when things feel familiar, people feel comfortable. Hello and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I am your host Ryan Willard. And today I find myself in the delightful company of Jeffrey Duncan, the visionary behind Jeffrey Duncan architects. From an early age the rural expanses of his family abode in Alabama, became a canvas for Geoffrey's blossoming in love for art and drawing a nurturing ground where the symbiotic relationship between nature and design became deeply ingrained in him. This rural tapestry would lay to unfold as a rich source of inspiration, guiding his hands in crafting remarkable pieces of architecture that grace North and Central America, recognized for reinventing classical vernaculars. With a modern touch. Geoffrey stands as a refreshing voice in the architectural landscape. His work isn't merely about erecting structures, but weaving in passion depth, and an unyielding zest that resonates well with those he collaborates with. His notable journey in the architectural sphere has been adorned with numerous accolades including recognition from the prestigious American Institute of Architects, the coveted at 2017, the SE architect of the Year Award, was bestowed upon him by veranda magazine, and ad AC, to name a few. Furthermore, Jeffrey's remarkable contributions have earned him a fellowship at the Institute of classical architecture and art, where he has been the recipient of two prestigious shoots awards. Jeffrey's masterful creations have not only captured the imagination of many, but have also found a place in a myriad of books, and esteemed publications, such as veranda Lux, the Wall Street Journal, amongst others, showcasing the far reaching impacts and appreciation for his refined yet innovative approach to architecture, a true testament to his craftsmanship. His work also featured prominently in the popular lifestyle magazines such as garden and gun milieu, and Southern Living, painting a rich tapestry of a journey steeped in creativity and innovation. In this episode, Jeffrey and I discuss the importance of creating emotion and storytelling and authenticity in social media marketing, and wider marketing in publications. We talk about Jeffrey's very finely curated approach to photography, why working with the best photographers is absolutely critical. In being able to display your work, we talk about classical architecture, and elegance, and how knowing your audience and knowing your marketplace creates the backbone for a successful business. We also discuss about fees and the importance of charging high fees premium fees, in order for you to be able to do your best possible work and deliver the best possible service for your client. So this was a wonderful delight for me. I'm a big fan of Jeffrey's work to have sat many times and enjoyed his Instagram page, which is well worth looking at and fantasizing about sipping nice warm drinks in front of the fires that might be located in the beautiful rural landscapes within which his buildings reside. So sit back, relax and enjoy. Jeffrey Duncan. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architectures flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment, and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smart practice method.com. Or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how we might be able to help you please follow the link in the information. Jeff, Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you?
Very good. Good to be with you, Ryan.
Fantastic. Now absolute pleasure to have you on the show. You are the principal founder of Jeffrey dungun. Architects, you guys, you're based in Alabama, and you've got one of these extraordinary portfolios of beautiful residences, interiors, boutique, kind of commercial hotels, I'm imagining you've got one of these portfolios where I've sat down have a nice cup of coffee and just fantasize about living the lives of the people that have the privilege of living inside of some of your houses is absolutely absolutely gorgeous and you know quite an eclectic kind of architectural language that you're that you're using from country farmhouses to like English today, you know, to kind of influences from France and Italy and France and and obviously all those different languages
it's it's fun to try to learn how to speak in an architectural fashion and
and also the the kind of locations that you're you're working in your portfolio of work is kind of exquisite, like Question after exquisit location, you've got projects right across the US. I know you've done a bit of work in Ireland, is that right?
Yeah, we did one there in doubt outside of Dalkey which is not too far from Dublin for British man and his Irish last, the simplest sassy little thing that he married. And, and we're working also in West Sussex, a little closer to London now on a on a project and we have a home that we're doing in Costa Rica. We just finished one in the Dominican Republic in Canada, and really, really exotic places like California. Where really weird things happen. So yeah, it's, it's, it's been fun to get to practice in those places that some don't speak English and use the metric system.
This has always been my stumbling block, if I've worked in America before as for my complete ignorance to using Imperial measurements, very confusing.
So it really is amazing that the metric system is a beautiful thing, once you get a little bit used to it and understand it. It's just very strange when you say that the bedroom is four by four. Really small in the United States. So it's more like 16 feet square then. So,
so interesting, that your your portfolio of work has kind of expanded outside of Alabama, where you're where you're based. Say for example, the project that you're doing in West Sussex, are you working with a local architects to have that delivery door? Yes,
in that case? We are? Yeah, sure. We sure are. And people ask sometimes, well, how do you? How do you find your clients in these places? And I think it's they've got the question backwards is, you know, they found me in most, in most cases, through, you know, the magic of the internet, and social media and all these things that we have today that literally when I started my practice, or started practicing 30 years ago, 35 years ago, you know, we had a blueprint machine and a fax. You know, that was the bleeding edge of technology at the time. And it would be it would have been impossible to have the kind of experience that I've had, without the the internet and all of the things that have come with it and the world just becoming, you know, so much smaller than then than it ever has been before maybe
you work with a very kind of high caliber level of clients, which who can be very, I'm going to imagine very demanding, who have got quite an extraordinary tastes, and expectations of that kind of project. But it's also very, there's a very difficult group of people to romance and seduce, if you like, how did you start? How did your portfolio begin to build when he first started?
