Bridgehead Prepared for Joel at Ayers Saint Gross
Ayers Saint Gross For Joel

Architecture Firm Marketing Playbook

Joel, we’ll build your new marketing and business development director’s first 100 accounts in 10 days. The first 25 are below, and they’re yours either way.

If your Director of Marketing and Business Development seat stays open another quarter, ignore this. If it doesn’t, the next two minutes are worth it.

What we noticed

Your site says most of your work supports mission-driven clients, particularly colleges, universities and cultural institutions, and your clients page shows how long those relationships run.

Your Director of Marketing and Business Development role was posted on November 2 and is still open.

  1. November 2 Director of Marketing and Business Development role posted
  2. November 9 Role still open; the first accounts are on this page

What changes for your new AE

Your new director starts day one with 100 institutions you approved and drafts written to the first five, instead of spending the first weeks finding them. Your posting already tells them to raise win rates and pipeline health; this tells them which institutions to pursue first, and why now.

Your first 25 accounts

Picked from how your posting and your site describe your clients. Each one has the reason it’s here and the source.

Yours either wayKeep these 25 whether or not we ever talk.
Cut any you wouldn’t callTell us why, and we replace it. We keep going until you’d keep at least 80 of the 100.
  1. Santa Rosa Junior College Santa Rosa and Petaluma, CA · public community college district
    1

    The board voted on June 10 to put up to $830 million of facilities work on the November 3 ballot, so the buildings that money pays for are being scoped now.

    Signal: Jun 10, 2026 Source
    Buyer: Vice President of Administrative Services or the college president
    Why it’s ranked here

    A strong fit.

    • A public or nonprofit college, university or cultural institution.
    • A bond, master plan or building program is in motion and the design partner for the next phase is not shown as chosen.
    • A building type you list: academic, housing, health sciences, campus planning or cultural.
    • Something dated happened in the last nine months.
    • Not on your clients page.
  2. Pasadena City College Pasadena, CA · public community college
    2

    Measure UP went to voters on November 3. If it passed, a facilities program is being sequenced right now.

    Signal: Nov 3, 2026 Source
    Buyer: Vice President of Administrative Services or the facilities director
    Why it’s ranked here

    A strong fit.

    • A public or nonprofit college, university or cultural institution.
    • A bond, master plan or building program is in motion and the design partner for the next phase is not shown as chosen.
    • A building type you list: academic, housing, health sciences, campus planning or cultural.
    • Something dated happened in the last nine months.
    • Not on your clients page.
  3. Illinois State University Normal, IL · public university
    3

    The board voted in May to hire a master planning firm for the first full plan since 2011, and the resolution does not name one.

    Signal: May 8, 2026 Source
    Buyer: Vice President for Finance and Planning
    Why it’s ranked here

    A strong fit.

    • A public or nonprofit college, university or cultural institution.
    • A bond, master plan or building program is in motion and the design partner for the next phase is not shown as chosen.
    • A building type you list: academic, housing, health sciences, campus planning or cultural.
    • Something dated happened in the last nine months.
    • Not on your clients page.
  4. University of Louisville Louisville, KY · public university
    4

    The president named new residence halls and new academic and research facilities as long-term priorities in February.

    Signal: Feb 12, 2026 Source
    Buyer: Vice president for finance and administration or the university architect
    Why it’s ranked here

    A strong fit.

    • A public or nonprofit college, university or cultural institution.
    • A bond, master plan or building program is in motion and the design partner for the next phase is not shown as chosen.
    • A building type you list: academic, housing, health sciences, campus planning or cultural.
    • Something dated happened in the last nine months.
    • Not on your clients page.
  5. California State University, Fresno Fresno, CA · public university (CSU)
    5

    Fresno State asked for a master planner in April, and the listing does not name who was picked, so the plan that sets its next buildings is being shaped now.

    Signal: Apr 9, 2026 Source
    Buyer: Vice President for Administration or the campus planning office
    Why it’s ranked here

    A strong fit.

    • A public or nonprofit college, university or cultural institution.
    • A bond, master plan or building program is in motion and the design partner for the next phase is not shown as chosen.
    • A building type you list: academic, housing, health sciences, campus planning or cultural.
    • Something dated happened in the last nine months.
    • Not on your clients page.
  6. Wake Technical Community College Raleigh, NC · public community college, multiple campuses
    6

    The bond passed six days ago, so the campus renovations it pays for move from ballot language to design scopes.

