Have they got that entrepreneurial spirit? And are they up for having some fun along the way and if it is, then sounds like something for us.
Hello and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host Ryan Willard and today I will be speaking with Russell Potter, one of the founders of London's multiple award winning soda studio. So soda has worked across London, with several projects in Soho including a 5000 square metre regeneration of walkers caught which looks very cool. It's been completed over eight years the project created a new theater, restaurants, shops, flat office space, and restored home for Madame Joe Joe's nightclub which in my youth, I used to play many a gig in there when I was in a band very, very cool. So very happy that somebody has totally refurbished that in North London. So the creative greens rooms the UK is first social enterprise hotel providing affordable living accommodation and studio space for local artists in wood, green Heron gay and in silver down in the royal docks, so to work with the GAA in the landmark retrofit of a brutalist former beer factory, which now hosts a series of meanwhile, artists studios, so Sodor a really interesting business here. And it was a great pleasure to sit down and speak with Russell, I've been a fan of their work and the whole company's identity for quite a long time. And it was really interesting to speak with Russell because we dived into a number of different topics, one, talking about winning work, you know, the kind of strategies that they they use, how they develop and cultivate long lasting relationships, which incubates repeat work, how they've kind of used the where they've been located in London to network and develop communities around them. We talk about working with your spouse's Russell and Laura are a married couple with children. And we talk about the kind of challenges and the opportunities that arise from working so closely with a loved one. And we also talk about identity and branding a design firm, and what was important to them in their kind of communication of their firm's identity. So sit back, relax, and enjoy Russell Potter of soda. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architectures, flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment, and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smart practice method.com. Or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how we might be able to help you please follow the link in the information. Russell, Welcome to the Business of Architecture, we finally made it How are you?
Hello? Yeah, finally. Yeah, very good. Thank you. How are you?
I'm excellent. So Lou aren't one of the CO founding partners of Sodor. based in London, you guys do some really interesting work from there's a real array and a very broad kind of palette, if you like of portfolio that you've got from residential work, to community work, to retail to kind of branding experience, types of things, very innovative experimental, collaborative design group, there's lots of different disciplines that you've got in house for you. And you've, I think, you guys, you're very switched on in terms of your marketing and publicity and the kind of message that you portray in the, in the Architectural Press, and then to your target sectors. So excited to speak to you and it's a real, it's a real pleasure. So the first question
I will now try and unravel all of that and show you the real, you know, really what I have.
So tell me a little bit. How did you and Nowra start the practice. What was the what was the initial vision?
Yeah, because going back a bit now, it's taken a while to get to get together on this on this podcast, doesn't it? But yeah, so for was it now nearly 12 years ago. So Laura and I were married as well as architects quite often tend to do. Everyone who is an architect and listening to this probably will realize that we're really strange breeds. That's probably why we have to
whole nation itself of married couples doing architecture together. Yeah. unique set of challenges as well.
Quite right. There's only many hesitation on the one side, I'm afraid but yeah, we met. We met doing our part two. So I did my part one up in Nottingham, Meredith hers in Oxford Brookes, and we both met doing our part two in Westminster. And yeah, we both went off and did our did our separate things and went to different practices, but actually kind of set up remarkably, you know, sooner than we'd sort of thought We'd always talked about wanting to set up our own practice together. And we're just sort of really waiting for the right opportunity. So as as sort of typically, with lots of architects practice, Laura, Laura started it by herself, although with me in the background, and the thought that I'd always join with more residential projects, and I continue working, and then I joined about a year or so later. So it's about now about 12 years ago. And yeah, brought some more kind of commercial projects. And what has worked really well for us, I think we've got different skill sets. As I say, it wasn't without its challenges, I think, first first day, we actually, you know, physically worked together, we went home, and I looked at him, and she said, I hate you at work. Okay. But I guess, I guess we've all got sort of slightly different personalities, or tones of voice or whatever it is, in the way that we do things professionally. That's how we do things personally. So I think that was, that was quite a quick eye opener to experience on that person. I
mean, that's very interesting. And I know my relationship with my with my partner, when we've done things professionally together, there's a there's a different character from both of us that that comes out. And there is quite a learning curve to be like to be like, Whoa, okay, this is how this this person is doing. How do you How did you kind of learn to manage that? I can, how do you? How do you switch it off and switch it back on?
Well, I think back to that kind of slightly tongue in cheek comment about, you know, lots of architects, being with other architects or people in similar industries, I guess, it's one of those things that you don't really switch off. I mean, I'm Hope I'm not alone in saying that you can't just switch off, it's not a nine to five kind of job. So I guess that side of it is great that there can be an understanding that you are, you know, when you do go home, and there's projects running around your heads or whatever, that's my ID, you can actually, you know, talk, talk it through with someone else if you want to, or even if you don't, at least there's an acknowledgement of a slight understanding. I think, you know, other friends we've got who, you know, maybe they're an architect, and then their partner is a lawyer or something completely removed, potentially. There's just, there's just not that understanding. And I think that's, yeah, it's a nice, it's a nice thing to have. But yeah, in our day to day kind of circumstance, it did, you know, in all honesty, and I'm sure now in hindsight, it it took a while to kind of find our to work that out in the office. And I think gradually we kind of worked out sort of each other's strengths and weaknesses. And having having that kind of super close relationship with your partner, your business partner, being your life partners means that you there is no holds barred you don't you don't bottle anything up. You don't have to hold anything back. So once you kind of get through that, and I think, yeah, the way I think we sort of, well, the way I certainly kind of describe it now in the way that we work quite quite complementary ways is that I sort of feel that architects can be described by the type of pen that they use. So I'd say more of a more of a fat pen architects, a bit of a bit of a squiggle, and maybe a bit of a bigger picture type thing, whereas Lara's definitely a very fine, fine line details. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Whereas I'm just some sort of chunky old Crayola or something. But ya know, and I think that's kind of the kind of the niches that we've probably made for ourselves.