Yeah, that's a great question. So when we first started out, back in, you know, under my own, you know, practice, I worked after I got out of University for about 10 years, at some different wonderful places, for I started my own firm, but it was it was in like the late 90s. When we started in the economy was just really robust. And people were just building developments were going on all over the place. And we're really fortunate to get to live in an area where it was pretty easy to get to the beach. You can be at the beach in four hours, but you could also be up in the mountains of North Carolina and about the same amount of talent. And so we quickly were being asked to, you know, work in these little boutique developments. It was a wonderful, there is a wonderful group called DPZ Andres Duany, who has, you know, done some amazing things with, you know, developing neighborhoods and developing urbanism. And we fell in with those guys and they were doing stuff all over the country and so all of a sudden, we were kind of riding their coattails and, and getting a wonderful experience of working in many different styles in many different ways. locations. So, sometimes I've sort of imagined myself to be, like a kind of a architectural version of Johnny Appleseed. Throwing seeds out here and there and, and just trying to get his is much of, you know, our version of the truth out there as we can. But I think that's, that's where it started in, you know, I discovered that I really enjoyed it, and I liked the traveling that kind of came along, along with it. And I think the thing that for me, it's been so educational, and enough for a lot of people feel this way is I'm just traveling, and seeing even in the United States, you know, there's so many different sort of pseudo cultures and dialects. And in even in architectural terms, you know, there's many different styles and vernaculars, that, that exist in different places, and, and even methods of construction, you know, we're building that Allah speech out of this, just pure concrete, even the roof is concrete, everything's like concrete and stucco. And that's quite a different process to go through. So I've been building, you know, out of what we call sticks and bricks in the south. So it was just been, it's really been fascinating. And it's been a huge learning curve for me that I, frankly, really, I've really enjoyed it. So bored easily. So I guess it's the varieties been good. So
where are you from? Originally in the USA from
right here? Right here in Alabama. I just, just kind of as I like to say it, I grew up where I was planted. You know, and I think, you know, sure, I've thought about moving into New Yorker, out to California. A few times when I was younger, but you know, one thing and another happen, namely children, that sort of, get me get me here, and I love the South, and I'm a southern person at heart. So I just stayed. So
it's, I find it quite interesting as well, actually, that, you know, a lot there is obviously on the coast of the US, this is where the migration of architects tends to happen. People go off to the big cities in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, etc. And I've had the privilege of speaking with a number of architects and even working with some architects in in Alabama, and are concerned, some of the Southern southern states. What was what have been some of the benefits of remaining? Where you are? And what have been some of the challenges?
I think? That's a great question. I think probably, in some ways, the networking, you know, staying in one place, at least, you know, reasonably was, was maybe a little bit more thorough, maybe there's some advantages there. But then at the same time, when you when you think about the kind of networking that you would be able to do in a place like New York City, or Los Angeles, California, or hell, even, you know, Dallas, Texas, you know, and the kind of, I like to kind of think of it as a megaphone that you get to kind of speak through, you know, that's a much larger audience and a much larger megaphone, that that you would that would be, I would think, or I've imagined anyway, for that to be advantageous, above, you know, staying in a mid sized southern city, like Birmingham, but, um, I think one thing that has been a really interesting game changer in that regard, just in the last decade, that that you could see, as opposed to even 30 years ago, is this just the social media? Right and, and I know, I've, I wouldn't have thought that I would really have been very much interest the social media, but when for whatever reason, I never was much into Facebook that much, but for some reason, when Instagram came out, I had these I had some kind of crazy hippies I call that were working with me at the time, and and they said, You gotta get on this Instagram thing and I thought, What the heck is that and and they showed show it to me and I was very skeptical, but then you know, I created an account and I just started discovering all these people making these amazing products and doing all these incredible, just beautiful photography. And as a visual person, I just went crazy for it, like, I just totally did the deep dive. And that was probably about 2012 1314 right around around in that kind of part of the, you know, development. And so that was like 10 years ago. And, and I just accidentally, you know, sort of stumbled into it that that way. And I started posting pictures of the things that I loved or things that inspired me in some of our work and, and it just kind of turned into a snowball kind of effect in Miami. And I was like religious about it. Once I saw how powerful it was, I was like posting every day, you know, as opposed to something. And anyway, you know, fast forward to today and developed a huge, I would have never imagined you know, that I'd have whatever 120,000 People with you on, on this on this platform. Amazing. Really, yeah, really, really. And truly, nobody is more surprised than me, that that kind of thing happened. And, you know, I'm not I'm not post
white. So it's interesting, because I'm, I've seen before, you know, you've you've got one of these portfolios, your Instagram account is, you know, it is one of these accounts, which you can't take your eyes off. It's just filled with all these visual vitamins and delights. That become, you know, the very healing, but you're also very good at kind of including magazine articles and publications and telling us a little bit of a story about you know, your personal life and family and things like that has, how has your strategy for? How do you how do you view it as a communication tool? Do you? Do you kind of plot things out or plan things out? Or?