    Signal: Nov 3, 2026 Source
    Buyer: Vice President of Facilities or the college president
    Why it’s ranked here

    A strong fit.

    • A public or nonprofit college, university or cultural institution.
    • A bond, master plan or building program is in motion and the design partner for the next phase is not shown as chosen.
    • A building type you list: academic, housing, health sciences, campus planning or cultural.
    • Something dated happened in the last nine months.
    • Not on your clients page.
  7. San Bernardino Community College District San Bernardino, CA · public community college district, two colleges
    7

    Measure Y went to voters on November 3, and if it passed, the repairs and training space it lists become projects that need a design partner. The result is not in our source.

    Signal: Aug 24, 2026 Source
    Buyer: Vice Chancellor for Facilities, Planning and Construction
    Why it’s ranked here

    A strong fit.

    • A public or nonprofit college, university or cultural institution.
    • A bond, master plan or building program is in motion and the design partner for the next phase is not shown as chosen.
    • A building type you list: academic, housing, health sciences, campus planning or cultural.
    • Something dated happened in the last nine months.
    • Not on your clients page.
  8. Oakton College Des Plaines, Skokie and Evanston, IL · public community college, three campuses
    8

    Oakton asked for a master planning partner in May for three campuses, and the document does not say who was chosen.

    Signal: May 5, 2026 Source
    Buyer: Vice President of Administrative Affairs
    Why it’s ranked here

    A strong fit.

    • A public or nonprofit college, university or cultural institution.
    • A bond, master plan or building program is in motion and the design partner for the next phase is not shown as chosen.
    • A building type you list: academic, housing, health sciences, campus planning or cultural.
    • Something dated happened in the last nine months.
    • Not on your clients page.

Your new marketing and business development director’s first 100 accounts, in 10 days

The first 25 are above, and they’re yours either way.

Email Kash

We build a handful of these a month, for founders hiring now.

10 days

from kickoff to your team running it

  • 100 accounts you approve, each with the reason
  • Drafts to the first five, in your voice
  • Your team runs it without us
  • Any account you cut, we replace

How does Ayers Saint Gross sell?

An outside read from your posting, your site, your clients page and your news, built to be corrected: tell us anything that’s wrong. Tap a clip to play it from that moment.

What your customers sayFrom Director of Marketing and Business Development posting, ayerssaintgross.com/practice
  1. ASAyers Saint Gross
    “The focus of our expertise and most of our work supports mission-driven clients, particularly colleges, universities, and cultural institutions.”
    Ayers Saint Gross · Director of Marketing and Business Development posting
  2. ASAyers Saint Gross
    “improve win rates and drive client retention, expansion, and long-term firm positioning and growth.”
    Ayers Saint Gross · Director of Marketing and Business Development posting
  3. ASAyers Saint Gross
    “Establishes performance targets for shortlists, hit rates and win rates, pipeline health, and campaign effectiveness”
    Ayers Saint Gross · Director of Marketing and Business Development posting
  4. ASAyers Saint Gross
    “We ask hard questions and seek many perspectives to guide our clients toward a shared vision.”
    Ayers Saint Gross · ayerssaintgross.com/practice
  5. ASAyers Saint Gross
    “Leads the firmwide client relationship strategy, including how priority clients are identified, assigned, cultivated, evaluated, and expanded based on strategic value, growth potential, and profitability.”
    Ayers Saint Gross · Director of Marketing and Business Development posting

Words you use

  • “mission-driven clients”

How the list learns your calls

In the first session you react to accounts like these: keep or cut, and why, the way you’d tell a cofounder. Each reason becomes a rule you can read, the pool re-scores, and ten more show whether it learned. Keep eight of ten and the hundred is built on your rules.

  1. You cut one on the call, and say why
  2. It becomes a rule
  3. The pool re-scores
  4. Ten more test it

Which questions can only you answer?

Your posting and your site say who you serve, not which institutions you would turn down or what has to be true before you answer an RFQ. About 30 minutes of you reacting to real accounts answers these.

