625: Why Design Talent Won’t Win You Clients (and What Will) with Joseph Aniedu of AGA

7:41PM Mar 18, 2025

Speakers:

Enoch Sears

Rion Willard

Keywords:

Client acquisition

design talent

marketing strategy

branding

project management

digital marketing

SEO

lead capture

client journey

architectural services

business growth

team structure

client communication

project delivery

business development.

Think with many architects, they've been groomed in such a way to be very design focused, so they explain a narrative that is design centered rather than, okay, it's not client centered. What do the client benefit from this? Hello

and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host, Ryan Willard, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Joseph and Enoch, a seasoned architect with extensive experience across a range of project types and procurement methods. Joseph has led both internal and external design teams in the successful delivery of complex, multidisciplinary projects spanning residential hospitality and mixed used sectors with a remarkable portfolio that includes award winning healthcare and hospitality projects in the UK. Joseph's work has contributed to projects totaling nearly 1 billion pounds in value. His tenure as a senior architect for major clients has refined his approach to balancing the critical demands of quality time, cost and resource management in each project. An advocate for collaborative problem solving, Joseph works seamlessly with design teams, main contractors, specialist, subcontractors and suppliers, ensuring strategic and detail orientated solutions for every project. His passion for building information modeling BIM underlines his dedication to enhancing workflow and efficiency across all Rova stages, ensuring smoother and more effective project delivery from start to finish. So in today's episode, we will be discussing growth in the healthcare sector in the UK. We'll look at leadership and strategic vision in an organization and how best to develop that. And we'll also look at some of the strategies for client acquisition that Joseph and his team have employed. So sit back, relax and enjoy, Joseph. Any ado, this episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architecture's 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 smartpractice method.com or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how he might be able to help you, please follow the link in the information. Joseph, Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you?

Hello, Ryan. Absolute pleasure to be here. You got me blushing, which is always a good sign. Good

stuff, good stuff. So you are the founder and principal of Argo associates. You guys have got an amazing portfolio of luxury homes. I know you're doing a bit of healthcare now as well, quite a bit of it. This has been become a new, new sector that you guys have been moving into amazing portfolio of beautiful homes right across the UK, mainly in London. And I love your website. Your website's a very thoughtful piece of marketing collateral, like, if you've there's been some marketing thought put into it, it's not your classic architecture website. And you actually kind of, you know, I think that's one of the things that we can talk about, is that you clearly got a lot more skill in communication and communicating to target demographic clients and understanding client experience than we're off, than we're used to seeing with a lot of architectural websites, and obviously that's gonna be a big part of your growth and your success. So why don't we start off with, how did it all start?

How did it all start?

Your conception, or anything like that.

I was about to indulge, you know, so I had to hold back. I gotta be careful in case I get censored. But, um, would you believe it? I think most people would expect an answer whereby they say that they were inspired or something. Mine really wasn't the case. It stemmed from utter frustration. You know, it stemmed from utter frustration in a sense that I saw glimpses of how I would like certain things to be, and I'm a huge fan of efficiencies and creating templates and protocols. And if, even when it goes from architecture to marketing, same logic is consistent,

and it really

did stem from frustration. It was just frustration in the sense that, okay, one would like to attract a lot of various projects. However, you can be the best architect in the world, but if you're not great at marketing and branding, nobody knows of your existence, and it's getting that bit right from the concept and trying to take the client on a journey. So you talk about the website, you have to set your presentation in a particular manner in order to attract a particular type of clientele. So. And it has to resonate. It has to be read user friendly at the same time it got to send them on a journey, and it has to be an end goal. And I'm obsessed with that end goal, and just taking them through a journey. So more than happy to elaborate. That elaborate

Well, yeah, perhaps, perhaps you can tell us a little bit about the, you know, the sorts of first projects that you bought into the practice, how you won those, and then how the you know what kind of relationship you've had with marketing, and you know how you've expanded to the way that you communicate,

right? Okay, so it all started not too long ago, whereby I had a particular family. Well, I had an uncle of mine, and I was working on another practice, and he asked me the question, I've got this multi million pound project, and I would like you to develop it. And I'm sitting back thinking, Oh, I've not got my entrepreneurial hat on at this point, I'm just thinking, I'm walking towards the studio with its multi million pound project about to walk in towards the company directors, and I ring my father in absolute excitement. So hey, okay, my dad just put a hand on my shoulder, turned around and said, Joseph, what on earth are you doing? I'm about to hand this project over to the to the firm. It's like your uncle that's had complete faith in you and what you've been doing over the years has handed it to you. So this should act as a trigger to set something up and bringing a team, and that's what happened. So I said to myself, Okay, I need to go wise, wise father. Yeah, so that was a rude awakening. Put it that way,

