489-Architectural Permitting Pitfalls -From Red Tape to Red Carpet with Joe Russo-UP1

10:46AM Oct 20, 2023

Speakers:

Enoch Sears

Rion Willard

Keywords:

architects

codes

permit

work

building

joe

people

deal

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problem

give

situation

podcast

put

drawings

department

rules

enoch

great

telling

Have confidence in the skill set that we really have and let us have value. Give yourself value by being confident in the skill that you really have.

Hello and welcome back architect Nation. I'm Enoch Sears. And this is the show where you'll discover tips, strategies and secrets for running more profitable and impactful architectural practice that lets you do your best work more often. If you haven't already gone and checked out our free 60 minute masterclass What are you waiting for? We've spent over a decade putting together all the information and resources in that action pack 60 minutes would love to see you on that webinar. If you go to smart practice method.com You'll be able to enter your email address there and watch it in the privacy of your own home. We're going to be talking about the pillars of the smart practice method, as well as some of the major myths that keep architects chained to their businesses. Instead of being able to enjoy architectural freedom. That smart practice method.com

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Today's episode is sponsored by n scape. Inscape is a plugin software that simplifies real time visualization. For us in the architecture, engineering and construction industries. Whether your go to design application is Revit SketchUp, Rhino ArchiCAD or Vectorworks Inscape lets you instantly create high quality renderings by syncing data from your 3d model without additional import or export needed, easily navigate every aspect of your design in real time, and identify and resolve any issues that you come across. Plus, you can immerse your clients. As an added bonus in VR to provide a real tangible sense of the project. Escape is used by over 500,000 monthly users across 150 countries, and you can express yourself, we encourage you to go check it out at Kaos dash inscape.com forward slash trial dash 14 or simply by Googling, try and escape you can also find the link in the notes of this podcast episode. Today we're going to be talking a lot about freedom. And on the podcast that I have Joe Russo. Joe is an carpenter and architect and little backstory on this. And I'll talk a little bit a little bit more about this when when Joe hops on here and we say hello, Joe reached out to me back in in May, and want to just really contribute to the conversation around this idea of permitting how to go from red tape to red carpet, you know, the red tape, you know dealing with permit officials and people who are always telling us that we did the drawings wrong and marking stuff up or holding our feet over the fire to you know slowing down the process. It can be a real nightmare and headache for us architects to deal with this permitting process. Now, Joe and his brilliance, realize this and started to notice that there were certain things that were useful. As he started to interact with permit officials, he started to see that you know what, not all approaches are created equal. Sometimes we can actually slow down the process, through what we do and how we show up and how we behave with the ah J the authority having jurisdiction, as we say here in the United States. And he actually developed a process and has some very good suggestions about how we as architects can work well, with these authorities that we know are an important and necessary part of the process, and how we can work together as colleagues but also how we can utilize their expertise, their knowledge to actually facilitate our projects and actually to get our projects through more quickly through the permitting process. So if you're anything like me, as I was when I was practicing full time, as an architect, you're super excited for this episode. Because permitting, you know, the permitting authorities are probably if you're working with them like I was they are a thorn in your side. And you know, sometimes they would probably say the same about us architects undoubtedly. So this will be a great conversation. And I'm super excited to have Joe here on the podcast today. Hello, Joe, Welcome to the Business of Architecture podcast.

Thank you so much Enoch. I am totally fed up with these people that you described and I am fired up to talk with you about that.

It sounds like you must have some personal experience based upon this So jump into it when did you first become like tell me when this this this issue arose and and your first challenge where you really thought you know this is this is something's messed up here.

