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.

For bios, include in this order:

Jennifer Sebranek 
Principal | CMO, 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.

Agenda
2:30 pm - Registration and Networking
3 pm - Program Promptly Begins
4 pm - Networking

Sponsors

CPSM CEU
1 credit hour

Tickets
Members: Free
Guests: $10

Attendees who register the day of the event will be charged a $10 late fee.