Welcome to Where it's AT the Architectural Technology podcast from CIAT that uses technology, to talk architectural technology, for technologists. You might have noticed a change of the Introduction music, that's because this special episode has been produced in collaboration with Architecture Business Club. For anyone running a business in architecture, whether you are a practice leader or sole practitioner, the new year is the perfect time for reflection on the past year and to set up your new year for success. But as a business owner or sole practitioner will know, running a business isn't always easy. There can be problems that trip you up and hold you back. So today we'll explore three of the biggest problems that architectural technologists in business face, and more importantly, how you can overcome them so you can have your best year ever.

Hi everyone. I'm John Clayton, your Guest Host for this special episode of Where it's AT. For those of you that don't already know me, I'm the Founder of Architecture Business Club - a supportive community for architecture professionals, including online and in person, events, trainings and resources. I'm also a consultant coach, mentor, public speaker and podcast host. My team and I support small practices with business and marketing strategy, content marketing, social media, plus operational and admin support. And each week, I host the Architecture Business Club podcast - the weekly show for small firm founders who want to build their dream business in architecture and enjoy more freedom, flexibility and fulfillment in what they do. I'm also a Chartered Architectural Technologist and AT Awards Finalist, and I'm super excited to be a guest host on the Where it's AT podcast. In this special collaboration episode, where today we're going to be kicking off the new year with an episode that's designed to help you fix, what might be holding your AT business back. 2025 is here, and it's time to focus, adjust and for us all to thrive in the Business of Architecture. So we're going to look at three of the big challenges that most service-based business owners face, and how to overcome them so that you can have a prosperous year. One of those is a lack of direction or lack of clarity in the business. The other one is simply wearing too many hats and not having enough time being very time poor, that is a huge problem that most of us will experience at some point in our careers. The other big issue is inconsistent or insufficient cash flow. So please stick with us today, we've got some practical tips, some examples and insights to really set you up for success. So let's start by taking a look at lack of direction, or lack of clarity in your business. Do you feel like you're just going through the motions in your business? Maybe you're feeling stuck in the day to day grind, without having a clear plan for where you're heading. Here's the thing, you can't hit a target if you don't know what you're aiming for. And that's really where a business plan comes in. Now, before you sigh and think,"Ah, I really don't have time for that. That's going to be so time consuming." Let me just take a moment to reassure you this doesn't have to be daunting. Whether you're just starting out or you've been in business for years, having a clear plan is the difference between aimlessly wandering, and driving straight towards your goals. So let's look at how creating a business plan, and why planning your year in quarters can transform your business. I think really, we should start with the basics, though. So what is a business plan? Essentially, a business plan is a documented strategy that highlights the goals for your business and how you plan to achieve them. Yet there are many myths that hold people back from writing a business plan. Some of those myths and misconceptions include things like, business plans have to be really long. That they're really hard to write. That it's just an old fashioned concept, and probably modern businesses today don't need business plans. Or that they're only for securing investment or funding. And the classic that once written, you can just tick it off your list and forget about it. I hate to break it to you, but all of these are wrong. If you have an active business, or you're planning to launch a business, you need a business plan. But the good news is it doesn't have to be complicated. The best thing to do, actually, I think, is to simplify your business plan. Master architect I. M. Pei said it best "You must simplify. You must make the complex simple. Then you must make it work." And the same applies toyour business plan. Instead of starting from scratch, you can use a template, one that I highly recommend is called the One Page Business Plan by Jim Horan - this is not sponsored. I just wanted to mention that because I just love how simple it makes the process. In that book, they talk about five key sections of a one page business plan; Vision. Mission. Objectives. Strategies and Action Plans. There's a simple question to answer for each of those sections. So for Vision -"What are you building? What is this business that you're building?" Mission - "Why does this business exist?" Objectives - "What results will you measure?" Strategies - "How will you build this business?" And Action Plans like - "What is the work that actually needs to be done, to achieve those results and to build the business of your dreams." To