The Pursuit Journey: From Herding Cats to a Killer Proposal

The Pursuit Journey: From Herding Cats to a Killer Proposal

As marketers and business developers, we know crafting a great proposal is more complicated than “just throwing a few things together.” Even if your firm has all the pieces in place like a go/no go filter, proposal process, updated templates, and a badass marketing team, each proposal can feel like a bumpy journey of cat herding and deadline stress. Creating proposals takes an enormous amount of people power, coordination, and time (and therefore $). Establishing a pursuit process that works with your firm culture is critical. In this session, we will share how we evolved our pursuit process to fit our unique firm culture to boost adoption and engagement. We will provide tools and tips on how you can ensure pursuits are led by marketing, but still have buy-in and contributions from your busy technical professionals.

Learning Objectives

  • How to create a pursuit process that uniquely fits the DNA of your firm to ensure adoption.
  • Understand how marketing professionals and business developers can provide meaningful insight in the go/no go process to influence the decision to pursue and the response strategy using the knowledge they possess.
  • Learn collaboration tools that can help keep your pursuit process on track.

Jennifer Sebranek

Principal | Chief Marketing Officer

GBBN

Jennifer oversees GBBN's award-winning marketing department and directs communications and public relations initiatives across all markets and offices. She also partners with the firm's market leadership teams on business development and pursuit strategies for clients and projects. She's a flexible and patient consensus-builder who works with her team, firm leadership, and a growing workforce in the United States and China to ensure that GBBN's diverse, creative voices share an authentic and cohesive brand message. Jennifer is a past president of the Greater Cincinnati SMPS chapter where she has also been recognized as Marketer of the Year. She is frequently invited to present her insights at conferences, including the SMPS Pinnacle Experience and BD+C's Women in Residential+Commercial Construction Conference. Jennifer was recently named as a Cincinnati Business Courier's Women Who Mean Business.

Melanie Pliskin, CPSM

Associate | Marketing Manager

GBBN

With a background in architecture and business administration, Melanie Pliskin, CPSM brings discipline, accuracy, and focus to her work on GBBN’s marketing efforts. Whether managing project pursuits and awards submissions, organizing charitable giving campaigns, supporting market strategy, and overseeing photoshoots, Melanie gets things done. Her work also includes leading design teams through GBBN’s biannual Design Issues Series – an annual initiative that connects communities to architecture and design. Melanie is a past president of the Greater Cincinnati SMPS chapter where she has been recognized with the Rising Star award and is currently part of the Awards Committee for the SMPS Heartland Regional Conference.

SMPS webinars are approved for 1.5 continuing education units for the Certified Professional Services Marketer (CPSM) program and 1.5 learning units from the American Institute of Architects. Recordings of SMPS webinars are approved for 1.5 CPSM CEUs.

Per-Site Registration Fee*  

SMPS Member Site Registration: $199

Nonmember Site Registration: $259  

*Remember: webinars are open to your whole staff. Your team can participate from one location in your office for one fee. Register today and benefit from affordable, convenient, actionable learning and earn valuable CPSM CEUs and AIA LUs!


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The Pursuit Journey: From Herding Cats to a Killer Proposal
As marketers and business developers, we know crafting a great proposal is more complicated than “just throwing a few things together.” Even if your firm has all the pieces in place like a go/no go filter, proposal process, updated templates, and a badass marketing team, each proposal can feel like a bumpy journey of cat herding and deadline stress. You must register to access.
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