So on today's episode we had Brian McCartney, who's an architect business coach. He helps architects grow their firms, attract better clients, and improve visibility without becoming marketers. What did you think about today's episode? Well, I learned a lot about how to market my business as an engineer. Well, I'm not an architect, but it I think a lot of the same things apply. Um, but it got me thinking about what what value do you bring to your customer? What value do you be bring to your client? I mean, what what for example, what do you look for in an architect? I've never looked for agony. Well, that's fair. But uh he was talking about, okay, do you look for, for example, do you hire based on price or other other aspects? Like in other words, uh can you really prove and show your value or are you just basing it off of price? That was one of the ideas. So how to really show what is it that you do for the customer? What is it that How are you best helping them in the commercial realm or residential realm? what is it that you really do? Otherwise, if you can't show that value, then they are gonna just get the cheapest. Show the reviews person. Pretty much. Yeah. So those are a few things we talked about. Um a lot of fun things. So it was a good episode. That sounds like awesome awesome. So you should check it out. This is the Enhanced Podcast. I'm Andy. This is our producer, Madeline, and let's jump to the intro. Welcome to Enhance, an AEC podcast, where we learn the why behind AEC professionals so that you can learn your why. Hey Brian, welcome to the Enhanced Podcast. Thanks a lot. Glad to be here. Yeah, same here. So um I like to start out with just a a fun opener and I notice you are into uh you're certified in story brand. Yeah. So uh you know, the the author of Story Brand, um D Donald Miller, he really likes stories of course and different movies and books. So w what is your what story resonates with you the most? I mean, it might be a book or movie or a personal story. Yeah, I think one of the you know, I was asked this question recently and uh I had to think about it a little bit. There were a couple of books that I read. Around the time that I graduated from college and one of was called The A Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by uh Robert Peersig. And I found that book to be really profound and moving. Uh it was a story of a a father and son taking a trip together and on their motorcycles and uh it was just written in a very honest and authentic way. It was a it was kind of like I don't know. I don't know how to describe it. It was it was like I hadn't read a story like that in a long time and it just really it really the the story kind of moved me in a in a way and it's always it's always kind of resonate back to that that that uh that book whenever somebody asks me a question about what's your favorite story or you know, that always comes to mind. Yeah, awesome. Well that's the f second time I've heard that r recommendation. I can't remember where I heard it the first time, but it sounds like I need to check that one out. I just picked it up. I I I saw that they had a uh there's a performance version of it on Audible that I'm I'm looking forward to read over the summer or listen to over the summer. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, um, yeah, thanks for sharing that. I mean, I think definitely um, you know, story can help us in our marketing is what I think the thesis of Donald Miller is. Yeah. Something that's something you do a lot of. Um and it I think stories just resonates with everybody in general. Um, why do you think that is? Well, inherently I think, you know, and and Don talks a lot about this, you know, the story that we're talking about when we're when we're using Story Brand is really the customer's story. It's about them. And I think you know, like it or not, that's that's the most people really want to know what's in it for them and what are they getting out of it, right? Um that's how you get people's attention. It's not about propping yourself up and talking about all your accolades, it's about uh figuring out how you're solving their problem. Um ultimately a lot of people, you know, we're we're we're animals. We're we're you know, we have this need to thrive or or survive, as Don puts it. and uh, you know, when we're faced with this a challenge, a problem, you know, whether it's just, you know, improving our status because we want a new we want a new home or we want to buy a certain product. Um ultimately we're looking for ways to solve that problem. It's it's coded in our genes, you know? And so um I think what what's brilliant about story branding in particular is that it's really about just boiling it down to a very simple explanation of how you solve some how you solve your ideal client's problem and then putting them in the center of that. so that they feel assured, reassured and and assured that that you're actually going to help them. And so, you know, I think that at the heart of it that's what what story really gives us the power to do. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I mean it it's I think when you hit the ha nail on the head, I mean, what's in it for me? I mean, we all are busy Yeah. There's a lot of noise. And so uh if in your primary market that you work with, your primary customer is is architects, is that right? Okay. So you're helping architects craft their story for their customer. Yeah. Which I'm sure you've you've I mean it could vary from architect to architect, who that customer is. Mm-hmm. but why did you select I mean why do you focus select solely on architects over the past your career basically? Yeah, it's a good question. I get it a lot. I my background is in uh primarily in uh consumer products. So I started my career uh working in personal care, actually, uh hair care, deodorant. I worked for a company that was eventually bought out by Unilever. And when I went to Unilever I really was focusing on a broad, broad swath of B2C uh brands like Calvin Klein, Lipton Foods. Went from there, went to Switzerland. I I uh worked for a company there where our main client was General Motors and and some of the Swiss banks and you know, big, big companies. I decided to eventually leave. and while I was still in Switzerland, I started my own firm, which eventually became an agency and we We started working with uh my wife had a lot of background, she became my business partner, my wife had a lot of background in industrial uh industrial products, industrial manufacturing, building materials was among them. And we we worked for some large global manufacturers and I was frequently visiting job sites where, you know, they're in various stages of completion and construction and so forth and When we came back to the US, we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do and we were circling around construction and building materials and then we met an architect. And it was kind of like all the just kind of fell into place. and what we realized it you know, and it's kind of like I I'll admit it's a little bit of a post-rationalization. We didn't plan it this way, but when we were in Europe, most of and and even today, I mean, most of our travels When we go someplace, we go to a new city, I'm the one that's sitting there. Like I'll go and I'll be like, Oh, well, what are the cool buildings designed in the city? You know, and we were doing this before we started working with architects and we realized that we're kind of we call ourselves archae geeks. Like we really love architecture and we enjoy experiences