your your dad a business person as well. Yeah,

he is, he's, he's a property developer. So he's a property developer and but again, this story stems from frustration of countless summer holidays on construction sites, watching everything go wrong and wondering, why, why? Where's the order, where's the coordination. You know, I'm tired of this. And then obviously, from that moment, when working in the summer holidays with him, I started to put things into order so I get a better understanding the same way I put packages together in architecture, I start to apply this in construction, in regards to creating a streamlined way of doing it, and in a way, saying no to a lot of things, things that just didn't make sense. And I stuck to a rule of a three point rule whereby, if it went, if it was a process that was more complex than more than three steps, I would void it, you know, if that makes sense. So I I kind of stuck to it. And in a way, I allowed me to test certain ways to do things, but fail only twice, rather than continuously failing. So

the sort of the first project that you had, you had in a multi million, multi million pounds scheme. That's what was that like, taking that, taking that on, and not bringing it into the practice? Why were you thinking about bringing it in, into the practice that you were currently working? I was purely naive.

I didn't understand. It was the first time that, in a way, I had something land on my lap, you know, and I didn't really know how to position myself. But once I saw the first payment come through, and I said to myself, Okay, this is enough to keep me going for a couple of months, and this is enough for me to bring in a team. How long can this team last on this project? So I brought in a team together, and I said to them, you know, I will make you a promise. If you guys come, I will spend all my time learning how to do marketing, branding and all of these type of things in order to win more projects along the line. And we will use this project to, you know, keep you guys going. So in a way, I wasn't really made I wasn't making anything. I wasn't making anything. And I realized that, um, my biggest priority was just to keep this going. That was it. It stemmed from, I'm just going to keep it alive. And then, whilst it's alive, will attract more and more. And then I kept on using the magic number three in a sense, where, for every three projects that we got, I employed a new person, wow. So it made it sustainable for me, yeah. And it just kept on doing it like that, and then splitting got the week in a particular way as well. So that's

again, that's not the normal stress. Strategy that a lot of architects would do when you first win a project, they would, they would kind of be battling with the project themselves to try and get it complete, and you were actually no, put a team in place, and I've got to go out and win more work.

It's not sustainable. You got to work on the business, not in the business. So, yeah, I'm a huge advocate for that. So looking at, in fact, I was looking at other companies, not architecture practices, but maybe, like Apple and other products, various other companies, right? And I looking at how they would grow in a sustainable manner. And then as I started to realize that there was a lot of inefficiencies that I would identify in various practices that just weren't sustainable, you know. And I just said to myself, in fact, you have to believe that in a way that as well, there's a lot of ways of doing things that you always have to believe that the way that you want to take it forward is the correct way. You have to wholly believe it, to such an outrageous degree that it looks kind of insane, and but with a touch of humor, such a delight, and helping clients feel absolutely comfortable, it goes a hell of a long way. So Grace goes a hell of a long way, and just making them feel heard, you know, and so yeah,

let's, let's. It's really interesting if we consider what might have happened if you did bring the project into your previous practice, because in in the in many ways like that, that could also be a really great thing to do, if it's the right practice. And I'd imagine that if, with some of your employees, you'd you'd be very encouraging of them to bring in projects like that. And the question would be, how do you you know? How do you incentivize that? Or how would you hand like in your own practice? How would you handle it properly? And then the other part of the question is, if you'd brought the project into the other practice that you're working with. What do you think would have happened, and would you have not been involved in it, and it would have kind of just been used by directors, and it wouldn't have been, you know, wouldn't have been, it wouldn't have been the growth opportunity for you. That's the that's the main thing for me.

I like to keep the sales, marketing, branding, to one side and operations to this side that you never touch another touch. So I have a dedicated team fully focusing on just the marketing and branding aspect of it, right? Fully focus on that. They don't try to do a little bit of architecture, don't try to mix it up. You know? They have a lot of positive traits that take years of training, and you have to, kind of like, build on their experience of what they know, okay, rather than trying to bring your architectural mindset into NSA, yeah, we can do architecture. We can do graphic designs, so we should be able to do the whole marketing. No, no, the level of inquiries that come in aren't quite technical that the team need to resolve. It's it's a full commitment on that side that they need to fully focus in it, especially with architects and the level of liabilities and things like that, it's very difficult to try and blend the two. So I've learned very quickly, and plus it also helps that I'll tell you a little bit of a background behind me. I used to run a lot of bars and clubs back in the day when I was back in university, and this stemmed from utter frustration as well whilst I was in Liverpool, and they stand for me not liking the music in the area at the time. So I said, I'm gonna go get famous celebrities to to come and perform in different cities, like a tour, like Manchester, Leeds, York, Birmingham, and we're going to get them in. This was marketing. This was branding, right? We're going to do everything digitally, because we want to make sure that we can look at the analysis, look at the data, look at what the data saying to it, look at our demographic, looking at where to get it from, target them properly. So I was already kind of doing it. Yes, it wasn't architecture, but it definitely helped me understand where to position oneself, and that's what my father really helped me tap into. And he said to me, Joseph, how are you able to do you know, events with 2000 people per each event in different cities at different times, and you're telling me that you can't run this? I think you're mystic something. And yeah, yeah. He was right. I

