Katie [00:00:02]:
Welcome to the AEC Marketing for Principles podcast. This show is designed as a conversation between sales and marketing principles to address trends, challenges, and best practices that are driving growth for professional service firms. Through our collection of discussions with subject matter experts, industry legends, and leaders, we aim to share thoughts and practical tips with our listeners that you can use for growing your AEC brands. Hosted by me, Katie Cash, senior vice president at SmartEgies, the AEC growth consulting firm that’s been developing smart business strategies for design and construction firms since 02/2008. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to AEC Marketing for Principles. This is where we bring you stories, strategies, and insights to help you shape the architecture, engineering, and construction industry through thoughtful marketing and communication. I’m your host, Katie Cash.
Katie [00:00:57]:
And today, I am thrilled to have Vicky Oshima, vice president of marketing at the architecture and design firm, AO. Vicky is a seasoned marketer with over a decade of experience, and she really focuses on helping her firm drive growth, fostering alignment, and navigating the change in this AEC space. And I first met Vicky at a PSMJ event. We were both speaking, and she quickly, and I do mean quickly, like, within her presentation, had me nodding along with her, and I really was driven to her no nonsense approach and her view on marketing. So I’m super excited to have Vicky join the show today and share some of her insights. I’m sure she’s gonna be quick witted and share some stories that you all will be able to resonate with. So, Vicky, welcome to the show.
Vicky Oshima [00:01:45]:
Awesome. Thank you, Katie. I’m super excited to be here and even more excited to see you at Smartwin in February. So looking forward to that.
Katie [00:01:53]:
Well, I love that. Yes. We get to do some more little speaker circuits together, so that’s fun. Let’s dive in. Let’s talk a little bit about what does your role look like today at your firm at a o architects? What are you doing day in and day out? How are you leading your marketing team there and how has it really evolved? Cause you talk about navigating this changing environment. What does that look like?
Vicky Oshima [00:02:16]:
Yeah. So it’s a bit of a loaded question. I’ve been leading AO’s marketing efforts now for the past six years. And AO is an incredibly diverse firm, celebrated our fiftieth anniversary last year, so now we’re going on fifty one years. And the firm has, what we call 17 sort of specialized studios, that cover the full spectrum of commercial real estate. So we’re talking from multifamily to retail, industrial hospitality, science and technology, and beyond. As you can imagine, there’s a lot there for us, a lot of great things for us to touch upon in terms of how do we drive business and how do we market for each of those various sectors. For myself, I look back now and it’s actually been almost twenty years that I’ve been doing this specifically in architecture, doing marketing specifically for architecture firms.
Vicky Oshima [00:03:05]:
So as marketing for architecture is incredibly multifaceted, and we cover everything from business development and proposals to strategic planning, branding, PR, internal and external communications, culture building, and what I like to call, and I’m doing air quotes right now, is special projects.
Katie [00:03:24]:
I don’t know. You’ve gotta love the special projects.
Vicky Oshima [00:03:27]:
You gotta love the special projects. They’re never ending. Every day, we are balancing our creativity, our strategy, and our relationship building to work with our studio leaders and our partners, yeah, to get things done.
Katie [00:03:40]:
Well, 17 areas. I feel like that’s a lot of mouths to feed, but it’s also oh my gosh. What an abundant well to go to as a marketer where you probably always have content and you always have something to talk about and a project to get excited about because there’s such variety and diversity there. How do you kind of balance all that, I guess?
Vicky Oshima [00:04:02]:
It’s not easy. It is often, as they say, drinking from a fire hydrant. Because in addition to that, we also have seven offices across The US, and so we’re constantly trying to elevate the voices around the various different regions. But I would say the way that we try to balance that is we work specifically with all of our different business leaders, and we create relationships with every single one of them to really just understand their issues, their concerns, what they value, and what goals that they have for their specific sector. And the balance part is, I think, interesting because we have various different sectors and studios that are in different stages of growth. So you have maybe studios like multifamily, very well established, very well regarded. And we have a lot of market share and a huge reputation in the multifamily space. But if you look at maybe a newer studio for AO, something like health care or even science and tech where we’ve only had those in existence for the last maybe five or so years, they’re in a different stage of growth.