No, I don't, I just mess my strategy is is in most of my life has been to just to be myself. Because even though I'm not really as interesting as a lot of other people, and I'm the best Jeffrey Duncan that there is, and nobody can beat me at that. So, you know, my strategies really, honestly, Ben just to be me. And in, I admit that I kind of got to a point where I realized I wasn't really running my Instagram, my Instagram was running me. And it's sort of gotten into a, you know, maybe not the most positive psychological state about it, and just, you know, I was on there all the time. And there was a little bit of it as a distraction, I think from from normal life, and I think we all have to, you know, make our own decisions about, you know, how the down the rabbit hole, we're gonna go every day. So I had sort of stepped a little bit back from it. But that said, I still, I still love it, there's still people I connect with on there, I get a lot of inspiration from people. I mean, not even people that have any, I mean, people that grow flowers, you know, Klaus Tao be, you know, and people that make cakes. And, and, you know, it's just, it really is a wonderful way to receive information and see the beautiful, amazing, creative things that people are doing in the world. And, and stay a little bit connected to your friends in your collaborators and different designers and architects that have got come to know and enjoy over the years. So I still, it's still a wonderful source of inspiration to me, but um, I don't think it's your question. No, I don't really plan it all out. Do you want to have something good that I want that I think people would enjoy seeing posted?
Do you win work from Instagram directly?
Sometimes, you know, I think this is a great question. So everybody, that from about 40 and under when I say how did you how did you find us? Almost unilaterally? It's Instagram, you know, but from about, you know, 45 to 50 and up, it's, it's, oh, you know, we've followed your work for years. You know, we've done it. We need from here and there. But I think Instagram is you know, and social media in general is also such so part of our lives that we we don't even know anymore. You know where we saw that thing or where we first saw it. Pinterest is another one that was that was really has really been helpful. You know, we've had tons of stuff out there on Pinterest. And people will say, Oh, I started, you know, when we started thinking about building a house, we started grabbing, you know, inspirational images off of Pinterest. And we just noticed that, like, Who is this Jeffrey Duncan GAC is like, you know, a third of our images, we were things were really drawn to were, you know, pictures of some of your work. And, you know, that's such a humbling thing. To, but it's such a wonderful thing, to make that kind of connection with people, just through the work, you know, that that there was something in the work that resonated with them. And, and that was what, you know, kind of drew them to reach out. And, and suddenly you have a friend and a client. You
you published a book not so long ago, 2018. What was the nature of home? Was, was that as a kind of a response to success on Instagram and this visual culture? Or was it something you'd always wanted to do?
It's, it's both actually, it's a, it's a really great, yes, good questions. So I think two things. One, I always wanted to do a book, I thought, and, and, but later, I realized, it was a lot of work to do a book, because I was determined to write it. Myself, which was a horrible idea. I mean, it was a great idea. But it was, it takes a lot of time, when you're not a writer, to understand what you think, and why you do certain things the way you do them, and to sort of plow your heart up enough that you can put words to it, and then to try to make the words, you know, hopefully interesting for people, people to read, of course, I had some wonderful editors that, that edited what I would write and made more sense of it, than I could, but um, I definitely wanted to be, you know, able to do a book at some point. But as I started doing the Instagram, and I would start to write, you know, about whatever the imagery was, or things, I just ran a few little blurbs, I realize. And if you just sort of, would develop this, and you could paste this all together, I mean, you'd have a book. And so at that point, I think a book started being a little bit more of a palpable thing, or a thing that I felt like maybe was, you know, achievable for me. Rather than perhaps, something that was just a dream, or maybe way out there that I would, you know, probably never really did. But I loved it, I loved the process. Like I said, it took a long time, it took a lot longer than I ever would have imagined that it would, I probably would have been wiser to let somebody else write it. But I wanted to make sure that it was in my voice. I wanted, there was things I wanted to talk about. And I just there was no way for somebody else just to sort of extrapolate that out of my mind. And Joan Didion said something wonderful one time, she said, um, I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking. And I thought, what a what an amazing, an amazing statement. It just kind of made me get your bumps. And I had, but I didn't really understand it until I started to try to write what, you know, my own work. And I realized that that was really the key was to fit to was to figure out what you were thinking, and why do you make buildings like this? And why do you love certain things like like that? And, you know, some of those journeys, you know, took me all the way back to my childhood is, I think we probably probably a lot of what we think and believe, comes from our formative years. One
of the things that's obviously quite striking about your portfolio of work is how well photographed everything is. Has that been something I'm assuming you've taken a lot of care of either choosing the photographer's or have you worked with the same photographer over a long period of time?