You know it if you want to go way back the the very first foray into this actually had really nothing to do with permitting. It was just about how authorities treat citizens in general. And it was really related to it a traffic citation. And I use that experience of learning how to deal with that. And realizing that wow, I can really incorporate the process that I used here in my practice as an architect. And it basically just boiled down to the fact that I got pulled over for, for speeding. And when that officer gave me the citation, he also gave me another one, because my license plate was not on my front bumper, it was on the wind on the dashboard of my car. So that it kind of gave me insult to injury to have that second citation. And the way this developed was, I looked at the code that he cited on, on the citation. And as an architect, I was always, you know, you're still reading codes. And at that point, in my early career, I didn't really make the connection, that what the rules say, and what the reality to your situation are, doesn't always mean that that authority figure is correct. So here's, here's what it was, the way the rule was worded in the municipal code. And that jurisdiction said that your license plate must be displayed within one feet and four feet of the ground at the front of your vehicle. So I really thought about that and decided, wow, I was driving a sports car so low to the ground. And my dashboard was within that range of one, one feet to four feet. So I took a picture with a measuring tape. And then I thought about all right in front of the vehicle, where is the front of the vehicle, and I decided I'm going to go, I'm going to go into court and fight this. So I asked the judge, very politely, I was very nervous. And I said, Sir, can I just indulge you with a question? When you drive your vehicle? Do you sit in the front seat, or the back seat of your vehicle? And he laughed and said, Well, of course I sit in the front. And I said, Well, me too. I also sit in the front. So therefore when you drive, is your dashboard further forward from where you sit? And he said, Yes. And I said, Yeah, mine too. And that happens to be to where I had my license plate displayed, because I didn't want to drill a hole in that the nice bumper of my beautiful sports car. So I told you, the judge, you know, you've you've kind of defined where the front of the vehicle as the place where you sit. And when you drive in the dashboard is also the front end, here's what your law says, the front of the vehicle within one to four feet above the ground. And I showed him the picture with the tape measure. And he laughed. And he agreed with me. He said, Yeah, you're you're right, you you are following the rules, you should not have gotten that citation. But I understand you know, why you did, and if any, threw it out. And from that experience, I started to realize that I can do the same thing with the review notices that I get from building departments to determine if the rules that they say that we're not adhering to when we draw up our plans are actually things that that matter. There's a big difference, though, between, you know, where you put a license plate, and a building that needs to really protect people. Right? So it's all it all boils down to me to is the building, doing its job to meet the client's needs, budget and all that stuff. But is it? Is it really safe? Is it satisfying the intent of the code? And most of the time, when architects design stuff? I think it does, I think we have really good intentions. And we do our best to follow with all of the codes tell us to do and we propose a solution that we believe adheres to those codes. But then we get these review notices, like you mentioned, that says the contrary that we have not complied with, with whatever. And it really boils down to some sort of gray area that a code reviewer, or building department reviewer is interpreting in some way differently than how we have interpreted it. And that's where the permit problem guide comes in. Because we've developed a process that we use to try and engage with the building department reviewers to really join our team to be part of the process, rather than just to be an adversary that says no all the time.

I'd love to hear some some horror stories you may have heard of, and I'll show one myself. I'm sure listeners can empathize with this. Here in California. One of the things that I did, while full time practicing architecture was healthcare architecture. And as a part of that, not only do we have the building code, but we also have all the OSH pod regulations, which stands for the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development or something like that right. Now, OSH pod is great, great organization and they make sure that the stringent rules and regulations are applied to hospital facilities inpatient outpatient facilities in the in California, and I remember that as a young project architect, like my primary duty, like, definitely, I needed to know about the technical aspects. And I needed to know about egress. And I needed to know about, you know, how big an operating room should be how much space needed to be in a patient bedroom, and all those kinds of things that were clearly outlined in the code. However, what I saw was like, the principal of the firm that like his magic sauce was not only a deep knowledge of all those things, as well, but he had relationships with the people at the Office of Statewide Health Planning. So there's a Sacramento office, and there's the Los Angeles office. And I remember one particular phone call because these people are the bane of my existence, I mean, complete. It's literally one of the things that really effed me up with architecture, because I'm like, I just can't deal with all this red tape. But I remember there was a project that had been, it was it was just it was kind of in this limbo, it had been like three, three revisions already. And just back check comments, right, it was the same thing was kind of getting caught up in the same thing. And so the principal comes in and says I Enoch, we really need to move this thing along. It's been it's been, you know, it's been at entrepot for way too long. So the state fire marshal was the one who was holding up and I was talking with her the representative from the fire marshal's office and, and she took exception to a column detail. So there was a particular column detail that included of course, you know, for a particular class of buildings, you need to have fireproofing that's one hour, you know, whether it's where it's at in the building egress quarters, etc, your fire ratings. And then of course, you need to have, it needs to be UL listed. Underwriters Laboratories is what we use out here. And then also, you need to have a column head detail that matches the column, right, which in theory works out great. But if you've ever see a UL listing book, they're like this thick, and you may, if you're listening, I'm holding my hands up as thick as I can. My hand you know, between my ears, like you know, three, or three or four inches thick, this UL listing book is supposed to go through there, and you're supposed to find the right fire rating and the column and then you have to go find the head detail that matches that. And typically, these are all standard details. So typically, you just copy and paste what you did from another job, and you're good to go. Well, for whatever reason, like this particular situation, I don't remember the exact situation, but the way the column was situated, and the way that gypsum board wrapped around that column. And the way the fireproofing was, and the way to attach the head detail, there was literally no approved UL combination for this particular condition. And so she had, she had put it back to me, and we whittled down all the comments, it was just this one thing, just this one thing that was keeping this project from getting approved. And so I'm on the phone with her. And I'm saying, you know, I'm like, I don't remember what her name is Lindsey, or something like that. Lindsey. I said, you know, you've got to help me out here. I mean, I know other practices know, other firms. They're getting disapproved all the time. And I know they have the exact same, you know, column detail and head detail condition that we have right here that were shown in the drawings. And she, she went off the record her says, Oh, well, you know what they usually do? I said, no, please tell me how do they how do they how do they do this? Because what they do is they draw it up one way. And then when it gets in the field, they do it another way. And I'm like, I'm like, so we just spent three months going back and forth. And what you're telling me is, there's no solution here, and there's no flexibility. And I have to do it the letter of the law, even though you know that the letter of the law literally is not practical, or even possible. Just like yeah, that's right. Is that okay? I'm making the change. I'll send it over today. And, you know, she signed it and send it back the next day. Like, I was like going home or crossing a bridge and thinking, is it worth it? And I'm like, No, I have kids. I have a family probably wouldn't be good that drive off a bridge, right? Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So Joe, what have you what have you You probably heard worse than that. Yeah. And it's, it's,

