“What do Marketing Coordinators do?”
We were asked this question recently and well, the answer to that question isn’t really an easy sentence or two. Rather, it means that Marketing Coordinators team-work in a way that prioritizes being flexible and being able to multi-task. It requires focused attention on both visual and written content and putting time-lines and firm priorities first. So, what does that mean, exactly? Welcome to a day in the life of the Marketing Team at Lionakis!

Tuesday, December 5
7:39 a.m.
Marketing Assistant, Tatrion Shafer arrives and fires up her computer to check marketing leads for the day – scanning for new and exciting projects we might want to apply for.

7:48 a.m.
The rest of the team, Carole Wenell, Taylor Hall and Megan Morgan trickle in and immediately start setting priorities for the day. We have one proposal due today and another one due tomorrow. Marketing is unique in that we don’t control our own workload – it is all dependent upon our potential clients and any given week could have no proposal deadlines or it might have five or even six due. The same goes for the amount of lead time we get to put together a proposal. Some potential clients will give weeks or even months, while others give a week or only a few days. Our average turnaround time is about 2 weeks with an average of 2-4 proposals that we’re working on at any given time.

8:30 a.m.
While Tatrion continues to search and download project leads, she also helps coordinate upcoming public relations events for leadership, including registrations, travel plans, monitoring any needed branding and graphics products for the events and coordinates all of this with Lily, Betty or Matt in our graphics department. Taylor checks in with a principal to make sure he’s got the proposal in hand that’s due today by 2:00 p.m. and everything is going according to schedule. If you work with Marketing, one thing you’ll learn about us is that we always have back-up plans for the back-up plan.

9:02 a.m.
Megan finishes up monitoring our social media channels for the morning; scheduling, writing and researching posts for the remainder of the day, week and month. Carole is doing final touches on a power point for an upcoming interview. It is due to the potential client at 4:00 p.m. today and she starts calling the principals and other team members to get their feedback and edits on the presentation.

9:36 a.m.
Proposal edits, what we call “Red Teams” come back from two Principals on the project we are submitting our qualifications for and is due tomorrow. Taylor and Megan dive in to make the changes asap so that we can start getting ready to print it. Proposals can be anywhere from 20 to over 100 pages long, this one has a limit of 50 pages, so depending on the edits needed, it can take some time.

11:08 a.m.
Tatrion jumps into her work on finalizing team resumes, references and license information for another two upcoming proposals we’re working on that are also due this week. Each member of the firm who is on the team must be contacted and each consultant we want to work with must also be contacted for this information. Megan prints a final review copy of the proposal that’s due tomorrow to scan for errors and also shares it with Taylor who does a second final edit.

11:37 a.m.
Taylor, in addition to helping Megan with Red Team edits, is also working on another proposal due later this week. We primarily work in In Design to write, format and complete proposals, so she toggles between screen time for her own proposal and the hard copy of the proposal she’s helping Megan to review for any errors.

 

1:00 p.m.
Carole attends a two-hour confidential meeting prep for a design-build pursuit, working with both the Lionakis team and our general contractor teaming partner, to prepare for the meeting where we’ll present some different design options and make sure we’re headed down the right path before our final proposal, including conceptual renderings, is due.

1:16 p.m.
Dana Willoughby comes over to review the extensive agreement addendum with Taylor for her proposal due later in the week. This is going to be a long meeting, there are a lot of sticky notes coming out of that folder…

2:00 p.m.
Tatrion begins production of the proposal due tomorrow – printing, collating, binding and packaging. We learn that we’ve been shortlisted for an interview! Taylor becomes the Champion on interview preparation and quickly gets the interview date up on the team calendar.

2:32 p.m.
Megan receives new content about a recent employee volunteer event at the River City Food Bank, time to upload, write and post about it asap!

3:03 p.m.
Carole’s meeting concludes and she puts the final edits in on her power point presentation from this morning which is now due in 57 minutes. With only 57 minutes to make Principal Dave Younger’s vision come true for his very last interview presentation before retirement, she turns to Graphics to help make it happen! In the meantime, Taylor looks up a folder by M# in order to reference her past notes and to start prepping for the interview.

3:57 p.m.
Dave’s vision complete, Carole is ready to submit the powerpoint online.

3:58 p.m.
Carole’s email inbox gets a warning.

3:59 p.m.
Principal Dave Younger is still working with the power point that needs to be submitted at 4:00 so Carole calls him to politely ask him to close it out so she can submit it. Upload takes 60 seconds. She’s not sweating. At. All. The rest of us say nothing, silently holding our breath and hoping that the internet holds up and no imminent power failures are pending.

4:01 p.m.
Carole receives confirmation that the presentation has been successfully uploaded. Carole goes for a little walk.

4:30 p.m.
Tatrion shows Megan the final copies of the proposal due the next day for final review before packaging them up and getting ready for 5:30 p.m. overnight courier pick up.

5:06 p.m.
Tatrion delivers the packages to the pickup spot.

5:10 p.m.
With smiles all around – the business development team heads out for the evening to recoup. Tomorrow, we will do it all over again.

Want to know more about what it’s like to work at Lionakis? Join us and find out about open positions, here.