So in sight as a as a partnership, did you find that it was quite clear where your individual skill sets would be? And the kinds of roles and responsibilities that you would take over? Or was it all kind of, you know, kind of merged together at the beginning?
Yeah, no, I mean, it was definitely it was definitely all hands on deck at the beginning. And so when I eventually joined, we had a larger commercial projects, our first one, which is the Soho House, we did just pointing on the road and so on Dean street, so it was a big client states, they introduced us to Sir house, obviously, very famous member's club, they bought a building next door. So suddenly, it became, you know, a completely different scale. And it was all handled, you know, I can, again, I can say this out loud, we, we didn't have any staff, so we had to kind of beg and borrow and steal. One of the guys from my own practice came and joined us, you know, that was it. So we were all doing everything, we're all doing the detailing, we're all doing the drawings, we're all just getting stuck in and then we gradually put our team well, quite quickly, actually, in that first instance to about sort of six or eight I guess quite quickly, which then became a proper team and then try and evolve and get a bit of structure around it. So yeah, no, it was definitely it was more organic in terms of we never said right, I'm gonna do this and you're gonna do that we didn't have that luxury. You know, we were we were, we were in it and so after about here in, in water, but it was great, and it was exciting.
So that that early kind of phase when you were doing the Soho House Project was that really like the project that kind of gave you the traction to be able to develop and grow and grow it aim and, and how did it do that? If that is
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, very much. So I mean, yeah, we had said we it's kind of quite a long convoluted story, I'll probably get to too much detail. But long story short, the building that we were working on was had a fire and burned down the previous owners, I believe were underinsured or certainly didn't have the money to kind of build it back out. And so I was asked us to present to various sort of high net worth individuals and various other people this opportunity to purchase the building. And they had all sorts of weird, wonderful ideas about putting in offshore and doing this on the other side, I'm not quite sure how, how legal any of that was, I was an innocent bystander to the point that my nice drawings anyway, long story short, we met, we were at University of during, you know, pretty much just, we just finished up part two or part three. And we went to a friend's birthday party, and I saw this guy in the corners, I recognize that guy, I couldn't work put my finger and I went over to speak to him. And he was one of the guys who I had presented to as a potential buyer. I said, Oh, hey, how you doing? Turns out he was the cousin of a friend of someone or someone at this party. So very, very strange. And I just said, Yeah, you know, Hey, how's it going? Did you? Did you bid on it? Did he get it? He said, No, we didn't get it. But we had some guys in Soho, Soho estates afford it. And that was it. And I just said that was on the Friday or Saturday night, whenever the party was another one that I'd never heard of them. I googled them, look them up, found that Head of Development, rang him up and said, Do you want an architect? And he said, Yes, please. So it grew from there. Yeah, so we, you know, that was that was pretty quick. And then he said, but we don't want to do your office scheme. We want to buy another building and Titan, and we'd like to introduce his house, which likes to do that, etc. So yeah, that was, I guess, the platform, you know, we had to grow a team to deliver that project. And then, the amazing thing about Soho, and why I'm very pleased with that kit, we, you know, our office was here before we then moved to glaucoma five years, and when they came back a couple of years ago, but they call Soho the village. And, you know, I remember very fondly those days where we had one client, but we would walk down the street to a meeting with them, and you'd stop and you'd be introduced to this is Russell normal. He's got a polpo group, he needs a you know, I didn't have to get great. Okay. And then this is someone else. And this is Simon Hammerstein from the box is literally like being in a village and he's walked through and it was all through word of mouth. And so that meant that those projects grew organically through word of mouth, but but then needed resourcing appropriately and so yeah, absolutely, it was always.
So imagine that working with a client was like Soho House. That's number one, like the nature of it being a kind of high end Hospitality Group. There's lots of liaising and lots of lot of potential to connect with all sorts of other people. Plus, you've got your once the project's been completed. You know, there's a high amount of traffic's of potentially, you know, good clients, who can who can get in contact and, and also loads of introductions and things that are happening.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we learned a huge amount from them. They were the, I mean, the Now I wouldn't even like to guess the numbers they've got, but certainly back in the day, they had, you know, a handful of interior designers in house and, and a couple of architects and actually, we would pass them CVS, because they were growing the design team internally, just sort of pulling us out of a job. But yeah, we learned so much. Yeah, it was very, very collaborative nature, Nick Jones's mercurial talent and he would draw over things and scribble on things and then you get out you just leave the office and you get a phone call 20 minutes, I've got another day to come back. But that and that ran through you know, from let's say, from their operations team, they were all kind of fantastic and knew everything they're doing through to the bookings team, and everyone all these different people were having eyes and your designs and inputting into them and that's before you say you get across the line but you're right the the nature of hospitality projects like that or a restaurant or whatever it is, is fantastic in terms of being able to take potential future clients there and actually show them a product open you know, if other offices that we've done for example are or you know, private jobs we've done is tricky to be able to go back and get that keep that connection going and show people at so yeah, definitely that's been a really good kind of calling card for sure.
