Maybe a crazy thing to say, a lot of
firms are losing
these projects well before
they ever get to the shortlist.
What are the things the firms are doing
wrong before they ever get there?
Nobody's that good at building trust or
connecting with people in an hour.
I'd say you always win
the job in pre-positioning.
We can bring someone in, polish them up
for a couple of days and we're going to
be good. We understand this kind of work.
We have the experience.
Everyone's got the experience.
Welcome to the Bold Brand Show.
On today's episode, we're chatting with
another one of my
favorite people in Denver,
Josh Roberts. Josh is the president and
founder and Rainmaker AEC.
Josh is a nationally recognized
professional coach, award-winning
marketer strategist and
shortlist interview expert.
Josh has influenced many executives and
project teams in the technology,
construction, architecture and
engineering industries.
He brings a wealth of versatility with a
deep background in creative multimedia
design, stage and video production,
leadership and AEC marketing and business
development coaching.
He has supported over 600 collective
delivery pursuits for
numerous high profile
clients, helping win 70% of those
projects worth over $52
billion in North America.
This experience has well rounded his
skill set to empower
people to deliver their
best performance during shortlist
interviews on the
biggest stages in corporate
production and other critical moments in
business when you want to make an immense
impact on your audience.
Josh, welcome to the Bold Brand Show.
Really appreciate that.
It's a lot of words and makes me feel a
little old, but thank you for having me.
I'm glad we're finally doing this.
Josh Powers Uniting.
Yeah, finally. I mean, it's interesting.
I've had other close Josh friends in the
past and you've been one of those guys
since we met that it was
always an easy connection.
Yeah, for sure.
So on our show, we always want to think
about, talk about what you're thinking
about, successes you've had and some of
the boldest moves that you've made.
There are a few of those for sure.
Specifically, you've spent most of your
career in the business development and
marketing roles, and we're going to
unpack that $52 billion number also.
You bet.
So before we get too far into this, tell
us a little bit about Rainmaker AEC and
your role.
It's almost been eight years since we
started the company.
It was always a dream of mine to have my
own firm and be able to do the thing I
loved. And once I went through my career
and really fell in love with shortlist
interviews and supporting people that
needed help communicating and framing
differentiation and marketing themselves,
which nobody signs up to do in this
business. They all want to build things,
design things, figure out complex
problems, but that
communication side never comes in.
So I said, well, if that's where I want
to be, and that's my passion, it was easy
to at least have the vision of where I
wanted to go, but kind of hard and scary
to figure out when and how.
But the firm is growing.
The firm is bringing on
some really amazing talent.
And it all started with the thought it
was just going to be one person and focus
and do nothing but
service key interviews.
And then as I've grown and realized,
companies need more.
And sometimes we need to back up further
into the pursuit cycle.
I said, we got to get other strategists
and we have to support proposals and we
have to do those things that we have, you
know, that we all grew up having that
that expertise in.
So, yeah, it's been a great story for
Rainmaker because every single year I've
been able to say we had more revenue, we
brought on more people, we learn more,
we keep evolving and I just never want to
get complacent because I don't want
to get passed up, I
don't want to be irrelevant.
I want to keep getting the call for these
big jobs that contribute to that giant
number, but, you know, we got to measure
what we do by something and it takes
a village to win that kind of work.
So, you know, I'm glad to, really glad to
work with the people we get to work with.
Well, you're like me, you're based in
Denver and like me, you spend a lot of
time on airplanes, maybe a lot more time
on airplanes than I do.
Where are your client
concentrations at the moment?
Well, I joke and I'd say North America,
but right now I'm
doing a lot in California.
I've had years over the past, probably
four, three or four years where we
really focused hard on the West.
The, I had a year where I was about 90%
Olympic driving jobs.
And then now there's a lot of transit
programs and infrastructure work going
on in LA and San
Francisco and the Bay area.
So that's taken up a lot of my time.
Um, but I've been in New York.
Uh, there's been a lot of time over the
past couple of years and mega jobs going
on there, um, some of the big transit
needle movers, um, and I've spent a lot
of time in Florida too, Florida, uh, has
a lot of water programs and a lot of
infrastructure stuff going on as well.
And then there's some of the usual
suspects of, you know, Texas jobs, maybe,
uh, Arizona, I wish I got to do more in
Colorado because when those come around,
those are really special, but, um, yeah,
I think we're keeping United and
Marriott stock high.
I was very pleased, uh, last couple of
months to sign a couple of clients in
Denver, because when I was based in
Indianapolis, I had almost no indie
clients, so it was like, it's either on a
zoom or call or on an airplane.
Uh, it's nice to have a
couple clients in your backyard.
We still have them.
It's just my other teammates are starting
to service some of them too.
And that's the best part is, you know, I
stay focused on some of the things
that I want to be on the big stuff.
And then when we get a
regional, at least we can start to
dish some out to our staff.
And, um, you know, it's, it's ironic
because I just had a team of people
from all over the nation come here for a
training, not just because
they're us headquarters is here, but they
wanted to do some
skiing over the weekend.
And I think we all know it's probably the
worst skier and, uh, probably 30 years.
So I told him, hopefully you're still
sliding down the hill, having fun.
Yeah.
Maybe 20 inches this weekend.
I heard it's crazy.
Let's go.
We'll take every ounce of it.
Well, shifting a little bit.
Um, you don't get to
billions and wins, let alone 52
billions without some
really big projects.
How does it feel to have contributed to
that level to $52 billion worth of work?
You know, when you say the number, it
sounds like a big number.
Um, I'm honored to be associated with a
number like that, but I tell a lot of
people it's just math and whether it's a
50 to a hundred million dollar job.
That's really important or something that
is going to change the landscape or
change the way something functions or fix
a really big problem
that needs to be fixed.
They should all demand the same attention
and focus in order to do all those things
right to win and the hardest part about
working on billion dollar work is some
of the other influencers out there like
price and like funding and like the
political stance
between state and federal.
So if you think about those dynamics, we
do all we can to help understand
all the pieces along the way.
But, um, if I told you the amount of
projects that we've lost and the amount
of billions that that 52 really could be,
uh, that number might
be even more impressive,
but it takes so much to win that work.
And there's already so
many busy people right now.
You know, the, the thing I've really seen
since we started our firm is we've
watched this, this boom and this, the
busiest market that
we've ever seen unfold,
uh, kind of after the pandemic.
And now, um, everything's evolving even
more and everybody's
so hungry that I feel
like the stakes are higher, the numbers
are higher, the size of
the project is higher.
And the complexities are getting so big
that, you know, I, I, I'm not trying
to protect that 70% win rate.
I'm trying to make sure that we keep
trying to fix those big things.
And that's the best part about being
associated with those billion dollar
jobs that, you know, there's a lot of
small jobs stacked into that number too.
And over 15 plus years of focusing solely
in this space around
interviews, you know,
there's a lot of, it takes a lot of those
smaller ones to
learn, to get to supporting
600 plus collaborative jobs.