give you a quick example if you look at the Vision, it could be something like to grow AT architecture studio into a£500,000 pounds per year turnover architecture practice, specializing in sustainable home design within the next 3 years. The Mission could be - we design beautiful homes that nurture families and the planet. Objectives, for example, it could be to achieve an annual revenue of £500,000 and to secure 20 high end projects per year. Strategies - to develop a marketing plan, emphasize your USP and to focus on client referrals. Action plans could be things like to launch a targeted social media campaign, to build partnerships with 5 luxury builders and implement a client experience or client reward program. So, hopefully that gives you a flavor of the sort of thing that you can include in your business plan. And as mentioned that the key here is, not to be overfaced by this exercise. It's better to have a simple, one page business plan that you can stick on your notice board, you can see it every day that you actually follow. Than to have something that you work on for weeks and weeks and weeks, and then you put it in a draw and it gathers dust. So really would encourage you to keep things simple. And that exercise of crafting that plan is really going to help you overcome that slump that you might be feeling, where you are feeling like you're lacking clarity, or maybe lacking direction, you're just kind of going through the motions with the business it's a really good exercise to do if you've haven't done it for a while, or you've never done it before, it is a really good exercise to do, and don't be put off by the idea that this is something that has to be long and complicated. It really doesn't. So now that you have a business plan, let's talk about planning your year and why it's important to plan your year. Somebody once said "A goal without a plan is just a wish." So imagine your business journey, like a car journey. If you were to hop in your car and drive without a destination, you could end up anywhere. But if you set your destination and map the best route, your journey becomes as simple as following a sat nav. And sure there might be a few bumps in the road or a couple of wrong turns, but you're going to be heading in the right direction. Something that I would encourage you to do is to think about planning your year in quarters. Breaking your year into quarters makes the planning more manageable. Think of each quarter as a stage of your overall journey; a 90 day period of time that lets you focus on one part of the trip at a time. And quarterly planning can really work, because it's easier to plan for 90 days, than it is for an entire year. Most people will have a reasonable idea of what's going to be coming up, both in their business and in their personal lives over the next three months, but to try and plan ahead for the whole year can be quite difficult. The other thing is that you can see results from your efforts in a shorter time frame. And if you go off course, it's far easier to make corrections at that next checkpoint 90 days later, than leaving it for a whole year. So if you're going to start breaking things down into quarters of the year, what should you include in that quarterly planning? So a great quarterly plan may have some of these elements. There may be an element of Reflection - looking back at what went well in the last quarter. What could have been better? What were the things that stood in your way? How can we make the next quarter even better than the last quarter. You may wish to set a main goal for the next quarter. What's your primary focus going to be? Are you going to be launching a new service? Are you going to be attending any industry events or conferences? Are you focusing on growing your audience - on social media or growing your email list perhaps. Or, growing your network with useful new connections that might be able to refer some new business to you. Also look at making some priorities that in order to achieve that main goal for the next quarter, there's going to be a series of projects or tasks that relate to achieving that goal. So what would be the three most important actions that you could take to achieve next quarter's goal? What would those be? You want to make a note of those in your quarterly plan. You also might want to think about what metrics that you might want to be keeping an eye on. So, this could be things like tracking your revenue; making note of the number of leads that you've had over the past quarter; tracking conversion rates of those leads. There might be some other key figures that you wish to track as well, depending on what your goals are. You may also wish to consider visibility and authority. So how visible you are going to be over the next 90 days. How you can position yourself better as a figure of authority in your local market or in the niche that you're working within in architecture. What activities could you plan, like guest appearances on podcasts; writing blog posts for your website; maybe running a workshop;opportunity for maybe a speaking gig, or running a webinar. There's all sorts of things that you can do to raise your visibility, both online and in person. So have a think about what activities you might decide to include in your next quarter's plan. Planning is one thing, but sticking to a plan is another, and it can be very difficult to, to stay accountable to