Niche Workshop

[00:00:00] Richard Petrie: [00:01:00] Okay. All right. So welcome to all you guys and girls. I know you're all reasonably new. I'm gonna take you through something today, which you won't find in the training. In fact, you won't find it anywhere because it's taken eight years to work this out. [00:02:00] So it's a bit of a bonus thing it's over and above how I would do and teach, finding a niche.

[00:02:08] Richard Petrie: I guess it's an advanced strategy. So I think you'll like it. I took the mastermind group through it during the week and we did a one hour session on it and it was really good, like really good. So I'll show you the traditional ways of identifying niches. There's a couple of ways that I teach and then I'll show you this new way, so we'll just get straight into it.

[00:02:34] Richard Petrie: But before I get into that... let's just, we're only a small group. So just do a quick intro of who you are how long you've been in the program. And do you have a niche already coming into the program or are you looking for a niche? Where are you at for this whole specialization thing? So let's start with Brian.[00:03:00]

[00:03:00] Brian Dillman: Yeah. My specialty is multi-family and adaptive reuse. I have 20 years of multi-family experience working for larger firms. And I've just recently completed a boutique condominium project, which is an adaptive reuse and going through the process of the course, which I've been involved with for just over a couple weeks now.

[00:03:29] Brian Dillman: It's forced me to look at creating a, niche where I'm adapting buildings. Into multifamily that may not have been multifamily to start with. So that's led me to try to differentiate myself with adapting and building for multi family purposes.

[00:03:48] Richard Petrie: Great. Okay. That sounds good.

[00:03:51] Richard Petrie: What about you Gonzalo?

[00:03:56] Gonzalo Pedroso: I do have a niche that I'd like to follow [00:04:00] and that is basically healthcare clinics. I've been doing I've had my own company for about 21 years and for the last 12 years or so we have been doing quite a bit of healthcare clinics, oncology clinics, specialty, primary care, that sort of thing, working for larger institutional entities.

[00:04:22] Gonzalo Pedroso: And they've mainly been focused with two entities and, I'd like to, expand that and interested in what you have to say today.

[00:04:32] Richard Petrie: Cool. Okay. Let's go for, oh, Sandra. You ready for Sandra? Hey. Hey. Good to see you here. Thanks for coming. Just give us a quick update who you are. And do you have a specialty or a specialist area already a niche that you work in or are you generalist or what, are you doing?

[00:04:54] Sandra Orlando Payne: So I am based in the UK, so I live in winter and [00:05:00] right now I'm in wins Ireland and visiting my family, Argentina, a bit outta think, but so yeah, so we have a practice of we are five and we work with homeowner occupies doing sort of the typical house extensions and house refurbishment.

[00:05:21] Sandra Orlando Payne: And we work a lot in the towns with listed buildings and historical settings. So we do a lot of that. And the other thing we do is that we work with property developers. So we have it like a separate thing. That've been building up in the past three okay. Years. And that is something we're doing more and more of.

[00:05:47] Sandra Orlando Payne: And that's, I would like that to be the focus on, of the sort of practice growth.

[00:05:54] Richard Petrie: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. All right. We'll keep moving on. [00:06:00] Jon Hey Jon, you, yeah, I think you're muted. Here we go.

[00:06:10] Jon Halper: Yeah. I have a a small firm in Greenwich, Connecticut specializing in luxury single family homes. And I haven't really been able to. Pinpoint my, a specific niche within that, would differentiate me from the rest of the market. So I'm trying to identify what the pain points are of my clients or some of my clients, potential clients and drill down on right. What I could offer that's different.

[00:06:57] Richard Petrie: Okay. Okay. Sounds good. [00:07:00] David Varnish.

[00:07:03] David Varnish: Yeah. We have a seven person firm virtual, basically spread through Brooklyn, Manhattan, Connecticut, up into Rhode Island and basically specializing in residential with some commercial and some educational. But primarily what I'm doing is residential.

[00:07:27] David Varnish: Okay. Seems like a lot of addition, remodel jobs, more so than new construction. So trying to find how to specialize and, create a niche within that. Good. I've been in the program since December doing the LCC and then on these sessions since probably March.

[00:07:49] Richard Petrie: Okay, good. Good. Sounds good.

[00:07:53] Richard Petrie: Lauren. It was a quick update.

[00:07:57] Lauren Adams: Yeah, so I am out in the Los [00:08:00] Angeles area, I co-own a design build firm, so I'm a licensed architect and my business partner is a licensed general contractor. Right now we are primarily doing single family, residential, very custom work range of scales.

[00:08:15] Lauren Adams: We also do smaller scale commercial that kind of dried up during the pandemic, but we're starting to pick up again there. Our niche really over the years has been designed builded because it's something that wasn't as common. Especially in the case where the architect and contractor, co-own the business.

[00:08:37] Lauren Adams: Oftentimes it's an architect bringing a contractor or vice versa. I feel like design build is becoming more common. So really we've been moving over to having our process be more of our niche. We have been providing an LCC for a long time where we go through our due diligence, a conceptual design and preliminary pricing exercise.

[00:08:59] Lauren Adams: And that has been [00:09:00] something that we've heard from potential clients that a lot of other architects that they're talking to are not offering. So it's a way for them to address what is best suited to their needs to their lot. And how much is it gonna cost before they move on with the rest of the project?

[00:09:19] Lauren Adams: But still trying to figure out exactly how we wanna pose that and what we wanna call it.

[00:09:26] Richard Petrie: Yeah. Okay. Okay. So it sounds like all of you and I'll come to you on a second. No. If you can UN unmute yourself. It sounds like everybody, not everybody probably, but most of you operate in certain areas, but you're not overly crystal clear on am I in the right area?

[00:09:48] Richard Petrie: Are we communicating things well enough? Are we clear enough? Are we different enough? Are we valuable enough for those people? It's all a little bit fury. [00:10:00] So we'll talk about that quickly and Noel, give us a quick update on who you are and what you do and where you are.

[00:10:07] Noel Isherwood: We're a practice space in south Wales in the UK. And we've been doing a range of different, small things from residential through to church projects, some commercial charity work, but more recently I've got a project which is in the health field which is my biggest project. And so that's given me the idea that we should make that our specialism and emphasize that as the main thing that we do, I've never done that before, but that's the way all of my ask the expert and multi dollar question processes are making me think as I do it.

[00:10:50] Richard Petrie: Yep. Good. Okay. And Kimberly, you've just come. Yes, I have just give us a quick 30 second who [00:11:00] are you, where are you based? And do you have a specialty or a niche or what are you focused on?

[00:11:07] Kimberly Courie: Yes, I'm an architectural building. I'm sorry. I'm my voice is bad because I've been around a lot of drywall dust and silica.

[00:11:15] Kimberly Courie: I'm an architectural building designer. I'm out of Florida and I used to be a GC and I also was a master builder in Georgia and Texas. So I have been doing my job for the last 29 years. And and I decided to join because I have had a handful of clients that have fully taken advantage of my time and all of my expertise and I'm over it.

[00:11:41] Kimberly Courie: I'm absolutely over it. And I really would like to redirect just go back to the trenches and then redirect myself and just be better.

[00:11:50] Richard Petrie: Yeah. Okay. Good for you. Good for you. I definitely think that as you go through the program, particularly the LCC stuff, that'll help you a lot. [00:12:00] LCC is partly about having a process to move people into when I say process having the scripts, having the, but it's also about having the mindset that I'm a professional, I don't work for free.

[00:12:18] Richard Petrie: You can't pick my brains for free I have, here's my process. Here's how it works. And if you want to engage with me, then the next step would be this, but the next step, certainly isn't we don't know each other. But if you found. The next step isn't you pick my brain for another hour, right?

[00:12:38] Richard Petrie: So it sounds like you are a little bit similar with Lauren, maybe you're both doing sort of design and construction maybe might be worth catching up later on and I'd be happy to work with any little subgroups that form to work with you to, move things along. I would love that.

[00:12:56] Richard Petrie: Yeah. Yeah. I mean Eric and I want all of you [00:13:00] guys to do well, so don't ever get stuck. We are in a group and I know we have group sessions and you're supposed to bring things to the group sessions. And, ask questions. But if you're the type that doesn't ask questions and you feel yourself floundering at any time and, one of the areas that you don't wanna flounder is I think is around identifying, where am I gonna, where am I gonna focus?

[00:13:23] Richard Petrie: What sort of projects do I wanna focus on winning? That is one you don't wanna flounder on. You need to be very clear because then it's like fishing. Then we build the fishing ride and we make sure you're in the right location. And everything's reverse engineered back from what sort of projects do I wanna be winning?

[00:13:40] Richard Petrie: So if you're not clear on that, it makes everything else harder. So you. Eric. And I if you get stuck or flounder or go, I don't know. I need to talk to someone come to the weekly Q and a sessions. We can discuss it there. If you get stuck on if that doesn't work, direct message [00:14:00] me and I'll, talk with you and, work you through it, I'm gonna get into the what I wanted to show you today. And this is a little bit I, guess I'm gonna show you something advanced and, some of you don't necessarily need something advanced, but I think it will stretch you mentally. Now I'm gonna take you through the basics first, and then I'm gonna show you the advanced thing.

[00:14:27] Richard Petrie: Oops. How can I show my screen? Eric share screen. I want that one. Got it. Okay. All right. So you guys can all see my screen.

[00:14:42] Richard Petrie: Okay. That was a question. Can you see my screen with the nine numbers? Yes. Yes we can. All right. So what, we're gonna talk about today really is step number two. Step number one, to pick a goal. Step number two is, select the area that you want to focus [00:15:00] on winning projects and okay.

[00:15:01] Richard Petrie: That doesn't mean you only have to do projects for that one, but what it does mean is everything else, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 is based on whatever you select. So we built a marketing system based on here's a subset of. Here's a niche that I wanna win projects from. Okay. Like I say, I'll say it again.

[00:15:24] Richard Petrie: You don't have to only work in that niche, but you have to, if you want to catch different types of fish and each sort of niche that you want to win projects from is like a different type of fish. You need to, you need a fishing rod and you need the right line and the right bait and you need to be in the right part of the water to catch those fish.

[00:15:43] Richard Petrie: If you want to catch two different types of fish, that's cool. We'll need two different fishing rods. And we might need to put those fishing rods in two different locations. No problem. But it just means you're doubling your efforts. Okay. So marketing tends to work best when you're really focused because.[00:16:00]

[00:16:01] Richard Petrie: For, obvious reasons. All right. So let me quickly go over this thing called the power pyramid. And this relates to power in the industry as an architect, you could be a very, some architects are very powerful and, when I say powerful, they, they earn lots of money. They have lots of people attracted to them and, find them out.

[00:16:21] Richard Petrie: Yeah, so some, architects are very powerful. Some are not very powerful. So I'm just gonna run through this here. But if, you were a salesperson at a architecture firm, you're not really in a very powerful position if you were the architect yourself, but you are a generalist architect, you've got a bit more power than the salesperson, but unfortunately you're still generalist is seen as being Jack of all trades master of none. And that's the difficulty. It makes marketing very difficult. And also people do perceive someone being a specialist as being higher up the power permit.

[00:16:59] Richard Petrie: If I've got [00:17:00] an issue with my brain, I really wanna go to the brain surgeon. I don't wanna go to the gen, the GP and I'm gonna pay more for the brain surgeon because there's less of them, their specialists right now, above that is when someone gets called or identified as an expert on an authority.

[00:17:19] Richard Petrie: Now I ironically how do we categorize, who fits as a specialist and who fits as an expert? There's not really many rules on that, but I'll show you the informal rules on how people see it. And that's important. And at the top is the celebrities. The Frank Lloyd Wright, or the starchitects, the Frank Gehrys and the, all those people.

[00:17:46] Richard Petrie: Zaha Hadid. So they're at the top of the pyramid. They're the celebrities right now. It's hard to make yourself a celebrity, but it's not that hard to make yourself a specialist or even an [00:18:00] expert. So when people are looking at, this stuff, they're looking for the easiest place to get to.

[00:18:08] Richard Petrie: It's very easy to get yourself up to specialists. So people look for clothes, celebrities usually have books and media around them. So if you see that, then you, assume that person's a celebrity. I'm talking about the market. I'm not talking about other architects. If you wanna be an expert or an authority figure, then you need to be a bit of a thought leader.

[00:18:31] Richard Petrie: And, we'll talk about that a bit later, you need to solve, I believe this is what, the difference between an expert. This is my definition. Anyway, because there is no official definition, but you need to solve expensive problems or you have the ability to do that for a particular niche. And that's what I'm gonna talk about today to be a specialist.

[00:18:49] Richard Petrie: All you really have to do is say, I'm a specialist in this. That's all you have to do. You label yourself as a specialist in a particular [00:19:00] topic and maybe you do a bit of it too that's it. To be anything else you write articles, sales, people have brochures, experts have books.

[00:19:12] Richard Petrie: Okay. But most of that stuff you can actually put in place and you can very easily move yourself up to a specialist status and quite easily move yourself up to an expert or an authority. Okay. Now there are many different niches, these aren't all of them, and I'll give you a copy of anything today that you want.

[00:19:33] Richard Petrie: So you don't have to copy anything down. I'll give you everything. Many different niches you could go into. This is a difficult way of I think, understanding niches. You could just pick one of them out and go, okay. I specialize in that. You could do that. But I think there's a better way to do it.

[00:19:52] Richard Petrie: We're gonna talk about. Picking a branch creating a new category. And then this one here fixing an expensive problem, which is the [00:20:00] new one I really wanna talk about is because if you, and you can do any of these options, they're all valid options option. One's the easiest option. Two requires a little bit of thinking and that's cool.

[00:20:14] Richard Petrie: And option three requires a little bit of thinking two, but can be highly profitable. And, I don't know anyone that teaches this. And, like I say, I've only just thought of it recently. Okay. So the easiest way to think about if, you're just gonna say I'm gonna be a specialist, is you just pick a sub branch and I'll, give you a mind map in a minute, which will probably make it look easier.

[00:20:43] Richard Petrie: Pick a sub branch, do that type of work and call what are we doing here and claim your claim yourself as an expert state as a specialist. That's all there is to it. You might do a little thought leadership and write a few articles about that particular type [00:21:00] of niche.

[00:21:02] Richard Petrie: Okay. So let, but let's have a look at the mind map here and I, will pause for any comments and questions cause I, I don't wanna just talk at you, which I actually have been doing. It's too late for that. Isn't it I've already been doing it. But it would be nice to get some, but let me just show you something first before, before we have a bit of a discussion.

[00:21:27] Richard Petrie: All right. So this is how I'm I think this is the easiest way to understand niches because there are niches and then there are sub niches. All right. Forget that. In some say I specialize in residential. Okay. Is it a niche? I suppose you can call whatever you want a niche, but it's a pretty broad one.

[00:21:50] Richard Petrie: And then someone said I do commercial. Yeah. Is that a niche? Yeah. I guess it is it's it's, one of these things here, so it's not all of them, but it's [00:22:00] pretty broad. So now here's where I think it makes but what you can do is you can break any of these nurtures down into sub nurtures.

[00:22:12] Richard Petrie: And you say there's there's, people, I do residential and there's different service levels and a bit like I think it was Lauren you could say we do design build. So we specialize in doing design build. For residential clients. So that would be a sub niche of residential, someone might say, I just do design. Only someone else says I do everything from end to end. So that would be a valid niche. You might say, I know I specialize in doing residential homes, which are between three and 10 million. Okay. Now the narrow, if you just go, I do residential homes, as you can see it's, pretty wide, but as you go narrower and you just focus on that three to [00:23:00] 10, then it makes it easier to do your marketing.

[00:23:03] Richard Petrie: And also these people are more likely to resonate with you. If they're a $5 million build that they're planning on doing, and they know that you do three to 10 million new builds, then they're gonna go, okay this person is a specialist and they're there for me, right? The narrower you get.

[00:23:23] Richard Petrie: Yes, it means that you are why that you're available options get narrower, but it actually gets easier to be someone of importance. And yes, it's a smaller group of people, but you could be famous to that smaller group of people. It's very hard for you to be a famous architect, but you could be well known for people in Atlanta who want to do three to $10 million homes.

[00:23:53] Richard Petrie: That's doable. And they would then come to you. Okay, so you [00:24:00] can break any of the stuff down. You could do. I specialize in doing transformable spaces or I specialize in doing homes where we put mag magic doors in them. There's a guy had this niche. And I thought, what a great niche.

[00:24:14] Richard Petrie: And he builds homes with secret passageways and doors that are built in the back of cupboards and fantastic. And I said, yeah, cuz I was talking about specialties. And he said, that's what I do. And I said, I bet you're earning good money. He said, I am. And he said, I'm flat out. You might think that's not a very big niche.

[00:24:34] Richard Petrie: It's not a very big niche, but he's probably famous in that niche. And he can charge much higher fees than because people get people really want to do it. Okay. Alright. So that's and you can break any of this down. You could break down public into different things and commercial could be broken down.

[00:24:53] Richard Petrie: And then you could do medical centers as, one of you guys is doing. You could you could break medical [00:25:00] centers down into a, B, C, D, E, and F, and then just focus on D right. But you've gotta find one that's profitable right before I move on. Does this, I think this is an easier way of understanding niches and the whole concept of breaking it down and being being the key person and something a bit narrower than just saying I do residential, but let's have a quick discussion on, this.

[00:25:26] Richard Petrie: Is this helped anyone or if you were gonna break your niche down into something a little bit more defined and narrower, have you had any thoughts about what that could be. And bear in mind when I say a niche, it, it doesn't mean that's all the only type of work you're allowed to do. What it means is that's, you're gonna build a marketing system for that particular say mountain houses, and you're gonna go after them [00:26:00] with that fishing rod.

[00:26:01] Richard Petrie: You can still have another fishing rod somewhere else if, you want to and need to. Okay. All right. Let's just cut this here. Any feedback or thoughts so far still? Yeah, 2 cents from my end, I think the mine Meer is pretty cool and easy to visualize what you've got going on. I, like the the point of even taking the niche, like in, in my case, it is the medical clinic.