Vicky Oshima [00:05:09]:
And as a result, they just have different needs.
Katie [00:05:11]:
Yeah. That’s always the challenge with the marketers is where understanding where the brand has matured in certain vertical markets or certain regions when you have a diverse geographic service footprint and understanding how much you need to put into the brand and each of those areas to reach the growth that you need, because it’s not you can’t have parity across everybody, but everybody wants their time in the sun too. So you’ve got to find a way to balance that.
Vicky Oshima [00:05:38]:
Well, it’s different audiences that require some of them require a little bit more hand holding. Some of them are much more brand forward. Really, that has been my challenge here at AO. When I started six years ago, they really didn’t have an actual marketing department or marketing apparatus. And what started as most firms do, which was, oh, so how to random Joe architect designer. Oh, what a website is. Great. You’re gonna be the guy that’s gonna build our website.
Vicky Oshima [00:06:03]:
And so that’s how most of these functional areas and these supporting departments really blossomed. It was just, there was a person that maybe had a side skill, and then they leveraged that skill to create the very first website or to put together a pro profile. And so marketing in and of itself at that point was just small pieces of literature. Maybe it’s a brochure. That was what marketing was, or it was a logo.
Katie [00:06:30]:
Reactionary literature for sure. Absolutely.
Vicky Oshima [00:06:33]:
When I came on, I think the biggest challenge was I think whenever anybody first starts in a firm, they wanna make an impact immediately, and you really want to see how you can provide some sort of value to the overall marketing growth of the firm. And when I did that, I really just realized that it was probably too much to bite off. Moving a large tanker ship three degrees north is so much harder when you’re trying to move such a a large boat. But when I have these little smaller, hang boats on the side that I’m able to maneuver, it makes things a lot easier. And so that’s really how I found that I was gonna bring the most value and impact was working with the various different sectors and drilling down a little bit deeper. So I wasn’t trying to buy it off more than I can chew.
Katie [00:07:20]:
I like that advice. Sometimes I feel like as AEC marketers that are very brand conscious and we’re communications professionals, most of us coming with that background. We are very eager to share ideas, but sometimes it might be a little bit too aggressive. And there might not be that shared appetite from our internal client side because it’s just too much change. It’s just too different. They’ve been successful up until that point doing things their way. And a lot of times in our industry, people are a little bit more conservative with their business in terms of how they wanna step into some new sales and marketing tactics. And I’ve heard you share some ideas maybe on on this topic of navigating change and partnering with your business partners to help them understand how to approach change in a positive way and how to kinda lead them through that process.
Katie [00:08:11]:
Can you maybe share a little bit about that with our listeners and maybe share a a story or two of what you’ve been able to achieve in the past six years with AO?
Vicky Oshima [00:08:21]:
As a fifty year firm, navigating change through marketing was something that was not easy for AO. The day that I arrived, which is kind of like my very first day at work, was the day that they adopted a new logo. So I had no they
Katie [00:08:35]:
adopted the principals design it themselves? Was it in Actually, you know, they actually hired
Vicky Oshima [00:08:39]:
a marketing firm, so it was a great logo. It was a great new sort of brand refresh, but I was handed this brand and just said, okay. Now do with it what you will, execute. And I had no real background on what this was all about. And so that level of change, like you said, it’s not easy for any firm, I think, to go through that. But I would say the first thing was I really just had to build a foundational level of trust with all of the partners that were involved at AO. And what I mean by that was that you can’t just walk in and tell everybody on your first day that all of their furniture is ugly and it all needs to go. Right? You need to create a rapport and you need to build trust that my intention, my agenda as a marketing person, as your marketing person, is first and foremost to look after the brand of the company.
Vicky Oshima [00:09:29]:
And that’s really what our job entails. It’s being the steward of that brand. It’s the one protecting the reputation. We’re the ones on the front line saying, say this, don’t say that. And it has nothing to do with us trying to create some vision of the company for ourselves. It is the vision that we are carrying forward for the partners and the leadership. And so with that was sort of my first task because I really wanted to create that foundational level of, look, I am here to help you, and that is literally my number one priority. That’s my mission.