Yes. Thank you for saying that. I believe that, you know, photography in our age has become sort of incredibly important. And I think we've all whether we even realizing that we've all kind of become amateur. So have professional photographers enough. Even my daughter's in their selfies are like, Good grief, you know, I mean, they know all the tricks, you know, shoot hard shoot low, you know, you want the light coming from the sides and not from behind me, like, you know, and all of those are good, photographic, you know, elements to but um, yeah, I think, you know, having having a wonderful the photographer interprets the work. And so what the photographer sees through his or her lands is what the rest of the world is gonna see of you. And so, you know, after you've done all of your wrestling for years, and years and years to design things, and get them built, and all that stuff. Now, this guy shows up for two days in our three days, and points and clicks and the story that he or she tells is your story. And, and so it's for those reasons that, you know, I knew that I needed to get to have a really stellar photography in the book. And the other thing that was interesting about it. I was working with a book lady on she was having me put together kind of the pitch, and she's brilliant. And, and she said, um, since she's a New Yorker, and she's, she gets me on the phone, and she goes, so, so Jaffray, so, we love your work. Okay, I sent it to my, my man. And he said, This guy is the real deal. And, and so I'm like, okay, cool. So, you know, so, you know, we can do a book? And she says, Oh, yeah, yeah, you can do a book, but your photography is for shit. You got it, you got to reshoot it, the whole lot of it. And I was like, holy Lord in heaven. That is gonna be really, it's gonna take a long time, it's gonna be really expensive. But
you have to get permission from all the clients again. And so
it was it? It was a Yeah, it was a, it was a, it was a journey, for sure. But we did it. And it was very good advice. Indeed. And so that, so that the photography in the book was all in one hand. Yes. So all the words were in my voice, and all the photography was in, you know, the stories that the photography tell were consistent, and the and the light and the methodology and the angles were consistent, you know, then that, to me, made a huge difference in the quality.
It's really fascinating. You say that, actually, because I speak to a lot of architectural photographers, and we talked about the kind of, you know, the importance of it, and it's, you know, this is something that architects you can't really afford to skimp on. And one thing that often comes up of with is that, you know, working with the same photographer throughout your career, can be massively beneficial. Because the photographer starts to learn about your work, they start to learn your kind of natural language, and then they you both develop a report of how to tell the story of building. And there's something again, looking at your, I think your the success of your Instagram page, for example, is very clear indicator of how well curated powerful images with a very kind of consistent visual flavor to them can be because that's what kind of draws in attention it and it holds attention as well. Again, it's very interesting to look at your, your imagery, the photographs, because they're actually incredibly refreshing. In a world of CGI, which is so good nowadays that you can't quite tell the difference whether it's visual representation, because it's CGI, or is it actual, a real photographic piece of real work and your work immediately? It's like it's real breathing. There's something there. See, taste materials, and then there's a narrative behind the way that the pictures have been put together.
Yeah, yeah, we shot the photographer. They shot the book was William Abramovich bill and we we hit it off and ran off the bat and became really good friends, which was fortunate because we spend a lot of time together and for quite quite some time going through all the all the projects and all As in there's probably not two more different people on the planet than Jeffrey Duncan and William Abramovich. One of them's a Jewish guy from New York City and the other half, half Irish redneck from Alabama.
Brilliant. And so what was that that process of briefing? William about your, your portfolio of work? How did that conversation look? And what was the kind of intention that you were, you were wanting to communicate?