[00:26:28] Richard Petrie: The medical clinic could be all kinds of stuff. It could be an oncology clinic. It could be specialty clinic. And the thought that you had about maybe specializing, let's say in just oncology. Could be a way of becoming a little bit more of a specialist. Anyways, liked it. The benefit of let's say, and let's just hypothetically talk about that.

[00:26:50] Richard Petrie: So let's, go to that mind map again and let's just break it down just so we've got, cause it's it, can [00:27:00] exciting because the opportunities open up now, bring it up here. So that would be we're talking now commercial and we're talking medical centers and we could have on call now the benefit of saying and, this is something you'd have to test out and think about and break it out. But the benefit of specializing in oncology might be one.

[00:27:31] Richard Petrie: They might have special needs. That that, other types of medical centers don't have, and they would be aware of that they might have they might have their own problems. And if a specialist came along who understood the special needs and the special problems that they have in medical centers and they [00:28:00] would really and, so what that could do is they would be more attracted to you because you're a specialist you'd become more.

[00:28:09] Richard Petrie: I would more in demand and you could probably charge higher. Fees because you're a specialist the same way specialists in medicine charge higher fees if they and so you can develop certain systems and ideas for solving these problems you can and, your knowledge, the thing about specializing is.

[00:28:35] Richard Petrie: You can get really good at doing oncology clinics. For example you know them inside out the problems the problems before they even bring them up. They are so grateful to admit you because you are bringing up things that they had worried about, but they couldn't explain them and you've already dealt with them and, dealt with it and you already have a solution before they [00:29:00] even understand the problem or can articulate it properly yet.

[00:29:04] Richard Petrie: So it's easier for you. You're just you've gotta, you've got some set routines that you can do for oncology clinics and you can just roll them out again you could call it the best practice and it's a bit like me with architects. I can go deeper and deeper because I only have to worry about architects.

[00:29:27] Richard Petrie: It's easy. I don't have to go and learn lawyers or accountants or they're all a bit different with their own nuances. I can just go deep. I can go 10 miles deep with just architects and, therefore, yeah. Anyway, so feedback on, that Gonzalo.

[00:29:45] Richard Petrie: Yeah. I like I like the way you you identified those those PO possible elements and there's definitely special requirements and added value that we could bring having done them. Yeah. [00:30:00] Yeah. And best practice and we could break this down a long way and that we're only scratching the surface of the benefits of focusing on just oncology.

[00:30:13] Richard Petrie: But, what you could do is you could also become famous. You could become well known in the oncology medical centers as the go to guy for oncology clinics. And once, once they start talking about you then all of a sudden referrals go up because you're the go to guy, and so it just gets easier.

[00:30:37] Richard Petrie: It just gets easier. All right. Any other thoughts or comments from anyone else?

[00:30:43] Brian Dillman: Yeah I have some thoughts and comments. What I was trying to do was create this new niche as I was saying where adapting. What was an unusable existing building into residential [00:31:00] or taking a blank empty lot in the middle of the city and cheering that into residential. I have unique experience doing this. And and I, and the fees are, a lot more lucrative which is great. And I think that's a niche I could dive into. But I, do have my, my core strength is residential. I have years of multi-family residential.

[00:31:31] Brian Dillman: And that has a bunch of niches itself. It has town homes, it has garden style apartments. It has podiums. It has wraps. It has. There's so many niches within that. That I guess when I hear you talk like that, I feel like I'm, a squirrel with a nut and I'm thinking about all these different things.

[00:31:55] Brian Dillman: I guess it's just, it brings out some, it makes me [00:32:00] think of too many choices and I think I just need to rein it in and try to use that one as a magnet, perhaps for the for other business to keep keep growing or whatever. But

[00:32:13] Richard Petrie: Yeah. I know what you're saying, because this can break down. This goes exponential. You can break it down, you can break it down. So you don't wanna break it down too many times. Re repurposing space is pretty good, cuz what you've said there is. Okay. I can take derelict buildings I suppose. Sure. We can I don't know.

[00:32:39] Richard Petrie: There's a whole lot of vacant lots, vacant urban lots. Yep. And you could do all of them, you don't have to say, I just specialize in derelict buildings, although you could yeah, there is could specialize at this level, not necessarily here, but there's a whole lot of options here of what you can do, but you say, let's say [00:33:00] I'm the repurposing space expert.

[00:33:03] Richard Petrie: So what we do is we take an existing space and we turn it into multifamily, residential homes. Yeah. So that's, what it goes into multi. So we, take old spaces, dead spaces, empty spaces. Yeah. Other being used for something else spaces and we, turn them into fantastic multifamily, residential living areas.

[00:33:32] Brian Dillman: Yes. And richard, the thing is, that in this multifamily arena, if you will there's a lot of competition. And there's a lot of architects out there that have mastered in my geographic region in my market. Multi-family right. But I, do think to play to place follow along with you O on getting this niche that [00:34:00] perhaps this is the one that differentiates me.

[00:34:03] Brian Dillman: So this has been helpful.

[00:34:05] Brian Dillman: Okay. Now here's the catch, right? Yeah. So David Varnish had to go and he hasn't seen the, punchline. He said, this looks a bit similar to the training. Here's where we're gonna break away from the training. Here's where the X factor comes in. So you're saying you're right.

[00:34:20] Richard Petrie: Yeah. There's a lot of guy. There's a lot of competition over here. So how can I separate myself now? Here's a, thought for all of you once you've thought...

[00:34:30] Richard Petrie: Oh, maybe I've got a niche and I narrow down and I can become a specialist. Yes, you can. That would be becoming a specialist. Now where's the big money?

[00:34:39] Richard Petrie: I know, not all of you are after the big money necessarily, but where's the big money in where's in architecture or being an architect. I suppose the big money could be, you could say yeah, designing my own projects and you'd probably be right. That would be one area. But if you are gonna work for [00:35:00] someone else, what are the ultra high value niches that other people aren't competing in?

[00:35:06] Richard Petrie: We, want an area where there's not much competition. It's of high demand and there's not much competition. And if I came along in position myself as an expert where there's not much competition, cuz not many people are talking about it and I can do it. Wouldn't that be cool? And I could charge what I wanted.

[00:35:31] Richard Petrie: Because it's an ultra high value niche. Now, how do I find an ultra high value niche? So there's a series of questions. I've got some examples. Now if we're gonna, if we're gonna work on, and this is where I say, this is a bit advanced, but it's not very complicated. It's not, when I say it's advanced, it's not very complicated.

[00:35:53] Richard Petrie: It's just that people don't normally think of it this way or teach it this way. So I'm looking for ultra high value niches, where you can charge [00:36:00] premium, fees. What, what has to happen? You have to be able to think where you gotta be able to say, you've gotta be able to solve expensive problems.

[00:36:12] Richard Petrie: So the first thing I want you to do is think to yourself, right? What are the biggest wins that you've ever got for clients in the past? Or what are the most expensive problems you've ever solved for clients? Because this is where the money is. Right? Let's just put all the stuff on the side to one side for a minute, go back through your history.

[00:36:37] Richard Petrie: Even when you are working, maybe for someone else's company. And I want you to think about what were some of the biggest wins that architects gave to their clients or the most expensive problems they solved, maybe this was you, or maybe you saw someone else do it and you thought I could actually do that.

[00:36:59] Richard Petrie: Have a think [00:37:00] about that now, for some of you, nothing may come to may spring to mind today, right? But I wanna plant the seed, the money isn't solving expensive problems. Right or making money for other people. All right. Ha has, anyone come up with any thoughts around that? Have, has anyone been involved in a big win for a client or, big solved and expensive problem that immediately Springs to mind?

[00:37:32] Lauren Adams: I think for us expensive problems we solve with our first three phases are always clients coming to us. They don't know if they should do some sort of addition if they should tear down and build new, if they should sell because their home just doesn't meet their needs and they should move somewhere else.

[00:37:50] David Varnish: These are typically where we are multimillion dollar problems that they have that we solve every day.

[00:37:56] Richard Petrie: Brilliant, And you've got some services, [00:38:00] LCC type services that directly address those questions. Yes. Brilliant. Okay. Okay. Has and, you're doing it.

[00:38:10] Richard Petrie: You're doing it really well because you are targeting the early problems. Because most people, when they think of this, they say, okay yeah, I've I've got permits for people that have difficult to get permits. Let me give you some examples and then I want you guys to come up with some other examples.

[00:38:27] Richard Petrie: So when I asked this question of the mastermind group the other day, these are some of the things that came up. Okay. Getting difficult permits is a very expensive problem for the client. If you get the right client, you can charge, so you can charge a premium for that. And, Richard Dudzicki talked about unlocking tricky sites, right?

[00:38:54] Richard Petrie: So he's looking for people who, are struggling to get permits. And can't when he see when he has a [00:39:00] chat to them, if he thinks he can get the permit, because he, knows his stuff, he then goes, and he puts, he, he offers a special contract and he charges him 20,000 pounds up front to go do the process.

