Ep 33: Finding your tone of voice in communications, Simon Drayson, Juliette Mitchell and Darren Leach
Have you considered hiring a consultant or freelancer to get your built environment marketing done? Then this is the episode for you.
My guests are writer Juliette Mitchell from Architypal and Darren Leach and Simon Drayson from architectural practice George and James.
In this episode, we look at how Simon and Darren worked with Juliette to develop their tone of voice and how to write for humans. Yes, real actual people! We also talk about how going through the process of writing their website has positively other aspects of their business and what they’re doing now to market their business.
Timestamps
00:04: Introduction
02:42: Where the name George & James Architects comes from
03:27: How George & James started
05:19: Meeting Juliette and developing the website
12:11: Wanting to remain professional
15:35: Words shape the business
19:17: A shameless plug for new staff, and the blog
25:02: Website FAQs
28:20: Advice for starting to develop a web site
33:01: Archiboo shortlist and the RIBA plan of works
39:18: Final thoughts
Marketing In Times of Recovery is the bi-weekly built environment marketing podcast hosted by built environment marketing consultant, Ayo Abbas from Abbas Marketing. Sign up for my monthly roundup here for the latest built environment marketing news
Sharing is caring
If you've learned something from listening why not share it with one other person in your network who you think will find it useful. As my 7 year old son says - sharing is caring plus it really does help to spread the word about the show. Oh, and thanks by the way, your support is much appreciated.
Resources
The Abbas Marketing website
The George and James website
Their Alternative Guide to the RIBA Plan of Works
The Architypal website
Transcript.
Ayo Abbas: 00:04: Hello and welcome to Marketing in Times of Recovery. I'm Ayo Abbas, a Built Environment Marketing Consultant and your host for today. You can find out more about my work at my website which is www.abbasmarketing.com. Today, I have three amazing guests, Simon Drayson and Darren Leach, from George & James Architects, and the writer and trainer, Juliette Mitchell, from Architypal.
I heard of Simon and Darren via Juliette on LinkedIn, and also via the Archiboo Awards where their alternative RIBA plan of works was shortlisted in the Best Written Content category. In this episode, we look at how they worked with Juliette to develop their tone of voice and how to write basically for humans; yes, real actual people. We also talk about how going through the process of writing their website has positively impacted other aspects of their business, and what they're doing now in terms of their marketing to take their business forward.
If you like the show and you do listen to us, please do leave us a review because it really does help us to spread the word. If you're on Apple Podcast, scroll down, find the bit that says, "Review", and say some nice words about why you like the show. Anyway, I'm going to stop talking now and I will let you get on and enjoy the show, bye.
Hi and welcome to the show and thanks so much for coming on. Would you like to introduce yourselves? So first, Juliette, would you like to introduce yourself and your company?
Juliette Mitchell: 01:32: Yeah, so I am Juliette Mitchell and I run Artchitypal, and I help architects and sometimes people who work with architects, but most of my clients are architects and I help them get their stories straight, find their voice, fine a way of articulating their purpose, their mission and all those words that get bandied about that people don't really know how to dig down into and find a way of expressing for themselves.
Ayo Abbas: 01:58: Fantastic, and Simon, do you want to introduce yourself?
Simon Drayson: 02:01: Hi, I'm Simon Drayson, one half of George & James Architects. We're a small architectural firm based in the Midhurst in the South Downs. We design buildings that we can all be proud of, happy, healthy places that are kind to you and kind to the planet.
Ayo Abbas: 02:15: Over to you, Darren, who are you?
Darren Leach: 02:17: I'm Darren Leach and I'm one of the Directors at George & James as well and as Simon said, we have a small team based in Midhurst in the South Downs National Park. Simon's told you what we do.
Ayo Abbas: 02:33: Which is always good, that's very important! He's like, "I don’t need to do that part, you can do that". All right, so George & James, I got to know you, I guess, via Juliette and the Archiboo Awards and your amazing website and all of that. How did your practice get its name, first of all, because your names aren't George and James? Go for it, Simon.
Simon Drayson: 02:56: Yes, they're not George and James, they are our middle names. So I'm Simon George and Darren is obviously Darren James. George is after my grandad, James is after no one in particular, so I understand. Darren's parents just liked it.
Darren Leach: 03:14: We should say, as an important -- we're actually married, so that's for the banter that's going on here that exists, might not exist in some businesses, that might just explain it.
