March 3, 2024 • 56 mins
This episode is a treasure trove of strategies for marking your territory in the architectural marketing jungle. We dissect the art of pre-emptive outreach, discuss the power of media presence, and weigh the impact of social media on brand recognition. Amidst the debate on publication types and their reach, we also spotlight the generational embrace of digital platforms that are reshaping how architects carve their signature in the industry.
Our conversation in this episode traverses the patience needed to 'lay seeds' for future recognition, the value of high-quality photography, and the smart deployment of social media strategies. Listen in as we discuss the delicate balance between showcasing polished work and harnessing the ephemeral nature of stories, and share our experiences in navigating the challenges posed by a portfolio limited to conceptual pieces.
We wrap up with an exploration of the benefits that strategic partnerships bring, delving into how they can inform on market trends and lead to client referrals. We also tackle the marketing of high-performance, sustainable architecture and the avenues to attract eco-conscious clients. Join us on this candid journey, and be prepared to be inspired, informed, and ready to elevate your marketing prowess.
Our conversation in this episode traverses the patience needed to 'lay seeds' for future recognition, the value of high-quality photography, and the smart deployment of social media strategies. Listen in as we discuss the delicate balance between showcasing polished work and harnessing the ephemeral nature of stories, and share our experiences in navigating the challenges posed by a portfolio limited to conceptual pieces.
We wrap up with an exploration of the benefits that strategic partnerships bring, delving into how they can inform on market trends and lead to client referrals. We also tackle the marketing of high-performance, sustainable architecture and the avenues to attract eco-conscious clients. Join us on this candid journey, and be prepared to be inspired, informed, and ready to elevate your marketing prowess.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sam Brown (00:00):
Architects should target people that don't know
that they need or want anarchitect.
Yet by the time somebody hasdecided that they want to engage
an architect or a designer oran artist or something, they're
then researching the field,right.
So you're instantly incompetition with a bunch of
people, unless they're coming toyou for a specific purpose.
(00:21):
But if you target them beforethey know that they need you,
then they'll be like oh, Iremember when Gerard from Gerard
Dombarowski Workshop came andtalked to me that time well,
maybe I'll use him to do myproject kind of vibe and I
thought that was reallyinteresting.
And that's definitely sort ofan approach that we've decided
to take with our marketing hasput ourselves before the public
(00:45):
before they know that they needus.
Gerard Dombroski (00:59):
Hello, welcome to Design Principles podcast
Episode three.
You're here with myself, gerardDombarowski, gerard Dombarowski
Workshop, ben Sutherland, bearArchitecture and Sam Brown of
ARET.
Today we're going to discussmarketing, the tumultuous waters
of marketing.
Sam Brown (01:20):
How to promote ourselves.
Yeah.
Gerard Dombroski (01:24):
Rock on.
So I guess we'll crack thingsoff.
I'll give you guys a littleinsight to my wobbly world.
I think like this wholeconversation ties into episode
one.
We were sort of discussingourselves again, so I guess this
is a very lived experiencediscussion.
(01:46):
So there's lots of storiesthere.
So I think from a lot of mystrategies come out of working
at a job previously and sort of,I guess, reacting to their
tactics to a degree and giving acontext in how I don't want to
(02:09):
do things.
I guess Save it nicely.
So that which is, and lots ofthoughts running around, because
that comes full context,because they ran a lot on word
of mouth and word of mouth turnsout is very good.
Sam Brown (02:29):
If you've got a deep pool of connected people to draw
from, yeah, I guess that was abusiness that had gone for a
long time.
Gerard Dombroski (02:39):
So there's like a deep pool of preexisting
clients and stuff there and Ihave this theory that you kind
of seen you get the work you'reseeing doing perhaps, and if you
can get into magazines and intomedia, then surely that lays
like a foundation for a wideraudience.
So that's kind of been myapproach is trying to set a
(03:04):
foundation as much as possibleand like engaging with magazines
and different.
Sam Brown (03:10):
Do you find Gerard the magazine one's an
interesting one.
Obviously, word of mouth is avery simple way of marketing
what you do and it's very direct.
You know some of her clientslooking to come to you.
From a word of mouth point ofview, they know exactly what
they're coming to you for, apartfrom, like, a magazine or
publication point of view.
Do you feel like those avenuesare targeting potential clients,
(03:32):
or are they just targetingother architects, or are they
just targeting your peers,because it's something that I've
always struggled with?
Yeah, it's interesting.
Gerard Dombroski (03:42):
I think a lot of that depends on the magazine
as well, because I guess beingarchitects, you want to get into
.
Sam Brown (03:51):
But only architects read the architecture of
magazines.
Gerard Dombroski (03:55):
Well, I think that's a valid point.
Sam Brown (03:57):
You know, like, if you're an architecture and said
that's cool and your peers getto see and recognize your work
but only your peers, really.
You know as funny as it sounds,you know it's almost better if
you're looking for prospectiveclients to be in magazines like
Home and Garden or somethingthat's a little bit more far
reaching.
Gerard Dombroski (04:15):
Yeah, exactly, apparently their viewship is
massive.
Sam Brown (04:18):
But are we too proud to sort of feature our work in a
magazine like that?
Gerard Dombroski (04:25):
Well, I think we like start off these things
of great ambitions and idealsand then you slowly see the gaps
in your logic and see that likethose sorts of magazines and
stuff may have better feedback.
I think like here and Home andstuff are pretty good, but
perhaps Architecture NZ?
(04:45):
I don't think that.
Sam Brown (04:48):
Yeah, they sort of like us here and Home.
They sort of flirt between thatmore accessible magazine you
know, the general public andmore likely to read, and the
local.
The local project in Australiaas well is another good example,
Whereas you've kind of gotthese other ones, these more
architecturic centric ones,which are less likely to reach
potential clients.
Ben Sutherland (05:09):
Yeah, essentially, though, if you've
got a project that is magazineworthy, you're going to be
pushing it along into as manymagazines as possible, though
really wouldn't you?
Sam Brown (05:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's all.
It's all a potential avenue forpromotion, right, and I guess
we're talking about printpublication here, which I think
still is very much has merits,but less so than it used to.
And this kind of brings usnicely into the discussion
around social media and how farreaching that is and how much do
(05:42):
you guys value or view socialmedia as a strong form of
marketing or building your brand?
Ben Sutherland (05:50):
And just quickly to point out, I guess, like
some of our, you know, whateverold employers or older firms
definitely didn't have thatsocial media aspect back in the
day.
So I guess for them, relying ontheir own reputation, their
previous projects and how theywere executed and word of mouth
(06:13):
is probably their main player,can't imagine them you know,
some of them anyway embracingsocial media, but not to the
extent that we rely on it.
Sam Brown (06:24):
That's a generational thing, though, right, you know,
we're all young, absolutely.
Ben Sutherland (06:28):
And in our fields, yeah.
So it's kind of a newish aspectto marketing that we are lucky
enough to benefit from now.
Gerard Dombroski (06:36):
Yeah for sure, and different generations use
tools they have at the time.
That's something I've had toconvince myself of sometimes.
So I guess when you get realinto architecture and you just
want to have some integrity,it's easy to like trick yourself
(06:56):
into thinking that maybe socialmedia doesn't have as much
merit as other things.
So, like if you look back intime, like Frank Lloyd Wright
used every media possible termlike he was all over the news,
go on as many interviews aspossible, and I wonder if that
(07:16):
had an impact on his career.
Absolutely so I think reallyjust got to use the tools you've
given.
Sam Brown (07:24):
So on that, given our main tool is social media.