that involved our architect architecture. And it's something we actually sought out well before we saw sought out to work with architects. But it was just kinda like all these puzzle pieces just started coming together and things started making a lot more sense. And so from there we worked with this one firm. We had a great relationship with them. We got them a lot of success and it was a great collaboration with them. And we just we decided we wanted to do more of that. And we happened to be working with a business coach at the time and he was really he was kind of pushing us to f pick a niche anyway. And so it was it was you know, it was kinda like all these things just came together all at once and that w that's what got us started. Yeah, okay. Well, um, so you're a architeek. Okay. And um Okay. Yeah, well, I mean I'm an engineer, so I'm a bit of a geek myself, but and I did have one semester of architecture school, believe it or not. Yeah. So d I I studied graphic design and and part of my uh curriculum included it didn't include architecture, but we had like this, you know, it was like it was one of those classes where it was called three D and this was well before CAD. And uh so it was all about building like three three dimensional models out of you know, popsicle sticks and stuff like that. And so uh I I really loved that. And I was always I was more inclined to I I liked I liked the two D drawing and sketching and things like that that I did in in uh in in art school, but I also I really liked the stuff that was more you know, more spatial and more physical. Um, you know, molding molding clay and things like that. So I always kinda gravitated towards that stuff. Yeah. Okay. And um do you have any so it sounds like you've traveled a lot with your different businesses or d different interactions and um what are some of the more interesting architecture buildings and things that you've seen? Um, some of that stand out to me. Um of course uh in London there's the Tate Modern. It's it's a old power facility that they turned into uh a modern uh art museum. Um and when you walk into it it's got this huge empty hall. I mean sometimes they have different exhibitions in there and so forth. the one time we went there, um you walk in and it's just this huge turbine hall. That's completely gutted, you know, there's no turbines or anything left there. And then up on this platform there's this is just really freaky. They had this this giant sculpture. I mean, it must have been thirty feet high and probably I don't know, I would say like sixty, eighty feet around. And it was like something out of alien, you know, it was just kind of like this huge, gigantic spider. So I really like I I really like Uh I think spaces that that are adaptive, you know, like they take an old space and turn it into something new. When we lived in Switzerland, the apartment that we um lived in for many years was was actually an old foundry for a a uh industrial manufacturing company. Um one of the places that I think is my favorite place uh that I would I would definitely like to go back to. is way up in the mountains of Switzerland in a in a town called Valls. Vols is famous for two things. One, it's it's the it's where they produce the mineral water. Um so there's there's there's uh thermal baths there as well. And there's so there's the Vols Terme. The Vols Terme is a uh you know it's it's a spa and and there's a wonderful I think it's a Michelin star restaurant there. But that that um that thermal bath, that facility was designed by an architect named Peter Zumtor. He's a famous Swiss architect. And I would say that it was probably like like one of the best experiences I've ever had. because you know, we got to stay there, we was in overnight and all that, but then we we got to experience the baths and you know, have dinner there. It was it was just an amazing experience. Yeah, that sounds awesome. I mean, some of that, uh I've never been to Europe or Switzerland or really uh outside of um the Americas, you know. So um so that's really interesting because I mean really some of these b places their history goes way back beyond what the US. So to see something like that where it has this old and new and old there is really old. Yeah, it can be. Yeah. Yeah, because we have some of that here, right? Like you have a eighteen hundreds or maybe even a fifteen hundreds building, but they have like five hundreds and stuff. Yeah, yeah, that was that was um you know, it was really cool to be able to travel. I I've been to a hundred and sixty no, over a hundred and seventy uh different cities of across the globe now. I I would say probably, you know, when it comes to kind of that that kind of perspective, I think uh China was really, really amazing. China and Japan both were really amazing. Um especially like in China they have the Forbidden City, which is the old imperial palace. And it's it's completely you know, it's completely preserved and you can you can go through and experience it. You know, they got the Chinese wall of course. But then, you know, you go to it China is like this kind of like you can find everything there because there's a really ancient But then you go to like like the airports are just like, my god, they're just they blow you away. You get off the plane, you walk out, and then they're just the scale of everything is so much bigger um than a lot of what we have here. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um well that that sounds pretty exciting, Brian. I wanna go back to Peter Zoom tour. Zim Zim Toy, yeah. Zoom tour, um, because I it occurred to me like, okay, he seems to have found you mentioned niche, he seems to have found probably a niche. Do you think he has a hard time finding work, by the way? No, I d he doesn't. Um he I mean he's a world class architect who uh wouldn't have any problem finding work. I don't think he probably turns down more work than he yeah, actually gets. I think the architects who really struggle, you know, the architects that we work with typically are the smaller firms. They're local firms here in the US primarily. We have some Costa Rica and Canada we've worked with firms in the UK and and South Africa as well. But they're typically firms that the owner either took over the firm or started their firm maybe around 2008 when the economy, you know, kind of collapsed. And they've been able to do okay. They're the you know, they get some referrals, they get some repeats, but they don't they they don't have any predictability in their business and they they go through this up and down cycle we call you know the cash flow roller coaster basically and um the the problem with a lot of architects is that they're really good at design they're really good at solving problems but they don't know a lot about business they don't know a lot about marketing or sales and unfortunately in the industry historically a lot of the people who mentor an architect, you know, the the firms they work with previously, they seem to hold their cards very close to the vest, right? Um they don't give away a lot of their secrets or the you know, a lot of them aren't transparent about what's going on in the business and and so forth. And so, you know, these architects, they're very heads down. They're trying to do the stuff they love to do, which is the design. And business is is kind of like this this I don't know, I call it a necessary evil. It's not the thing that they really want to do or focus on. It's something they have to do. And so they don't know how to deal with that sometimes. They don't know the best practices. And that's that's where we tend to come in, is to help them get a handle on that and get some systems in place. Marketing, ah you know, lead generation. Um And and also help them figure out how to how to sell better. One of the things I see, one of the big problems I see with a lot of architects, is they give away a lot of free work and expertise just to win because they think that's what's gonna win over the client. And a lot of times it's uh it it it really backfires on Hm. Yeah, what do you mean by that? Like free work? Well, I mean, you know, they'll a client'll call them up and, you know, in order to get the project they're trying to s already solve the problem before they've gotten a commitment to work. You know, and they we could do this and we could I I had a client, to be honest, uh you know, he's done a complete one eighty on how he approaches things, but when he came to us, you know, he was he was spending a lot of time Going actually going to job sites and going to people's houses and you know, he would start sketching on the spot in the first meeting and we could do this and we could you know and I'm like I'm like, you know, that is that is not how you wanna position yourself, right? You you're you're basically becoming an od order taker. You're not becoming you're not being you're not positioning yourself as an expert. And I said, you know, we have to put some guardrails up. And and so he did. And you know, there were some other things we did for him, uh around his how he was handling inc inbound inquiries and things like you know the problem was he wasn't he was getting tons of inquiries. The year before we met him, he had five hundred inquiries come in, but ninety-five percent of them were not the clients he wanted to work with. So he was spending all this time saying no or you know, exploring projects with people who weren't really gonna hire him. And so we uh we basically set his website up as a qualification tool and um you know build a funnel, told him to turn off turn off the the phone. You know, uh things go to voicemail and the first message they hear is if you have a project, please go to our website. And we did that and within the first six months, um, instead of you know having all these inquiries that, you know, were basically him chasing his tail. Uh he had solid business opportunities and he went from a five percent conversion to a sixty percent conversion. So Yeah. Wow. That's a good And and he recu and he recovered s uh over two weeks of billable hours at the same time. That we you know, we could calculate pretty readily. So Yeah, it was huge, huge. Turn round for him. That sounds like a good success story right there. so he's almost on his way to being the next Peter Zumtor right there, right? I don't know if he want that, but he he's his main thing is that he he's got a really great story. You know, if we're to talk about the story. He grew up in a broken home. His parents got divorced when he was young. And um when he was little Are you talking about Peter or this? No, I'm I'm I'm talking about this client. Your client, yeah. Yeah, his name's Mike. And uh so Mike when he was young, he it it it's funny, he you know, he was spending time going between mom and dad. And he would spend time as a like, you know, when he was five or six years old, he was dr he was creating floor plans. For it. Because this was how he was envisioning, you know, like this l this dream home that he wanted to create. And so now what he does, and and you know, this is where we we really tapped into that story, is we said, you know, we came up this uh you know, kind of like a a tagline, you know, of uh designing, you know, d d tr uh I haven't trouble remembering it off the top of my head. But it was something to the effect of, you know, transforming your house into a home where your family wants to be together or something like something that brings family together, basically. And that's really his mission. That's really what he focuses on. So Yeah, I mean, and that's that's awesome because uh I mean, really one of the things we're trying to do in this show is is reveal those type of stories. I mean, we definitely want to help architects with what your vision is and and get some insight into how how we can do that because I mean they can't they can't do what they're trying to do, right? Which is what you just described. I mean, maybe that maybe their vision's a little different than Mike's, but that's enhancing the world around you, which is the name of the podcast. I mean, that's really trying to make make it better for people. But if you're trapped, if you're if you're um I forgot the w the thing you described it as, uh, but if you feel trapped, right, with with all this busy work and ninety five percent that that are not going to to jobs, yeah, um, you can't do what your vision is, right? So how how do you get out of that? Like Yeah, I mean I think you know, I think that's the the I think a lot of architects, you know, they get into the they they start a business or or you know, get into a business in a lot of different ways. But I think a lot of them, you know, they think it's just gonna be i i well, let me go back. Let me step back a second. And if we look at the history of architecture, and and the AIA I think really did a disservice to architects uh a long time ago. Back in the 1800s, when they first founded the AIA, one of the bylaws, one of the rules of the AIA was that you could not promote yourself. Now, back then, advertising was seen as a low class, unprofessional way to s to sell a service, right? So there there was precedent on that. But those rules stayed in effect until the eighties. Okay. Yeah, it took it took a law two lawsuits by the DOJ to stop this practice of the AIA. Like it basically if you were if you were promoting or advertising your services, the AIA could could take away your your credentials. And so they they finally were forced to stop doing this. But if you think about it, the people who are now the firm owners, or or you know, maybe you know, the people who are kind of like my age, you know, fifty to sixty ish, who are firm owners, they studied under those you know, they worked and studied under those architects who came from this mindset of You don't promote yourself. Your your reputation is what makes you a great architect and and what brings people. But we live in a much different world than we did back then. You know, even in the eighties we didn't have the internet. The internet came around mid nineties, it really flourished in the two thousands. And it's a completely different landscape now to how people search out and and and and seek services and the the architecture industry has typically been behind the curve on on marketing and promotion by about 15 to 20 years in our estimation. um And and so you know when I'm when I'm talking to architects who tell me I, you know, we don't we're struggling to get You know, clients, we you know, what I'm typically finding is that they're just not they're just not doing some of these things that we know work. You know, having a good web presence, talking about your expertise and your experience through blog articles and social media and email. Um, they're just not doing these basic things. And they're kind of in this we c we call it You know, the the the waiting mode, they're they're waiting for something to happen instead of actually being proactive and having a plan and a strategy for how they're gonna develop business. Now, I'm not saying that all of your business needs to come from online. Obviously, if you can