Simon Drayson: 03:27: Very true, and we started because of that very reason, I suppose, as a bit of extra pocket money for nice things and holidays. We started George & James Architects as a bit of a sideline nearly a decade ago actually, alongside full-time work. So we had to be a bit secretive and clandestine with our operations, hence the origin of not calling it Drayson Leach Architects or Leach Drayson Architects. That is another debate for another time.
Juliette Mitchell: 03:58: One thing that was great for the website, when we starting to work on the words for the website, was to actually use that little story, so it is on there. If you go onto the page about the studio, you can read about how Simon and Darren came up with that name, and that we didn't want them to sound too corporate. It felt like George and James sounded better, sounded just right. That is part of telling the story of the practice, and it's a really nice, personal way into who they are and what they do.
Ayo Abbas: 04:35: Actually, do people ring up and ask for George and James?
Darren Leach: 04:39: Sometimes, yes. We did have someone working for us a few years ago called James, so that got very confusing. People would call up and ask for Mr James or something like that, yeah.
Simon Drayson: 04:58: He was a part learner and he'd be taking all these calls from prospective clients and lots of sales calls. We always know it's a sales call when they ask for George or James, because they haven't done their homework on the website.
Ayo Abbas: 05:11: They go, "How are you today?" That's normally the usual kind of sales pitch. It's always like, "No". So, in terms of your website, how did you find Juliette, is my first question; how do you know each other?
Darren Leach: 05:28: I don't know when we started the process, probably after the pandemic started. We had a website and it felt like a very generic thing. We had statements on it that you could literally pick up from any architects' websites about working on project or sectors, it was all quite standard and almost boilerplate stuff. We were sat there in our bedrooms at home like everybody else working at the start of the pandemic, thinking, "We're okay, we've got lots of projects which are keeping us going, but how do we win the next project, and what sets us apart from everybody else, and why would people want to work with us?"
So, we knew we needed to work on our website and the way we present ourselves in order to do that and to appeal to people, and also just tell people about what we like to do and how we do it. At the time as well, I think we were thinking, "Actually, we need to publicise ourselves", so we got in touch with some publicists. I think it was Luke Neve, who then directed us to Juliette and said, "Go and talk to Juliette. She does these wonderful workshops and can help you find your words and dig into who you are and present yourselves", and that is what we did. We joined Juliette for a few workshop sessions, just writing, during the pandemic.
Juliette Mitchell: 07:02: During the pandemic, so we did it on Zoom. Before the pandemic, I'd been working completely face-to-face for my workshops, and then it was that weird thing like everybody, that it was adapting to doing it on Zoom, and finding --
Ayo Abbas: 07:20: You found Zoom, yeah.
Juliette Mitchell: 07:22: -- that actually, it could work really well. So I think, Simon and Darren, you were one of my first clutch of the Zoom workshops and it was great. Working with just two other people, the two of them were in one room, so it felt almost like a one-to-one conversation, especially because as you can see, they're very close in lots of ways. It worked really well, it was really productive, and you were a joy to work with, both of you.
Simon Drayson: 07:53: I remember it well, Juliette, because we were rattling around in our very big unit in Bermondsey at the time, which we'd moved into a couple of weeks before lockdown. We'd taken a bigger office and it was just the two of us sat in the corner of this huge room echoing, our voice echoing around on Zoom.
Ayo Abbas: 08:19: It's mad, isn't it, when you think that's two years ago?
Darren Leach: 08:24: Yeah, it seems like yesterday and a lot longer ago as well. It's very strange.
Ayo Abbas: 08:31: And, in terms of your website, what was it that you really wanted to achieve, what was the main thing that you wanted from it? You needed it to change, or you needed to do differently.
Darren Leach: 08:41: Yeah, well I guess this came out of our workshops with Juliette, because we went into it thinking, "Well actually, we just need to change a few of the words on our existing website and just to tell people a little about what we do and just be clearer about it". Actually what we started discussing with Juliette was actually more about our story as a practice and where we've come from, and about us and about the name of the practice and things that we do and how we've evolved.
All of those things they became more prominent and actually, it became more about building a website that told our story and would actually talk to our perspective clients in a language that isn't so architectural, isn't so alien to people who might visit our website and want to learn about how to hire and work with architects. That's where it came about, and so I guess what we thought we wanted from a website became something quite different as we went through the process of writing and working with Juliette and working it out.