it's crazy. Because that, ultimately, is what a lot of these things boil down to the kind of the connection between what happens on paper and what happens in the actual built environment. I always say I feel so bad for for builders that have to take these drawings that we're creating, and drawings and quotes because they're, they're not really drawings anymore. They're, they're like these, these really thick manuals of text, and you'd have to be a PhD and multiple things to be able to really figure out how, how to really put these drawings together or to build with these drawings say, because there's so many cross references, so many references to these codes that we're really just putting in there for cya to to please the lenses out there. And we do that to get through the permit process and the the lenses know that it's it's going to be fine. We know that it's going to be fine. The builders want to build it so that it's going to work. And we're all working as a team for the for the most part. And we all know that it's not going to be built exactly the way that it's put on paper. We've we've seen every single building in the history of time get built differently than what what the drawing, say, because there's a very, very big disconnect between the two. So that story that you told really, really rings true that if we can wrap our minds around that, as architects, and really understand the connection between how things get built, and what we put on paper, I think we can do a better job of not only designing better buildings, but creating better relationships with the builders, and getting these things permitted a bit quicker, because at the end of the day, the lenses out there, they have a checklist, there's a checklist, and they have to go through it, and they have to mark their boxes. And we just need them to mark those boxes. And then once it's off their plate, then there's an inspector that we have to deal with, and that inspectors going to have a different checklist and different things that they're, they're personally concerned with, and we're going to have to please them next, or more. So the builder is going to have to please them next. And that is the part of the process where as a architect, if we can really engage with that, and focus on the parts of the process that matter at that particular time, we're just going to set ourselves up for more success. And it's as simple as that. So it's a matter of how do you do that? How do you set yourself Self up for success? It boils down to like you mentioned, your boss at the time had relationship with the people like her, he knew that the people that worked in those departments, and they had a relationship with one another. And because of that relationship, he was able to find success. But what happens for the architects out there that are just getting started the new entrepreneurs that don't have relationships already formulated with these people, or you're working in a place where you've never worked before, you don't have that pre determined relationship where they already like you. Or maybe they already hate you, maybe they do know you and they just don't like you. Or maybe they're having a bad day, and they're just gonna take it out on you, no matter what the situation is, they're gonna make it personal. So yeah, cuz let's

just pause it there for a second in my experience, and tell me if this is if you find the same thing to be true within the bounds of which they are interested, they do have a lot of flexibility about what they can do. So you know how upset they are that day, or how great their day is, is gonna have a huge impact on what they do during the daytime. Sort of like, like you mentioned the citation when I get pulled over by a cop, and he's been dealing with the past people who were saying, why'd you pull me over giving me excuses, doing all the things that he hates? And he pulls me over it's like ticket no problem. When I'm the first guy pulls over the day, and I'm like, profusely off. I was totally speeding didn't even see that I deserve it. You know, it's my tax. I haven't gotten a ticket in a while anyways, hey, it goes towards goes towards the making better roads, you know, I'm happy to pay it. He's, he or she will be more likely to be lenient. Do you find that to be true as well? With the Absolutely. Permit department? Yes, absolutely.

I mean, these are there are people we have good days, we have bad days. So

hold on there. These these. These are people they are some that I've questioned this before Joe? Like they gotta be robots. They're cyborgs.

Yeah, some of them questionable. We will have to forget that scientific

lazy might be they might be AI, or they will be. Because the AI Yeah. Do you think this is possible? Do you think how far off do you think AI for permit permit drawings and plant checking is?