love that. And then, and yeah, sometimes it's kind of, you don't realize that you've developed a skill set there of being able to promote and bring people to together. And that's a crucial skill for running your own running your own practice. And again, I similar sort of thing. My. In my own past, we used to run club nights in in London, live live music. And there's, there's a whole lot of skill sets that get developed there of promotion and connecting and bringing people together and selling your tickets, and just having a kind of awareness that even though at the time, it wasn't thought of as a I wasn't necessarily thinking like it as a business, it was just to it was just to get people in, and we had a band and all that sort of stuff. But it's exactly what you're talking about in terms of bringing in projects

a transferable skill, especially if you're a bid winner, you know, it's a transferable skill, because when it comes to prospecting, you know kind of when you're winning a client or when they're about to lose. And there's a bit of psychology with it, which is very important, and getting this understanding with this psychology of how to position yourself, knowing when to press a deal and when to just hold fire, listen, digest, improve the communication channels, especially when you're dealing with a lot of stakeholders, when actually, you know, when you look at the architecture profession, sometimes it's very head down crack on. Type of attitude whereby, when it comes to actually winning projects, is understanding a communication sitting in a room, understanding different end users, and coming to a solution. And a solution might not always be architectural. It might just be better streamline production or coordination, and it's just there's various ways of skin in a cat, but I think communication and positioning is very key, and it's a transparent skill, so especially if you're dealing with a lot of people with different venues and things like that, and you've got different members of staff in different areas of the UK, but you're the gatekeeper. You're the gatekeeper. And you know,

what sort of what does your business look like then inside? So you described quite nicely there that, you know it's unlikely. What I'm hearing is it would be unlikely that a team member would bring a project in, because you've got, you've got a very solid pipeline, and you've got specialists who are working on bringing in in projects. So it'd be just an unlikely situation that you would need anyone to be going out and bringing in work. So how is the team structured? How big is the office like? What does the marketing team look like, and how did you build the marketing and sales team? So

at first, it started off with just myself, you know, and then I realized that I had to imagine the roles that I would require. So by the time I was in a position to put various individuals in those positions that they could literally start taking templates and running with it, so the templates would be automated. And all of a sudden, now we're even looking at aspects to do with AI and stuff like that, just automating everything. But in my eyes, you have members of staff, and unfortunately, they come and go. You know they do, they come and go. So you kind of have to future proof your business in order for that, because if you put too much reliance on a particular individual that brought it in, they wouldn't have time to do architecture. It's a full time job trying to, like, bring people in, okay? And one thing that I noticed over time, you may become more outdated with some of the softwares they they the various level of data that comes in, so you need regular CPDs, but not just that, but in regards to the software, they're always changing. They're always evolving. The skill sets are over evolving, and the older you become, the more senior position you become, where it's more likely that you'd be leading more coordination, rather than hands on the ground. So it's almost like you have to create, like, a systematic approach. Of this is what would happen if somebody was coming at this level, then this level, and then this level, and then at this level. And these are the tasks that will be delegated. There are plenty of tasks that can be delegated that are architectural, but require a senior member of the team or a junior member of the team, and it's just getting that hybrid and just getting that mixture right so such a way that it's sustainable, efficient, streamline, you know? And it's all about that bottom line, making sure that it's cost effective as well, where there's no dependency on any one individual, so we're not pigeon holing a particular individual. And say, you just do technical design, you do planning applications, we don't do that. Everybody got to learn from stage zero all the way up to stage five, everyone. And if you start a project, you will move the project through to finish the project. So it's building on your own development. Okay? And this works. Yes, in a way, because all of a sudden, every member of the team is being lifted up, lifted up, lifted up and lifted up and lifted up, rather than just put in a silo working on a particular aspect. And what if you can't bring in work due to a recession, and that type of work is currently available? What do you do? You don't want to make redundancies, so you need them to have as many feathers in their hat as possible, so that you can improve their own development so they become useful.