I mean, there's, there's steps along the
way that have led to those big numbers.
It's not just mega job after mega jobs.
So, you know, that seems to be what we
get the call for where we focus these
days, but we also train some folks to
make sure that they're doing the right
thing so they can grow
into that bigger work too.
How did you find
yourself in those big projects?
I mean, you don't hang your shingle out
and get the, get the mega project
immediately, right?
Yeah, for me, I mean, I was lucky and
very fortunate to work with a company
like Hewitt for 14 years, I mean, to be
part of a large firm and then be acquired
and become part of a much larger firm.
That wasn't anything that scared me, but
when you come from, you know, working in
professional sports to big technology, to
working your way to big construction
and engineering, that's why I kind of say
it's just math and it's just what I was
used to and what I've always been used to
in my career that you've been at a high
level and high pressure
and it wasn't anything new.
It was just, they're known
for doing those big jobs.
So when you learn, when you learn how to
handle the most complex things, you find
trends across the smaller things that I
think you can bring a
lot of great practices
to that help everyone understand how to
get all the right
pieces in the right place.
And we're not always right.
I'm not saying that.
We've made mistakes and grown with the
industry and a lot of people too, but
things start to stick a little bit
differently when you get that repetition
and have done it a lot.
So.
What would you say are the biggest
differences from a
massive project versus a little
million dollar project?
It's usually the amount
of hands that are in it.
So the amount of stakeholders and the
amount of risk, the stakes are higher.
And I think a lot of that influences why
you would choose a
procurement model, why you would
choose something at a very big level
where you needed a lot of
time to plan on the front end
compared to smaller jobs.
You know, I see a lot of early adopters
of collaborative delivery.
Just make mistakes on advancing the
design too far, or just
maybe having a budget or
unknown or something, an issue that they
really want to drill into.
But I think there's a right way to really
flex those models to
get the most out of them.
And then times that I see smaller jobs
just make decisions maybe for the wrong
reasons or don't do all
the risk and analysis.
But everything costs money.
And like that's the balance that you have
to have to figure out from large jobs to
smaller jobs and where the
risk profile really lies and how to
optimize that crazy two words that we
talk about all the time.
Best value, right?
Gets a little clicky and cliche to me,
but everybody's got a
best version of best value.
And that's not always
found in these jobs.
I wish it was, but there's a lot of
hands, there's a lot of voices, there's a
lot of opinions, and there's a
lot of misconceptions that, you know,
over time, a lot of capital projects have
been late or over budget.
I think the stats somewhere
between 80 and 90% of them.
So these models are meant to help, but
you still got to talk about money.
You still got to agree
on risk and who owns it.
And I'm really excited.
That's why I find myself in those big
major cities sometimes, because they're
the ones who are really pushing those
models differently than a lot of, I'm not
going to say middle America, but the
smaller pockets of, you know, the
populace where it may not be necessary.
And maybe the voices aren't quite as loud
in some of the cities I mentioned.
Well, shortlist interview is the tail end
of the process, right?
From procurement.
There's so many other things that
contribute to winning or losing.
Right.
And, you know, maybe a crazy thing to
say, a lot of firms are losing these
projects well before they
ever get to the shortlist.
What are, what are those contributing
factors that you see as somebody who's an
expert in what's
happening in the shortlist?
What are the things the firms are doing
wrong before they ever get there?
Yeah.
So let me start with
saying, overloading people.
And I'll refer back to what I said.
It's the busiest market ever.
And people are busy.
Jobs need attention.
Some jobs need fixed, but there's so much
going on that people aren't as engaged as
they could be in pre-positioning.
And not every firm has business
developers or executives who are
prioritizing time
into the pre-positioning.
So, you know, the teams that do that very
well or the teams that are already
working for that client that are already
able to pre-position
already somehow in the door.
I always say, if they're doing a great
job there, why would
you choose someone else?
Right.
And so if you, if you understand the
strategy, the relationship, all the
pieces start way back here.
That's why I want to be
at the strategy session.
That's why I want to understand what's
most important to that group and how to
psychologically connect with them, how to
hit them in the interview, because we
have all those pieces.
And then I see, well, a lot of people
have to make decisions between the
marketers and business developers and
maybe some of the project management
staff helping throughout the proposal and
being fully
integrated and buying into it.
And when I get to get inserted into that,
you get to coach the people and get to
know them along the way.
So by the time you get to shortlist
interview, you have a better connection
and ability to understand all the pieces
and how you're able to say the right
thing in a short amount of time.
So I'm not saying it's just busy people,
but I think when companies focus on
training strategy and training people
that all of our job is to do business
development and ask for the referral and
think about capturing that nice thing
that the client said about you that was
really powerful to you.
That we don't take back to the proposal
or maybe asking a reference to say
something like that.
I mean, there's so much stuff you can do.
And the hard part is
there's not enough time.
And frankly, not every single person in
this business is wired for BD.
So you want them to say, Hey, go ask them
if you did a good job.
Like I'm an executor.
I'm a problem solver.
I have real stuff to prioritize here that
I'm going to
prioritize in my mind over BD.
Yeah.
And so it's a conundrum because I hear
people talk about
seller doers all the time.
And I think it's a great idea and concept
for any culture, but to ask technical
brains to automatically be a seller feels
more like they're doer
sellers and kind of sellers.
That were forced into it.
So, you know, it, I'd say you always win
the job in pre-positioning.
And I think a lot of people shortchange
the shortlist interview process for, we
can bring someone in and polish them up
for a couple of days and
we're going to be good.
We know how to do this.
You know, we, we
understand this kind of work.
We have the experience.
Everyone's got the experience.
If you're shortlisted,
you have the experience.
If you're qualified to do the work,
congratulations, you're going to check a
box in that interview.
And if you're not out in front,
understanding the client, nobody's that
good at building trust or
connecting with people in an hour.
And even if you just go to a pre-bid
meeting or a pre-design meeting and
you're not finding those opportunities
when it goes dark and quiet,
you don't have that anymore.
So when you get to that interview, if you
haven't done all that stuff on the front
end, you're just running a greater risk
of checking a box and not really making
the impact that you need.
And sorry to get a little soapboxy
because this is my life, but I want to
see teams win for the right reasons.
I want to see them get
excited about the work.
And if they come in a week or two before
and say, what's the job again?
Um, you're doing it wrong.
And I'm, I'm stereotyped
and not everyone does that.
I mean, a lot of the big players and a
lot of, there's a lot of smart firms that
have learned over time what long range
means, but you have to balance what you
spend your money on and how much that
costs to build that relationship versus
building the work, designing the work,
getting the actual
function of the company done.
So, you know, it, it
feels pie in the sky at times.
It feels like you're asking a lot out of
people to invest in the relationship and
then to invest in the relationship down
the road and care about that person after
the job, even when
you go to the next job.
That's a lot to ask.