Now, like, how do you guys haveyou guys found it for building
a brand and marketing purposes?
Gerard Dombroski (07:35):
I think it's a good day to day.
I kind of use it as in mystories I'll show process and
pictures of things and works,works in progress, and then I'll
kind of keep the portfolio sideof Instagram just to kind of
nice finished pictures, which isit's drawbacks, because stories
(07:59):
are only up for a little bit.
It's probably partially mylaziness that end of always been
big on photography, which Ithink photography is a big
underlying current all throughmarketing, so I've always only
tried to put nice photos on myInstagram.
Sam Brown (08:15):
It's an expensive undertaking, though, unless
you're a good photographeryourself.
Gerard Dombroski (08:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've been quite intentionalabout it right from when I
started my furniture 2016, Ithink, was my first photography
commission well, mecommissioning a photographer,
and I've done that ever since.
I've spent a lot of money onphotography over the time, but I
(08:42):
think it's values.
Sam Brown (08:43):
Have you recognized the bent law?
Have you recognized thatinvestment?
Well, not even there, but justkind of garnered the recognition
or, I guess, exposure of yourwork that you're hoping to.
Gerard Dombroski (09:00):
Well, I think it's another big issue with the
whole marketing and setting atrajectory of your practice, I
think, is understanding time andthat Rome wasn't built in the
day, so for me it's been a veryslow process.
Like this is.
2016 was a while ago now, soit's incremental when you're
(09:27):
laying these seeds ofphotographs or whatever you're
investing in to get you alongthe way, and I think now it's
starting.
In the last few years it's beenstarting to pay off, so I'm
gonna get a lot more recognitionand I love print.
(09:47):
I'm a big believer in print,but I think social media allows
you to have this small sort ofinch platform where magazines or
other people can then, I guess,pick through their local all
(10:07):
New Zealand architects that havesocial media or whatever.
Ben Sutherland (10:10):
It's similar to what you were saying before
about Frank Lloyd Wright.
It's essentially, it's aboutcreating an audience, and that's
what he was doing, whether itbe public speaking or events or
what not.
All you're trying to do isextend your reach as far as
possible, and, yeah, socialmedia is an easy way to do that.
(10:32):
You post regularly andconsistency, I guess, is a key
part to it, but it allows you toreach as many people as
possible.
Sam Brown (10:45):
Yeah, I just want to come back to a point that Gerard
made earlier, and that was it'sa long process thing is what he
said.
He said he startedphotographing his work and
trying to promote it in 2016.
And we're sort of being facedwith that slow approach thing as
well, and that it takes a long.
(11:06):
Our industry is a slow movingindustry.
You don't start a project onday one of your business and
it's finished on like day 20 andthen all of a sudden you've got
a backlog of work you can startpromoting.
We're for us, we're like threeyears into the existence of our
practice and only in the lastsort of three or four months
(11:27):
have we started completingprojects and having them
photographed and putting them upfor awards and having them
ready to put out for publicationand things like that.
And so it's been quite hard tomarket off actual built or real
projects, and for so long we'vefelt a little bit like a
pretender, in that the only waywe've been able to promote our
(11:49):
work is based on, like, paperarchitecture or paper design.
It's a promise.
We haven't been able to provethat we can deliver, and now we
can.
It's gonna be reallyinteresting for us and we are
because we now have this body ofwork that we can actually start
to promote.
That's real and we're pushingthat quite hard.
It's gonna be interesting tosee if that has an impact on our
(12:13):
marketing and the response thatwe get, because we've pushed
pretty hard in the past onconcept work, I guess, but
haven't really realized much ofa response on that Because it's
not real.
How do you find that then?
Yeah, I mean.
Ben Sutherland (12:30):
I'm going through that exact same thing.
Obviously new company.
It's hard to start a newcompany with a bunch of built
projects.
It's just not realistic.
So you have to kind of startsomewhere, and that really makes
it hard to post consistently oranything like that, because you
(12:51):
just don't have a content.
So what are you doing in thatsituation?
Sam Brown (12:56):
You just got to keep working, and that's essentially
why it takes so long to build upan index of projects over a
period of time, I think as well,though, what you can't be shy
about and you've noted this tome before, ben is, if you don't
have a big body of work, don'tbe shy about just pushing the
(13:17):
same stuff over and over andover again, because every time
you post something on socialmedia, or every time you put
something out to market,whatever marketing strategy you
use be it that print publicationor whatever you're always going
to catch a new eyes, right?
There's so many people out therethat you're not going to hit
the same people time and timeand time again, particularly
(13:37):
with social media, and you'vegot these ways of targeting new
audiences with hashtags andmentions and all that sort of
stuff.
So every time you postsomething be it the same project
, time and time again, you justuse different hashtags or ways
of targeting different markets,be that locations that it
(13:57):
targets and things like that,and you're always going to get
new eyes.
So I wouldn't shy away fromreproducing work on those forums
.
Ben Sutherland (14:07):
Yeah, that's a good point.
And also, I guess, how manyplatforms would you consider
using?
Obviously, instagram is a nobrainer for the architecture
realm.
It's very that was you to postimages, which is essentially
what we do, what we do, what wedo, yeah, so what about other
(14:29):
stuff Like, I guess, facebookalso that's kind of tied into
Instagram anyway, and obviously,having a good website is
basically your business card,your modern business card, so
absolutely critical.
Yeah, how have you guys found,have you found that you're
getting you know people justfrom search engine optimization
(14:53):
coming through your website?
Sam Brown (14:54):
I find I've found SEOs to have no real impact.
I mean, I think that we've hadmaybe in the last three years
we've had two inquiries comethrough our website, which isn't
a lot.
Ben Sutherland (15:09):
I bet you've had a lot of people look at your
website to understand a littlebit more about it.
Sam Brown (15:14):
Yeah, that is true, but I don't think that it's the
avenue for getting work as muchas well and this may be our
shortcoming as much as, let'ssay, instagram is, because it's
not as regular and it's not ascurrent and like.
Maybe we should just update ourwebsite more often, but that's
(15:35):
quite time consuming anddifficult to do.
Ben Sutherland (15:38):
Well, they start with Instagram and then they
would go to your website if theyliked what they saw.
Sam Brown (15:44):
They're two-way, you can't have one without the other
.
And the nice yeah, go, go, go.
Gerard Dombroski (15:49):
I think they all work together.
Like you're creating like alittle spider web, I guess of
you're just trying to get peopleeyes on projects, I guess.
So we're trying to get stuff inmagazines.
You're hoping that then theyGoogle you or Instagram.
Sam Brown (16:04):
I guess what you're trying to do is like really
cohesive narrative about who youare as a business or who you
are as an architecture practice,and everything, like you said,
goes hand in hand.
It builds a spider web.
So obviously your website isprobably your, that's your home
right, that's your plush likebase that people come to see the
best of what you have to offerand then probably the most
(16:26):
information as well.
But then all these other littlethings be that Instagram or
Facebook or TikTok or Reels orwhat have you they're building a
narrative about what you do,who you are, why you do it.
And print media is the same.
You know if you're, you know ifyou're a sustainably focused
practice or doing sustainabledesign, you may target like
(16:46):
Green Magazine, for instance,rather than another publication.
So you're trying to sort ofweave, like you said, the spider
web that creates this reallycohesive narrative of who you
are as a brand and as a business.
Ben Sutherland (17:00):
Yeah, and Gerard , I have a question for you,
because you're, I guess, yourbusiness having both you know
the artist side and also thearchitecture, and essentially,
your name, your company name isyour name.
So essentially, what you'redoing is you're creating a
personal brand.