get referrals from clients, you should be you should be trying to double down on that. But if you have another channel That is bringing you twenty to forty percent of your leads, and those leads are already pretty convinced that they want to work with you because they they've been on your website, they've read your article, they got some emails from you that helped reinforce uh that they can do what they want to do. Um, they got value from you. Those people are coming to you already sold, already ready to work with you, you know, at least eighty to ninety percent. ah You're spending a lot less time convincing and educating them. those are pretty easy to turn leads. Um, you know, if you can get if you can get a good handful of those in in your business, you're gonna be able to scale and grow and be more profitable. And that's really how we we're trying to help our clients as best we can, is is to help them supplement those other things that they're already doing. Yeah. But it sounds like some architects really aren't doing much at all, especially they're not. They're they're literally waiting for the phone to ring. We call it hope marketing. It it's just like, you know, I'm staring at the phone, waiting for something to happen, you know, and it and you know, I mean to be fair, they're probably out there networking and and trying to meet people and, you know, calling their contractors and their engineers and hey, what's going on? What do you hear? But they don't have a real strategy. And that's w that's where we come in. We have a program, we help them implement that program. And then, you know, it's not an overnight thing. We're not running Google ads. but if you're if you're trying to get a one million plus, you know, home that you you know, custom home design, or you you're trying to do uh local commercial work, you know. People aren't gonna hire you off a Google ad anyway, right? So we wanna we wanna make sure that we're in the places that those people are searching, which is usually starting on Google. Yeah. Yeah. So so get your website fixed, quote unquote. Which I mean, w what are some things that you're seeing architects f do wrong or right on their website? I mean, it sounds like that's that's step one really, get the website, right? Yeah, I mean the website's a really important piece of real estate, right? It's really the only real estate that you own on the web. You know, a social media platform, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, they can always at any moment they can change their algorithm and your stuff doesn't get seen unless you're paying the the money to, you know, promote it. Um you know, You know, uh platforms like House and, you know, all these others are are the same. So your your website's really the real estate that you want to own. And so I don't know if you know this, but we have tested and analyzed over 10,000 architecture firm websites in the last ten years. And so what we consistently see is that most firm websites uh don't have enough content to really rank well in search engines. it's a lot of pretty pictures. Um most of the content they do have, it's all about them. here's our awards, here's our press presentations, here's our portfolio, here's our testimonials. And it's really presented in more of a brochure format than ah in a what I would call like a client-focused format where the client is actually seeing how this architect is going to help them get what they want. And that's where Storybrand comes in because we we don't want to build a website that's just a bunch of pretty pictures. We want to build a website that tells your ideal client, hey, you're in the right place. We are the firm that helps you get what you want. You want a custom home, you want a you want a great office for your team. You know, whatever that is, we're we're, you know, whatever that architect is really good at doing. That's the first thing that we're gonna highlight on that website and we're gonna make sure that we're telling the story from the client's per their client's perspective of how that architect is gonna help them get what they want, how they're gonna help. So that's that's really where we're seeing the the disconnect when I say like fifteen, twenty years behind, those websites that we see that are those brochure portfolio format websites, they're pretty to look at. They're not really engaging the client. They're just talking about the architect and and what they d you know, all the great things they they've done. And nobody really cares. Yeah. Yeah, I mean w the they might would say, Well, don't don't the c doesn't the customer wanna see my portfolio and see that, you know, I'm a I'm a reputable architect, et cetera. Sure, but there's there's a difference between just putting your work on a web page and actually showing, you know, telling a story about how that work helped a a client, how it delivered on a on a dream or a vision. Right? Uh I just looked at f uh website today and I went to the homepage and there were there was absolutely no text. It was just an image. And I was like, you know, like, imagine you're the client and you're looking for an architect and you've just looked at, I don't know, five different architecture firm websites that were just pretty pictures. Are you going to be able to remember, oh, there was that one picture on that one site that really I really liked. Once you've gone through, you know, let's say it's twenty-five to fifty images per website, you know, and you're just clicking through these images. You're not really retaining anything because you get what we call portfolio blindness. All the images look great. They're all professionally photographed. They look very similar. There's no differentiation. And so what is the differentiation in your mind? Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna contact a few of these firms and I'm gonna ask them how much it's gonna cost to do what we want to do. And so the only differentiation becomes price. Now if you're having a website that is talking to the client and saying, hey, here's how we here's our process and here's our team and here's how we've solved the same problem you want to solve for a dozen other clients, that is giving the client an assurance that the money they're going to spend is going to have real value because it's evident from the site. Pretty pictures, yeah, great. I don't, you know, how much did that pretty picture cost? How much did that You know, there's no context and when we don't have that context or that understanding of how those images translate to value for us, the only differentiation is who's the cheapest? Yeah, that sounds like a a dead end path right there. So how do we It's just a race to the bottom. And you know, so that's that's where we really try to educate architects is that and and we hear it all the time. Architects will complain to us all the time, oh our clients don't understand the value of what we do. And I always push back and I say, Well did you show them? Did you tell them what the value is? Do they you know, is that evident in how you're presenting yourself? And most of the time the answer is no. So that that answer, whatever that is, uh they need to start the architect needs to start sharing that. So on their on their website, like right there on the home page or Absolutely. I mean that's the best place to do it because so here's here's the thing about sharing that kind of content. Written content on your website is what Google uses to understand what you do. And a lot of that content gets factored into its decision on whether or not to place you at the top of the list when people are searching for information. Now one of the other complaints I hear from architects all the time is, well, our clients tend to go to the contractor first. Well, yeah, that's because they don't need they don't know that they need an architect. And so what we try to do with our clients, so there's so there's three pillars that we work in. One is called recognition. That's your website. That's what your website is set up, what what the content is, the story you're telling, et cetera. Number two is reputation. Reputation is how you're communicating your expertise and your experience. And in our in our experience, that is best done through uh blog articles on your website. And now before I go in further about that, just just explain uh the third pillar is is reach. Reach translates also into relationships. What we're trying to do there is use social media and email, lead generation tools to build relationships. So start the relationship before the client calls you. Okay? Now if we go back to reputation and blog articles, your clients, if you're an architect, your clients are searching for solutions before they know that they need a contractor or they need an architect. They're trying to figure out like, hey, our house is I don't know, the the floor the floor plan doesn't work for us or we don't have enough space. my client Mike, in in his case, most of his clients are living in homes that are you know, that they're they can't they can't expand the the property. They have to either go up or go down and uh or or slightly move out a little bit, you know, so it's usually like adding a floor or maybe adding you know uh an apartment above the garage, things like that. Yeah, we like those kind of jobs. They they they need structurals on those jobs. Exactly, exactly, right? They're they're bigger jobs, they're major renovations. And so that's what he uh typically specializes in. And um so so him being able to communicate his ability to be able to do that and how that family you know, 'cause a lot these families they don't want to move. They their kids are in the schools they want to be in. Trying to find another property in a dense market like like theirs, they either gotta spend a ton more money or they gotta move out of the neighborhood that they love where the kids have grown up. They know all the neighbors, they're hanging out with the neighbor kids, everything like that. He w they wanna preserve that. They don't wanna they don't wanna move. They wanna stay where they are. And so he has he has figured out that he has a solution for that. And that's you know, he's telling that story. And that's what's You know, those people that are looking for those options are are they're searching for those solutions online well before they know they need an architect or or a contractor. Right? They're trying to figure that out. So we have created content on his blog that answers some of those questions. Yeah. And and brings those people to his website. Yeah, it reminds me of the book They Ask You Answer. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Marcus Sheridan, yeah. So is that is that similar to that? I I have read Marcus's book and and we we employ a lot of that in in our uh in in our process, yeah. And you know, we've we've kind of adapted it for architects. Um a few years ago we actually we we created a set of playing cards, a deck of cards that is actually our guide to blogging for architects. It's got, you know, all the all the headlines and things like that. and You know, we've kind of we've kind of turned it into a system now where we you know, if we're working with uh a firm and we're working on their their reputation aspect and once we get their website figured out, working on the reputation aspect, uh we have that system kind of we understand that system very well and we usually know what questions to start with uh in in helping them create that kind of content. And um so blogging do you feel like that's r I mean that book, you know, for example is probably a decade old, but do you feel like this the blogging is still relevant in twenty twenty six? Yeah, I absolut I absolutely do. I know it is. Um it's the number one way reason how people come to us. Oh and and it's it's the number one reason most of our clients are getting consistency in their pipeline. It's because they're they have that content. Uh you know, most architects aren't doing any of that. So, apologize, you might overhear my dog in the background. He sounds like he's barking in the other room. Apologize. But most architects, I would say probably ninety percent of architects are not blogging. Or if they are blogging, they're just blogging about themselves. here's our new award, here's our new project, here's our new hire, here's the thing that we're doing in the community that makes us look great. And that's great stuff. I don't I don't say I'm not saying don't publish that, but that That that stuff that is good for social media and because you can tag other people and say, yeah, we worked with this group and you know, y you can get more space for that on social media. With blogs, um those those articles, Google is scanning them, AI is scanning them, uh and if they're well written, if they're if they're done in the right way. That's gonna move you up in the visibility and and that's gonna bring more traffic to your website. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes a little while for it to to to you know to track, but it works. And and what we find is that the the people who start connecting with those architects through that that content are much more dialed in on working with that architect. rather than shopping around because they know that that architect has a solution for them already. Yeah. Okay. So what would be like a you said don't do the awards, don't do that type of thing on a blog. May maybe a small percentage, but what are some things we should focus on? So there's there's one category we call insider insights. So it's it's it's the kind of information that architects know that most people don't know that are the things that can kind of get in the way of the project, right? Um so it there's there's the insider insights insights. Then there's the pain points. So the pain points are the things that the client is kind of going through that they're struggling with that they wanna solve, right? Those those those, you know, my house is too small. Um, I can't I can't I can't expand my land, I need to go up or down, you know, those kind of questions, right? Like how do I or are I you know, I wanna I wanna transfer my home now that my kids are out out of the out of the nest. I wanna I wanna redo my home so it it's it's more fitting my lifestyle as I as I get into retirement and my older age, right? Um these are the kind of questions that I think uh routinely come up, especially in the residential space. In the commercial space, it might be, oh, you know, how do I how do I how do I design a new corporate environment that is gonna help my team be more productive? You know, it's it's questions like that. So um You know, your your clients are searching for these kind of answers. They're trying to figure out like, okay, where do I start with this problem? And if you can be the place that they start, if your if your article comes up in search, if AI says, Oh, you know, XYZ architects wrote this article about, you know, about this problem, go check it out. if you're getting recommended in that way, it's already feeding authority to you. as an expert, as an ex experienced provider, as somebody