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REBECCA TEASDALE, from page 9
and inviting documents. Once they gain more experience, they participate in strategic discussions and decision-making processes. ❚ ❚ Software availability. At the risk of sounding like a dino- saur, the younger generation was raised on Photoshop and are usually savvy with desktop publishing tools. These software packages are relatively easy to learn and make all the sense in the world to use them to develop proposals. These are some of the reasons why the industry is seeing so many “pretty” proposals, but with awful content. If there is one vital rule, it should be that content is king. Only after you’ve made the content the best it can be should you worry about packaging the information. Remember that just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Renowned content marketer Andrew Davis said: “Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” I am all for delivering proposals that are visually stimulating, inviting to look at and fun, but not at the expense of content. JAVIER SUAREZ is the central marketing and sales support manager with Geosyntec Consultants. Contact him at jsuarez@geosyntec.com. “If there is one vital rule, it should be that content is king. Only after you’ve made the content the best it can be should you worry about packaging the information. Remember that just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” REBECCA TEASDALE is a partner at The Trispective Group and the co-author with Audrey Epstein, Linda Adams and Abby Curnow-Chavez of The Loyalist Team: How Trust, Candor, and Authenticity Create Great Organizations . For more information, please visit, trispectivegroup.com. All team members are responsible for the team culture so it’s important to find the right person and, once they’re on board, to help them adjust and learn the rules of the road. Every aspect of building and maintaining a great team has to be done thoughtfully and with great intention. Same for hiring. And if it’s done right, there are no surprises and the new lineup will be able to continue creating the same extraordinary results as the original lineup. ❚ ❚ Don’t settle. Trauma for both the team and the new-hire can be avoided by taking the time to get the best person on board. The odds of remediating a wrong-fit candidate are low. At best, you may spend a lot of time integrating a skeptical new hire with your Loyalist Team practices. for the interview but this team is not for me.” It’s better to know this before they land on your team. ❚ ❚ Probe for a Loyalist Team mindset. Asking open-ended questions can get at a candidate’s beliefs about teams. For example: “Tell me about a time a teammate let you down and how you handled it?” Or, “Talk about your best and worst team experiences.” Or, “Share a time when you were a part of a team that was struggling to perform. What role did you play and how did you handle it?” ❚ ❚ Listen for “I” versus “we.” One clue about a candidate’s mindset will come through in how they talk about their team experiences. All “I” responses may be a red flag.
work to ensure each other’s success as much as they work to ensure their own. High-performance teams create operating norms that explain how members of the team will treat each other. And team members hold each other accountable to maintain those norms. “All team members are responsible for the team culture so it’s important to find the right person and, once they’re on board, to help them adjust and learn the rules of the road.” When it comes to adding a new person to the crew, these teams make decisions just as deliberately. Like all teams, they hire for experience and skill but they also pay the same attention to cultural fit, saving the pain that comes down the road when the wrong candidate comes on board. Here are a few tips for ensuring your new hire is the right fit for your Loyalist Team: ❚ ❚ Include team members in the interview process. To en- sure a great fit, invite your team into the selection process. Get clear ahead of time on what “right fit” means and give your team accountability for deciding who is the best fit for your team’s chemistry. ❚ ❚ Share the team’s operating norms. Setting expectations for team behaviors before a candidate is hired gives them a chance to opt out. There’s no harm in them saying, “Thanks
JAVIER SUAREZ, from page 11
quality checks, and technical reviews to complete and deliver documents on time and that are compliant to the proposed requirements. ❚ ❚ Relaxed go/no-go decisions. A common mistake made by firms struggling to find new work is to go after everything that even remotely resembles their experience and the ser- vices they offer. Making poor go/no-go decisions is a surefire way to take your hit ratio in a downward spiral and, in turn, increasing the marketing professional’s level of frustration. Working on doomed submittals is listed as one of the main culprits of burnout in our industry. Marketing A/E services is a stressful undertaking and when you sprinkle that with un- winnable pursuits, professionals take note and start looking elsewhere. ❚ ❚ Inexperienced marketers. More and more mid-level mar- keters leave the industry due to burning out, usually caused by working on an insane number of concurrent proposals and limited engagement in decision making processes. As firms struggle to attract new talent, more inexperienced market- ers are filling the void. Naturally, as they begin their careers their focus, especially in proposals, is to package attractive “The new normal is that submittals look amazing; some even resemble magazines. Fun! This is all great and extremely important, but not at the expense of one simple thing: Content.”
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THE ZWEIG LETTER January 15, 2018, ISSUE 1231
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