[00:39:14] Richard Petrie: Then there's a success fee of 45,000 pounds bonus if he gets the permit. So it's, he said, there's more money in that. Yeah. And, you don't even have to do anything. There's no design or. Doing all the hard work, this is just getting the permit. So that would be one example, getting difficult permits for people because it's, if they can't get a permit, that's, they're losing big money or they're missing out on big money or they're missing out on whatever case.

[00:39:49] Richard Petrie: That was one example. Another one would be site development expansion. So let's say you're working with a developer and your staff and you know how to get permits [00:40:00] and you know how to design or whatever you do. And you are able to get more units on that site than they thought they can get.

[00:40:09] Richard Petrie: They think they can get 20 and you know how to get 25 as an example. So the example there you could do it this way. You don't have to do it this way, but if you specialized and I specialized in getting more units on a site, then other architects can get, cause I understand the process.

[00:40:29] Richard Petrie: I understand how to design. I know the people at the permit office, whatever you've got. And so one of the, one of the guys in the mastermind said, yeah here's what if I can get X units, then I get this much money. If I can get you Y units on that block, then you pay me this much money.

[00:40:51] Richard Petrie: This is value based pricing. This is no longer by the hour. This is a success fee based on results. And in his case, he [00:41:00] works with a planning consultant. He's got one in his office. You know that just another example, I'm not saying any of these are ones you should do. All I'm saying is you

[00:41:11] Gonzalo Pedroso: That bonus concept is awesome.

[00:41:15] Richard Petrie: Sorry, what was that?

[00:41:16] Gonzalo Pedroso: That bonus concept is awesome because sometimes we do this stuff it's just included,

[00:41:24] Richard Petrie: Yeah and basically give it away for free. Yeah. And and that's the most valuable thing you've done in the whole project is to get that extra bit that they didn't either think they could get, or they didn't know how to get, or the other architect couldn't get, and you've come along and you've done your thing. You've done your magic and you've and, what you do is, you tend to ring them up and go, oh, good news, Bob. [00:42:00] I managed to do this and get you this result. And Bob goes, oh, that's fantastic.

[00:42:07] Richard Petrie: You know what your reward is. Thanks for that Gonzalo. That's brilliant. I, you know what saying? I owe you a beer. You owe me a bloody beer. You, owe me 50 grand, really, but that's the problem. If you don't set up the whole thing in advance and say, if I get you this, then this, but if I get you this, then this get something signed, they won't wanna get something signed. Boom, boom. Nail it out. Be very clear. And then boom. If you get it, bang, keep your bonus. Sweet. Third example, I'll talk about just quickly long term care. This guy is Bob. He's probably [00:43:00] he, no one talks about money too much, but he's probably our most successful architect.

[00:43:06] Richard Petrie: I did a thing on how to earn how to pick up million dollar contracts. Million dollar build contracts. He said, oh, he said, if we, got I'd go out of business. If all I picked up was million dollar. He said our contracts our fees are in the millions for what he does. He does long term care facilities, but he said he, went through, we went through this and he said, this is what I do.

[00:43:36] Richard Petrie: He said, this is what I, this is exactly what I do. He said in Toronto, the land is so expensive. You can't actually afford to build a long term care facility because the land's too expensive. He said, so we've worked out a way to renovate existing properties where we renovate existing sites. And we've become the experts in that.

[00:43:59] Richard Petrie: Because they [00:44:00] can't afford to buy new land and we've now got a and, they earn huge fees. Yeah.

[00:44:10] Brian Dillman: Richard. That is exactly the problem that's occurring throughout the country here in the states is that there's a lot of developers now over the course last since the escalation of cost, can't pencil out projects on new property and some existing. This the ability to renovate an existing site carries some weight because

[00:44:39] Richard Petrie: In a cost, effective way, but it requires plan. Yeah. It requires specialist knowledge, right? Yeah. You need to know things that other people don't to be able to renovate existing sites in a cost effective way.

[00:44:56] Richard Petrie: And you can talk about that. That the whole thing is you, can [00:45:00] talk about it's too expensive to, do these things and they'll go, I know, because they've done the numbers and they can't do it on a new piece of land. They're like, I know what do I do? We can. I know how to do I know how to do your existing site and we can do it in a way, and then we can expand and we can grow and we can make it better.

[00:45:21] Richard Petrie: Da LA, cause I'm an expert in this. I'm an expert, I'm a specialist in in renovating long term care facilities to expand them and make them better. And that's what I specialize in. Let's talk. Okay. So those are three examples. Anyway. Ha has anyone had any brainwaves about any part any, potential ultra high value niches that you've seen or where you've got huge results for a client and you really should say, gee, I've done that.

[00:45:58] Richard Petrie: I could actually do [00:46:00] that again now. Here's, the questions. What's the benefit. Did they get, can you quantify the result? Can you replicate that result if you had the right conditions? With someone else. And what are those conditions? Where can I find more of these opportunities? And is there someone who can refer find these opportunities for me?

[00:46:23] Richard Petrie: If, there was some result I could get, which had a quantifiable benefit and I could replicate the results, I knew what had to be in place for me to be able to do it. Where can I get more of them? I could just specialize in, fixing expensive. These, this ex this one expensive problem.

[00:46:43] Richard Petrie: I'm gonna stop talking. Right? Any, anyone else come up with another idea or another example?

[00:46:53] Kimberly Courie: I do. I I actually lived in Atlanta for quite some time, and most of my career was in [00:47:00] Atlanta. And the gentleman that's on the top of the screen. He's in Atlanta. You should totally go after all of the ho the hospitals that are in Atlanta, Grady hospital does not have the correct and proper space planning that is for the bathrooms.

[00:47:15] Kimberly Courie: You should go after that and try to see if you could rework all the bathrooms and all the the hospitals. The reason I say that is cuz I had a friend who had a son who was in a wheelchair. It was one of the really giant wheelchairs and she had to leave her son in the hallway, in the hospital.

[00:47:34] Kimberly Courie: Atlanta at Emory hospital in Midtown, because she could not get the wheelchair inside the bathroom. That is a scary, situation. When you have to leave a child who is disabled in a hallway of a hospital to go use the bathroom and she had to keep the door open with her purse. So I'm telling you, there is opportunity there for you and there's opportunity for all of us, because a lot of these [00:48:00] hospitals and a lot of these older buildings do not have the proper space planning inside of them.

[00:48:05] Kimberly Courie: There's plenty of work for all of us. So I wanna share that because it's important specifically with whether we're doing both genders in the bathroom or whatever, but sometimes it's also just moms or dads that have to feed their babies that have more than one child. It's nice to just corral them into one bathroom and just be able to keep them safe in one area. That. Go ahead.

[00:48:33] Brian Dillman: Oh, no. That niche would be, as I see it from my, lens is like ADA and accessibility I have absolutely that's just something to put out there. Richard, as you break this, these down a niches, ADA, and just actually focusing on making buildings universally that accessible through ADA.[00:49:00]

[00:49:00] Brian Dillman: Yeah. I mean that certainly something I, do have specialty in that. At some I'm not pursuing it, but at this moment, but I I, I called myself a generalist for so many years and my gen , my generalist was ADA, multifamily, educational, higher ed. They had me doing everything but like Richard says having all those skills kind of leaves you hanging on with nothing, but I

[00:49:31] Richard Petrie: It's hard to be, it's hard to be famous everywhere. I know it's hard.

[00:49:38] Brian Dillman: Yeah. We tried it. It's tough, Richard. You can't be, you can't be famous for everything. Yeah.

[00:49:42] Brian Dillman: I was looking at a thing today on when I was reading.

[00:49:45] Brian Dillman: Thanks, Kimberly. I appreciate that. We'll have to talk here.

[00:49:47] Kimberly Courie: So absolutely. I'll, set you sales, so I'll let you know which ones and which ones I've seen and, the ones that I didn't do anything with. And you should definitely take that on. [00:50:00] I will put that in a basket for you.

[00:50:02] Richard Petrie: Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. Okay. Anyone else? Any other expensive problem? The traditional way of picking a niche is say, oh, I wanna do I like residential and I like high end. I wanna do high end luxury residential or something like that. And that's fine. You can do it that way. But when you do it this way when, you go problem hunting.

[00:50:25] Richard Petrie: That that's your compass. I'm gonna find the most expensive problem that, I know I can fix. And that's how I'm gonna pick my niche. I'm not gonna pick my niche just going through from that angle, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna come reverse engineer back from an expense expensive problem.

[00:50:46] Richard Petrie: All right. But that's so that needs to be a fairly universal expensive problem. It can't be just like one, one off thing. It's gotta [00:51:00] be something that enough that can feed ju J John. There don't need to be millions of them. You're right. But you have to, say how many of these would are available out there?

[00:51:12] Richard Petrie: How, many people are suffering from this problem? You're right. If there's only one it's, not a replicatable scalable problem that you could specialize in. You're right. So define I don't know if define problem. Problems, aren't always problems, right? They're how do you providing architectural services and designing a, great project and having it come in, time and on budget is something we we might take for granted and.

[00:51:56] Richard Petrie: The client may not even know it's a problem. [00:52:00] So it's or it's difficult or it doesn't always happen. No. And, that's why these are known problems. Yeah. These are problems as defined by the client. Who's got a bleeding neck, but you're trying to find the, client before he has that bleeding neck or he is had one before.