So hopefully you did a good job and
rememberable enough during that, that
when you call them back and ask for that
reference or maybe five years later, you
might be working for them.
Again, but those relationships matter.
And if you don't have that going, um, I
look at that as being the pivotal thing
in understanding really what they're
looking for versus throwing a Hail Mary
and guessing and just saying we're good.
Doesn't win very much.
Let's go back to
pre-positioning a little bit.
Um, what all goes into that when it's
done well and when you're new to coaching
a team, can you tell if
they've done those things?
Let me answer the second part.
Yes.
100%.
And yeah, there's so much that goes into
pre-positioning done right.
And the hardest part is you
can't just cold call people.
You can't typically get meetings.
We have to connect dots to get to people
if we don't know them or leverage past
experiences and
relationships to get to them.
So clients are really busy too and don't
always have time to do that.
And then you think about how much like to
parallel to our personal life, everyone
is calling us trying to
sell us something all day long.
So you don't want to feel like that.
You don't want them to feel like that,
but you have to find your strategic
opportunities to play ball.
So it might be an industry event.
They may speak at something.
They may have a passion for something
outside of work and you can't be weird
and just show up at something and be
like, Hey, surprise.
How's it going?
Oh, you're in the business.
Let's go to lunch.
It doesn't work like that.
Right.
So you got to be really smart about how
you get introduced in how you build trust
through others, how you leverage and
understand your success stories.
So you're armed to have a great
conversation, but also how you learn to
shut up and ask them
what matters to them.
Some people have that gift.
Some people don't.
So pre-positioning is all about those
moments and the
intangibles that you create.
It's about the things outside of work
that are important to that
person because guess what?
There's going to be an RFP.
There's going to be a scope.
There's going to be all those pieces that
are your next job or
the one you're chasing.
But if you don't really understand how to
connect with that person at a human
level, especially the people you're going
to be working with every day.
So, you know, the pre-activity meeting or
the pre-bid meetings,
those are really important.
Trying to get out in front of those
further back in industry, get connected
in, have, you know, a group of people
working on that, that's really important.
Figuring out where you've worked with
people that they like and trust already.
I mean, it goes back to even how you put
the team together and why you partner.
And I get a lot of firms and a lot of
executives who want information that I
can't give them about other companies.
But when it comes to strategic thinking,
I mean, I want to say, are
you a good fit as a partner?
Do you have a good reason to partner?
And what is that client's perception of
that partner versus just listening to
somebody sell you on maybe a relationship
you have in the past or great experience?
The hard part about this is clients want
to hear success stories.
They want to be on time.
They want to be on budget.
And I think the best connection points
come out of honest
moments and real lessons.
And when we get real about something that
went wrong or something
that changed, that was hard.
And when people have that sort of
connection, it's different than a pitch.
It's different than...
Let me tell you about all these great
things we do and we are.
So if you can get to that point of
comfort where you're maybe a little
humble, maybe a little bit vulnerable,
you know, it's not what you walk in and
do automatically with
someone when you first meet them.
That usually takes a couple of times
getting to know them to start to open up
and that you want that
to come out of both sides.
So you start to build trust.
It seems simple, but it's not.
There's a big piece of differentiation
too, because when you hear the client on
the other side of the table say price
matters and being on time and on budget
and having good people and
resumes, that all matters.
And then all the firms sound exactly the
same saying quality matters to us and on
time and safe and people and resumes.
So how can firms truly stand out and
differentiate themselves at this point of
a shortlist interview when everybody is,
as you said earlier, great that you have
the skills, great that you have the
resume, it's great that
you're qualified to be here.
Guess what?
Everybody else who's been in this
interview is qualified to be here.
Now, how do you stand out?
Well, differentiation is my platform and
it's the thing that is probably one of
the hardest things to do and understand,
especially when you've been committed to
a firm or only a couple
of firms in your career.
So you really don't
understand what other people say.
How many times as marketers or business
developers have we said, I want to be a
fly on the wall and how other people talk
and figure out like
what's their secret sauce?
Well, there's cultural secret sauce and
then there's intentional kind of
moment-based or I'll say interview-based
secret sauce in
setting up differentiation.
Now, when I train, when I coach, I'll
throw out a little bit
of low-hanging fruit.
There's four killer value words that we
focus on to start to see
if we have differentiation.
If the team has something personally or
as a team or as a firm,
something to latch onto.
So the first killer value
word happens to be first.
What have you done first?
What have you pioneered?
That starts to separate you like you've
been doing it longer.
Most.
Well, this might sound like ego or we're
pounding our chest, but when you've done
something the most, you're probably
pretty darn incredible in executing
whatever that is.
The next is unique.
So this always feels a little bit salesy
to me, but unique comes with hopefully
something that you do that others don't.
And to find that there's maybe a little
Kool-Aid drinking because I feel like
there's a lot of people and firms out
there that say, hey,
this makes us really unique.
And I, I start to say in my
brain, it sounds like others.
But there, there's a really important
principle I'll finish with in one sec.
Um, but the last word is only.
And when you can create onlies for your
team, those really start
to stand out differently.
When you say that it activates the ears.
So when it comes to active listening,
there's a really important principle.
Um, I learned a long time ago that I say
every single week, if you don't say it,
they can't score it.
I think about that.
If you don't say it, they can't score it.
So all those things you do the same.
Well, if you decide to talk about a
process till you're blue in the face and
you over communicate and over explain how
you do your job versus
what makes you different.
You miss and they're like, Oh, well, that
person's obviously done the
job, but I didn't feel it.
Differentiation comes from energy and
animation and movement and what's
happening behind you and how you peak
emotions from somebody.
Because you preposition or because you
struck a chord for them that was really
important to them on that project.
So it's not always about some fancy
widget that you have or some piece of
technology with the is a glorified
spreadsheet that you
gave a name and put TM on.
You know, everybody has fancy tools and
access to a lot of that, but at the end
of the day, they're buying people and
they're buying a connection point.
And do those people know how to use these
tools and these widgets?
You know, I have a lot of companies ask
me, well, we have this great new
technology and we're doing
these amazing things with.
And this is really unique
because we used to do it this way.
Now it's so much better.
And now we got AI and now we got this and
I'm like, well, cool.
That's overwhelming to clients, by the
way, who are really busy.
So your widgets and all your new stuff
you're excited about.
If it's not like a common proven thing
that they're used to seeing, they think I
have to learn a new tool.
I have to learn a new process.
And then everyone gets excited about
their document control.
Ooh, like SharePoint and all these
amazing things, Procore.
And I'm like, oh, so you know how to
organize a bunch of
files on a big project?
That's okay.
Good.
But do you ever ask the question to the
client, which would
make you very different?
How do you want to receive this
information and what's your system look
like at the end of this?
Because what you memorialize back into
them or back into
their system and their file
structure, all of a sudden you care about
that instead of your
widgets and your thing.