So the so kind of the traditional approach of like, kind of maturing architects in the practice has worked quite well, as opposed to, like, putting people into silos. Here you're doing production work you're doing, planning work, and you kind of get a much more, you know, kind of more well rounded team member. So that

idea that I mentioned of the magic number three, each of them are working at least minimum three projects, and each of the projects gonna be at different stages. So by default, they learn the different stages, because different projects will be a different stage, and the way we split up a week as well is very critical. So we had standard packages and we have priority packages. The level of work is the same, but we build the clients differently. If they want a priority package, it'll be done faster, so a standard package, it'll be done to the standard time.

Yep, great. So tell us a little bit about how, what, how the, that's the production team. Tell us a little bit about the scale of the firm, and then the and then the marketing and sales team, and how you built that up and and who's involved.

Okay, so with the, I would say the administrative part of the team, I'd say that there's only, like, three of us, you know, in regards to that. So we we create a process, we put protocols, and then we automate. You get them automated. Okay, so there's plenty of things whereby you can attract various clients by positioning on various aspects online, and then as they come in, what is their journey through the website? You want them to be pre qualifying themselves before they become a client. You want them to be making bookings on their own by pre qualified, pre qualifying themselves. So by the time any senior of the member of our team sits down with them, they've already made their mind up. They're already 90% over the member of the team that jumps into that last meeting that's already rescheduled. It's like a mascot. They're just there, the decoration, the client's already ready to sign. Because that makes sense. So yeah, and I really wanted to move away from having to bid for projects. I wanted to create, like, an approach whereby people are actively seeking us, and then we are putting together our fee proposals accordingly. We're not just sending out bids, because personally, we don't like to rely on like referrals or even repeat work. It's all about how many new leads we can get and how many can we churn out. And then our prices go up. If, if, say, for example, our demand goes up. So we've already got a limited amount of team. So that's how I would just so in order to force me, indirectly, to consider how to increase our fees, I just say I default, biannually, our fees go up, and that works in relation to inflation and market rates as well. So automatically, funnel goes up incrementally. But so I'm not having to think about it. I get emotional about it, isolate myself. Remember the team, they need promotions. Standard of living is increasing. There's so many things to take into consideration, so these things are going up. So how come your fees are not going up? And in fact, you're becoming more renowned in your area that more clients look to seek you. So I turn around and I always make sure that offers are always time sensitive, and say, Okay, we've got limited amount of slots. However, if you're to agree within this week that we will put you as a priority in order to take on your project, but you need to be, you need to sign by Monday. If you do not, unfortunately, your slot will go to the next person down the pyramid. I love it. I guarantee the price that we initially gave you will be the same as the one we offer again. So what does this make it creates a sense of urgency. I love it.

I love it. Great. So people, so people get their their slot with you. You send a proposal, you you kind of put out what your your fees are going to be, what the investment is going to be. They've got a clock starts ticking basically, for them to make a decision, and if they don't make that decision, then they'll have to start the process again or the fee might go up. Very good. I like that. That's a That's a very nice kind of kind of marketing move that creates that sense of urgent. See, and just it's also it's good leadership, because it just helps the client make a decision. And that's part it does. I think that's part of the role of the architect is to is to be a leader in making sure that the client is making decisions effectively. And sometimes the way to make help people make decisions effectively is put a put a time, a deadline on it with a bit of a penalty. Well,

put it this way. Put it this way. If you're not ready to have those candid conversations, be well prepared to say to remember a staff, sorry. We've not got to not work for you. We're going to have to let you go. Be prepared to lock them in the eye and say they've been here for years, and you're going to be ready to let them go because you didn't create a system that was a sustainable,

you know, so that's so that's a nice, that's a nice kind of little mechanism there. What's, what about the the kind of broader lead funnel or visibility and attracting people? I know that you're pretty savvy with your digital marketing and communications online. What sorts of things do you have in place, and have you found works really well, just being able to draw a broad pull of clients in and particularly in some of the most competitive bits of the UK with the kind of work that you're doing. So

a while ago, we started working on a nursery, and during this project, we were working with a lot of sensory colors, and at that point, we really started to realize there were certain color palettes that people resonate, where you know that they remember you for, like a brand, okay? And then we looked at it and said, Oh, what if we did something similar to the website, and we created our brand colors that people would just remember us by so we get known for people turning around and saying, Oh, you guys are the ones with the yellow and gold website. It's like, oh yeah, that's us. You're in the right area. So they get it's just little, tiny niches, and the same way I play away with that magic number three. So our brand colors are gold, black and gray, you know. So that means I, basically, I used to think to myself, you know, there are a lot of projects out there. We've done quite a lot. However, they span from extensions to new bills to medical centers. They really, they really, I wouldn't say there's a particular niche. So we need a color scheme that when they are all presented, they blend all together and they just feel in unison. So that was very important for us. That was very important to create happy colors, happy colors so whereby, when I looked at various other architectural website, they're very slick, they've got that cool vibe to it, but that doesn't convert clients. Clients navigation the loss. They don't know where to click. They don't know what you're trying to get them to do. Whereby, if you want to give them, like, three options, either book something in or check this or do this, you're directing them, okay? You're physically directing them what you want them to do, and then you create little pockets of information where they could read more. That works well with your SEOs, you know also works well with, say, for example, your lead capture and make an authoritative figure. By default. These things take time, but if you continuously structured it in such a way that is continuously building. Then over time, you have over 100,000 level of content. So the digital world is signaling that you're an authoritative figure discussing this particular aspect over again and again and again, and sometimes one doesn't need to sound flamboyant in what what their messaging is. They just need to keep on saying the same thing again and again and again in 100 different ways, but the same thing.