[00:52:22] Richard Petrie: If I look at the examples here difficult permits, these people have been trying to get a permit for their piece of land, for what they want to do on it. They know they can't get it. They've tried. They've been trying for the last year or the last architect. Couldn't get it for them. They've been trying, I don't know.

[00:52:43] Richard Petrie: They know they're struggling to get the permit they're hurting. They know you don't have to tell 'em all you have to do is say. I specialize in helping people who can't get permits. I help bring it to me. I'll have a look at it and I'll let you know [00:53:00] these. I understand that. So I'm just having a hard, as I'm listening to all this, I'm just having a hard time finding what my, yes.

[00:53:09] Richard Petrie: no, you're asking the right questions. You're asking the right questions. So the close are, the client is, already hurting because of it. They, know what the problem is. They're already hurting. Look at this the site development expansion, right? So let's say a property developer has only been given planning permission for 20 units on a piece of land that she's bought and she needs to make it 25 to make it profitable.

[00:53:38] Richard Petrie: And they're saying no, right? She knows. She's holding onto a piece of land that she can't afford to hold onto. But for some reason she can't get up to 25. She can only get 20. She knows she's, already hurting. You don't have to explain a hell of a lot to her [00:54:00] other than I think if I can get you X units, give me this.

[00:54:04] Richard Petrie: If I can get you 25, you're gonna gimme this. Yeah. Okay. I'll do it. You're right. So you're looking for ones where the, client they if you have to explain to someone that they've got a problem, an expensive problem, it's not gonna work.

[00:54:22] Jon Halper: I, The one thing I could think of is that I think there's a perception that waterfront homes are problematic and they're not always necessary, but I've had potential clients ask if we do that or specialize in it. They don't even know what the problems are other than they've had friends. Yeah. That may have run into challenges.

[00:54:47] Richard Petrie: Yeah. And, but here what they're doing, they're looking for a specialist. Yeah. Because, they don't know what problems they're gonna have, but they're expecting them to come up.

[00:54:59] Richard Petrie: Yeah. So [00:55:00] they want an architect who has probably seen these problems before has fixed these problems before. So they're, gravitating and looking for a specialist who can fix problems before they even know that they've got them. And they'll pay a premium for that.

[00:55:21] Richard Petrie: All right. And long term care, that one, that Toronto example, these owners of long term care, they know they can't afford. They've looked at sites. They've done the numbers. They know that it, they can't afford to do it with the price of land in Toronto now. They know that. So they're already hurting.

[00:55:42] Richard Petrie: All right. Anyone else? Anything spring to mind or anything you want to say?

[00:55:52] Gonzalo Pedroso: Yeah, I guess if you're looking for other examples, one to throw out there is adaptive, [00:56:00] reuse of office space and in our area in Southern California here, because of COVID we're, seeing where. A lot of these large companies are actually have gone a hybrid into a hybrid system. And half the staff might be working from home now. And so now you've got 30,000 square feet of office space, you need to get rid of and the company only needs 15, let's say. So that could be a high value problem that needs a solution.

[00:56:41] Richard Petrie: That's a good one. Yep. Owners of office space, where the company's renting them from them. They've all say I wanna re rent, but only wanna rent half the space. And now I've got half a building. I can't rent out [00:57:00] as office space anymore. Can someone come and save me? I my next bleeding on this.

[00:57:10] Richard Petrie: Sure. How about we turn it into residential? Or how about we turn it into something else? I specialize in turning office space, unused office space into re into high value, residential space or something. It's what we do. It's what we do. Okay. So let's, just have a th you know, so you get the concept.

[00:57:34] Richard Petrie: I'm not saying that you are gonna come up with the brilliant idea. That's gonna make you a million dollars. But what I am saying is I've shown you some examples. Hopefully the seed has been planted. And even if not today your, brain percolates away and, it may be four o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, morning when you're lying in bed and something comes to you and you go.[00:58:00]

[00:58:00] Richard Petrie: Holy mackerel actually that is an expensive problem that I could focus on. I could create a marketing system that focus specifically on solving that expensive problem. And I know this people who run, if I said, I know how to fix this expensive problem, they would run with, buckets of cash and they would pay me bonuses and premiums and big fees to have that fixed.

[00:58:32] Richard Petrie: So I don't know when an idea hits you now, this doesn't mean you have to change your whole business to go chasing these, whales. I think you carry on doing your day job, but it's a kind of a if you come up with one where you think I'd like to, I'd like to play around with that.

[00:58:51] Richard Petrie: Right then you you build a bit of a marketing system or you put in place some marketing and, [00:59:00] here's, I'll just run through the high level steps on what you might do. Now. You would do this on the side. It wouldn't necessarily be your day job, but you might put in place some focus and some energy towards this high value problem fixing thing that you're gonna do.

[00:59:20] Richard Petrie: Okay. So step number one, see if you can identify some ultra high value result right now, either it's an expensive problem or it's a big win for someone. So you've identified that we've talked about that work out all the work out, what the, what, the core, what you think the core problem is, but they've probably got a lot of problems, either side of that major problem that, you've identified this that's probably not the only problem.

[00:59:48] Richard Petrie: If they've got an expensive problem, they've probably got a string of problems that relate to that problem. There might be lead up problems. As Lauren [01:00:00] says, some of them it's in some of these problems are pre design. Like I don't even know what to do. I don't know what my options are. I don't know who I should be talking to.

[01:00:16] Richard Petrie: I don't know what the process is. I don't know. I don't know this. I dunno that so, plot all the problems that they're likely to have in pre design build face. And then work out, which of these problems you wanna fix. Now, the beauty with these ones here, the pre design any problems that happens before you even get to design the beauty of what that is, we can create LCCs and we can get in the door early right

[01:00:47] Richard Petrie: Now lauren has got Lauren was talking about it that type of stuff. If you help them as a consultant to fix problems before they even get to the design face, you've got them. Yeah. For [01:01:00] us to being design build, we get them in LCC level pre-design and we're selling them all the way through construction.

[01:01:07] Richard Petrie: So it could be two and a half million dollar project. It's a, so the earlier you can the earliest problem that you can fix is it's your doorway in. Yeah. And so find the problems because if you can find if you can identify, here's all the problems these people are likely to have including the big one, but we can fix problems early.

[01:01:28] Richard Petrie: And if we can identify problems early, then we can put together step number three, once you've identified what the problems are you can create offers, you can create offers to fix any of these specific problems, whatever the problems happen to be. So this is just me doodling around and fanning out and it can get a bit overpowering, but I dunno what my options are.

[01:01:58] Richard Petrie: That's all these [01:02:00] LCC things here. I dunno if my site's right. I can provide a service where we can call it, walk the site. If you don't know if this is the right site, maybe the problem is, I dunno if this is the right site to buy. Okay. I'll, go and walk it with you.

[01:02:15] Richard Petrie: It'll cost you $450. I'll run you through I'll just talk to you. I won't deliver any document. We'll walk around the site. We'll look at where the sun comes up, where it goes down and I'll give you my recommendations as to whether it's a good site worth buying is my site. I dunno what the process is.

[01:02:36] Richard Petrie: Okay. Come and speak to me. We've got a, we've got a a problem. We can fix that problem. I'll you come and I'll do a one page action plan for you or a right track workshop. As I dunno if it's gonna this project is profitable, I've got some ideas, but I dunno if it's profitable or I dunno if it's the most profitable configuration for my site, [01:03:00] maybe I'm missing something maybe we should be doing three or three level building.

[01:03:08] Richard Petrie: That's what I was thinking, but then maybe three separate units would be more valuable. And I should be considering that, but I don't know you can come and you, might have a service that fixes that problem, the ROI roadmap, where you go and analyze the best planning permission.

[01:03:29] Richard Petrie: That's a big one. That's definitely a big one, particularly around New York. So Jill I said I, did this kind of exercise with her. I said, what's the biggest problem they have. And she said, it's planning, getting planning permission. It's a nightmare. So much red tape. Okay.

[01:03:46] Richard Petrie: Why don't you offer a service that fixes that you do you know how to get planning permission? Yes. I've been doing it for 20 years. Okay. Why don't you offer a, service that just helps [01:04:00] people work out what's required to get planning permission, is that the biggest problem? Yes, it is. Would they be interested in that?

[01:04:07] Richard Petrie: Yes, they would. Okay. Let's create a product that does just that that, that, doesn't get them to design. It's a consulting exercise. But it leads to the design cuz once they, once Jill works out every, all the steps that are required and the once she works that out for them and helps them get the per who someone's gotta properly do some drawings before you even get the permit well, who it's gonna be due all this type of stuff.

[01:04:42] Richard Petrie: So step number three. So step one plant the seed, come up with the idea. What is it, work out, what the problems are, break the problems down. Don't just be two, one dimensional, there'll be lots of problems, work out solutions to fix the problems. And the [01:05:00] earlier the. The earlier you can get in on these expensive problems, the better I've got, I could have my architecture firm and I've got my consulting firm, which kind of sits in front of my architecture firm.

