You have put the work in to get you here.
You pursued the RFP.
You devoted time to understanding the project’s objectives and requirements. Drawing everything you could from the project brief.
You pulled from your past work to focus on the best of it, the most relevant work. Demonstrating your expertise in a way that connected you to this prospective client.
You assembled your team. Carefully thinking about how each piece falls into place, trying to make a perfect fit for your client-to-be.
You have zoomed out and back in again, trying to visualize the challenges this client is facing. The very specific help they need, and how you can help them.
Toiled over your fee structure, worked the percentage game, and checked against carefully calculated anticipated hours. Looked at effort on similar past projects.
You did it!
You have done everything right. …so far.
Prepare
Everything you have done to this point has been perfect. It did exactly what you needed it to do. It brought you to the next step. The interview. Your prospect wants to know more about you!
So now you have a week, maybe two, to prepare.
Collect the basics. All assets that you will need to make an excellent presentation:
- Review the RFP and your proposal for any relevant exhibits or content to include.
- Select and edit pictures of existing conditions or site images you’ll reference.
- Research the project to find helpful information on the site’s history or unique aspects of the existing conditions.
- Logos: Theirs and yours. Your entire team. Collect them all. They should be vector files. If you don’t have them, ask for them. Or make them (in Illustrator: object/image trace/make and expand; or look at Redraw).
- A tip for finding logos: occasionally, your client may have branding information (fonts, downloadable logos, HEX or RCG colors) on their website. If not, sometimes a Google search of your client’s name followed by “.pdf” will surface white papers, marketing literature, or documents that may have a vector file of their logo in the header that you can extract in Illustrator.
- Study your client’s branding. Collect everything that you can. It will reduce friction when you are assembling graphics for your presentation.
- Use a Digital Color Meter on a Mac or pull RGB or Hex values in Illustrator to sample colors that are important to your prospective client’s branding.
- Collect pictures. Pictures of the project site. Existing building conditions, diagrams or floor plans. Precedents, or pictures for context, maybe campus life or project precedents.
With the basic necessary graphics in hand, move on to text.
Start with an outline.
How much time do you have for your presentation?
Assume that one slide is needed for each minute of available time.
Block out your story
- Isolate key elements from the RFP to include.
- Spend time with your proposal. It’s a big part of how you got this far. Pull from it, content to include.
- Distill from your proposal the key things you think elicited their desire to meet with you.
- Create headers for significant concepts.
- Add subheadings and notes to build out the framework of your slide deck.
What do you need to say?
How does everything you say connect with your client?
- Add subheadings and notes to build out the framework of your slide deck.
Introduction
“Presentations rise or fall on the quality of the idea, the narrative, and the passion of the speaker.” –Chris Anderson, Curator TED.
Start
Your basic outline probably includes an introduction by relevant work experience, initial ideas, and budget.
Think about those who will be in the room. What do they know about you? What do you need to remind them about you? What do you need to elaborate on?
Focus on the notion of tribes: “I am a runner”, “I am a cyclist”, “I am an educator.”, “My son has learned so much through sports…”, “We have alumni on our team…”, “This is our hometown.”,
The intent is to establish meaningful common ground, fostering trust and a more profound connection with those you are most interested in connecting with.
Tell them about your team, process, skills, and expertise.
Answer these questions:
- Who you are as a team and why you’re great.
- How do you engage with stakeholders throughout the design process?
- What’s your process for listening, capturing, and tracking vital end-user input?
- When designing a project, what tools do you deploy to demonstrate possible project outcomes for informed decision-making?
- How do you define project success?
Storytelling
Great stories ignite the human spirit. Steve Jobs, in his “How to Live Before You Die” commencement address to Stanford University’s class of 2005, began with
“I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.”
Is there anyone there, not hanging on every word to follow?
Storytelling is in our DNA.
Figure out a way to tell a story.
It humanizes you and your team.
Tell a story that connects you in some way to the project that you are interviewing for.
Your Delivery
Write down what you want to say. Edit it. Craft it. Then, memorize it. Rehearse until the words are second nature so that you can focus on your delivery with meaning and authenticity.
Be conversational.
Be still. If you’re standing, center your body on your feet. Lift your sternum. If you’re sitting, similarly center yourself. Don’t shift from foot to foot or move too much. Think about the meaning of the words “push-over”. When a person is a pushover, they are easy to push over. Center your gravity. Don’t be a pushover. Use your hands to emphasize. Keep them above your waist and below your chest. Make eye contact.
5-5-5-2 Box-breathing helps if your nerves are up. Inhale for 5, hold for 5, exhale for 5, hold for 2. Do this beforehand if you need it or while one of your team is talking.
Don’t read off of your slides. Maximize pictures. Minimize words. Include text that complements what you are saying.
Pause when you speak. Research suggests that conversational speech consists of short (0.20 seconds), medium (0.60 seconds), and long (over 1 second) pauses. Great public speakers pause for two to three seconds or longer.
We think (400 words per minute) faster than we speak (150 words per minute). Try to find calm in the pauses.
Consider Your Tools
Graphics are needed and can be extremely helpful in enhancing your presentation. Be careful of boilerplate PowerPoint or Keynote slides. They may be boring and convey a message that doesn’t align with your brand. Craft your slides to be clean and consistent with the aesthetic that you have already established in your proposal. Build on that to foster the familiar. Consider using InDesign or Prezi as alternatives to Powerpoint to craft a fresh take on your content to boost the impact of what you have to say.
Bring the Audience into Your Creative Journey”
Begin with a question
“When was the last time……”
“…and so we thought, what if we were to reimagine… the skyline, the coastline, the street’s edge, the very essence of community, your home, your yard, your campus, etc.”
Elevate yourself beyond the Architect. You are an expert in many things.
Speak from a place of authority, from a science-based observation, a cultural observation, or an environmental vantage point.
Ask the Big Questions:
“How can you protect all of lower Manhattan without just building a seawall around it?” – Bjarke Ingels
After the interview debrief and follow-up
After you leave the interview, let things lie for a little while. Let your team know that you follow up later that day or early next to get their thoughts on how the team did. Through the lens of a little time, your observations of your performance are more objective, less charged, and more meaningful.
Capture your thoughts in your notes. It can be immediately after, where your thoughts are fresh, capturing raw observations. Follow later that evening or the next day with a fresh note on your thoughts reflecting back.
Collect the thoughts of your team.
Follow up those that you interviewed with. Convey the evident appreciation, and try reconnecting with a lasting impression from your notes or further building on something you discussed during the interview. Provide any follow-up information, and make yourself available for further discussion.
Win or Lose
So much effort has brought you here. All of your intention and focus ideally pays off. You land the job. You celebrate with your team. Then, roll up your sleeves and execute on your promises. Now it’s time to shine.
If things don’t work out, focus on the meaningful and valuable relationships you forged. Maybe you strengthened a partnership with one of your engineers or a design firm that you partnered with. You also initiated or re-energized dialogue with a potential future client. You now have unique insight into the challenges that a particular future client is facing. You can build on that relationship over time, sending periodic check-ins to see how they are doing. Ideally, send content that is helpful to them, that continues to demonstrate your expertise, and lets them know that you are there for them.