Boy, that's a hard one. But I think like anything else, there are elements of that job that will be artificial intelligence. In the near very near future. There may be there already are. In fact, I had a situation just last week where I had a permit problem. And I learned later that it was a result of some back end AI software that they use at the building department that put things into the wrong category. And had I not fought it and asked why why is this a problem? It would have stayed a problem. And I think that's where us as architects fall into this category that we so commonly fall into where we just allow everybody to take advantage of us, whether it's clients not wanting to pay us what we're worth, whether it's builders not building the things that we've designed. They're going to build it the way they want to build it. Or building departments telling us what the rules are. In fact, when they're not even rules, a lot of the times it's just that person's opinion on how they're having, you know, they're having a bad day, and they're gonna make up the rule and make themselves feel important. So, yeah, at the end of the day, we have to be able to stand up for ourselves, not let people take advantage of us, and have confidence in the skill set that we really have. And let us have value, give yourself value by being confident in the skill that you really have. So in the context of permit problems, it's really about looking at the issue and understanding is there a problem? And ask, I'm gonna pause

right here just for a second, just for a second. Before before we jump into the solution, we definitely want to get there. I'd love to hear from your perspective, any any horror stories that come to mind? What are some of the most gritty things that you've seen, either from others, or from yourself that have just been eye Turner's, you're just like, oh,

yeah, I'm just gonna start with a very quick and simple one. And then I'll give you another one. Next. So a very simple one. This was just yesterday, a building department is asking me to fill out a compliance form that basically just says, yeah, we've built this building and use this kind of insulation. It's built in, it complies. So you fill out the form after the building is built. While they were telling me to fill it out before the building was built. There, there is no way to test the infiltration rates of a building that's not built yet, because it's not built yet. And they're insisting that we filled out the form. And in my defiant mind, I can't just go along with what they say, I have to ask why and sort of put them in their place. So that's a very small example of just standing up for yourself and establishing, hey, I have this skill set, I have the knowledge, I'm not just going to do it, because you told me to do it. So that's a quick example. Another example, that's a little bit more in depth that I would love to share, because this one really made me feel good to help this person. You know, if you if you asked me, you know, 15 years ago, when I was a young architect, hey, what's the best part of your job, I'd probably describe something about a beautiful building that I designed. But I think if you asked me now a story, like the one I'm about to tell you, is going to be really, really high on that list. Because this is a situation where a homeowner gets a violation. Notice in the mail, and they are just beside themselves. They're scared. They're facing fines, they can't sleep at night, their relationship with their wife and and family is going downhill because they are so scared about a violation notice they get in the mail. And what this situation is, it's about me helping this person to get to the other side. Alright, so you're ready to hear what the story is. I'm all ears. All right, here we go. So picture, a retired veteran. He's he he worked. He served in the military, defended his country, got a job worked his 30 years, collecting his retirement, it's paid off his house, things are good. He's happy. bills are paid for one day, he's out there cutting the grass, the lawn mower kicks up a rock, the rock, smacks a window on the side of his attached garage and breaks it. So this window is it's really long, it's like a six or eight foot long window and it's thin or not so high. It's I think it was like one foot high and like six or eight feet long. So a very weird shaped window, not something easy to replace. So in an effort to replace this window, he takes it out and goes to one of the hardware stores and picks up like three smaller windows that will fit into that opening. And he gets he gets that installed. And as he's as he's doing that work, he realizes Oh, there's there's some wiring behind my drywall here. So as he's peeling away the layers getting these windows installed, he sees this wiring, and he does what he believes is the right thing. And he calls in a licensed electrician to change out that that really old wiring and the licensed electrician calls for a electrical inspection. Guess what the electrical inspector does? He calls the building department and says, Hey, you have a guy here. Doing unpermitted work. He needs a building permit because he just They put a new window in his attached garage. So then he gets this violation. He's he's, he can't sleep, he's he's worried all this and then he ends up calling me and says, Hey, John, just what what should i What should I do? Like, how do I get through this? And I said, Don't worry, your, you know, your, your problem is not mine, I'm gonna get you through this. Don't worry about it, the fines that you're facing are not a big deal, I'm going to get those waived. Because in reality here, you don't need a permit, there is no reason to have a building permit for replacing a window within an existing opening, you didn't change the structure. It's an unheated space. They don't even need to meet the energy code. So I coach him through all this stuff. And I tell him what he needs to say to the building department. And then he kind of reports back to me with with what they come back with next. And they tell him that he needs to have a drywall permit. And I tell him, what is a drywall permit? There's building permits, there's plumbing permits, there's elect, what is a drywall permit? You said? I don't know. But that's what they said that I need? And I said, Did they tell you? Is there a form or something you have to fill out to get your drywall permit? And he said, Well, they told me to fill out the building permit form, and to just write drywall permit at the top. And I said, Alright, I'm getting fired up here, Nick, like, this stuff just drives me crazy. So I mean, it's not even about like earning an income at this point. For me, I just want to just want to help this guy, I want to put these people in their place. So that he made it personal for me. So I'm, I'm there and I'm like, Alright, I need to I need to keep my cool, I need to make sure that I don't call up this building department and irritate somebody, or tell him something that will irritate them, because they'll make the problem even worse. So I just provided him with with some information and said, Hey, there, we can't find a drywall permit form and your list of forms available, we can't find any codes, can you just teach us more about what those requirements are so that we could try to follow them? Alright, so so he was trying to act like the good guy trying to follow their process. And then it turns out, they they obviously can't cite any information in their codes that are forms that are for drywall only. And they just waived the whole thing. And he did what he needed to he got his electrical permit, and all was good. So we turned this thing that wasn't a problem in the first place. For a guy that saw a big problem, and big, big fines and fees and all that and put everything at ease. And that was something for me for the rest of the month. I'm just feeling so good walking around, like man, I'm helping people and out there in the world. To get through things like this, if it hadn't been for me, he was going to have to pay these fines, he was going to have to tear apart a lot of his his garage. And he was gonna have to rebuild things just to comply with things that weren't actually rules. So so that's a very small, easy to understand situation, that shows how these steps that we we've we helped him with can can really, really go a long way we can get into things where we're convincing building departments that multi unit 12 dwelling structures don't require fire sprinklers. And it all kind of boils down to kind of what I gave you an in the example about the traffic citation for the license plate, how when you read the codes, you read the language, what does it actually say? What are what are the assumptions people are making? And how can you get them to feel like they are part of your team. So that when you work together, you can do what the rules say, and convince them that the thing that you believe is the right thing to do. And the things that they're assuming, may not actually be what the laws, say if you really really dissect the language.

