How many times in the last week have you had someone trying to lowball your fee?
Have you had to go through the gut wrenching experience of chasing someone for money owed to you and even though they are the asshole in the situation, you end up feeling bad about chasing them?
If you've got staff, have you ever worried about making payroll and not being able to pay your staff who have families and mouths to feed?
Do you find networking a complete pain in the ass but a necessary evil to keep the jobs coming in?
Pretty shit huh?
So what would you say If I told you that you could have a steady flow of well paying jobs coming in whilst you sleep?!
In other words no more breaking your ass networking or being rung up by cheapskates…
No more chasing people for YOUR hard earned money.
No more worrying about paying your people.
Sounds too good to be true?
Well it’s not and that my friend is the power of online marketing.
But first we have a few hurdles we need to clear with the construction market.
Unfortunately for the most part, it's a long sum game, there is usually little impetus and urgency, people take their time to make decisions.
This is a major disadvantage because urgency + desire = real money to be made.
There are generally no quick decisions and with that asshole up the road doing things for next to nothing you’re also going to have people who will work for a lot less than you will.
However we can take this Achilles heel and turn it into an advantage.
Y’see it gives you the opportunity to build a relationship with them first and in a nutshell that’s what online marketing is all about.
Let’s look at something very similar, the romantic relationship between a man & a woman.
I’m married and I first met my wife in a complete shithole of a nightclub called the Swan in Stockwell in South London.
I was at a mate’s stag do and she was at a birthday party.
They give out free food there and when she caught my eye I used it as an excuse to start talking with her, stating how under seasoned the chicken was & how I hoped it was organic or some shit like that.
To be honest I was pissed drunk and so was she, I don’t remember what I said to her but we chatted and got her number. End of story.
Copious amounts of alcohol & the merits of organic food aside, this is similar to how we start a client relationship online.
Think about how creepy it would be if I had proposed marriage to her when I first met her.
Now ultimately we did marry but asking when we first met would be the right message at the wrong time in the relationship.
Most people who market their businesses online kind of do the same thing.
They are asking for a commitment from the website visitor before they even get to know them.
Ringing up someone to inquire about their service or product is a big commitment and intimidating.
You might as well be asking for marriage before you even go on a date.
But this is what most people do and like the example above it just doesn’t work.
It’s out of kilter with where the prospect is in the relationship.
So with our website we need to be in tune with where the prospect is at all times which means we must have a natural progression or journey for the prospect to go on at their pace which naturally leads to them availing of our services or products at the end.
In other words we want to architect the whole relationship so when it comes to ask for their hand in marriage, you already know the answer is yes.
It’s merely a formality.
So the first thing is to look at the journey someone goes through from the very start when they are thinking of what to do with their home all the way through to visiting your website and then ultimately giving you their hard earned cash.
So here are the steps in a typical Client Journey:
And in the next blog post we will break all this down and go through each section so you can see how this relates to your business.
My name is Declan Connolly, founder of Affluent Architect.
I’ve been designing homes since 2000.
I started my own practice in 2009.
And now I teach Architects from all over the world how to generate Custom Residential projects for their practices.
And after all that, I can safely say:
The ‘normal’ way of educating potential clients on the benefits of hiring an Architect…
...is NOT THE ANSWER to getting great clients & projects.
If that worked Architects wouldn’t find themselves in the constant battle of:
❌ Talking to people only interested in free advice…
❌ Writing proposals for people who only use them as a fee shopping exercise…
❌ Being underpaid & treated like a commodity…
These problems happen because Architects haven’t been taught something crucial:
How to articulate the value of their services in a way that impacts their clients on an EMOTIONAL level.
Instead, they try to ‘logically’ educate potential clients on:
❌ Reasons to hire an Architect…
❌ Project process…
❌ How they deliver their services, etc…
But high-quality clients don’t care about these things.
In fact, they view these things as OBSTACLES to them getting their new home.
It’s like when someone books a flight for a holiday.
They don’t care about the number of rivets in the plane & the stitching in the seats.
All they care about is enjoying their holiday at the end destination.
Similarly, all that matters to the potential client is the new home.
Along with all the lovely lifestyle benefits it will give them.
All the ‘logical’ based approach does is position Architects as a ‘set of plans to get the permit’.
So, here’s how we fix this.
My Architects attract creative residential projects with clients that pay top dollar for great design.
And the key to this is my proprietary A.V.I.D. Method (Articulate Value & Influence Design Method)...
…which creates marketing messages that emotionally connect with their potential clients.
This A.V.I.D. Method has been developed by trial & error in the real world since 2009.
And it’s the only method specific to the single-family residential market for Architects on the planet.
It’s enabled me & my Architect students to:
✅ Work with celebrity clients on their new home like Mark Owen from the pop band Take That...
✅ Work on jobs that have been featured on the TV Show Grand Designs…
✅ Work on homes worth as much as $18.75 million…
And the secret to this is something I learned when I was struggling to get decent projects for my practice.
I had hit a brick wall and decided to study how past Architects managed to do it.
And who better than Sir Norman Foster himself.
He got started in the high-tech industrial market.
Which is a super-competitive market against far bigger and more established firms.
Sir Norman Foster didn’t go and try and ‘logically’ educate potential clients.
Instead, he described what his target clients’ businesses would be like AFTER they built one of these buildings.
And once I applied this same principle to Custom Residential it completely changed the game for me.
Describing a potential client’s life AFTER they have built their new home is what gets their attention.
✅ It instantly creates trust & respect because we are describing what they really want...
✅ It creates an air of 'exclusivity' & ‘uniqueness’ around our services which clients pay more for...
✅ Defines who our target clients should be & where to find them…
However, it must be done in a certain sequence.
And that’s exactly what I’m going to show you on a special Case Study recording.
Where I show you how the A.V.I.D. Method works.
As well as how it creates my students’ marketing for them which saves a bunch of time.
This Case Study also shows you loads of examples of our students' marketing that is working like crazy in the Custom Resi market:
Click Here To Register For Your Free A.V.I.D. Method Case Study
So, if you're sick and tired of being treated like a commodity...
And you want to finally work with appreciative clients who value what you do…
…get paid the fees that you deserve & have a great income for a change…
…and work on fulfilling creative jobs without sacrificing time with your family…
Then let’s get the A.V.I.D. Method working for your practice.
Go ahead and register for your free Case Study right now:
