Your Project Planning Pack

You need clients, but none of your marketing has worked before. Today, you're going to learn why.

You need clients, but none of the marketing that you've ever spent money on before has worked. Today, you're going to learn why.

We had some clients who were British and they had spent £4,000 getting a magazine article in a magazine that seemed a good place to have a magazine article and their ad was all about them. It wasn't really an ad, it was more an editorial and it was all about them, "Look how good we are. We even wear suits while designing," and they didn't get a single lead from it. This is pretty common. If I look at typical ads and these are just ones I've just gone searching for and found for architects, they might look something like this. Your architect, your architect, housing specialist, here's all the things we do. Here's our phone number or Chintan Virani Architects. Here's all the things we do and here's all our phone numbers. They're kind of what I call hire us, hire us type ads and hire us type ads don't really work.

If you've put some ads in Google like these people here, it's effectively just stating your name and putting your contact details and assuming that people will come. If you build it, they will come. But with advertising now, there's so much advertising everywhere. If you spend money on advertising, they often won't come. Let's have a look at why quickly and then, I'm going to give you a monkey's fist, which is the best generic monkey's fist that I can possibly create for you. And it can even work for you if you're an introverted and hate the thought of selling. You don't have a huge portfolio or a business network. Your potential clients have never even heard of you or your firm. It doesn't matter. You don't [inaudible 00:01:55]. Requires no selling.

A lot of thinking people how. It's been done and we've had lots and lots of people generate lots and lots of leads every single month by using this strategy. And in some of the better cases, Rachel Burton standing in front of the house that she's used as a visible sign of her success. Of course, these guys, these guys are doing the wrong thing and they're doing something very simple, but very wrong, but it's actually the natural thing to do and it's the thing that everybody is doing wrong.

We've got something here that I kind of discovered when I was thinking about it, I don't know, five or six years ago and I call it [inaudible 00:02:38]. The reason most people miss with their marketing is they're kind of ... If you imagine a bow and arrow and you're firing an arrow, they're really only firing an arrow and unless they hit that top piece of the pyramid, they're going to get nothing because the arrow's almost ... It's impossible to hit below the pyramid. All they can really hit is that top little quadrant. It's not even a quadrant, is it? That top triangle.

The reason is that most people are in information gathering mode. The next number of people, they're looking for specific advice and the final people, they're ready to hire an architect. Now if you do an ad, say it's Richard Petrie Architects, here's my phone number, the only ones that are really going to call for that are probably the people in phase III, ready to hire an architect. If I need specific advice, maybe I'll call you if you're lucky ... Given it's Richard Petrie, it's me, isn't it? Maybe they'll call me if I'm lucky. The people looking to gather information aren't going to call you up and look for information from you and that's the large part. Those type of ads, which are really only targeting people who are ready to hire an architect right now, it's targeting a very small number of people.

What we have done or what we need to do, and this is where this whole concept of different offers at different times came in is when I kind of worked out these are the types of buying phases. Therefore, we need to line offers up with different phases. Obviously, the hire me, that's no secret. Everybody knows that one. You put your name out there and you hope people will hit you. Right? But this is what people are missing. This is the LCC, which we'll go into much greater detail in a future module when we set that one up and then the educational offer.

Now the good thing about the educational offer is it actually will pick up people at all three stages. Anyone that's interested in learning more, which is pretty much everybody, even if you're ready to hire an architect, you would still request information on a particular topic that was relevant to you. That educational offer pretty much can get everybody, not just the people at the top so that's good news.

So the first one, first architect client, did one called Seven Mistakes People Make When Renovating, which is a pretty good offer and it worked pretty well for her. When she went to a trade booth, she got 140 leads and she had an article written in the paper about her and she got 120, right? It did work pretty well, but if I was actually going to redesign that, it would be probably The Seven Most Costly Mistakes People Make When Renovating Luxury High End Villas in Wellington, right? I'd be far more specific about the title.

But anyway, we're not going to focus on this one because I want to talk about the project planning pack. Now when we start offering problem solving information, we move from selling to educating. You go from being a sales person to a teacher and teachers are often seen as experts. If you're going to position yourself at the high end, then being a teacher is part of the process. Whoever educates the market, owns the market. Rather than try and sell people, let's just help them. If you're the one helping them, they're going to assume you're the educator, you're the expert.

The question is how do you create a monkey's fist? All right, well, the easiest way to do is find the problems people have 'cause remember, a monkey's fist is problem solving information and I'm going to go into a lot more detail on the psychology behind it, but specifically for the project planning pack, here's what I noticed. It took me four years to work this out, right? I'm a bit of a slow learner. I want to ask people what are the common questions you get asked because the common questions you get asked are going to be great bait and could become great monkey's fists, right, 'cause they're good problem solving information.