those plans. So a few quick tips for you on that make your plan visible, like don't hide it away in a draw. Stick it on your wall - if you've got a notice board, or you've got somewhere prominent on your desk that you can put it, put a copy of it there. Would also encourage you to find an accountability buddy - just like doing activities like going to the gym. It can be a lot easier to get out of bed and get yourself off to the gym when you've got somebody there that's holding you accountable, if you're going with a friend or a buddy. The same applies with your business. You can share your goals with someone, they can share their goals with you, and you can help keep each other on track. You can also look for ways to try and create a sense of jeopardy. What's at stake, if you don't hit your goals. And also, aside from reminding yourself of the risks and the jeopardy, also remind yourself of the reward. How could you reward yourself if you smash next quarter's goal. You should really celebrate milestones to stay motivated. If there isn't a juicy reward at the end of next quarter, are you truly going to be motivated enough to do the work required to hit that goal? Maybe not. The end of each quarter, you can review your plan and celebrate those wins. Reflect on what went well and look at what needs improving. Then update your metrics and adjust your strategy for the next quarter. So a business plan and quarterly planning really work hand in hand. Your business plan is your blueprint for your business and your quarterly plans are the road maps that keep you moving forward. And if you don't have a business plan yet, start with the one page business plan by Jim Horan, then break your year into quarters and use each checkpoint to refocus and adjust and remember, a plan doesn't necessarily guarantee smooth sailing, but it does ensure that you and your business will be heading in the right direction. The next common problem that I wanted to highlight and hopefully help you with is not having enough time or wearing too many hats in your business. So why do so many of us, particularly sole practitioners, struggle with time management and just not having enough time. We do tend to base our assumptions on past experiences. So if you've previously been an employee at another practice, you may have set your expectations of what you can get done based on that experience. And we're usually trying to just do far too much. We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day, and underestimate what we can do in a year. So it's really common to have all good intentions at the beginning of a week with lots of things on the to do list, and simply just to not get through that list. So what are some of the things that we can do? to help with this time issue? There are a few things that you can try. One of those is looking at having a default week, where you set out a default diary for your week, and you use time blocks throughout the week to allocate time slots for different types of activities. It can help you become a little bit more organized with your time. Another thing you can try is themed days, where you block out entire days for a certain theme of work. So you might have perhaps two or three days of the week that's dedicated to client projects. Maybe have another day that's dedicated to business development, and then maybe there's another day that's for admin or for catching up on bits and pieces that have been missed on the other days. There's all sorts of different ways that you can set that up. I mentioned time blocking. So this is a strategy where you schedule out each part of your day into blocks of time, and set specific tasks against each of those time blocks. So that you'd have a an allocated time slot - a time block - when you would check in on your emails. A slot for client meetings or for phone calls or for sales. You'd have other time slots that are for design work and working on those client projects, working on architectural projects. Another time management tactic that I've tried, and I've heard other practices use very successfully, is based on the Makers and Managers Schedule, this was an essay written by Paul Graham. If you head over to Google and just look for Makers Managers Schedule, you find a copy of that. Essentially, what it talks about is how the Manager Schedule; it really works well for bosses, and the day is cut into, typically sort of hour or half hour blocks, which is really great for meetings, short tasks, that sort of thing. Whereas the Maker Schedule; these are typically units of time that like at least half a day- so it's a big chunk of time for those creative tasks and projects. And I know this from my own experience, where, if I'm doing creative work, or I'm doing some deep work that requires a lot of bandwidth - something that's quite cognitively demanding of me - that if I have interruptions throughout that time, it can just completely ruin that level of productivity. So there are certain tasks that really do require a big chunk of time. So this is a really great way to break up your day, where you have the maker's schedule time in the morning, so you can have, say, half a day, assuming that the mornings are the best time of day for you - because we are all different in our energy levels throughout the day. You have that big chunk of time there to work on the creative stuff, the tricky stuff, the deep thinking work that you need that