EntreArchitect Podcast with Mark R. LePage

Progress on Designing and Building a New House This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Progress on Designing and Building a New House. To hear the background on why the LePage family is moving from New York to North Carolina, check out EA201: We're Building a New House for Our Family [Podcast]. Mark and Ann Marie have purchased a property in Marvin School District near Charlotte, North Carolina. Much of the area is being developed by massive developers and very little was on the market for single family homes. This is a home that they’re planning to live in until their youngest goes to college, so it’s not a forever home. Their biggest restrictions are budget, to stay with in the comparable of the neighborhood, and design, to stay compatible with the neighborhood. Have you built a house for your family? We want to hear about it! Let us know about your experience in the comments! To hear more about the progress of designing and building a new house, listen to the podcast! To keep up with the progress, follow Mark on Instagram at @MarkRLePage. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto… It's time to tame the chaos of payroll, benefits, and HR. Get it all done with Gusto. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto for a 3 month free trial. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes The post EA234: Progress on Designing and Building a New House [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Context & ClarityContext & ClarityFrosty & Fired Up

Launching a New Small Firm as a Spinoff of a Large Firm This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Launching a New Small Firm as a Spinoff of a Large Firm with Josh Kunkel. As the son of a contractor, Josh grew up on job sites and even dug the footings for his family’s home at eight years old. He was raised in the country and fell in love with the city, building legos, connects, and dreaming about Frank Lloyd Wright designs. His passions led him to Oklahoma State University where he earned his BArch and an Environmental Studies certificate. Throughout his career, he has worked on various types of projects from larger institutional hospitals to agrarian outbuildings and everything in between. He is a licensed architect in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and holds an NCARB certificate. He’s a partner at the newly formed Method Architecture based in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the host of EntreArchitect Sessions Not So Small Firm, a monthly video conference session for larger small firms. Josh’s upbringing allowed him to have a part in every phase of the building process, and opened his eyes to the fact that architects create something from nothing. After some drafting classes in high school, Josh chose Oklahoma State and off he went. When he and his wife graduated school after the recession, they first struggled to find work. Eventually, Josh was leading $5-10 million dollar projects on his own. He learned there that he had a great love for full team technical coordination efforts. Through his first few positions, he quickly realized that his path was more geared toward the people, culture, and business aspects of architecture. To hear more about how to launch a small firm as a spinoff of a larger firm, listen to the podcast! Find Josh online at Method Architecture or connect with him on social media on Instagram and Facebook. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto… It's time to tame the chaos of payroll, benefits, and HR. Get it all done with Gusto. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto for a 3 month free trial. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes The post EA233: Launching a New Small Firm as a Spinoff of a Large Firm [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Frosty & Fired UpContext & ClarityContext & Clarity

Sharing Your Architecture Story This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Sharing Your Architecture Story with Dimitrius Lynch of Spaces Podcast. Dimitrius Lynch is an architecture graduate of California Poly Paloma. He’s a licensed architect in the State of California with over 12 years of experience in design and project management. HE’s practiced in both domestic and international projects. He is a LLED and WELL accredited professional, WELL AP denoting expertise and commitment to advancing human heath and wellness in buildings and communities. He recently started a podcast aiming to promote the greater building industry to the public through the lens of examining the effects of societal changes of spaces in history and to the future. As a child, Dimitrius was quickly aware of the built environment and its effects on the people around it. He was encouraged to be creative through legos and coloring, among other things, and attended a school that taught him a wide variety of subjects. Around third grade, Dimitrius studied Egypt and the first god of architecture. His skill in math and drawing and his interest in the mythology put him on the trajectory to becoming to an architect. Dimitrius has a full plate, currently launching his own business and developing a new podcast. He feels that the greater building industry has been under fire as of late, and wants to shake it up. The public has an appreciation for architecture and buildings, but they have a limited understanding of what actually goes into it. The professionals in the building industry understand what architects do, but there’s often an undervaluation of what they bring to the table. At Spaces Podcast, Dimitrius aims to promote the architecture industry to the general public and create a collaborative environment for building professionals. To hear more about sharing your architecture story, listen to the podcast! Find Dimitrius online at SpacesPodcast.com or connect with him on social media on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat or LinkedIn. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto… It's time to tame the chaos of payroll, benefits, and HR. Get it all done with Gusto. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto for a 3 month free trial. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes The post EA232: Sharing Your Architecture Story with Dimitrius Lynch of Spaces Podcast [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Context & ClarityContext & ClarityFrosty & Fired Up

Building A Successful Non-Profit Funded By A For-Profit Firm This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Building A Successful Non-Profit Funded By A For-Profit Firm with Rachel Preston Prinz of Archinia. Rachel Preston Prinz is an architecturally trained American designer working in architecture and design, place-making, cultural and historical preservation and community engagement. Rachel promotes the craft of architecture and the genius loci – spirit of place – as told through photography, publishing, marketing, and design. In addition to running the consulting firm Archinia and a non profit architecture for everybody, Rachel has served as a preservation commissioner in Taos, New Mexico, as a host of the University of New Mexico Taos Sustainability Institute, and as co-host of the TedX ABQ Women. Rachel’s work has been featured on HGTV, Bravo, New Mexico PBS, Canadian PBS, Reader’s Digest, Trend, Inc. Magazine, and numerous articles, talks, podcasts, interviews and books on design, leadership, and finding courage in difficult circumstances. She’s also an expert people connector who brings new and exciting energy to everything she does. When Rachel was a teenager, she ran away from home and wouldn’t return until her parents agreed to put her in military school. She wanted to be a radar intercept officer in an F14. During her physical in military school, she learned that she had eye problems that prevented her from her dream of flying. She graduated high school early and went to the University of North Texas. When she went home from school one break, her parents surprised her with a trip to Paris to explore and figure out what her nexts steps would be. During her trip, she realized the power of spaces and her desire to create them. She transferred to Texas A&M for architecture school and was able to do her masters in Europe working with renowned gothic theater scholars. To hear about why it was important to Rachel to share with others the reason that architecture matters, how she shares the stories of architecture, and more, listen to the podcast! Find Rachel online at Archinia.com or ArchitectureForEverybody.org, or connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Or email her here. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto… It's time to tame the chaos of payroll, benefits, and HR. Get it all done with Gusto. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto for a 3 month free trial. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes The post EA231: Building A Successful Non-Profit Funded By A For-Profit Firm [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Context & ClarityContext & ClarityFrosty & Fired Up

How to Tell a Powerful Story Through Video This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, How to Tell a Powerful Story Through Video with Ryan Siemers. After receiving two bachelor degrees from the University of Minnesota in architecture and urban studies, Twin Cities Native Ryan Siemers attended the University of Oregon's Portland Center for Urban Architecture. Following his time in Portland, Ryan returned back to Minneapolis to work with the national design build firm Oppus Architects and Engineers to gain perspective on the motivations and capabilities of a private developer. Ever since he can remember, he possessed a mind for the art of storytelling. During what had become the time of the great recession, it was clear that he needed to reshape his passion for architecture and the digital arts into a set of services that could serve the architectural community by crafting stories that communicate the value, the ingenuity and beauty that design brings to society in a clear and compelling way. Ryan's passion to learn, grow and innovate has driven him to be a pioneer in architectural filmmaking and cinematography in Minnesota. Ryan grew up with two parents who let him take anything apart and put them together. In high school, he fell in love with trade applications like drafting, woodworking, and more. He changed schools so that he could have more options. When he was asked what he wanted to do, he told people he wanted to design places and learned what architectural engineering was. He focused on theoretical approaches to architecture in Minnesota and pursued his passion from there. He focused on the politics of architecture that shapes the decisions behind the building. Those policies turned him toward Oregon's program to control public investment in urban growth. After school, he wanted to expand his understanding of what was pushing design. He began interning with a company in Portland and then had a fantastic opportunity with Oppus to see how a real estate developer can own and develop their own properties, along with how they approach cities and communities. He quickly realized that his passion was helping to formulate internal stories of why we're doing what we're doing and how to convince people that making better design decisions is worth putting the money into. To hear more, listen to the podcast! Find Ryan online at RyanSiemers.com or follow him on Facebook, Vimeo, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto… It's time to tame the chaos of payroll, benefits, and HR. Get it all done with Gusto. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto for a 3 month free trial. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes League of Architectural Filmmakers and Storytellers (website) SuperBird Studios (website) The post EA230: How to Tell a Powerful Story Through Video [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Context & ClarityContext & ClarityFrosty & Fired Up

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Architecture This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Architecture with Duo Dickinson. For a full transcription of this episode, click here! Find Duo online at DuoDickinson.com and check out his blog Saved by Design or follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto… It's time to tame the chaos of payroll, benefits, and HR. Get it all done with Gusto. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto for a 3 month free trial. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes The post EA229: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Architecture [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Frosty & Fired UpContext & ClarityContext & Clarity

How to Simplify Your Business This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, How to Simplify Your Business with Business Coach Ashley Gartland. For a full transcription of this episode, check back next week! Find Ashley online at AshleyMGartland.com, or follow her on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Do you want the 5 Steps to Simplify guide? Grab it for free at www.ashleymgartland.com/simplify. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto… It's time to tame the chaos of payroll, benefits, and HR. Get it all done with Gusto. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto for a 3 month free trial. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes The post EA228: How to Simplify Your Business [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Frosty & Fired UpContext & ClarityContext & Clarity

Financial Investing for Your Future This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Financial Investing for Your Future with Henry Dominguez. For a full transcription of this episode, click here! Find Henry online at HDDesignLab.com, or connect on Twitter and LinkedIn. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto… It's time to tame the chaos of payroll, benefits, and HR. Get it all done with Gusto. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto for a 3 month free trial. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes The post EA227: Financial Investing for Your Future [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Context & ClarityContext & ClarityFrosty & Fired Up

Successful Project Planning for Small Firm Architects This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Successful Project Planning for Small Firm Architects with Robert Yuen of Monograph. For a full transcription of this episode, click here! Find Robert online at Monograph.io, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or get in touch with him at [email protected]. Learn more about Robert in EA133: The Power of Trying with Robert Yuen of SectionCut.com and EA150: Beautifully Simple Websites for Architects with Robert Yuen. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto… It's time to tame the chaos of payroll, benefits, and HR. Get it all done with Gusto. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto for a 3 month free trial. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes The post EA226: Successful Project Planning for Small Firm Architects [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Context & ClarityContext & ClarityFrosty & Fired Up

Growing Beyond the Sole Practitioner This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Growing Beyond the Sole Practitioner with Cavin Costello of The Ranch Mine. For a full transcription of this episode, check back next week! Connect with Cavin online at TheRanchMine.com or find him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto… It's time to tame the chaos of payroll, benefits, and HR. Get it all done with Gusto. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto for a 3 month free trial. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes The post EA225: Growing Beyond the Sole Practitioner [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Frosty & Fired UpContext & ClarityContext & Clarity

Incremental Progress is the Key to Long-Term Success This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, How Incremental Progress is the Key to Long-Term Success with Architect, Teacher, & Power Lifter Marilyn Moedinger of Runcible Studios. For a full transcription of this episode, click here! Connect with Marilyn online at MWMoedinger.com or find her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto… It's time to tame the chaos of payroll, benefits, and HR. Get it all done with Gusto. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto for a 3 month free trial. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes EntreArchitect LIVE in New York! Join us on June 20, 2018. We’re putting together a workshop that will talk all about success in architecture and will introduce the 4 P’s of the EntreArchitect Business Framework. The post EA224: Incremental Progress is the Key to Long-Term Success [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Context & ClarityContext & ClarityFrosty & Fired Up

Building Science, Climate Change and The Pretty Good House This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Building Science, Climate Change and The Pretty Good House with Mike Maines. For a full transcription of this episode, click here! Connect with Mike online at MichaelMaines.com or find him on Facebook. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto… It's time to tame the chaos of payroll, benefits, and HR. Get it all done with Gusto. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto for a 3 month free trial. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes EntreArchitect LIVE in New York! Join us on June 20, 2018. We’re putting together a workshop that will talk all about success in architecture and will introduce the 4 P’s of the EntreArchitect Business Framework. The post EA223: Building Science, Climate Change and The Pretty Good House [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Frosty & Fired UpContext & ClarityContext & Clarity

The First 500 Project This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Tiara Hughes of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) shares about The First 500 Project. For a full transcription of this episode, click here. Connect with Tiara by emailing her at [email protected], or find her online on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. To learn more about NOMA, visit NOMA.net and connect to the directory of a African American architects at BlackArch.uc.edu. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes EntreArchitect LIVE in New York! Join us on June 20, 2018. We’re putting together a workshop that will talk all about success in architecture and will introduce the 4 P’s of the EntreArchitect Business Framework. The post EA222: The First 500 Project with Tiara Hughes of NOMA [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Frosty & Fired UpContext & ClarityContext & Clarity

Commoditization of the Architect and How to Fix it with Jeff Echols This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Jeff Echols shares about Commoditization of the Architect and How to Fix It. For a full transcription of this episode, click here. Connect with Jeff online at RevenuePathGroup.com, if everybody wants to go check out what they’re doing there and learn more about the brain chemistry and and storytelling. Jeff is active on Twitter at @Jeff_Echols. You can connect with him on LinkedIn. I like to connect their lucky to have conversations there as well. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Referenced in this Episode Join The EntreArchitect Community on Facebook Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes EntreArchitect LIVE in New York! Join us on June 20, 2018. We’re putting together a workshop that will talk all about success in architecture and will introduce the 4 P’s of the EntreArchitect Business Framework. EA140: How To Use Your Story to Find the Work You Want with Architect Storyteller Jeff Echols [Podcast] The post EA221: Commoditization of the Architect and How to Fix It [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Context & ClarityContext & ClarityFrosty & Fired Up

Catherine Meng of Design Voice Podcast This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Catherine Meng of Design Voice Podcast. Background Catherine Meng received her bachelors of architecture degree from Cornell University and joined DLR Group Kwan Henmi in 2016 where she focuses on multi family and students housing projects. Prior to this she previously worked in New York City and Shanghai. In addition to her work as an architect Catherine is active in the San Francisco community. She serves as a mentor at the ACE Mentor Program, serves on the board of the Northern California Cornell Alumni Association, and is a member of the San Francisco chapters of the Urban Land Institute and the Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW).Catherine just started a new podcast called the Design Voice Podcast, which aims to elevate and amplify the voices of women in the architecture, engineering, and construction professions. Origin Story When Catherine was growing up, she didn’t even know that the architecture profession existed…she wasn’t exposed to the idea that people purposefully designed buildings. She loved drawing, art, and making things with her hands. Her parents wanted her to become a doctor or an engineer. In high school, she read The Fountainhead, and the idea of architecture got lodged in her head. During spring break, she went on a class trip to Italy and was exposed to tons of beautiful buildings in Rome, Florence and Venice. She distinctly remembers climbing to the top of the stairs at Brunelleschi’s Dome and being in awe. She applied to half architecture and half liberal arts schools, and only got into the architecture school at Cornell. She had a love-hate relationship with architecture school, but overall loved her time there. She graduated in 2009 in the middle of the recession, and couldn’t find a job after school. She found some administrative work for about a year while applying to any architecture related jobs she could find. Catherine decided to move to China and find an architecture job there. She took a job with the first firm that was able to find a work visa for her, and worked for a husband and wife firm with a large international team. For her, it was a great architecture bootcamp where she was throw into managing projects, connect with clients, and negotiate contacts. After a year and a half, she applied for jobs in New York and moved there. Her CA and CD experience helped get her foot in the door at the small firm she worked at next. They went from 3 to 10 employees, and Catherine got to experience that first hand. After five years in New York, Catherine and her husband decided to move out west to San Francisco, where they’ve been for the last three years. Catherine works at a midsize firm called Kwan Henmi Architects. About a year ago, they merged with DLR Group, which has opened a lot of opportunities to expand the types of work they do. DLR Group also offers professional development grants that anyone can apply for. Catherine was inspired by stories of other women’s design journeys, and decided to start the Design Voice Podcast. The show officially launched a month ago. What was the podcast that you wanted to create? After Catherine started planning her podcast, another one was launched featuring interviews with women architects in LA hosted by Audrey Sato. It’s similar to what Catherine wanted to do, but her main goal was to hear women’s stories. How did they deal with challenges in their careers? What were their best moments? What inspires them? When Catherine was growing up, she was taught that she could do anything she wanted to. When she started working, she realized that the gender breakdown is different than she expected. Problems of sexism in the workplace have not yet been solved. The longer she’s the profession, the more she wants to know how other people are dealing with these issues. She wanted to strike a balance between talking about a lot of challenges women face in the field of architecture, while not focusing on the fact that these people are women, but they’re architects and engineers who are separate from their gender identities. Were there any surprises you’ve come across? One big surprise for Catherine is that women sometimes struggle with asking for what they want. If they’re asking for a greater team or the company, they’re often more willing to ask. When Catherine started the podcast, she became bold to ask anyone for input to benefit the greater good of the design world. She’s felt free to know what it’s like to be able to put herself out there more confidently. Catherine is also amazed at what people have been willing to open up about. One of her guests teaches at an architecture studio and is a young mother, and shared the struggles she has balancing both. She doesn’t have her own space, and has to pump standing up and carry her milk around with a freezer back. Who are some up