Amazing. And so you're when you were doing the Soho House Project you were you were based in Soho as a business and then you moved to Clerkenwell now recently you've come back to Soho and is and was your was your kind of returned to Soho to do with did you guys at the Raymond review? Updates?
Yeah, that's just probably almost out the window just behind me. Yeah,
I love it. I walk past it a few times and I used to used to be in a band and played many gigs in mme Joe Joe's and stuff. So remember, remember a very seedy past to that part of town. But you know, love it very fun memories. Brilliant. And you guys have really captured something quite special about it and brought it brought it up to date and still kept its character.
Yeah, no, it was great. I mean, it was, um, yeah, I said, really, that was, again, another kind of very sprawling project where it started off, I think the brief was, restore the neon sign and put up, put a single storey office on top and ended up, you know, designing a brand new theater from scratch, which is suspended two floors, and yeah, and the whole thing rotates through 360 degrees through various mechanics, and then the other three to decking a double storey basement to put Madame Jojos back in kind of bigger and better form, and there's retail and there's residential, and there's just about everything. So that was a fantastic project. But now, back to the question. Moving back here, I don't think it is, well, it's not linked specifically to a project you know, you can very well service, you know, certainly Farringdon, you've got the Lizabeth line now. So you can be here in two minutes going across. But it's more, I think there's two things, I think one initially when we went to Clark, and while we, I think, probably wanted to test ourselves that we weren't being pigeon holed as, as sort of a Soho, architect, if that sounds like too much of a silly thing is, you know, something we're amazingly proud of. But, so I think we wanted to sort of test ourselves and based on my different and, and not be tied, tied to Soho and in such a way. But, but then I think the return coming back is that it is in our it's part of our DNA and who we are. And I think I was talking to someone just the other day that, you know, we obviously do projects, further, much further afield as we've got one in Manchester and Liverpool, and all around London or elsewhere. But I think there's something really strong and amazing about being able to deliver a project in Soho, because there's so many eyes on it all the time. You know, there's there's very vocal kind of local groups as residential groups, there's local business groups, there's, then there's the press, and then there's everyone who's kind of just has a fond attachment. And so you're constantly under the spotlight. And I think, hopefully, what we've kind of shown over the last few years is that if you can deliver the types of projects that we have in Soho, then you can apply that wherever you are. And so I guess the and it was a five year, you know, Detour by o'clock and my own way, and we loved it there and it was wearing an amazing space. And we can we met amazing people, everything else. But it was also just our lease kind of coming up, I think we're just coming out of COVID. And our lease was run it was coming up. So we thought well, actually, this is a great time to just reinvigorate ourselves and kind of get stuck back in. And as everyone will know who's in London, the kind of vibe around. So he was one of the first places to pick back up after COVID Just in terms of bodies and numbers on the street. So it was a real nice boost for the team to kind of come and Yeah, feel invigorated and get get stuck in again.
Yeah, it's it's interesting that you say you kind of saw her as part of your, your DNA. And there's a very clear brand with soda, that's very, very distinct from so many other architectural practices, which is very difficult to kind of pull off. And, you know, when I think about you guys, and you know, it's certainly the kind of connection with Soho has a lot of elements, my opinion is a lot cooler than Clerkenwell as a bit of a bit of town. And it kind of it also sorts of, you know, for a lot of the client types of clients that you're doing and the kind of work that you're doing that sort of brand equity of being the kind of the call out of the box forward thinking architects is, you know, that's, that's quite important. He's has a little bit about the how you've come up with the brand, and you're sort of the image that you've created around soda. And I mean, obviously, the name is quite unusual in itself.
Yeah, the Yes. So the name, we were always very keen. So I think, I think, again, we touched on earlier about the kind of the drivers about why we wanted to set up but we're all I mean, first point is that we would always describe myself as a studio, we're not an office or we're not a practice. And that is that is probably the most fundamental thing. You could argue, you know, fine is just semantics. But the studio ethos is about experimentation. It's about freedom. It's about collaboration, it's about all those things and both Lara and I've been in practices before where you know, there's deadly silence and the person sitting sat three feet to your left is emailing you saying John meet for lunch, like what no talk let's let's talk. Let's talk yeah, let's not have headphones in. Let's, let's be a team so so that was the genuine kind of driver was to create a studio and I think with that comes a sort of certain relaxation of the a lot of the drivers behind architecture, I think, you know, what we do is very serious. And you know, and and there are lots of responsibilities and lots of you know, rules and regulations and all those kinds of things. But at the heart of it, for us, it has to be fun, it has to be enjoyable. So it was one of the boys about creating a studio. The original reason for soda one off was that we couple of reasons. Originally, when we started it, it stood for studio of design and architecture, which not many people know, because we got rid of that pretty quickly, because it was pretty crappy and excellent. But I think there are a few key things in there that one one is, first of all, my most recent studio, and I guess the point of design and architecture was that we didn't want to just do architecture. And that's not to bring that down. You know, there are architects who are architects through and through, and they're like a stick of rock and cut them in half. And it's a architect, you know, from the tips of their toes to the top of their head. But I don't think Laura and I are like that we've always had our influences and interests have been, by far further afield, you know, whether that's music, or fashion, or art or whatever it might be. So I think that design and architecture a bit. So the that was all kind of quite interesting with in terms of the brand. And our representation, I think it's quite interesting, because lots of people have said that there is kind of a very well, I don't know, it's interesting, because there's there is certainly a thread through it. But equally, I think at any one of our projects, they're quite different. So to kind of put a tangible, like to work out exactly what that thread is like, what makes us own a project. It's hard to pin down, it's not really an answer, is it? But no, there's certainly a thread. But I think that and I think the, you know, I guess maybe that's our I am, we're still we've got an amazing team, and we give them loads and loads of freedom, especially the stage that we're at now, to run projects and to kind of represent ideas graphically in different ways. And we will always be involved in those projects. But I guess that's probably the kind of melting point is that there's a, there's an, you know, an overarching kind of view and an ethos, which I think we try and set to people when they come and join us. But within those kind of loose parameters, there's there's a lot of freedom to kind of take that design in different directions. And it's still gotta kind of hit all the right kind of keynotes. But there are multiple ways of doing that. So I guess that kind of, it's more like a kind of collective of projects, I think. And I think I've certainly always viewed that our portfolio should be kind of like an album. And that kind of tracklist on an album. I don't mean like a Spotify album, we only get one song and no one listens to the rest of it. 1111, killer 10 filler, they've all got to be killer. But the I think, you know, I visualize that through an album tracklist. And maybe this, you know, track number two says featuring so and so and it's got a guest vocalist, or it's got guest producer. And I think those tracks can all be different. But they've got to still make a whole album.