And you look like you're differentiating
by client service and caring
empathetically about the finish line and
the as-built and
standardization for them.
But people forget about those things
because they don't always ask
the clients the right questions.
So I look back at my career as again,
being lucky that I was
able to talk to people about
projects and review quality, safety,
design, construction,
pre-construction, all the pieces
to figure out what they really wanted.
And then even more fortunate to get to
talk to clients later
about what was most important
to them in the proposal and debrief from
proposals and
interviews and say, what moved
the needle in interviews?
If I didn't have that experience in my
corporate career, I'd
probably look at client service
and differentiation a lot different, but
you have to think about the other side.
You have to think about how it's going to
land there, not just
that fancy thing that
your culture loves that
you say is really cool.
So to find true differentiation,
sometimes you have to create it.
I don't see it very often, but there are
some really cool firms out
there right now, especially
on the tech side that I think are going
to move the needle in
certain ways in the future
for the industry.
You want to hear about one of them?
Yeah, yes.
Tell me more.
So I'm excited about this one.
They're called Exotigo and they just
asked me to sit on their advisory board.
So I'm proud to be part of
it because I believe in them.
I believe in what they're doing and no
new technology is
perfect, but them in concept
and the way that they're functioning
right now is so far
better than anything out there
that I've seen.
And when you've understood geotech and
subsurface utilities
and maybe the back end
of the job where design and construction
and claims and finger
pointing and some of
that stuff comes into play and then
millions of dollars are at stake.
So how do you prevent
these things on the front end?
How do you de-risk a
job in a meaningful way?
And they're just using these incredible
different types of
scanning technology to read
into the ground deeper than any
traditional methods up
to 30 feet down and have
commercialized some amazing technology
over time that helps
paint a much better picture
of what's happening under the ground.
Probably 70, 80% more accurate than
typical methods where I
talk to construction folks
that want to get out there and dig and
understand every one of
those things in a dense
urban environment because that's what
they have to deal with and it's surgical.
It's not like you can just take an
excavator out there and
say, Hey, there's utilities
down there.
Let's go.
So that is oftentimes one of the biggest
challenges and unknowns.
They're doing things at the client level,
at the program level,
at the PMCM level, and
then also at the mega project, you know,
PDBs, CMGCs and
CMARs, that level to really
help people understand that risk.
And all I've ever heard is traditional
methods and people talk
about how that's going
to be the biggest challenge.
And that's always the thing that gets you
outside of third party coordination and
getting to permit with all those
utilities and everything else.
So it's a big part of the job that I
think, you know, when you do a lot of
infrastructure work, that to me is
riveting because it's
really filling a need and a
gap in many organizations.
So if you were able to like, if you're
able to have the clients think about how
important that was, and then hand that
info to the program
manager and say, Hey, we
got a handle on this.
So you have just reduced so much out of
it from a cost, a time, an analysis of
modeling, like the more upstream that you
can get it adopted, the better, but it's
hard to just tell them to go pay for it
and anybody until you get to the project.
So that's some of the layering that you
got to figure out,
you know, it's best for
everybody, but
where's the best fit for it?
And I'd say everywhere it could be just
to de-risk these projects.
Yeah.
I'm thinking by time
and risk at the same time.
That's exactly right.
Yes.
That's it.
Are they doing work across
North America or where they've.
Actually all over the world, they're,
they're based in Israel, but they have,
um, you know, people in Florida,
California, here in Colorado.
So they've got some folks all over the
nation running hard at integrating
this across the industry.
And, um, I'm getting some interesting
calls out there, uh, on clients that are
interested in whether or not this fits in
a proposal or on a pursuit.
And I'd just say, holistically, the
answer is going to be yes.
You should think about, think about using
it, pay for the service.
It'll save you down the road.
It'll save everyone money down the road
and back to that
whole thing of best value.
Right.
How do you find that?
Well, if you can push time and
money up, it's pretty simple.
Yeah.
It makes it easy.
Easy.
Yes.
Uh, you and I both share a bit of a
futurism, uh, at least interest curse.
Uh, curse.
Yes.
We like shiny new things.
Yeah.
Cool stuff.
Yeah.
Always.
Um, any other interesting technologies
that you're seeing out in the market
right now or anything that, that you guys
are using AI or tech wise?
Yeah.
You know, we have worked with some great
partners over time on the AI side.
We've developed, um, some interesting
tools over the past few years and part
of some pretty neat things, but I'm
really trying to focus on not just tech,
but for us, um, kind of growth and
stabilization and growing smart.
So we got our hands in enough tech stuff
that I don't want to be dominated by
AI or anything that's too buzzy right now
that everybody's talking about.
I think there's revolutionary things
happening, but if you chase every shiny
object, I mean, you and I might face this
same curse, but I'm trying to have more
discipline around it this year because
there's so much work and so much demand.
So it, it makes me run ragged.
And I mean, my number one job is to be a
good dad and husband first.
Yeah.
Um, and I want to be involved in
everything, but I got to put a bit of a
limiter on that at times, because you
can't be everything to everyone.
And I don't want to let my clients down.
I sure don't want to let my family down.
So it's got to, it's got to be really
amazing or something that I'm totally
behind and bought into, um, and that's
just not something
that I'm going to chase.
I, I feel like a lot of times those
things find us and we're, we're on this
path down the road that
we're, we're supposed to be on.
So I try not to push on that too hard
because I know it's inherently
wired into the way we think.
So, you know, and that's, that's a trap
because when you think about, you know,
our strengths and strategic thinking,
futurism, big ideas, it's easy to get
siloed out there in the front versus way
we got to execute all this stuff up here
too.
So I'd say it's a, it's a good, good plug
for a little bit of self-management
discipline because, um, I think we're
always going to think like that and
get excited about those things.
So I'm learning to ask maybe as I get
older, I'm learning
to ask more questions.
I'm learning to say,
God, it's really exciting.
And I feel my emotions
getting, getting up there.
What's it cost?
Where is it proven?
What other people say about it?
And then you start to be the validator of
whether or not the
juice is worth the squeeze.
Mm-hmm.
And if we don't ask questions around that
and to parallel it to like, if clients
don't ask questions around what makes you
different, what sort
of technology are you
using, how are you going
to make my life easier?
You know, they're missing the boat and
it's easy to talk
about the scope of a job.
That's why you're hiring these people.
They're good at that.
They've, they've done this work, but I
just wish we got more centralized focus
around where are we going and how are we
going to do this together?
And you know, those, those things that
can really root a good project,
because tech's always going to be there.
Those big things that we love.
Yeah.
I can't imagine them going away, but you
know, it's a family member told me once.
It's not about getting what you want.
It's about wanting what you have.
And I feel really like
we're in a good place there.
And I got to scratch the itch a little
bit on some tech stuff and got some good
stuff going, but I
want to mentor our team.
I want to find a couple more coaches.
I want to continue to
grow in a meaningful way.
And that has to curb my squirrel syndrome
a little bit when it comes to being
everything to everyone
and chasing everything cool.