Juliette Mitchell: 09:48: I think that is a really important point, because that's why I don't call myself a copywriter, I'm not a copywriter, and I think there is something about just not thinking, "We need new words for our website", and thinking, "I just need to get the words written", because it's not about that at all. Finding the words for your website, finding your story and your voice is a really good opportunity to dig a bit deeper, and to really own that story and feel that there is a narrative behind what you do. There's a narrative that glues all your projects together, and that's the story that your clients want to hear and that's what's going to pull them into wanting to work with you.
Getting your website, getting the right words for your website, and getting that story into a website is actually the opportunity to have those words ready, not just when you need to write something but also when you're meeting your clients, you're talking to potential clients; it's so much deeper and wider.
Darren Leach: 10:51 It's making everything a bit more human and a bit less abstract. What we still spend a lot of time doing is explaining things, because building things, architectural design things, everybody sees it a lot more now on TV and hundreds of different programmes, about building new houses and renovations and this, that and the other. But it really is a complicated process, it's not as simple as it might seem when the cameras are cutting here, there and everywhere. So, we spend a lot of our time, particularly with our clients' style, new house or extension clients, and so on, explaining what the process is and trying to guide them through that process.
So, finding words that can help explain what is otherwise quite a complex process was quite tricky, but I think we've managed to do that with Juliette on the website. We're able to use that now in explaining how we do things, and how everybody does things in architectural practice, in an easier fashion, so it is really helpful. We are always adapting that as well; we have got a lot more to do, I think.
Simon Drayson: 12:11: Can I just expand on that, Ayo?
Ayo Abbas: 12:13: Of course you can, Simon, go.
Simon Drayson: 12:15: Because I think, for me, and I was the forerunner of George & James, so I was in it full time for a couple of years before Darren, from the back bedroom before that was the norm. I definitely had a bit of an inferiority complex with wanting the website to be professional and a proper architect's website that I'd been aspiring to since I was at school.
It was absolutely working with Juliette that was this mind shift from it being this sort of straight-faced, very corporate thing, to just being ourselves and being much more personal with it. Believe me, we did try writing on our own without Juliette's help.
Darren Leach: 13:16: Entertaining!
Simon Drayson: 13:18: We are very good at keeping professional when we need to be, but that can descend into arguments, so there was lots of times there were blank pieces of paper, just snatching pens out of each other's hands, which is when we thought a mediator would be useful.
Juliette Mitchell: 13:38: On that note I should say that, since starting to work with Simon and Darren, I've changed my process slightly, because I've realised that actually, to do the workshops and then to leave people to do their own writing is just too hard still. I now have a different way of working, where I can stay onboard and then we have another workshop along the way to help them get everything written. So at the time we worked together, me and Simon and Darren, we had done two workshops and then they were going off to do the writing on their own.
Now, when I did come back onboard, it was actually a very different process to if we hadn't worked together during those workshops, because all the thinking was there, we were absolutely on the same page, to use a cliché, with each other and they understand what they were trying to do. So, the writing process with Simon and Darren was brilliant, because they were coming up with, "This is what we want to say", they knew their story by that point. They would give me a draft, which was already pretty good, it was all there, and I just then shaped it, made sure it was really client-facing, really spoke in the language of their clients and I think what's why it worked so well. We were absolutely together on it, do you agree, Simon and Darren?
Simon Drayson: 15:15: I'm nodding, but of course you can't hear a nod.
Darren Leach: 15:19: Yeah, we do, I agree with that. As Juliette said, we knew what we wanted to say, we just didn't quite know how to get the words across on paper. The workshops helped us frame what we wanted to say to begin with.
Ayo Abbas: 15:35: In terms of doing your website, does it have impact on the rest of your business and how you kind of operate, because I think in some ways when you've got the clarity on your story and how you communicate, it will permeate other parts of your business; do you find that, or was it literally mainly on the communication perspective?
Simon Drayson: 15:52: Yes. The short answer is yes!
Ayo Abbas: 15:58: Maybe you'd like to elaborate?!
Simon Drayson: 16:01: Yeah, of course. It has, because it's changed the way we approach everything, I would say, so the way we meet our clients in the beginning, at the start of the process, when we get a call from somebody or an email; the way we explain things to them, the way we present our fee proposals; and that is on the client side of things. But actually, on our business side of things as well, it's changed the way that we advertise for staff and recruit.
