When I was in 8th grade, I started studying the violin. In the beginning, I played an average instrument owned by the school. I wasn't allowed to take the instrument home for a night or a weekend until I could play a song that my parents would recognize.
I remember being absolutely certain that if I had a better violin than what the school provided, I would sound much better.
Then, a high school student came in for the day, and was assigned to help me with some technical issues. He was very good, and after a while, he took my violin and played the piece himself.
Whereas I had been making a somewhat musical noise, he was actually making music! It was wonderful music, at that. And on my average school violin!
I learned that day that a good musician could make beautiful music even with an average instrument. And this also went for areas other than music. As photographer Peter Adams once wrote:
"A camera didn't make a great picture any more than a typewriter wrote a great novel."
When I was 18, I got the opportunity to play a real Stradivarius violin for a few hours at a shop in Pittsburgh owned by a wonderful man named (appropriately) John Note. In 2 hours, I learned that a musician both talented and skilled, which I was by that time, ACTUALLY COULD make more beautiful music on a better instrument.
If was still mainly the talent and skill that mattered. But if you give a talented, skilled person the proper equipment for the job, they can turn out a better product than if they are working with the wrong or inadequate equipment.
In the June 2014 issue of Marketer, Linda Mastaglio wrote that "We market people with ideas." This leads me to believe that, in our A/E/C marketing efforts, we should use more space to describe the people we propose for our team, and what they bring to the table, and how they have track records showing great creativity and innovation, and less space telling how wonderful the firm is or providing too much irrelevant detail on completed projects.
For example, it is nice if the project manager is a talented designer, and will recognize whether a design is good or bad, creative or pedestrian. But if that manager also has great management skills, these are much more relevant to the role he/she will play, and need to be discussed at some length in addition to the project details that demonstrate their technical knowledge and experience.
If the project has inherent challenges, a discussion of how individuals on the team have met those challenges on other projects, and the creative solutions they developed, is more relevant than a description of how "the firm" met those challenges on previous projects.
Because firms don't meet challenges. They don't plan, design, permit or construct projects. PEOPLE plan, design, permit and construct projects.
So it is more important to tell THEIR story than the firm's. The equipment the firm provides and the processes the firm has in place are secondary to the education, skills, training, and technical accomplishments of the people you are proposing, and how they will marshall all of that to produce an amazing project that will exceed owner and user expectations and needs!