(17:21):
How, how tied in is yourbasically your personal brand
with your company brand, or doyou kind of, is there any sort
of separation there, or is itjust essentially one and the
same, do you think?
Gerard Dombroski (17:36):
Yeah, it's kind of one of the same.
I guess one of the slightissues I've run into is that,
like you're trying to create abrand that's architecture,
furniture, art, I don't knowlike just the whole thing is art
in my mind.
It's hard to communicate topeople that you're an architect
(17:59):
and you do furniture and you dosomething else.
Like, for some reason, it ishard to communicate.
Sam Brown (18:05):
So you're getting pigeonholed into each one of
these sort of categories.
Gerard Dombroski (18:09):
Yeah, so sometimes I'll get asked oh so
when did you quit architecture?
Or Really, no, no, I got somelike.
Sam Brown (18:16):
I've got a bunch of projects on the go currently, so
that kind of brings us on toour next sort of like area or
topic discussion, which we'vesort of outlined today, and
that's understanding yourpersonal market and defining
your niche.
I mean, it sounds like you'resort of struggling in a way,
because I guess your niche isreally art or artistically
(18:38):
focused work, right?
Do you find that hard toportray?
Or sounds like you have find itquite hard to portray to the
market that you're looking totarget.
I don't know if it's hard toportray.
Gerard Dombroski (18:49):
But I think it's hard to portray that you do
multiple things.
So it's I think it's easy tocommunicate to Instagram that
you do one thing like the like.
It's an issue I've made myself.
I just am outputting lots ofchairs and lots of furniture and
(19:10):
then architectures a lot slowerand I've had an aversion to
renders for a very long time.
So I think I've only put outone render on my Instagram.
That was in a story I couldn'tbring myself to it.
Sam Brown (19:24):
Do you think that's something that you'd look to
sort of, maybe embrace a littlebit more to, to continue to
build that more cohesivenarrative like we've discussed?
Gerard Dombroski (19:33):
Yeah, I was wary of putting too many renders
out early Just because I wantedto build projects in there.
So then if people then seerenders, they you've got some
validation that you can delivera building which probably wasn't
(19:54):
, and like a wise way to goabout it.
But alas, it's done now Madethe bed.
But yeah, if we circle back tothe intent is to make like a
design practice thatmulti-disciplinary that I do
(20:15):
architecture the spoke furniture, so I have a love of design and
a strange need to do everything.
Ben Sutherland (20:25):
How would you describe your niche?
Can you describe it, or is itmore?
Gerard Dombroski (20:30):
of just like a personal brain.
Yeah, I think so.
My niche, I guess, is that itis my artistic output.
So I guess, like people go toSean Godsell for Sean Godsell
because he's got such a strongaesthetic, yeah, so I'm just
(20:51):
just want to be an architectthat people go to for for my
take on things, this isinteresting Is a personal brand
such as you know, like you werejust talking about, is a
personal brand, the niche,because essentially a niche is
more in my mind.
Ben Sutherland (21:13):
You know you create some sort of competitive
advantage, whereas architecture,especially, is so aesthetically
based that sometimes that yourniche just is, or people come to
you because they like yourdesigns or they like your
architecture, or that kind ofbecomes your stamp.
(21:35):
I guess your business card orsomething like that.
A visual language, it's notessentially a competitive
advantage.
Well, I guess it kind of is,because no one can do what
you're doing, because it's yourdesign.
Sam Brown (21:47):
If you're quick enough, you know, if you've got,
if you've got a very distinctstyle or if you've got a very
distinct way of operating thatsort of separates you from the
majority of your peers, then ittotally is a niche, I think.
And if you think about you know, let's go back to like early F,
for instance, or like RogerWalker, or you know those guys
(22:10):
in those sort of like early 80s,90s and the stuff that they
were doing 100% they had a niche, without a doubt, and people
would go to them for thatspecific design and to work with
those specific architectsbecause that's what they wanted.
I think that's probably.
I'd argue that that's it'slesser the case these days
because we are not as as ageneral rule, you know,
(22:35):
throughout the industry.
Ben Sutherland (22:36):
We're less experimental and more complex
and our designs based, so it'shard to get around a lot of
those restrictions in terms ofplanning Well, in terms of
regulations, you know no, Ithink it's like clients attitude
for risk.
Sam Brown (22:54):
I agree with Gerard.
Gerard Dombroski (22:55):
I definitely think so, and I also also think
it's huge scope within ourbuilding code for a shit ton of
creative history, not as much asthen.
Sam Brown (23:06):
I think people want because people are so much more
careful with their money andmoney is a lot harder to like
get in terms of lending andthings like that these days.
I think people want I wouldargue People want a sure thing,
though right Resales also amassive consideration, more so
these days than I feel like itused to be.
Ben Sutherland (23:26):
So, as a situation, it's probably
mentality, because you know Iwould arguably back then people
kind of wanted to design a houseto live in it forever.
Now people are kind of choppingand changing.
Gerard Dombroski (23:39):
I had a real estate agent complaining to me
in the weekend about whyeveryone makes their houses
great Really.
Ben Sutherland (23:53):
I thought they loved it.
Gerard Dombroski (23:58):
Well, I think it makes it harder to sell
because it's just like everyoneelse.
So if you're doing a basichouse, exactly the same as
everyone else, it's going to behard to find that point.
Sam Brown (24:10):
Back on the niche thing.
Drabber sort of talked aboutyours, ben.
Your one's quite interesting aswell, because I feel like
you're coming at developmentfrom an architectural point of
view and we mentioned this inthe last episode and you sort of
I feel like you're following inthe footsteps, maybe
consciously or subconsciously,of people like that.
There's hype from Australia.
(24:32):
How do you, how are you lookingto separate yourself in that
realm?
Ben Sutherland (24:37):
I guess there's two avenues.
One I will never not have anarchitecture firm with a
construction company attached toit.
So I guess that is somewhat of acompetitive advantage and
that's just basically because ofmy history in construction and
my need to not only desire orcontrol the architecture side of
(25:01):
things but also theconstruction.
So that's, that's kind of oneavenue.
But in terms of the developmentside, interestingly my customer
is slightly different, as Iwould be mainly like.
I definitely have more generalarchitecture clients as well,
but they are mainly selling at adifferent stage.
(25:25):
So we're getting to sort ofbuild majority of the building
at least, or at least kind ofselling off plans or selling a
completed product as opposed todesigning for a client.
So the cost the end customerspurchasing a product that's
already maybe not beingcompleted but close to so yeah,
(25:51):
I guess, like our, from ourpoint of view, it's more of like
what Gerard was talking about,about, you know, not creating
gray houses and that sort ofthing.
It's more about like I'mkeeping an eye on what is market
trends and what people want andtargeting certain demographics
and understanding the market alittle bit better.
(26:14):
So not just designing a productor a house for the sake of
designing a house, but beinglike who's buying in this area?
What are they buying?
What do they need.
Do they need a three bedroom?
Is it like a family?
Was it like an elderlydemographic?
If it's elderly, do they needelevators?
(26:34):
You know it's like access needsto be designed completely
fascinating.
A lot of you know.
We talked to a lot of realestate agents and we try and
identify like, okay, they knowthis area, that that's their
profession, that's the job.
Who's buying, what are theybuying, what do they need,
what's selling, and we kind ofwork back from there.
(26:56):
But you know, obviously there'sthat whole brand as well, brand
identity.
So we're bringing our owndesign aesthetics to these
things and making them to thebest.
Sam Brown (27:07):
Do you reckon you're going to maintain like?
Do you feel like you'llmaintain quite a lot of
flexibility in your designaesthetic to fit in mold with
market trends though?