That was another thing we worked with Juliette on, was if you go onto websites like Dezeen or RIBA Appointments and all of those websites, if you flick through every job advert for an architect or an architectural assistant, they all follow exactly the same format and they all pretty much have the same words, they are just jumbled up in slightly different ways in asking for the same thing.
With Juliette's help, we wrote a really bespoke advert that ties into our website and that human, personal approach that we have on the website and the way we do business. That has also then influenced the way we work as a team; we're a flexible team. I know a lot of offices, everybody had to jump online during the pandemic and things, but we have kept the benefits of that and how we work, so all of our staff are fully flexible and either working from home or working from the office. People can come to us as team members and say, "This is how we'd like to work, these are our hours", and we gel all of that together. That whole approach of being more personal and human is not just about the clients, but it's also about how we work as a team.
Juliette Mitchell: 17:58: I have a particular bugbear about job ads, especially when they are announcing themselves on Instagram or LinkedIn or whatever, "We're hiring". That, to me, is not reaching out to the people you want to talk to in that ad. It's all about you, the practice, "We're hiring", but a job add shouldn't be about that. It should be about, "You're this kind of person, so you'll fit in beautifully with us". It's not just about saying, "We're a great company, this is what the job is". It's got to be much more of a conversation with that person that you want to bring into the conversation and bring into the practice. I think we managed to do that with the ads.
Darren Leach: 18:44: Absolutely, and I think every architect should know roughly what the job of an architect is, so listing out the job of an architect, bearing in mind that most architects will have spent seven years studying and will have been working in practice for a few years probably as an architect, you don’t need an advert that lists out the 20 things that they need to do as an architect. Actually, it is more about who they are and whether they're going to be the right personality and have the right attitude to join the practice.
Simon Drayson: 19:17: Here's a shameless plug, if I can take the opportunity.
Ayo Abbas: 19:20: Of course you can.
Simon Drayson: 19:21: We're recruiting again, so that advert has been rehashed by Darren and myself.
Ayo Abbas: 19:29: I will put a link in the show notes as well.
Darren Leach: 19:32: Eloquently rehashed.
Simon Drayson: 19:38: What we should have added is that the office is in the middle of nowhere and you have to drive, because we're nowhere near a train station; but that's probably not a good selling point.
Juliette Mitchell: 19:44: It's a fantastic place to be, I haven't yet visited their new studio, but it sounds amazing.
Simon Drayson: 19:53: I was going to say I can hold my laptop and give you a tour, but this is a podcast, so it would be absolutely no good whatsoever.
Ayo Abbas: 20:00: Just describe it to us.
Simon Drayson: 20:02: It's a lovely office.
Juliette Mitchell: 20:04: The fact that I've worked with Simon and Darren on the job ad and on quite a few other little things since then, in fact I've even written a little thing for them this morning, just shows that writing, it's not about just getting a website written, signed off, launched as a beautiful sparkly thing and then forgetting about it; having those words, finding your voice is an ongoing process, so there will always be things to write. I think that's what great about Simon and Darren and their team, is that they've taken that on board, that this is story that is evolving, and they have to keep that voice alive. There will always be new things to write and a lot of that they can do themselves, because they've done all the thinking behind that.
Darren Leach: 20:54: It is always changing, yes, that is very true.
Simon Drayson: 20:58: This is probably a good time to mention the blog as well.
Ayo Abbas: 21:00: Yes, I love your blog by the way.
Simon Drayson: 21:03: Thank you very much. It's all my words and a bit of input from Darren. It's fair to say I've probably caught the writing bug from Juliette and actually, if I can be disciplined with my time in terms of project work and carve out a nice Friday afternoon to just get lost in something different, I have an old laptop rather than my one with the emails on and I take myself off to a comfy armchair and sit and write. That's quite refreshing, and the feedback we've been getting from prospective clients who have then gone on to become paying clients, has been really positive. There was one particular blog post which was called, "How much does an architect cost?" a very original name.
Ayo Abbas: 22:03: That's such an important question.
Simon Drayson: 22:05: Yeah, I mean it's the most popular page on our website and it's had 10,000 views or something, which is phenomenal for a practice of our size.
Darren Leach: 22:14: We've had new clients reference different blogs that they've found then they've said, "That's really helpful so we thought we'd give you a call and talk to you about a project".