What have you found Joe to be a good framework or a way to approach these conversations that be successful? And when people go check out your course? What kind of tips are they gonna get about how to do this?

Yeah, so step one about this is to to really determine what are the actual rules to kind of separate out the difference between opinion and actual codified ordinances. And when you when you do that you can really isolate what problems do you really need to solve you because you don't want to solve problems that aren't really problems, right? So that's really one of the key things to do here. So then once you do that, and start on to the path of solving a real problem, that really is a problem, then it's about communication. How do you properly communicate with this person who is acting as an adversary, so that you can hopefully get them to, to feel like they're part of your your team. And that's where this concept that I've learned, I learned it from a book that I read about negotiating with hostages. And what it what it said that really resonated with me was that the way people perceive what you say, actually has very little to do with the words that came out of your mouth. So what they really what people really perceive is your body language, and your tone of voice. And there's, there's some, there's some ratio, I think it's like the body language, it's at least 50% of what people interpret and internalize with how, how you communicate, and the tone of your voice is, is up there. It's like 30, some percent. And the the last little 10% sliver is what the actual words are. So what that really means is, the words don't matter that much. It's a very, very small percentage of how people perceive what you have actually said to them. So if you can kind of say to somebody with a smile on your face, I am going to murder your family. Like that's the part where maybe that 10% might matter. But you're creating a atmosphere where there's something about you something about your charisma or something about your presentation, where you can maybe convince people of things that maybe they wouldn't have really been convinced of had you not presented it in a different sort of way.

Yeah, it's it sort of counts against me a little bit. My wife always tells me I have RBF you know, the role of the good old resting bitchface? Yeah, that so I can, yeah, I can, I can be saying something completely loving compassion that comes across as very brusque and, and confrontational. So some of us have more, more automatic expression of compassion than others. So body language, huge tip, huge tip. And how do you how do you find yourself implementing that when you're involved in these situations?

It's becoming harder and harder, because these robots that we we mentioned earlier, it's hard to get them in a face to face situation. They mainly just email nowadays, we don't have that in person. condition that we get to work with anymore. A lot of the building departments I work with, some of them are still closed from COVID. In Home, wow. At the time of this recording were what were three years since that time,

right? Sound like that, since it started? Yeah, three years.

Yeah. So it's, it's interesting. Some of them are still closed, you can't walk in there. So now you're isolated to either email, which is most of it. And that's it.

This just sounds like an excuse to get out of having to service people at the front counter. Oh, man. COVID sure was nice. We didn't have to deal with anyone. We didn't have to man, the front counter, you know, and let's just keep on let's just keep on let's just, let's just keep on using this whole COVID thing. Yeah, and I need I need that going on.