  1. 1

    Do you answer an RFQ when the master plan is unfunded, or only once a bond or appropriation passes?

    Rows 1, 2, 6 and 7 turn on a bond vote; row 3 is a plan already approved.

  2. 2

    Is a design lead already chosen a no, or a prompt to pursue the next building?

    Rows 18 to 25 have named an architect or started building.

  3. 3

    Do two-year colleges belong on the list?

    Rows 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11 are community college districts.

  4. 4

    Do cultural institutions outside higher education get the same first-week attention?

    Rows 13, 14, 21, 24 and 25 are museums and gardens.

What does your Director of Marketing and Business Development’s first morning look like?

Without

The CRM you have now. The early weeks go to learning which accounts you’d call, and why.

With · Director of Marketing and Business Development, first morning

  • SRSanta Rosa Junior CollegeDraft written
  • PCPasadena City CollegeDraft written
  • ISIllinois State UniversityDraft written
  • UOUniversity of LouisvilleDraft written
  • CSCalifornia State University, FresnoDraft written

A hundred accounts you approved, the rules behind them and drafts to the first five, so their time goes to buyers.

From week two, your mornings too: one brief, drafts to approve, every message sent by you.

How the 10 days run

What happens in the ten working days?

November 16, 2026 to December 1, 2026. About a day of your time in total.

  1. Before by November 16

    You send the customers you’d clone and three deals that went wrong, plus 10 to 20 emails or posts you wrote. “How you sell” is drafted from your talks and posts.

    You: 20 minutes
  2. Day 1 November 16

    The playbook session: we fill the gaps and correct the draft together. Your CRM is connected.

    You: 2 hours
  3. Day 2 November 17

    Your first rules are written; a few hundred companies are scored against them.

    You: none
  4. Day 3 November 18

    You review the first 25 (talking it through is fine).

    You: 30 minutes
  5. Day 4 November 19

    Your reasons become rules; you see the re-score and judge 10 more. First touches are written in your voice to the accounts you kept, and you read ten. Touches start logging to the CRM.

    You: 30 minutes
  6. Day 5 November 20

    The hundred is built. The research tool is set up; you test it on three accounts you know.

    You: 15 minutes
  7. Day 6 November 23

    The morning run is set up; your first morning, with us.

    You: 30 minutes
  8. Day 7 November 24

    You review all hundred, and any cut is replaced. Team training, session one.

    You: 1 hour 20 minutes
  9. Day 8 November 25

    Your first morning on your own. Training session two, hands-on for each person.

    You: 1 hour plus your morning
  10. Day 9 November 30

    Your second morning on your own. Each person on your team runs the morning alone.

    You: your morning
  11. Day 10 December 1

    Your third morning on your own. A week of touches is in the CRM. Handover sign-off.

    You: 30 minutes plus your morning
Kash Badami

Who builds it?

The person in the video does the work with you, from the first session to the handover.

$100M+in deals sold in a single year
$0 to $10MARR in 12 months, for a company I built
  1. “Kash and I built ERT Credit together in 2021. He took my MVP and turned it into a SaaS that hit $10M ARR in twelve months.”

    Jordan Anderson, CEO, PayStreetgobridgehead.ai/about

  2. “Analytical in approach, technologically-knowledgeable, and earnest in conviction, Kash was able to drive pipeline in a notoriously challenging tech region.”

    JBJason Brandt, Managing Director, Sales, ePlus inc.LinkedIn recommendation, April 2020

Where does this go from here?

Three options. Each one is fine.

Not a fit

Say so in a line, and that’s the end of it.

Not now

Keep the 25 and the read on how you sell, and share them. When the role fills, the offer stands.

Talk with Kash

Ask Kash to call you, or email him. He calls to set up a 30-minute strategy session. Bring your cofounder or your sales leader.

Your new marketing and business development director’s first 100 accounts, in 10 days

The first 25 are above, and they’re yours either way.

Email Kash

We build a handful of these a month, for founders hiring now.