Ayo Abbas: 22:25: How do you share your blog, Simon? So once you create them on your website, what do you do?
Simon Drayson: 22:30: This is confession time. We have a subscribe link on our website which, up until recently, didn't actually go anywhere, I'm embarrassed to say!
Darren Leach: 22:46: We thought it did, but it turned out that it didn't!
Simon Drayson: 22:53: It's now managed by our marketing consultant. They help maintain the readership and we send out a monthly newsletter, which usually includes a blog post or two. Then it's the usual sharing it on LinkedIn and other socials. As Darren touched upon then, I use it actually as a bit of a sales tool as well. If I'm having a chat with a client and they say, "What are the risks?" rather than me spend half an hour on the phone, when there's other more pressing things to do, I just refer them onto a blog post and then say, "Happy to have another conversation if that leaves anything unanswered". That has taken me time and I think it's proving quite useful for the clients.
Juliette Mitchell: 23:49: What's so great about Simon's blog is that it is completely about the clients. It's not just saying, "We are delighted to have received planning permission for…", which I think you've got those news bits as well, or at least on the socials, but those pieces that you're writing, Simon, they are absolutely thinking about the client's problems and the things that are on a client's mind like, "How much does an architect cost?" That is a big one. You are addressing those clients, so you're speaking directly to in a way that a lot of architects' blogs, they might be great, but they're not tuning into the clients in that way that you are.
Ayo Abbas: 24:27: And I think the fact that you've had 10,000 views on that piece as well says it all. I always think those FAQs and those things that people are always asking you, if you can get those into blogs, that's your best content in a way because that's your evergreen content that people always want. They are always going to want to know, "What is the cost of an architect? How long is this going to take?" all of those of what I guess are quite basic questions, but for most of your clients it is the first time they've done a house, isn't it, or they've ever done an extension?
Simon Drayson: 24:56: That's it, to us it's bread and butter.
Ayo Abbas: 24:57: Yeah, it's so easy to get complacent, isn't it, on that I think?
Juliette Mitchell: 25:02: Simon and Darren have got an FAQ section on the main bit of the website as well, which I think works really well, which again is about saving time, not having to have those conversations every time a new client, or a new potential client approaches you; it's all there.
Darren Leach: 25:17: That was our first starting point for the blog post, was to expand on those because obviously, "How much does an architect cost?" you could write books on them, and there probably are books published by the RIBA about how much should architects cost and things like that. Again, it's just about giving clients clarity and just helping them make decisions. Even if they decide that actually, we're not the right people to work with them, and that is the case sometimes, and sometimes we tell them that as well because we just don't think we're going to gel. Actually, it gives them some tools to go off and find somebody who is right for them, and work out how they want to carry on with their project. So, yeah, it's a sharing of information as well as purely helping for sales.
Simon Drayson: 26:13: Just to follow on from that, when we get an initial call from a prospective client, I'd say a lot of the time they say, "We love your website", but also it's, "We found your website really helpful".
Ayo Abbas: 26:30: Lovely.
Simon Drayson: 26:31: That's part of the reason. When we're trying to triage an enquiry as to which pile to put it in, you can also on the flip side very easily see, has someone just clicked our ad on Google and fired off a generic email, "I want an extension on the back of the house", that's not what we do, and actually we do offer a bespoke service for everyone. It's easy to see when we are on the same page with people or not. So, yeah, It's a useful tool in that respect.
Juliette Mitchell: 27:35: I love what you're saying about clients saying, "We found your website really helpful", and I think that's a really good starting point for architects out there who are thinking about their own website. Have that as your starting point, "We want to be helpful", but most architects don't start from that, they start from, "What have I done? What are my achievements?" That's starting from a point of ego rather than empathy about how we can be helpful, so that's a tip.
If you're staring at the blank page thinking, "How do I write about myself?" think about how to be helpful. Once you've done that, it also takes the pressure off you because you're not thinking about yourself, you're thinking about someone else and that's a much more natural way to start writing, is to think about what can I tell them that they'll find useful.
Ayo Abbas: 28:20: I always think the questions that people bring to you generally whenever they are talking to you, that's the stuff you should be writing about, because it's a much easier starting point as well. So, if you're a practice looking to embark on a website development project or your tone of voice and things, what advice would you give them, Darren?