Ben Sutherland (27:18):
This is a great question and the reason is I've
been thinking a lot about thisrecently and essentially it
depends on when the product issold or when the purchaser
becomes a part of the process,Because if you're selling off
plans, then essentially you'recreating the structure, I guess,
(27:39):
but the actual purchase has theopportunity to make tweaks that
they kind of want to make, andthat's like you know, within a
certain extent.
You know we don't go and doanything that we don't think is
of good quality and good value,but then they have the chance to
(28:01):
adapt the building slightly to,you know, make some adjustments
that suit their needs a littlebit better.
So yeah, I guess a lot of thatdepends on when the building is
actually purchased or sold.
Sam Brown (28:14):
I want to just circle back quickly to an interesting
point that you just made about.
You work quite closely withreal estate agents and that's
something that we you know thatI feel like we don't often do as
architects, but something thatwe personally at a red have
started doing recently as well,as I actually think we realize
that there's a lot of benefitand Creating those relationships
(28:36):
with red estate agents.
As slimy as it might soundsometimes, they are, you're
right.
The other people that probablyhave the finger on the pulse of
the market particularly we'recoming at it from a residential
point of view, but I feel likethis is probably relevant to
commercial as well They've gotthe finger on the pulse what's
happening in the market.
(28:57):
They've got the connectionswith buyers and, you know, if
you ingratiate yourselves withRedisad agents, they can put you
on to potential clientsprobably more easily and more
effectively than you could everdo through other marketing
avenues.
Ben Sutherland (29:12):
Yeah, and it's a huge strategy, especially up
here.
This Act, sorry.
Real estate agents havepreferred architects and a lot
of clients go to our real estateagents.
We like I'm looking for suchand such and such in this kind
of area and they'll actuallyjust refer them to.
Sam Brown (29:29):
That's up in Auckland .
Ben Sutherland (29:31):
They're generally up in Auckland.
I haven't seen it as much, butthen again I haven't tried in
Wellington, but I'm sure thatthat same sort of yeah.
Gerard Dombroski (29:38):
I've got a friend to get a lot of work
through.
Sam Brown (29:41):
We're sort of targeting it down in Central
Otago as well, because I mean,that is one area that there's a
huge amount of Spear land or,like you know, development land
or plot to land that areavailable for new build.
And so we're really kind oftargeting the real estate agents
and and quite carefully youknow targeting the ones that
(30:01):
have their names all oversections rather than actual
houses, and coming to them andbeing like hey, we're here, if
you've got clients that areinterested, send them our way,
kind of thing.
Ben Sutherland (30:11):
Absolutely.
I think of it from a marketdevelopers perspective.
They, they need to know whatthe market is doing.
They're not going to go andbuild well, I mean a lot of them
do, but it's stupidity reallybut you know, they're not going
to go build a bunch of houseswithout doing that research and
they really just kind of designbecause that is what the market
(30:34):
wants and that's what selling inthose specific this kind of
continues on into that sort ofcollaboration Avenue that we're
talking about.
Well right, I was actually justjust quickly before we moved to
collaboration, sam.
I guess like you've gotsomething similar going on, but
(30:55):
with more of a, you know,another type of niche, which
would be like targeting certainTypologies of architecture, for
example, sustainability, andattracting people that are
like-minded people, essentially,that are interested in similar
things as you are, which is ahuge marketing stretch.
Sam Brown (31:15):
Yeah, it is and that's well.
Yeah, it's interesting, it'sdefinitely when we started out.
We always wanted to.
One of the big reasons forstarting my own firm was to kind
of work with the clients youwant to work with, but and, and
we have done that.
But it's taken probably aboutthree years for us to really
(31:37):
define what that meant and whenit's landed us in is what we
like to call this holisticarchitecture field, and that
might sound a bit like, you know, buddhist prayer flags,
airy-fairy kind of stuff, butwhat we're really trying to say
with the holistic architecturething is that it's architecture
that targets Every aspect ofdesign or every aspect of a
(31:57):
residential build.
So it's not just aesthetics,it's not just performance, it's
not just sustainability, it'severything all kind of bundled
up into one, and so it's whatwe've really looked to target
and present with our work.
And yeah, you're right, whatthat's meant is we sort of
really put ourselves in thisniche of high performance,
(32:20):
sustainable architecture forclients that want exactly that
thing, because I think peoplearen't going to come to you
unless they've done theirresearch first, and if you're
not An expert and can't presentan expert opinion, then you sort
of sitting there a little bit,a little bit false.
So we've had to really likeupscale ourselves within our
practice to be able to like holdourselves in that niche and
(32:42):
validate ourselves as well.
Gerard Dombroski (32:44):
Yeah, if we get to the the meat of things
real quick.
I think an interesting Analysiswould be like if you've had
much feedback from presentingthis sort of these directions
via social media and things likedefined any of that marketing
paying off.
Ben Sutherland (33:02):
Does everyone call you asking for a
sustainable house?
Yes, and that's what.
Sam Brown (33:06):
Well, recently, yes, and that's kind of interesting,
and that one thing we're reallystruggling with is, you know,
we've got this list of projectsat work that we revisit weekly
and the growing list ofpotentials is Exciting.
The problem is none of them areconverting, so I'm not quite
sure how to get to that nextstage.
But, yes, heaps of people arecoming to us being like, look,
we've seen, well, we've seen youdo this, we're interested and
(33:29):
like there's a couple of avenuesthat I'll just quickly mention
that we've used to put ourselvesout to the public within this
realm.
One of those is formants, whoare the sip design partners that
we work with.
They run open days for thatbuild, both mid build, so you
can kind of see how the thingsare fitting together, and then
post build, which are open tothe general public.
(33:49):
And now we've actually we'verun several of those now I've
got and a post build open day atmy house down in Lake Harwear
next Wednesday, and that's agreat way of just being able to
showcase your work to thegeneral public.
Basically, the house is there,they come in, formants are there
where they're, the builders arethere, they can come in and
pick our brains, and we've hadseveral inquiries come through
(34:12):
that avenue.
Again, nothing converted, butit's definitely been a good way
of getting our work out there.
And then the other way thatwe've other avenue that we've
used is really kind of outliningourselves as specialists,
particularly with the NewZealand Green Building Council,
obviously through the homestarprocess, and I've been invited
to be an expert on the on ahousing panel at the New Zealand
(34:35):
Green Building Council housingsummit in May.
So it's just another way ofkind of presenting yourself to
the wider industry and generalpublic as an expert in the field
.
And yeah, we're gettingdefinitely getting um murmurs
but nothing concrete yet.
So hopefully that'll all startto sort of evolve into into
proper work.
Ben Sutherland (34:55):
Yeah, it'll be interesting.
So what you're talking about is, you know, networking and
Collaboration.
It's exactly.
Sam Brown (35:01):
That's a great segue, because those both of those
avenues once collaboration withformants and then the NZGBC
thing is totally networking.
Ben Sutherland (35:09):
Yeah, exactly, and it'll be really interesting
to hear A post event if you knowthe type of people you were
meeting and if anything comes,comes out of it, I would say, in
terms of the collaborationthere's, there's plenty of
opportunities.
Sam Brown (35:23):
Yeah, the collaboration ones an interest,
the collaboration thingsinteresting.
I found so far Anybody thatwe've worked with in a
collaborative Sense it's beenrelatively one-way traffic in
the sense that that sort of cometo us and being like, look, we
think that we can benefit fromworking together, we bring you
work, you bring us work andeveryone's happy.