[01:05:12] Richard Petrie: And in my consulting firm, that's where we help people solve all these problems that they have before they get to design. You're getting in the door. It's like the Trojan horse that gets you in the, into Troy early. And then the last thing is now this is now, this is difficult, right? You guys did seven years of study to become an architect.

[01:05:37] Richard Petrie: Becoming an architect is way harder than marketing. Once you see this stuff, it's common sense. Isn't it. It's not really rocket science. It's, common sense. What you guys are way too smart for this, but step number four, once you've identified the problems, then become a thought leader on those problems.[01:06:00]

[01:06:02] Richard Petrie: do I have to write stuff? Yeah. Yeah. You do. You have to talk about it write an article whatever it is you wanna do. If you don't like writing then, speak, make some videos on these problems, promote the problems, right? Create some content that talks about the problems, create some tools that, that, offer to fix the problems.

[01:06:28] Richard Petrie: Some checklists, some flow charts that help people. You don't have to fix it completely, but you can these are tools that will help people move along the, track. Write some articles about the myths of the problem, the mistakes, the dangers, that type of stuff and, work out where you are gonna place your bait.

[01:06:50] Richard Petrie: We, we if you're gonna become a thought leader on this and you're gonna talk about it and you're gonna have an opinion on it,

[01:06:58] Richard Petrie: Where are you gonna [01:07:00] put all that stuff? You've got your referral people. You've got your own website, you've got social media. You could approach publications paid ads. You don't have to go too deep. You can just go to your referral networks and, if they knew that you solve those problems, they're probably hearing about these problems.

[01:07:19] Richard Petrie: They'll say you should go and speak with Sandra. I know Sandra knows about that problem. I read an article. She wrote about it last week and she can go and speak to her. I don't know enough about it. Go and speak to Sandra. She knows about this problem and she's a bit of an expert in it. What's Sandra's number here.

[01:07:39] Richard Petrie: It is here. Give call, tell I sent you. Oh, great. Thanks. Very much. You don't have to do too much, but you do have to be a bit of a thought leader cuz that's, your promotion. And all you're doing is helping people, right? This is not marketing in, the traditional way that you thought marketing was gonna be.[01:08:00]

[01:08:00] Richard Petrie: This is being proactive for a particular type of client who you've identified. They have a particular type of problem and you are coming out with resources and tools and meetings that will help these people with this problem. So your marketing is to know the problem really well, to know how to fix it and to offer people various ways of getting help.

[01:08:27] Richard Petrie: That's your marketing. You're just being a good person.

[01:08:34] Richard Petrie: How hard can that be? I said, I wasn't a talk too much and I completely lied. So now let's hear,

[01:08:43] Sandra Orlando Payne: I have a question about the top problem timeline. Okay. I like what you said about getting in as quickly as possible and solving the problem early, because that's obviously opening the [01:09:00] door, but could you expand a little bit more about this timeline as we move through a project and, is that what you refer, you were referring to that as you move through the project you go through and aspects of what we do in the sort of getting deeper into designing and, doing our work, or is it a timeline about the problem they have? That wasn't clear to me.

[01:09:29] Richard Petrie: Yes. So I'm, here's what I'm thinking. When I say that, I'm thinking that let's say it's, they can't get a permit. What are all the other problems associated with that? Are there any other things that go with it? They can't get a permit. They can't find an architect where they can't find someone who will help them.

[01:09:52] Richard Petrie: You just do an audit and maybe, there's only one problem, but you do a bit of an audit and you ask [01:10:00] yourself if they've got that problem, do they have any other problems? You just try and list, you just try and break down all the different problems you can think that they're likely to have and just list them all.

[01:10:12] Richard Petrie: Because you may find that you come up with one later on, which either is earlier in the process. So if the earlier the better, or it's more important to.

[01:10:26] Richard Petrie: So when I say a maybe it's a problem audit plot, plot out a problem, audit of all the problems you can think of that they're likely to have. Okay. Okay. No, that's fine. I thought it was more complex than that, but

[01:10:44] Richard Petrie: it's, I'm a simple guy. I'm a simple guy like that. Just assume it's the simple option. Yeah. All. So let's just go around the room. I just want to hear what your thoughts are [01:11:00] for you, if and how you might apply anything you've heard today. Okay. So let's start with Lauren.

[01:11:12] Lauren Adams: So one thing I'd like is rather than necessarily thinking of it as a problem that we can solve for someone thinking of it as an opportunity that they're missing.

[01:11:24] Lauren Adams: Which I liked from your newsletter when you were talking about the backyard developer, backyard millionaire that's really the case where they might not even know that there is so much value that they're sitting on. And if you can lure them in and demonstrate that.

[01:11:42] Lauren Adams: I think there's some real, really good opportunities for us in that way. Some of the times some of the examples of the problems they've already gone through some of the process they're already having a hard time and then coming in and saving them. Yes. There's value there. But [01:12:00] oftentimes we've found when we've had clients that have been in that, situation. They're not the best people to work with because they're already upset. So I like the idea of kind finding them a bit earlier and giving them a value proposition to say, Hey this is something we could do for you that you didn't even know was possible.

[01:12:17] Richard Petrie: Yes. Now I'll just clarify one thing about so, on that one, you may, you can go and pick people with pro expensive problems cuz they're, very motivated. It's an expensive problem, so you can get them, but they're not all appropriate as you found it out, some of them can be painful.

[01:12:40] Richard Petrie: Yeah. So it's very important for you to know what are the conditions. They may have the problem, but I may not want them. So what are the conditions that would be in place that would mean that I, would want them and you, have to be they've gotta be, they've gotta be someone I can work with they've gotta be [01:13:00] okay. They're coachable I can work with them. They have budget already they're not gonna pay me once. Something's at the end I, need to be paid upfront along the way or something like that, they'll yeah. They'll agree to bonus agree to maybe if you're gonna do it this way, they're gonna agree to bonuses.

[01:13:23] Richard Petrie: If you hit certain achieve results. For results, I don't know whatever they are for you. And that way, then you can quickly identify someone with a problem and go, yep. They've got a problem. But actually they're. Okay. I'm happy with that. Yeah. Cause they, they fit these criteria. Yeah.

[01:13:43] Lauren Adams: Which is definitely something that we do. One, one thing that comes up is they say, oh, we, I already hired someone. They did all the property research. So can you just start with that? I say, no, I need to start all over again. I need to do my own research. If I'm going to stand behind it.

[01:13:57] Richard Petrie: There you go. Perfect. Yes. Yeah. So as long as [01:14:00] that's it. Good job. Okay. Jon, what's going on in that Connecticut head of yours?

[01:14:08] Jon Halper: Oh God. Like Lauren just said I'm often resistant to helping potential clients who've had bad experiences because sometimes it takes, I think it takes two to tango.

[01:14:26] Jon Halper: Yes. And it might be a, warning sign. So I think sometimes yep. It is trying to find the right person and I, still get back to mind just I know what we're good at and I know what I like to do. And it's just drilling down on what that unique ingredient is that right would attract clients to us. So I've been [01:15:00] thinking about it a lot for the 90 days that I've been involved with the program and it's I don't have an answer yet, but I'm working on it.

[01:15:09] Richard Petrie: The three places to look are probably. The million dollar message template. Yeah.

[01:15:16] Jon Halper: Oh yeah. I've been I, have one thing that I came up with that's interesting is if, I were to position myself as a better value than the highest part of the pyramid, the star architects I came up with a tagline that we helped discerning people who value design, excellence realize their dream project dot, quickly and affordably, or something to the effect that we are not, we don't have the baggage that you're gonna [01:16:00] get if you hire Norman Foster isn't a competitor Robert Stern or some other famous residential architecture. Yeah. So that's that's one thing that I think that we're good at as providing that level of service, but without the baggage. And I just can't figure out how to say that.

[01:16:25] Richard Petrie: This this may not, be the answer, but this is the way a lawyer did it. He called himself the approachable lawyer. Yeah. And that was his label. And everything was about being the approachable lawyer. That's what you're saying. There is, we're like the really high end designers.

[01:16:51] Richard Petrie: The only difference about us is you'll enjoy working with us. Yeah, with the high end designers. Yeah. [01:17:00] Okay. Now in the million dollar message, the three things that we have a secret weapon. A superpower or a secret source so either the secret weapon is we use tools that other people maybe don't use the secret source.

[01:17:20] Richard Petrie: We have methods that get us better results that, other people don't have. We've developed our own proprietary systems and the superpower is and, I guess being approachable might fall under the superpower, but it's something that John has, which is his superpower, which other people don't have which makes him different.

[01:17:43] Richard Petrie: And some people And may maybe that approachability, I reckon if we drilled it out, we could find other examples for you. I think we need to do a bit more work on that maybe.

[01:17:57] Jon Halper: Yeah, I think so. I think that if you and I spent [01:18:00] a few minutes and I had you read some of the testimonials from our Houzz page. Yep. There's a number of clients that keep on saying the same thing over and over again. Okay. And if I can

[01:18:14] Richard Petrie: Bring that to next, bring that to next week's Q and a session. Okay. And we'll, spend a good 20 minutes playing around with ideas from that. Okay. So if you drop those things in and we'll, and other people may have ideas.

