Taoti Hiring for Business Development Strategist (for Web and Marketing & Communications Projects) Job at Washington, DC Full Time

First, a quick blurb about Taoti…

Established in 1996, Taoti Creative is a boutique, full-service creative agency located on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. We are privately owned and have no corporate overloads (nothing personal, WPP.) We do stuff like web development, social media management, branding, experiential marketing, video, AR/VR, etc. Our mission is to ‘move the needle’ for our clients. We leverage technology, creativity, and innovation to generate meaningful and measurable results for our clients—that’s what drives us. Speaking of clients, they’re about 60% non-profits, 20% commercial, and 20% federal government. Some of our customers include World Bank, USAID, DC Water, Discovery Education, American Chemical Society, Jane Goodall Foundation, and dozens of ‘National Association of _____________,’ etc. Our full-time team of about 50 employees is about 65% in-house and 35% remote. We hail from over 14 countries. And for the last four years in a row, we’ve made the Inc5000 list of fastest growing companies in the United States. There’s of course plenty of additional information on our website. If you’ve not done so already, be sure to check out our culture video: https://vimeo.com/289302105. Or if you’re feeling virtual, here’s guided tour of the office in 360 video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7KkzdmSGTM (Warning: not suitable for printers.) You may also enjoy https://www.instagram.com/taoticreative/?hl=en.

Now, about the job…

It’s one thing to have brilliant ideas and technical knowledge to put together a solution for a client. But it’s another thing to be able to write it down and articulate it in a way that is clear, concise, and compelling. That’s your job: to be a driving force behind coming up with wining themes and ideas and then being able to translate them into proposals and pitch decks. Our business development process is extremely collaborative, so it’s not like we throw an RFP at you, lock you in a dark room, and say, “here, write a response to this.” As our opportunities come in, our team evaluates, qualifies, and strategizes about them. As a team (of which you will be part), we decide which opportunities to pursue and what our big ideas are. That’s where you step up. You borrow bits form old proposals, take ideas from our team, add in your own two cents, and set out to write the world’s best proposal that will get us in the room with the client (metaphorically speaking) to win the work.

Let’s be clear: this is a business development role, so you should be comfortable with the idea that you work on the sales team. And within that team, a lot of your time will be spent writing and putting together proposals and other client communication. But it’s not your job to go find leads or be the leading voice in pitch meetings (though if you want to do that stuff, there’s definitely a chance to do it). It will take a while for you to fully get what we do, how we do it, and what makes Taoti special. A lot of what we do is highly technical, but depending on your comfort level with technical writing, you’ll start to understand what makes us tick, what makes us unique, why Taoti is good at what we do, etc. We think a part of being a good proposal writer is getting inside the head of the client. You will need to have calls with them (if they aloe) to determine if we are the right fit and to identify what needs they have. You will also need to research them to understand how to connect their needs to what we propose, creating a proposal that emotionally connects with the client.

What we’re looking for

• You write unbelievably well.
• You have 4 – 6 years of proposal writing experience in the world of web development, strategic communications, marketing, etc.

• You eat 80-page RFPs for breakfast.
• You WANT to write proposals. It’s not a chore. Not something you have to do as punishment. Not something you do when you run out of other things.
• You are organized.
• You can handle the pressure & pace of working in a creative agency.
• Tight deadlines don’t scare you.

• You have experience selling websites based in WordPress and Drupal.
• You like to get focused, and put your head down and write.
• You’re not afraid to let some personality show through and know just how much is the right amount of ‘edgy.’
• And you know how to adjust the edgy based on audience.
• You’re a little bit technical (particularly with regard to web development) and don’t scare easily when faced with jargon you don’t know.

• You know Word inside and out. You’d never dare individually format a heading without applying a style. You know how to create dynamic TOCs. You could teach Clippy a thing or three.
• While you may not be an artist, you know how to make a fine lookin’ document.
• You’re collaborative. You’re not afraid to get out of your chair and go ask a dev about why a client would want SOLR and how you should position it in the proposal.
• You can take your colleague’s lame, 8-page, rambling resume that’s impossible to read and turn it into a beautiful one-pager that makes him or her look like Einstein.
• You can work directly with clients to refine and revise proposals, scopes, and other documents.