Yeah. So it's a very clear Yeah. So it's a clear sort of message with we sometimes call this the resonant refrain, but it's the it's the message, the rallying cry, that you're kind of repeating again and again and again and making sure that it's very it's very visible. So you we've got the way, we've got the website. It's been optimized in terms of being able to be found online. I'm presuming, then, by what you're saying is that it's kind of, you know, it's well interconnected with other articles and and its SEO has been kind of optimized. And then you mentioned the word there, leap lead capture. What does that mean for you guys in terms of this marketing funnel? So,

like. Like in relation to lead capture, the content that you should be dispelling every day you know should be engineered in a way to create interest. It's not to always say, for example, get people to action. It's to It's to remind them of what you do and who you are is to remind them. So if every single day you're signaling that, hey, this is us, this is what we've done, how are you hey? Again, again, again, you realize that you end up they might not be ready today. If you guys are doing that over three or four months, when they are ready, psychologically, they remember you because you've been so consistent. And it's not about waiting for the project to be complete and perfect. Often, we take a lot of images of projects whilst it's in the middle of construction, and show a journey in our carousels, so we don't have to always think about completing it. I tell the team to take the images. They don't even need to be the perfect image. They don't even need to be the perfect shot, like the perfect a spray, like center image elevation. It's, you know, we don't even bother with that. It's like, take what you've got present, it. It's all part of the development history of the project. The final version will be the final version when we get there. But let's take them on a journey. And often it acts as an icebreaker. When you're dealing with prospective clients, they turn around and say, Oh, I really like this project that you've done. And I can see that you started here and you started developed, and it suddenly looked like that's a great conversation breaker, you know. And they've all one stuff away from picking you and you're not going through no tender process at the same time, you know. So those are the type of projects that we like, and I'm very particular. We've got various say, for example, high projects, medium projects and affordable projects, and some of our medium projects, I looked at how much the fee was, and I looked at some of the smaller projects and some of the spot three smaller projects would sometimes equate to one medium project, but you'd get less headache. It'd be streamline and the team happier. So we started looking at that as well, thinking, actually, I know this, that sometimes with a lot of architects and designers, there's a certain level of ego that goes into it. When we first started, we I literally dropped all of that. So the main thing is we just have to be able to win work, and over time, bigger projects will come, which is what's been happening now, okay, so, but that little maths test in regards to, okay, this is a residential luxury home, but three luxury homes equates to one commercial project. Which one do you want to do? We close these three faster than that one, and it makes it a lot easier. So a lot of this was something that was in occurrence in many situations,

that's that's interesting as well, because often, often, you know, I mean, you kind of need all, you need a mix, right? You have the big, the big projects in the in the practice, which can carry you on for maybe a few years. And then there's the sort of the space in between the big projects, which often needs to have something? Have you found that there's a there's a point where there are projects which are too small to be efficient, or what do you say no to?

Oh, we say it. We say no, well then we say yes. I'll give you a little situation, right? So say, for example, you look at London, you look at the city center, then you look at one of the radios out of London, like towards Surrey, where do a lot of company directors live? They live on the outskirts. So if you go design their mansion, and then they have an office or a studio in the city, they're going to go ask you to do their commercial spaces. You've just you've not bidded for that project. You've just done a very good job on their luxury home, and then after that, you're just doing all of their various offices. So by positioning yourself in the right location from the job right rather than trying to go directly Biddy, we're just having a cup of tea sitting there on site. We're already doing his or her luxury

mansion, and they happen to tell you about there were these office fit outs that they've got on the commercial buildings.

Yeah, I try my best not to go to any of these networking conventions. Questions. I'm just like, I'm not doing it. If I have to create a business whereby I have to physically be there, then there's a problem. It has to be able to be able to be able to work without me being present, in fact. So it has to be designed in such a way that you're almost trying to retire. You know, that's the type of mantra that I have. And

so, so for you, what are the kinds of clients where, you know, it's not a fit, it's not going to it's not going to work, and at what point do you kind of know that? Or have you found that that hasn't been the case? Just

be okay to say, No, we, we see certain projects whereby the pre qualification questionnaires that they will go through before they even book it in. As soon as they say they've got this much of a budget, and this is the aspiration, it won't even get through to us. It'll just be a polite, automatic response. Sorry, right.

