Author Archives: Ethan Hyers

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Pursuit Leaders: Save Time On Shortlist Interview Prep

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You’ve done a lot of heavy lifting on the shortlist interview prep so far. You’ve made your strategic decisions, you’ve figured out the overarching theme and sketched out the main messages inside. Now you’re asking your team to take those messages and run with them so they’ll be ready to rehearse as a group in a couple days.

And the next time you meet, no progress has been made, and now everyone has to sit in a room together to catch up, burning time.

In his latest post, Pete explains why this happens and what you can do to avoid it in the future.

For more help in improving how you lead interview prep, check out our WIN-it program here.

Win the Shortlist Interview: Ask Dean Live (Free Live Session)

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Your firm made the shortlist. Now everything you do in the interview either strengthens your case or weakens it.

Ask Dean Live is a no-charge SagePresence’s give-back event. It’s a live virtual session, and every event will focus on one topic.

This first episode is all about the shortlist interview. Drop your biggest interview problem in the chat, and Dean will diagnose it and give you one practical fix, with the how. If you’re game, you can try it live and get coached on the spot. Everyone leaves with a one-page Fix Sheet.

Check it out here.

Pursuit Leaders: Challenge The Selection Committee Without Sounding Arrogant

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Pursuit leaders know the advice: challenge the selection committee’s thinking. But not everybody knows how to pull that off without sounding arrogant or condescending — and nobody wants that in a shortlist interview.

In his latest post, Pete shares the key to delivering a challenge that comes across as confident and collaborative instead of presumptuous and alienating.

For more on helping your team win shortlist interviews more consistently, check out our WIN-it program here.

Construction Executives: Stop Setting Your BD Leaders Up To Fail

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Some construction executives think they’ve covered their bases around business development once they’ve hired a leader to take responsibility for it.

But this line of thinking often leads to truly disastrous results — not just for the BD leader, but for the whole firm.

In his latest post, Pete shares his thoughts about what senior leaders at every construction firm can do to position the BD leader for success, and to help the company grow.

For more about how SagePresence can help your firm grow, check out our GROW-it program here.

When Your Specialty Engineer Is on Every Team

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When your specialty engineer is also on a competitor’s team, it’s tempting to treat them as a wash. If the competition has them too, you’d better bring them, but it doesn’t buy you anything.

In this post, Dean explains why it’s not who’s in the room, it’s how you use them. He shares the shift that turns a shared team member into your differentiator: stop treating your specialty engineer as a solo act with two minutes and a slide, and start weaving them into your team’s story.

For more help turning every member of your team into part of a story that wins, check out our WIN-it program.

The Designer Stereotype You Don’t Realize You’re Projecting

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A brilliant designer who talks a lot in an interview can accidentally come off as a “know-it-all” or a windbag. Both read the same way to a shortlist committee: like the interview is about you, not them.

In this post, Dean shares a simple shift that fixes both traps at once — moving your focus from the work itself to the people you’re presenting it to.

For more on building the kind of presence that lands with shortlist committees, check out our WIN-it program here.

Why Seller-Doers Struggle to Follow Up

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Most seller/doers have never been trained in the art of business development. They’ve just had to figure it out as they go along. Which means they often struggle to figure out how to follow up after initial conversations go well enough to leave them with a prospect’s business card.

In his latest post, Pete shares a simple, two-minute habit Seller/Doers can build into the moments right after those conversations end — one that makes following up almost automatic.

To help your Seller/Doers build their business development skills further, check out our GROW-it program here.

Superintendents Hate Interview Prep (Here’s the Fix)

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When superintendents get asked to participate in a shortlist interview, they can get the idea they’re being asked to do something way outside their comfort zone.

The good news is, it doesn’t have to be that way.

In his latest post, Dean offers a fix — a different way to think about the challenge, and a different way to tackle it that feels more comfortable and familiar.

For more help elevating the skills of your team for shortlist interviews, check out our WIN-it program here.

The Bane Of The BD Manager

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The bane of managing a Business Development team isn’t just juggling client-facing staff and seller-doers — it’s that your own direct reports often need completely opposite things from you. Half want a detailed roadmap. Half want a target and the room to run with it. Treat them the same, and your pipeline stalls.

In this post, Pete shares a simple, three-question framework for finding out exactly which kind of support each person on your team needs — before it costs you the pipeline.

For more help managing your Business Development team through exactly this kind of friction, check out our GROW-it program here.

Project Managers: Quit White-Knuckling Interview Prep

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Your best PM instincts might be working against you in interview prep. The same instinct that keeps a project locked down tight — tracking every detail, leaving nothing to chance — can turn into white-knuckled control the night before a shortlist interview. It’s not a flaw. It’s just aimed at the wrong altitude.

In this post, Dean explains the value in turning off the part of your brain that tracks daily specifics, and focusing on mile markers and bigger movements instead. In the end, it is the same PM instincts, just zoomed out one level, so what needs to be free as a bird actually gets to fly.

For more on winning more work, check out our WIN-it page here.

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