Vicky Oshima [00:10:03]:
And so once we were able to kind of understand one another and where we all sat in terms of what marketing was trying to do, which was elevate the brand towards the vision that they, the partners themselves, had defined, it was a lot easier for me to then implement changes. And these were not monumental, hey, everything goes. It wasn’t a fire sale. Those things, they always say, how do you eat an elephant? It’s one bite at a time. And so keeping those things sort of bite size enough for you to see that there is change and progress happening, but nothing that is going to upend anybody’s universe. And so I try to really balance this idea of how far can I push an idea, a marketing initiative, marketing campaign? And I always try to look at it this way. I want the partners and principals that I work with to be excited about this change. And I think for me, if I don’t see that, if I see the hesitation, I’m not gonna push the button yet.
Vicky Oshima [00:11:09]:
I’m gonna wait. I’m not gonna force them into a place that doesn’t seem quite right to them yet. Because I know that eventually they will get there, that we will get there together. But I also know in the meantime that marketing is something that is happening now, and the longer you wait, the more opportunities that are potentially lost. So I think once I gained that trust from the partners, they understood where I was at, what my mission was, and where that stood with them. We were able to really navigate change together, and it became less of a challenge because now when I go to them and I say, hey. I think this is a really good idea and you guys I think we should go for it. They look at me and they say, whatever you think is best.
Vicky Oshima [00:11:53]:
And really that’s the position that any marketer wants to be in. Right?
Katie [00:11:56]:
Right. I love that lesson learned because sometimes it’s hard for us. We come into a situation, we view ourselves as the marketing and communications experts. And a lot of times our internal clients come with technical backgrounds, and it’s almost like we’re speaking different languages. And knowing when to lean in and kinda dig your feet in for what you’re advocating for and when to take a breather and realize my audience isn’t in a place to hear this right now.
Vicky Oshima [00:12:22]:
Mhmm.
Katie [00:12:23]:
We need to take a step back. I need to approach it from another angle. I might need to have someone else be an advocate on this behalf for me. It’s something that takes a a degree of maturity and a degree of emotional intelligence to know when you fight those battles. And it goes a long way, and I’ve sat across the table. I don’t wanna pick on my architects, but they’re some of the most passionate professionals in our industry, and project portfolio is very personal for them. And you don’t ever wanna tell them their baby’s ugly, but we can’t put every project on the site. So something has to go away, and we’ve gotta figure out how we wanna prioritize things.
Katie [00:12:57]:
And realizing you’re dealing with a fifty year old firm where some of the legacy has evolved. You’re much more diverse now, but some things are still worth talking about the early days and trying to make sure you’re coming at it from a piece of, listen, I’m on the team brand. This isn’t me personally saying this, but I’m advocating on behalf of the brand to align with your business strategy. And this is how we’re gonna get there together. I think that’s really great advice.
Vicky Oshima [00:13:24]:
Yeah. I wouldn’t say one of the things that I don’t think that we focus on enough in marketing is just the idea of diplomacy. It’s such a an important part of how we’re able to successfully communicate with our constituents, whether that’s people within our firm, whether that is partners that we’re working for or clients that we’re working with. Just this idea of, like you said, having tact, having the ability to understand where people’s emotions are at a certain time and where to go next with it, I think is a huge part and middle child. I think that was a natural thing for me was to be a bit of a diplomat between in my family, and I think I just really latched onto that idea and sort of carried it forward into the work that I do now.
Katie [00:14:12]:
Well, I will tell you as a high performing only child, it was a miracle for me to swallow early in my career as a 22, not really realizing why everybody didn’t think I was brilliant. But I had a really great mentor that leaned into me that really taught me about the value of those interdepartmental relationships and how you get to know people individually, understand their currency, understand how to approach a situation from a a place of neutrality, which is really aligning around the brand, was some of the best advice I ever got. And then second to that, I had an another mentor a little bit later in my career. And, actually, he’s been on this podcast, Scott Steiding. He’s chief growth officer, I think, for Bennett and Plus. And you probably met Scott at PSMJ.
Vicky Oshima [00:15:00]:
I have. Yeah.