[01:18:28] Richard Petrie: All right. Thank you. Let's go to Brian.

[01:18:35] Brian Dillman: Yeah. I think if anything My opportunities probably lie in the LCC versus what I've heard from others. They have opportunities to sell and expand services as they go along. But I think I've had some recent experiences where I have provided where I should have given an [01:19:00] LCC versus a proposal. And that would've probably served me well for a project that I didn't even want that was a big problem project. And Brian, the other architect doesn't wanna do this. We need another architect. We need them in there quickly. How much is this gonna cost? And I was like time out you guys are all over the place.

[01:19:25] Brian Dillman: And and I should have just given them L LCC instead of a number, because they were really They were really at me they thought they, they found they had a hot one on the line.

[01:19:38] Richard Petrie: And all they're doing is putting you at risk really? Aren't they? Exactly. And you're something that that's, not settled.

[01:19:48] Brian Dillman: Yeah. And I gave them a high number I gave them I, yeah. I said two $250,000 and they said, oh, that's too high. I was like, okay, fine. [01:20:00] So, that there, that goes, but it was definitely, that was the type of fee that was necessary to get the job done. Cause I've done, I've worked on projects that are difficult.

[01:20:10] Brian Dillman: I know the value that we that's necessary that, I bring to the table to get a job done. And I know that I'll be in trench warfare for 18 months plus. Yep. And if the fee isn't there, it's not worth it, but I should have given them an LCC and I should have gotten in there and probably given myself more breathing room.

[01:20:33] Brian Dillman: Yes to, get the job in, from, in a different fashion. So I have some regrets there on a couple projects like that, cuz I do pride myself on difficult work, but it needs to be on my terms much Lauren had said something I gotta stand behind my, due diligence and, all that too.

[01:20:56] Brian Dillman: I think for me stick to my guns [01:21:00] getting to my niche and and work the process that you have placed in front of us. And I look forward to reporting back next week on, my progress.

[01:21:12] Richard Petrie: Okay, good. And Revere your process. You like a surgeon, you like a surgeon who you're ask, you could say this to them.

[01:21:22] Richard Petrie: You're asking me to effectively be like a surgeon to go and do, an operation. Sorry. I do a diagnosis first I'm not operating on anyone without doing a proper diagnosis. And what you're asking me to do is dive on and then start designing cuz you know what you want. It ain't gonna, it might happen, but it ain't gonna happen with me because that's malpractice.

[01:21:46] Richard Petrie: Yeah. I'm, a professional. So I wasn't last week when I gave you that $250,000 fee, but I am this week. Yeah, [01:22:00] not a course. Okay. I'm professional.

[01:22:02] Brian Dillman: You know that I borrowed that one from your one line where like how much is it gonna cost you? Sometimes I tell them 8 million right off the bat and, quite frankly it sets the tone and I it's I don't need every client. I, but I, certainly need every client. You know what I mean? It's not like I can afford to turn clients down there, there's another thing that, that you should be mindful of as an architect the small business.

[01:22:28] Brian Dillman: You don't wanna take on the wrong client. That could be your last one. Yeah. So that's in the back of my mind too, but I yeah, so anyhow that's, where I stand.

[01:22:38] Richard Petrie: So I think having listened to our architects talk for 10 years, sometimes the most profitable thing you can do is walk away. Often the most profitable thing you can do is walk away.

[01:22:49] Brian Dillman: I've turned down more projects than I've accepted. And I wonder about that sometimes, but so now I'm, here to to work the process. So you go,

[01:22:59] Richard Petrie: [01:23:00] Any all final any thoughts? Noel, you've been sitting there. Maybe you're sitting there. I'm not sure.

[01:23:09] Noel Isherwood: Yeah. Yeah. I'm here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a few thoughts have occurred to me about one of the clients I've got at the moment and. He keeps dropping him. So there's other projects in the wings that he's trying to solve problems with. Yes. And he's even shown me the, preliminary in-house plans he's done with his company and they're, really terrible.

[01:23:31] Noel Isherwood: They're really awful. And he probably knows that and that's why he's showing them to me. But I'm just wondering how to get leverage these potential op opportunities while, I'm still working on another job, which is quite difficult because your, time is limited. Cause because you need to do a bit of research to understand what the problems are of.

[01:23:53] Richard Petrie: Say an over still from a hospital and requiring land that Jason, which he already [01:24:00] owns or creating a dementia village just further into. Countryside there's, these things keep cropping up and in conversation, but I'm not doing anything about them because I'm too busy. Okay.

[01:24:13] Richard Petrie: So what would Brian this, what this week? What advice would Brian give you?

[01:24:19] Brian Dillman: That's a that's a good question. I'm, trying to grow if it's a if it's the right client I, would be accepting I, get one of those LCCs in front of them. See where it, it goes.

[01:24:37] Noel Isherwood: That's what I was looking for.

[01:24:38] Brian Dillman: Yeah. Yeah. Get an LCC in front of them. See how it goes. And if you can

[01:24:44] Richard Petrie: That's it, that's the answer LCC. Yeah. I L that's it throw an LCC at him, if he wants to spend some money you, said it yourself. Noel. Yeah. There's some research required here. Okay. Then [01:25:00] charge him to go and do the research.

[01:25:04] Richard Petrie: That's, the next step for those projects. If you don't wanna pay for that, then you know where you stand and if he does wanna pay for it, it's not, you're not committing yourself to too much, but you're getting paid to go and do some research and setting yourself up. You're setting your pipeline up for, the next year or two.

[01:25:25] Richard Petrie: Okay. Kimberly any, final thoughts from you?

[01:25:32] Kimberly Courie: Yes. Excuse me. Yes, I I've never advertised my entire career. I've never marketed my entire career. I've always been word of mouth. I started my career in corporate aviation and I captured some clients and that's how I got into the construction industry. And then I moved on and, I stayed into it. This was scary for me to join. And then I found that I'm at [01:26:00] home with everyone in the zoom room because I fall under every category of making the same decisions and not really knowing, even though I've been doing this for 29 years, it's still you don't really know, even with your LCCs you can have a client.

[01:26:19] Kimberly Courie: What I just had recently was a client that breached my contract. It was at 1.4, $4 million project. I made $50,000 upfront. And now I am with my attorneys giving a hundred percent of that back because I need to get away from them. They, are toxic and they waste my time. And so trying to rebuild, and now I'm actually seeing this in front of me and saying, okay, here's where I need to be.

[01:26:51] Kimberly Courie: But I, I have so much further to go. That I do follow a lot of these high value [01:27:00] niche sections. But I'm really concerned about inside of that process after you've already done your research after you've already done some of the concepts and you're really getting into the pre-engineering stages of how do you keep these clients from getting too involved or or breaching your contract?

[01:27:25] Kimberly Courie: I don't even think that there's a way. And so I think that in this particular case recently, that just, it frightened me and I'm trying to grow myself. And I've never delegated as much as I'm delegating now and it's uncomfortable. And I think that this is that uncomfortable growth that I'm gonna be going through.

[01:27:44] Kimberly Courie: And so I am just sucking this. I think it's amazing. I think all of this is amazing and it's really putting everything in my face and making me really think truly about how I need to restructure because I'm not leaving this industry. I [01:28:00] literally will never retire because I just don't. I love what I do so much, but it has frightened me because of having to let go of, and $50,000 is small, but it's also the I think it's the emotional state that you're in.

[01:28:16] Kimberly Courie: When you're designing, you put a hundred percent of yourself into this and all of your time. And then now you're having to give it back knowingly that you're giving back something that you were supposed to be paid to do. I think that was the hard part for me. And that's when I just pulled the trigger with you guys.

[01:28:31] Kimberly Courie: And, I'm a newbie here in this this is my second weekend and I'm just like, wow. Wow, wow. Everything is well. So I'm just, I'm so pleased. I'm so very good. I'm grateful.

[01:28:44] Richard Petrie: Yeah. Good, good to have you. And it's. I tell you, one thing I'd be thinking about is there's a term I like to use as client control and, sounds like there's a, there's some documents in the vault called the the rules [01:29:00] of the road.

[01:29:01] Richard Petrie: And at some point you, it might be useful for you to develop your rules of the road that clients have to sign off on before they, it's not your contract. It's just, here's how we're gonna relate to each other. Here's how we're gonna work. Here's how you are gonna behave. Here's your job description through the project.

[01:29:20] Richard Petrie: Here's my job description. I'm the, you are the passenger. You, get to choose where we fly, but you don't come in the cock put and put your hands on the wheel. That's me. I'll have a us marshal out there with a gun on you. If you're gonna do that, you can sit in first class, but you're not sitting by the cockpit with me.

[01:29:42] Richard Petrie: I like you. I don't wanna hear your stories while I'm flying though. got a job to do so, that setting expectations up front it's, almost part of the selling process, even but yet [01:30:00] you did, right? Some of these clients if, they are not well managed and well trained can be absolute terrorists on a front.

[01:30:13] Richard Petrie: And, you've got a you, had a terrorist and probably 50,000, you say it's not a lot of money. 50,000 is a lot of money. And there's a lot of work went into whatever you did to earn that fee. And. You ended up with a terrorist on the plane and, you're probably right, your best just to jettison the terrorist off.