uninterrupted time for. And then the other part of the day is split into these smaller units of time, either half hour or hour long blocks, which is perfect for things like checking your email, returning phone calls, checking in with clients and collaborators to have meetings, that sort of thing.Can work really well for those shorter, less mentally demanding tasks. You might also have heard of Parkinson's Law. This is this idea that work will expand to fill the time that's allocated for its completion. So another thing that you can try is you can test out how much time you need for a given task and look to see if you can condense it. Let's say you've got a task where you might normally allow a couple of hours to do it. If you had a hard deadline of 90 minutes, would you still be able to get that task completed? I found this where when we used to work to hard deadlines. I remember this from years ago when we used to work in practices - like before the internet days and before email was so prevalent - when we were working towards postal deadlines. So we'd be working towards a 5pm postal deadline to be able to package up and print out drawings to send to a client or for submission or whatever. And we got so much more productive in those hours as that deadline approached because there was this hard deadline that we're working towards, and our productivity really speeded up with that deadline. So there is some truth in this, this idea that - you know - you could allow like, five days for a task, and it could take five days, but if you were to say, well, actually, let's just cut it down to four, and that's a hard deadline, and we have to have it finished by that time, then you'd be surprised how that can help with your productivity. Another productivity technique that people will try is the Pomodoro Technique. This is a method for staying focused and mentally fresh, where you work in focused intervals, usually of around 25 minutes, then you take a short break of a few minutes, and then you repeat and then every, four pomodoros, you take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes. So there's all sorts of different ideas I've shared with you there. Will all of these tactics work for you and help you to save time and feel more organized and fit more into your day? No, not all of these things are going to work for you. We are all different. I personally have tried out a number of these different techniques. Some of them worked okay, some of them just didn't work for me. And really it's a case of experimentation that you do need to try out a few of these different tactics to see what does work for you. And also, if you've just got unrealistic expectations, like if you've just got too big a task list, it doesn't matter what time management tactics that you use, you're just never going to fit everything into your day. So recently, I've been forcing myself to be more realistic about what I can realistically get done in a day, which usually means a shorter daily task list and the need to prioritize tasks better so that the important work gets done. And the important work isn't necessarily the client work. That might be the urgent work, but that's not necessarily the important stuff. Actually, a lot of this the business strategy work that we've just been talking about really like that, that, to me, is the really important stuff, and that's the stuff that doesn't always get done, unfortunately. I've also been experimenting with themed work days again, and also categorizing tasks based on the amount of energy that's required from me to complete the task. Does that particular task feel hard, or does it feel easy any time of day, or are there certain times of day when it's easier to get that task done, depending on what it is. Those principles are based on a concept called 'Time Crafting' by a productivity expert called Mik Vardy. I would say the key things really are to set realistic expectations of what you can get done in any given day or week. You are not a machine. Your productivity will not be at 100% for eight hours a day. And if you are a sole practitioner, or you're a practice leader, if you're running your own business in architecture, it's just not realistic to be productive for that much time of the day, 50 to 60% of your time on fee earning project work is far more realistic for a sole practitioner, and probably even less if you're managing staff. You have to remember that your creativity is finite. Most of us may only be able to really do around three hours or so of deep creative work on any given day before we are feeling spent. Another recommendation I have for you is to plan your day beforehand, so set what tasks you'll be working on, would recommend a maximum of three planned ahead tasks with anything I should get done as a bonus. This leaves you wiggle room for the unexpected things and is going to avoid disappointment. Remember to listen to your body. You don't need to join the 5am club, but follow your own circadian rhythm and allow breaks and plan high energy tasks for when you are feeling most energized. Okay, so the the last problem that I wanted to explore today with you is inconsistent or insufficient cash flow. So how can you escape that cycle of feast and famine, and have some regular, consistent income. Can you realistically expect to have regular, consistent income unless you have regular and consistent method of generating new leads into your