(35:45):
So far all that we've realizedWith the collaborators that
we've worked with is that we'vejust given them work and
nothing's come back the otherway.
But all you can do is sort ofsit there, continue to build
that relationship and buy totime and hopefully something
kind of feeds back eventually.
Gerard Dombroski (36:05):
Yeah exactly.
These things take a long time.
I think that's underlying withlots of marketing.
Ben Sutherland (36:11):
Yeah, one thing that I find really interesting
in this area is the differencebetween, I guess, like what you
guys are traditionally typicallydoing, and what I'm doing is
with the one-off clients.
They're going to come to youfor a house or a building of
some description, but you're notgoing to come back next year
(36:32):
and ask for another one, so yourrepeated customers you know
clientele are quite low, whereasyou know, teaming up or
collaborating with a developer,for example, you're getting
ongoing work consistentlybecause you know they finish one
project they're straight on tothe next.
So that is a form ofcollaboration that has been
(36:53):
working really well for me andthat I have been pushing really
hard.
Sam Brown (36:57):
I agree, ben, you're right in the sense that,
particularly for architects thatpredominantly do bespoke
residential work, it's you don'thave repeat custom and to, I
guess, to supplement that avenueof work, you do need to have
(37:18):
sort of an offshoot, and a lotof the times architecture firms
won't even tell you about them,but you need an offshoot of work
that's just constant andongoing, and you know we're
fortunate that we've got.
You know we present ourselvesas residential architects but we
still do quite a bit ofhospitality and commercial work
and we're actually, you know,we're doing more and more in the
hospitality realm and we've gotMojo as one of our key clients
(37:42):
now and a lot of repeat workthrough them.
And so you know that'ssomething that we'll probably
start to lean more into from apromotional point of view is
that, hey, we do more than justhouses, we do this as well, but
it's a whole chicken and eggthing.
We haven't had the finishedprojects until very recently to
be able to present to the widerpublic, you know.
Gerard Dombroski (38:00):
Do you want to give us a rundown on a bit more
depth?
Sam Brown (38:03):
into your story.
Gerard Dombroski (38:04):
I'm intrigued to see how that works.
So that's heavy on thecollaboration networking side of
things.
Ben Sutherland (38:13):
Yeah, which part exactly?
The development side of it?
Sam Brown (38:17):
Yeah, I think if you can delve into, just like well
one, what networking you do tokind of ingratiate yourself with
more developers, but and thenalso like how how it works
collaborating with them and onan ongoing basis.
Would be interesting to hearabout that.
Ben Sutherland (38:33):
Yeah, okay, well , I guess, similar to you, sam,
I have the opportunity to, Iguess, collaborate with another
construction company as well.
But a lot of developers kind ofgo to them.
They kind of work backwards.
I guess they're all aboutfeasibility and pricing.
So they start with theconstruction company.
(38:54):
Because a lot of these biggerdevelopers, because they need to
know build costs at an earlystage, they need to understand
the numbers before they evenpurchase the property to make
sure things will stack up.
So so I kind of get a lotthrough that avenue through
collaborating with otherconstruction companies or
directly with developers.
(39:16):
At the moment, our constructionside of things is only, you know
, small scale, residential.
So that does.
Actually, I had one lady ringme the other day and she's like
oh, you know, I see what you'redoing in Auckland.
I saw your sign out.
That's awesome, which isanother form of marketing can't
(39:36):
go wrong with a good old jobsign.
And so she called me and she'slike this is you guys, are you
know, I see what you're doinghere.
I've got something similar Iwant to do, like, will you come
to this open home with me andcheck out this project?
Sam Brown (39:51):
And I'm like just, quickly hold you on that open
home thing, ben.
I went to an open home with afriend the other day, the house
that they're looking atpurchasing in Wellington.
He was just like, look, youknow, can you come with me and
just kind of you know, as a mate, tell me what I couldn't,
couldn't do?
So I did that obviously justjust to help a brother out.
But the afterwards he was likewhy don't you offer this service
(40:13):
to everybody?
You know anybody, that'sanybody that's looking to buy a
house.
He's like why don't you justsay, hey look, we can come.
You know, one off fee of Xamount.
It gets absorbed into theoverall contract if you want to
move ahead with us to dorenovation works or what have
you.
But I feel like it would givebuyers a lot of confidence going
into a purchase.
(40:34):
They had some an expert therebeside them telling them what
they could have couldn't doInteresting Avenue to Target.
Just sorry, just sorry to justpause you, but you know it's
interesting to hear you havethat very similar experience to
what I've had recently.
Ben Sutherland (40:47):
Yeah, I go to a fair amount of open homes, even
just like being those interests.
You know, I like to see, I liketo see what's out there.
I like to see what otherarchitects do.
Gerard Dombroski (40:58):
It's a good marketing technique.
Sam Brown (40:59):
Leave your cards or tishously on the bathroom vanity
.
Ben Sutherland (41:04):
Honestly, I think key with the essential,
the fundamental key to marketingis just being active being as
active as possible in as manyavenues as possible, talking to
as many people, trying to get,as you know, as much built as
possible.
So you've got more content,like everything that every work
(41:26):
that we generate comes from.
Like us, you know eithertalking or doing something to
actually acquire customers.
Very rarely, if ever, you knowwe we just kind of get someone
walking in the door.
Yeah, activities key.
Sam Brown (41:44):
And it's.
That's something that we'veprobably only really not
cottoned onto but really kind ofrealized.
The worth of recently is thatyou can't wait for something to
happen.
You've really got to push andit's, I feel, like, you know,
for a lot of us it's notnecessarily in our character but
, holy man, you've just got togo, got like all guns blazing
(42:08):
and you've got to just not beafraid of the world.
You know, like if what's theworst that somebody can say, oh,
bugger off, we're notinterested, but you know if
they're, you know, for the every10 that say bugger off, one
says, yes, it's worth it.
Ben Sutherland (42:21):
Oh, absolutely, I think.
And so, like all of thesenetworking events like
essentially it doesn't matter ifit's a potential client or
potential collaboration, likejust getting out there and, for
example, gerard, your art,showcasing your art, you're
doing an amazing job of thathave you found that?
Obviously, that's been workingquite well for you.
Gerard Dombroski (42:43):
Yeah, it's quite nice Socially and really
cool to meet other people, likeall of those exhibitions and
supper in Auckland, the last onein fungeray.
But every time I go up north toAuckland or something, I try to
catch up with one or two peopleI haven't met before.
(43:06):
One leads to one.
Ben Sutherland (43:07):
Instagram is great.
Gerard Dombroski (43:09):
Yeah, I don't know.
It's just nice to meet otherpeople doing the same thing as
you as well.
Make friends, I guess, as itwere.
Yeah, like, because the otherside of my niche, I guess, would
be my workshop, that I makethings, and there's just no real
(43:30):
other makers in Wellington, sothere's no real like anybody to
hang out with.
Sam Brown (43:35):
You're exhibiting at Fungare Art Museum at the moment
.
Right, Gerard, Do you findthose sort of things a great
avenue to further theopportunity to be able to
present your work?
Gerard Dombroski (43:48):
Definitely Like it adds to viewership, I
guess, and I've had quite a fewexhibitions now, and so you just
it's more of a feeling Like Ican't see it tangibly, but
obviously people are seeing theexsyncs slowly, so to me it just
feels like a slow building ofawareness or visibility of my
(44:14):
work, which been an incrediblyslow process.
But it's, it's working becausewe've got, like we've got, an
article in Island magazine.
It's like a just a big pageabout my workshop, but I don't
know if people read Islandmagazine.
Ben Sutherland (44:36):
You have to send us a copy.
