Growthitect

Alexander Buckeridge [00:00:00]:
I sent out my first proposal, which was like a bit of a victory under the studio's name.

Tyler Suomala [00:00:04]:
That's Alexander Buckridge, an architect based in NYC in the process of starting his own architecture firm. And spoiler alert, he did not win the project. But that's okay because you're going to hear what Alexander learned after sending out his first proposal.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:00:19]:
I will say a few things that I think were a bit of an.

Tyler Suomala [00:00:22]:
Issue was plus exactly what I recommend he does to avoid the same mistakes in the future. Then we talk about how to use rejections as growth opportunities.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:00:32]:
I think it's just a big thing that I'm learning and getting more comfortable. And I think all of us struggle with is ultimately, and we end with.

Tyler Suomala [00:00:39]:
A tactic that makes your architecture fees much more attractive.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:00:43]:
And would that be in the proposal? Or is that something you have a conversation about before and saying we agree on this?

Tyler Suomala [00:00:50]:
Hey, I'm Tyler Sumila, founder of Growthitect. After nearly a decade in architecture, I shifted my focus to helping architects grow their business. Since then, I've spent the last few years helping architects, just like you, improve their sales, marketing and business development through my free newsletter read by thousands of architects each week. But I wanted to take it a step further. That's why I started this podcast. It's not your typical interview series, actually, for the whole first season of the Growth Attack podcast, all ten episodes, I'm sharing exclusive recordings of my consultations with Alexander Buckridge as he embarks on the journey of launching his own firm and landing his first clients. So tune in to learn exactly how to tackle the real challenges that every architect faces when starting out. And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss anything.

Tyler Suomala [00:01:40]:
But before we begin, a huge thanks to our sponsor, Gelt. Discover how Gelt can help to manage and optimize taxes for you, your firm, and your partners. Visit joingt.com growthdetect to learn more. And now here's the show.

Tyler Suomala [00:01:57]:
So last time we chatted, this wasn't recorded, but we've gone back and forth and I had suggested a few different things. But one of them that I had suggested was sending out warm emails to past clients and colleagues and different things. And a warm email for people that don't know is essentially just, it's an email to someone that you already have a connection with, and all that you're doing is just letting them know that you've started something exciting and wondering if they happen to know anyone. You could help, right? And so it's really simple. It's just reaching out and saying, hey, hope all is well. Just wanted to let you know that I've decided to start my own studio. I'm going to be focusing on this type of work. Do you happen to know anyone that might be interested? You're not asking them for their work.

Tyler Suomala [00:02:41]:
You're essentially asking them to dip into their network and say, hey, do you happen to know anyone? Have you heard of anything that might be useful for me to talk to? But to your credit, after I mentioned this to you, with very little guidance, you, like, messaged me like 20 minutes later and you're like, hey, I just sent 20 emails and I already got one response. So what happened there?