It's funny you use the word chasing.
I just was listening to an interview with
a guy named Callaway.
So he was, um, I think open residency is
the name of the podcast.
I'll put a link to it below, but it's
like a two and a half hour masterclass
on YouTube and content and how he thinks
about things, but he was talking about
how, as he's grown, he kind of came from
a management consulting space.
And so as he's grown, he's like, I want
to chase every rabbit
down every rabbit hole.
And he was like, I've learned that I need
to hire rabbits to chase those down those
holes and so that I can stay focused on
my thing and let that, let my rabbit
report back and say, this is worth doing.
I mastered this.
This isn't worth doing.
Let's check into this.
I'm going to try this next.
So that, so that I don't have to be the
one who's going out and consuming all of
that.
And I think, you know, we're probably not
too far from having AI tools to check out
the AI tools for us.
Right.
Right.
I tried a little of that just this last
week, like what's the best tool for this?
Yeah.
I got okay results.
Totally.
Like came up with some stuff that I
wasn't familiar with,
but I didn't get any
great answers and the, and the problem
that I was looking for, but I think we're
probably not too far from, from the AI
being able to do that.
But I, I love that the mental picture
anyhow of I've, I've hired other
rabbits to go down those holes.
That's profound.
I mean, when you said that I got chills
because you weren't just talking to that
person, you were just talking to me about
my life and having
rabbits now and some of
our employees to help build out other
relationships to go and say, what are you
getting excited about?
Cause I have to be the business owner.
I have to be, you know, the person
looking out for
everybody, not just looking out
for me.
So with that comes responsibility, but
having rabbits to, you know, reach out
further into the places we can help and
understand what's out there.
Boy, that that's just, and that's just a
great example of good leadership and,
and trusting your people to embrace your
philosophy and not have to be the one
that's always out there pushing it.
So it's, that's good.
That's really good.
Thinking about, uh, the role of marketing
in pursuit wins, you know, marketing and
BD has to be a
handshake in this industry.
We can't have marketing saying one thing
about the firm and BDs pursuing a
different kind of work.
Right.
And it probably happens all the time.
It does.
Outside of maybe some of those obvious
things, what would you say are some of
the other mistakes that marketing and BD
teams are commonly making it that you
come across?
Okay.
Well, I want to go back to kind of the
front end and the, the interesting part
of those dynamics is compliance and RFPs
and answering the mail versus intangibles
and the way we write and the intangibles
and the way we speak and connect.
So when you get these groups of people
together, we need all of them.
Very bad.
But it's easy to get trapped.
And again, I, I talk a
lot, let me step out.
I talk a lot about chronic over
explaining and I've
been involved in so many
proposals along the way where I set the
tone at the front of it and I say, don't
get caught in this trap.
Don't overwrite, don't over explain.
Let's find differentiation.
Let's answer the mail, but
let's finish with impact.
And then what do people do?
They just write to
write and they over explain.
And then you're in a position that you
have to extract 20 pages out of an
approach on a mega job or, or even
reducing text and people are like, Oh, we
reduced text to 10 pages finally.
And I'm like, yeah, but you don't have
any room for graphics.
You needed to pull two
more pages out of that.
So that's the problem is we
get trapped in compliance.
Everyone has different layers of this.
I'm not saying all proposal managers are
compliance, you know, freaks, but it
is about those, those folks have to find
when theme
differentiation first together.
And then figure out how to say that in a
meaningful and punchy way.
And in proposals, I'm
like, bullets are great.
Call outs are great.
Don't over explain things and
give me so much text because
you're trying to be overly compliant.
Now, the other side of that is the reader
and the nuances and differences between
how people approve things, read things,
whether it's sectional, whether
the selection panel reads it, you know,
so you got to
understand and it's BD's job
to understand that part of the process.
So you understand how to write
correctly for what they want.
And if they say, Hey, we've reduced pages
to a small amount, that means we really
got to be punchy and differentiating.
That means they don't
want to read this huge thing.
They don't have time.
And you're like, but this
is for a really huge job.
We got so much to say.
They know you you're qualified.
They can go do their homework, just give
them what they want.
Yeah.
So I see that as being a disconnect
between, you know, how do we convert
from great BD people and all of their
effort of two to four years or whatever
it was on the front end to get to now
we're in compliance mode.
Now we need to answer the mail and be
really thorough on that.
No, you got to take everything that they
did and make sure that you translate
that into that document.
I've seen people leave
their job because of that.
I've seen people make decisions just to
say, I just worked so hard for all of
that and BD and that was the result
because we couldn't convert, but I knew
those people, I did my job and then
convert over to the interview.
And this is things I see every single
week where we have amazing marketers
who understand compliance and every word
we said in the proposal, fixate on words
and compliance and forget about the story
and over explain a process before
you just tell them, this is what matters
most, and this was the outcome.
I mean, that's what people remember.
So you can't always get writers and
compliant brains to think about how
you, somebody makes an
impact and retains information.
I'm not trying to say everybody needs to
be all those things and be some sort
of unicorn that's not even possible, but
when you can get good at those things
and get your team to really understand
what those pieces are that make you
better and different and get them good at
that in the interview, if that was
the only thing that they talked about and
it hit a hit an emotional spot where
they said, yep, that
really felt right to me.
And I want to work with that person and
that group of people
for the next X amount
of years, that's not
shown in compliance on paper.
So we need them all, but sometimes I'd
like to make sure everybody understands
their lane and the outcome
and what we're trying to do.
And the hardest part of doing that
billion dollar stuff is it costs a lot
of money and it's on
that whole group of people.
They all feel the same pressures
throughout the process coming into the
finish line that they need to have a
voice and be right and be part of it.
And when you get too many executives and
people and opinions in the room,
you know, it happens.
Same thing happens when
you're trying to eat pie.
So too many hands is too many hands, but
if they know on the front end, what
BD did and they convert, and then BD sets
us up and we bring them home.
And we convert in the interview that
track record is really good.
What's the key, the secret to when,
especially at scale, right?
You, you may have marketing team and it
sits in a different building in a
different city, different part of the
country, executing on the efforts of
a BD team from somewhere else, working
with coaches and shortlist folks who
are in a different market altogether.
How do you unify that story
and make sure that everybody is
like following the same thread?
Well, you got to be
there at the front end.
Otherwise the coaching folks have to
catch up very quickly and
can drop things through the cracks.
So you got to understand and get tight
with the BD person and the psychology
around who you're going to be in front of
to get everybody behind your value
proposition, the things you need to do to
really extract and pull all that out.
I mean, it takes time.
It's not something you
can just slam together.
So the other side of what we do that,
that helps you pull that
thread is understand the business.
You have to understand
how the business works.
You can't just polish something or be
disconnected to that.
Otherwise you're
focusing on the wrong stuff.
So if we try to just win on energy,
likability, these things that, you
know, maybe the polish and what we're
doing with our body, that's great,
but it's not gonna hit
your budget or your schedule.