Darren Leach: 28:44: We were all sat thinking, "Don't pick on me, that's a hard question". Now, what I've done is forgotten the question, but I think what advice would I give them? There's a mix there, think about the sorts of projects you want to work on, because that's important, because you need to think about who your audience is. When you work out what sort of projects you want to work on, you then think about what sort of people do you want to work with, because that's almost just as important as kinds of projects, because architectural projects take a long time, and they rely on building really strong relationships with clients and other consultants and team members and things.
On a new build house, you might be working with someone for a couple of years, and you've really got to delve into their lives to work out how they want to live in a space. So I think, if you're starting out on a website, thinking about who you want to be working with and then writing to them, it's almost like writing a letter to the people who you want to work with, so I guess that would be my tip for a starting point.
Ayo Abbas: 30:02: I love that letter idea, that's really lovely. Simon, for you?
Simon Drayson: 30:06: Yeah, I think it's similar.
Darren Leach: 30:12: Come on, think of another idea.
Simon Drayson: 30:18: There must be something else.
Ayo Abbas: 30:22: You're fine if you don’t have something else, that's all right. Juliette, did you want to add anything?
Juliette Mitchell: 30:27: I'll say that two of the things that Darren has said are really important. One is about the aspirational as in, "Think about not just what you've done, but what projects you really want to work on". If you've done a load of things that are not really your ideal projects, you don't even need to write about them. A website is always going to be a curated story of your work. Just think your website should be aspirational, so write about those things that you want to be doing more of.
The other thing, which also picks up on what Darren said, is about really thinking about your ideal client. That's one of the things we did in the workshops together at the start of the process, was I got Darren and Simon both thinking very specifically about what makes a great client. It's not some abstract amorphous mass of people, "These are the potential clients", it's like, "This specific person, that's who we want to work for, and this is why". Then you can really start to write that personal letter to them.
Simon Drayson: 31:32: I've got one!
Ayo Abbas: 31:34: Well done, go!
Darren Leach: 31:35: Go for it!
Simon Drayson: 31:39: It's a simple one and probably paraphrased from Juliette but it's, avoid jargon. In our training and in professional spheres, talking to other architects, we know what a feasibility study is, we know what tender means, and a pre-app enquiry, or this or that. Actually, to the man or woman on the street, that doesn't mean a thing. So, I think that's a simple one that could be actioned relatively quickly and easily.
Juliette Mitchell: 32:17: A way to do that, this is now me in helpful mode, every time that there's a word that you think, "Feasibility study", and then think, "So what? What does that mean for my client?" It means giving them options, showing them what's possible.
Ayo Abbas: 32:32: Absolutely.
Juliette Mitchell: 32:33: Choosing that line, showing them what's possible, that's immediately you're going to be speaking in a language which means so much more to them. Jargon is really useful between colleagues, because it's a shortcut, because you don’t want to explain that every time. But for clients, shortcut is such a shortcut that you’ve missed out the scenic route that actually makes them understand their context and the landscape and where they are. Jargon has a place, but not when you're talking to clients.
Simon Drayson: 33:01: I'm probably doing Ayo's job for her here, but that probably leads us quite nicely onto the work we did together on the RIBA plan of works --
Ayo Abbas: 33:09: The RIBA, yeah.
Simon Drayson: 33:10: -- which is why we were shortlisted for the Archiboo Awards. I'm going to hand over to you Ayo, to ask us lots of questions about that.
Ayo Abbas: 33:18: Fantastic. Do you want to explain it first? Off you go, what was your alternative RIBA plan for stages of work, which is really good by the way?
Simon Drayson: 33:28: I've put my foot in that one, didn't I?
Ayo Abbas: 33:30: No, of course, not. I did my research though.
Simon Drayson: 33:36: The RIBA publish a plan of works, which is a sort of step-by-step guide from the start to the end of a project. Architects' practices range from public practice, local authorities, private practice, one-person bands to multi-disciplinaries worldwide. What the RIBA, and it's not a task I would envy, but they try to come up with this one plan that would basically, one size fits all. It just wasn't us and it wasn't our clients, and it wasn't our projects. I think it might have been Juliette's idea, but she'll probably correct me.
Juliette Mitchell: 34:21: I think it was your idea, I don't know which one of you, but I had always thought, "I want to rewrite this", because every time I'd been onto the RIBA Plan of Works --
Ayo Abbas: 34:31: I understand it!