who can solve this problem. And that's what you want. You want the you want that re you know, it's it's just like a referral. It's that it's the internet referring here now. Right? It's the same thing. And the like AI with these blogs and things, is that impacting it in terms of the way that is that impacting the search function? Yeah, it is. I mean, you know, a lot of people are using AI to find information now. And obviously you want to be you want AI to recommend you just like you would want Google to recommend you. Um, but the way to do that, Google just published the paper the other day and it kinda told it kind of reinforced what I already knew. Good content is good content. And AI likes good content just like Google and SEO likes good content. So if you're providing good content that people find valuable and they're spending time reading your articles, AI and Google are seeing that, they're tracking that. And it's the same kind of content we've all we've all been, you know, Marcus and everybody else has been telling us for years, you need this kind of content on your website. Um, it's the kind of content that's gonna bring you the kind of clients you want. Yeah. Yeah. okay. So we need to start blogging, we need to get our website going, and we gotta follow these three R's, these three pillars. Um and then and then after that the reach piece, which is r you know relationship and reach. How does that part work? So so when somebody comes to your website when they when they uh you know, find your article, you want a way to capture their information. We call this a lead magnet. A lead magnet is basically it's a it's either a digital download, it could be a quiz, it could be uh any kind of resource that your ideal client would find valuable and would be willing to exchange their name and their email to get. Very simple transaction. So it doesn't have to be something that costs you a lot. It just has to be enough information that the client is going to go, wow, that's that's something that would help me right now. Could be like a project planning pack. Uh we just did a style guide for an architect who you know, she gets a lot of question about like, oh, I want to transform my house into XYZ or, you know, so so we created a style guide for her. for others, like for a corporate client, you know, it might be maybe an assessment, like you know, hey, we need to add you know, ten people to our our team over the next year. how's that gonna affect our floor plan and so forth, you know, kind of almost like a test fit type of thing, right? With today with AI, anything's possible. But you wanna be able to capture their information. Once you have their email, then you start sending them emails that reinforce your expertise and your experience and show them that you can solve the problems that they want to solve. So it's it's a very time tested simple process of just giving them something of value, getting their email, being able to deliver additional value to them. without solving anything, you're not trying to solve all their problems. You're just trying to help reassure them that you're able to solve them. And so you know the the goal you know we know with uh talking to a lot of our clients architecture firm clients typically take anywhere from, you know, I mean yeah it's possible it could be a two week thing, but usually they're taking they're they're They're going and shopping architects six, twelve, eighteen months before they ever start a project. So you don't want them to forget you when they finally make a dis decision to move forward and they have their financing in place and everything else. What you wanna do is you wanna ca stay top of mind and email is the best way to do that. Yeah, okay. now does that email does that need to be um like just a repeat of the blog or is that different content? It it typically we'll go in, you know, we'll take that topic or we'll take, you know, we'll we'll we'll either talk, you know, we call it a drip sequence, right? So what we're doing is we're feeding the client information on a periodic basis. Not every day, not every week. Typically with most of our clients we're we we might have a a sequence that is like maybe a two or three week sequence, like maybe four or five emails over two or three weeks. as an initial thing, but then we put them into the newsletter the newsletter system and usually that is either every other month or maybe every quarter where we're sending out an email that is like, hey, we just wrote this new blog. And so we're bringing them back to the website to get more value. And then maybe dropping a new value nugget as well in the email that they can't get on the website. Right. Like, oh And and a lot of times it'll be like a case study where we're pointing out like, hey, we had this great solution for this client and this is how we solve that particular problem for them. Um, you know, things like that. We you know, it's gotta be relevant and timely for for what they're what's currently going on in the firm. But um yeah, it's it's about reinforcing that, hey, we're here, we're ready for to help you. All you gotta do is give us a call or, you know, contact us. Right. Yeah. And of course I'm thinking uh about myself as we're talking because I'm an engineer, Brian. Um and this is an AEC podcast. We have engineers, architects, architects, and of course people listening over the fence, but looking over the fence. But the the point is, I mean, can engineers benefit from this Absolutely. Uh absolutely. I mean, you know, it is a little bit different for engineers. I mean you're you're not typically uh most engineers aren't typically working directly with, you know, some of the clients that architects might, but um but if you think about it, you know, th who are your clients, right? Like who are your clients, Andy? Well, our our main one is architects, which is why, you know, we we're trying to provide value to them through the people like yourself. You're you're providing value to our our clients, right? you're so you're doing this podcast and it's going out to architects and engineers and construction people, right? Yeah. So you're you're doing exactly what we're talking about. You're providing value. Right. People are seeing you as somebody who provides value, who's like bringing these guests on, like me and others, you know, talk about these things that that are helpful, right? So so then, you know, we just did this night's uh podcast here. What I would be doing after this. and if you send me a recording, I'll give you I'll I'll be happy to provide you an example, but I'm gonna turn that this discussion into more value. I'll use AI to help me. Hey, how can I how can I utilize this in my I have a new LinkedIn newsletter that I I do every week that that is targeting architects. Um I'll probably use some of the things that we discussed on this call for that. for that. it'll probably generate maybe maybe one or two different articles uh over the next few months. Um I might also take it and say, well, how can I turn this into a blog article or some social media posts as well? So you know it's not that we wanna it's not that we want to create a bunch of new work that we can't keep up with. It's what we want to do is we want to be efficient with the work that we are doing. And so once we get to that reputation stage where we're producing those articles, then we're looking at like, well, how can we take that and repurpose it into other material like social media, like email, like lead magnets, uh, and your or new web pages on the website and and multiply the value of the