10 days

from kickoff to your team running it

  • 100 accounts you approve, each with the reason
  • Drafts to the first five, in your voice
  • Your team runs it without us
  • Any account you cut, we replace

Ayers Saint Gross sales playbook, in brief

Ayers Saint Gross is a design firm whose work “supports mission-driven clients, particularly colleges, universities, and cultural institutions.”Director of Marketing and Business Development posting, ayerssaintgross.com

Its open Director of Marketing and Business Development role is to “improve win rates and drive client retention, expansion, and long-term firm positioning and growth.”Director of Marketing and Business Development posting

The firm’s clients page lists well over a hundred colleges, universities, hospitals and cultural institutions, so a new director’s first job is finding the institutions that are not yet on it.ayerssaintgross.com/practice/clients

The first accounts for the new director are public colleges and cultural institutions with a dated capital or planning event, each scored on five rules: twelve strong fits, five in the middle and eight edge cases that test the rules.

Prepared by at Bridgehead · November 9, 2026 · Every source

Questions founders ask

Can’t my AE build this when they start?

They can. But wouldn’t you rather they were selling? Reps spend 28% of their time selling, and the average new AE takes 6.2 months to ramp. This replaces the weeks they would spend building the list and learning what you already know.

28%: Salesforce, State of Sales (7,700+ sellers, 2022) · 6.2 months: Bridge Group, 2026 AE report (158 companies)

How much sooner does my new AE get to work?

From day one, because the accounts you approved and the first drafts are waiting. The average new AE takes 6.2 months to ramp, and at a $200K median OTE that is about $103K paid before they are fully productive. Only 48% of AEs hit quota.

6.2 months: Bridge Group, 2026 AE report (158 companies) · $103K: arithmetic ($200K median OTE × 6.2 months ÷ 12); Bridge Group, 2026 AE report (158 companies) · 48%: Bridge Group, 2026 AE report (158 companies)

We tried an outreach tool and it sounded like a robot. How is this different?

Nothing goes out on its own. Every account on the list is one you approved, every draft is written to one person, and you send each message yourself. It learns your voice from what you’ve written and from every edit you make.

How much of my time does it take?

About a day, spread across the ten working days: the 2-hour session on how you sell, short list reviews you can talk through, two training sessions and your first mornings. The hours your AE gets back go to selling, where reps spend just 28% of their time today.

28%: Salesforce, State of Sales (7,700+ sellers, 2022)

What happens after you leave?

It keeps learning. Each week it proposes rule changes from what your cuts, replies and silences showed, and you approve or reject each in a line.

Where does my data live?

In your own accounts: your Claude, your CRM, your files. Nothing runs on anyone else’s side, and any rule can be changed in plain English.

How is it priced?

The first engagement is one fixed price for the ten days. It depends on how many people we train and which systems we connect, so Kash quotes it on a short call. After handover, you can keep us on a retainer to keep supporting your sales process and refining it, if you choose that route.

The research behind this page 4 sources · 1 postings · 6 customers · 25 stores looked at

Your talks and posts

  1. ayerssaintgross.com
  2. ayerssaintgross.com/practice
  3. ayerssaintgross.com/practice/clients
  4. ayerssaintgross.com/news

Your open roles

  1. Director of Marketing and Business Development, first posted November 2, 2026

Your customers

Johns Hopkins University · Ohio State University · University of Oklahoma · Missouri Botanical Gardens · National Aquarium · University of Utah (santehq.com/customers and your posts). Customer photos are from santehq.com/customers.

How the 25 were picked

25 stores found and scored on 5 rules; the 25 chosen to teach: 12 strong, 5 middle, 8 at the edges. Logos are from each store’s own site.

  • Sources: each college, university and museum’s own news page or trade press, opened and saved on November 9, 2026.
  • Every account was checked against the clients page on ayerssaintgross.com. University of Texas at Austin, University of Cincinnati, University of Oklahoma, Shepherd University, Montclair State University and the University of Utah are on it and were left off.
  • Twenty-five accounts are on the page. Rows 3 and 5 to 12 were added on November 9 from RFQs, trustee resolutions and bond results, each opened and saved. A Jackson State master plan RFQ and a UC Santa Cruz housing RFQ came up and were left off because their source pages would not open.
  • Where a source does not say whether a design firm is chosen, rule 2 scores the stage it shows.
  • Wake Tech passed its bond on November 3. For San Bernardino, the source is the August 24 notice that Measure Y was on the ballot; the vote result is not in it.