It's not going to de-risk the job in a
way that says, boy, this, this group
can really handle this design and all of
the nuances, or they can really
work together to make it constructible
and deal with all these voices and
stakeholders that we have to deal with.
And I think that's where we've been
dangerous is we've got lucky to work in
so many different market types and
vertical, horizontal,
power, transmission,
like all these different things where you
understand the nuances and the
difference in the model, the way private
people think versus public, you know,
the way to bid package work, the way that
sub consultants work, their
motivators and how they make money versus
the way that engineers make
money versus the way
contractors make money.
So if you understand how all of that
process fits together to drive risk,
cost, schedule out of a job and get it to
an optimized scope, I mean, that's
what separates us is like, you got to
understand those business motivators
and the relationship and the thing that's
most important to them.
And then we, we draw the threads or those
golden threads through that we
got to keep talking about, that we know
are going to be the thing that makes
or breaks that decision.
And if you have a
hierarchy of that, well, it's easy.
It's a lot easier to tow
the line through that process.
All right.
Not looking for any special sauce here,
but what's one thing that firms
could do that they would notice a
difference in their win rate.
If they'd make that change.
Oh man.
Yeah, that's, that's an easy one.
Um, my brain went to about three things,
but I'm going to start with training.
If you give people, like they got to have
a paradigm shift, right?
They got to have an epiphany that they
need to start looking at every meeting
and every time they're talking with
somebody as a presentation and not as
a, what I'm doing with my hands and how
am I using my voice, right?
But more, you know, someone's ability to
influence, you know, how they think
about you and how they view you through a
lens of, can I work with this person?
Yeah.
If you can start to get people to think
about that, then they start practicing
more and they start
preparing differently.
Now I'm not telling anybody to go prepare
for five hours for a meeting.
For an interview, I'm going to tell you
five hours isn't enough, but you know,
what do we see all the time?
So if you take on training and maybe some
of that, what's
important, how do we connect?
How do we listen differently?
How do we ask?
And then you fold in a
little bit of time management.
I don't train on time management.
I just hear a lot of busy people complain
about time management.
And so what do we do?
Well, every day when we get into work, we
open up our computer and open our email
and then all your priorities shift.
If you're not on your phone late at
night, but how many times
do you open your calendar?
And then you look at your calendar and
you're like, Oh, I have an hour here
to squeeze in a meeting.
Okay.
Well, we're just trying to be efficient
with our time in a billable world.
But what if you taught
your people to prepare?
What if you trained them to
prepare for critical moments?
Well, it'd make the real critical moments
a lot easier because they were
always thinking about it.
But if they had a big meeting with the
client or a first impression meeting or
something that may have some conflict or
get contentious where there's questions.
And they took, let's just call it 30
minutes, 15 minutes to pre meditate.
What was going to be asked and verbalize
what you were going
to say and think about
all the different tangents and forks in
the road that you might deal with in a
short amount of time.
So your brain was ready for
any way that it was going to go.
And you thought about
what do I want out of this?
What's my intent here?
What's the outcome I'm looking for?
It's not always to win.
Might be just to get through the meeting
and not have an argument about money or
to find a compromise somehow.
It might be just your intent, right?
So if you train people to prepare and do
that critical thinking before something,
it's the same, same principle as Q and A.
When I've asked somebody a question, the
first thing that comes out can always be
improved and restructured.
And then when you restructure it and
people listen to it differently, they're
like, wow, that was really a good answer.
Now I'm comparing that to
the last person's answer.
That was kind of a snooze fest.
And all of a sudden you start thinking
differently about how you answer, how
you connect, how you do this thing well
that we have to do that you didn't ask
for presenting.
So training and time management, if
companies did that better, and then back
to what I said about it being busy and
people being really busy.
Well, not, we can't just hand out
superpowers of stopping time and being
faster than a speeding bullet and all
these things that we all wish we had.
But if they focused on those fundamental
things, they'd get better.
They'd think differently.
And I'm not trying to tell you we're
looking to train everyone under the
sun, but when you see these things
lacking in a culture, it's easy to pull
out and say, Hey, this
is what you're missing.
And that's usually our intent when we
walk in with a new client is to ask
them where they're struggling and where
they're falling down and how to help.
So we can see if there's a fit, if we
can, if we think we can, if we're
bought into their culture and believe
that they have something, then I'm
going to want to help, but back to what's
going on down the road and what are
you chasing, right?
We're busy.
So I got to find some people to help.
Any more rabbits.
So speaking of young people, um, if you
were talking to young person who's
thinking about like, Hey, this AEC
industry thing is interesting,
considering marketing or BD, what, what
advice would you have for them?
Well, there's a lot of young people that
I, I really believe don't know that
our industry exists and how cool it is.
Yeah.
And being, you know, part of S MPS and a
past president and a mentor, part of
the mentor protege program, a number of
times, you know, the younger generation
is what we have to shape to help save
this industry and get excited about this
industry and there's not enough.
So I would tell them, number one, be
aware of how cool this is and that it
helps communities and
society and the things we need.
It's not just trying to be an influencer
on YouTube or Instagram, just
cause those people can make a lot of
money, but this is necessary.
And we're, we're fortunate to have a
partnership with Denver university.
And I just was teaching
there last night in the class.
I've been part of the last seven years
watching how smart some of these young
adults are.
I look back at where I was in college
versus where they are.
Boy, we could really launch them into
some great companies.
So I'm trying my best to find and mentor
some of those folks along the way to
help them choose the right career.
And if it's not with us in, in AEC,
that's fine, but it's really important
that we all think about the succession
plan for our business and not you just
moving up to the next job, who's who
you're training and who's going to train
that person, who's going to train our
kids to be good in this industry where.
A lot of other options and shiny objects
out there for people to chase.
So I think half of it's about awareness,
but half of it's about the
sell of there's other things.
You don't have to be a
builder or an engineer.
You can be a great marketer.
You can be a great people person.
You can be a great data scientist.
You can be a great accountant.
You can be a great lawyer, but all of
those things feed people to a really
amazing industry that needs them all.
As long as they understand that it's not
always easy and you
got to grind sometimes
and it's for good reasons, but you know,
motivating kids these days, I mean, we,
we both know this as dads.
Um, it, it takes saying the right thing
and listening very much to
what's important to them.
So if we all got good at that, when we're
talking to younger generation and we were
able to say, what do
you really want to do?
Not, not what job, what fuels you?
You know, and if you can think about like
the things we do in
this business that say,
well, I get that out of this piece of it.
I get that out of this.
Then you start to share that experience
and hopefully peak their interest enough
to ask another question and say, I might
look into that, but it shouldn't ever be
forced to, they should, it should feed
off of our passion for the industry and
wanting them to be involved because you
see something in them, just like you see
something in someone in a job
interview or whatever it is.
So it's fascinating.
This is a great question.