So, so it's disqualified really early on, very early on,

very early on disqualified. But that qualification can be updated depending where what season you're at. So if it's in a recession, things are difficult, you can lower the threshold in order to accommodate that, to see the team through, and then as soon as it gets too busy, you increase the threshold. Okay, so constantly adjusting, but haven't really done that in a while now, but that's something that you have to have your hands on, and it has to be like a dial. You can turn up and you can turn down, you know. And for us, it has to be on digital in order to turn that dial up. Hence why we don't rely on anything to do with referrals or repeat work or anything like that. Because you can't control that. If that makes sense,

what do you do anything like paid advertising or paid for digital advertising and things like that. And if so, could you tell us about what works, what doesn't work, and how what your kind of plan and strategy is around that the I

would say, always master the SEO search engine optimization. First see that the data shows that it's working, and then you can put this on steroids by putting it on a paid ad. Once you can see it's clearly working, right. So, right? You're always testing it on your normal organic SEOs, right? And then once you see that it's clearly working, then you put that one and on a paid ad, you know? And then you can increase it on the paid ad, okay? And I'm a huge believer of just sticking out in one metric for one solid year beyond before moving on. Because there's a lot of shiny object syndromes, a lot of shiny object. And you can get pulled from pillar to post, you know, go from here to here, but if you say, Okay, I'm just going to focus on just this particular paid ad, really master this for a whole year, and then move on to the next one, once this one is just working autonomously, then, you know, you've hit the jackpot. Okay, but you have to structure your whole site, everything that you're doing, to make sure that it's engineered in such a way that allows this process to be happening, whereby if your site or your landing pages doesn't allow this to happen because you're too particular on a particular image or a particular look, but you're not looking and studying other contemporary product design websites of how they get the person in. They fill them in. They keep the options limited. They keep them in a box brain, so the view that they have looking to concentrate, that you have long read or short read, unfortunately, architecture is all about that long read. It's all about that long read. Because anybody that wants to spend quite a lot of money on a project, they're not just going to just quickly jump onto it, you know, they need to have a long read. It needs to be explanatory. It needs to take them on a journey before they hit that commit. So it's all about getting this right. And this is what I found makes the difference. And I generally would look at a lot of brilliant architecture firm out there started doing fantastic work. However, they got the name, they got, the reputation, they got their years underneath their belt. So in a way, if you're newly starting, you can't compete like that. You have to find a new way to compete, and find a way and think to yourself, Okay, what are they willing not willing to do? And what are we willing to do? And are we in a position where we can make these changes very quickly and be dynamic, whereby, in a larger project, in a larger company, it could be quite Jurassic, you know, trying to do something that, you know is right, but the way it's already got so many things that allow it to work, the way it's working, and people don't want to take particular risk. In order to make a contemporary update. Okay, so, but that works in our favor, because we're always kind of willing to change it very quickly, to be fluid, but we change it in a systematic way. It's never a wholesale change. It's always, why are we changing it? Does this add to something? What does it contribute, and how do we measure it? It's always, how can we measure it? You know, you know, I go back to a situation years ago whereby I printed a lot of posters on little leaflets and was handing it through doors. And I thought to myself, This is too random. This is too and this is too hopeful. They got to be a better way of targeting like a sniper, the right candidates to the right person, without sporadically sending them all out and turning up to events and hoping that people know it's like, I want it to be very specific. I want it to be able to work that I don't need to be present. You know? I don't want to feel like it all is I'm required to be there. In fact, I prefer the whole incognito approach, completely incognito, in a sense, where all of this is happening with or without you, because of the automation of the template everything. If you were to step out, anybody that you brought in will just continue to do what you task them to do that Dana will. It'll still run smooth. Okay, so, yeah, so it's kind of interesting, if we're not really talked about architecture or design, because I'm architect by profession or businessman by nature, yeah, okay, no, I get really excited about that aspect.

No. And it's fascinating to kind of pick a part here of the sort of mechanisms that are working in terms of bringing in new work, and how you you're utilizing digital marketing strategies to pinpoint and target clients, because it's quite interesting. You were saying that there's you do have quite a broad portfolio of work, and you know that one of the kind of dangers in an architecture practice is, yeah, it's good for an architect to have a broad portfolio of work, because it diversifies your work. You can you can mix things up when one sector is struggling, you can move into the other sector, etc, etc. There's lots of business, but from a marketing perspective, that becomes quite difficult because you end up diluting a message. But I'm assuming here that you're using, you know, very targeted marketing campaigns, and you're at any one time, like one ad is very specific and very focused towards, you know, luxury houses in Croydon or luxury houses in Surrey, or luxury houses in wherever it is. And that you actually, you know, you're targeting people with a with a geography, and there's a particular pain points that you're and then that pulls them into the ecosystem. Then they then, what happens if they do, you do? You use things like lead lead magnets, where they might download a brochure, and then now you're there in an email campaign with you, and nothing like that.