Pricing Creativity What is it that we sell as small firm architects? Is it a pile of paper? A bunch of technical services? A legal process required to obtain a building permit? What we sell is a desired future state. Whether we’re working with commercial, institutional or residential clients, they have an idea in their minds about how they’d like their lives to be in the future. We’ve all experienced the moment at the end of the project when our clients finally get it and understand the value we provide. We need them to understand the value of what we do before we do it. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Pricing Creativity with Author Blair Enns. Background Blair Enns is the sand in the free pitching machine. Through his sales training program for creative professionals, Win Without Pitching, he is on a mission to change the way creative services are bought and sold the world over. He is the author of The Win Without Pitching Manifesto and Pricing Creativity: A Guide to Profit Beyond The Billable Hour. Blair lives with his family in the remote mountain village of Kaslo, British Columbia, Canada. Origin Story Blair lives in a small mountain village in British Columbia, Canada. He grew up in the center of Canada, in business side of the advertising and design professions. He began as an account manager and moved into new business roles as his strengths developed. He started Win Without Pitching as a consulting practice and a way to earn a living so that he could drop out of the advertising profession. One day, he realized his limitations in the business were going to take him out if he didn’t change them. He began to scale out and build a training organization in early 2013. Do you see a lot of creative and profit difference in your circles? When people start their own small firms as artists, you’re doing it for fun. Sometimes we delude ourselves to think the money will come one day, or that it’s not about the money. One day, you realize you’re tired of having fun and ready to make money. What do you do if you’re a creative professional who loves design and wants to make money? If you’re going into business for yourself, the business part is more important than the art. Get a business education. Instead of just being inspired and only focusing on the art; you’ll burn yourself out and be unable to find success. It’s about value creation for your clients. Learn how to select and shape good clients and good engagements, and your best engagements will allow you to bring your artistic skills to the table – always to the ultimate goal of delivering value to the client. You have something you want to do with every client you have, but it’s not just about you. Your focus is on your client and their different values. What is price discrimination? Different people are willing to pay different amounts for the same thing and your job is to let them. The reason they’ll pay different amounts is because the value to them is different. You have the license to charge as much as you want to. You may evaluate something as valued one way, where your client thinks it’s worth half that. What do you do in that situation? Offer options. If your client asks for a proposal, what you put forward should have options. Delivering one proposal puts your client a take-it-or-leave-it situation. They have a choice to make based on comparison, so enable and facilitate them to compare your options and figure out which is the best value. If they don’t like your option, they’ll go away and compare your proposal to other bids. Your clients are going to make comparisons anyway, so enable and facilitate those comparisons for them. With each proposal, show the client what they’re going to get for different values. They can choose the cost-effective option, but they’re going to gain more from the highest priced option. What’s value-based pricing? In a one-on-one situation, have a value conversation. What does the client want from the project? What is their desired future state? Identify the metrics to know how you’ll measure when their desires have been met. Then, decide what the value of this project is. Once you uncover the ideal, start offering some pricing guidance. Give them an idea of what the price will be, starting with a higher number than you actually think it’s going to be. You’re selling a better version of themselves to your client: their desired future state. What about emotional contributions to value? Much of an architects work is in this murky bucket. It’s so emotional, and it’s vital that you have a framework to uncover all of that. Put your client in the future where the project has gone swimmingly, and figure out what’s needed to make that journey wonderful. When you get good at this, you’ll realize that your whole focus has shifted from what you can do to your clients&

How to Start an Architecture Firm The journey to become an architect is one of many struggles and accomplishments. Each step is achieved by setting goals, working hard, and doing what you set out to do. Every architect needs to follow their own path, and much of it is unknown. The process to becoming and architect and starting your own firm is often done through trial and error. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, How to Start an Architecture Firm with Architect and Author Timothy Ung. Background Timothy Ung is a product designer and architect based in New York. After getting his architecture license at the age of 26, Tim started a blog called Journey of an Architect to document his process of design and pursue his goal of designing thirty theoretical projects before his 30th birthday in May 2020. He’s currently working on developing a podcast with a fellow blogger and evolving architect, Mike LaValley (EA161: SketchUp for Small Firm Architects with Mike LaValley). In 2016, Tim led a day-long seminar on starting an architecture firm where he brought together an architect with a young, successful firm, two lawyers, two accountants, and marketing and branding professionals to talk about the important things to do when starting your own firm. His seminar inspired a blog post, Almost 40 tips for Starting an Architecture Firm, and an e-book Starting an Architecture Firm, and it’s only the beginning of his story. Origin Story Timothy was born and raised in New York and attended a fantastic high school on Wall Street right across the street from Goldman Sachs. During his time there, he was involved in the ACE Mentor Program, which brings together architects, construction managers, and engineers to expose younger people to these kinds of industries. He had 17 architects, 10 construction managers, and 7 engineers as his mentors. He then decided to go into the architecture side of things. In the program, they designed a building for a competition for a design competition that the mentors put together. The theoretical building was a vertical farm located in a New York City skyscraper with the goals of feeding everyone in the area and use technology to gain passive energy to power the buildings around them. Learning from their mentor team was fascinating. His team ended up winning the competition and receiving a scholarship to study architecture at the University of Buffalo. He also worked as an intern at Leslie Robertson Associates, where he was able to work with a structural engineer on the Whitney Museum of American Art. In architecture school, he was confused about everything he was doing. After a few years, he started to understand the language and the design concepts. He graduated with a bachelors and masters of architecture and set another goal to pass his ARE within two years, which he then completed in 2016. His next goal was to start an architecture firm, but he knew there was so much he needed to learn before then. Timothy set off to create a portfolio of work through his blog, aiming to create 30 projects by the time he was 30 years old. Through the process of that project, he’s realized his passion for design in general, including leather working. What overwhelmed you when you got to architecture school? Timothy came to university from a place where he was talking about architecture from New York City’s built environment around him. He started off with a lot of theory, and then had to do a lot of solo, independent work. After a few years, people were much more willing to collaborate and that’s where Timothy learned the most. He and his classmates were sharing and teaching each other new ideas and concepts. Where did your seminar fit into your 30 projects? As he started to learn more at the firm he works at, he started getting more opportunities and growing his responsibilities. Timothy realized he wanted to start an architecture firm by the time he turned 30, and knew he needed to learn more about the necessary steps to start his firm off on the right foot and be successful. He decided to bring together professionals who can teach the fundamentals of starting a business. He met Mike LaValley in the local emerging professionals group, and their colleague suggested they apply for a grant to put together this program. They realized it would be a great opportunity to teach local architects how to start a practice the right way. They didn’t know what that was, but they knew they could find some people to teach them. Once they received the grant and put the event together, they had 30 people that showed up for the event. All of the information that came from the event was inspiring. Each professional team had an hour to teach the best practices and the best way to start a firm from their field. What does the book contain? Timothy wanted to write something so that he could remember everything for when he was ready to start his own firm: Create a business plan and setting your

Life of an Architect with Bob Borson It’s been 215 episodes, and he’s back. His firm, his family, and the life of an architect. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Life of an Architect with Bob Borson. Background Bob Borson is a principle of Malone Maxwell Borson Architects, a full service architecture firm based in Dallas, Texas. The award winning firm is frequently published and is widely recognized for its thoughtful and considered designs. In 2013, they were honored as the AIA Dallas Firm of the Year. Bob is very active at his local and state components of AIA, where he serves on several committees and leads many initiatives. In 2009, he was recognized as AIA Dallas as Young Architect of the Year and in 2017 he was elevated in the AIA College of National Fellows. Many listeners may know him through his blog, LifeofanArchitect.com which has millions of listeners per year. He’s also a dedicated dad, husband, and traveler. A great tip he’s shared over the years is to sign up for the tours at AIA conventions. Origin Story Bob’s earliest recollection was that he wanted to be an architect. His dad, an engineer, encouraged him and got him a drafting board, a t square and a triangle for Christmas when he was about five years old. When he was a young man, a guy he knew bought a Porsche and Bob thought he was on the right track. For young people wondering if they’re going to be good at architecture, Bob always lets them know that he was terrible when he was in architecture school. He didn’t put the time and effort into doing what he needed to do, and had a huge identity crisis when something he thought he wanted to do his entire life he was seemingly not good at. Since then, everything has fallen into place. When you had that crisis and weren’t sure if you wanted to be an architect, how did your family react? Bob never told his family that he had that crisis of identity. His parents more thought that he was goofing off in college and wasn’t dialed in the way he needed to be to enjoy architecture as the path he wanted it to be. At one point, his sister told him that their parents were going to pull him out of school if he didn’t get his act together. How do you deal with the balance of firm and family? For what it’s worth, it hasn’t been hard to balance for Bob. Their firm isn’t very big with about 7 members, and they believe that you’re a better architect when you have other interests outside the office. They close the office on Fridays at noon and encourage people to get out. Their philosophy is that you’re a grown up and no one will do your job when you’re not here, but as long as you’ve handled the things you have to handle, nothing should get in the way. The culture has been established to create this balance. From the very beginning, they’ve always operated from this kind of philosophy. It’s hard to lead from the ivory tower and make a different set of rules for everyone else, so they don’t do that. It comes down to more than just money. If you’re an architect who wants to make a lot of money, there’s a career path you can put yourself on to make more money than other paths. The amount of work in high end residential work is way more hands on than a warehouse, and the fee scale will be different. As an architect, you can make decisions to shape how you’ll live your life. Some of it is financial, others are around how you spend your time, but they’re all interlinked. Tell us about how travel works with your family and your firm. Bob and his wife get a decent amount of time off, and they try to take advantage of that time that’s been provided by the stations they’ve achieved in their careers. In college, Bob did a study abroad program where he traveled through Europe. He quickly realized that after that trip, he’d visited more countries than he had states. His wife worked as a consultant which required her to travel on a weekly basis, and she began to wrack up hotel points and miles. Though they were on a tight budget, they stayed at nice hotels and got cars for free. Once they had their daughter, they knew it was important to expose her to different people, cultures, and foods. Recently, they took a family trip to Ireland to learn more about her heritage, as Bob’s wife was born there. Though they like to look at interesting design, Bob is more interested in turning off the parts of his brain that he usually uses. What is the one thing that small firm architects can do today to build a better business tomorrow? “The practice of architecture is personality based. If someone wants to hire an architect and their only requirement is to have five bedrooms, a bathroom and dining room, they can get that from anyone. Let your personality be part of the process. You can’t be all things to all people at all times and experience any kind of sa

The Psychology of Success So much of our success and failure as entrepreneur architects is determined by our mindsets. It’s all in your head! What’s keeping you from growing? How do you properly set boundaries around your firms and families? What about the importance of visions and planning your life? How about the seasons of our lives determining the timeline for our success? This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, The Psychology of Success with Entrepreneur Psychotherapist Joyce Marter. Background Joyce Marter is a licensed psychotherapist and the founder of Urban Balance, a multisite counseling practice that she started and grew to over 100 therapists working in 9 locations in Chicago and St. Louis during her 13 years as CEO. She has a passion for applying psychology to business. She’s a public speaker, a corporate trainer, and she has been featured as an expert on media outlets like Wall Street Journal, US News & World Report, CNN, MTV and more. Origin Story Joyce went to school at Ohio State, and when she started she had no idea what she wanted to do. She chose psychology, sociology and humanities since she was interested in learning more about it. She quickly learned that she was interested in learning about people’s thinking, emotions, experiences, and how we’re shaped by our experiences in life. She attended Northwestern for her graduate degree in counseling psychology. After that, she feel accidentally into entrepreneurship. She saw a need for an insurance-friendly counseling practice. Though she went through ups and downs, her practice grew quickly. Did you plan to grow into such a large business? As Joyce worked on her business, she worked on herself personally. Sine they’re two sides of the same coin, the business organically grew as she grew herself. There was a need for insurance-friendly therapy and for jobs for therapists. One person at a time, her business grew leaps and bounds. Was there fear in launching your own business? Many people told her she was too young, that the market was too saturated, and that there was too much competition. She set strict boundaries for herself and people laughed at her. There was a lot of fear in it. She took the feedback with a grain of thought and forged ahead anyway. How did you find the balance between your family and your business? Joyce planned her career in the context of her life, not the other way around. She visualized the life she wanted to have with her family, and planned around that. As a mom and provider, she puts great value on her time and puts parameters around her day. Taking care of our selves allows us to think more clearly and be more productive and joyous in our work. Because Joyce prioritizes her family, it has helped her delegate and find great people to partner with instead of trying to control and do everything herself. What was the first step to create your plan and vision? How many weeks a year do you want to take off? What do you want your work week to look like? What’s your prime target of hours? What of those are from home? When do you need to be home for your family? Build boundaries around those and make them non negotiable. Next, imagine financially what you want to make. Aim high and visualize that. Focus on what’s being supported. Let it take shape organically based on what’s going on at work and at home. How did you plan for future seasons? From a psychology perspective, there are different phases of development that impact where our energy and time go. For Joyce, career growth happen in stages and steps. There may be a push to grow, and then a pause to maintain there. How do you combat the fear in your head that gets in your way of taking the next step forward? Eckert Tolle, author of The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment and A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, says, “Whenever you feel inferior or superior to someone else, that’s your ego.” All the negative, neurotic mind chatter comes from our ego. Instead, be present in the moment by practicing mindfulness. Develop the skill to observe your thoughts rather than believing everything your inner critic is saying. Start practicing meditation to reboot and become aware of your thoughts. Believe in yourself in order to sell yourself to someone else. Be your own most compassionate coach and advocate as you move through building and running your business. If you’re interested in getting started with meditation, check out Headspace or Calm. Whether it’s balance, an integrated life, or success at a high level, start to understand who you are to get out of your head and achieve all that you’re planning. What’s getting in my way of doing the things I know I should do? We all have self sabotaging behaviors, and we all create patterns that are familiar unless we choose something different. We need an accountability partner – whether it be a coach, t

A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming an Architect Developer If you’re interested in becoming an architect developer, this is the episode for you! This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming an Architect Developer with Danny Cerezo of cs design. Background Danny Cerezo is originally from New York City, but moved to LA long ago. He has a bachelors in Architecture from USC and a masters from Woodberry San Diego where he studied under famed architect developers Jonathan Segal and Ted Smith. He’s a liscensed general contractor who has recently started a contracting firm with a development partner where he’s now designing and building a development project as an architect. Origin Story Hear Danny’s origin story in EA126: Successful Technologies for an Architect Startup with Architect Danny Cerezo. cs design is a small husband and wife firm in LA. In 2008, Danny decided he wanted to pursue the architect as developer route, and today the firm is split between traditional projects and partnering with developers to do their own projects. In LA, there is so much development that isn’t necessarily attractive, and it made Danny wonder why people weren’t developing things that were more architecturally significant. Through talking with others, he found a whole world of people who were architects and developers and took a leap. If someone wants to be an architect developer, what should they do? For Danny, he knew that he wanted to do it but didn’t have any money. The natural action for him was to find someone to partner with. The developer he went to work for was willing to do some smaller projects with their funds and equity. How do you show someone that you have the skills needed to take their money and turn it around for a profit? You have to learn how to walk the walk and talk the talk. What are the fundamentals of real estate development? Do you know how to do a pro forma? Can you talk about risks and potential pit falls of a project? Are you familiar with comps? Build up a base of tools and knowledge. Figure out how to convey your goals to those who you’re hoping will fund your development. Danny has written the whole process out on Medium. What’s a pro forma? It’s typically a spreadsheet that shows what it would cost to do Project X, where that money comes from, what the return will be, and what everyone gets from the project. How much are you putting in and how much are you getting out? What is the process as an architect developer? Danny suggests staying local. Jonathan Segal says, “If you can’t get to it in 15 minutes, it’s too far”. You’re familiar with what’s closest to you. Once you find the land, figure out how you’re going to borrow the money for the lot. Get as creative as you want with how you acquire the land. Once you pull the money together, give a verbal offer or letter of intent. Next, there’s 12 months to pay the financiers back through the construction loan. That means there’s 12 months to design, permit and get a construction loan. The construction loan that you get covers the cost of the land to pay back your sellers, the money for the fees, and pay for construction. Usually the bank will loan you 75% of the total development cost, which allows us to pay back the sellers and start construction. If you borrowed a dollar, you have a dollar to spend. As an architect developer, you only have the money that you have to spend, because you have to pay out what the pro forma says to each party at the end. After we’re done and we get our certificates of occupancy, we hope to sell them for the prices we had in the pro forma. Then, we pay back the bank for the construction loan and those who gave us the money for the soft costs. Whatever’s left goes to the developer, the fee and interest negotiated over time. During construction, is the process different doing it as a developer? The only difference is that you’re way more involved. On a typical project you may be doing some construction administration and some site meetings. For architect developers, you’ll go to the job sites every week and sometimes more. You’re way more invested in it than a typical agreement, and that’s a selling point when you’re looking for a partner. You care about the project more than the next firm because you want it to succeed. You also know the pro forma and what the parameters are around what can make this project fail or succeed. Having been there from the beginning, you know what the project hinges on and you have to be involved to makes sure it stays on track. What do you do for marketing? Throughout the project, stay on social media and share what you’re doing. Pick a good real estate agent who can get the word out and create interest. Where are you now and what are your next steps? Danny’s first project started in 2015, and now they&#82