Oh, yeah, that's, that's part of it. And there's, there's pros and cons to this, the, the, the con is that, hey, we can't just easily walk in and force these people to engage with us and see our body language and and feel our tone. Because they're really pigeon holing you into sending them an email. The the other workaround to this is, we can at least try to get them on the phone. They don't, they don't return phone calls very easily. That's, that's the experience that I have, and a lot of my co workers have, you really, really have to work hard to get them on the phone. And then if you're really lucky, you set up a virtual meeting with them so that they can experience that tone of voice and the body language and I mean, what do you feel right now in it? Are you are you feeling the the body language and the chemistry from how we're talking at this moment? Is does that come through in this manner?

Yeah, yeah, it comes through conversational open. You know, warm it felt Yeah,

yeah. So it's, it's, it's a okay substitute for actually being in person. I think we can communicate effectively in this manner. So a really big tip is just to try to divert the conversation from An email over to something that's at least a phone call or better yet a virtual call. If you can get it in person, that's even even better. Because that's, that's where you're kind of locked into the best case scenario of getting all those senses of communication locked in with the person that you're going to engage with. It's harder for them to turn you away.

Yeah, beautiful. It reminds me of a little side note reminds me of one of my my I have a my sister's cousin who's just one of these. She's really flowery very, how do you put it extroverted? She comes across very extroverted, very, a very warm, enthusiastic person. So just to underscore your point more, she wants to give me a tip. She's like, Enoch. I was, I was late for my plane. And like, I was worried I wasn't gonna get on she was kind of needed some concessions to happen, right? Because like she should have gotten there late. And she's like, it's just like interest. She's like, I laid it on thick. Oh, my goodness. I just ran up a flight of stairs. Oh, oh, so good to see you today. Oh, how are you? Well, that's a very nice shirt you have on? Where are you headed? Ma'am? I'm trying to get on the plane to Austin. I don't suppose there's anything you could possibly do? I mean, I've just come from XY and Z and above above a person feels sorry for him. Oh, sure. Sure. Oh, my goodness, you saved me so much. Thank you, how can I ever repay you? You know, and it was just I chuckled because I'm like, You know what, that's a good point. That's a good point. So I try, I tried to bring I've tried to practice it's difficult, but tried to practice my, my damsel in distress, when I'm in the airport as much as possible and added a good dose of flattery and kindness. But you're right, I've seen that people respond to it, you know, and whether it's, you know, whether it's people with a ticket counter, and let's face it, people who work for airlines deal with a lot of upset people, because there's delayed flights, there's weather, there's people who just you know, they didn't understand some regulation, you know, so people are very stressed out. So if you can be that fresh breath of fresh breath of air, like, oh, man, the way you handled that last guy was brilliant. I mean, who you must have a master's degree in psychology to be able to deal with all these people, you know, they like to hear stuff like that I imagine similar approach would work with these planchette robots? Possibly,

yeah, they're the paradigm like, like you mentioned, when when you walk up to them, the paradigm is that they're already coming from a situation where they've dealt with 20 negative experiences before you. So it's, it is understandable that these people have, they have a condition around them, that's not very supportive. So if we can just be that breath of fresh air, like you said, that can enable them to understand that, hey, we're trying to help people create housing or create this assisted living facility and you're part of it, you get to be part of this, and paint the picture that they're not just there to help you solve some sort of a problem, but to be part of some sort of big solution that helps their community and paint that picture for them, rather than just diving right into the problem that you're really trying to solve.

So that's absolutely, yes. That's really powerful that I call that the we approach, which is, instead of seeing someone as an adversary, kind of put your arm around the figuratively, hey, this is a big problem. And you know, you're part of this too. What do you think we could do here? Can we put our heads together? What can I do in this situation? Any suggestions? You know, kind of approaching things that, you know, it's not me versus you, it's us. We have this project, it's going up in town and really excited about it, and you get to be a part of it.

Yeah, exactly. And also, something you mentioned about your cousin, the way you phrased one of the things was, You don't suppose there's something you can do? You can ask that same question in a different way. Such as, is there something you can do? Okay, if you say, Is there something you can do? The answer could very easily be No. But if you say, You don't suppose there's something you can do? The answer can eat more easily be yes. Right. So when you make it easy for somebody to answer with a yes. You have now created a scenario where they have already told you one yes. And every yes, that you can get it creates a more positive vibe. So if you're very careful about how you phrase your questions, so that you can make it easy for that adversary to feel like they can later answer you in a supportive way. You're only going to make it that much easier for yourself. So I noticed that when you when you mentioned that earlier is like yeah, that's that's exactly how it works.

Right? Thank you. Yeah.