Alexander Buckeridge [00:03:03]:
Yeah, yeah. So I sent out the emails. Having known eventually I would get out of the practice, I had an idea of who that 20 people would be. From what we mentioned, I listed them out and I drafted a short email. Like you said, you don't want it to be too long. You just want it to be, to the point, friendly, warm. And that's what I did. And I got a couple of yay, great, like, super excited for you.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:03:25]:
And then there was one where it was like, it's funny, you emailed me, I've just purchased this property and I'm looking for someone to do this. Now. This was in Paris, so, you know, it was through my network there, which I've had going on. And so I followed up and we had a couple of back and forths on WhatsApp. And yeah, it was me then navigating. Is this a real opportunity? Is this someone who's looking to get a price to compete against others? And so there was a bit of that going on. What I wanted to do was I wanted to just get on a call with the guy and just get a really understanding of it, rather than it just all being text and back and forth. So I jumped on a call and he mentioned, like, high level, what's going on? It was like a two, three bed near the Arc de Triomphe, finding roughly the district.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:04:10]:
What was going on there? It was an interior renovation, residential, and just a little bit about what is designed desires are, you know, what he sees. So I was just trying to, like, get a picture of one him. And I knew him from a previous project, but again, where is he at in life now? It's been five years since we talked. And so after that conversation, I think the initial one, he just requested a proposal directly, which I was like, okay, no worries. I need to do a bit of grant market research on what was going on in Paris, bees I've contributed people I know in terms of contractors, architects of records there, I would need to join and link with. So I did a bit of research, and I. The way I wanted to approach it was I wanted to just have a two way conversation, of course, and just, like, share thoughts, share what I'm seeing and what I'm. Where this is going.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:04:57]:
And I think the next thing I want to do is just jump on a call and just share, like, a rough idea of where this proposal is heading. But it didn't seem to me it was just like, get the proposal to me kind of thing. So I was going through a bit of a situation there, because with what I'm learning on a separate course that I'm doing, there is a lot you need to identify before ever sending the proposal out. It's like, you know, alignment of a lot of things that ultimately the proposal should be sent out is like a final engagement. We're certain on this. So I had this in the back of my mind going on, but at the same time, the guy just wanted this thing, and he was either gonna. He went radio asylum when I did. He didn't want to get on the call, so I just sent it out.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:05:34]:
I knew this was a 50 50 kind of thing. He got back and eventually said that, and he didn't want to get on the call, which was a bit of a red flag, but he just said that the fees were too high and that he would want someone on the ground. And for me, I wouldn't have changed much. I would have. I will say a few things that I think were a bit of an issue was I should have identified straight off the bat what figure he was comfortable with sharing around what he was willing for a design fee here, because I was estimating it off the market and what was going on there, and I should have identified a rage off the bat. I think that's important and learning, just because as it was going through, I think he just wanted to see what I was going to charge, basically, for the services. So, anyway, look, ultimately, that didn't work out. Some stuff were learned.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:06:18]:
I sent out my first proposal, which was like a bit of a victory under the studio's name. You know, when you just get a sense there's something, or you feel like this client might be dragging you along a little bit and not being sincere about the situation, I definitely felt a bit of that as well. So I wasn't disappointed not to get it, because I don't think the figure itself was actually a good number for me to get involved for twelve to 18 months.

Tyler Suomala [00:06:43]:
Yeah, let's pause on that. So that's great. You kind of went through the first process, one off, you were able to create a proposal, send it off. There were already, it seems like some red flags emerging in terms of possibilities that maybe this client wouldn't be a great client anyways, but good for you to continue pushing it. So let's talk about some of those challenges that came up and what you can do differently next time. So it was good. You started the conversation on WhatsApp and then you eventually moved to a meeting, which was great. I do have questions about what was exactly discussed in that meeting or maybe the flow of it.

Tyler Suomala [00:07:14]:
I know that you mentioned you got an understanding of what his desires were, what things were going. It sounds like you guys didnt talk about budget or investment at all. Is that true?

Alexander Buckeridge [00:07:23]:
Yeah, I think so. I think there was a bit of stuff shared around how he had spent so much buying this apartment and he wouldnt share the figure, but it was like that he wants to do this, which is pretty classic on as little as possible. Its just not realistic. And also the stakeholders. So there was him involved and then there was his girlfriend. When I was trying to establish who was in the driving seat, let's say, to understand who was making the decisions, he identified it was him, but also she would have to be involved. So anyway, that's why I wanted to get on the call with both of them, just to understand.

Tyler Suomala [00:07:55]:
Yeah, that makes sense. There's two recommendations I would have. For one, I never think that an architect should ask, what's your budget? I think that's the worst question. I think that's the worst question that an architect can ask because it assumes that they're aware of the market, which they never are, and assumes that they know what they want, which they never do. These things all change after you help to educate them on how this process actually works or what things are actually involved in it. But you can get an idea by just saying, have you considered how much this will cost? Is a good question. That's a soft question in total. And then maybe you're getting an understanding of at least what they're thinking.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:08:27]:
Now, when you say cost, you need fees.