Sam Brown (44:38):
I was going to say you know you're talking about
you're talking about that slowbuild, and that's an interesting
thing as well, and I guess it'sa, it's a hope for a lot of us.
But do you feel that slow build, at some point the dam's going
to burst and then you're goingto be like anundated and you're
going to be like oh, shit.
Gerard Dombroski (44:55):
What do I do now?
The workshop sites definitelygetting there.
Like got quite a lot of shit inthe workshop to build at the
moment, but I guess that's likemost of the media have had is
art or furniture, and thepiccolo, the little house, was
(45:17):
the first, the only, probably.
Oh no, I've had a little.
I had a little kiln shed inhere, mac, but there's very
little architecture like this.
There's a building of donecoming out soon in the magazine,
so it'll be interesting to seeif that has any change to the
balance.
So for all the stuff I've had,I've never had like a.
(45:41):
I've had one email but I'venever had a job come out of any
of the media I've had hey.
Ben Sutherland (45:47):
I've got a, I've got a question for you, just
out of interest and this is toyou, sam, as well has anyone
done any paid marketing?
Gerard Dombroski (45:56):
I did like a $10 add on some chairs because I
tried to have a crack atproducts.
So I've got like the one offcommissioners that I build and
then just a line of products.
I mean I don't know I've done.
Yeah, I really like people.
(46:19):
I was pretty curious about it.
Sam Brown (46:21):
Like and through a few different methods, like
we've put down paid ads onInstagram quite a bit, paid ads
on Google quite a bit, justparticularly in the early days,
to just get more eyes and moreexposure, and what that resulted
in was more followers, but nowork.
Ben Sutherland (46:45):
I mean, that's how it starts.
Sam Brown (46:47):
We've also paid for a couple of newspaper or like
advertising slots, which, in allhonesty, was a total waste of
time and money.
Do they bring you and try toget everybody that gets
newspaper just puts it straightinto the firebox.
So they did ring and sell thedream.
(47:08):
We've got an interestingly abuilder that we work with
compound down in Queenstown.
They're having a featurearticle in Business South
magazine and business south'shounding on our door at the
moment to try and pay for anadvert to go alongside the
feature article, and I'm likelook to be honest.
I just cannot see this havingany benefit benefit.
Ben Sutherland (47:29):
And they're like oh, I'm pretty sure we've been
in that as well and had the sameexperience, and you get sucked
in and a lot of the time.
Sam Brown (47:35):
It's interesting.
I don't know if you guys evermet Scotty from Scotty's
construction in Wellington is anincredibly high energy, lovely
guy.
But I was chatting to him theother day and he was like he's
like all it takes is one job.
You know like he's like youknow, even if you throw 10K and
into advertising, all it takesis one job and you'll realize
(47:56):
that benefit back.
And he has a good point.
The problem being is that wedon't have that money.
Ben Sutherland (48:00):
We don't have that money to advertise, yeah
every other industry pays foradvertising.
It's just something about the Idon't know acting.
I also think to be honest.
Sam Brown (48:15):
I mean, I don't know about you guys, but as a
generally, as a small business,we run pretty close to the line
and like we don't have a hugeamount of just like back capital
to be able to like plug intomarketing, and maybe that's the
shortcoming on our behalf andmaybe we should annually like
put together an advertisingbudget.
(48:35):
We don't, but maybe we shouldWell is this something?
Ben Sutherland (48:40):
is there some sort of creative way that I
guess like architects?
What are other creative waysthat architects do to exhibit
their products?
Or data podcasts, data podcasts, absolutely.
Sam Brown (48:56):
Hard, given it's not a visual medium, quite hard to
showcase your work through apodcast.
Ben Sutherland (49:10):
I'm here for the good, yeah, not the bad thing,
by the way.
I think different tactics youknow.
Sam Brown (49:16):
Like Ben, you talked about different tactics.
One of them you know, forinstance, like those open home
or those open days for us areinvaluable, right, and I think
that's something that architectsshould probably look to do a
bit more.
You know, if you've got aproject and we've just seen it
with the in situ conference inAuckland, they did a trip to
(49:37):
Waikia Island to check out someprojects over there.
But that was just architectspresenting to architects.
You should be doing that to thegeneral public.
You know you finish a supercool build.
Say, hey, come in, as long asthe clients are okay with it.
Obviously.
Say, hey, come and check it out.
I think that's a great avenueto get work.
Here make does their open homes,which I think like I've been to
(49:58):
one of those in Wellingtonbefore and that was like a good
mix of it's interesting becauseI listened to a podcast about
marketing, particularlyarchitectural marketing, last
year and my biggest takeaway waslike two hours long.
There's a lot of waffle, but mybiggest takeaway from the whole
thing was architects shouldtarget people that don't know
(50:19):
that they need or want anarchitect yet.
And I thought that was reallyinteresting because they were
saying basically what they weresaying, particularly for smaller
businesses, is that by the timesomebody has decided that they
want to engage an architect or adesigner or an artist or
something they're, then they'rethen researching the field right
.
So you're instantly incompetition with a bunch of
(50:40):
people unless they're coming toyou for a specific purpose.
But if you target them beforethey know that they need you,
then they'll be like I rememberwhen, you know, gerard from
Gerard Dombarowski Workshop cameand talked to me that time
Maybe I'll use him to do myproject kind of kind of vibe,
and I thought that was reallyinteresting.
And that's definitely sort ofan approach that we've decided
(51:02):
to take with our marketing isput ourselves before the public
before they know that they needus.
Ben Sutherland (51:09):
Yeah, so that's interesting.
And diving a little bit deeper,does that mean that you're
talking to them before they?
Sam Brown (51:17):
have generally, yeah, and I think that's like Get
them young, because I guess theother way to think about it.
Ben Sutherland (51:27):
What does that look like?
Who do they go to once theyhave a project on who's the
first person?
Well, a lot of the time it'sbuilders.
Sam Brown (51:34):
you know we've found, particularly with residential
projects, a lot of time peoplecome to a builder before they
come to an architect, and Beninteresting.
I guess interestingly you knowyou're talking about your
discussion with real estateagents.
They're the first people youknow.
People have to buy propertyright and the state agent has to
broker that deal generally.
So they're the first peoplethat they're up you know face to
(51:57):
face with, and so yourengagement with them, I think,
is actually pretty critical.
Ben Sutherland (52:02):
Yeah, because that's quite interesting.
Like, think about that a littlebit more.
How many people, how manyclients that you guys have had
already had the land or alreadyhad a building, you know?
Like, I guess, if it's arenovation and they have lived
in the house for a period oftime, that might be like, okay,
(52:22):
it's time to renovate.
But most of them would be like,okay, cool, I'm looking to buy
this land and build a projectwhere I'm looking to sell my
current house and buy a house.
Sam Brown (52:33):
Either that or they've just recently purchased.
Gerard Dombroski (52:35):
You know they've either just bought a new
home and been like we need toupgrade.
Sam Brown (52:39):
Or they've just built a piece of land and like we
need to build.
But if you're, but at thatpoint they know that they're
looking for architects, sothey're shopping the field, but
if you're there before that,then you're the forefront of
that mind.
So that's our tactic.
So what are some ways you cando that?
Like I said, I think it's justwell, it is, it's Instagram.
(53:01):
It's being present and I thinkyou know one thing we briefly
touched on it.
You know you talked abouthaving a site sign.
It's those little things.
It's when people having a signon your car, whether that's
beneficial or not, I mean we do,and I've had people been like
oh, I've seen you sign aroundtown, kind of thing before.