And another example is like, let's say for an a situation, if you want to get a very specific answer, but but the answer can be, in many different ways to the same exact question. So if I were to ask you, in, what color is the sky? Blue? And you say, blue? Of course, of course, it's blue. I knew you're gonna say blue before I asked that question. But if I were to say, if I wanted the answer of white or gray, I can say, hey, Enoch, what color is the sky? When it's cloudy up, of course, you're going to say white, or gray or something to that effect, you're not going to say blue. So when you are dealing with one of these building officials, and you know that there's a problem, where there's ambiguity in how the code is written, you just don't want to go to this person and say, Hey, what do I do here? Because they're able to answer that question in any way they want. But if you can rephrase that question in a way, where you can almost force them to answer it in the way that you want them to answer it, then obviously, you're going to have a lot more success. Just just like this example, with what color is the sky, you can do that with, with any sort of question any sort of language, and guide the discussion in your favor, based on the outcome that you're you're hoping for. But to do that, you really need to be a master of what the rules are, you need to know the codes better than they do. And that may seem very daunting. But you have to remember, when you're engaged in that conversation with this person, they just dealt with 20 people before you, their mind is not wrapped around this situation as carefully as you may be wrapped into it. So therefore, you have done your studying, studying, you have really researched this issue. You know, it's it's this 23 dot 44.1 dot a, you know all the things by heart, before you've picked up that phone, or before you've walked into their office. So that way, you can really guide that that conversation. And they are going to be they're not going to be the ones who are the experts at that moment, you're going to be the expert, because you've done your due diligence. So that gives you the upper hand on really guiding that conversation and asking the questions in a way they're gonna, that are really going to get the answers that you want. And you and you want to do that in a way where you build an argument, you ask sort of preliminary questions first, so that once they give the answers, you can then build upon those answers and reference them later in the discussion. So you could say, Yeah, remember, you said, x. So therefore, because of X, then we're going to do Y. And it's going to be very hard for them to go back on what they said, because they want to be right there, they're never going to change their mind about something. So you really can use that to your advantage. The The interesting thing about these codes that we're dealing with is they are ambiguous, the intent is that the codes are written in a way where they can apply to every building in the world of that particular construction type of that particular occupancy. So there's no way they can write these things in a perfect way. So of course, there's going to be ambiguity in there. And that's what we can use to our advantage. And as a very highly skilled architect who is a master of your craft, who wants to do a good building, that's going to be safe and effective. We can use that ambiguity in our favor to get the answers that we want, so that it can perform at its best. And not let that building department take advantage of us and give us some sort of interpretation that's not aligned with those goals. So we got to stick up for ourselves.

I mean, if we don't who will? Yeah, exactly. Joe, what I know that there's a lot of firm owners deal with a difficult situation of being the ones where all the problems rise to the top, so to speak. So a lot of practice owners, especially running small practices, they're the ones who are having to jump in and handle these challenging conversations with building officials. What would you recommend for firm owners to be able to train their staff up because I'm sure if they could get this problem off their plate if they had a way to be able to distill this information down into a team member, where a team member could then handle these things adroitly that would get huge value for a practice.

Yeah, It's interesting, because if you really think backing up to the training that you got to be the master at doing permitting or, or dealing with code issues, or whatever. I bet you couldn't pinpoint a time where anybody ever gave him that sort of training.

I'm like, what are we talking about? You mean me reading through the code like five times to try to understand what it means? Yeah,

if there is none, right? There is nothing, nothing that I ever got nothing that you ever got. It's just trial by fire the school of hard knocks, you'll learn it on the streets. So what I am endeavoring to do is to give people something where they at least have a starting point, to not have to learn the hard way for 10 years, but to take a shortcut, and get a few tips and tricks where they can learn some of this craft and learn to master it in a much faster timeline. And that, and that's what I've put together with this permit problem guide. And it outlines some of those steps. And with practice, you're going to be much, much better off than getting getting no training at all, like like you got and like I got as well.

Beautiful, where can people go to find out more about the permit Training Guide? And what will they find when they get over there?

Yeah, so the the permit, problem guide, it's, it's dot com permit problem guide.com. And there's, there's kind of two paths you can go. One is like dipping your toes, it's a mini course. And it just goes through some very short summary outlines of steps that you can incorporate to try and deal with big, big picture problems. Then we also have a full course where you have a lot of case studies, a lot of examples of very specific situations for how to deal with a particular problem. So you might say, Hey, I have this problem with fire sprinklers or this problem with accessory dwelling units. And we have stuff built into that where you can just hone right in on that particular topic, and see how other people have have dealt with it. And we're always expanding on and adding more content to this thing over time as either myself or, or other people who are taking these courses share their their success stories and failure stories. Because we're a community trying to figure out how to work together and, and broaden all of our knowledge base together.