Amazing. So tell me a little bit about, you know, when you kind of grew the team back window in Soho House Project, when that project started to kind of conclude, how, what was your structure, if you like a strategy for going about winning new work? And were you very focused on particular, like focusing in on particular sectors? Or were you attracted to certain types of clients who were doing certain things? Or was it kind of more random, organic and organic?
Yeah, it's, um, we, yeah, to be honest, we didn't we deliberately didn't grow, which sounds sort of slightly or kind of have an eye on on growth and new clients, we, which is sort of slightly suicidal, but I think, hopefully, it's proven that we were right, in this instance. And we had kind of certain people, mentors and advisors who would speak to and they'd say, you know, be careful because you've got you've got a lot of your eggs in one basket here. But we were very much so that for example, the you know, the House Project on on Dean Street, then Walker's core project behind me, then Catalans, which is another project for with, with the same landlord and tenant combination, but we were just absolutely dead set on on completely cementing that relationship and, and delivering it to the absolute best of our ability. And I think we were slightly worried about either A, growing too fast, and not maintaining that kind of quality and that personal involvement in those early projects. But also equally as important as a project is the relationship with with those kinds of key personnel in them, whether that's the client or the project manager or whatever. So, a lot of our time and effort early on was just about making that as kind of rock, rock solid and bulletproof as we can But in hindsight, especially, you know, considering the changes that we've all been through recently, with COVID, and Brexit, and banks and all that kind of stuff, it was probably a bit foolhardy. But I think that's also why a lot of young practices do do amazing work, because you're not sort of tainted by the sensible kind of, you know, you've got your kind of current slightly crazy, weird voice over here, and then the more sensible one over here, and I think we were probably just listening a lot more to that one, because he was more fun. So we didn't, we didn't kind of, we didn't target. We didn't do any marketing, we just absolutely cemented those. And we wanted to get them completed to the best of our ability, and then use those as our calling card. And that's what we did. And we kind of then, you know, we knew, we knew we had to do them well and do them right and get the kind of the press and the media attention for them and, and use that as a calling card and take other people there. But it was more I think we were we've always been completely disinterested in kind of pigeon holing ourselves. And that, by that I mean kind of sector and scale as well. So it was never about, okay, let's just do members clubs, or let's just do offices, or whatever it would have been, I think, and I think that loads of people have said to us, why don't you just Yeah, we had a really good spell where we did loads of office spaces for the Office group and for lunch, second person, so why don't just specialize offices and just do that, and then you can just become an owner, I can't think of anything more boring than just doing the same thing. Like, the thing that excites me is, is that one day, it's a theater, and the next day, it's an office and the next day, it's house and next steps and exhibition, that's what personal excites me. So we've never kind of targeted particular sectors. We have on occasion targeted certain clients, because we've either seen what they're doing or admired what they're doing, or what we've what we have done would sort of be a really good stepping stone is introduction, but a lot of it is is, is very organic. And I guess, being completely honest, I think, a target for us going forward, we have various plans going forward, but is to be more proactive, right? We are quite reactive at the moment. And a lot of it is about just be it just reacting to who's seen our better press or who's picking up the phone and saying, Oh, we've got a project here we'd like to talk about. And we would probably like to be a bit more proactive and say, you know, we've we've got a good portfolio. Now we've got a really good team. Let's go after those people, why not? No one's off limits, let's go for those. Let's go for those. And what's what's the worst that can happen? So yes, doing quite reactive, but aiming to be a bit more productive.
So So if there was a situation where, you know, you look at your, your, your cash flow forecast, and you notice that there's a bit of a dip, or there's projects coming to a to a conclusion, and you need to fill up the pipeline again, what's the sort of thing that you do to kind of get, you know, to bring in more projects?