Katie [00:15:01]:
But one of his lessons learned was don’t make it more complicated for your audience by adding in all these marketing lingos. Like
Vicky Oshima [00:15:09]:
Yeah.
Katie [00:15:09]:
Speak to them in their language. Don’t talk about it as a campaign. Talk about it as a marketing project. He was like, you can’t believe how far you’ll get if you can just use similar language that
Vicky Oshima [00:15:19]:
Oh, a %.
Katie [00:15:20]:
Already organic within the organization.
Vicky Oshima [00:15:22]:
I was like, well, I tell my partners and principals all the time that I’m just a project manager. And the projects that I manage may not be design projects, but I can tell you that they go through probably the same stages that your design project goes through from having a concept, right, through schematics to design development. So we’re going through the same process that you are. And I’ll tell them. I’ll I’ll say, okay. So for for you, just so you know, this is the design development stage that we’re in marketing, and it helps it helps immensely. I’ve even created schedules for marketing things in the same sort of a Gantt chart form so that they can understand this ex exactly what they’re used to seeing. So, absolutely, I I agree a % with you and Scott in terms of just speaking the language of the architect.
Katie [00:16:07]:
Well and I love that you use that language internally with your marketing team to kind of reinforce the services that you’re selling. Because as you’re putting together those marketing materials now for AO, like, I would imagine that your marketing team that’s riding on behalf of the brand is a little bit more in tune with the design development process and what actually is delivered because they y’all are using that in your everyday conversations. So that that’s great. Sometimes I think we get a little too hung up on wanting to make it our own little departments different, better, and special. And sometimes it could help when you’re having a internal identity crisis, but sometimes it might be more helpful just to adopt the lingo.
Vicky Oshima [00:16:48]:
We have so much diversity across AO that you gotta find those common threads, but everybody can kind of wrap their arms around and go, okay. I know what you’re talking about. So Yeah. I do it works. It works.
Katie [00:16:58]:
I wanna say part of your presentation last year at PSMJ’s market pro was really about celebrating some wins and making sure that you’re shining light on measurable growth and making sure your internal client, those business leaders, understand how your efforts are paying off. Can you talk maybe a little bit more about that? And what are you tracking that you really like to celebrate on? How do you guys celebrate all those good things?
Vicky Oshima [00:17:28]:
Well, I I would say we obviously, everybody loves a win, and that’s what we strive for. But I also know that the word measurable in marketing can sometimes be a little nebulous because the money that we spend, you may not see the real tangible value of a marketing campaign until weeks, months, or even years after we’re done with that. And so I try to think of it in aggregate and that anytime we put together a marketing campaign, it’s touching and hitting upon something that someone cares about. And there’s nothing for me that has ever been a loss. It’s always been a stepping stone, maybe. If I lost a project, then that was a stepping stone for me to win the future project, the next project after that, or even the one after that. So I I would say in terms of just measurable growth and campaigns that have had some success, I don’t think we celebrate enough, to be quite honest. I wish that we did celebrate more.
Vicky Oshima [00:18:29]:
And oftentimes, projects that we maybe get a win at, we can’t talk about it publicly anyways. It’s not it still remains confidential for some time. And so we put it in our hopper, and we track it for whenever it is that we can make some sort of fun announcement. But tactically, I think we rely heavily on all of our different social media channels to sort of announce and highlight and celebrate wins.
Katie [00:18:54]:
Oh, I was gonna say from the outside looking in, I feel like you guys are very celebratory and kind of aligning with your brand promise of this better together because I follow you guys on social, and I see you talking about promotions of senior associates and new projects and getting all the good things. And so I appreciate the honesty of you’re like, you know what? I think we could do more.
Vicky Oshima [00:19:15]:
Like you said, we have so much we have such a well of stuff that we can talk about, and I certainly appreciate. I was like, oh, yay. Katie says that we’re doing pretty good. So I’ll let my team know that we’re being effective. But, yeah, we can always I feel like we can always celebrate a little bit more. And I feel like as marketers, we’re always saying there’s more that we can do. There’s more. And so in terms of, I would say, specific wins that I had recently experienced, I had one in mind because in September, when I saw you last at that PS and J conference, I had attended Judy’s session on the art of the pitch, which I thought was great.