Building an Architecture Firm Around a Delightful Client Journey So much of the success experienced by thriving small firms can be found in their process. How are they developing the services they provide to their clients? How are they managing their clients’ expectations? Are they making things happen in an efficient way? Is the design, development and building process enjoyable? This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Building an Architecture Firm Around a Delightful Client Journey with Architect Anthony Laney. Background Anthony is an architect and designer who’s devoted to bring out the best in creative teams. He’s a cofounder and partner at Laney LA, an architecture firm focusing on serving home and business owners in LA and the surrounding region. He began his career with the renowned firm Marmol Radziner working for clients as distinguishd as Tom Ford. Graduating at the top of his class from the USC School of Architecture, he won 17 class commendations and received numerous recognitions including the AIA Medal and the Studio Design Award. Anthony is a multi-disciplined designer whose work encompasses architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, graphic design, branding, and social leadership. He’s active on social media, reach out to him there! He’s building a culture of a young startup and sharing it with the rest of us. Origin Story Anthony decided to try out architecture after high school, and the most significant thing was that architecture school was super intimidating but he ended up meeting his future wife there. After graduating and getting married, Anthony and his wife worked for several great firms. Once they got licensed, they decided to launch their own studio. They’ve slowly grown to a team of 11 and outgrown their home garage studio. Since then, they’ve discovered their passion lies in high end residential custom homes in the area south of the Bay. How did you land in your target market? They landed on something they were passionate about, good at and that could pay the bills. Whether it was a full house, a renovation, or a small portion of design on a bigger team, these discerning clients wanted a high touch, high quality of service experience. Though they’re not for everyone, clients hire them because they want an enjoyable, passionate process. The process leaves a feeling of joy instead of a wake of headaches. Laney LA makes the process fun. What are you doing to differentiate yourselves from other firms? Laney LA is extremely clear and consistent with how they communicate with their clients. They make it very easy for clients to share their journey with their friends. Every piece of the design project is pretty enough to share. When clients come to their studio, they’re treated like guests. They have food and drinks, and branding with their names. They receive quick follow up and intentional communication. This all stems from asking the questions, “If I was a client, how would I want to be treated? How can we go above and beyond?” How did you grow your company culture? They didn’t have a master plan for rate of hiring, but it doesn’t feel like they’re growing fast. They’re always interviewing, and that can be a long process. They possess a specific set of values that they try to reflect in the way they approach their work, most often in the way they treat their employees. Their goal is to create a runway for designers who have very distinct aspirations to launch their own practice one day. They have a team of rockstars who are going places; these people will launch their own firms eventually. That, in turn, attracts people who are passionate about creativity and building something together. Are you actively teaching employees? While they don’t have a fully open book firm, each year they set specific goals to move closer to that. Project managers have full access to all the contracts and their profitability reports. One of the purposes of internal lecture series is to give give project managers and designers the opportunity to rehearse on a stage and get feedback. The goal is to create leader makers which attracts a certain type of individual. They’re also a big fan of evualtuating strengths, specifically the DISC Theory and DISC Personality Traits. They pay close attention to having a diverse team, and knowing where people’s natural strengths are helps Anthony put them on the right seat on the bus. What model do you use at Laney LA? Anthony’s job is more as a coach. The design isn’t at the principle level, it’s on the project manager level. This has allowed them to build their team the way they want to. They use apps to track time and delegate tasks, as well as take detailed notes. They find different software packages that work well for them and use technology to their benefit. From day 1 of design all the way through, everything is modeled in 3D with

AIA Contract Documents for Small Firms The man behind AIA Contract Documents, the comprehensive legal document system from AIA. For years, small firm architects have been a bit disgruntled about the bulky, intimidating documents. In the past few years, AIA has been working hard to serve the small firm community and AIA Contract Documents have evolved to provide documents specifically for small firm architects. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, AIA Contract Documents for Small Firms with Ken Cobleigh of the American Institute of Architects. Background Ken serves as Managing Director and Counsel, AIA Contract Documents. He works with a team of lawyers, specialists and support staff, and the AIA Documents Committee, in developing and publishing AIA Contract Documents, and in providing support services to contract document users. Ken joined the American Institute of Architects in October 2006. Ken is a graduate of the University of Maryland where he earned both his B.A. and J.D. with honors. After earning his law degree, and prior to joining the AIA, Ken practiced for eighteen years as a construction attorney in private practice Maryland law firms. During that time he represented owners, contractors, subcontractors and design professionals in a number of dispute resolution forums, including State and Federal Courts and administrative agencies, mediation and arbitration. Origin Story After graduating college, Ken was a police officer for several years before he decided to move on to something different. He graduated from law school and went to work at a general practice firm. One day, he ended up an associate to a partner on construction cases where he learned a lot of information at an incredibly fast pace. Once he developed his expertise in construction, he moved to another firm where he had a majority of architect and engineer malpractice cases. Now, every day, he gets to work with bright architects, lawyers, and others in the industry to develop good tools and put the law to work in a good way. Why should we be using AIA contract documents? The contract is an essential part of the relationship. At the end of the day, you’re in a business relationship built on a set of understandings and promises. Architects make promises about services rendered, and the owners make promises about payment. What each person understands can be different, so the contract is where everyone lays out rules for issues that could arise. We never like to think that a project could end poorly, but sometimes there are disputes. All of these potential issues can be addressed up front with the contract. What type of documents does AIA provide for small firms? For those practicing in residential and commercial, there’s a wide range of documents available. Many vary in size for different firms. The smaller the contract, the less things have been fleshed out for clarity and the more things will be open to interpretation by the parties. AIA cautions everyone that, depending on risk tolerance, they suggest the contract that will do the best job of making things clear and minimizing risk. Small, low-cost projects may allow use of a shorter form. Longer forms may have more potentials for alternate dispute resolution or licensure for the services. There’s a specific agreement (B107 2010) for an architect and a developer builder where there’s some replicated spec houses in a development. The contract lays everything out and clearly limits the roles and responsibilities of the architect, assuming that the builder is experienced and should be able to take on responsibility for the selection of finishes, equipment, etc. Essentially payment is for the design, and the architect agrees that the design will be replicated. When providing pro bono services, one document (B106- 2010) starts with a standardized limitation of liability and prompts the architect and owner to agree on different line items and set limits on number of meetings the architect will attend and number of revisions. This way, the owner understand that the architect will meet certain expectations for their unpaid work. In order to encourage this work, the form is free to download in PDF format. Rather than renegotiating contracts with a previous client, architects and negotiate a working set of terms and conditions. This group of documents (B121- 2014 and C421- 2014) that came in response from feedback from small firm architects. Where can people find this information? There’s a guide that AIA published with input from various groups called the Guide to AIA contract documents for small projects: Resources for small project practitioners, sole practitioners and custom residential architects. What’s new with AIA contract documents? AIA launched an online, web based product that addressed a lot of concerns that Mac users experienced. It also allowed people access to documents anytime, anywhere. Most importantly, small firms wanted to be able to have d

The Slow Space Movement with Mette Aamodt of Aamodt Plumb Architects “In 1986 Carlo Petrini protested the opening of a McDonald's restaurant in Piazza di Spagna, Rome and launched the Slow Food Movement. Carl Honoré explains in his book, In Praise of Slowness, that Slow Food stands for everything that McDonalds does not: fresh, local, seasonal produce; recipes handed down through the generations; sustainable farming; artisanal production; leisurely dining with family and friends. But ultimately the movement is about the sensual pleasures of food. Thirty years after Carlo's protest, organic produce, artisanal cheeses and craft beer are everywhere. Foodies flock to ever more specialized restaurants serving only food cultivated in their own backyards. Whole Foods is considered mass market and Michelle Obama is promoting farm-to-table in public schools. Carlo should be proud. He saved food! Since then, the Slow Movement has touched almost every industry except ours. Slow Cities. Slow Aging. Slow Religion. Slow Cinema. Slow Education. Slow Sex. Slow Medicine. Slow Fashion. Slow Parenting. Slow Travel. Architecture, design and the building industry are conspicuously absent from the list. We find that strange. So we decided to do something.” – Slow Space Movement This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, The Slow Space Movement with Mette Aamodt of Aamodt Plumb Architects. Background Mette Aamodt is an architect, CEO and cofounder of Aamodt Plumb, an architecture, interiors, and construction firm in Cambridge, Mass. She’s a former AIA member, a design activist, and cofounder of the Slow Space Movement to promote good, clean, and fair buildings for all. She publishes biweekly thought pieces on her blog, SlowSpace.org, to explore ideas around slow space and slow architecture. She’s a mother of two with her husband and partner, Andrew Plumb. She was diagnosed with MS in 2002 upon graduation from Harvard’s GSD. Origin Story Mette’s story goes back to her parents, who did not want her to be an architect. Her father was an architect, and her parents taught her that architecture was a very hard business. She remembers the highs and lows and recessions. She found her way to architecture through a long path through urban planning and ending up at the GSD. When she graduated, she was diagnosed with MS. There she also met her husband and partner, Andrew. A week before her thesis review, she went blind in one eye and couldn’t hold the exactor to cut her model. Thinking it was stress, she pressed on. When she went to the doctor, she realized it was worse than she t thought. Mette and Andrew were starting their careers as architects with this horrible diagnosis and no idea how it was going to affect them. They were unsure of what to do because they believed in the power of architecture to make an impact on people’s lives, but they saw how much it sucked to be an architect and what little value society places on architecture. They were faced with a dilemma: how could they do good work, have a good life, and make a good living? Since then, the challenge has been to work to balance all three of those things. After a few years of working, they were lucky enough to start their own firm to figure out how to do things differently. How could they run their firm that was different from the way all the other architects were doing? How could they persevere to their triple threat: good work, good life, good money. They began looking at other business models for good examples of how to run a company well. Through trial and error and their own learning, effort, and mistakes, they’ve gotten to where they are today. There’s no status quo, they’re constantly innovating on the design side and the business side. They picked a speciality and chose to stay in their lane. The goal was to be profitable so that they could leverage that position to make a greater impact. Recently, they became an architect-led design build firm to get away from the crazy, combative relationship with builders that’s often typical. Now, they have so much more scope out of the same client AND have found that their clients love it. It’s a win-win. They don’t have to go through all the paperwork, it’s one hand talking to the other hand to streamline what’s a very overcomplicated process. When you start from a model that’s comprehensible to your prospective clients, you set yourself up for success. Before, doing the architecture alone meant that the projects had to be a certain size to make any money. Now, if they design and build, they have a better opportunity to earn more at the end while helping more people. How do you provide the construction? Aamodt Plumb brought in a partner who is a construction manager with a great interest in architecture. They’d worked with him as their builder on another project and found a great fit. They created a sister company

The Girl UNinterrupted Project with Juliet Chun & Zhanina Boyadzhieva These two young, emerging architects have decided to take the lead in the profession and build a powerful resource that informs and empowers other emerging professionals. Hear what can happen when two women refuse to allow anything to block their way to success. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, The Girl UNinterrupted Project with Juliet Chun & Zhanina Boyadzhieva. Background With a B.S. and M.Arch from Northeastern University, Juliet, Associate AIA, joined Leers Weinzapfel Associates in 2008 and has worked on a diversity of projects such as Ohio State University East Regional Chilled Water Plant and the UMass Design Building. She has taught at the Boston Architectural College as a studio instructor and thesis advisor and has been a guest critic for various institutions including Wentworth Institute of Technology, Mass Art College of Art and Design, and Pratt University. Originally from Bulgaria, Zhanina, Associate AIA, received her MArch from Harvard GSD and a BA from Mount Holyoke College. She joined Leers Weinzapfel Associates in 2014 and has worked on variety of academic and infrastructure projects: Condorcet Campus Competition, UMass Design Building and currently Harvard Allston Energy Facility Plant. Zhanina is an active member of WID and Culture NOW. She has taught at Boston Architectural College and has been a guest critic at Harvard GSD, Northeastern, Wentworth, Mount Holyoke College and Kuwait University. Zhanina is an avid world traveler and an occasional writer with work published at TEDx Bulgaria, Metropolis Magazine, Oculus, Dnevnik, Ureport and SciencexArt. Together, they are the cofounders of The Girl UNInterrupted Project which seeks to bridge the gap between young female designers and leaders in the architectural field. Juliet’s Origin Story Juliet didn’t know she wanted to be an architect until she was in college. She grew up in Tampa and attended Northeastern because of her love for the city of Boston. At the end of her freshman year, her advisor encouraged her to pick a major. She decided on architecture and loved everything about her experience through school. Northeastern does a coop program, so Juliet had the opportunity to do a coop with Leers Weinzapfel Associates. There she was able to get her foot in the door to return full time after graduation. Zhanina’s Origin Story Zhanina was always interested in the arts and tended to be good at math, systems and organizations. In Bulgaria, when applying for college, you tend to know what you want to study right away because of the technical nature of the programs. She was always searching for a school with a big population of international students and an architecture program. She also works at Leers Weinzapfel Associates, where she connected with Juliet. Where did the name “Girl UNinterrupted” come from? The name comes from the unique environments that haven’t interrupted them. Both Juliet and Zhanina have been lucky to be in places that allow them to grow. How did The Girl UNInterrupted Project start? Both Juliet and Zhanina work at Leers Weinzapfel Associates Architects, a firm that was started in the 1980s by Andrea Leers and Jane Weinzapfel. Last year, Andrea and Jane were nominated for an award that brought them to London for the ceremony and, when they returned, they brought a copy of the Architecture Review Magazine that focused all about the history of women in architecture. On Women’s Day, they had an office-wide lunch to discuss any general observations about equity of the architecture field. Juliet and Zhanina were quite shocked to see the statistics due to the incredible support that they’ve always felt at Leers Weinzapfel Associates, and wanted to learn more about what was happening with the other emerging professionals in Boston. They submitted an application to be a part of the ABX in Boston and were accepted. They launched the project soon after. What is The Girl UNinterrupted Project? The project is divided into three phases. Phase 1 is the Designers Data Survey that they distributed to emerging professionals in Boston. The survey included questions on general info, salary negotiation, work/life balance, and career growth. All of the data was professionally analyzed and the results were presented at ABX. Phase 2 was the Conversation Series between Juliet, Zhanina and top leaders in the field like women principles, landscape architects, and human resources associates. What challenged did they face? How did they come up in the field? Do they have any tips for emerging professionals on what to do to jumpstart their carers? Phase 3 was a manual to publish all of the information that they gathered to promote transparency within the office culture. One side includes tips for emerging professionals and the other side was tips for leaders on small tweaks they could try to maximize and retain the talent