value that we're providing, if that makes sense. No, it does. It does make sense. Um but I'm as I'm listening, I'm pro I'm I'm on behalf of of our listener, I'm I'm thinking, uh, you know, this all sounds great. Yeah you know, like I'm gonna get through the three R's, we're gonna do blogs, we're gonna get like we're gonna go from f ten percent to sixty percent and life is good. But is it can it really work? A is it really worth it? Mm. And how do I make time to do that? I mean, that's three questions for you, but it it's this all kinda goes together. So can you help me get past that impediment a little bit? I mean Here's what here's what I'll tell you is that, you know, a lot of our clients that come to us and they say, you know, there's always a hesitation, like, you know, this is money I'm spending, I wanna I wanna get a return on my investment. As I said, it's not an overnight thing. You know, you're not what we're doing is we're building systems and habits that have long-term returns. A blog article that is ranking well in search and in AI is going to have long term value. Now you can go out and you can hire somebody to do some Google ads or some Facebook ads and probably get a lot of leads. They might not all be great leads. They might be a lot of tire kickers and people who just saw your thing and decided to click on it and thought, Yeah, I had this dream, but I you know, I have no money and I don't know what to do. I listen, I've heard worse. And um But it's realistic, right? You know, these or you can have content that's actually going to have a lifetime value. When you when those when you stop paying for those ads, they stop. They don't work anymore. When you create good content that is getting uh in search, typically has longevity. Number one, because there's not a lot of competition, and not a lot of your other architects and engineers are actually blogging in that way, right? So you're you're creating you're creating space in a landscape that is pretty empty already. So you become a sole player, right? You get to own a piece of real estate that other people aren't really even competing for. And it's free real estate still. I mean, I know blogging might seem like it's an old old thing for a lot of people, but it's it's really not because a lot of people aren't doing it. And if they are doing it, they're not doing it well. So The return I think comes in the consistency and developing the habits and doing them on a consistent basis. Finding time of with for it, that's certainly a concern and and and that's where a company like us can help, because we fill a gap that, you know, you may not fill otherwise. Right? If you if you're a busy architect, you don't have a lot of time to write articles, you don't have a lot of time to you know, design social media posts or emails. Um so hiring somebody like us can help you to do those things. Um and we have developed because we've worked with architects for a long time, we've developed the knowledge, we've developed the expertise, the the systems to help us write write content and develop content that is in the architect's voice. It sounds like them, it's presenting them in a good light. And uh and it works. I forget the third question you asked, but that's I I think I kinda Basically trying to get over the impediment. So yeah triple triple I think the impediment often comes with, you know, there's there's a f maybe a couple there. And one thing is like, you know, just the the newness of thinking this way, right? Um and I and I I what I often challenge people is, you know, well, is what you're currently doing working? And if it's not You know, maybe it's worth trying something different. Fair. You know? Um, I just wrote an article on LinkedIn called the explore or it's called verse uh explore versus exploit. Yeah. So there's this there's this I don't know if it's a theory or a a whatever it is, but so you can either explore new things or you can exploit things that you're doing well already. Right. Or you can do a combination. So when you want to exploit is when things are working really well. So if you are getting a lot of referrals and a lot of repeat business and you don't have any trouble with cash flow and everything's working really well, no, you don't want to explore. You don't want to try something new because that's going to throw a wrench in what you're doing well. And we don't want that. But if you're if you're in a situation where you've been exploiting those referrals and repeats and and and and so forth, and it's not getting you the result you want, that's when you want to start to explore. That's when you want to look at new things and say, Well, what could we do differently? What could work better for us than what we're currently doing? And that's that's where a lot of architects come to us, is because they they have tried to exploit their referral. and neurore repeats and everything else. And it hasn't been working. um And so they come to us because they want to try something new. And, you know, they've either heard good things about us or, you know, they found us online and looked at some of our case studies and and you know the results that we get for clients and then and decided that, hey, it is try it's it is time to do something new. They they hit a pain point and they wanted they wanted some ad bill so they could exactly, exactly. And that's we are the archite architecture. Now yeah, yeah, I mean it it sounds like it. And um and I mean also marketing is getting new work, but also I mean like you know, especially with social media, I mean, if you are able to be out there and I and have a presence, do you 'cause recruiting, I mean, once you get work, guess what? You gotta you gotta get the work done, right? And how are you gonna bring new people in if you don't have a presence, right? Yeah, and that's where I think the the brochure websites actually really work against you. Because we you know uh everybody I talk to who is trying to hire somebody is that's a huge pa pain point. And when I look at their websites and I just see pretty pictures and I'm and I'm looking at their social media and I just see, you know, pretty pictures. I I'm not getting a sense of who am I working with here? What's it gonna be like to be in this firm? One of our first clients, uh, an architect down in in uh in Florida, that's exactly why he hired us. He was really struggling, he was he needed to grow, he needed the new hires, and he didn't even have a website when he met us. He was like he had hired this company and they I don't know what deal was but they they didn't deliver on what he needed and uh so he's like in this limbo and you would go to his website and it just said under construction it was like It was horrible. It was really bad. And so we helped him build a new website and the whole purpose of that website was so that he could go to job fairs and you know, he had a local design school near a couple design I think it was AF FAU or uh one of those. And they would have a regular, you know, design or job fair. And he could go to there and he could say, Y yeah, here's my business card, here's my you know, go check out our website. And instead of just showing pretty pictures, we actually talked about what it was like to work there. We showed people working there. God forbid you do that on your architecture firm website, you know. I I see so many firm websites where you don't know who's w other than the principal. You don't know if anybody else works there. And you know, I've heard every excuse in the book, like, well, we don't want people poaching our team