Tyler Suomala [00:08:30]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean fees. Yeah. Have you considered how much this cost? Have you thought about how much you want to invest into this project? Another great question. Because that's a, invest is a word. Because that is what they're doing. They're making an investment, whether that they're thinking about financial gains on the other side because he's going to flip it. Whether that's because they're thinking about investing into a new vacation home or whatever that experience is going to be, they're making an investment.

Tyler Suomala [00:08:55]:
And then the other one that I think would, from what you're telling me, I think this is probably the way that I would have leaned. When you're getting into clients and maybe it's a smaller project, you become less certain maybe throughout that conversation and whether this is the right client for you, then you can be really upfront and just say, generally our fees for this type of project will range between 50 and $100,000. Are you comfortable with that? And so you just give them a range towards the end of that conversation, and you very carefully understand how they're responding to that, because if they would have responded been like, oh, no, that's way more than what I'm thinking. Then at least you haven't wasted any time because you've understood their mark a little bit better. You've gotten to go through the process of running a discovery meeting and do this, which is so important for you to continue to practice this, but at least you don't then waste any time after this call. I think that's really helpful for, again, for smaller fee projects or if you find yourself in a conversation where you're like, you're not entirely sure if they're committed based on the way that the conversation is going, important for you to know you want to be the one that's controlling that pace of information. Right. And so it sounded, even from the way that you were describing it, right.

Tyler Suomala [00:10:10]:
It was like you felt like he was waiting on you. He was forcing you. He was controlling the timeline almost.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:10:16]:
Yeah. I thought about not setting the proposals, to be honest with you. I guess I just don't have that confidence yet to say, look, I feel like this might be the right job for me. At the end of the day, the position I'm in right now, I had to make a punt, right?

Tyler Suomala [00:10:29]:
I think.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:10:30]:
Otherwise I would have been like, yes, you know what? I'm getting a sense from, my God, from just reading this right now, this probably doesn't make sense. And honestly, once I calculate the figures as well, I should have been like, this is going to break. Even if.

Tyler Suomala [00:10:43]:
Even if I was meeting with the client like that, where I was like, I'm actually not totally sure if there's going to be a good fit. And based on the way that they're communicating with me, I'm pretty confident that changes are going to happen along the way and this is going to slow down the process. I would increase my fee. It's like that pain in the ass fee, right? It's like, oh, absolutely. You need to include that if you're getting that sense for that clients. I do think it's ultimately good that you ended up sending the proposal in the first place. Now, you already, I think you already know this because you've been following the newsletter for a long time and things, but never, never send a proposal via email. You were already do.

Tyler Suomala [00:11:16]:
You already knew this, right?

Alexander Buckeridge [00:11:18]:
I didn't want to do it.

Tyler Suomala [00:11:19]:
Yeah. You want to walk them through that process. And the end, the fact that he wasn't going to jump on a call is maybe the issue. So let's talk about two ways to address that part. The first issue is something that's so important in that first call that you have with them that so often gets overlooked, and that is the next steps. You did part of it where he was like, okay, I'm ready for a proposal. Now, ideally, what happens at the end of that conversation is you get to confirm exactly kind of everything that you've heard. Right.

Tyler Suomala [00:11:49]:
It starts winding down. You get to ask a question, like talked about a lot today. Is there anything else you think I should know? That's a great kind of wind down question, because maybe you've been asking questions, they've been asking questions. There's been a little bit of back and forth, and you may be able to capture anything that might be top of mind for them that they didn't get to talk about yet. And then you want to reiterate everything that you heard. It sounds to me like your primary challenges are X, Y, and Z, and you want these outcomes right. You want this exact outcome from working with me. This is the lifestyle that you want to achieve, or this is the space that you want.