You know, you have a, a unique bullet
point in your resume of the multimedia
background, so not a lot of the people
that I interview get
kind of the tech side of
what I do.
Right.
Um, what, what do you see as the role
currently of video with your clients or
in how you're looking at pursuits?
I'm excited.
You asked that because I don't get the
chance to talk about the multimedia.
Like I used to be able to.
Um, but in regards to video, you know, we
both share a love of production.
Uh, that was certainly part of my
backstory and being a complete Adobe nerd
through animation and
all the other pieces of it.
So we're, we're using a blend at times
and it's very situational based on, are
you coaching a big city program that's X
amount of billions of dollars that the
city needs to see vibrance and feel like
it was made for them and really hit who
you are and do some high impact piece to
start things off, or do you need, you
know, something technical, like a strong
3d animation and maybe some imagery that
ties it to the job or the surrounding
area, or maybe we're using drone footage
and mapping 3d to it and flying around
and doing a 4d schedule, adding time,
doing a 5d schedule, adding
money to the conversation.
Sometimes it's real.
Sometimes you're just hacking it through
after effects, spinning things
in, adding the right things.
So your speaker knows that they have to
talk about those things
and it hits at the same time.
Right.
So, you know, it's not just video.
It's, it's multidimensional and a lot of
folks don't see the value of it all the
time because they're like, well, why are
we showing them a video of people in the
room? And there's a lot of cases to be
made in certain places where we can
craft something and contain it with video
versus putting someone on the
spot to be a
salesperson or sell themselves.
So, you know, there's just elegant ways
to do that quickly and pack more
information and dynamics into a situation
instead of just standing and
hoping that someone's going to absolutely
nail their spot after you,
after you've worked with them quite a bit
and they nail it, but it's
just a different feeling.
So I always think, you know, it creates
these great dynamics.
It's a great way to hear from others.
It's a great way to
highlight things that have happened.
It's a great way to still and always
bring emotion into a presentation.
I'm convincing someone to
pay for it all the time.
That's a different story,
but I always tell folks, like,
if you're not using tech and those tools,
a lot of our big agencies, a lot of big
contractors, a lot of big designers, a
lot of architects have that in-house now.
They're not just sourcing it out, right?
So they got green screens and psych walls
and all those things in-house where they
understand the importance of that.
Now, it all takes time and money, but
there are people that
are really impressed
by production level stuff versus just
taking a very simple approach and trying
to connect to the human level.
And I just had a conversation about one
of the biggest jobs going on in
California versus an agricultural job out
on the edge of Texas, where it's a
half billion dollar water
treatment out in ag country.
Those are very different audiences.
Those are very different messages.
Those are very different, even cadence or
tone that is going to hit the mark
with those audiences.
So sometimes it works, sometimes it
doesn't, but you got to be
in a place where a little
bit of that flash I think is needed and
accepted and it really never hurts, but I
don't want to overwhelm people either.
So there's a line to walk in our world
and it's very dependent, I think, on the
situation, but I love the teams that are
still doing like the QR codes, the video
features in the proposal.
I would tell everybody you should be
doing that because you
give people a chance to
feel something different than a piece of
paper with writing on it.
And we're all stuck to our phone, trying
to watch this and TV and squirrels go by
and fast cars and your kids and
everything going on that we can take it.
I'm not advocating multitasking is real.
I'm just saying we take in a lot of
information and people
will take their phone
out and go through
that exercise to get more.
So video and multimedia, it's imperative
that we use it and keep it effective and
prominent in our documents and our
presentations, but
there's a balance there.
So I mean, even if your firm has done a
great job of pre-positioning and you've
got a great relationship built, your
contact isn't necessarily the only person
who's going to be looking at that PDF at
the initial proposal.
And if you've got video elements and if
you've got storytelling and you've got
something that connects with that person
on a human level,
it's different than just
seeing the schedule and the resumes and
the budget of how this project's coming
together.
Totally.
You get a feel for what might it be like
to actually work with that team.
And if you can get that out of a PDF, I
mean, most PDFs you
can't get that out of.
You can't.
Words and pictures are great.
It's impossible with the
best rider ever you can't.
And I'll tell you like when, when you
want to take a chance, when it's not a
rogue move, it's more of a calculated
risk and they may not
ask for it in the RFP.
But we've, we've done proposals and turn
them on their heads
and turn them sideways
and made the basis of most of
everything about the people.
Just, you got to watch this video and
I've given you the bare bones.
So you watch this video and the response
we got when we did it on the one I'm
talking about, a big job in San Diego and
the client, I mean, my client put
together such an incredible proposal.
I said, this is one of the best I've ever
seen because it's different, because
I don't want to put it down.
The client said the same thing.
This was hands down.
This proposal just
smoked everybody else's.
So to hear that from a billion dollar job
and something that was really
important that was
going to change the skyline.
Yeah, it hit the mark.
So video is not going away.
It's maybe getting easier access to, and
I think everybody's used to doing more
with it with their
tools and their phones.
And it's not like it used to be, but it
sure isn't going away.
I'd say I would encourage everybody out
there in the industry to use it as
much as they can and then call you as
much as they can, cause you're damn
good at it too.
Thank you, sir.
Uh, what about when it comes to Rainmaker
AC, how we're, and maybe it's video,
maybe it's not, but is there anything
that you're thinking about in the near
term from a branding, from positioning,
from marketing standpoint of helping
people get to know what you're about?
Yes.
Um, and I'm excited and also embarrassed
to tell you when I cut my first real,
when we launched the
firm, that was exciting.
And that was a bit of
us putting it out there.
This is our philosophy.
This is what we do.
Um, I believe in video very much to the
point where I need to do something and
explain where we're at
now and what's changed.
So yes.
I'd say that's on deck
for some time this year.
Um, but I'm also kind of embarrassed and
proud to say at the same time, we don't
market a ton and we
don't have to anymore.
And we do so much word of mouth that
between the retainers we have and all
those other things we have going on.
I'm almost ashamed because I love
marketing so much, but I'm out there
marketing others and trying to help them
market their people for the right
reasons to help their company.
So, um, I giggle sometimes cause they
say, well, if you put too much out there
on social media, maybe it doesn't look
like you're busy enough, right?
So if I'm posting every week, you know,
people think I'm just sitting
beyond my desk and they're like, not, not
busy enough, but, um,
I think the secret is it's only your
competitors who are looking at your
stuff that often, uh, nobody else is
paying nearly as much attention as we,
as we like to think.
When they come up for air, they're going
to see you if you are
regularly doing your thing.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
And, and that's the best part about
putting a video out there.
Cause when you don't see it or you
haven't seen some for a while,
boy, it gets some attention.
So, you know, that's the thing I, I try
to be pretty strategic about the way I
post and the way I
bring media into things.
Um, my team, Travis, Sadie, I mean, they,
they really control, uh, a lot of
our social media and they do a great job
of putting things out there.