Well, you know, Bill is no shade tree photographer, or Johnny come lately to photography. He's he's been shooting, you know, amazing projects done, but incredible architects and interior designers for, you know, decades before we met. So I think I think what was wonderful about Bill to me, was he saw things I didn't even really see or things that I thought were interesting or whatever, but he always saw something about the Word. I get emotional talking about it. But he saw He saw it. In sometimes what it was was obvious to me. And sometimes it really wasn't, which was incredible to me, that he could see something about, you know, something that I had spent years creating, and he would catch it in a certain light, or in a certain way. And so my favorite photography that he did was abstract, he would put the lens in places where it was like, that is the absolutely wrong place to take the picture this like, you're like, Damn, that's incredible. And so there was this wonderful, wonky Ness, to the way bill would shoot and I love a symmetry. But with mallets balanced asymmetry is very difficult thing to achieve. And I'm always trying to achieve it in the designs that we do, but with his camera, Bill can also I did get a little motion, though, could also capture that, in many ways. And some of the images he got were just, they're just totally abstractions, you know, the way he put the camera in places, and he just didn't even know which way was up. It was art. At that moment. It was just art. And, you know, those bylaws by and large, didn't really make it into the book that much because they weren't really, you know, they're kind of confusing to the story that we were trying to tell but, but they were amazing, amazing pieces of art all in themselves. But it was it was really fun. I realized really quickly, he didn't need any help from me. I was I was much more of an innocent bystander, I would always tell him, Okay, Bill, there's two or three bids to this house that I just want to make sure just humor me and just take this frickin picture right here from right here. Because this is just to me, this is it. And, and he'd do it. And he would always oblige me and then I'd leave them alone and let him go to go do what he needed to do.
Amazing, amazing. So, it again, I think what's really interesting if I look at this from put my marketing hat on, you know, this kind of communication of your, of your built work. And actually, there's a kind of strong sense of integrity to the process of of how you've been wanting to do it. And keeping a consistent voice has been something that's obviously has resonated with your target audience, if you like, how, how generally do people find you? And has the book been a good tool in the same sort of way that Instagram has in terms of finding your finding a presence and what else do you do to promote these images and the story that you've created around the world?
Well, I love marketing. I have always been really fascinated with marketing, and I didn't take any business classes, you know, in in college, so my business training has been, you know, the school of hard knocks and and mistakes and doing it better, you know, the next go round. It's been a good education and I've got the scars to prove it. That I've received it, but the marketing parts of it always fascinated me, because they deal I think, largely with psychology, and how people think and how people react to words and images. You know. And in that way, it's, you know, marketing is quite simple. You know, you have words and images, but those things, convey ideas and communicate whole worlds and philosophies, you know, to the, to the mind of the receiver. And, and I found that absolutely fascinating. So, that's, that's probably the part I've focused on, you know, especially early on, more, more than more than anything. And I still, I still work with some wonderful publicists on both coasts, that, you know, you know, helped me continue to get on, get our name out there, and various and sundry, and sundry ways. I think, I think at this point, though, because of in you asked about Instagram versus the book, I think it's kind of a, it's both its calendar, kind of like bookends, maybe, you know, one's kind of more permanent, and maybe more stately, I would think the book is sort of in those terms, and then the other one is a little bit more fluid, you know, and ever changing. And, like I said earlier, you know, there's lots of negative parts to social media to have been well documented by intelligent people. So I'll get I'll get all into that, but I'm at this, I think, at this point, I just want to make sure that the, the level of the work, that there's still the same desire and striving for excellence in the work, and then we continue to communicate things, in ways that are eternal, and, and so that they resonate with who they resonate with. But I think to be timeless, you have to always be communicating in ways that are eternal, and using more of a philosophy of it. The words and the meanings being eternal,
beautiful, it's interesting as well, again, this there is a very, it's easy for architects as well to get lost, for example, in their visual communication, and end up communicating very well to other architects. Whereas you're doing both here very well. And there's, there's something obviously, that the visual information and the story is resonating with people that want to your client is not alienating. And I like this idea that there's something there's something eternal, that you're trying to communicate what what is what is the kind of emotional intensity that you're trying to connect with, with people for these for your marketing?
Well, I think, I think emotionally, we always want to communicate the ideas of there's there's lots of them, I think, I think authenticity is, is a word that's been sort of probably overused. But I still don't have a better word for it. I'll still use it. I think I think that the use of materials and strategies that are authentic, and proportions, that, to me, are eternal, and speak to a human scale on are incredibly important. There's some wonderful lessons, you know, in classical architecture, you know, about that, and I've been really fortunate and blessed to receive some awards from the Institute for classical art and architecture. Even though I don't think most people when they would look at our work, they would say, well, that's, that's classical architecture. But I think, in many of the tenets of classical architecture, that we ascribe to those Um, elements that are so wonderful that classical architecture are present, you know, proportion, and restraint, I think are two that I'm always thinking about, and trying to be more and more aware of materials that are timeless, you know, stones, sort of unilaterally hard to be. And roof lines and massing that make people feel that pique people's interest and, and feel like, what one of my friends calls it a gift to the street. I think, you know, the golden section, the rule of thirds, which is used in photography, you know, even on Instagram, when you look at the little viewfinder, it's broken into thirds, both vertically and horizontally. I mean, there's, it's not just a grid, there's a reason for that. Then for whatever reason, the way humans, our minds operate, we see beauty in certain proportions. And it's an it's fairly mathematical. And that's just sewn into our DNA. And so to me, those are things that are eternal. And so I'm trying to bring that into the work. And then if the words we use are also those eternal kind of kind of words. And they're authentic in their delivery. And when you look at the work, you see those elements present and those qualities present, then I think the message starts to ring, like the truth, you know, which is another wonderful, eternal thing. And, and I think, I think that's powerful to people. And I think the rest of it, you let you let the people come to you, you know, that people are kind of like cats, you know, you can't, you can't just call them you, you have to let them come to you where it works at least better that way.