Tyler Suomala [00:12:23]:
This is the vision that you have for the project. Does that sound right to you? You want to confirm with them that you understood everything correctly, and then once you hear that, you get to say something like, great. As you already know, I have a lot of experience helping a lot of clients do this. Let's set some time aside for next Thursday at 02:00 p.m. where I'll walk you through exactly how I've done this for other clients and how I can do it for you, too. Does that work for you? And so you set that next meeting while you're on that call.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:12:56]:
Sales 101.

Tyler Suomala [00:12:57]:
Yes. Because if there's not a next. If there's not a next step, then it's not going to happen. And so many deals are lost. So many opportunities are lost with that step alone with that submit, because this, that's exactly what happened. If it's not on the calendar, if it's not scheduled, it's not going to happen.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:13:16]:
If this person was reluctant to committing to that which I was getting a sense of it through channels of that, or not really, like, just send me the proposal is that's just a straight up red flag, is it? Of like, look, maybe this isn't the right thing or what's your thoughts there? Like, I guess it's a bit more crow barring required. And like, getting in there with your.

Tyler Suomala [00:13:35]:
Sales is not, you know, you never want to be. It's not about being pushy. It's not about forcing something where it shouldn't be. To your point. You listening? You're getting a sense, maybe this isn't right. Maybe this isn't the feeling. It's really good to lean on policy in that sense. Right.

Tyler Suomala [00:13:49]:
It's basically a way of saying no to a client without actually saying the words no. So he's saying, no, I can't do that. Just send me via email. Well, in doing hundreds of these works for other clients, it's definitely my policy at this point that I need to sit down and walk you through that process to make sure that I'm understanding everything correctly. And if you're unable to do that, then it's just not something that makes sense for us moving forward. It's so tough in that moment, but you'll get better at it as you get more clients and you feel like you have a little bit more flexibility to actually say yes or no in the moment. But you almost do have to be confident with the idea that every single person that you're talking to isn't going to be a client. Right.

Tyler Suomala [00:14:25]:
Your win right at the beginning, it might be like 25%. And that's both because you don't know exactly what types of projects you're going to be doing. You're talking to a lot of different people you haven't quite figured out, like your positioning in your niche yet. Right. You're not going to win most of the conversations that you're having right now, most of the proposals, and that's okay because you're going to be learning exactly what people need. And what's important is that you're having those conversations to understand why they didn't work. So in this case, this guy wasn't going to jump on a call anyways. He said it was too expensive.

Tyler Suomala [00:14:54]:
If he was on the call and he said it in that moment, then it could be like, oh, can you tell me what you mean by that? What's expensive to you?

Alexander Buckeridge [00:15:00]:
You don't get into part of being able to discuss services. Right. And potential different types of services which could adapt to the fee. He was thinking, and I had that in my mind, but I'm still very green with implementing and understanding this.

Tyler Suomala [00:15:18]:
Yeah, it's exactly right. Because it's an education to the client. Right. It sounds like you've worked with them before and so they, they have some familiarity maybe with these projects, but no client is going to have the same experience that you do. Right. You know, what is actually involved in kind of every single process and best case scenario with a client is that maybe they've done this like a couple of times versus you. That's done it a hundred times. Yeah.

Tyler Suomala [00:15:40]:
I think a lot of that proposal process is educating and it's also reinforcement. Like when you're meeting with them, you're saying, hey, when we last chatted, you mentioned that this is something that you want to do. This is how we would do that. Right. When we last chatted, you mentioned that you were concerned about this. This is how we address that in the process. You're almost handling the objections as you present the proposal because a really good exercise to do after these discovery calls or before you're going to present the proposal. I used to like to do it right after the first call because that's when everything was top of mind.

Tyler Suomala [00:16:11]:
But you're writing down the things like, okay, what is this client's top priority with this project from that conversation? What objections am I already anticipating? It sounds like you already had a really good sense for this. There's probably going to be an objection on price, possibly. Maybe there was going to be an objection on timeline, and maybe there was going to be an objection on the fact that you're based in NYC and he's in Paris. Right. And so knowing and thinking through those ahead of time gives you the time and space to talk through, to basically overcome those objections while you're presenting the proposal, rather than going through the entire proposal process and then them grilling you almost with these objections. Right. Then while you're presenting it, you're saying, here's the four different moments where I'm actually going to fly into Paris, I'll be walking this through with you, I'm going to be meeting with fence. I have my partner on the ground there, that's going to be there to address any questions.