and you know, hey, if you're doing things right, you're not gonna get poached, you know. That's that's the that's the real story there. Um Exactly. So but if you're showing people what it's like to work for you and and that it can be a fun place where you're gonna learn a lot and you're gonna have a great experience, you're not gonna have a hard time getting people to to to get convinced that they should work with you. Yeah, so that's another re reason to to improve your website and improve your brand. Um so uh Brian, just a couple more questions and then I can let you get to your day. But I I wanted to think about we we've really talked about this type archetypical archetype architect. Yeah. That is, you know, the 2008 scenario, you know, more of a a seasoned architect situation. Anyway, the point is maybe a younger architect that's just starting out, or or maybe somebody that in any way, somebody who's just starting out. Yeah. Um, so a fresh start type mentality, instead of just um a renovation of a company. Is there any any um different advice or any advice you would give to somebody like that? So yeah, i I mean I think when you're starting out your priorities might be a little bit different than somebody who's a little bit more established and you know is is is trying to figure out from how to get from where we're at to where we wanna be. When you're starting out, I the one of the things that I I talk to a lot about with with architects who are just starting out is really Try to try to grow your network as much as possible. You know, your network of partners. make sure that you're telling everybody you know, your family members, your friends, you know, that you have a firm. Make sure, you know, that that your one thing you want to make sure that you do when you're starting out is get very clear about who is your ideal client. Right? Because what's the number one thing people ask you when you go to a network event? Well, who's a g who do you want to meet, right? Who who is it that you need to meet? Well, you gotta be clear about that. If you're just like, oh, anybody who wants needs an architect, well nobody needs an architect. We're talking about one percent of the population needs an architect, right? What we wanna do is we wanna get into the habit of telling people who we work with and how we help them, right? So, you know, like just you go to a networking event and say, I'm an architect, it's like you know, you could just substitute financial advisor or you know, accountant. Nobody cares, right? But if you say something like, Well, I help uh I help growing families redesign their or renovate their homes so their families can have more quality time together or so they can entertain more or whatever it might be, that's a completely different story than uh I'm an architect. Right. And it helps people understand like who you're for and what you help them do. So yeah. That that's that's why I tend to to try to get people to focus. It's like, you know, what what you know present yourself in a way that's going to help people understand who you are, what you can do, and and who it is you're going to help. Awesome. That's good advice for for new seasoned or anybody in business, really, it sounds like. so Brian, this is the Enhanced Podcast. We really, you know, like to find out your story as well and and your why. I mean, is there any other aspect of your why that you want to add today? Why do you do this, in other words? Yeah, lot of people ask me that, like why, you know, I mean I have the archa archite geek story, but what we really discovered when we started working with architects, so so you know, like I said, I I study graphic design and I'm the kind of person that believes that design can really enhance how we live and uh how we interact together. Uh it can it it it is something that surrounds us uh daily. and I think for me one of the things that I feel very passionate about is that, you know, when I started working with architects, I really saw that there was this struggle. A lot of architects are struggling because they don't know how to present themselves. They don't know they don't know how to present their value. And when when you can't you know, when you can't communicate your value And the only differentiation is price. You you're you're missing out on a lot of opportunities to really impact the world. And so our mission really is is by two thousand thirty we want to help ten thousand architects. because we believe that if we can help architects be better at business, they can better focus on design and they can have a greater impact on the world. So that's Awesome that's an awesome vision that you have. Yeah. So yeah, I mean it's great to have a vision, it's great to have a story and you're you're living what you tell your clients, it sounds like. I try, I try. I'm trying to be trying to be true. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Brian, it was awesome to have you on today. I I wanna make sure we give you an opportunity to share how to find you on and your social presence. Can you share a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. the best way to find out more about uh about my company, Arkmark, is to go to our website. It's Arkmark.co. So it's A R C H A R K dot C O. And the best place to connect with me on social media is on LinkedIn. If you just search for Brian, and I spell my name a little bit different. It's B-R-Y-O-N, so Brian with a yo. Uh, if you look for Brian McCartney on LinkedIn, you should be able to find me pretty easily. Uh, if you want to connect with me, I'd love to connect with you, uh, especially if you're an architect. send me a connection request and just let me know that you heard me here on Enhance and uh be happy to connect with you and if there's any way we can help. Yeah. Let us know. Awesome. Thanks, Brian. We'll they'll definitely give you a shout out as well on the enhance page. We do our LinkedIn as well. So we're we're one of those dot co companies as well. Yeah. I I've been trying to buy Arcmark dot com for years. Some guy in China owns it and he he's like uh the first time I contacted him, he's like he's like, I want fourteen thousand dollars and I was like, uh no, I don't think so. I'm not gonna give you fourteen thousand. So anyway, we'll see. Maybe one of these days. Yeah, keep trying. Yeah. Brian and I trust you gotta I tr I trust that the Ark it's Arkmark dot co is a solid website because you know you're living your story there. I hope so. I mean, you know, sometimes I feel like I'm the Cowbler's kids, but uh, you know, we're we're so busy working on other people that we don't get to keep everything up to date. But you will find a lot of blog articles on our website that talk about a lot of these topics that I've that we've covered and many more. And like I said on LinkedIn, my newsletter, um, it's called Firm Forward. Uh if you connect with me or go to my profile and scroll down a little bit, you'll see the Firm Forward newsletter. You can also subscribe to that on LinkedIn and that I'm trying to provide as much value as I can to architects help them understand these concepts and hopefully improve their businesses. So Alright, awesome. Thanks Brian. Well um it's been a been a lot of fun talking to you today. I'm gonna go check out some of those sites. All right, Andy. I appreciate it. Uh and hope you have a great rest of your day and and week. Alright, thanks, God bless. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to today's episode of Enhance. And please leave a like, a subscribe, or a follow, and we'll see you next time.