After about four years, I kind of [caught on 00:06:51] that the questions, didn't matter which niche it was, whether it's commercial, residential, industrial, public buildings, people who are looking to do these type of projects are always asking the same type of questions and they are these questions. What's the process I need to follow? Who should I be speaking with? Who are the experts? Can you recommend me [of this 00:07:12]? Can you recommend me [of that 00:07:12]? How long will it take? How much will my build cost? Now that's probably the number one, right? What's the most common question you get asked? How much will it cost? And how do I know if I'm ready? These type of questions, right, these type of questions.

Now this is good news 'cause we already know what they want to know about and there might be a few other ones depending on your specific niche, but if I'm generalizing, these pretty much cut across any niche. What I could do is I could make a monkey's fist out of each of those questions, but I kind of like the idea of answering all of them, right, and creating a pack, right? Each question has kind of a one-page worksheet where people can go and work these questions out for themselves 'cause, of course, not everybody wants to speak to an architect 'cause they think it will cost them money or they'll be bugging you or who knows, right? They don't want any [inaudible 00:08:12]. They don't want to waste your time, which is fair enough. If they can get a pack which has some templates and they can fill them out themselves, then that would be really cool and answers a number of questions. Maybe I just want to know the price, but great if I can find out all this other stuff.

Here's what we've created. It's called the Project Planning Pack and the first sheet really just summarizes what's in the pack. Here's what's in here. Petrie Architects International. Second page is the process. Remember that question, what steps should I be taking? Here's a very high level road map that shows people what steps they should be taking: research, analysis, design, documentation, [team to build 00:08:54]. Now, you would take this of course and you might change the words. You might not use team there. You might use, I don't know, a different word. Down under, that means to go and get builders and get them to put in quotes and proposals and things like that. You would obviously change it from Petrie International Architects, you would change the stuff down here, right, at the very limit, at the very minimum.

The next question ... And you can change any of this by the way. You can change the look and feel. Who are the experts I should be speaking with, right? Who are the experts? Then in this case, I've gone down here and listed people who would be the experts. Now once again, you would change, if you just wanted to do the bare minimum, you would take this document, you would take my name out, put your name in.

Next one, how much will it cost? The simple do-it-yourself way to estimate your number and in this way, it's just square foot, cost per square foot. Once again, take my details out. For a detailed cost assessment, email me at richardpetriearchitects.com. You would put your name in there. Pretty simple.

Questions to ask. These are the questions you should ask when hiring an architect. That's probably another good question. Now one way you will customize this is I would take this project planning pack, which is kind of a generic one, and if you're going to do, I don't know, public libraries, this would become the project planning pack for people planning a public library. So you would change the title. You might change some of the words and the context within this document to suit libraries.

Now given if you're going to be an expert for libraries and you want to do libraries, I'm going to assume you know how to customize this document for public libraries or luxury high end residential homes and so, the questions might change slightly, too, right. These are the questions to ask when hiring an architect. In this case, they're pretty loaded questions for your benefit. Read each question and you may want to choose one or two of them to change, and what you're trying to do is basically ask questions.

[When you're basically there 00:11:06], and the person who could answer yes or could answer all of these questions properly, they would [kneecap 00:11:11] anyone else. [That first reality 00:11:14] is just kind of a funny one just to show here's what people think we do and here's what we really do. When we say we, I mean the [inaudible 00:11:21] we. Of course, I've never designed a house in my life. You would not want to live in a house that I've designed.

How to create a design brief. That's another useful question. These are all things we're going to promote. These are the worksheets. People can take these worksheets. They can use them and you get the credit for it. Of course, you adapt this worksheet depending on the type of specialty that you're going to have.

The final one is readiness slider. Now this is kind of a really clever one. Are you ready to move to the design phase? You might recognize some of these questions from the incoming call script. Do you need an architect? This exercise allows you to assess how ready you are to move to the design phase. If you're not 10 on all scales, then it's best to seek help from an expert to do this research.

And here's the questions. On a 1 to 10 scale, how clear are you on exactly what you need? They might put 9. On a 1 to 10 scale, how aware are you of all the various options for your site that your site will accommodate? I'll bet they're not 10 on that, right? So they might be 5. On a 1 to 10 scale, how confident are you that you're aware of all your legal requirements? Most are going to be pretty low, right? On a 1 to 10 scale, how aware are you of the process you're going to need to have in place to get the project completed on time and on budget? They're going to struggle there, right? On a 1 to 10 scale, how confident are you that your budget will achieve your needs? Uh-oh, no one's confident. Now give yourself an overall rating. Don't worry if you're not 10 on all scales yet, the needs and options review or whatever your LCC is going to be, process allows you to fill in the knowledge gaps and get you ready to move to the design phase. Our needs and options review is the process designed to get you to 10 on all sliders above. Beautiful.