Gerard Dombroski (53:22):
I think it's just kind of being present and
constant and people subconscioushelps a lot as well, yeah, I
think, staying visible and thenagain, like using your tools to
create a clear sort of messageso you get sort of like minded
clients.
It's just so relational thatyou really need to really want
(53:44):
people that you gel with it.
Ben Sutherland (53:46):
So that brand identity really just comes into
it.
Yeah, you don't want to drinkthe wrong customers.
Gerard Dombroski (53:58):
One of my big learnings is I think I lent real
hard on thinking Arc Dailywould get me heaps of work.
Ben Sutherland (54:07):
I begin that promotion just to ArcTeX again.
Gerard Dombroski (54:10):
You know, it's like media, media print,
whereas word of mouth is prettyinvaluable, like that's a pretty
excellent way to get work Ifyou just do a good job and
hopefully they tell, say nicethings about you, be a nice
person.
But I think like we've all gotpretty clear understandings of
(54:33):
what we do.
And then time man, yeah,consistency.
Ben Sutherland (54:39):
Yeah, showing up and giving it a go.
Gerard Dombroski (54:44):
Yeah, I think, being slightly tactical with
your jobs, I try to be verytactical with my jobs.
I only realized, like last year, that people have, like these
background jobs that they don'tshow.
Sam Brown (54:58):
Oh yeah, man, I'd say that, like 80% of the work we
do, we don't portray.
Gerard Dombroski (55:04):
I have a policy where I only do work if
it's magazine.
Sam Brown (55:07):
It's going to limit you, man.
Ben Sutherland (55:08):
Yeah, good on you, you would be mind blowing
at the amount of free work I doJust to chase leads.
Oh man, chase and leads is ahuge part of my day to day
activities, absolutely man,that's a whole pod on its own,
(55:31):
though Maybe we should wrap thatup there, that sounds good.
It's a good discussion.
Please, you know, if you likeour content, let us know and
feel free to rate and subscribeand click the question.
Sam Brown (55:43):
Email any questions or feedback that you might have
to info atdesignprinciplespodcom as well.
Ben Sutherland (55:51):
That's our marketing for the day.
Gerard Dombroski (55:56):
Now, last but not the biggest, condolence for
our visual, visual art and checkMarshall for our soundbar.
Ben Sutherland (56:03):
All right peace.
Architects should target people that don't know
that they need or want anarchitect.
Yet by the time somebody hasdecided that they want to engage
an architect or a designer oran artist or something, they're
then researching the field,right.
So you're instantly incompetition with a bunch of
people, unless they're coming toyou for a specific purpose.
(00:21):
But if you target them beforethey know that they need you,
then they'll be like oh, Iremember when Gerard from Gerard
Dombarowski Workshop came andtalked to me that time well,
maybe I'll use him to do myproject kind of vibe and I
thought that was reallyinteresting.
And that's definitely sort ofan approach that we've decided
to take with our marketing hasput ourselves before the public
(00:45):
before they know that they needus.
Gerard Dombroski (00:59):
Hello, welcome to Design Principles podcast
Episode three.
You're here with myself, gerardDombarowski, gerard Dombarowski
Workshop, ben Sutherland, bearArchitecture and Sam Brown of
ARET.
Today we're going to discussmarketing, the tumultuous waters
of marketing.
Sam Brown (01:20):
How to promote ourselves.
Yeah.
Gerard Dombroski (01:24):
Rock on.
So I guess we'll crack thingsoff.
I'll give you guys a littleinsight to my wobbly world.
I think like this wholeconversation ties into episode
one.
We were sort of discussingourselves again, so I guess this
is a very lived experiencediscussion.
(01:46):
So there's lots of storiesthere.
So I think from a lot of mystrategies come out of working
at a job previously and sort of,I guess, reacting to their
tactics to a degree and giving acontext in how I don't want to
(02:09):
do things.
I guess Save it nicely.
So that which is, and lots ofthoughts running around, because
that comes full context,because they ran a lot on word
of mouth and word of mouth turnsout is very good.
Sam Brown (02:29):
If you've got a deep pool of connected people to draw
from, yeah, I guess that was abusiness that had gone for a
long time.
Gerard Dombroski (02:39):
So there's like a deep pool of preexisting
clients and stuff there and Ihave this theory that you kind
of seen you get the work you'reseeing doing perhaps, and if you
can get into magazines and intomedia, then surely that lays
like a foundation for a wideraudience.
So that's kind of been myapproach is trying to set a
(03:04):
foundation as much as possibleand like engaging with magazines
and different.
Sam Brown (03:10):
Do you find Gerard the magazine one's an
interesting one.
Obviously, word of mouth is avery simple way of marketing
what you do and it's very direct.
You know some of her clientslooking to come to you.
From a word of mouth point ofview, they know exactly what
they're coming to you for, apartfrom, like, a magazine or
publication point of view.
Do you feel like those avenuesare targeting potential clients,
(03:32):
or are they just targetingother architects, or are they
just targeting your peers,because it's something that I've
always struggled with?
Yeah, it's interesting.
Gerard Dombroski (03:42):
I think a lot of that depends on the magazine
as well, because I guess beingarchitects, you want to get into
.
Sam Brown (03:51):
But only architects read the architecture of
magazines.
Gerard Dombroski (03:55):
Well, I think that's a valid point.
Sam Brown (03:57):
You know, like, if you're an architecture and said
that's cool and your peers getto see and recognize your work
but only your peers, really.
You know as funny as it sounds,you know it's almost better if
you're looking for prospectiveclients to be in magazines like
Home and Garden or somethingthat's a little bit more far
reaching.
Gerard Dombroski (04:15):
Yeah, exactly, apparently their viewship is
massive.
Sam Brown (04:18):
But are we too proud to sort of feature our work in a
magazine like that?
Gerard Dombroski (04:25):
Well, I think we like start off these things
of great ambitions and idealsand then you slowly see the gaps
in your logic and see that likethose sorts of magazines and
stuff may have better feedback.
I think like here and Home andstuff are pretty good, but
perhaps Architecture NZ?
(04:45):
I don't think that.
Sam Brown (04:48):
Yeah, they sort of like us here and Home.
They sort of flirt between thatmore accessible magazine you
know, the general public andmore likely to read, and the
local.
The local project in Australiaas well is another good example,
Whereas you've kind of gotthese other ones, these more
architecturic centric ones,which are less likely to reach
potential clients.
Ben Sutherland (05:09):
Yeah, essentially, though, if you've
got a project that is magazineworthy, you're going to be
pushing it along into as manymagazines as possible, though
really wouldn't you?
Sam Brown (05:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's all.
It's all a potential avenue forpromotion, right, and I guess
we're talking about printpublication here, which I think
still is very much has merits,but less so than it used to.
And this kind of brings usnicely into the discussion
around social media and how farreaching that is and how much do
(05:42):
you guys value or view socialmedia as a strong form of
marketing or building your brand?
Ben Sutherland (05:50):
And just quickly to point out, I guess, like
some of our, you know, whateverold employers or older firms
definitely didn't have thatsocial media aspect back in the
day.
So I guess for them, relying ontheir own reputation, their
previous projects and how theywere executed and word of mouth
(06:13):
is probably their main player,can't imagine them you know,
some of them anyway embracingsocial media, but not to the
extent that we rely on it.
Sam Brown (06:24):
That's a generational thing, though, right, you know,
we're all young, absolutely.
Ben Sutherland (06:28):
And in our fields, yeah.
So it's kind of a newish aspectto marketing that we are lucky
enough to benefit from now.
Gerard Dombroski (06:36):
Yeah for sure, and different generations use
tools they have at the time.