Katie [00:19:55]:
It’s a popular demand. Yep.
Vicky Oshima [00:19:58]:
And the following month, I have a partner that comes to me and he says, we have a job with a client. We’re selected as the architect, but the client needs to win the project. We’ve been working on this deal for the past probably two months, and the pitch is in four days. So if you can go ahead and just put something together for that.
Katie [00:20:20]:
I need some slides. I need a presentation. You’re like, let’s pack it up in a minute. Let’s talk about it.
Vicky Oshima [00:20:25]:
And so I was really energized by just coming off of that. And I thought, okay. I think this is a perfect opportunity. I’ve put two pitches together before, but Judy’s session really gave me some fresh ideas, some new perspectives, and new strategies to possibly implement. And so I did just that. And so I get on this call, and I don’t know anybody who’s on it. And there’s probably 25 people on this call. Oh my god.
Vicky Oshima [00:20:49]:
And they are so neck deep in this deal that they’re talk I’ve got the finance people and the lawyers and the development people and some engineers, and they’re all talking a million miles a minute, and I have to stop them and go, okay. Can we just back it up like 27 steps? Because I am absolutely new to this, and I know nothing, which is probably a good thing when you’re writing a pitch. You don’t wanna go too far into the details and and you gotta convince yourself as the person who knows nothing. And so I really had to just be assertive and sort of take the reins of that conversation and go, okay. We need to talk about this because we have four days, which means I have two days to put together a pitch for you. And I have a a lot of questions. So we dove right in. I spent hours and hours and hours putting this deck together.
Vicky Oshima [00:21:32]:
There was some branding stuff involved. There was so much information. And so I started, I think, on a Thursday. I worked over the weekend on a Tuesday. They pitched. I came back to them, I think, on Friday, and I showed them, here’s my idea. I don’t know if I’m close to the mark, if this is anything that you guys thought would be close. And I wrote the pitch verbatim, and I gave it to them, and they all said, this is great.
Vicky Oshima [00:21:56]:
And I said to the person that was presenting on behalf of the team, of course, take this and and put it in your own words, but this is the story that we need to tell. Right. And so I attended the pitch, which was on a Tuesday, and the room had 40 people in it. And half of them were on our development team side, and half of them were on the decision maker side of the seller. And the gentleman who was representing our team, he gets up and he’s a politician. He’s a very well respected business leader, and he gives the pitch. And he gives the pitch exactly as I gave the pitch.
Katie [00:22:31]:
Oh my gosh. So you were his script writer.
Vicky Oshima [00:22:34]:
I was absolutely his ghostwriter. I was and in fact, after that, he goes, if you’re ever looking, I can get you a job as a speechwriter. I
Katie [00:22:42]:
love that.
Vicky Oshima [00:22:44]:
I think I’m okay, but the sellers were incredibly impressed. They were highly motivated. They said this was everything that we needed to hear and more, and we actually won the job. We won the job right there. And it was a huge project and a huge win for our client and as a result, a huge win for AO. But for me, that was a huge win personally for me because I was really able to flex a lot of those marketing muscles that we don’t often get to flex when it comes to creating a such a all encompassing well rounded pitch in a very, very short amount of time and see the fruits of that labor and talk about an immediate sort of instant gratification. But I will say, I don’t know if it was just coincidence, but having the art of that the art of the pitch session a few weeks prior to that, it really teed me up. And I was super excited about getting this done and and doing this for the client and for the team.
Katie [00:23:40]:
That was great. So, Vicky, is it safe to assume that you guys were successfully selected?
Vicky Oshima [00:23:45]:
Yes. And I will say it’s still confidential, but, yes, it did it did absolutely get us the win. It got our client the win and, yeah, everything is so far so good. So, yeah, I feel like that was a really solid example for me of a real w.
Katie [00:24:02]:
Well, and I think that was a really good example for our listeners to know when might be the right time to try something new. And so sometimes you can sit there and be like, well, we only had four days, so it was too hard to do something different. No. It’s absolutely the right time to do something. It’s
Vicky Oshima [00:24:18]:
the right time.