Good question. They, I mean, I think I saw hinted at the maintaining of, of, of relationships of existing relationships, I think is, is always kind of the first port of call building that ties that relationship and trust with someone, let's face it, someone who's going to who's going to employ us, they're going to spend a lot of money, you know, they either need to buy a building, and he spent a lot on it, there's a lot of fees, there's a lot of everything else. So people don't just do that on a whim. Typically, you have to build that up through time. And I think we've kind of looked at, you know, the sort of gestation period for a project tends to be about six months as a minimum, really, to kind of from someone even hinting at it sort of glint in their eye to actually getting your signed appointment. So I guess we're constantly kind of doing that. But yeah, a lot of our clients, no matter I mean, I can probably count the number of clients that haven't been repeat clients, on one hand, everyone that we're talking to, we have done multiple projects with so that would always be the first port of call just to reach out and be like, hey, you know, whatever, you know, not speaking for a while, how's things going? Yeah, and using anchoring around something that's kind of noteworthy and newsworthy, I think it's always really good saying, I don't know if you've seen we just completed this project or what have you, you know, great to catch up. And I think those relationships are so key. So that would always be the first point of call, I think. I think that'd be interesting. And I've listened to on a few of your podcasts I've listened to about people who do kind of do more of a kind of cold calling approach, which I'm very interested in because it's not been something that we do and it's not something we've we've really tried but you know, it does work but I think you've just got to be prepared to have that kind of phone slammed down or that rejection or just that blunt, no, over and over and over again, but it can still rewards but notice it's always kind of going back through our back through our channels but but also So branching out to kind of similar like minded individuals. And I think that's probably the one thing we've noticed, although our projects are different, our clients are different sexes are different. I think the one thing that we've been it took us a long time to work this out, the one thing that ties them together is the kind of entrepreneurial spirit of the main client. And I think that's where, I don't know how or why but I think that's where we've done our best projects, when we, you know, genuinely believe and excited by what that vision of the of the kind of main client is, and how we can help them bring that out. So I think spotting that, that spirit, and that might be someone who has just done an amazing catwalk in Milan, and are a fashion designer, it might be someone doing something different, or might be someone doing some amazing kind of product, whatever it is, I think that's that's the what we look for, and who would we'd approach
that's very interesting, that kind of being attracted to that visionary client, if you like, or the entrepreneurially lead client, in terms of let's talk about money a little bit. And the kind of the subject that many architects kind of struggle with, or perhaps it doesn't become part of common parlance, in their own practices, what sorts of things and certainly as your practice has now grown to a decent, a decent size for an architect practice, how has the conversation around money evolved or changed? And what sorts of things do you do to protect profit and kind of make sure that your fees are well structured?
Yeah, no, I think you're right. It's one of those funny topics isn't and I remember sort of always our first proposals, we send out sort of almost any apologetic tone to them or sort of, but actually, you realize that we have to charge but we do. Yeah, I'm really sorry, we have to do this. But is it okay, if we possibly have a little bit of money to eat? So no, I think we, there's a few sort of brilliant, brilliant kind of things that have happened over the over the kind of past few years that certainly helped. One is that we know our market position a lot better now from, from bidding on things and competitions, and just being upfront about asking for kind of honest, feedback, whether you win it or not about where you're pitching, where you're you know, okay, we didn't get this one. Were we too high, not where we're too low. But you know, just so I think we were very confident now, in the level that we want to pinch ourselves out. And we don't want to be the cheapest, we also don't wanna be most expensive, but we want to offer good value would never try and undercut someone just because I mean, what's not what's Where's, where's the joy in that, and then you're constantly chasing learning?
only goes one way, when we're exactly.
So no one's gonna say no on somebody. But anyway, the and also, we don't want to go back, we want to, we want want to agree, a fair and decent fee that we're happy to kind of commit to unless something completely changes, obviously. But I also don't want to go back and say, oh, please can have a little bit more on are we you know, we did this a bit wrong? Can we have that because clients don't like either. So I guess that's the kind of outward going sort of confidence in the fee proposals. That's also backed up by the software that we use now. So we've got we, we do a lot of work on timesheets and cost rates, we know all our overheads, we know everything intimately. Now, we've got kind of great software, we've got, again, because we've got those experiences, if if we've got a certain project, let's say it's an office fit out, we've done various ones of those before, we can immediately benchmark against figures that we did before and the amount of resource we put in different areas in the amount of costs that that hit. So we can be quite confident saying, you know, actually, yeah, we're a bit like there or we weren't, or we didn't allow enough time for that bit. So I think the two kind of the two are hand in hand, and also tells us the sort of the price point, the resourcing levels, which we can now do very accurate in house and also then sort of conference around the program. And because obviously, what we are apart from our kind of artistic vision and technical ability, and whatever else it might be, the main thing we're dealing with, is time, that's the only thing we've got. So not signing out or being kind of feeling kind of forced into signing up to a ridiculously ambitious program where you're signing up for whatever 10 months worth of fee, but you actually know and there's gonna be 18 months, you know, then there's already you're already setting yourself up awkward discussion. So just being again, and
how do you how do you structure the fees, that from the outset, this is always the, you know, complicated thing, and particularly when you're working with a visionary type of client, you know, that there's going to be you know, that you don't know what you're doing to begin with, really, there's a there's a kind of vision and you know, that vision has got the capacity to grow and to shift and to change. How do you kind of protect yourself so that you're not making a commitment to like being locked into a fee? That's not gonna work?