Tyler Suomala [00:17:04]:
And so you're able to go into that proposal really well prepared. Right. And so I think that's just a great exercise, too, moving forward.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:17:13]:
Yeah, no, it is. It was a disappointment. I felt that I didn't get a chance to present to them even to, even from a practicing standpoint, to go through that and take them through and diminish or lessen those concerns or objections. And I thought that just would have been a good experience for me to do, because ultimately, in these scenarios, I feel like you move from wanting to create beautiful buildings, which you still want to do on interiors, to chasing projects and going on that journey of chasing these clients. And it's also some kind of a game. You're going through various different stages, you're doing different things, and there's some level of enjoyment in that, you know, in terms of, like, the conversations that you're having and the adaptions you're making to these different individuals or businesses. And then all of a sudden you get an email, game over.

Tyler Suomala [00:18:00]:
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Tyler Suomala [00:19:20]:
I can tell you right now that the architecture industry doesn't talk about this enough, but in general, people probably don't mention this enough anyways. It's easy to look at successful businesses or something and think that, and assume that, oh, things are really easy for them, right? They're getting most of the clients that are coming to them, these different things, they're probably winning a lot and that's not the case at all. Right. Actually, those successful businesses are probably just pursuing four times more clients than you are. Right? They're actually just, yeah, yeah. They're spending way more time having conversations and really filling their pipeline in order to do that. And they're comfortable with the fact that they're going to be hearing no a lot. And that's something to your point.

Tyler Suomala [00:19:58]:
You really wanted to kind of just like run through that process and present the proposal because it's true. Like you're going to hear no a lot, especially if you're doing business development. Right. And that sounds counterintuitive, but such an important part of the process that you're getting these practice steps in youre being told no and then youre understanding why youre being told no so that you can then adapt that strategy again moving forward.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:20:20]:
And to what you said there as well, I think its just a big thing that im learning and getting more comfortable. And I think all of us struggle with is ultimately rejection. And in business its a daily occurrence. And so for me, im just getting more uncomfortable with waking up and hitting the city and understanding im going to hear no a lot. Im going to hear that this is not going to happen. Im going to hear that youre not the right fit, blah, blah, blah. But again, you just gotta push through and actually think about this is part of the process.

Tyler Suomala [00:20:47]:
That's exactly right. It's a mindset shift because there's just not a person in the world that enjoys hearing no. Every single sales trainer or something is going to say things like no's are good. Like you should chase nose. Actually, I wrote a newsletter about chasing no's, which I can link to. I can link to in the show notes, too. But the whole idea is that you will hear no a lot. And those nos really are learning opportunities.

Tyler Suomala [00:21:10]:
So you have to reframe it in your mind. That's it's literally the only way to get through it. Right. It's never going to be comfortable. It's never going to be something that you necessarily enjoy hearing. But if you reframe it in your mind as a learning opportunity and try to turn every single no into at least one thing. Right. What is the one thing that I learned from that I can do better next time?

Alexander Buckeridge [00:21:30]:
Yeah. And even in any of these, again, as you speak to larger businesses or well established ones that you would imagine with even what I've been in, we're still looking at a conversion rate, whether it's rfps or competitions or, you know, of, you know, could be 20 to one. And so even if you are at, let's say, top of your profession, you're still obviously up against it. Right. And that's a big learning curve about navigating all that and figuring it out.

