patience. As we waited to get to the head chef, another very important person, that kind of scares me a little bit.

So you can spot the head chef a mile away when you look at your email, and it's just this beautiful, clear string of bullets and underlines, and you know, all of the formatting, clear action items, check boxes, and app mentions so that everybody

knows what they need to do. And then that chef is patiently waiting to strangle you when you don't do what you say. Or maybe that's just my interpretation. Let's see, who can I pick on here?

Katie or Venita, do you want to share your head chef tendencies?

Wendy, when you mention multi-tiered bulleted list, I just want to say I feel seen.

I think that a surefire way to spot a head chef is if you see any of the following, a process map, a Gantt chart, a decision-making matrix, otherwise known as a racy chart. If you know, you know.

I will also say at the mention of the marketers stickers is that those are now all over my home. So I just have marketers stickers from my daughter that got into them. And I just see the head chef on my stairwell every day when I go up to my office.

So I know what my job is.

Yep, she knew too.

Just get your head in the game, heading up the stairs.

Yep.

My gosh, love it.

So I'll add to what Katie said and just say, a clipboard, a strong opinion, a thorough approach to any project, a knife, all also things a head chef will.

Yes.

That's amazing. I did not think about the knife, but that should be part of the marketer toolkit. Question for both of you.

Do you love being the head chef, or does it feel like it's just the way to survive our wild world?

Well, before I answer that question, I do want to clarify my qualifications to answer the question, which probably feels familiar to a lot of people. So I'm an eagle-eyed sun, cheerleader moon, and head chef rising.

So I would say that my head chef quals probably tend towards survival. It's how I keep all those details organized. Katie, what about you?

Yeah, I'm thinking through this question.

I'm thinking it's something I probably have to talk through with my therapist. But I think that the answer will probably land somewhere in the middle.

Yeah, that makes sense. I think it's lessons learned.

I don't know if you start off in AEC marketing being a head chef, but if you've got those personality tendencies sort of maybe like the Eagle Eye too, you're like, oh, I got to use these strengths for good here and make things happen.

So I feel like probably the technical teams actually really appreciate the follow up and all of that. All right, a deep question for you both.

And how do you elevate the head chef to being a strategic leader and not just the note taker and the person that everyone can rely on? Like, well, don't worry, Katie and Vanita got it.

But how do you go to the next level instead of being a crutch for busy teams?

Yeah, I'm happy to answer this question. I will say that, Wendy, the way that you lead our team, I think you'd be the best one to answer this question because you find a way to really pull out the strengths.

And that's something since I've been out Middle of Six that I've found a way to really develop this as a strength.

But I think providing the head chef with the opportunity to zoom out and get involved in the strategic planning and the pursuit strategy and your business development strategy. The head chef is a great person to have at the decision-makers table.

We were going to help the initiatives and ideas get implemented. We'll make a plan, we'll provide due dates, and we'll follow up with everybody and make sure things get done. We get to the finish line.

Do you have anything to add to that, Benita?

I think your multi-tier bulletin list there covered it.

Two are funny. I like it. Good.

Good combo. Katie, thanks for that compliment. It was really sweet.

I want to say that I do not really think of myself as a head chef. I feel I align a little bit more with the octopus.

But I want to say that my, you know, kind of respond to your comment there is that my style would be, if at all possible, and it can be hard if you are juggling eight different things.

But if we can start off on the right foot, start with the clear communication, kind of like show the team, whatever it might be, your small team, a bigger team, a strange team. Like here's the standard. This is what we're going for.

And it feels like it's a lot easier to keep it going from there. And also, we do rely on letting people be adults and being accountable for their work.

So maybe that's where I kind of pull back a little bit from being head chef because I'm not going to send a bunch of reminders.

In fact, I've even said, I am not going to send a reminder for that, you know, and that's a little bit of a boundary and just treating people as adults and that they we communicated it. So I don't know, there's a balance there for sure.

I get to be a child sometimes though, and that's why we have the marketer.

Oh, that's great.

Okay, so what are your best head chef organizational tips?

Yeah, so, Wendy, you actually just touched on it a little bit. Think like clear communication with your team, being really intentional about like effort, expectations, time management, you know, asking like, what's the goal?

What's realistic?

How does what we're doing get us where we want to be? Katie, what do you think?

I would say, I think this is verging on like similar response that we heard from Grace and Hanna regarding the Octopus.

But I think in addition to all the organizational and time management tools out there, I think that the most impactful tool that you can arm yourself with is the sharp mind.

It might sound obvious, but as a head chef, I tend to get distracted by all of my figurative spinning plates. I forget to rest. I noticed that when I am well rested, I got a good night's sleep.

I've touched enough grass. I'm able to execute all the tips that Venita had mentioned, like clear communication, the expectation setting, babysitting, following up with everybody, things like that.

That is a great tip. That might be the tip of a podcast, I'm going to say.

Self-care.

Yep, self-care, exactly. Several episodes on that topic alone. Well, thank you both for sharing.

Thank you both for keeping us all organized. Seriously, could not do it without you.

Well, thank you all for sharing your marketing superpowers. I feel like our wild cards for the proposals and interviews were a little bit, teeny, teeny tiny bit snarky. You know, we call them overdone strengths, which they are.

These are also overdone strengths in a lot of ways. So, you know, embrace who you are, your marketer character.

We appreciate you, you're necessary, you're important in the whole process, but also know, you know, you have to have balance and find boundaries and be able to communicate and all that good stuff.

So, I'm also going to just throw something wild out there. But if anybody wants these stickers that we keep talking about, I got a stack of them right here. Email me, theshortlistatmiddleofsix.com.

I will send you one. I will. I do.

People ask for things and I send them things, right, Susan? We do this.

That's right.

So, yeah, that's right. We're always like, oh, here's another one. So please, if you want it, we want to see your house also decorated with these stickers.

That would be amazing. And I also want to say something, this has been a little bit more touchy-feely of an episode. Becky got us off on the right foot there.

But the reason why we're doing this podcast, if you don't know already, is we want to make this community. AEC marketing is not the easiest job out there. It's not the hardest job either, right?

But there are just challenges and there are challenges that are super unique to the industry and we have a community of marketers out there.

So we made some marketers, if they resonate with you and you want to be connected to us, we really invite you to be part of our community too. That's really important to us. So anyways, that is my spiel.

I also want to invite everyone to go to our website, middleofsix.com/wildcards. I guess I'm not even going to say this part.

If you want to find out what marketer you are, go to middleofsix.com/wildcards.

How you said that so perfectly.

Let us know on social media who you are.

Great.

Subscribe, share with another AEC marketer who wants to feel seen, make a friend. We see you, we are you, we love you.

I love this team. You guys are amazing. I'm so honored to work with all these marketers and thanks for everyone listening.

I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoy getting to know us a little bit better and realize that we are also just like you. So have a great day, have a great week, and we will see you on the next one.

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.