Lessons Learned from Investing in 15 Architecture Firms Today is the FINAL day to enroll for the EntreArchitect Mastermind for resources, training, and a powerful peer group that will help you accomplish your most ambitious goals. Learn more at EntreArchitect.com/mastermind. One of the most surprising things about small architecture firms is how similar we all are. We’re all struggling with the same issues and trying to contribute to the world the best that we can. Charrette Venture Group invests in small firms, partnering with us to address the issues we face and helping us to plan for success. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Lessons Learned from Investing in 15 Architecture Firms with Todd Reding of Charrette Venture Group. Background Todd Reding is the President and CEO of Charrette Venture Group. Todd has been a guest of the podcast on EA103: 3 Roadblocks Experienced by Every Entrepreneur Architect and What To Do About It [Podcast] and EA151: How to Grow Your Architecture Firm [Podcast]. Charrette Venture Group (CVG) is a firm that provides a wholistic approach to building a business; they provide services from management, leadership, finance, marketing, business development, and more to architecture firms who are seeking to build a strong business in the design space. CVG’s mission is to be the best company in the world to help small architecture firms become stronger and more profitable businesses. Their eleven-member team is all based virtually, ranging from Mexico City to London. They work with small firms on every aspect of their businesses except the actual design work. Todd’s background is in the entrepreneurial world. With an MBA from Northwestern University, he’s has been involved in starting and running businesses throughout his whole career. What’s the biggest experience you’ve gained working with small firms? The most surprising thing as Todd has learned more about this space is the depth of the relationships with each firm. The CVG team cares deeply about each investment partner, and truly gets invested across a long period of time. All 15 firms have a very close, trusting relationship. Interactions at times are very honest and direct, sometimes telling firms what they don’t want to hear. The firms CVG partners with are totally trusting and focused on growing their firms and earning a profit so they can do the design work that they’re passionate about. Is this investment an equity deal? CVG is paid a percentage of the architecture firm’s revenue instead of an equity stake. They look at the board and figure out how they can increase the revenue of the firms that they’re partnering with. What tips do you have for those trudging through finding good client fits for their firms? Check out High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way by Brendon Burchard. It can be a little sale-sy, but there are some great lessons in the book. One of them is the clarity of focus and creating a clear idea of what you want to accomplish. Among all the firms CVG has worked with, that’s been the greatest challenge. Architects are great at focusing on details, but, when you’re running a business, you have to make sure you’re focusing on the right details. CVG helps firms have a clear understanding of what they do and don’t need to focus on. Do many firms have a business plan in place when you first meet them? Most firms have put little to no effort into planning out their business. Sometimes they have budgets or revenue plans, but they aren’t sure where it fits into market segment, project types, and more. Operationally, how are you structuring your budget so your marketing and business development dollars are allocated by each market type and segment to achieve your goals? CVG works to understand the efficiencies of the firms. Your revenues can be up, but profits are down. Why is that? Are you making sure that everyone in your firm understands the budget and allocated hours for each project? What’s expected at each phase of the project? What is the Architecture Business Plan Competition? The Fourth Annual Business Plan Competition encourages small firms to put together and submit their business plans. CVG wants small firms to spend time creating high quality business plans. Registration asks a few simple questions, such as: What’s the vision for your business? What are your projected revenues for 2018? The goal is to ask specific questions about where your business is headed. Then, four jurors review submissions and select 15 semifinalists. The semifinalists will each be interviewed about their plan and the lifecycle of their business, as well as receive feedback from the jurors. From those 15, there will be 5 finalists who present their plan on a video conference and pitch their full business plan. The jurors will select 1 winner, who is awarded over $5,000 in cash and prizes, including ro

How to Become an Influential Speaker Whether you’re proposing a project to a new client or presenting to a powerful decision making authority or spreading a message to the world one stage at a time, your voice and how you use it will be the difference between falling flat and persuading your audience to see it your way. Do you want to make a difference? Use your voice to change the world around you. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, How to Become an Influential Speaker with Dr. Michelle Mazur of Communication Rebel. Background Dr. Michelle Mazer founded Communication Rebel on the belief that communication changes the world. She helps speakers rebel against the status quo and make a difference by crafting their message, create their positioning and decide on pricing. Her speakers have gone on to book $100K speaking gigs, become international speakers, and raise more money than they ever expected. Origin Story Michelle figured out that she was passionate about public speaking in 10th grade during her required course. At the time, she was shy and quiet. She white knuckled her way through the first terrifying, awful speech, but there was a voice in her head that told her she could master it. She took more speaking classes and ended up joining the speech and debate team. She got her butt kicked every Saturday for a long time, but she began to cut her teeth, get feedback, and try different things. Eventually, things began to click. She got a PhD in communication and was a professor for five years. Eventually, a friend convinced her to share her gift of communication with the world. Now, her job is to help empower others to find the right words so that their message spreads and impacts those it was meant for. How did your clients find you? Some people come to Michelle after they’ve dabbled in speaking and aren’t afraid of getting on stage. They know they have something important to share and that it’s valuable, but it’s not coming across like they want it to. Now, they’re ready to up level what they’re doing. Are you an introvert or extravert? Michelle is an ambivert, which means she straddles the line. She can be very gregarious and outgoing, but she also needs a lot of time to rest and recharge. When she speaks, she plans time afterward to recharge after she drains her energy. What tips do you have for introverts who want to sell their message? One of the big strengths introverts can focus on is that when you’re a speaker, you get to control the conversation. There are a lot of speakers who are introverts and love being on the stage. In some ways, it’s like you’re having an in-depth conversation with one person. Introverts also think so deeply about the audience and think about what they need, their reactions, and how they’ll take action on your message. Those thoughts become your fuel to get onto a stage and share your message. What are some things that someone who wants to speak well can prepare? The first step is to step away from PowerPoint or KeyNote. Some of the first moves should be the pre-work of figuring out why your audience is coming to the speech, what problems do they have, what do they believe about your message? Then, move to the core message of your speech – the three word rebellion – where you’ll get people to take action. Figure out what conversations you need to have to move your audience from their pain point to your rebellion – your movement – that you’re wanting to create. From there, it’s about structuring your message. What are your thoughts on text on slides, if you use them? Michelle feels that if you’re reading your slides, the slides are replacing you as a speaker and you’re hiding out. Slides are the most impactful and effecive when they support and reinforce your message. Minimal text, maximum photos to reinforce your idea. What’s the best way to structure your message and presentation so you remember what to say when you’re supposed to say it? Presentations have information buckets. Michelle’s clients use a three part structure: when you make a point, you support that point with a story/statistics/research/case study, then have a take away from that point. The great thing about that is that you always know what’s coming next. Point you want to make Story that supports your point Take away If anyone is ready to take their speaking to the next level, how can they do that? The first thing Michelle tells clients is that even if you’re not getting paid yet, have your pricing structure in mind. If you don’t set the intention off the bat, you’re going to get caught in the cycle of free speaking forever. Start deciding that you’re going to say no to free speaking and you’re going to get paid. It’s hard, but trust that you have a great message, and that’s the product that you’re selling. If you hav

How to Build a Million Dollar Small Firm Using a Remote Team The future of architecture for small firms is the remote team. Using technology and online tools to acquire new clients, manage projects, and work with a team of top professionals distributed around the world, the virtual studio along with a remote team will allow you the flexiblity, freedom, prosperity and success that many of us are seeking as small firm architects. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, How to Build a Million Dollar Small Firm Using a Remote Team with Winn Wittman of SelfBuiltArchitect.com. Background Winn Wittman is a contemporary residential architect based in Austin, Texas. His work has been featured in various publications including Architectural Record, Architectural Digest, The Rob Report, Green Building & Design, Hinge, The Discovery Network, and HGTV. He has a BA from Tufts and a Master of Architecture from the University of Texas in Austin. He’s received numerous awards, including best green innovation for his Wittman Panel Designs. He’s also the founder of Self Built Architect, an online community and educational program where Winn shares his knowledge about leveraging technology and using online tools to create personal freedom, prosperity, professional excellence and more. Origin Story Winn’s love for architecture started in his mother’s basement where he woodworked as a kid. From that came a love of art and architecture. As a liberal arts major, he bounced around before discovering art history and falling in love with architecture. A professor suggested that he go to Austin, Texas. Several years later, the recession happened. Winn began to buy homes and fix them up when he discovered an old office building. Him and his ragtag team ran wires, ran equipment, and finished the building. A luxury jet designer then bought the building from him, earning him his first million dollars. After that, going to work for a firm was unappealing. He began developing and building unusual homes that realtors would tell him he had no chance of selling. Surprisingly, he always found a buyer. When the next recession hit, Winn had a trendy office and a bunch of employees. He noticed his expenses were eating up all of his profits. By 2010, all of his work had dried up, he had to let people go and get rid of his office. It was time to do things in a different way. As he began to realize the tools that had recently become available allowing people to work anywhere with an internet connection, he started to do his research. Slowly but surely, he began to build a virtual firm. He had a reputation for high end residential work and needed to figure out how to maintain the same high touch approach to architecture that he had before. He didn’t want the client experience to suffer at all as a result of his remote work. How did you start your remote firm? First, Winn realized he needed a luxury conference room to meet clients in. He rented an apartment in a luxury high rise that a resident could reserve a conference room in. He also sought out other conference rooms he could utilize in a pinch. Now, there are plenty of places that have conference rooms for rent. Many of his tools were the same, but he found them through different channels. Both the internet and GoToMeeting helped him become a laptop architect. When he wasn’t meeting clients, he could work completely remotely. He prepared his clients to know that he was not only very busy, but that he worked in different states. With the technology today, he still has a robust practice with a high degree of client services. His day is now freed up to work on whatever he wants instead of managing a business and office. Have you ever experienced pushback from clients? Only when Winn hasn’t properly prepared them. One client came with him on the transition, and wasn’t prepared for the new expectations. Do you think this is a model that someone can come at from scratch without having established a business before? If anything, there’s less expectation if you’re starting a new business. Young architects and their clients are so receptive to using new technology. The next generation realizes that life is more important than work, and technology is just another part of life. When you have a potential new client, how do they first interact with you? First, they get a live human being answering the phone instead of a voicemail. It sounds just the same as calling an architect’s office. The service Winn uses texts him right away so that he can connect with them to set up an appointment. Until you sign up a client, the purpose of every meeting is to have another meeting. Winn doesn’t send proposals and doesn’t charge for an initial visit. Winn then meets them at their property or a conference room and gathers information. After the initial meeting, he sets a second appointment on the road to figuring out what their dream is and if/h

5 Steps to Unleash the Significant Power of Sleep Of our many skills, sleep may be the weakest. We know it’s important, and that it has a direct effect on our heath, well being, and overall success. Yet night after night we break the rules. This week on EntreArchitect, 5 Steps to Unleash the Significant Power of Sleep. A few years back, Mark began experiencing some significant health issues. After many tests, it was determined that his issues were a direct result of high levels of stress. Architects are stressed. The lifestyle that we lead often causes lots of problems. Mark has implemented a number of more healthful practices, one of the most important of which is sleep. He’s achieved significant improvement and felt the benefits, but he still has a way to go. In architecture school, late nights and even all-nighters are looked upon with honor like they’re something good. If you’ve ever done this, you know the effects on your mind and body. The effects can even reach to the dangerous side. As a profession, we need to make a change to look at sleep differently. Studies show that efficient sleep patterns allow us to accomplish things more effectively and be more creative, productive, and successful. What should we do as entrepreneur architects to improve our sleep habits? 5 Steps to Unleash the Significant Power of Sleep 1. Schedule Your Sleep Set a consistent sleep schedule by going to bed and waking up at the same time each day. Plan to sleep between 7 and 9 hours each night. Bonus tip: Find something pleasant to wake you up rather than the negativity of the news or a loud alarm clock 2. Practice a Relaxing Bedtime Ritual Turn off the technology and find something else that helps you wind down. Avoid all electronic screens, including your phone, TV and computer, which emit blue light stimulating your brain to stay awake. Read a book, listen to soft music, or maybe try out meditation! 3. Watch What You Eat Caffeine is one of the biggest challenges when trying to sleep better. It’s processed in our bodies up to 6-8 hours after that last cup of coffee! The best sleep routines start around 1 or 2 PM. Also try to avoid large meals and sweet snacks that keep your body up trying to digest when you’re trying to sleep. 4. Exercise Studies show that people sleep better and feel more alert during the day by getting 150 minutes of exercise each week. The better you feel, the better you sleep. 5. Design Your Sleep Environment Create a bedroom that helps you sleep. The environment that you’re trying to sleep in is important, including the temperature, lights, the sheets, and more. Your temperature should be set between 60-67 degrees for optimal sleep. Keep away from distracting noise and lights. Allow full exposure to natural sunlight first thing in the morning to reset your brain for a successful day ahead. Follow these five steps and sleep better! Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) Core by BQE Software is a brand new software designed specifically for architect’s project management! Get a free 15-day trial at EntreArchitect.com/BQE. ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto is making payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small firm architects. Get an exclusive, limited time detail. Sign up today and get three months free. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto and claim your free three months today! Referenced in this Episode Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes EntreArchitect Live: New York 2018! For more information and to register, visit EntreArchitect.com/NewYork. The post EA207: 5 Steps to Unleash the Significant Power of Sleep [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Context & ClarityContext & ClarityFrosty & Fired Up

Business by Design: Organize Your Business Beautifully Using 6 Proven Principles of Design Vision, mission, goals, hiring, culture, business systems, planning. These are all critical elements of success. Do you want to organize all of these into a successful business plan? Can you use the creative side of your brain to see your firm from a different perspective? This week on EntreArchitect, Business by Design: Organize Your Business Beautifully Using 6 Proven Principles of Design. Jane Walton is a published author, a public speaker and a trained executive coach with a masters degree in Human Resources Management training and development. She’s developed and facilitated numerous programs focused on leadership, team effectiveness and management specific to architecture firms. You can hear her entire origin story on EA088: How to Avoid Burnout as an Architect with Jane Walton [Podcast]. Taking inspiration from the art world, Jane will discuss how to design your firm beautifully by utilizing the basic principles of design organization: focal point, contrast, scale, unity, movement and rhythm. Designing your firm is the perfect balance of vision, partnership, and execution. How can architects solve some of the issues they’re dealing with? First, figure out the focal point. For architects, they really need to think that through. They may want to do healthcare or civic residential, but take time to think through that. Is your firm doing what you say you want to be doing? Some firms say they’re on the cutting edge of technology, but if you want to be in that space you have to invest properly to get the level of talent to be able to do that. For what it’s going to take to reach your goals, is that where you want to be? Be clear and intentional about where you want to be. Next, go back and look at the contrast: What are your clients expectations? What is the market like? What are industry conditions that will support or not support your focal point? Once you have your focal point, what do you do? Test it and figure out if the clients understand what you’re trying to do. Is your focal point something that people are going to be excited about? Figure out what’s going on with the competition and how you compare to that. How do you build an organization around your focal point? Once you know who you are and what you are, what you want to do and how you want to do it, then you can build a team around those concepts. Sometimes you get to the point where you have to consider what your life will be like if you have 20 employees and decide if that’s really what you want for your focal point. For some people, it’s better to stay a sole practitioner and accept the realities of what that type of business entails. How can you create unity in your firm? Unity is the elements have have a logical relationship to the progression and results. For example, finding a project, concept, to design to execution, the unity piece needs to be understood. What does communication look like? What is your pace? What expectations do you have? Learn from companies like Zappos and Southwest who hire the right people from the start and are clear about their culture and expectations to create the best teams. How can you find your rhythm? Rhythm is recognizing that we have the work to do, but asking what other things we need to have in place. Are there monthly meetings to course correct if needed? How can you continually execute your marketing plans? What do you need to do to keep interest and keep growing? For architects, rhythm is getting out there and connecting with old and new potential clients. Get involved in continuing education programs and events that allow you networking opportunities. What is the one thing that small firm architects can do today to build a better business tomorrow? “Become a masterful influencer and be able to educate and inform companies that are calling on you to help them understand the value of design and what it can do for businesses and individuals.” – Jane Walton Learn more about Business by Design and connect with Jane online at JaneWaltonConsulting.com. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) Core by BQE Software is a brand new software designed specifically for architect’s project management! Get a free 15-day trial at EntreArchitect.com/BQE. ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto is making payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small firm architects. Get an exclusive, limited time detail. Sign up today and get three months free. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto and claim your free three months today! Referenced in