Tyler Suomala [00:21:58]:
Let's talk about the other client that you went after.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:22:01]:
So, you know, since I've kind of launched, well, I haven't launched. That's the end of the month. But since I've kind of just initially spread word that establishing my own studio, some people have reached out. And one company in Miami who reached out to me wanted to initially just say, hey, we'd like to, if you need any help or what you're doing, we're more than happy to give you some consultation. I thought that was very cool, really nice of them and really appreciate it. We did a newsletter together that was about it. Nothing major. Anyway, after all that stuff, they reached out while I was in Ireland and they were like, hey, we've got a big brand kind of coming in.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:22:40]:
We're doing a proposal that's gone quite far now ourselves. We're going to need a spatial designer like yourself to come in and help us with that. Would you be interested in it first? And I got on a call with two partners and I just talked through it and I just understood a bit more about what the situation was. And it was kind of a consultancy thing. It was probably 20 hours a week for three months. And so I just sat with it for a minute. I was like, yeah, okay. You know, it's probably going to be in the retail space, probably like something happening in Miami again, some luxury brands.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:23:08]:
So there was no definition on authority there a little bit. But I just sat down and ran some numbers and I said to myself, I'm going to put my x amount of time into it in terms of like, let's say the 20 hours, put an hourly figure on it. And then I just formatted that very simply in one email and said, this is what I'm doing. And they integrated that into their figure proposal. That was a good exercise for me to go through in terms of a different approach to generating, getting my name out there, working with others, getting my hands on projects. And with that model, it was more like a three month asset figure, roughly, of what that would be, and also exploring, working with other branding, graphic design, individuals and all that. And in Miami, in terms of another network, they got back to me this week and said, unfortunately, that didn't go through, but we could be having a very different conversation right now that I'm actually doing that.

Tyler Suomala [00:24:03]:
Just to clarify, it wasn't your proposal that they did. They attached it to what they were proposing. And that proposal was.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:24:09]:
Yeah, so it was a much lighter kind of like you. We need to bring in Alexander Rockridge to help with us facilitate if this brand experience that they're creating becomes spatial. Which is an interesting point for me because it's stuff like that I do, you know, and I have done previously, is translating these brand experiences into architecture. I'm having a follow up call with them to explore other avenues about that. Again, that's definitely more building a relationship that I feel like we're there for. Trying to support one another and whatnot.

Tyler Suomala [00:24:43]:
Yeah, that's awesome. Is that an agreement that you came to on the call with them or.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:24:47]:
Did that happen after doing a lot of understanding and listening on that call? Because I wasn't defined as exactly what my role would be, but they knew they'd need someone like me in them, in there to support. So, like, the scale of it was unclear. So with all the uncertainty, we had to add some caveats around. Hey, look, if this evolves into a built project, my thing would have to change. Like we were anticipating potentially a pop up or a couple of pieces of millwork that's very different to finish store that would be there for permanently. So I just said, look, I can only work with so much here. So what I'll do is, I'll give you this. We're going to add in these caveats around.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:25:24]:
If it changes to any kind of thing. I think it was just to get an overall figure out to that person. I think that was more what it was. So it was hard because obviously when you're. It's not that defined. I was like, it's hard for me to understand, like, and I also don't want to commit to more than half my week on something because I got to work on the business.

Tyler Suomala [00:25:45]:
I think here's what you did really well. Then there one is that in those situations where you're really unsure on exactly how that process is going to play out, you chose an hourly rate, which a lot of people won't promote. Right. They're going to say, oh, I'd rather do fixed fee. Fixed fee is better. If you know exactly what this project is going to be and you've done it before, and you can confidently say this is how much work this is going to take me, that's where fixed fee works best. Hourly fee works really well if it's a project that you know you want to do, but you're unsure of exactly how long it's going to take, and maybe the client that you're working for isn't totally sure how that process is going to work out either.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:26:18]:
Yeah.