So yeah, we don't do, we don't do any brochures or

any form of lead magnet, so like a value proposition, you know, project planning pack or something like that. I sit

back, and I think, actually, the only thing that we need to do is trigger a conversation. We trigger a conversation, and once that conversation is started, but you can start a conversation with automation and get them to pre qualify themselves. So it's all about having that conversation. Some people, I used to believe, okay, that we need to get a particular type of messaging to allow us to get this type of residential, this type of commercial project. No, actually, doesn't matter. I just want to have a conversation. Long as I can have that conversation, there's the opportunity, opportunity to see what we can do for you, okay, rather than being caught up in the I'll give you an example, like, say, for example, you're looking at like you're looking at another company, like a product company, like Apple or something. You know that they want a phone got different variations of that one phone, but actually you only know the variation that they really want by triggering that conversation, then you have the option in that conversation to see what type of upgrades they can do. They can either have this package, standard package, medium package, high package, and it can go through residential, commercial education. Doesn't matter. It is what you what do you want? You want to have? Have that conversation or trigger like an online session or something, because your time is valuable, so even if you're putting in just half an hour time, and then you're making sure that these different type of opportunity to talk to senior members of Team at certain allocated times in a day, so that they can still concentrate on the main architecture of the work, but then they can also take part in these online meeting at particular times in the day, and you've hit something that means that somebody's always available to have that

chat. Got it so, so you're going straight in for the the offer, if you like, is a 30 minute discovery call of some description, or if it's that's what

I believe, keep it, do not over complicate a system, because by over complicating it, you can't create resistance. You create stumbling blocks. So when I'm looking at the pre qualification, I'm looking at the intake and the drop off. At what point did they dropped off. I'm thinking, actually, see that questionnaire. Can we reduce it? Or, how does it reduce it? Because maybe they might feel a bit lethargic because they're going through, you know, so you have to get the pre qualification aspect perfect, so it's enough. Because think about it, a lot of these aluminum clients, they're very time poor. They don't have too much time in a day to go for extensive, um, qualifying, you know, they when they know what they want, they know what they want, and they want to get there very quickly. So if the questions that are asked are very particular, you get to that answer very quickly, right? And it goes the same way we do. That is same way where we do, like, coordination with projects. The more you get resolved this aspect in between the coordination, the faster you get to the

answer. So what are the what are their clients? What are they searching for, for them to find you? Then, yeah, like, like, how that's, that's, that's why I want to get, want to get the sense of like, somebody goes online, one of your clients, they're searching on the internet. They come they either see your advert, advert, right? So then you you've either been very specific in how you've targeted them, or they're using SEO, so they're actually they're online, and they're doing they're searching something, and whether it's whether it's geographic or,

you know, why would always the messaging that we'd always do is, don't try to show off what your what the architect is doing. Look to see what they need, because clients, they're very specific, and it has to, has to be all about them. So sometimes when I see various architecture practice. It's talking about this flamboyant design they did, the lighting that comes into it, the describing it in a very particular way, where, for us, we kind of go about it In layman terms. We kind of do it with a little bit of touch of British humor when we kind of create, you know, make it comical at times like, What are the five disastrous pitfalls that land owners have during, you know, acquisition of a site horror. So you're creating these alarm bells of, like, horror, and they're like, oh, rather than saying something like, our beautiful Riverside accommodation has exquisite views, okay, what do you want the client to do with that? That's somebody else's project. So you almost have to take because I think with many architects, they've been groomed in such a way to be very design focused, so they explain a narrative that is design centered rather than, okay, it's not client centered. What do the client benefit from this? Is this something that keeps the client up at night? Why should they dispatch money and put it on your lap? What makes you different? And when you ask that question, what makes you different? It's not about what makes you different. In regards to design, they almost have to step back a bit and say, if say, for example, this application doesn't go through what are you willing to do to mitigate that? Okay, so you're doing, you're integrating your objection handling into your messaging. You know, you are implementing your objection handling into your messaging, and you're creating alarm. You create a messaging that keeps them up at night, like, Oh, my goodness, I'm very worried about that. Oh, please. I'm signaling to put my hand up, save me. That's what you're doing. They're signaling. They're putting their hand up, save me. I know that sounds like a problem that I have, and you sound like the professor to resolve that problem? Yeah,

so it's so it's pain orientated, problem focused, messaging that you, that you're that you're using, not

brilliant design centered, because it's great and it looks very nice and insulating. Think when you look at it, you know, architects are great for this, but I think taking a taking something out of the hymn book of various other professionals out there and other consultancies, you see the way they position and they start taking little slices out of architecture, because if they can answer these problems, you know they're saying you have a problem, and I think we can resolve that problem, when are you available? Actually, you're not really saying when are you available? You're only presented in the time that you are available, and they're picking those options. But it feels, it gives the impression that you made it open to let them know which time so they're available, if that makes sense. Yeah,