Beautiful, I love it. Well, Joe, great having you on. And before we jump, before we jump off here, just drop a little, I would like drop a little bonus content for our members. Because there's something interesting that happened behind the scenes, the Business of Architecture and the podcast process here that I talked to you about before we came on here. And it's important with regards to how architects run their practices, and particularly how they get work and how they make things happen efficiently in their practice. So Joe reached out to my team back in May, right now, as of this recording, it's October. So May, June, July, August, September, October, six months later, the first time he reached out Jackie, on my team, you know, we have pretty high high bar, so to speak, in terms of like very specific people that we accept on the podcast. And so Jackie said, Hey, look at the moment, we're not accepting anyone. And so then Joe graciously, you know, took that on board and said great, any chance that might change in the future. And then Jackie wrote back and she said, Hey, in September. Now also, I'm very busy, I'm hard to get a hold of and sometimes vetting podcast guests is not highest on my priority list. And so it's one of the things that kind of gets bumped to the bottom. So I went back and I looked at her email and Joe had actually followed up eight times with his value proposition for the podcast, basically starting out with the problem, here's the problem that I see in the market. Here's the solution. Here's some tips and here's what will be valuable to your audience is brilliant, brilliant pitch to come on the podcast. And here's the prompt like sometimes when we're running businesses and when we're architects and when we see things happen in the world we don't really know what happens behind the scenes like what it really takes to be successful in the world. Okay, if you go back to my there's a couple podcasts interviews with I've done with business development managers and people that are in that role and they talk about having to follow up multiple multiple times they just keep on falling up patiently and and politely until the the get a definite yes or no or even if it's no sometimes you can steep keep keep following up. Right. So for those of you listening here from the outside, oftentimes it can sing Oh, you know, Joe must be the most amazing person in the world, which he pretty much is but you know he's special. That's why he was able to get on the podcast. Know, he had good content. He was diligent and reaching out. Set a calendar reminder to follow back up followed back up in September. And here We are doing the interview.

You know, it sounds familiar. We have building departments telling us no, we have Enoch Sears telling us No. But hey, here we are, right. So just because somebody tells you no, doesn't mean that that's the final answer. When we are confident and what we can do with the value that we can add, sometimes you need to keep asking, or sometimes you need to keep telling that building department official so that you can get the answer that everybody really needs. The reason I'm I'm really here is exactly why what I started with, I don't want people to take advantage of architects anymore. That that's it. This needs to stop charge rate, raise your fees, guys. You're not trying to

can we can sit Wait, pause or please say that again? Oh, say that, yes.

Raise your fees, people that you know, you are extraordinarily intelligent. I know you're all hard working. Do yourselves a favor. Don't undersell yourself. Don't let these clients take advantage of you. Because it's it's happening over and over again. And we just need to stand up for ourselves. And that's, that's what I'm here to really convince everybody of when those when those building departments tell you no, please ask why. Please stand up for yourself. Please look into it further.

Excellent, which is exactly where our missions align. So it's been so great having you here. We're all about architects raising their fees, becoming ridiculously wealthy, having big impact, having fun along the way. So Joe, thank you for dropping some awesome knowledge bombs here, go find out more about the permit problem guide at permit problem guide.com. The a great resource for you for your team members. Here's the thing, young team members, I mean, I wish I would have had something like this back in the day for me, because some of these little just little tips about human to human communication can go a long ways. And if your team members learned this, in, in practice with the permit, you know, official shoot worlds, could they apply it with a contractor, right with a client. And then what happens is you start, you start getting closer to that beautiful thing we call the free architect that we teach here at Smart practice. So, Joe, again, thank you for coming on the podcast today.

Yeah, my pleasure. And thanks so much for having me. And that's a wrap.

Oh, yeah, one more thing. If you haven't already, head on over to iTunes and leave a review. We'd love to read your name out here on the show. Today's episode is sponsored by escape. Escape is a plugin software that simplifies real time visualization. For us in the architecture, engineering and construction industries. Whether your go to design application is Revit SketchUp, Rhino ArchiCAD or Vectorworks Inscape lets you instantly create high quality renderings by syncing data from your 3d model without additional import or export needed, easily navigate every aspect of your design in real time, and identify and resolve any issues that you come across. Plus, you can immerse your clients as an added bonus in VR to provide a real tangible sense of the project. Escape is used by over 500,000 monthly users across 150 countries and you can express yourself, we encourage you to go check it out at chaos dash inscape.com forward slash trial dash 14 or simply by googling. Try and escape. You can also find the link in the notes of this podcast episode. The views expressed on the show by my guests do not represent those of the hosts and I make no representation promise guarantee pledge warranty, contract, bond or commitment except to help you conquer the world. Carpe Diem