Katie [00:24:19]:
Had you not stepped in, you would have probably spent even more time putting slides together and moving things around and redoing and redoing because there would be no central story to support. And usually what we get into is this ongoing analysis paralysis. People don’t know what they want, and they they shop slides. And you wind up spinning your wheels, and then you muddy down the message. And then at the end of the day, you might be selling something that the audience doesn’t even wanna buy, or they can’t even comprehend what you’re selling. Or maybe you get up there and it’s even worse, and it’s the me show, and you don’t even talk about the client and your ideas. And so I love that you took the bull by the horns, and you’re like, hey. Stop.
Katie [00:24:59]:
Back it up. Beep, beep, beep. Let me ask some questions. I’m coming in cold here. Let’s talk through it. And then, okay. I’ve heard everything. This is what I think is the best way for us to position.
Katie [00:25:11]:
This is what we need to say.
Vicky Oshima [00:25:13]:
And I think oftentimes, it’s just that level of confidence and having the ability to be somewhat assertive in those moments because everybody around you, the entire team, they’re they have a lot of trepidations. How are we gonna get this done? How are we gonna do this? And once you step in as the marketing lead, as the professional, as the SME in that particular spot, and they go, okay. So it sounds like she knows what she’s talking about. So let’s just follow her lead and see where
Katie [00:25:42]:
this goes. And I think sometimes I just kinda get frustrated watching from the other side, marketers sitting there asking their technical teams, well, what do you want here? And I’m like, okay, let’s sit back. Let’s realize that that’s our billable team. They’ve got other projects going on. We’re taking time away from them to be able to be client servicing. They’re not a communications expert. The marketer usually has more knowledge of how we’ve sold the firm successfully in the past, having been part of other projects, I think we are in a unique position where we can lead with that. And nine times out of 10, when we’ve deployed the art of the pitch philosophy and framework working with clients, Vicky, like, the technical team gives a big sigh of relief.
Katie [00:26:27]:
They like, okay. There’s a plan here. It breaks it down. It lets them know where they fall in the lineup. It lets them know, hey. You don’t need to speak for an hour. You need to speak for two minutes. And I heard everything you said that was important.
Katie [00:26:39]:
These are your talking points. When they can get really confident and practice their session, and when they come together to deliver, they can deliver because they kinda understand the whole deal.
Vicky Oshima [00:26:50]:
Yeah. And I I always try to and and this is something that Judy underscores in the art of the pitch too is that to make the decision on the client’s side, it’s not just technical. If you can give them all the stats in the world to explain why you are the best team to move forward with this, but there has to be that emotional connection. There’s gotta be what they say is the gut feeling. This is the right team for me. And so I argue with my husband about this all the time because my husband is a chemist. And so he’s a scientist, and so he’s all about the logic, the stats. Well, if I tell somebody that these are the the stats and the probabilities, then they should make the decision according to that.
Vicky Oshima [00:27:31]:
And I said, that’s not how people make decisions. Less and less, we are relying on the statistics and the facts and the logic part of it. And more and more, we’re relying on how we quote, unquote feel about a certain group, a certain team. And so while I think you have the balance of both, you can’t forget this idea of pulling on those emotional strings to help people make decisions and have that part of that discussion about what you value, I also value. What you fear, I also fear. I understand your risks. And as a result, I’m going to react accordingly on your behalf. And so that’s that’s a part that I always try to kind of shove into my pitches as well.
Katie [00:28:15]:
Oh, and I think too, sometimes when I get pushback on that and they wanna lead with all the stats and the shiny new toys and the fancy renderings and this, that, and the other, I’m like, yeah, but at the end of the day, people sitting across the table from you are going to entrust in you a large sum of money. And in some cases, it might be their professional relationship. It might be their professional legacy, and they need to know that they can trust you as their architect, as their engineers, their contractor, that you’re not gonna let them down. When they say I wanna hire x y z firm, they’re gonna stand by that, and they don’t wanna feel like you’re gonna not just let them down, but they wanna feel proud. They wanna also get excited to want to work with you. And so as you’re doing your formula, mister chemist, I want to share the same passion that you have coming up with that solution. You’ve done the math. I want to believe that it’s gonna cure everything.
Katie [00:29:11]:
So you do have to take them on that emotional journey.