I think that's, I think That's absolutely right. And you know, we have, we have probably fallen foul of that before. I think it's recognizing that and just building in some some leeway, and some kind of points. And equally, no one's gonna sign an appointment if it's just an open ended checkbook. So I think we are quite happy to kind of explore early things, you know, feasibility studies, whatever that might be in trying bottoming out. I think one of the key things we now do, sort of as early on as we can, it's just to repeat the brief back to the client as we see it. So this what we've got from and it might, because it's not always you don't get a formal kind of written briefs from from certain clients, you know, it's over a conversation or it's this, or it's a WhatsApp message saying, Oh, actually, why don't we do this? So it's kind of just repeating those back and saying, is this what you think and hoping that hoping to? I have is that it hasn't changed, but no. So then, and then that gives us a bit of confidence, yes, to peg, a fee, a resource a time to, to that particular bit and just sort, of course, and doing it in a nice way? I think not to try and get overly overly contractual, but still having something in front that says, of course, you know, should these sorts of things change, we were going to need to have a discussion about it. And just being sort of honest and giving that heads up? I think because, as we said, sort of having a reasonable fee in the first place means that you can be a bit more flexible without having to get Oh, we didn't allow for that, Oh, I did an extra sketch, can I have 10 pounds, that no one likes to keep doing those and that sort of death by 1000 cuts. But I think paying off something tangible, with enough fat in it, that you can be really responsive and really nimble, and be there for the client when they want to call you up and make a kind of random change at whatever time it might be. But also being being able to have that conversation. So enough enough kind of thing.
In terms of like monitoring projects, and kind of their profitability, you said that you've got some quite sophisticated software there that you that you use. So you've got a very close eye on your overheads. Is it something now that your project managers or your project architects, they're kind of they're in the numbers, they like there's a budget allocated to a specific project, and they're monitoring that and helping kind of create timelines and allowances for time spent on projects. How does that work?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think, um, with the with the sort of size of practice that we've, we've become now on the team, we've got to kind of want to be 22, I think, at the moment, full time staff. And within that, we've now got kind of what we've got amazing talent throughout everyone. Well, as a first and foremost, we're a studio and we've always had amazing people, that's been the most the biggest emphasis we put on The Bachelor, the group we've got right now are amazing to a tee, there's no there's no one, there's no sort of dead dead wood. And equally, they get on really well with each other and as well, great. But the the sort of senior team we've got in place now we involve them earlier on in terms of our fee proposal. So rather than just being handed down and being like, right, we've got this fear, you gotta deliver it in that time, it's actually getting the kind of project runners to feed into that to look at, you know, are the programs and timescale right? Do we think the resourcing is right? Who are the available people? Do we need to have any gaps in that? And getting their buy in to that as well, so that they're not feeling aggrieved? And, you know, while there's a deadline, and six weeks, and they're like, Well, yeah, but you signed up to them, we're the ones we've got to do it. So what, you know, how does that give, so having having greater transparency in the studio with the senior team is great, and they can feed that down the timesheets every week, go back into it, each stage has an allotted budget next to it, so we can kind of keep tracking it. Obviously, you know, the best one in the world. Nothing ever goes completely according to the to the plan, but at least there's a plan in place. And we can tweak things. And we have resourcing meetings every week with the senior guys and just monitor each project got actually this deadlines moved or that can we borrow a bit as resource from this or that? But yeah, no, it seems to I mean, touching, touching wood here seems to be quite a good system that we've got in place where we can kind of just really kind of be on top of it all. And it doesn't need to be overbearing, and kind of feel like this sort of thing that you have to kind of look at every single day, but you you know, we're now quite adept at it and you can just quickly kind of different out or just check on that certain projects, just really high level almost literally at a glance and just check where it is without getting bogged down. So it's a really that's a really useful tool and then development our team can now get into as well.
In terms of discussing same more higher level finances with the with the rest of the team, how transparent are you with, with money with profit? How the success of the company, is there a good culture of that or do you prefer to kind of keep it much more focused amongst the select part of the leadership team?
Yeah, I think we don't generally discuss it across the whole team. I think we do when we you know At the end of the year, we'll sort of just have a general kind of discussion about, you know, how we've performed, we've made profit, we'd like to share some of that with you guys around that. We don't tend to get into the nitty gritty of it, I think it's interesting. And there have been instances along the line where, you know, typically more junior members of the team have seen a fee, and then they've seen their salary. And they're like, Well, what the hell's going on? That? Surely I should be getting way more money, without understanding all the nuances of the kind of overheads and software costs and the insurance and all those things that I guess you only really kind of grow into with a few with a few years experience? So it's not necessarily about hiding it? But it's just is that a useful conversation to have? Are those numbers tangible to the people that you're talking to? So I think, in short, we don't we don't kind of discuss it a huge amount with the whole studio. But weekly, we're always open to oh, that's,
that's very interesting that that exact point, you know, there's there is a there is, you know, when you're being transparent with finances, in, in a business, there's a level of responsibility that the person seeing the number needs to be able to have, and I've, I've shared on the show before, you know, I've been rung up on a Tuesday morning by someone who's listened to the podcast and employee of a business who's just seen how much they're being billed out. And, you know, they ring me up, you know, how this person found my phone number, for starters, and why they thought I was the best person to call and complain to, but it was always remember this, this young person phoned me up and said, and said, Ah, you know, it's crazy what's happening in my business that I'm working at, I've just found out that my boss is he's charging me out three times what he's paying me. I was like, hold on a moment, that's like, he's doing the right thing there. And that's perfect. But when you when I can, and also very empathetic and understanding of like, when you're a young architect who doesn't know all of the other mechanisms that are in play, you see something like that, and you could be shocked and feel like, you know, there's there's an advantage being taken, or there's exploitation, and it can, it can quickly go into that kind of narrative. So there's definitely like shows, there's a level of responsibility
that's needed. There's also a bandwidth, a bandwidth thing as well, because genuinely, I don't, you know, and some of them are younger, more Jenica, they've never asked now, maybe that's they don't feel comfortable enough to do that. But I also wonder if there's a bandwidth thing where you know, it's your first job, you're straight out of uni, you're immersed in these great projects, and you're around amazing people, and you're just absorbing everything I you know, I wonder whether I'm just thinking through, it tends to be, as you say, more senior people who want to get bit more understanding about it. We have those conversations a bit further down the line. But yeah, I almost wonder whether there's a bandwidth thing where it's, you know, there's a lot to take on and a lot to learn even post your, your qualifications and education. So maybe it's a bandwidth thing as well.