[01:30:35] Richard Petrie: If you have to give the money back, but you need to move on and, obviously it's an emotional, it's emotionally draining. And so for 50 grand to get to move on from that, it's an expensive way to move on it might be a good decision. So you've got a chance now to you've got access to information.

[01:30:55] Richard Petrie: You've got access to a whole lot of smart people, even just in this room and the people you're gonna [01:31:00] meet and join a buddy group. But there's a lot of little things you can put in place like the rules of the road and, the mindset around that that, my job is to teach the clients and educate them up front.

[01:31:12] Richard Petrie: Just even having that mindset that's my job to do before we start a contract, before we start going to business together this, is a, partnership we are doing here. Before we go into business together, I need to spell out how it's gonna work and you, need to listen and you need to agree to it upfront.

[01:31:34] Richard Petrie: Otherwise I'm not taking you on board here's how I work. Here's how you are gonna do it. Here's what I'm gonna do. Sign here.

[01:31:42] Kimberly Courie: And I do have the contract and it's an AIA contract. It does have for the state of Florida, they want us to put professional fees instead of a retainer fee.

[01:31:53] Kimberly Courie: Yeah. And so I have that. It was non-refundable, but I literally knew, I knew straight away [01:32:00] when they were calling me at 3:00 AM telling me they wanted a a water fountain in their building. Come on. 3:00 AM, what am I doing? I'm not working on your project. They, there was no boundaries with these people.

[01:32:13] Kimberly Courie: So my attorney was shocked. He, was like, you don't have to give this back. And I said, I honestly want them out of my life. It's gonna cost me later. And it is what it is.

[01:32:26] Richard Petrie: You can earn, that money again. That's the thing. If you do, the right,

[01:32:30] Kimberly Courie: that's why I'm here on this program, that's it

[01:32:33] Richard Petrie: you can win better projects. You can charge higher fees you'll get that money back, but you bought yourself the, right to cut it off and move on. So, that's good. You're in the right place.

[01:32:47] Richard Petrie: Sandra, have we heard from you.

[01:32:52] Sandra Orlando Payne: Maybe, not. I dunno, but I just wanted to say this is gold dust. I love this.

[01:32:57] Sandra Orlando Payne: And I've got so many [01:33:00] problems that I have resolved over the year that can start working with yes, it's really the meaty ones, the ones that we can really, so good.

[01:33:12] Richard Petrie: Just fix just, work on fixing one thing at a time and you'll be you'll slowly take them off be like an architect, have a little list of things and yeah.

[01:33:22] Richard Petrie: Just work through your list. All right. Gonzalo. We need someone to finish this off on a high with something so insightful and so brilliant that everybody walks away going well, I had an hour and a half of rubbish from Richard, but it was worth it because that thing Gonzalo said at the end that was worth my right now. What is it?

[01:33:48] Gonzalo Pedroso: I will tell you that people do call me Gons. So if you friends all wanna call me Gons There we go. That's what, that's how I'm known actually. [01:34:00] Yeah I, wanted to add to a little bit what Kimberly said. I'm, really looking forward. I look forward to these meetings and the opportunity to collaborate with everybody.

[01:34:11] Gonzalo Pedroso: That was, I think one of the main reasons I, decided to pull a trigger on this program is just being able to have a sounding board for some of the things that us as architects and as small business owners the challenges that we have, and it's, great to be able to, talk to everyone and get a different perspective.

[01:34:30] Gonzalo Pedroso: My takeaways today for, this seminar was. Was basically focusing that niche even more than than what I thought was thinking, okay, my niche is medical clinics, but I see what you're saying about becoming the expert and the specialist for even maybe diving a little deeper.

[01:34:53] Gonzalo Pedroso: So that, that was one of 'em. And then I also liked the whole idea of that, bonus [01:35:00] structure, concept so many times we do things and you, you wanna please the client, you want to go that extra mile. And like you said, they'll say, thank you, great job guns. Show me the money though.

[01:35:17] Gonzalo Pedroso: I just saved you a bunch of stuff, show me the money. And I love what we do. It's very creative and all that stuff, but we're in business I think, to make money. I, I like I like that focus as well.

[01:35:34] Richard Petrie: Yeah. Yeah. If you think you can achieve, if you think you can pull a white rabbit out of the hat somewhere, make sure you build that into the contract up front, even if you don't know even if you're not sure build it in.

[01:35:49] Gonzalo Pedroso: Yeah. I guess my question on that would be this, idea is not necessarily something that needs to be, or will be incorporated in the LCC, but can [01:36:00] be something as you develop the contract, go through various options could be useful.

[01:36:06] Richard Petrie: Yeah, definitely could be very profitable. All right. I think we've heard from everybody and couple of you had to go Eric, Bobrow. Are you there? Were you, have you been there the whole time? You've got my face on you. There he is. You haven't got any more hair, but.

[01:36:25] Eric Bobrow: I've caught most of it. Yeah. I think you've really laid out more specific examples of ways to apply the niche value proposition bringing it in from the mastermind examples that you've been exploring.

[01:36:44] Eric Bobrow: And I think the idea of working from the back end, rather than who do you wanna work with is looking at the problems and the value that you can bring in certain areas. And of course, finding where it meshes in with your actual expertise and passion. So [01:37:00] I really like the way you've integrated from both sides or all sides.

[01:37:06] Richard Petrie: Yeah. And I suppose we've got ultra high value niche here. You're right. It, could, this could be what expensive problems do I do? I wanna solve. And all it is you, look at the whole thing from a new perspective, and that's what I hope high value niches is, what expensive problems do I want can I solve now?

[01:37:29] Eric Bobrow: There is a concept that I'm sure you're very familiar with Richard. Some of you on the call may be as well, highest use, best use of your time. Obviously if you are a, big thinker and you get tied down when administration work and management work and things like that, and even drafting or, whatever, that's not the highest and best use of your time as a designer and as a person who kind understands people and problems and business [01:38:00] things like that.

[01:38:02] Eric Bobrow: In your firm, you want to ideally set it up so that you can make best use of your time. And you have other people that you delegate to, or systems that take on things now in the same way you are firm and you individually can apply yourself to different project types and, different areas of practice, but what's the highest and best use of your time as a firm is these let's, just say, could be these high value problems.

[01:38:33] Eric Bobrow: The more that you can focus, that you're gonna make the best use of your unique talents and insights.

[01:38:41] Richard Petrie: And, you're probably already doing it to some degree anyway, and you've seen it in the past. You've just, it's just that you've been doing it for your $150 an hour when. You've just been doing it at your normal rate or throwing it at throwing this problem, solving in at no extra [01:39:00] charge to keep the client happy.

[01:39:02] Richard Petrie: Whereas that may have been the most valuable thing you did during the whole project. Anyway guys, I just wanna reiterate if anyone needs help, you guys are all newish. So don't ever flounder. If you ever get stuck on something, you can direct message me or Eric in slack, right? Just, send us a direct message in slack and say, Hey Richard, I am completely confused on what you're talking about over here.

[01:39:31] Richard Petrie: And I, or I dunno how to apply this idea. Don't get stuck. Don't reach out. We're keen to help you. We've done it before we, we know what we're doing in most situations or at least we've got options for you that you can consider. So please reach out, let us help you, help us, help you.

[01:39:55] Richard Petrie: And and yeah, the quicker we can help you [01:40:00] and the quicker you can help yourself than, the quicker you are gonna start winning those projects, which are the really cool projects that, that you want.

[01:40:09] Eric Bobrow: So Richard, there have been a couple of people in the chat and said that they're interested in the mind map. And I assume that you'll be able to make that available. So I know you can expand all of the steps so that it becomes this enormous thing that we should save as a PDF. But what, tool are you using? mindmeister.com? Do they, have a free version that you, that allows you to, work with it?

[01:40:33] Richard Petrie: I think so. I think what I'll do is I'll drop a PDF of this in the chat window now.

[01:40:41] Eric Bobrow: Put it into the slack channel for the niche

[01:40:46] Richard Petrie: the, channel. Yeah. That's what I do. I'll drop down then now. Yeah. And, this, the software is called mind, as you can see, MindMeister I'm using a paid version, but I don't think it's [01:41:00] that expensive. It's maybe it's a hundred bucks or something like that. But anyway, I will put this into a PDF and, and that's it. We'll we'll see you. So you're on the regular Q, and a calls on the Q and a calls. Any, final thoughts or comments or questions?

[01:41:29] Richard Petrie: Thanks for putting this on.

[01:41:30] Richard Petrie: Yes. Thank you.

[01:41:32] Richard Petrie: Very good.

[01:41:34] Richard Petrie: Thank you very much. Appreciate.

[01:41:36] Richard Petrie: No problem, guys. Thank thanks for coming. Turning up.

[01:41:38] Richard Petrie: Thank you doing bye cheer.

[01:41:43] Richard Petrie: Thank you, Richard.

[01:41:43] Richard Petrie: Thank you.

[01:41:44] Richard Petrie: Bye-bye bye.

[01:41:45] Richard Petrie: Okay.