Vicky Oshima [00:29:14]:
We always have this identity too at AO that we try to imbue, which is we’re gonna embark on a project with you, and this is gonna be at least two years of all of our lives. Yeah. And so you really want somebody that you’re gonna actually enjoy spending some time with, somebody that you’re gonna enjoy going to grab a beer with so that we can talk over this project because we’re in this together. So pick a team where you actually are going to like the people that you’re gonna be working with. So I try to include that and tell my teams to, hey. At the end of the day, you have to be a likable person. If if you’re not likable, then nobody’s gonna hire you no matter how much you promise to bring to the table.
Katie [00:29:53]:
Yeah. Especially if they’re like, I’ve gotta pay money to hang out with this person, and they’re gonna be Debbie Downer. So no. Really, really great story. And I think something that all the listeners can relate to because regardless of what service your firm provides, at some point or another, you’re gonna have to pitch your services to a buyer, either as a broader team or singular. So that’s great advice. Vicky, before we wrap up today’s conversation, what is the best way for our listeners to maybe understand more about AO and what you guys are doing, and what’s a way for them to connect with you? Is there any way that they could reach out that might wanna talk a little bit more about everything you’ve shared today?
Vicky Oshima [00:30:37]:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, first, what we’re always trying to do is drive traffic to our website. You could find me there. You can find all my information there as well and follow us on all of our social media channels. We’re pretty active on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. But, otherwise, we do quite a bit of PR. We’re working on some really crazy projects here in The US, and we have the tallest tower in America that we’re currently working on. It’s called the Boardwalk At Bricktown, and that is in Oklahoma City.
Vicky Oshima [00:31:07]:
And so that’s a really, really exciting project that has been in the media quite a bit. But, yeah, I would say our website is probably the biggest, the the easiest way to understand who AO is and what we do, because like I said, we have those 17 diverse studios who are doing a little bit of everything everywhere. So I I wouldn’t be able to tell you about every single one. The podcast is in four days, is it?
Katie [00:31:32]:
Yeah. So for those listening, a0architects.com is the website. And from there, you can find all of the social. You can look Vicky up. Check out Vicky if if you’re gonna be at Smartwin, or are you gonna make any of the circuits again this year with PSMJ or SMPS or any of the others?
Vicky Oshima [00:31:50]:
To be determined, we are looking and hoping to get a little bit more involved in SMPS, so we’ll see how that works out. But, yeah, I love being around other marketing people. It just energizes me, energizes my team for us to have that moment of fresh air and fresh perspectives to go, okay. So I’m not the only one that’s crazy.
Katie [00:32:11]:
Or like, I’m not crazy or I’m not alone in a crazy boat. There’s been other people that have solved this, so I can solve this.
Vicky Oshima [00:32:18]:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Katie [00:32:19]:
It’s been great.
Vicky Oshima [00:32:21]:
It has. So many great ideas, so many good conversations, and I can say that it has tangibly made a difference in how I’ve approached things. And I get a lot of really great information and not just on marketing, but other things from AI. We’ve talked a lot about AI and other things that are just impacting the way that we do marketing. So it’s good to sometimes take that 30,000 foot level review of what it is that we do as an industry and service.
Katie [00:32:49]:
Well, Vicky, thank you so much for your time and sharing your story. And like I mentioned in the beginning, like I love talking with you because you’re no nonsense approach. You’re very relatable and sharing practical knowledge. So thank you so much. And for all of our listeners, thanks for tuning in. And if you like this episode, make sure you subscribe to the show. We’ll be back with more speakers from this year’s Smartwin event and other industry leaders from design and construction. AEC Marketing for Principles is presented by SmartEgies, the AEC growth consulting firm that has been developing smart business strategies for design and construction firms since 02/2008.
Katie [00:33:29]:
The show is hosted by me, Katie Cash, senior VP at Smartages. I would love to hear from you. If you have a question, a guest request, or a topic request for a future episode, send an email or a voice memo to [email protected]. And if you’re looking for past episodes, be sure to visit our podcast page at smartergies.com/podcast. We hope you’ll tell your friends and colleagues about our show and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on future episodes. Thanks for listening.