Um, that I just haven't really focused on
as much because back to, you
gotta be out there trying to make sure
you're holding everything together.
Um, so now we've got some folks that do
focus on it, which is good.
So it's all part of the puzzle, right?
Yeah.
I mean, similar problem.
And when I hung out my shingle for my new
company, bold brand,
which is now almost five
years old, you know, I, I hit my
sales goal the first month.
I hit my new updated
sales goal my second month.
I was like, okay, I need obviously bigger
goals, but I had enough work
kind of out of the gates that I frankly,
wasn't paying a lot of attention
to my own website, my own marketing.
Um, so the last six, eight months, I
really started getting back to just
basics of SEO and, and which is also
helpful to optimize
for AI search as well.
Uh, and landed my first SEO only lead
after two, one call in one interview.
Wow.
Which was not typical, you know, for most
of my clients, it's a couple of meetings.
It's, I might know him for six months,
might know him for six years before they.
Hire us.
Um, so that was, that was a good
reassurance of like, okay, it's, it's
all right to do those basic blocking and
tackling things, make sure things are
updated and, um, yeah, just an
encouragement to
myself of like, yeah, you
gotta, you gotta do this
stuff for yourself too.
You have to.
And congratulations on five years is
shocking that it's been that long.
Um, I remember when you started it and it
was an idea and a concept and now.
Look at you right.
And to be getting passive clients and
leads through good SEO, I could take
a lesson from that, but we're pretty
niche either way it is,
but you know, w that's
probably the hardest part of growth is
deciding if you even have the capacity
to do that and get really good at that.
Because if the flood comes in and all of
a sudden you have this new line, well,
it's a great first world problem to have,
but I don't want to let all those people
down or try to take on too much either.
So yeah, there's a
balancing act of marketing.
And when you get that
time to refocus on it, I'm
mean, you gotta make it count.
Yeah.
And look, I mean, look at this, look,
look at where we're at.
It's awesome.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Uh, it's been a pleasure.
And to that point, I think we probably do
this for another three hours, but I don't
know that we have a
four hour listenership.
Um, so we're gonna, we're gonna wrap up
with this question and then I'll let you
tell us a little bit
about where to find you.
Um, this is time for you to
pull out your crystal ball.
Uh, any bold predictions that you have
for the AEC industry, anything that, um,
could be marketing, could be BD, could be
tech, I dunno, whatever you like.
What are you seeing in your crystal ball?
Josh Roberts.
Well, let me preface this by, by saying
I'm not sure my crystal ball works
better than anybody else's, but I do get
to see a lot of macro trends.
I get to see a lot of, uh, big programs
and big things shift around.
So my crystal ball, I think a lot of
things happen during elections and a lot
of change happens after elections.
And all we know is there's going to be
some sort of change
and this affects a lot
of the major programs going on, whether
they keep momentum or maybe whether
something changes.
So I think there will be political shifts
and maybe some turmoil and some hold
points and some of that going on in the
future, especially on the big stuff and
the big long range stuff like the transit
systems, like the highway systems,
like the water systems and prioritizing
those things and getting that political
and stakeholder and developer and funding
and getting all those things
folded together.
That's hard.
It's really hard to do.
It takes a lot of smart people and a lot
of as much as I'm annoyed by the word
collaboration between a lot of folks that
need to give and take some.
So that's going to happen.
Um, how it affects things.
That'll be the interesting part.
And I think the challenge is going to be
continuing to maintain momentum
and not overspend on change.
Um, from a tech standpoint, everybody
knows AI is a big deal and you see the
chip centers and the data centers and all
of the things that we need to survive
these days, um,
they're going to need power.
And so what I predict is going to happen
is that there's, you're already seeing
the trends, but you're going to see this
huge draw and pull on power companies,
people that build power.
There's going to be a fight
for power and water over time.
Now this may not be in the next four or
five years, but as AI and data centers
and the Facebooks and the Googles and the
apples of the world, not to mention
everyone all over the world, putting, you
know, cats, dogs, family, pigs, whatever
they want out there coupled with AI and
how fast that's accelerating things.
Um, I think you're going to see like
computing get better and faster.
You're going to see our ability to store
stuff, get even better and better.
And coming from the data storage
industry, back when I
was in tech, like I used to
run events where we put robots together
with all the 3000 tapes in them, where a
robot hand would come and stick one and
stick one in a drive that, that one
tape held two gigabytes now.
I mean, you can put a
terabyte on little tiny things.
So that all combined, there's this
explosion of data
that we can't comprehend.
There's this explosion of a need for
power and a lot of the legislative
things that are going on in electric cars
and, um, how we bring that into the fold,
how we charge for power,
how, and who owns power.
So I see a big focus on tech computing,
AI, data centers, probably being the
place where people make a lot, people buy
a lot of land for it.
People reshape a landscape to make sure
that that infrastructure is
there that isn't there today.
Cause if we really tried to keep up with
the mandates and the promises right now,
we might have to double up on power
across the U S and that's not an easy
thing to do when we're trying to build
and design everything else.
So we've been talking about resource wars
for years and the more that we can find
automation, robotics, things to help the
process, AI, all of these things, we need
it all because you see, you're still
always going to have the interaction with
the human, there's just not enough and
the demand is so high.
Um, I also think we're going to see some
sort of economic event, whether it's a,
maybe housing's going to go down or
something's going to happen, but over
time we know this happens.
So how that affects all these other macro
drivers will be fascinating, but, um,
that could swing things exponentially
where infrastructure over the next five
to 10 years, as we build all this out
commercial and some of those other
markets are going to continue to trend
back up as the population grows, as
people start businesses, as people move
into retirement or come out of college.
So, you know, it'll be really interesting
over the next probably five to 10 years.
And I hope in 10 years, you and I are
going, let's go play golf.
Let's go buy a beer.
Let's go catch a fish or something.
But, um, I can't see
myself getting out of it.
I'm having too much fun and I don't even
want to even think about retirement
because I love my job and I love our
company and our industry so much that it
never feels like
work, even when it's hard.
So that's good.
I agree.
Yeah.
I love it.
Well, before we let you go, tell
everybody where they can find more
about Rainmaker and, uh, more about you.
All right.
Uh, Rainmaker, AEC.com.
Uh, you can find us on LinkedIn.
Easy to find Rainmaker, uh,
underscore 303 on Instagram.
And, um, all you gotta really do is
Google Rainmaker coach
or coach Josh Roberts.
And that should be the
first thing that comes up.
So thank you.
And I'm glad we finally did this.
We've been talking about it a while, but
couldn't be more honored to do this.
And super proud of
everything you got going on.
Thanks for having me.
We'll have to do a part two before that
10 year out retirement.
Can't wait.
Happens.
Thanks again for joining us today on the
bold brand show and we'll
see you guys next time.
Thanks everybody.
Thank you for joining us today on the
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The bold brand show is
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Josh miles and is a product of bold
brand, LLC, a branding and video
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