How to Develop a Powerful Owner Architect Agreement for Your Architecture Firm If you purchase the Hybrid Proposal Digital Course TODAY – including complete documents ready for you to edit for your small firm – we will throw in a FREE bonus including access to the Construction Management for Small Firm Architects Course and the GetFocused Productivity Course for Small Firm Architects . That’s over $600 for only $197. The offer ends Friday, February 2, 2018 at 11:59PM ET! Click HERE to receive BOTH the video course AND the complete template package that's ready to edit and help you sign more projects and make more money today! About 10 years ago, Mark was inspired by a talk to create his own owner architect agreement, one that works for his small firm. It needed to be easy to understand, look friendly, and be an integral part of his firm’s simple sales system. How can we go from prospect to project as effectively and efficiently as possible? After a decade of slow evolution, it’s the best small firm agreement. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, How to Develop a Powerful Owner Architect Agreement for Your Architecture Firm. Note: EntreArchitect strongly advises that you have your attorney and insurance company review all of your legal documents. Why is it called a “hybrid proposal”? It’s both a proposal and an agreement. Typically, architects send out a letter of proposal defining what they understand the project to be. If they are ready to move forward, the architect prepares a legal agreement for the prospect to review and agree to. Mark created the Hybrid Proposal to condense both actions into one simple step. Next, Mark developed the hybrid fee with gives the client a flat fee and a percentage fee. The Four Parts of the Hybrid Proposal Cover Letter The cover letter is a simple form letter. It has a logo and a return address, but the intent is to explain to clients what we’re going to do and give them a call to action as to what next steps to take. The next part explains what was discussed at the meeting and what will happen next. All of this is malleable, but is the first step. Next, the prospective client can sign and initial the proposal and return with the initial payment to the firm. Proposal This six-page document is incredibly user friendly. Use your design skills to make it look appealing. Make it clear and easy to understand. Do you want to be more efficient and make more money? Find a target market and create a template proposal that fits your needs. Then you can use it over and over again! We also get into the different phases of architecture, including the pre design and architectural services. Explain the process you’re going to go through to execute your client’s project. EntreArchitect also includes construction administration as another phase of their process and fee. An initial payment is taken up front and held as a credit until the final payment. The hybrid language says that compensation for basic architectural services is a stipulated sum fee per the attached compensation schedule. After schematic design, we know the scope and the budget, and we can make the project based on our stipulated sum. It doesn’t need to be perfect, just start confirming that you’re understanding what they want. Terms and Conditions This two page part is intentionally short to make it more manageable. The legal terms – including compensation, services, and more – are all put into easy-to-read terms. This section also includes photography rights, insurance, dispute resolution, and more. Reference Sheet This is a standard document that lists clients’ names and locations to for prospective clients to take a look at and reach out. Mark’s code system allows them to easily find like projects so that they can obtain references from people who have similar projects to what they’re looking for. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) Core by BQE Software is a brand new software designed specifically for architect’s project management! Get a free 15-day trial at EntreArchitect.com/BQE. ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto is making payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small firm architects. Get an exclusive, limited time detail. Sign up today and get three months free. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto and claim your free three months today! Referenced in this Episode Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes EntreArchitect Membership Access Mark’s fully customizable Owner/Architect Agreement at EntreArchit

Construction Administration for Architects is NOT an Option A very popular topic around EntreArchitect is the role of the architect in the construction phase. The number of firms providing architecture services and forfeiting Construction Administration is surprising. One member of The EntreArchitect Community recently shared, “I need to get better at selling my clients on construction administration. Most think they don’t need it and refuse it when I offer. I had a recent client back out on the service because my drawings were essentially too well done. Once they saw the final drawings, they decided the contractor could handle it without my involvement.” This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Construction Administration for Architects is NOT an Option. During the past few years, we’ve began to discuss, as a profession, taking back the process. The goal is to be viewed once again as the leaders of the construction industry. To make this happen, we must literally take control of our projects and lead the process from beginning to end. Construction Administration is not an option to be offered as an additional service, it’s an integral part of the architecture process. Do you need to get better at selling your clients on construction administration? Imagine a surgeon preparing for surgery and then handing it over to someone else to execute, or a lawyer spending months preparing a prosecution and then heading back to the office to prepare for a new case before the trial is over. It’s no different for architects. We spend months preparing a design, we work our way through three levels of increasingly difficult development and documenting exactly how a structure is to be built. How can we give it away? We’re responsible for the health, safety and welfare for the creations we make and we’re legally liable for what’s constructed from our designs. It’s our responsibility as licensed professionals to observe the construction of our designs and confirm that they are being built as we designed them. Fivecat Studio Architecture provides Construction Administration on every project from a storage shed to a completely new construction. How do we do it? We’re a full-service architecture firm. We help our clients organize from their first ideas of the projects all the way through the end of construction. Most clients have no idea how our process actually works, and yours don’t either. If you offer a service as optional, a client will look at it as such. Fivecat Studio proposes one fee that includes Construction Administration as a part of the overall service. If a client asks if they’ll work without construction administration, Mark and Annmarie let them know it isn’t an option for them. 8 Reasons Why You Provide Construction Administration We lead weekly project meetings and review the progress of construction.We’re there to monitor things and support them in answering questions throughout the process. We confirm that the contractor is executing the project as per the design and specifications.Our client just went through a whole process that involved a lot of time and money, so they want the project done the correct way. We’re available to quickly resolve unforeseen issues and unexpected conditions so construction progress isn’t delayed.Time = money, and, in our clients’ mind, having an experienced professional to walk through that process and keep things on track during inevitable crisis is invaluable. We review the contractor’s payments so we can have more leverage during construction.This allows us to protect the clients’ interest and confirm that they’re only paying for what’s appropriate at that stage of the project. Now the client feels confident that what they’re paying is accurate. We review shop drawings and submittals.We make sure they’re what the owner has payed for and help the contractor resolve any issues that may arise. We assist with preparing and confirming the completion of the punch list and that the certificate of occupancy is issued. We’re there to review and assure that everything is taken care of. We are legally responsible for the health, safety and welfare of the users of the buildings we design.We confirm that all the building and environmental codes are being observed. As licensed professionals, it’s our firm’s policy to be involved in the construction of every project. Ultimately, we need to protect our firm’s legal exposure in terms of liability. If you want to work with us, we have to be involved in Construction Administration. The success of our firm depends on this. When we waive Construction Administration, we lose our ability to resolve issues quickly and may create bigger problems for ourselves. We’re ultimately working for our clients’ satisfaction, and, if we’re absent during construction, it’s rea

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Every Small Firm Architect Should Read This Book Fivecat Studio Architecture launched in 1999, and Mark discovered a book that changed the way he viewed business. It helped him realize that running a successful architecture firm required so much more than designing great architecture. Inside the owner of every small firm exists a battle among the entrepreneur, the manager and the technician. If we don’t attend to the needs of each one, our firms are destined for failure. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Every Small Firm Architect Should Read This Book. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber inspired Mark to build Fivecat Studio Architecture as a franchise prototype. Even though they knew selling their business systems as a franchise was never a goal, it was still important. Those systems have allowed them to thrive and have given them the tools needed to balance the requirements of the firm with the responsibilities of their family. This book inspired Mark to work on his business rather than in his business. Since 1999, Mark and Annmarie have experienced the startup pains of infancy, the hard-earned successes of adolescence, and the launch of a new virtual business model. Part 1 Michael E. Gerber defines the E-Myth as the entrepreneurial myth and discusses how small businesses are often the result of entrepreneurial seizures. What does that mean? “The technician suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure takes the work he loves to do and turns it into a job.” Have YOU done that? How many architects do you know who have launched their own firms with the goal to do it better than the firms they worked for? The three phases of business are infancy, adolescence and maturity. It’s important to build a mature company right from the beginning. “A mature company is founded on a broader perspective, an entrepreneurial perspective, a more intelligent point of view about building a business that works not because of you, but without you. Because it starts that way, it’s more likely to continue that way. Therein the true difference between an adolescent company, where everything is left up to chance, and a mature company, where there is a vision against which the present is shaped.” Part 2 Gerber introduces the concept of the franchise prototype and working on your business and not in it. He encourages the creation of systems, and the predictable results and happy clients that come from them. “The systems run the business, the people run the systems. The system integrates all the elements required to make a business work. It transforms a business into an organism, driven by integrity of all its parts, all working in concert toward a realized objective. With its prototype as its progenitor, it works like nothing else before it.” As architects, our first thought of having a system is negative. What if it takes away or limits creativity? In fact, systems do just the opposite. First, build the business, then you’ll have more time and more flexility to be the architect you want to be. “Great businesses are not built by extraordinary people, but by ordinary people doing extraordinary things. For ordinary people to do extraordinary things, a system is absolutely essential in order to compensate for the disparity between the skills of your people and the skills your business needs in order to produce consistent results.” At McDonald’s, the systems in place allow their tens of thousands of stores to deliver exactly what customers expect every time they walk into one of their locations. “It delivers exactly what we’ve come to expect of it every single time. That’s why I look to McDonald’s for a model for every small business, because it can do in it’s more than fourteen thousand stores what most can’t do in one.” Who among us can say that we do things as well as McDonald’s does? Part 3 Do you want to build a successful small business? Gerber leads readers through a fully-developed business development program, a how-to guide for success. The E-Myth Revisited is not only your guide to success, but it’s entertaining as well. Why is this Mark’s favorite business book? If you take action to implement the lessons that Gerber teaches, The E-Myth Revisited will take your firm to places you’ve never imagined. Read through the book and go through the process of creating a master plan for your life. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) Core by BQE Software is a brand new software designed specifically for architect’s project management! Get a free 15-day trial at EntreArchitect.com/BQE. ARCAT has huge librarie

Walking the Talk of Equity by Design Sometime in the next few weeks, the AIA San Francisco Equity by Design comittee will launch it’s third Equity in Architecture Survey and distribute the findings from their previous survey. Check it out and take it, because it will affect everyone in the profession of architecture. Equity means that all people, regardless of their socioeconomic, racial, or ethnic grouping, have fair and just access to the recourses and opportunities needed to thrive. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Rosa Sheng is Walking the Talk of Equity by Design. Background Rosa is a respected designer, architect, thought leader and innovator with over 23 years of experience. She’s led a variety of award winning and internationally acclaimed projects. As founding chair of Equity by Design and AIA San Francisco Chapter president, Rosa has led two Equity in Architecture surveys and authored AIA National Resolution 15-1 in 2015 and served on the Equity in Architecture Commission from 2016-2017. She’s presented on why equity matters for everyone nationally and abroad, and since she was last on the podcast, Equity by Design has been featured in Architect magazine, Architectural Record, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and on the TEDx stage in Philadelphia. After 20 years at the San Francisco office of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, she recently joined SmithGroupJJR. Now, more than ever, a foundation of equitable practice and what that truly means is ever so more important not just in architecture, but in society as a whole. Equity minimizes barriers to maximize success. It’s not just what’s fair and equal, it’s a mindset of “we first” instead of “me first”. The 2016 Equity in Architecture Survey will be out soon, and the key findings started out with career pinch points and added career dynamics. While career pinch points happen once during your career, career dynamics happen throughout your career, like work/live balance, having a break from architecture, and pay equity. Equity by Design has also had a lot of great reports written by Annelise Pitts. For example, pay equity relates to how we’re comparing tings on the concept of temporal flexibility: you’re only as valuable as the hours you’re perceived to be working in the office verses your influence and impact beyond the physical hours you’re in the office. In this paradigm of how we should work, what is our value as architects? Were there any big surprises with the last survey that’s about to release? Burnout engagement was a new topic to the 2016 survey. Someone’s access to a senior leader in a firm, having friendships at work, seeing a clear pathway to advancement, and doing work that is meaningful to longterm career goals shows a huge impact on whether someone thrives. Does the survey address the community of small firm architects? The survey did look at sole practitioners and small firm architects, but they could use help to expand the pool. Of the 8,000, about 600 were sole practitioners. Hopefully more small firms and sole practitioners participate in the survey in the future! How have you applied some of these things to your new firm? The irony is that the last thing Rosa was planning to do in 2017 was transition into a new job. They were renovating their house, and she applied for the FAIA amidst traveling and various other projects. When she was initially approached, she didn’t think it was possible in 2017 but continued to be intrigued. Equity was important to SmithGroupJJR, and they were looking for talent retention and for a way to create more value within the design practice. Rosa was ready to influence a large firm and put theory of all the things she’d been talking about into practice. She came in as a shareholder and has been able to help steer the practice of developing higher education and workplace projects along with spearheading equity, diversity and inclusion as an official program that helped leaders across the firm learn more about what that practice looked like for design. Are there specific things that you know you’re going to try to change? The goal is not a complete overhaul, but she found a strong foundation for pay equity analysis and other changes. The goal is to truly disrupt how we think and be able to lead the conversation. Is an equitable culture built into the business plan of SmithGroupJJR? A lot of it is. The goals are in parallel about engagement, getting more voices at the table, how people are nominated for promotions, and more. They’re evaluating how things use to be done and working to make them better. Will you build a team to help you with this? There will be people that act as a steering group of sorts, the reality is that it’s for everyone. The team is the whole leadership group, because they’re the ones who are going to be involved and invested first. What events do

We’re Building a New House for Our Family We’re building a new house for our family! I’m going to share our process and our progress with you – right here – at EntreArchitect Podcast. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, We’re Building a New House! Last fall, Mark LePage and Annmarie McCarthy purchased a lot on a subdivision in Weddington, North Carolina. Mark and Annmarie are husband and wife, and also partners at Fivecat Studio in Westchester County, New York. About 20 years ago, several of their family coincidentally moved from the New York metro area to North Carolina, just outside the city of Charlotte. Both Mark and Annmarie’s parents still live in the New York metro area, and have been a huge part in helping them raise their children while they were building their careers. Being close to New York City allows their family the convenience of visiting as often as they choose, and provides a fantastic client base for their high-end residential architecture firm. There are many opportunities that living in Westchester county affords them. However, there are also opportunities that living in North Carolina would bring too. They would have business contacts, since both of Annmarie’s brothers are in construction, Mark’s older brother is a photographer, and his younger brother is a high-end residential real estate broker in the Lake Norman region just north of Charlotte. Over the years, they’ve gone through the list of pros and cons, and have found that the pros of staying in Westchester have always outweighed the cons. This past summer, something big changed. After almost fifty years of living it the house that Annmarie grew up in, Annmarie’s parents surprised everyone by buying a home in South Carolina and moving within 4 months. Though they wanted their kids to go to great schools and they wanted to be close to both sets of parents, they knew that with their kids growing up and family moving far away, they had more flexibility to make other decisions. When they were freed up to look at moving, they didn’t find any homes that met their requirements as architects! Most of what’s available is being built by mega-developers, which would be a hard transition from a cottage in the woods of upstate New York. They were left with no choice… It’s time to build a new house! They found the perfect plot of land in one of the best school districts in the state of North Carolina. They’re going to make the move slowly, taking time to build and uproot their entire family, including allowing their oldest, James, the opportunity to finish his senior year in Westchester. There’s so much in store! Follow Mark’s personal Instagram @markrlepage to see the progress. Question: Have you built your own home? Share your story! Visit our Platform Sponsors Gusto is making payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small firm architects. Get an exclusive, limited time detail. Sign up today and get three months free. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto and claim your free three months today! Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) Core by BQE Software is a brand new software designed specifically for architect’s project management! Get a free 15-day trial at EntreArchitect.com/BQE. ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information.   Referenced in this Episode Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes   The post EA201: We’re Building a New House for Our Family [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Frosty & Fired UpContext & ClarityContext & Clarity

Top 5 Most Popular Episodes for EntreArchitect Podcast in 2017 The EntreArchitect community is growing larger and more powerful every day, and this podcast has seen the results. The EntreArchiect podcast is now being downloaded more than 30,000 times per month. The progress we&#8217;re making is no doubt directly related to you, the EntreArchitect Community. Episode 200 is the final episode of 2017 and there are so many great things coming in 2018. Focus on the things you have control over. There are only a handful of things that we have direct influence over. Work to ensure that you maximize your impact on the things that matter most. If you adopt these three words as your mantra &#8211; Love, Learn, and Share what you know &#8211; next year will certainly be your best year yet. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, the Top 5 Most Popular Episodes for EntreArchitect Podcast in 2017. #5 with 5988 downloads in 2017 EA175: Michael Kilkelly The Entrepreneur Architect Series Michael Kilkelly is a principal at Space Command, an architecture and consulting firm in Middletown, Connecticut. He&apos;s also the founder of ArchSmarter.com, a website dedicated to helping architects work smarter not harder. Michael has received his bachelor of architecture from Norwich University and his masters of science, design and computation from MIT. Previously he was an associate at Gehry Partners in LA where he worked on several high profile design projects including New York by Gehry and the Guggenheim. He writes regularly about architecture on ArchSmarter, Arch Daily and Architect Magazine. Connect with Michael online at ArchSmarter.com or email him at [email protected]. You can also find him on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. Want to be a guest on The Entrepreneur Architect podcast series? Connect with us on any social media platform or email [email protected]! #4 with 6025 downloads How to Get Started as an Architect Developer (Best of EntreArchitect Podcast) Declan Keefe of Placetailor returns to shares his knowledge about How to Get Started as an Architect Developer. Placetailor is an architecture firm that provides architecture services, construction services, and real estate development. They look at architecture as the genesis of ideas, and wanted to figure out how they were going to take control over the revenue and profit side of the business. Connect with Declan Keefe online at Placetailor.com and on Twitter @placetailor &amp; Instagram. #3 with 6074 downloads EA192: Earl Parson The Entrepreneur Architect Series Earl Parson is an architect based in Los Angeles, California practicing residential architecture as Parson Architecture and is the founder of CleverModerns.com, an online platform empowering DIY owner-builders with plans and coaching. Connect with Earl online at Parson.Architecture.com and CleverModerns.com. Follow him on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. #2 with 6349 downloads EA190: EntreArchitect Live with Alex Gore of F9 Productions This week, Mark held his first live interview using Facebook live. Alex Gore from F9 Productions discussed his work with Daniel Libeskind, his firm in Longmont, Colorado, his podcast, Inside The Firm, sharing the behind-the-scenes with his partner, Lance Cayko, and his book The Creativity Code. Connect with Alex online at F9Productions.com or email him at [email protected]. Visit him online on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. #1 with 6410 downloads EA185: The Passion, The Process and Problems of Running a Design/Build Architecture Firm <img loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-18123" src="https://entrearchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/designbuildfeature-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" srcset="https://entrearchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/designbuildfeature-150x150.jpg 150w, https://entrearchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/designbuildfeature-100x100.jpg 100w, https://entrearchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/designbuildfeature-200x200.jpg 200w, https://entrearchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/designbuildfeature.jpg...