I always remember, years ago, a friend of mine was designing a house, and we were talking about the like him using an architect or something, and he goes, Oh, no, no, I've already got a company who's going to do who's, who's who's doing the planning drawings for us, the planning permission. I was like, oh, right, who are they? And he goes, they're a company called Get planning. And I thought it was so it was so obvious, and their whole website was, it was just about, and they were just planning consultants. They weren't architects, they weren't designers, but they were literally, the way that they'd marketed themselves was, like, what you're saying they had it was all about all the planning issues, all the worries, all the concerns that you might have in that particular area. And it was very appealing. It was very compelling sort of messaging. And architects are missing, are missing a trick here in terms of just messaging and communication, and that's why we've been vulnerable to other people coming along, and architects have the advantage because, because we're involved in so many different stages, that actually there's more opportunities to bring people into, you know, to actually find clients, because we're dealing with more parts of the process than other consultants are

within their skill set, right? So if you think about it, if you want to be able to be first, surely you should be targeting the client at the initial stages. Why wouldn't one put all their rent into one basket and target how to get that initial stage? Because if you get that initial stage you're in a position to get stage 123456, okay, but by just aiming for that stage zero on stage one, you put yourself in a perfect position, and you set it up from the off, in the sense that the people are being qualified in are coming directly to you. They're not coming to you and going, Oh, well, I want you to be part of this team, and you'll be our aspect. No, no AJ associates will coordinate with the various consultants and be the lead coordinator for it. So we'll also say, for example, provide the architectural services, planning, project management, contract administration, but all of those are at different stages, but your initial package is just to start that conversation, is to start a conversation, and then once they've got that level of trust, you basically got the meeting out of your hand in the sense that they fully trust you to coordinate. And then, under your guidance, you can bring in various engineers, surveyors, the Isla. And on top of that, you may have various different level of agreements between them. In regards to, if you introduce them to a project, they introduce you, you know, there's an agreement in principle, you know, underlying that ties you together. So over all of a sudden, you're not having to have a massive tender list or go out. You have your own tender list that you only go to for particular consultants, you know. And it's uh, you create your own ecosystem. And you're almost thinking of the the both of us always, you know, it's what's in it for both of us. That's what I always like to understand, especially when we've got these different type of arrangement. And in fact, we don't rely on those arrangements, because we realize that we're the one that actually gets the projects, and then we can bring in various consultants. So it creates a good footing in that way, because you can, in a way, dictate terms, you know, and if not, they don't need to agree, but if they do, then it's fruitful for all parties involved.

Brilliant Joseph's, perfect place for us to conclude the conversation there. We're just at time, but really fascinating kind of insights there and sharing your expertise, both in architectural expertise, and your marketing skills of developing a pain or. Messaging at the beginning of the process, bringing clients in, getting them on the Discovery calls. And it's beautifully simple. And you know, really, congratulations on everything you guys have have built and the successes that you that you have. So thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a delight. Thank you

for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure. Like you said you got me smiling and blushing for no reason. I seem to get excited about talking about the front end rather than the back end. So

that is great. So cute. We love it, and that's a wrap.

Hey, Enoch Sears here. I would like to see him big. Thank you for those of you who recently left review on Apple podcast for the Business of Architecture podcast, as you know, this is how people are able to find the Business of Architecture podcast and ultimately raise the tide of all boats. So a big shout out, and big thanks to Andrew R, H, A, A, B, pretty. Chris Kim, 1005, Suwannee 12. Lavina L, C, BEC, 210, one by four by nine. Vinciani Albrecht and CK architect, we'd love to have your review or feedback for the podcast, and we'll read your name out right here on the show. Go to Apple podcast and leave a review. And as an expression of our sincere thanks, we would like to give you a free CEU course that can get you one professional development unit, but more importantly, will give you a very solid and firm foundation on your journey to becoming a profitable and thriving architect. So here's the process for that. After you leave us a review, send an email to support at businessof architecture.com let us know the username that you use to leave the review, and we will send you that free training. On the training you'll discover what 99% of architecture firm owners wish they would have known 20 years ago. We are

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