strategic planning – Linda Stephens

Linda Stephens

Build Talent, LLC

Posted on April 2, 2025April 7, 2025 by lsadmin

Build Talent, LLC

Client: Build Talent is a talent recruitment start-up serving the building industry.
Target audience: architecture, engineering, project management firms

Challenge: A start-up, Build Talent was looking to differentiate itself from existing recruitment firms and establish a unique voice.

Solution: Linda conducted a competitive landscape assessment and facilitated visioning exercises with the founder. These shaped the brand and established a messaging strategy. Working with an experienced designer who designed brand identity and a website, Linda created website copy, the founder’s LinkedIn profile, and a post/press release announcing the formation of the new firm.

Services: visioning exercise, competitive assessment, messaging + copywriting

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Thought Leadership Campaign / Owned Media

Posted on April 2, 2025April 7, 2025 by lsadmin

Thought Leadership Campaign

Client: Project Management Advisors, Inc.(PMA) is a national real estate advisory firm that provides development and strategic consulting expertise within the built environment.

Target Audience: Commercial real estate owners and organizations/institutions that own facilities

Challenge: The client envisioned a series of thought leadership content pieces to educate, inspire, and influence their target audiences and to establish itself as a leading expert on specific topics.

Solution: Linda worked with the client to outline the mission and objectives for the content campaign, including brand pillars and content categories. Internal subject matter experts (SMEs) were identified. Linda worked with each individually to develop an outline, research supporting documentation and reference material, and ghostwrite the article, typically for publication as owned media (website blog, LinkedIn). Linda also crafted LinkedIn posts providing introductions for the articles.

More than 30 pieces of thought leadership content were written over six years. Selected articles are featured below with additional titles available upon request.

Services: strategy, research + development, messaging + ghostwriting

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Argonne National Lab

Posted on April 2, 2025April 3, 2025 by lsadmin

Argonne National Laboratory

Client: Argonne National Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center with a history of groundbreaking discoveries and transformative technologies across many science domains.

Target audience: Clean Cities Communities and Coalitions, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) partnership to advance clean transportation via 75 nationwide offices.

Challenge: As part of a team at Argonne National Laboratory, Linda led audience identification, messaging, tool development, and marketing strategy for the development of IdleBox – a toolkit of print products, digital templates, presentation decks, and information resources to assist Clean Cities Communities and Coalitions with idle-reduction projects for fleets with light- and medium-duty vehicles.

Solution: IdleBox featured an array of templates – outreach letters, media releases, pledge forms, and an adaptable slide deck – as well as posters, stickers, an owned-media article, and a Solutions educational slide deck. Idlebox tools help Coalitions educate and engage policymakers, fleet managers, drivers, and other decision-makers about the benefits of reducing idling. Following the development of Idlebox, Linda supported its implementation by providing marketing training to coalitions and attending conferences on behalf of Argonne, among other initiatives.

Recognition: IdleBox: STOP Idling. START $aving, Award of Excellence and Award of Distinguished, issued by The Society for Technical Communications, Chicago.

Services: visioning exercise, competitive assessment, multiple audience surveys, messaging + copywriting

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Booth Hansen

Posted on March 26, 2025April 7, 2025 by lsadmin

Booth Hansen

Client: Established in 1980 and based in Chicago, Booth Hansen is recognized nationally as a leading architectural design firm.

Target Audience: owners, developers, project partners

Challenge: Booth Hansen wanted a fresh approach to its website, featuring a substantial portfolio of project profiles.

Solution: As the Director of Marketing, Linda conducted internal staff surveys, a competitive analysis, and a number of internal workshops to gather input and direction for a fresh approach to marketing strategy and a new website. Linda served as project manager, hiring an external web designer and also providing messaging strategy and content development/copywriting. New content included project profiles, staff bios, a firm overview + values statement, and a project approach. These elements were subsequently adapted for multiple collateral pieces including brochures and proposals.

Services: visioning, surveys, competitive analysis, strategy, messaging + copywriting

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Engineering News-Record

Posted on March 25, 2025April 2, 2025 by lsadmin

Engineering News-Record

Client: The Walsh Group

Challenge: write an article sharing the story of one of the firm’s employees, highlighting the importance of job safety

Solution: Linda worked with a superintendent to share his story of a bad decision costing him the digits on his right hand. The superintendent became a senior safety trainer for the firm following his accident.

Article: “Choices that Define Lives” – Engineering News-Record (2018)

Services: SME interview, ghostwriting

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Sound Specialists, Inc.

Posted on March 17, 2025April 3, 2025 by lsadmin

Sound Specialists, Inc.

Client: Sound Specialists is a full-service integrated systems designer and installer for residential, commercial, and multi-unit dwellings.

Target Audience: Residential and commercial real estate owners and developers

Challenge: The growing firm required a website, qualifications package, and print mailer campaign series for business development activities.

Solution: As the internal Director of Marketing + Operations, Linda provided art direction and created messaging + copywriting for a website featuring project case studies, a flexible print qualifications package, and a series of print postcards.

Services: strategy, art direction, messaging + copywriting

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Kohl Children’s Museum

Posted on March 17, 2025April 3, 2025 by lsadmin

Kohl Children’s Museum

Client: Established in 1980 and based in Chicago, Booth Hansen is recognized nationally as a leading architectural design firm.

Target Audience: Board members, donors, general members, and visitors to the Kohl Children’s Museum, designed by Booth Hansen.

Challenge: The Kohl Children’s Museum’s mission is to have a space for “active play learning.” The success of the Museum is due in large part to the highly collaborative nature of the design process, which involved workshops with museum staff and the Board of Trustees. As the Chicago area’s only facility providing exhibits exclusively for the birth-to-8 age range, the Museum has been recognized nationally as a model for its integration of play within a safe environment that encourages curiosity, creativity, and self-discovery.

Solution: Linda created a visual “storybook” highlighting the collaborative design process as a special gift featured during a series of opening events.

Services: strategy, design, messaging + copywriting