business? When we talk about leads, what we're talking about really is a person or company who has expressed an interest in the product or the service that you sell. So in essence, they are a potential customer for you and your business. Lead Generation - that's the process of identifying and cultivating potential customers for the products or services that you sell. And this is really important, because if you aren't able to generate a consistent stream of leads each month for your business, you are going to go through these cycles of feast and famine. Either not having enough clients, or at some points, having too much work to handle, and this plays havoc with your cash flow, your time, and it makes it really difficult to grow your business. And there are a lot of myths around lead generation "That you don't need to do lead generation if you already have clients". That "If you have a website and appear in a few business directories like Google Maps, yell.com, etc, the leads will just keep coming in to you automatically over time." Or "That posting your work on social media counts as lead generation." There are different types of leads too, we've got inbound leads and outbound leads. So inbound leads are typically those leads that come to you first. So these are probably the leads that you're most familiar with when you think of lead generation. So these might be people that have discovered you first, perhaps via a Google search or stumbled across your website or a social media post that you recently posted. Or it may be a referral from a friend or a past client. These are the leads that most businesses rely on, as your approach to them is passive. Basically, you just sit back and you wait for them to contact you. And this is the approach that many architecture practices take, especially sole practitioners and micro sized practices, that might not need many clients to stay in business. Or those practices are situated in a location with demand for architectural services or for their area of expertise that outstrips the local supply. You have no control over the volume and consistency of inbound leads, so problems can occur when inbound leads naturally slow down, perhaps due to a change in the wider economy or new competitors in your local area or in your niche. Or If you want to grow your practice and bring in a higher number of leads every month than what naturally filtered in before. Those other leads that I talked about are outbound leads. So outbound leads are sales leads that you contact first. So this could be through cold calling, direct mail, advertising events, email campaigns, content marketing or social media campaigns. This is something that you can actively do at any time, and it gives you more control in generating leads. This is really what lead generation is really about. So what are the first steps in generating outbound leads? There? There are many different ways to generate outbound leads. So before you rush off and put up a billboard or spend hundreds of pounds on Facebook ads, really, the first thing you need is a strategy. You need to consider your business strategy. Go back to that business plan. Look at what are your income goals for this year? What services do you need to be selling? How many architectural services packages do you need to sell the next quarter? Or how many new clients do you need? Once you're clear on that, then you can think about the best approach to generate the number of leads and the quality of leads, the value of leads that you need to meet those business objectives. There's also another way that we can break down leads by how warm those leads are. We can break this down into cold leads, warm leads, and those red hot leads that are ready to become a customer really soon. I'm a big music fan, so I like to use a rock band analogy, and imagine you're in a rock band and you're going out on tour. You want to sell out every venue. Your cold leads, they don't yet know about you, your band or your music. To help them discover you might create content like social media posts, blog articles. Or share your music on Spotify. Your warm leads are already connected to you in some way. They are familiar with what you do. They may have listened to a few of your songs already or followed your Instagram account. Maybe they've signed up to your email newsletter, to hear about your new album or your tour. And your hot leads are your fans. They are your past customers, the people that have bought your previous albums, that have paid to see you in concert, they've bought your band t-shirt. These are the people most likely to buy a ticket for your upcoming World Tour. If you need new customers fast, these are the people that you need to focus on. So your hot leads are far more likely to buy sooner. The cold leads are the least likely. So you may need to nurture them for a bit longer to get a sale from a cold lead. And this is where a few common mistakes creep in when it comes to lead generation, focusing too much time and money on marketing activities best suited to cold leads. So these are the ones that need the most nurturing, and they're the least likely to buy from you and take the longest to convert into a customer. So this could be things like just posting to social media, writing a blog or creating a case study. Often we focus on those things because they feel more comfortable to do, and you still feel like you've accomplished