Here's the best monkey's fist in the world. No? But it's probably the best generic monkey's fist that can be adapted that can be adapted for any particular industry. Now it may be if you're in a very specific type of niche that there is a very specific topic that would even be better than helping people plan their project. Maybe there's some legal requirements that everybody knows about and they all know they don't know anything about and you can offer to explain how to get around the legal requirements for a specific type of project or something like that.

This is generic. Let's have a look at how some architects in particular niches have customized this slightly. We got a really nice one here for luxury dream homes from the collector of architecture and I mean really, the content is the same. They're just kind of ... If you're doing luxury high end residential homes, then you might brand the whole thing slightly more luxury high end residential, right? The photos, images of yourself, the layout will kind of all reflect the type of project you're looking to do. This guy's done a really nice job. First things first, there's a little letter up the front. It's not hand signed. Take people through it and then, they're into the same content.

It's just laid out their way and it's slightly kind of luxury type approach, even the same hand drawn sketch, similar words. They're architects. They can't help but change things around. Notice they've got the luxury home for the dream cost estimator. They've got the BMW 5 series, 7 series or the M6 for the luxury, luxury end as a way to help people understand it. Pretty much the same thing. [Myth blasting 00:15:03], just laid out differently. Questions to ask when interviewing an architect and directory of experts. Really, it's just layout. The look and feel has changed, but the content's kind of the same. And the readiness assessment. Kind of a nice job there for luxury high end residential homes.

There's another one I'll show you which is ... Here's one, high performance project planning pack. This is a New Zealand based architect, Elrond Burrell and he is doing basically Passivhaus. One of the issues he had with Passivhaus is not many buyers have heard of it so, I think he's gone down the path of calling it high performance, which sounds a lot ... I think it's a much better word to use. Architects would use the words Passivhaus. A client would understand the term high performance. He's done a high performance planning pack. Once again, same sort of stuff, just branded. There's a sports car in there. It's black and white. It's pretty racy. It's subtly different. It's not much different at all. [Did 00:16:20] all you do is dream of building an ordinary house.

One comment I made to him is you need to explain why people want a high performance house in a nice simple way. I think he's done a pretty good job and he hasn't done much adaptation there, which is good. What I find is the more you adapt it, the slower it takes, the longer it gets to get out the door and often, yeah, it never gets out the door. Very simple one.

Let's go for ... This one here, kind of like this is something a bit different. A project planning pack. He's laid it out very differently, but still the same content, building directory, the road map. I like the fact he's got his photo on the top right there so you can always see him. He's made a few tweaks and changes there, building estimator, ask the right questions, myth versus reality. How to create a design brief using only seven questions.

Look, the irony is that's created by me and the only one that can create a design brief in seven questions is someone who's not an architect because you guys know too much. You would put too many questions in there, but the beauty is if you want to sell to people who are less sophisticated than you, you need someone who's less sophisticated than you to convert your stuff into something which is less sophisticated. You'd be too worried about leaving important stuff out. Then he's got a slider. I like the hand drawn cartoons at the bottom. In his case, works for him. I like the fact he's got a photo. There you go. There's that one.

Final one I'll show you, and it's got a little something slightly different to it, which you need to see because this is where you can get to. Now this is Barry. Barry's based in the UK. His project planning pack, helping you to get your project to the next phase. Rather than just your project, I'd be really specific about the type of projects that you want this to be for. I like the fact he's got his awards in there, a little bit artsy. He's not afraid of color, ol' Barry. Now, the interesting thing Barry's got is Barry has ads from other people in his project planning pack, right, so he is sold. He makes money from promoting his project planning pack because these other people will pay him money to have ads in his book that he's promoting.

Where's another one? There's another one. There's three or four ads that he's got in his project planning pack. Why not? If you're getting a lot of people ... These are genuine qualified leads so it's a thought. Now you may want ads in your project planning pack to cover advertising expenses or you may just want to say no, I'm going to keep it clean. It's not going to hurt it if you do have them in there. Here's another one. It's not going to hurt it, but you may want to just keep it simple and that's a good idea, too.

There we go. There are some examples of the project planning pack having been adapted. Now, you do not need to adapt the project planning pack, but if you want to, you can. I know as architects, you really can't leave anything untouched. You have to go and change it, don't you? There's a couple of examples. My suggestion is don't go and change it too much. Just get it really, get it done, and set it up in your office, in your automated offer and get the thing out there working for you. Do a real quick first draft version and then, go and change around your heart's content later in your own time once you've already got one up and running and out there working for you. That's my advice.