Using Emotions to Market Your Architecture Firm Our prospective clients learn with their heads but decide with their hearts. After years of research and gathering information, often, when a client chooses to work with an architect, they simply go with their feelings. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Using Emotions to Market Your Architecture Firm. Have you encounter a situation where emotions take over and a decision is made with someone&#8217;s heart? You&#8217;ve probably seen it happen with yourself and your own clients. &#8220;In his book, Descartes Error, Antonio Damasio, professor of neuroscience at the University of Southern California, argues that emotion is a necessary ingredient to almost all decisions. When we are confronted with a decision, emotions from previous, related experiences affix values to the options we are considering. These emotions create preferences which lead to our decision.&#8221; Why is storytelling so important? When developing a marketing strategy, stories trigger memories and feelings. Stories evoke emotions and attach memories and feelings of things you&#8217;ve experienced. The 4 Fundamentals of Emotional Marketing: Knowing who you serve matters. Some architects don&#8217;t want to have a target market, but without knowing who you serve you can&#8217;t figure out how to emotionally connect with them. Pick a target so that you can learn more about them and connect best with their community. Where are they? What makes them happy? What are they trying to achieve? Sensorial experiences matter. Think beyond the traditional description of your services and develop strategies and services that are experienced with every sense. Can you start using technologies like virtual reality to allow your clients to actually walk into a house or building you&#8217;ve designed? Imagine the senses they would experience. An imaginative approach matters. We use our imaginations all the time. When providing products and services in new ways using imagination, we trigger something in our clients&#8217; minds. What if our proposals and legal agreements were beautiful, creative, and easy to read? Manage the emotional experience through your imagination. The words we use matter. They will cause our clients to feel one way or the other. Are you designing a house or creating a home? They say the same thing, but one is more functional and technical, another is filled with feeling and love. Your spoken words when you first meet a client make a unique impression. The words on your website aren&#8217;t just a portfolio, they help show who you are. Mark&#8217;s marketing book suggestions: Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People by Marc Gobe Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping&#8211;Updated and Revised for the Internet, the Global Consumer, and Beyond by Paco Underhill Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) Core by BQE Software is a brand new software designed specifically for architect&#8217;s project management! Get a free 15-day trial at EntreArchitect.com/BQE. ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Gusto is making payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small firm architects. Get an exclusive, limited time detail. Sign up today and get three months free. Visit EntreArchitect.com/Gusto and claim your free three months today! Referenced in this Episode Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes EntreArchitect Membership Visit the home page at EntreArchitect.com to join now. &nbsp; The post EA199: Using Emotions to Market Your Architecture Firm [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Frosty & Fired UpContext & ClarityContext & Clarity

How to Overcome the Fear of Growing Beyond You as a Small Firm Architect For years, Sheri teetered back and forth between staying small and practicing as a small practitioner or making plans for growth and executing toward a bigger future. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, How to Overcome the Fear of Growing Beyond You as a Small Firm Architect with Sheri Scott of Springhouse Architects. Background Sheri is a member of EntreArchitect, but her and Mark connected online a long time ago and have been supporting one another as architects for a while. As a founder and principal at Springhouse Architects, Sheri&#8217;s mission is to lead clients through the building process with the clients in control and Springhouse as their guide, advocate, and ally. With over 20 years of experience in residential architecture, Sheri brings knowledge and confidence to every custom home project. She&#8217;s a graduate of the University of Cincinnati and has her NCARB license. Sheri&#8217;s also lead architect on three HOA boards and volunteers extensively with her son&#8217;s high school marching band. She also feels privileged to be a mentor to teenage girls. She lives in Ohio with her husband and three boys. Origin Story Sheri&#8217;s moment of discovering architecture wasn&#8217;t very inspiring. When she was in high school after her parents&#8217; recent divorce and her older siblings moved out to go to college, she was lost and her grades dropped. She was called to the counselor&#8217;s office, and they asked if she wanted to be an engineer. Everyone in her family was an engineer, so she wasn&#8217;t interested in that. The one class she was interested in was drafting. To get out of the office, she agreed to apply to architecture school. She was accepted at University of Cincinnati and found the direction that she needed there. She wasn&#8217;t an artistic architecture student, but enjoyed the structure and the design classes. Sheri married before she graduated and had her first child the year after she finished school. The process of looking for a job with a six month old was different than many of those she graduated with; she had a lot of parameters in place. After searching, she found Atelier Design close to home. They let her work part time with a flexible schedule. She was able to focus on her family but build the foundation of her career at the same time. She worked there for twelve years until the crash in 2008. At that point, a lot of things happened that created the perfect storm. Her husband, John, lost his job and they took it as a sign that it was time for the next thing. John got a new job in Indianapolis, and they picked up and moved their whole family &#8211; now three boys &#8211; from Ohio to Indiana. Everything fell apart there. When Sheri left Ohio, she started Scott Architecture and negotiated one of the builders from her old job with her and her work was back in Ohio. They decided to move back and start over. After that, every month got a little bit better than the last. How did things turn around? In 2013, Sheri connected with EntreArchitect. That was another defining year in her career. She had to make a five year plan and she was amazed that putting her life goals on paper looked totally different than it did at that moment in time. Her whole career had been a balance of family and working, and she was happy doing that. She know, however, that in 2020 all her kids would be out of the house. Where did that leave her then? She&#8217;d built a whole career balancing things, and looking down the road looks different than everything she knew. In that moment, she knew she didn&#8217;t want things to be the same as they had been. What does your work with Charrette Venture Group look like? Sheri was doing a lot of the right things and her business was growing quickly. She was in control of it where it was, but wasn&#8217;t sure if she could control it if it continued to grow. She also didn&#8217;t understand the path of who to talk to, who to bring in, what resources she needed, etc. to get to her goal of a 10 person goal in 2020. She went back and forth with the decision to work with Charrette Venture Group when she had teenagers and a busy, stressful season. When she was ready to grow, she knew that she wanted something to focus on when her kids were out of the house. Charrette Venture Group was instrumental to Sheri&#8217;s firm&#8217;s growth. She didn&#8217;t know where to start, and it was overwhelming to think that she could learn it all and find, pay for and manage the resources she needed. It&#8217;s been a two year partnership, and Sheri hasn&#8217;t regretted it once. They bring things to the table that Sheri didn&#8217;t know and that she didn&#8217;t know that she didn&#8217;t know. One helpful piece was forecasting: finding all the numbers for the jobs, the personnel, and more, that boils down to a certain number to decide if she needs to hire more people or find more work for the people sh

Finding Your Purpose in the Profession of Architecture with Michael Bernard of Virtual Practice Consulting When we decided to become architects, there was no doubt it was sparked from a desire to design. Maybe you love to draw, paint or build. Maybe someone recognized your talents and guided you toward architecture. All through architecture school and through your career, the definition of architecture revolves around the idea of design. Architecture is so much more than design. Your place in architecture may not be in design. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Finding Your Purpose in the Profession of Architecture with Michael Bernard of Virtual Practice Consulting. Background Michael is the founder of Virtual Practice Consulting, where he provides strategic advice to design and construction firms. He collaborates with firm leaders to assure effective growth, enrollment in mission and vision, development of growth models, strategic business development, and mentoring staff to become effective project leaders. Michael&#8217;s clients include architects, builders, structural engineers, landscape architects, and more. He&#8217;s been the adjunct professor in the architecture department at the California College of Art in San Francisco since 2006 and has served as a director on the board of the San Francisco chapter of AIA and on the board of the AIA California Council. He&#8217;s led several committees and served as architect advisor to the academy for emerging professionals at the AIA San Francisco. Michael&#8217;s Origin Story Michael discovered architecture as a 10 year old when he was inspired by house plan magazines at the supermarket and built 3D models as a child. In college, he studied psychology with the intent of becoming a clinical psychologist. While he was teaching French to exchange students during summer school, a colleague noticed him sketching and asked if he&#8217;d ever thought of architecture as a profession. Instead of applying for graduate school in psychology, he applied for architecture. A light came on and he realized his innate design talent had just been sleeping. Michael started in design and worked for Charles Moore in Los Angeles. After some time, he went to work for a larger technical firm because he wanted to learn what the underpinning was of design. Over the course of his career, he always wanted more. He finally realized that what he loved most about architecture is the creative team that makes a project happen. How long did it take you to realize where you wanted to be? Michael always went back to the conversations in the studio. Those conversations were what really stick in his memory. The critical thinking was way more interesting to him than the drawing. The process of hearing people discuss what they love was so important to him. He had the revelation over 20 years into his practice that virtual practice would bring a different way to engage. He felt a confidence in thinking differently about the practice of architecture. While architects are poised to be incredibly entrepreneurial, free-thinking and liberal, often we define ourselves so narrowly. Given the way we&#8217;re tied to the cost of construction and other social aspects, we have the opportunity to think more broadly. However, we treat ourselves so narrowly that we insecurely define what architecture is. If we&#8217;re only about design, does anyone else matter? Are people who think more broadly to be excluded? Does design as visual art trump everything else? Was there a moment in your career where you were working in design and it clicked that you needed to do something else or was it more of an evolution? When Michael was managing a small firm and focused on the business side of practice away from the design side, he heard from a lot of other people who were interested in doing the managing principal thing. Through word of mouth, he built a client list of several hundred people who he works with on various aspects of practice. People saw the value in what Michael was doing and wanted to get in on it. Where did you decide to break off and expand into Virtual Practice Consulting? It wasn&#8217;t until the lightbulb came on that others were interested in what he was doing. Michael didn&#8217;t know what he was doing, there was no name or label to proceed him. When someone reached, he had the chance and opportunity to create a self driving business. First Michael talks through the idea throughly; what&#8217;s the mission and vision of the company? Instead of attaching to the safety of designing, Michael proposes that firms think more broadly about the firm itself as the design project. What are some steps for someone in the position you were in to take to move toward confirming what they think their purpose might be? The first step is to acknowledge at the very essence of yourself that you want to lead is the core. When Michael realized what he really wanted was that he wanted to leave his own practice, he knew

A New Way to Practice Architecture with Diana Nicklaus of SAAM Architecture The world has changed in so many ways since Mark&#8217;s architecture firm, Fivcat Studio, was launched in 1999. The internet was in its infancy. Few architects were using digital marketing and communication tools. Today, we can communicate instantly with anyone in the world. Our entire firm can be launched, built and run without a dedicated office. The world is changing and with it, the practice of architecture is changing too. How can we leverage the power of the internet and the cloud to improve our practice? How can the internet&#8217;s new models improve the profession? How can these new models not only allow us to thrive as entrepreneurs, but allow us to be more flexible, more family friendly, more socially responsible, more equitable? How can we live happier lives? This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, A New Way to Practice Architecture with Diana Nicklaus of SAAM Architecture. Background With over 20 years of experience, Diana has practiced architecture in both the US and Italy. Based in Boston, MA, Diana cofounded SAAM in 2014. It was established with the goal of providing high-level client services through unique and innovative project specific solutions over sector based opportunities. They&#8217;ve adopted a business model that provides aggressive HR policies and have therefore attracted some great talent. In three years, they&#8217;ve grown to a team of 24 people. Origin Story Diana grew up in Amarillo, Texas. Her mother was a humanities professor at the local community college, and she taught Diana a lot about how to examine her surroundings. Diana remembers driving through small towns and playing a game with the local churches: they would guess the denomination based on the style. When she ended up in university, she worked with an architectural historian and expanded her view of architecture and design. She finished at Tufts with a degree in architectural history and urban studies, and went to graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin. Following graduation, a strong collegiate connection with Pei Cobb Freed &amp; Partners in New York City, where she worked for four years learning about the global practice, high profile projects, and more. Her career took a turn when she worked for a firm in Venice that was doing building scanning. After that, she worked for a few firms in Cleveland, Ohio where she found a strong technical background. Eventually, she made her way back to Boston, where she really appreciates the strong roots in the equity discussion that&#8217;s happening today. Did you go to Boston with the intent of starting your own firm? Diana had no intention of starting her own firm. In Boston, she worked in an office with about 45 people, where she had the perks of flexible schedules and time to work from home. Work life benefits became an important factor in how she looked at the profession. Her company was acquired by another company, and after three years, she knew it was time to move away from that space and start her own company. In a large firm environment, they found themselves being encouraged to fit into a group depending on your specialties. As someone with a liberal arts background, Diana felt taught to work through different projects and create a different practice by working across sectors. When you started your firm, what planning stages did you go through? When they started, they built the firm knowing they wanted to do bigger work, not just typical architectural startup projects. They wanted to bring in others who also worked on those types of large projects. They had to figure out a way to bring those people into a new firm and expand on HR policies. In addition to flexible schedules and remote working, they also wanted to try unlimited vacations and other things. These things really attracted quality people, people like mothers, fathers, people with aging parents or who want more time with hobbies. In last year&#8217;s world, there was a specific question about work life benefits. Usually, men were given access to that more than women. At SAAM, everyone has the same access to the same opportunities. What challenges are there when moving toward a better work life balance? Historically, architectural culture doesn&#8217;t have a great foundation in trusting employees. A lot of trust and communication is required at a firm like SAAM. Leadership needs to open their minds if they want to cultivate this culture shift. When people are willing to share with one another, there&#8217;s incredible support to be found. What&#8217;s the structure of the firm? Diana is the CEO and her partner is the COO. They work a lot on projects and fulfill their executive roles. They have three principals, one of whom works remotely, allowing SAAM to access her incredible knowledge and use her as a resource. There are five senior associates and many other associates. The view with titles is that it&#8217;s more

How to Use StrengthsFinder to Find YOUR Place in Architecture We all have strengths and weaknesses. If we focus on finding, developing and building our strengths instead of filling in the gaps caused by our weaknesses, we&#8217;ll be more successful. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, How to Use StrengthsFinder to Find Your Place in Architecture with Erin Poppe of Charrette Venture Group. Background Erin Poppe is Charrette Venture Group&#8216;s leadership and strengths expert. She facilitates the development of strategies that allow teams to focus on and invest in their unique abilities. Prior to CVG, she revitalized the StrengthsFinder initiative at Kansas State University and presented on Strength Engagement at Gallup&#8217;s inaugural Clifton Strengths Summit. Origin Story Erin is the daughter of an architect who graduated from Kansas State University. Her parents were married on campus and then moved Washington where her dad started working for a small design firm called HKP Architects. Erin was always raised in the architecture world, knowing the language, purpose and value. Through her own studies unrelated to architecture, she began to talk to others about what makes people unique and how they can own their individual strengths. After graduating, she connected with Charrette Venture Group&#8216;s Todd Reding. They quickly realized a real need for this conversation within the architecture community. Now she spends her time talking to people in the architecture world about what makes them great. What is StrengthsFinder? The StrengthsFinder assessment helps to identify areas of a person&#8217;s greatest potential for success. For a long time, the conversation has been centered around weaknesses and how to become a more well-rounded person. Instead, how much further can you go by investing your energy into something that you&#8217;re naturally good at? Doing that helps people see exponential growth in the long road. The assessment is founded in research that studies a wide variety of talent functions that assess your natural areas of greatness. In about forty-five minutes, you learn the top five ways you innately think, feel or behave. Erin&#8217;s top five strengths are: strategic, ideation, individualization, connectedness, and learner. What does that mean? It means that most of all, she&#8217;s a strategic thinker. She loves ideas, dreaming, and making connections with others who have ideas and want to take them to the next level. However, she&#8217;s not very talented in execution. Having the assessment puts this information in front of her and helps to put language to the behaviors to better communicate with those around her how she is best of value. Are all architects similarly skilled? As you can expect, industries tend to cultivate talents. So far, Charrette Venture Group has found an abundance of strategic thinkers and executers within the architecture world: they can dream up ways to innovate, and they can do it too. The gap then comes into play when they don&#8217;t excel at communicating their worth. Based on those results, Charrette Venture Group aims to encourage architects to own what they do well and adapt to fill the needs of what they don&#8217;t do well. Can your strengths change over time? Your strengths can change over time based on major life shifts like a new job, a move, or a different relationship. It&#8217;s not recommended to retake the assessment immediately if you don&#8217;t feel like you got the right results. How do you work with Charrette Venture Group partners on their strengths? For example, Mark&#8217;s top five strengths are: futuristic, empathy, belief, connectedness, and developer. Futuristic is more of a big picture dreamer, asking what we can do tomorrow. Empathy allows him to easily put himself in others&#8217; shoes. Belief relates to the core values that he operates off of. Connectedness allows people to bring together and grow. Developer sees potential in everything. How do you get anything done if you&#8217;re not an executer? If you aren&#8217;t an executer, that doesn&#8217;t mean you don&#8217;t have a responsibility to get things done. If your strength is connectedness, how does getting a task done and following through on your ideas help to grow the connectedness dream you&#8217;re trying to reach? You leverage your talents to get things done. You do things that aren&#8217;t as comfortable or fun to get to the place where your strengths thrive. What would you say to people who are trying to fill in their gaps without a team? However you put your mind to something is perfect. No matter what we&#8217;re talking about, working with others helps us go further. You can stay a sole practitioner but still assess what you bring to the table and what gaps you have. Grow your talents to be the best they can be, and then maybe look into some contractors who can fill in the gaps that are needed. What does someone do if they want to look at their strengths? Charret