something, you've got something you can tick off your to do list. Another common mistake is just not scheduling enough time or any time or resources for lead generation, and if this isn't scheduled, it's just not going to get done. So ideally, you'd want to make a regular habit of this. Set aside time each week to generate and nurture leads, or to allocate a budget or resources within your practice toward lead generation. Another common mistake is being reactive instead of proactive, where you react to inbound leads as and when they come in. But if you want to generate outbound leads, you need to be proactive. You've got to do the work to attract, connect and nurture and convert those leads from being a prospect to being a customer. Another common mistake is just failing to spot the signals of a potential lead. There are signals that people give you. They're expressing an interest in working with you or somebody like you. They may have followed your social media account, or perhaps even one of your competitors. Or liked, shared or commented on one of your social media posts. Maybe accepted a connection request that you sent them. Opened your email newsletter and clicked a link. Maybe they downloaded your client brochure or architectural services price guide, or entered a survey, a poll or a competition that you ran. O maybe they've asked a question in a Facebook group about extending or renovating their home or premises, or about working with an architect or architectural technologist. All of these things, these triggers or signals, they're telling you that this person may at some point be interested in working with you. Another really common mistake is just not following up with leads or having any method to track them, like a simple CRM system. So think about each step or stage from identifying a lead to then becoming a customer. You can list those out, for example, it might start with identifying a new lead, then messaging them, then getting a reply, then having a conversation, then qualifying them as a good fit. Inviting them to a call with you right the way through to them becoming a customer. So your aim is to continue to keep adding leads on one side of that spreadsheet or table, and then moving them along from one side to the other, right the way to the other side, where they become a customer. So to give you a few examples, so a tactic that you could use to generate and nurture a cold lead might be that you have a long form piece of content like a helpful blog article or case study on your website. Could be something like seven common myths about extending your home. Or 10 things to consider before you decide to renovate. You can snip segments of those to create short form content, so social media, captions, graphics, maybe some short videos. And you can then repeatedly post those over time to pique people's interest and then engage with people who like, or share, or comment on that post. The key here is really in the follow up. So it's about starting a conversation with those people that have given you a signal that they're interested in what you do, and then nurturing that relationship, ultimately to get them on a call with you. An example tactic to convert a hot lead - so somebody that's typically a current or previous customer of yours, who they already know, like and trust you, and if you need fast sales- these are really the people you should be focusing on. For these people, don't expect results from posting a blog or a social media post. You really need to do some high touch, proactive outreach. This can be things like picking up the phone and calling past clients or people in your existing network that may need extra help, like friendly competitors, maybe past employer. You can check in with them, find out what they're working on, if they need any support or help with anything. Offer your help. If you have an email list, you could send a sales campaign over a series of days with a really simple offer. If you do post a social media you want to make sure it's a sales post. Tell everybody you have a gap in your calendar to fill, and you've only got a certain number of hours or days or slots free, and make sure you share any genuine scarcity and natural urgency that exists. If people think they can buy from you at any time, all the time, they'll think, oh, I can buy today. I can buy this tomorrow. I can buy it next month. They're not going to buy. The main takeaway, really, when it comes to lead generation is that conversations lead to conversions. So look to find ways to have more conversations with potential clients, either in person, over the phone or in the comments of a social media post, or in the DMs - in the direct messages - or even over email. We have covered a lot of ground in this episode, and there's a number of different ideas that I've shared with you to try and overcome these three big problems that most of us in business, are going to face at some point. And if you've enjoyed this episode, remember to leave a five star review or rating wherever you listen to podcast. And maybe consider searching for Architecture Business Club on your favorite podcast player, and thanks again to CIAT for the invitation to collaborate with them on this special episode of Where it's AT. You've been listening to the Where it's AT podcast from CIAT, don't forget to subscribe and share and tune in next time.

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