Please note: Taoti employs a hybrid work model by which you’ll be expected to be in the office at least 3 days per week.

Is there room for career growth?

That’s one of the best parts about this role, specifically at Taoti. In a larger shop, the team structure hierarchy is usually large, layered, and not-so-flexible. Or at a smaller shop, you may have lots of flexibility, but not enough of a team to really benefit from true collaboration (or have enough upward mobility to keep you interested.) Taoti is the Goldilocks of creative agencies. We have enough structure so that you understand what the team looks like and where you fit in. But we’re small and agile enough to let employees carve out new roles and niches where it makes sense to do so. Your value and career trajectory is not defined by a line or box on an org chart. Our teams and roles are constantly evolving as the team grows, so if you want to grow into a role that doesn’t exist, you can help create it! Our growth rate alone (targeted at 50% this year) means that the team will keep growing, which means we’ll be hiring additional people across all departments. And our hiring philosophy is all about hiring the next wave of employees that best supports the existing team. In other words, we grow the team around what we already have—not according to some org chart or spreadsheet. So career paths are not rigid and finite. We have a history of shaking things up, making rather bold HR moves, and adapting our hiring processes (as well as the roles of our existing employees) in a way that makes strategic sense for the employee and the company. So your career trajectory has far more to do with your own aptitude and initiative than it does with an org chart or who’s above you. In this particular role, you’re already coming into a new role that will start as just you, grow into a team, then maybe a department, eventually a division, etc. We don’t have to explain how the idea of being in on the ground floor of a growing agency’s public sector sales department has a lot of potential upside if you’re successful.

What about benefits?

• 3 weeks PTO for starters. You gain more with tenure. And if you’re really big in to PTO, you can even trade back some salary for more.
• Telework options (which work like PTO… you accrue days with each paycheck. TELE days increase with tenure as well. By your fourth year, we don’t even count them any more.)
• 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance. (50% for qualifying dependents.) And we have good insurance.
• Paid family leave for men and women (including PTO plus short and long term disability options.)
• 3% retirement plan matching (plus access to a financial advisor).

• Home buyer help (including a $1200 closing credit)
• Mobile phone reimbursement
• You can opt for a company-supplied PC or Mac laptop. Or if you want to use your own, we’ll reimburse you for it.
• Charitable contribution matching

• Tax-free metro benefits
• A sincere respect of work-life balance
• Money and time off allocated for professional development (also increases with tenure)
• A diverse team hailing from over 15 countries last time we checked

• A very hip/cool/funky/quirky office space on Barracks Row, in the heart of Capitol Hill. Just 2 blocks from the metro! (With the office space doubling in size next year as we build a new building in the parking lot next door to our building.)
• Fun perks like a roof deck, wine/beer always on tap, regular company boat outings (boat is walking distance from the office), chill work environment, etc.

Of course, the above is a quick list. Ask to see the handbook for all the gory details.

What’s the corporate culture like?

“Fun but focused,” as one Taoti put it, is a great way to sum up our culture. We’re a fun and casual shop. The kind of place where you can wear whatever, come and go as you please, and have autonomy over your own day for the most part. But we take the work seriously and believe deep in the mission to make meaningful and measurable impacts for our clients. All the perks and shenanigans and borderline irreverent tone are fun, but to really fit in here, you need to be about the work.

We believe in something we call our “QIST Culture.” Quality. Innovation. Service. And Teamwork. We are always striving to improve these four areas (to the extent that we have a fund of $250K/yr that anyone can spend from in the interest of going above and beyond towards any of these four values.

We also believe in total transparency and open communication across teams and across ranks. Instead of chain-of-command, we want everyone to have and share their own voice. Every other Thursday, the CEO holds ‘CafeClutch’ just so he can hear ideas and feedback directly from the team instead of through the filter of management.

Want to see what life at Taoti looks like? Check out our Instagram or ‘about us’ video. There’s even a 360 tour of the office.

Next steps…

If you’re qualified and interested, please apply on our website (www.taoti.com/careers) and not Indeed or Glassdoor or other such sites (as we cannot respond to those applications.)

Please, no recruiters.