Absolutely. And in terms of your role, how it's changed since when you kind of first when you and Lara first set the business up? How has your your role changed? What do you find yourself doing more now? And, you know, the things that you've had to let go of, or some of the some of the challenges as well that perhaps you've found in actually allowing yourself to grow into the into a leadership role?
Yeah, interesting. The, I mean, one thing. Well, I'm not gonna name a practice I worked out early on, I remember thinking bloody other partners are absolute dinosaurs, I can't do anything. And I swore to myself that I'd never become one. But I am very much definitely a premature dinosaur in terms of sort of CAD CAD and Software wise. So I don't actually do any kind of draw, I don't do any CAD anymore. I don't do any modeling anymore. I think that's a product through you know, a, I've been kind of doing doing some of the other elements of the job, you know, the kind of client fronted stuff, the fee stuff, the practice.
I mean, I often say that's a very healthy sign when the partners of the business don't draw anymore.
Yeah, yeah. But I mean I think it's partly it's partly that that you know, that it necessarily became that way but also you know, you guys coming through now that's so good and they're doing everything in cinema 4d And it's it's amazing visuals and so they would also I would have had to invest a lot of time in myself to get myself back up to speed and probably still not do it as well as the guys guys. So I guess from that point of view, that's that's been a big change. The I still get we get involved in all the projects across all the stages. I love the kind of early stage but I love concept and kind of pitching I'm really enjoyed that kind of thrill of the chase of kind of getting getting a new client and winning, winning a project and I still like to do that all the way through. I think again, necessarily probably from time, more than anything, I don't particularly see things have a site based role. And that kind of stage five and later on, that tends to be project architects who kind of take that through. Again, just because that kind of consistency of having the same people on it, I will obviously still go and visit site and go look at key points and those sort of things. But in terms of being in the nitty gritty, and understanding all the minutiae of what's changed, and who's done this, and whether that that needs kind of a more of a full time role. So I think probably the sort of the tail end bit of it, I'm not as actively involved of a project, but actually, in terms of the design of it, and even through to the technical stuff, and I love just, you know, I love being in a workshop or a design team meeting and, and, you know, still showing the kids that you've still got it, you know, working through a detail or just or just sometimes just coming at it fresh and just going, did anyone think of doing like that? Or? So? I mean, maybe they just do that to kind of placate me, and actually they just ignore me. It feels good to me.
Love it. And the role was between you and Laura, how are they? You know, has there been a kind of clear distinction between, you know, you're involved in winning the work and kind of front end type of stuff, and Lauer's more involved in operations, for example? Has that been? How have you guys kind of discussed or, you know, made that relationship or the roles be evenly distributed? If you like?
Yeah, I mean, I'm, pretty much is kind of how you just said actually, so. But it's more about what what we actually enjoy as much as what we're potentially good at. So, right. Yeah, I'm quite happy to go and talk to random roomful of strangers and kind of pitch and kind of do those various things. Whereas that's not naturally where she wants to be. She's got choice. Although we I think we don't both predict both best when we do it together. Because we, because of the relationship, and we naturally, you know, know where to step in, if someone's stumbling on something, or where you know where to elevate things. She's also got an incredibly annoying knack of just like meeting someone for about five seconds and getting to know them way better than I have in about three years, which is incredibly, but it's a talent, but it's also very annoying for me, I should like to hear that they did this. And I was like, No, I've known them since I went to school with it. So that and I guess also the, the nature of of, you know, where we are with our personal lives as well as we got to young, we're not so young. Now. They're six and nine. But the Lord took some time at the business when they when they were younger and stuff. So that naturally meant that things kind of moved on, in slightly different ways. So she still likes to kind of run a project. So she probably naturally, you know, if we do, we don't do that much residential, but if we do kind of a high end residential project, that would be the one that she'd just gravitate towards. She doesn't want to sit in a in a room with with 25 m&e, engineers, so I think the kind of project side of it, and also, you know, very much in terms of your saying about the kind of tone of voice and, and, and the sort of style of how we present ourselves online and our forward facing in terms of Instagram and website, that's all very much her domain. So yeah, there are there are different, but also, nothing's out of bounds. Like, I would never say, I'm going to meet this client, you're not coming and you know, vice versa. And she'd never say, this is this is the project, this is the press we're getting? No, do you want to? You can't look at it. So it's still very much a team. And we share opinions. And I think we Yeah, ultimate trust, I guess, is the main thing that she knows I'm not gonna do anything, you know, bad or stupid, or, and likewise, me with her, but equally, a second opinion is always quite kind of good to seek out and Matt, no matter what you're looking at,
yeah. And you guys are entering into this kind of interesting mid tier scale of practice, and you're kind of attorney to people. And we were kind of discussing a little bit earlier about there's, you know, there's a whole lot of changes that tend to happen, we often talk about it in the powers of three. So you know, three 927 81 There's, there's there's lots of big shifts that happen in a business where we think that you were doing previously now suddenly stops working as well. And there needs to be a little bit of a change. Have you started to see, you know, what, how are you preparing for the future growth? Do you want to maintain where you're at? Or do you have visions of taking the business further? And what kinds of challenges might you be foreseeing or what