Do you do feel that the kind of architectural languages that you work in, are, are also the kind of languages that the type of demographic that you work for, or work with prefer, will have a taste for or have an understanding of?
I think, I think the last part, the last phrase that you use, have an understanding of now what I think a big part of what I'm interested in doing is creating architecture that feels familiar to people, there's in the lands in the materials in the detailing. In the massing, there's, there's definitely things and there's a there's a process. Excuse me, that feels familiar, when things feel familiar. People feel comfortable. Right. And, and that's a wonderful feeling. And I think, you know, by and large, what we're doing is creating residential, you know, places. And so comfort is, I mean, that's a very important component, or element of any home, we want to feel comfortable there. And so I think if right off the bat, you can start to feel comfortable with a building, just from your first view of it, because it has some of those things that people understand. And no, I think I think you're, you're halfway there, you know, the Italian say, if you're tall, you're halfway to beautiful love that. You know, and, and what do they mean? Well, who the hell knows they're Italians. But you know, what I take from that is that there's an elegance to things that are vertically proportioned. Or more vertically proportioned and then perhaps squat squat of your things. And, and I think when you do things that feel familiar, you're already halfway there. So now, the trick becomes because if I just continue down that line of thinking, then all I'm really doing are all I really ended up doing is regurgitating things that we've already all seen and none have done so the artistic and creative move becomes in now How can I do this thing that feels like it's from 1920? Or 1820? And now do it for 2020. Right? So what is it about this thing? What the I have to say, as a as a thinker and an creative person living in, you know, whatever century this is? What, what, what, what comments and what I call it, it's kind of like putting a spin on the ball, right? History hits the ball into my court, I'm hitting it back, but I'm putting my spin on it this time. Yeah, I'm not saying that merely regurgitating things, and recreating them. In maybe just a very small way, maybe it's just a subtle thing. Or maybe I'm even bringing in some other elements from our nearer history of like, the 50s, or the 60s, some mid century, you know, elements, let's say, are some more what we would call clean modern elements. And to mix into the history, that is the overall sort of vibe that that we might be creating. So I don't know if I really answered your question. But that's, that's kind of that's that's the, I think, the backdrop or the philosophical thinking and why I think it's important to show the work that to the designs that we do, I think it does resonate with people, I think, I think it does.
And I think that's what's so, so compelling and interesting. About about the work, there's so many architects who, unintentionally alienate audiences, or perhaps don't, are not always thinking about end user groups, or they're not necessarily it's, it's it, they might be more individualistic, if you like, with the language, the architectural language that they're using, or, or inventing. And this can unintentionally kind of create a culture gap. And I think as a business person, we do need to understand, you know, where people are at like, what, what do people want, we also want we're also creative people. So we need to listen to the integrity of our of our art, like what you're like how you're, you're you're talking about, remember, listen, I remember listening to I think it was David Bowie interview, and he was talking about how he often imagines his songs being heard from the audience. And I was like, that's a great marketeer.
It's amazing. Yes,
that's a great marketeer. He's thinking about how the audience is going to respond to that. And you watch the film The discography of the film, The Queen film as well and conversation where they wanted to reimagining how the audience is going to participate with the song. And I think as a creative person, that's really important to start to imagine, you know, where is where is the audience? What how are they going to respond to as opposed to being completely isolated, nothing about me, or my impotence that can be given to the world and as a marketeer, that's that's, that's massively important, we must be able to understand the kind of thoughts and feelings of our potential clients. Yeah, I'll move the conversation in a different direction here and talk about how does all of this kind of the philosophy, the integrity to the craftsmanship and the work that you do, being very thoughtful and considerate in, in how you communicate your message? How do you actually keep these projects profitable?
Um, well just charge a lot of money.
I always, always tell my clients, if I ever save you a nickel, I didn't mean to love it. No, I think, um, seriously. Obviously, you are running a business and there's no business that can be stable without a steady stream of income. And, um, I have a, I have a chart that they that my office managers do for me, every every month, and there's three or four lines on there, but there's just two lines I look at. And one line is how much we're spending. And the other one is how much income we have. And if those two lines ever cross, I'm in trouble. And so far, you know, for the most part, for 25 years almost. I've kept those two lines away from each other. I think there's there's lots of ways to to manage that, and to create, you know, the sustainable, you know, business business model. And there's, there's lots of places to save money at. I think that, I think on the business side effects efficiency, to me is so important. And I think that's where, where lots of times, we can get in trouble as architects, because, you know, at the end of the day, it's an odd, it's an odd thing. This is, obviously me speaking. So these are my theories about it, somebody else may have a very different concept, but my concept is that we don't actually produce buildings, we draw buildings. I don't swing a hammer, I don't pour concrete, I don't lay rebar. I don't do cabinetry. But we create the vision and we create a very large, thick set of drawings. And there's basically a recipe that if followed, more or less, will give, will create, hopefully, a cake that tastes really good, you know, or a building, in our case that looks quite beautiful, and functions really well and stands the test of time. And all those things. So it. So what we're creating really is the drawings. And so the faster that we can move through that process for or the better word, and the word I actually use is efficient. So the more efficiently, we can move through that process, why efficient, instead of speed, I was watching this really cool. Interview with some flake Chinese got up in the mountains that was making these amazing little, you know, handmade tiles, using like, you know, technology from 100 years ago, and they were amazing. Everybody was, you know, loving them and buy them and, and they said to the guy like, you know, you could do this, like way faster, if you use, you know, these things. And he just paused and look, I looked down the ground, he said, Well, there's a disease called speed that that guy's figured something out really important. So, so there's a difference in speed, and efficiency, because you can draw something maybe really fast, but you're going to be probably making quite a few mistakes, if you just try to go fast. So the game is to try to do it efficiently and not always be going back over the same thing. Now, we all know that we're gonna go back over the same thing. I mean, at least two or three times, but to me, that's, that's the important part of it. And, and so how can we develop systems and you know, processes that, that tend to keep us out of a ditch, and then help us kind of take the next step forward. So that's been the probably the biggest part of, of my work in terms of creating profit, or profitable businesses to just be careful to be very thoughtful about listening to the client, because at the end of the day, they're the ones that pay us and they're the ones that we're designing for, as you said earlier, it's not, it's not about me, it's not about us, it's about them. And so we do a lot of work on the front end. And we I mean, even before we even sign up to do the project, we'll spend quite a bit of time with them, really making sure that we understand and document what they told us that they wanted. And I mean, their spreadsheets and we get really granular about it and very detailed in terms of every single room, the square footages all that stuff. So that we can then execute that. And then if there if there are changes to it, and there always are small wins, but if they're big, then we have a recourse to kind of have a different kind of conversation with the client about what we agreed to do. On the on the front end And, and that has been incredibly helpful to our process. And it's helped us to not have to design the house three times, just to get it built once. And I think therein lies, you know, a big help to the secret of profitability. You mentioned at the start of that, actually, that
you charge a lot, you make sure that you charge, you charge a lot of money. And that's the kind of light that because that's the, that's the first part of being efficient, is to make sure that you're asking for the right amount of money in the first place, and or at least have mechanisms to be able to ask more when you know, you need more. And so many practices actually fail at that first hurdle, it doesn't matter, then what processes and systems they've got in place, because there's nothing to manage. So if they're trying to be efficient with work with too little, and now that now they're on the backfoot, how do you ensure from the outset that you are number one charging a premium? Or you're you're kind of you know, you're, you're, you're charging the right amounts? What kind of process do you do go through? How do you broach this part of the conversation with clients? Does it turn people off? Many times? If you if you say, You know what, we're not cheap. We are an expensive
paralegal, I really don't think we is it the sounds are, you know, not small, but but relative to our industry. They're, they're fair. And they're not the high on on the highest end of what architects that do the level of work that we do, charge. So, you know, there's a level of fairness to it. But I mean, I grew up on a farm. So I mean, I never dreamt that I'd be dealing with numbers, the size of the projects that we that we do. And think to get to your question, in some kind of plausible answer, I always try to have a range of a fee structure that has a range to it. So there's already some built in flexibility. So there's kind of like a low end that by and large, it doesn't make sense business sense for me to go lower than, and then there's a top end that's reserved for projects that might be on the verge of being the size of projects, or the you know, type of projects that we would do. But, um, but for the for, you know, moderately increased fee, it could still make sense, if somebody really wants to work with us, at the end of the day, any fee conversation has to work for two people, me and them, and more importantly, for them, right, and in some way. So there's there they have the ability to say, well, that's, you know, it's more than what, what we what you want to spend, but I get told at least once a week that were kind of expensive. So I'm like, Yeah, I get that. And, you know, I wish we could all just, you know, do it for free. But I'd probably still do it. But don't tell anybody. I said that. Cuz we love, we love what we do. But I think that people find, you know that as long as you're being reasonable. But at the same time, here's the thing, you have to you have to know your worth. And if you don't know your worth, then you have a real big problem, because you're going to find out what your worth by somebody else telling you what you're worth. And, you know, except for in very rare instances, they, they probably don't think you're worth what you need to be worth to make sense. And to make business sense of the kinds of arrangements that you make with people.