Tyler Suomala [00:26:19]:
So instead you're saying, hey, I can commit 20 hours a week at this rate. And I think that was really smart. And so I think in situations like that, where there's so many unknowns, it can also just be helpful to offer up, like, different packages, almost like a tiered pricing plan, where you offer three things to them and let them choose the one that's right for the project that they're doing. For example, you could have said, I can do 10 hours a week at $300 an hour. I can do 20 hours a week at $250 an hour, or I can do it for $50,000 for the next three months as a fixed fee, and I'll do these services for you. Let them choose the one that's right for them. I think that can also be good in those situations, too, because you're giving them a little bit of authority. Tiered pricing is great because instead of people choosing whether or not they want to work with you, which is generally what happens when you give someone one option, they're making a decision, do I want to work with them, yes or no? When you give them tiered pricing, they're choosing how to work with you.

Tyler Suomala [00:27:23]:
Right. You're already assuming that they're going to work with you. And now instead of them making the decision of, do I want to work with this person? It's how do I want to work with this person? Which one is right for me, a, b or C?

Alexander Buckeridge [00:27:34]:
It's a slice of Alex at a. A slice of Alex. B.

Tyler Suomala [00:27:38]:
Yes, I like that.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:27:39]:
And I think that kind of plays back to also the other proposal that I never got to present. In the end, in terms of, obviously, I'd set a figure of, let's say, 35k all in. And maybe if there was a tiering system, is that something you would recommend as an approach in general, or would that be in the proposal, or is that something you have a conversation about before and saying, we agree on this tier?

Tyler Suomala [00:28:08]:
Let's say, I think it's something that can dramatically impact both your win rate and your revenue as a business. And I think if it's something that you want to do, I think it's a good thing to do in every single proposal. If you want to do tiered pricing because it's like when you're looking for a car, do you want base that doesn't have any of the extra trim to it? Do you want, like, that mid level trim or do you want the luxury trim? And I think it's something that people are very familiar with, and it gives them, again, it gives them authority in the process to say, this is actually the type of experience that I want in working with you. Right. So with that, with the first client, if we go back there, I can give you the base level plan might not have included. It's not like you're not flying to Paris. You're doing this as cheaply as possible. The person on the ground is maybe doing the majority of the work.

Tyler Suomala [00:28:57]:
They're not getting a ton of renderings or things of what this space is going to look like before. And then you have a mid tier plan where you have, maybe there's more deadlines, more milestones in there, more check ins. You're able to provide much more upfront in terms of a vision of exactly what they're going to see. Renderings and different things. You'll spend time doing that, and then you have the luxury package. I'm there once a month to walk you through this process. I'm going to give you, you know, both interior and exterior running so I'll be able to provide videos. Maybe there's even a VR experience that they can do this so that they're really able to see everything before they go into it.

Tyler Suomala [00:29:35]:
Yeah, this is like the pro level.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:29:37]:
Right?

Tyler Suomala [00:29:37]:
And so I think what's great about tiered pricing is that it actually doesn't, like, you know, we already know. I don't know what you're using, like, but, like, you know, if you're using enscape or Lumion or whatever, like, it doesn't. It doesn't take that much longer for you to create ten renderings instead of one. But it does absolutely impact the client experience. So that's why I think it's important to consider that value that you're offering to the client and which value they want. Like what experience they want to have. Yeah. And so I think it's a really good thing to include.

Tyler Suomala [00:30:06]:
Right. It might overcomplicate the process early on, but that's where, with the first client, I still think it would have been better to just in that conversation, this is. Fees for this type of project typically range between x and Y. Are you comfortable with that with this other client? You know, tiered pricing works really well when there's just a lot of unknowns, right? Yeah, you don't know. Exactly. So you're giving them the opportunity to choose which, which unknown is going to best fit into the things that they already know.

Alexander Buckeridge [00:30:33]:
Yeah. Perfect. Something for implementation.

Tyler Suomala [00:30:37]:
All right. Thanks for being a growth detect and listening in on this consultation. Alexander Buckridge be sure to subscribe so you can continue to learn exactly how to overcome the challenges that every architect faces when starting a firm. Check out the show notes for links to everything that was mentioned. Lastly, make sure you go to growthdetect.com. join to join more than 5000 architects getting one quick and simple business growth hack in their inbox every Sunday morning. From me. I'll see you in the next episode.