Launching and Growing an Architecture Non-Profit Mark is often asked by students or young architects with an idea that might change the world in some big or small way, how might one start a charity; a non-profit organization that serves their community or serves the world. What is the first step? How do you obtain funding to launch and plant that seed of an idea and have it sprout into full blossom? And once you get it successfully started, serving the needs of others how do you keep it growing into an organization that might bear fruit for generations to come? This week we dive into answering some of these questions. In this episode at EntreArchitect Podcast, Launching and Growing a Architecture Non-Profit with AzuKo.org. Connect with AzuKo online at AzuKo.org. Follow AzuKo on Twitter or Facebook. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) Core by BQE Software is a brand new software designed specifically for architect&apos;s project management! Get a free 15-day trial at EntreArchitect.com/BQE. ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Charrette Venture Group invests in small- to mid- sized architecture firms with the goal to create action behind aspirations. Do you want to become a larger, stronger business? Visit EntreArchitect.com/CVG to learn more! Referenced in this Episode Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes The post EA194: Launching and Growing an Architecture Charity with AzuKo.org [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Frosty & Fired UpContext & ClarityContext & Clarity

12 Steps to Take Control of Your Email As small firm architects, we&#8217;re working so hard to get everything done. Between the many hours we dedicate to building our firms and the time spent fostering strong relationships, there isn&#8217;t time for much else. Each week offers us 168 hours, no more and no less. Half of those hours are reserved for sleeping, eating and hygiene. What we choose to do with the remaining 84 hours will determine whether we succeed or fail. How do you use your 84 hours a week? Mark recently looked at his own habits, and was shocked to realize he was spending more than two hours per day sorting, managing and responding to email messages. That&#8217;s time away from building his business and being with his family. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, 12 Steps to Take Control of Your Email. 12 Steps to Take Control of Your Email 1. Turn off ALL notifications All the bells anId whistles that pop up? Turn them off. You don&#8217;t need them. Instead, schedule times in the day to check your email or social media. 2. Install spam filters More than 90% of Mark&#8217;s email is unwanted junk and solicitations. If you get 100 emails and 90 of them are garbage, help yourself get to the 10 emails that actually matter. 3. Unsubscribe from unread subscriptions If you don&#8217;t read it anymore, delete it. Is there a possibility to miss out on something? Sure, but if you&#8217;re not reading it anyway, you&#8217;re not missing out on anything. 4. Schedule time for dedicated email review Schedule specific times every day to review your email. Instead of using minute-by-minute notifications, you&#8217;ll be better disciplined. It&#8217;s hard to not pick up your phone and hit the email button, so reestablish new habits to find time to look at your email. 5. Do it, delegate it, defer it, delete it These are the four rules to processing any task list. If the email will take you less than 2 minutes, do it right then. If it can be forwarded and handled by someone else on your team, then delegate it. If it requires your attention and will take more than 2 minutes, move it to your task manager to be addressed during your scheduled email time. If it&#8217;s useless junk, delete it. 6. Keep email responses short Don&#8217;t waste your precious 84 hours composing long email messages. 7. Use the phone for dialogue Instead of going back and forth over email, pick up the phone and have a conversation. This way, the issue will be resolved much faster, and you can get back to what&#8217;s most important. 8. Prepare formal letters for important documentation Formal reports and letters should be formal. Write and formalize letters for important information. 9. Don&#8217;t use email to coordinate your teams There are apps that are so much more efficient than email like Asana, Trello, or Slack. They allow simple search function to find communication. 10. Use a reminder app Instead of using email to send yourself a task, find a reminder app. Mark uses Wunderlist to manage his tasks. 11. Delegate your email management Let someone else manage your email. Imagine opening your email and finding five messages that really require your attention. By letting someone else go through steps 1-10, you&#8217;ll have so much time to do other things. 12. Don&#8217;t respond after hours or on weekends You&#8217;re not obligated to respond to your clients after business hours and on the weekends unless you choose that. Set expectation with your teams and clients, and you&#8217;ll live happier within those boundaries. What are your tips for taking control of your email? Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) Core by BQE Software is a brand new software designed specifically for architect&#8217;s project management! Get a free 15-day trial at EntreArchitect.com/BQE. ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Charrette Venture Group invests in small- to mid- sized architecture firms with the goal to create action behind aspirations. Do you want to become a larger, stronger business? Visit EntreArchitect.com/CVG to learn more! Referenced in this Episode Download the Profit For Small Firm Architects course for FREE. Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes The post EA193: 12 Steps to Take Control of Your Email [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Frosty & Fired UpContext & ClarityContext & Clarity

The Entrepreneur Architect Series: Earl Parson At EntreArchitect, you&#8217;re encouraged to share your knowledge. When we share with other architects, we all benefit. We are able to learn from one another and the profession will grow. One of the goals of EntreArchitect is to provide a platform for other entrepreneur architects to share their stories. We want to interview you! What&#8217;s your story? Do you want to share your knowledge or the story about how you were inspired to pursue this profession? How do you become an entrepreneur architect? Join us for our series called The Entrepreneur Architect, where each guest has the opportunity to share their story and answer some questions that will provide value to each of you. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, The Entrepreneur Architect Series featuring Earl Parson. Background Earl Parson is an architect based in Los Angeles, California practicing residential architecture as Parson Architecture and is the founder of CleverModerns.com, an online platform empowering DIY owner-builders with plans and coaching. Origin Story Earl was born and raised in Muncie, Indiana, and his life intersected with architecture as a kid when his best friend&#8217;s dad was an architect. He saw the giant drawing boards and electric erasers, which may not have directly inspired him, but was a role model in his life of an option when he grew up. His dad owned a two story, three storefront building downtown as an investment and hobby, and there were constantly projects to fix it up that Earl was around. In addition, they added on to his house while he was growing up. There was a moment where he began falling in love with the old buildings. Though he knew he wanted to be an architect, he wanted to get out and explore the world. He spent time in St. Louis for his undergrad and ended up at SCI-Arc for grad school. He worked for some architects around town and then ended up on his own after the recession, and never looked back from there. After graduating, Earl and a friend took a summer off doing design work, building furniture, and other odd jobs. Later, he worked for Marmol Radziner, W3 Architects, and Studio Works, and eventually got a full time job Pasadena City College teaching drawing and Keating. After the recession, he started Parson Architecture. In 2009, some friends connected him with a gallery in Chinatown where architects and designers came together and had a show of furniture and other objects. Earl started doing some work for daycare facilities that required a certain amount of professionalism, creating a great growth opportunity to establish business practices. Where and when did you start welding? When Earl was a kid, his grandparents lived on a farm in southern Indiana. His grandpa made everything he had on his farm. He had a lightbulb moment seeing his grandpa create and realized that everything that had ever been created was first thought of and built by someone. Once he bought a house and had the space, he bought a welder and started accumulating equipment. That creative outlet kept him sane during the recession. What big goal did you achieve? Earl entered the Charrette Venture Group Business Plan Competition. He received an honorable mention, but the real achievement was the mental and psychological hurdles it took to enter. Thought it took courage, Earl worked to develop his plan and put it out to the world. He would sit down each morning for about an hour to develop his ideas. Earl relearned how to have an idea and develop it so that it&#8217;s something worth considering. What is Clever Moderns? It&#8217;s a platform that Earl is currently developing. The idea is to be a passive income strategy to grow a community around people supporting each other in the home DIY owner-builder world. Not only do they want to sell the plans, but Earl wants to provide coaching and support for people who want to build the homes themselves. There are a lot of people out there that love the idea of having interesting architecture and design who may not go out and hire an architecture. In there is the hidden market for those who want help and encouragement to do it themselves. The lightbulb moment came when it dawned on Earl that rather than charging a better fee for his services, he just gave the plans away for free. If the plans are free, how does the rest of it work? Currently, Clever Moderns is building their first prototype houses. In northern Arizona, Earl is building Quonset huts. What has been your biggest struggle? For Earl, putting his ideas out there is terrifying. The fear of creating a newsletter was holding him back. Earl&#8217;s friend Halelly Azulay at TalentGrow LLC encouraged him to get at it and offered support. His secret method to focus is to put his phone in airplane mode. It becomes a psychological barrier that says he&#8217;s focusing his time on the most important thing in his immediate present. Quick Questions What&apos;s your target market? For Clever M

How To Attract and Hire The Best of the Next Generation of Architects with Nick Serfass, AIAS National Executive Director This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, How To Attract and Hire The Best of the Next Generation of Architects with Nick Serfass, AIAS National Executive Director. Background In his role as Executive Director of the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS), Nick Serfass focuses on driving the organization toward relentless &#8220;forward progress&#8221;, so that it creates a more impactful future for its student members and the profession of architecture. Nick holds alumni status as a Virginia Wahoo, Miami Hurricane and Auburn Tiger. He is also an architect when necessary. Listen to Nick&#8217;s origin story back on EA050: Big Changes with AIAS Executive Director Nick Serfass. Tell us about your role at AIAS? Nick is the operational captain who makes the events, programming and services move forward. He&#8217;s also working to bridge the gap between academia and the profession. He works to connect students to the profession and help them succeed with the right tools and resources. A lot of what they&#8217;ve done is a ton of storytelling: about the profession, about what students need to know, and highlighting the great content the students put forth. They&#8217;re trying to get more eyeballs on the organization so that more people become aware of who they are and what they&#8217;re doing. That way, they can grow the community and it&#8217;s impact on the profession. The more people who know about AIAS, the more opportunities our members have to engage. They&#8217;re consistently creating products, programs and services to have a story to tell about. How can architects be attractive to the next generation of architects? For students, there are so many avenues to research firms in depth than there were before. You can find out a ton about small firms by diving into their social media. The biggest challenge is that students go to the website and can&#8217;t find a lot of information to get excited about working there. For firms, document and create. Show young architects what you&#8217;re doing, and put out vulnerable and authentic content for them to connect with. All students bring different interests to the table, but today they&#8217;re searching for firms that are passionate about those topics too. If they can&#8217;t identify what a firm is excited about, they can&#8217;t make that connection. Do you think the website is the most important thing to update? Your website is your face, that&#8217;s where people will check you out. After that, social media and other digital platforms can add to your marketing strategy. If all you see is one static homepage, how can someone identify if they&#8217;re a fit or not? How can architects improve their websites to connect better with this new generation of architects? Make your website image and video heavy. Our phones are powerful, they take great photos and videos and the platforms available to us make it so easy to share. AIAS.org has a lot of imagery, graphics, and video imbedded. The goal is to catch someone&#8217;s eye. This is a creative industry: showcase your creativity. The point of your website is to tell a story about your firm. You can design it however you want when you&#8217;re doing that. Identify your story and build from there. As long as you&#8217;re getting it out there, you&#8217;re doing better than many people. Anyone can pick up social media and entry level employees can help with graphics. Use this as an opportunity to reach all sorts of new people you&#8217;ve never been able to reach with a relatively low barrier for entry. Are blogs still relevant? There is value to written content. Most blogs in past years are kind of articles. Now, we have more listicles; they&#8217;re bulleted and feed into the lack of attention that people have when they&#8217;re scrolling through and looking for the highlights. What are your favorite social media tools? For architects, Instagram matches the creativity we bring. As architects, we&#8217;re always in front of great images: a working drawing or a building in front of us. Instagram also allows the story function for you to document little client interactions, contractor feedback, and more. It plays into the industry and skills that architects have. What&#8217;s your advice for keeping the younger generation excited and interested? The way Nick approaches it is to try to find out what motivates someone. What do they want in the future? What are their goals? How can you help them get there? As they&#8217;re drafting drawings, talk about your background and how you got to where you are. All of us have a next step, and if someone is helping us get to the next step, we&#8217;re going to work really hard for them. At the end of the day, the relationships are still there even if someone moves on to the next company. What&#8217;s coming up for AIAS? They&#8217;ve created a robust platfo

EntreArchitect Live with Alex Gore of F9 Productions This week, Mark held his first live interview using Facebook live. Alex Gore from F9 Productions discussed his work with Daniel Libeskind, his firm in Longmont, Colorado, his podcast, Inside The Firm, sharing the behind-the-scenes with his partner, Lance Cayko, and his book The Creativity Code. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, EntreArchitect Live with Alex Gore of F9 Productions. Background Alex Gore grew up drawing wars of ants verses bees, playing backyard baseball, and being obsessed with Frank Lloyd Wright. After high school, he joined the national guard as a heavy equipment operator. There, he attended North Dakota State University and received a masters in architecture and construction management. He then worked under the world-famous architect Daniel Libeskind, teamed up with his best friend from college Lance Cayko to start F9 Productions. He&#8217;s the cohost of Inside the Firm Podcast and the author of The Creativity Code. How did you get to work for Daniel Libeskind? Going into Denver, Alex lined up several different interviews when he had a trip planned to be in town. He was back and forth with Libeskind, and was offered an internship first. Though he turned that down, he eventually was offered a full-time position. Did you carry any thoughts over from Libeskind to F9 Productions? Daniel Libeskind always did crazy fun projects, so Alex and Lance have tried to keep doing one fun project a year. They built a tiny house that was sustainable and cooler looking than traditional tiny houses. The goal was to make a commitment to do something cool every year. What are your thoughts on interning for a star firm? All of us interns worked a ton and were paid an hourly rate. At F9 Productions, interns are paid. When you&#8217;re sacrificing your time and energy in a studio culture environment, you have a lot to learn by doing that if that&#8217;s what you want to do. For F9 Productions, interns are just colleagues and designers who they work side by side with. How did F9 Productions start? When Alex got laid off by Libeskind, he called Lance and they made some plans. Eventually, Lance got laid off as well and Alex decided to move to Colorado and figure out how to work together. They worked as a tw0-man shop for a few years until they had consistent business in 2013-2014. Now, they have about ten people and even that feels stretched at times. The structure is a two-headed beast. They each have people who mainly work for one of them or the other, and in times of big projects they can pull from the other&#8217;s side. Depending on the project, they tend to hand off projects that are a better fit for the other person&#8217;s skills. Where did the name for F9 Productions come from? In college, Alex and Lance didn&#8217;t know if they really liked each other. When they finally realized each other had some useful skills, they worked closely together. They were on their computers all the time, and F9 was the key to render. They would tease their classmates who wanted to go home at the end of the day by saying, &#8220;Go ahead! Just hit F9 and the computer will do the work while you get some rest.&#8221; It&#8217;s progressed that their different companies now are set up following suit: F10, F11, F12 and F14. Are you going to sell your development units individually? We couldn&#8217;t separate the parcels, so they&#8217;ll be condos with an HOA. We&#8217;ll sell 6 on one side as units, and there&#8217;s still talk of renting the two on the other side. Do you think every architect should do development? Alex thinks the majority of architects should do their own development within their skills. Most people don&#8217;t because of the money issue. If there was a course in college that taught how to get a bank loan and find money to put down, more people would do it. It&#8217;s not rocket science. Jump in and mitigate risk. Alex and Lance built the first tiny house using their construction experience. They structured their firm to save money throughout the year and then eventually deciding what they wanted to do with that money. Can you define architecture? Narrowly, it&#8217;s the design of buildings or built structures. However some people believe the line moves and architecture becomes everything. Alex wants to pull architecture back to the design of buildings. He believes you can apply architecture thought and design principles to many other things. How are you designing your business? How are you building your life? What was the deciding factor in designing and building your own development? It came down to the numbers: could they get the land for under 18% of the valuation. Why did you start the podcast and what keeps you going? Alex and Lance started a podcast previous to Inside the Firm Podcast where they kind of talked about nothing, but they wanted to do something where they shared actual useful information. Their goal was to be two principals talking ab

