{"id":3455,"date":"2015-01-15T08:15:57","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T14:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/?p=3455"},"modified":"2025-07-02T02:34:24","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:34:24","slug":"worst-soq-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/worst-soq-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"The Worst SOQ I&#8217;ve Ever Seen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/wasting_money_88323250.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-3464\" src=\"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/wasting_money_88323250.jpg\" alt=\"wasting_money_88323250\" width=\"365\" height=\"295\" title=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We are working with a large construction company to design and develop a Statement of Qualifications (SOQ) for one of their specialty divisions. During our preparation and strategy phase (pre-construction), their business developer shared a competitor&#8217;s SOQ that he magically obtained \u2013 it was horrible!<\/p>\n<p>Let me explain to you why. First off, this competitor is not a small company that lacks resources; that is what infuriates me about it.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Lacked powerful first impression &#8211; The SOQ was a thick stack of paper with tabs and a spiral coil. It looked like a small company that lacked the money and capabilities of the large corporation that created it.<\/li>\n<li>All about me &#8211; I am sure you&#8217;ve heard by now that you need to position your marketing to be about the client, not your company. This company obviously didn&#8217;t hear that; the SOQ read, &#8220;me, me, me&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Clunky organization &#8211; The SOQ was broken into the company&#8217;s subsidiaries that have overlapping services and capabilities. Because it was about them, it confuses prospective buyers because they do not know which group to call; therefore they call no one.<\/li>\n<li>Tab 1, 2, 3 &#8211; To make things worse, the tabs were not labeled by service or even by subsidiary; they were labeled as Tab 1, Tab 2, Tab 3, and so on. I&#8217;m not sure that the tabs even serve a purpose when labeled like that.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I believe this SOQ was put together by a well-intentioned marketing coordinator or executive assistant that was merely following orders. This is a typical marketing piece we see in the construction industry. Because it does not bring in new clients, it is seen by company executives as a big waste of time and money, and future marketing tactics never happen.<\/p>\n<p>Have you seen marketing pieces that made you cringe?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are working with a large construction company to design and develop a Statement of Qualifications (SOQ) for one of their specialty divisions. During our preparation and strategy phase (pre-construction), their business developer shared a competitor&#8217;s SOQ that he magically obtained \u2013 it was horrible! Let me explain to you why. First off, this competitor<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/worst-soq-ever\/\">[Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[468],"tags":[470,228,469,291],"class_list":["post-3455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-proposalsrfpssoqs","tag-client-focused","tag-proposal","tag-soq","tag-waste"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3455"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3537,"href":"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions\/3537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev2.brandconstructors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}