How do you do you charge? Do you have a preference to using a fixed fee or percentage of construction or hourly billing?
It's generally I'd say, most of the time, it's a percentage of the cost of construction arrangement in, you know, in a in a range of, you know, that might be maybe there's four or five percentage points between, you know, the the low end and in the high end. It's, it's not dissimilar from, you know, basically, then the way I describe it to people who haven't really dealt with an architect before it's it's very sad load to the fee that you're going to pay the builder when you when you get right down to it, and so at least acquainting some equality to the work that we do with the, with the importance of hiring the right builder, I think that makes sense to people.
I like in general, I do like percentage billing for an architect on the construction value, because it's, it tends to be a fair representation of the amount of work that you're putting in. It's not an exact science. But the one of the problems of it is, though, is it's incredibly difficult to communicate this to clients. And certainly, if you're doing something where you know that you've done a whole load of work, and the fee, and the construction value has shot up over a period of, you know, a few months whilst you've been working, and now you're billing the client against something and then you know, what you're sending out as an invoice now becomes a bit of a shock to them. How do you how do you? How do you communicate this because this is this can be the cause of so many fallouts and upsetting, I think
I can tell that you've done this before, because you know, other great questions to ask about all the little gotchas and some of the challenges, the details of the challenges of being an architect in this industry in this time, that were least recently, you know, in the last, let's say, three or four years, construction costs have increased at a rate that's never been seen before, you know, in in history. And so, of course, you know, the architects that are, you know, fees being based on percentages of courses of construction, have, you know, participated in, you know, that, that beneficiary will benefit and have been a bit beneficial way, relative to their fees. But here's the thing. There's a, I'm Southern and, and I love, colloquial saying, so I'm going to give you one, hogs get fat, that pigs get slaughtered. So, so you want to, it's okay to be a hog, but don't be a pig, right? Or you get slaughtered. So, what I'm saying is, be fair with, with the clients in the same way that you have to maybe, on the front end, have some conversations where you have to kind of stand up for yourself and what you what you know, that your, your worth is, when you get into those situations where, you know, you agreed to do it, and, and your fee came out to a number, it always ends up being a number, here's the number in dollars and cents, and you agreed to do that. And you get down the road, six months or whatever. And if nothing else has really changed, you know, the house didn't get really get more complicated price didn't get more complicated, didn't get bigger, you know, you just did what you agreed to do. But suddenly, you know, the cost of construction has risen. You know, some value, you just have to look at yourself in the mirror and say, you know, is it fair for me to charge them this much more money for the same job that I agreed to do six months ago. And a lot of times there's extenuating circumstances and the project also has gotten bigger. There's, there's a lot of different things. I'm not saying that that's a cut and dried thing. But I just know that when I look at myself in the mirror in the morning, I know, I'm not taking advantage of my clients. And my clients know that because I make sure to tell them, well, they they see it because when when we get the new number when we get the revised number, and we've started out here and now the construction cost is here. And they see that I actually change my number so that they don't take the entirety of that hit. I can't tell you how much that means to them. And so now we're just talking about I mean, we're talking about business, but we're also talking about, you know, people people remember that stuff. And, and I just think at the end of the day you know you do what's fair, and sometimes that means that you change your fee, to be fair to your client, and then never forget it. It's
amazing, and it's the perfect place to conclude the conversation there, Jeff I've come to come to the end of our time. But thank you so much for inviting us in and allowing us to get a glimpse of your expertise and, and, and World of your practice. It's been really, really insightful and and wonderful to hear. So thank you very much.
Good. Thanks for all the great questions, and I really enjoy them talking. It's always fun. And I'm always surprised that anybody wants to know what I think about. It's kind of fun. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with your friends and family. Thank
you very much. You too.
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. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, the world's leading step by step business training program that's helped more than 103 architecture firm owners structure their existing practice. So the complexity of business doesn't get in the way of their architecture. Because you see, it's not your architecture design skills that's holding you back. It's the complexity of running a business, managing projects and people dealing with clients, contractors and money. So if you're ready to simplify the running of your practice, go to business of architecture.com forward slash smart to discover the proven simple and easy to implement smart practice method for running a practice that doesn't get in the way of doing exceptional architecture. 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. QRP DM