Juliette Mitchell: I thought, "I need to rewrite this", but I never actually did it because it was so hard, because every time I went back to it thinking, "Now's the day to rewrite it", I couldn't quite do it.
Darren Leach: 34:41: I'll take it, it was my idea.
Juliette Mitchell: 34:46: That gave me the reason to actually understand it and rewrite it with their help.
Darren Leach: 34:53: It was a joint effort.
Simon Drayson: 34:55: It worked really well, because Juliette obviously works with architects, but is it fair to say your technical knowledge has a limit to it?
Ayo Abbas: 35:04: She's not an architect, yes.
Juliette Mitchell: 35:05: Yes, which is the point of me. I haven't spent seven years at architecture school.
Ayo Abbas: 35:10: Same here.
Simon Drayson: 35:15: I think what we did was we took the seven RIBA work stages and we literally set up seven meetings, they were short, sharp lunchtime things, I think, so that it wasn't too much of a drag on anyone's time, and Juliette sort of interviewed us, we tried to explain it as best we can and then Juliette would go away and put something together and then send it to us for feedback. It was just breaking it down just in the way that we worked together meant that this quite mammoth task, it broke it up into manageable chunks for everyone.
Darren Leach: 35:56: We stuck with the seven stages, because it's an industry standard thing. When we're talking with other consultants on projects and things like that, everybody understands that language of the RIBA stages, even though it's a mammoth document which covers everything and nothing at the same time.
Part of that exercise with the alternative plan of work that we wrote with Juliette is that it was about not only trying to explain what the RIBA says happens in each stage, but actually what we do at each stage for our client. It was almost a combination of the two. One is the background structure, being the RIBA plan of work, which we follow loosely; but then actually explain to people what that actually means at each stage at George & James, what do we do at each stage for them, and how will their projects progress.
I think that's a great place to start and it's really helpful for clients to see that sort of process, but I would say as we're growing as a practice and the more projects we're working on, I think we'll probably get to a point where we'll refine that even more as an explanation for different sorts of projects that we work on, and that's probably something that we'll be addressing or approaching in the next six months or so.
Ayo Abbas: 37:22: You're right, looking at it earlier which I did today, and it was quite interesting because you were right, you were turning round and saying, "This is how we'll help you get through this stage, and at the end we'll come and hopefully have dinner with you", which I thought was quite funny. "Invite us over for a coffee", it was lovely.
Darren Leach: 37:38: Always helpful, yeah.
Juliette Mitchell: 37:41: That alternative plan of works is one of the things I'm most proud to have been a part of writing, because I think it's such a genuinely helpful thing now. It opens up architecture from this sort of arcane, strange thing that other people who haven't been to architecture school, just don't really understand how it works and it just makes it into this, "It's just these stages. Don't worry, madam, we will do this, this is what it means for you".
Darren Leach: 38:13: I suspect a lot of other businesses we work with are the consultants in different professions within the industry. Everybody follows the RIBA plan of work, but I bet if everybody sat in a room and tried without it in front of them to explain what is supposed to happen at each stage, I think we'd all be surprised, as architects, how many people we talk about it to just don't understand it either, and how many architects don't really understand it either because, as Simon said, it's designed to cover everything and then in doing that, it quite often misses the mark.
Ayo Abbas: 38:58: Yeah, which is an issue in itself, isn't it? It's a major issue.
Juliette Mitchell: 39:04: I think it's a major issue on a lot of websites that a practice is trying to talk to everybody and by trying to talk to everybody, they're not actually making eye contact with anybody, because it just becomes very generic, very difficult to pin down.
Ayo Abbas: 39:18: Fantastic. Great, so now we're at the end of the show, but thank you all so much for coming on, I hope you enjoyed it. I will put links to your website and the alternative plan of works in the show notes as well. Thank you so much.
Juliette Mitchell: 39:33: Pleasure, thank you!
Darren Leach: 38:34: Thank you.
Simon Drayson: 38:35: Thanks, Ayo.
Ayo Abbas:39:42: Thanks so much for listening to the latest episode of Marketing in Times of Recovery, and I'm your host, Ayo Abbas. If you want to find out more about the bi-weekly show, do check out the show notes, which will give you more information about who the guests are and all the things we've covered.
If you're listening on Apple or Spotify, make sure you hit the subscribe button so you don't miss out on an episode. Until next time, bye.