I mean, we've, we've kind of hovered around this number, a little bit up a little bit down, up for a while. And I think I think this is our sort of our comfort zone. We don't want to we don't want to just relentlessly pursue kind of growth. I think there's a danger that you can you end up sort of chasing numbers on a spreadsheet, we've got to hit this target. We've got to be doing that this month, and you're just sort of looking at the numbers rather than looking at the product. So I think the size that we are is a great size like it's really Get You know, we can still physical things like we still be in like, one studio space together we all know each other we know each other's boyfriends girlfriends what's going on in that. And I think you lose that I think we I was on a course or a leadership course I kind of found as of of different studios a few years ago, we were we were the only architects there but the everyone else was from branding or graphics or marketing or illustration. Yeah, but everyone found that exactly, as you said that powers are three, I think I think they weren't as optimistic as you could someone, a few people in there said that 26 was the specific number where your studio become something different. So I mean, pretty much bang on what you're saying. Whereby you just suddenly you're splitting into teams, or you've got two people running different projects, or you can't invite partners to things because there's suddenly too many of you, whatever it is, so no, I think the size that we are, never say never, but we're certainly not looking to kind of grow up to 81 and hit that next power of three, that's for sure.
And what was the what does the internal structure kind of look like? Obviously, you guys have got, you know, you've got a broad base of different sort of disciplines that you're that you're working around, is it a projects, as it's like a kind of studio format? Or you've got multiple studios or multiple teams? How does the internal logic look like in the business?
Where we're all one big happy family? Of course, they know where to generally. So we, everyone, no, there aren't several studios, we are all we're all under one roof. We are all you know, we all kind of look at things together, we obviously resource things separately on a project by project basis. And can I give each one their own hierarchy. But typically those teams report back to the senior tier who kind of oversee it, but no, in terms of there's no division between interiors or architecture or graphics, we sometimes we do projects that are just interiors, in which case obviously that's it's more of a kind of a resource in the but it's still got the same structure still got the same kind of reporting, likewise, with architecture, but I guess the kind of most interesting bit and hopefully the bit that we've been successful with within our within our structures that everyone inputs into every project. So every time we get a new brief, we have a brainstorm very early on, everyone gets round everyone's race ideas, and whether that's kind of early concept early, brief pitching, and we'll do that a few times through the beginning. And because the and more often than manda kind of graphics person moment, you got incredible knowledge of architecture to come up with loads of references that none of us would ever have come up with. Likewise, interiors guys might come in slightly different bias than you know that the architecture people so we're getting all this kind of mixing melting pot of ideas and same with with, you know, the kind of support guys in the studio managers and administration because that, you know, everyone has an opinion. And I think it's really important that, you know, someone might not be an architect, but they did fine art, or they might not be an architect or an interior designer, but they've got a real interest in, you know, food, or fashion or film or whatever that is, and it's, you know, Oh, I saw this. I saw this amazing, you know, Japanese film noir at the weekend, remind me of that what they think and suddenly that can lead you down a path. So that openness and that structure, I think is probably what makes us unique in that we genuinely are a kind of proper melting pot of ideas. And then we refine that obviously, as the as the project develops.
Amazing, brilliant. What are you guys, what are you looking forward to over the next 12 months?
Next 12 months, we'll be getting the cars we're really excited about a pod, Japanese style pod hotel hostel, should I say that we've been working on which is really excited. So I think everyone's kind of familiar with typology in Japan. With the UK a tiny little, we're doing the UK at some, it's again, it's in Soho. So that's really exciting. And that's one that we've done, the interiors and the architecture. So that's gonna be great. That's on site at the moment coming together. So this time next year, we've got some great hospitality projects, we're looking at some kind of bars and restaurants looking at another member's club, office space for a new one and Kings Cross. So there's there's a real kind of mixture, mixture of projects coming through. And again, kind of back to my earlier point, that's exactly the way we like it. So yeah, doesn't matter on the size of the scale, or the shape or the form or the typology. It's all about that. Have they got that entrepreneurial spirit? And are they up for have having some fun along the way, and if it is, then sounds like something
amazing, brilliant. It's the perfect place to conclude the conversation. Russell, that's been absolutely brilliant. So I really appreciate your excellent, thank you. Awesome, thanks. And that's a wrap. And don't forget if you want to access your free training to learn how to structure your firm, or practice for freedom, fulfillment and profit, please visit smart practice method.com or If you'd like to speak to one of our advisors directly follow the link in the information. The views expressed on this show by my guests do not represent those of the host and I make no representation, promise guarantee, pledge warranty, contract, bond or commitment, except to help you the unstoppable