Building a Large Firm by Starting Small with Tabitha Ponte of Ponte Health Tabitha Ponte is a licensed architect and builder, a philanthropist, a mother and a wife who&#8217;s leading Ponte Health. She&#8217;s based in Orlando, Florida, specializing in single source delivery, resources management and best outcomes serving the healthcare sector exclusively. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Building a Large Firm by Starting Small with Tabitha Ponte of Ponte Health. Origin Story Tabitha was seven or eight years old when she told her mother how she felt about spacial structures. She felt like she saw the void, not the stuff. In the car in Venezuela, where she spent her childhood, Tabitha&#8217;s mom told her all about architecture and engineering. Her mind was made up: she was going to be an architect. Tabitha had family members who were in architecture, one of whom designed and built his own house. She spent significant amounts time in that house and vividly remembers the influence that the fact that he built it himself had on her. She was very involved in music as a child, but always knew that she wanted to attend architecture school. She went to architecture school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and worked all through college. Because of this, she actually finished her IDP hours before she graduated college. Tabitha worked for three different firms all though college, and was eligible for her licensure exams the year she graduated. She worked to learn the business of architecture and construction from the inside. When she graduated she was given the opportunity to step into a leading role as an architectural project manager. Everything fell apart when the market crashed. Firms disappeared overnight and work halted. All of that eventually lead her into Chicago. She had visited Chicago previously, and thought that one day she may work there. Because of the market crash, she didn&#8217;t pursue architecture as her graduate degree; Tabitha studied construction instead at Illinois Tech, receiving a management and engineering degree. Tell us about a pivotal change in your career. Tabitha has worked to establish a holistic self in this field who is capable of design, resources management, leading job site and more. She wanted to create a school geared toward that kind of development of sharing what she knew, but felt so much pressure when working on a project to create a school. She got incredibly sick, and was required to make some serious life changes. A little over a year ago, she suffered a stroke. That was the last straw in choosing to walk away from the stress that was making her physically ill and stop pushing against a system that was fighting her. Where did you go next? Tabitha dropped everything in Chicago and traveled to fifteen states. She climbed several mountains and found so much bliss there that she thought she might stay. The cold of Chicago followed her to Portland, and she was ready to head back to Florida and to her family. She dove into public works construction and asset management, and found that the government agencies loved her: she&#8217;s licensed and could cross over to each different side and play each part well. While Tabitha was pregnant, she made the intentional choice to work from home. Her new look on life allowed her the time to be home with her daughter, read for personal development, exercise, and eat well. How did the transition into your new business happen? Tabitha remembers thinking that she didn&#8217;t want to be limited to construction administration rather than being in the field. She wanted to give back, so it made sense to become Ponte Health: the mission is to help expand the health community. Next was the leaping point. It&#8217;s really scary to leap, but she knew she could do it. The next step was to find some accessible office space, so Tabitha found a coworking space in Medical City. Next, she persevered to set up meetings with hospital systems. Many people said no upfront, but eventually she got some yesses. Her goal was to be focused and work to serve the right people in the right markets instead of just getting anything to just try to get by. The decision was deliberate: she thought through her dreams of market growth and how to find the need to serve. How many people are working with you currently? Right now there&#8217;s three people, but it&#8217;s often project dependent. Tabitha&#8217;s in the revolving cycle of what it means to be &#8220;net 30&#8221;, where when you work for someone like a hospital, they&#8217;ll sit on the invoice until the 30th day. It&#8217;s a difficult cycle to break when trying to build working capital within the firm. How do you fund the firm? In Tabitha&#8217;s case, she bootstrapped it and hoped for the best. She also has investors. They have a holdings company above the building company where, in Florida, her friends and family have leeway to buy into the company. There are limitations as to how much money they can give you.

Using Emotions to Successfully Attract the Clients You Want Our prospective clients learn with their heads, but they decide with their hearts. After years of research, often, when a client chooses to work with an architect it simply comes down to their feelings. They choose their team by deciding who they like the most. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Using Emotions to Successfully Attract the Clients You Want. Do you ever make decisions based on emotion? We don&#8217;t always buy based on price or features, more often we buy because something makes us feel a certain way. When we&#8217;re developing a marketing strategy for our firms, we should consider the part that emotions play in the decisions that our clients make. Professor Antiono Damasio at University of Southern California argues that, emotion is a necessary ingredient to almost all decisions. When we are confronted with a decision, emotions from previous, related experiences affix values to the options we are considering. These emotions create preferences which lead to our decision. Our feelings help us make our decisions. That&#8217;s why storytelling is so powerful; they trigger emotions and feelings. In EA140, architect storyteller Jeff Echols shared How To Use Your Story to Find the Work You Want. How can we craft our branding to be based on emotion? How do we use emotion to effectively find the clients we want? Here are 4 Fundamentals about Emotions to use in Marketing: Knowing Who We Serve Matters Without knowing who we serve, how can we have any idea how to emotionally connect with those people? Who are you serving? Who do you want to serve? Where do these people work and play? What makes them happy? What are they trying to achieve in their search for an architect? Sensorial Experiences Matter What does an architect do? When answering this question, think beyond the traditional descriptions. How can we develop strategies and services that are experienced with every sense? Do we have strategies around sight, sounds, touch, and more? Think along the lines of experiencing design through virtual reality or presenting hand-sketched schematic designs with freshly baked cookies. Do you think your client will talk to their friends about that type of meeting? Using an Imaginative Approach Matter Immaginative systems and strategies make the process more real for our clients. It causes them to pause and think about what&#8217;s different than they expected it to be. How can we create a different and imaginative website to trigger emotions? What experiences can we give that feel different? What can spice up our proposals to give pause? How can clients&#8217; first point of contact feel different than another firm? The Words We Use Matter The words we choose have the opportunity to make a client feel one way or the other. In residential architecture, are we designing a house or creating a home? A house has a function, but a home is filled with feelings, love, and memory. Using intentionality with the words we use goes a long way. To learn more about emotional marketing, check out these books: Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping&#8211;Updated and Revised for the Internet, the Global Consumer, and Beyond by Paco Underhill Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People by Marc Gobe I want to know your favorite book on marketing! Share on the EntreArchitect Facebook group today. Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) Core by BQE Software is a brand new software designed specifically for architect&#8217;s project management! Get a free 15-day trial at EntreArchitect.com/BQE. ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Referenced in this Episode Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes EntreArchitect Academy Enrollment for the EntreArchitect Academy closes TODAY Friday, October 6, 2017 at 12 PM EST! To learn more and sign up NOW, visit EntreArchitect Academy! Photo Credit: Shutterstock / Dmitry Guzhanin The post EA188: Using Emotions to Successfully Attract the Clients You Want [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Context & ClarityContext & ClarityFrosty & Fired Up

60 Minute Business Plan for Small Firm Architects Did anyone tell you you needed to know how to run a business when you became an architect? Whether clients come knocking or not, it&#8217;s not so easy to keep them knocking. The solution is to write a business plan. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, 60 Minute Business Plan for Small Firm Architects. Maybe you&#8217;ve heard the words &#8220;business plan&#8221; and you feel yourself shutting down. Before you do that, let me share my vision. It came from years and years spent putting together my own various business plans. Finally, I put together a stripped down, one page version that I was able to put on paper quickly and develop as I went along. &#8220;The greatest value in creating a business plan is not the final document. It&#8217;s the communication, the prioritization, the focus, the clarity, and learning that makes the process worthwhile.&#8221; &#8211; Jim Horan Where are you now? Where do you want to be in the future? 5 Step Process for a Simple Business Plan for Small Firm Architects Create a vision statement. Get a single piece of paper and write a single paragraph about your vision. What will your business look like? Where do you want to be? Do you want a high design firm? How much money are you making in your vision? What&#8217;s the big picture Consolidate that paragraph into a vision statement that embodies the essence of your vision. Describe your mission. Why did you become an architect? Why did you launch this firm? What propels you toward your vision? Develop simple strategies. Break it down into simple steps of how you&#8217;re going to reach your vision and mission. Create 5 steps and work your way backward from your end goal. What do you need to do to reach your goals? Make specific goals. Specify benchmarks that will lead you to execute your strategies. Be specific and give yourself a deadline for each. Commit to an action plan. What tasks will you complete to accomplish your goals? Who will work toward each goal? What does the time line look like? Find the steps required to reach your goals. Everything you need will go into this document. Once you&#8217;ve finalized your business plan, revisit it often. Revisit and revise your business plan 2-4 times a year to ensure that each piece is still relevant. This is an evolving document, and that&#8217;s okay! These periodic revisiting of your big ideas keeps you focused and wanting to push your firm further. What&#8217;s your vision for your architecture firm? Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at EntreArchitect.com/FreshBooks. (Enter EntreArchitect) Core by BQE Software is a brand new software designed specifically for architect&#8217;s project management! Get a free 15-day trial at EntreArchitect.com/BQE. ARCAT has huge libraries of free content, Specs, CAD, BIM and more. No registration required. Want to collaborate with colleagues in real time? Visit EntreArchitect.com/ARCAT and click Charrette for more information. Referenced in this Episode Leave a Rating and Review at iTunes EntreArchitect Academy The One Page Business Plan for the Creative Entrepreneur by Jim Horan Enrollment for the EntreArchitect Academy closes Friday, October 6, 2017! To learn more and sign up NOW, visit EntreArchitect Academy! Photo Credit: Shutterstock / Kucher Serhii (edited) The post EA187: 60 Minute Business Plan for Small Firm Architects [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Context & ClarityContext & ClarityFrosty & Fired Up

Brandon Hubbard, The Architect&#8217;s Guide This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, The Architect&#8217;s Guide with Brandon Hubbard. Background Brandon is a licensed architect based in San Francisco, California and the founder of TheArchitectsGuide.com, dedicated to helping architects with their job application and career goals. He practiced architecture with Foster + Partners in London where he worked on several high profile design projects, including Heathrow Terminal 3, the Bloomberg Headquarters and the Samba Bank Tower. Currently he&apos;s a senior architect in Heller Manus Architects in San Francisco working on large scale commercial and residential projects. You may have seen him online posting about architecture careers on TheArchitectsGuide.com as well as a content provider at Arch Daily. Origin Story Brandon was born and raised in New Zealand until he was ten, when he moved to Montana. There he completed his schooling, including a masters in architecture from MSU Bozeman. During his last few years and after graduation he worked for a small firm in Bozeman. The small, five-person firm landed a $100 million residential project. In a short amount of time, Brandon gained a lot of experience. Following graduation, he enjoyed working on that large-scale project. Looking around Bozeman, he didn&apos;t see a lot of similar work readily available. He decided to look abroad, applying to several firms in London. He joined Foster and Partners and was there for 7 years. During his time there, he worked on a client base in Madrid, Spain and rode out the recession in 2008. He moved to San Francisco in 2014 to work with Heller Manas. When he arrived, he had to complete a supplemental exam and then used his free time to start TheArchitectsGuide.com. What pulled you to London? Brandon had wanted to relocate to China, but he realized he had to be vaccinated for a six-month waiting period for a few different things. During the wait time, he looked at other places abroad and landed on London. After a few offers and a week-long visit, he ended up moving there. What brought you back to the US? Brandon felt like he reached a point where he had to decide on a country. He had family in the US and friends in London, and felt like he was always flying back and forth. Then, the AREs weren&#8217;t available in London, so he was constantly flying to and from. Based on the scale of his projects, he was between San Francisco and New York. Brandon wanted a change and to have the option of being more in the outdoors. What lessons would you want to share from that experience? One article Brandon wrote details why he thinks you maybe shouldn&#8217;t work abroad in architecture, Is Working Abroad Bad For Your Architecture Career?. There are pros and cons to everything. Depending on your goals, it could be great. If your goal is to meet a diverse group of people and work on interesting projects, moving abroad and outside of your own comfort zone may be a good idea. One downside may be the disconnect between the US based regulations and local codes versus those in Europe. What inspired you to help other architects with their job search process? Part of it came from the number of emails he received of people wanting his advice on how to get a job at an iconic firm. When he looked over their resumes and noticed common problems. He had a lot of conversations about what he did to get noticed and hired. Once he gave the same advice several times, he decided to take the knowledge he&#8217;d accumulated and turn it into TheArchitectsGuide.com. How did you get a job with only a 2-page portfolio? Brandon&#8217;s application portfolio had two pages, one for academic work and one for professional work. A lot of applications make the mistake of sharing too much text and not describing what you actually did on the project. Your potential employer doesn&#8217;t want to know what&#8217;s great about the project, they want to know your skills and how they played into your role on the project. People don&#8217;t have a lot of time to read through tons of lengthly applications. If your application is short, it&#8217;s kind of like a first date: you tell them a little bit about yourself instead of your entire life story. Build a little interest and allow them to invite you for an interview. The other component is to know who you&#8217;re sending your application to: are you sending it to an HR department or an architect directly? What would you recommend for architects who are looking to make a job move later in their careers? Decide where you want to go and how you can pull from your existing experience and apply that to where you want to go. If you&#8217;ve been doing small residential housing but now you want to work on airports, you have to translate the work that applies: you&#8217;ve been managing the project, working directly with the client, etc. Put yourself in the role of the hiring manager and find out what they&#8217;re looking for in the posit

The Passion, The Process and Problems of Running a Design/Build Architecture Firm Do you want more control? More money? More happy clients? More architecture with better design? Is design/build the answer to our professions problems? Will building your own projects be the solution to success for your small firm? What does it take to run a successful design build firm? This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Mark speaks with Jim Zack and Declan Keefe about The Passion, The Process and Problems of Running a Design/Build Architecture Firm. About Jim and Declan Jim Zack is based in San Francisco, California as the co-founder and partner at his design build firm, Zack de Vito: Design + Build. He visited EntreArchitect Podcast on EA102: Risks and Rewards with Architect Developer Jim Zack. He&#8217;s a current facilitator at EntreArchitect Academy&#8217;s Design/Build Mastermind Group. Declan Keefe is a founder and owner at Placetailor and a three-time guest at EntreArchitect Podcast: EA130: How to Build a Successful Architecture Firm That Works with Architect Declan Keefe, EA141: How to Build a Brand that Resonates with Your Most Valuable Clients, EA134: How to Get Started as an Architect Developer. How are your design/build firms structured? Jim has been involved in building things for a long time and he&#8217;s been in business for 25 years. He began working construction when he was 15 and was trained in carpentry long before he was an architect. Zack de Vito is organized as two different companies: one a construction company and one architecture firm. They&#8217;ve found that a lot of liability and contractual details organize themselves well in those two separate businesses. Conceptually, they try to make it feel like one company. Architects come to the office and sit and draw, and construction workers go to the site and build. As hard as they try to integrate the two day in and day out, it may not always be as seamless of a process. Zack de Vito has a project manager, estimator, a partner at the construction company, 6-10 carpenters, and 5-8 people in the office ranging from an interior designer to Jim&#8217;s wife, who performs office management and marketing for the firm. Placetailor is set up similarly although technically their architecture and construction companies are formally one business, where their development entity is a separate business. As far as scale, Placetailor has almost the same team setup as Zack de Vito. Their business came from a true design/build model where they weren&#8217;t doing any design for any other firms, and all their projects were able to be completed internally. In the last few years, they&#8217;ve switched to provide architecture for other builders as well. Even though they&#8217;re one business, they functionally work as architecture, construction and real estate development. Development is separated because it has a much higher level of risk involved. Was there a point where you went from a traditional architecture firm to an architecture design/build firm? For Jim, it&#8217;s been an evolution. He&#8217;s entrepreneurial by spirit, and did a design/build project with his dad when he was 23 years old to design and build two house and each have one. Eventually he went to architecture school, bought a house and remodeled it. When he opened an office and started making things, his knowledge led him here. He wanted to be a cool designing architect who wanted to get his hands dirty. A lot of their work has been self-motivated projects where they design and build buildings that they owned. The more they did it, the more they realized they needed to start doing that for their clients as well. Declan&#8217;s business was started as a design/build firm. They saw a split between architects and builders in the industry that was leading to lower quality buildings and design, and they decided to do something about it. As they began to create higher quality buildings, they quickly got into high performance, energy efficient models, which launched them into the energy efficient design side that they&#8217;re working in now. The development side came from their desire to create consistent work; they decided to take the risk and create their own projects. They wanted to create a demonstration to other developers: if they could prove the business model to other developers, they would hire Placetailor to do the design/build work they wanted to be doing. Now they&#8217;re even doing development consulting where they share how they do things and find success doing it. Declan, how does your employee-owned business work? When someone becomes an owner, they are an equal part owner: they have an equal equity stake and a equal vote. Anyone who comes into Placetailor who sticks around for three years and meets a certain line of criterion, then they can become an owner too. Right now, there&#8217;s five owners and a sixth coming in at the new year. There are five more people in the company who, if t