That's something I've had toconvince myself of sometimes.
So I guess when you get realinto architecture and you just
want to have some integrity,it's easy to like trick yourself
(06:56):
into thinking that maybe socialmedia doesn't have as much
merit as other things.
So, like if you look back intime, like Frank Lloyd Wright
used every media possible termlike he was all over the news,
go on as many interviews aspossible, and I wonder if that
(07:16):
had an impact on his career.
Absolutely so I think reallyjust got to use the tools you've
given.
Sam Brown (07:24):
So on that, given our main tool is social media.
Now, like, how do you guys haveyou guys found it for building
a brand and marketing purposes?
Gerard Dombroski (07:35):
I think it's a good day to day.
I kind of use it as in mystories I'll show process and
pictures of things and works,works in progress, and then I'll
kind of keep the portfolio sideof Instagram just to kind of
nice finished pictures, which isit's drawbacks, because stories
(07:59):
are only up for a little bit.
It's probably partially mylaziness that end of always been
big on photography, which Ithink photography is a big
underlying current all throughmarketing, so I've always only
tried to put nice photos on myInstagram.
Sam Brown (08:15):
It's an expensive undertaking, though, unless
you're a good photographeryourself.
Gerard Dombroski (08:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've been quite intentionalabout it right from when I
started my furniture 2016, Ithink, was my first photography
commission well, mecommissioning a photographer,
and I've done that ever since.
I've spent a lot of money onphotography over the time, but I
(08:42):
think it's values.
Sam Brown (08:43):
Have you recognized the bent law?
Have you recognized thatinvestment?
Well, not even there, but justkind of garnered the recognition
or, I guess, exposure of yourwork that you're hoping to.
Gerard Dombroski (09:00):
Well, I think it's another big issue with the
whole marketing and setting atrajectory of your practice, I
think, is understanding time andthat Rome wasn't built in the
day, so for me it's been a veryslow process.
Like this is.
2016 was a while ago now, soit's incremental when you're
(09:27):
laying these seeds ofphotographs or whatever you're
investing in to get you alongthe way, and I think now it's
starting.
In the last few years it's beenstarting to pay off, so I'm
gonna get a lot more recognitionand I love print.
(09:47):
I'm a big believer in print,but I think social media allows
you to have this small sort ofinch platform where magazines or
other people can then, I guess,pick through their local all
(10:07):
New Zealand architects that havesocial media or whatever.
Ben Sutherland (10:10):
It's similar to what you were saying before
about Frank Lloyd Wright.
It's essentially, it's aboutcreating an audience, and that's
what he was doing, whether itbe public speaking or events or
what not.
All you're trying to do isextend your reach as far as
possible, and, yeah, socialmedia is an easy way to do that.
(10:32):
You post regularly andconsistency, I guess, is a key
part to it, but it allows you toreach as many people as
possible.
Sam Brown (10:45):
Yeah, I just want to come back to a point that Gerard
made earlier, and that was it'sa long process thing is what he
said.
He said he startedphotographing his work and
trying to promote it in 2016.
And we're sort of being facedwith that slow approach thing as
well, and that it takes a long.
(11:06):
Our industry is a slow movingindustry.
You don't start a project onday one of your business and
it's finished on like day 20 andthen all of a sudden you've got
a backlog of work you can startpromoting.
We're for us, we're like threeyears into the existence of our
practice and only in the lastsort of three or four months
(11:27):
have we started completingprojects and having them
photographed and putting them upfor awards and having them
ready to put out for publicationand things like that.
And so it's been quite hard tomarket off actual built or real
projects, and for so long we'vefelt a little bit like a
pretender, in that the only waywe've been able to promote our
(11:49):
work is based on, like, paperarchitecture or paper design.
It's a promise.
We haven't been able to provethat we can deliver, and now we
can.
It's gonna be reallyinteresting for us and we are
because we now have this body ofwork that we can actually start
to promote.
That's real and we're pushingthat quite hard.
It's gonna be interesting tosee if that has an impact on our
(12:13):
marketing and the response thatwe get, because we've pushed
pretty hard in the past onconcept work, I guess, but
haven't really realized much ofa response on that Because it's
not real.
How do you find that then?
Yeah, I mean.
Ben Sutherland (12:30):
I'm going through that exact same thing.
Obviously new company.
It's hard to start a newcompany with a bunch of built
projects.
It's just not realistic.
So you have to kind of startsomewhere, and that really makes
it hard to post consistently oranything like that, because you
(12:51):
just don't have a content.
So what are you doing in thatsituation?
Sam Brown (12:56):
You just got to keep working, and that's essentially
why it takes so long to build upan index of projects over a
period of time, I think as well,though, what you can't be shy
about and you've noted this tome before, ben is, if you don't
have a big body of work, don'tbe shy about just pushing the
(13:17):
same stuff over and over andover again, because every time
you post something on socialmedia, or every time you put
something out to market,whatever marketing strategy you
use be it that print publicationor whatever you're always going
to catch a new eyes, right?
There's so many people out therethat you're not going to hit
the same people time and timeand time again, particularly
(13:37):
with social media, and you'vegot these ways of targeting new
audiences with hashtags andmentions and all that sort of
stuff.
So every time you postsomething be it the same project
, time and time again, you justuse different hashtags or ways
of targeting different markets,be that locations that it
(13:57):
targets and things like that,and you're always going to get
new eyes.
So I wouldn't shy away fromreproducing work on those forums
.
Ben Sutherland (14:07):
Yeah, that's a good point.
And also, I guess, how manyplatforms would you consider
using?
Obviously, instagram is a nobrainer for the architecture
realm.
It's very that was you to postimages, which is essentially
what we do, what we do, what wedo, yeah, so what about other
(14:29):
stuff Like, I guess, facebookalso that's kind of tied into
Instagram anyway, and obviously,having a good website is
basically your business card,your modern business card, so
absolutely critical.
Yeah, how have you guys found,have you found that you're
getting you know people justfrom search engine optimization
(14:53):
coming through your website?
Sam Brown (14:54):
I find I've found SEOs to have no real impact.
I mean, I think that we've hadmaybe in the last three years
we've had two inquiries comethrough our website, which isn't
a lot.
Ben Sutherland (15:09):
I bet you've had a lot of people look at your
website to understand a littlebit more about it.
Sam Brown (15:14):
Yeah, that is true, but I don't think that it's the
avenue for getting work as muchas well and this may be our
shortcoming as much as, let'ssay, instagram is, because it's
not as regular and it's not ascurrent and like.
Maybe we should just update ourwebsite more often, but that's
(15:35):
quite time consuming anddifficult to do.
Ben Sutherland (15:38):
Well, they start with Instagram and then they
would go to your website if theyliked what they saw.
Sam Brown (15:44):
They're two-way, you can't have one without the other
.
And the nice yeah, go, go, go.
Gerard Dombroski (15:49):
I think they all work together.
Like you're creating like alittle spider web, I guess of
you're just trying to get peopleeyes on projects, I guess.
So we're trying to get stuff inmagazines.
You're hoping that then theyGoogle you or Instagram.
Sam Brown (16:04):
I guess what you're trying to do is like really
cohesive narrative about who youare as a business or who you
are as an architecture practice,and everything, like you said,
goes hand in hand.
It builds a spider web.
So obviously your website isprobably your, that's your home
right, that's your plush likebase that people come to see the
best of what you have to offerand then probably the most
(16:26):
information as well.
But then all these other littlethings be that Instagram or
Facebook or TikTok or Reels orwhat have you they're building a
narrative about what you do,who you are, why you do it.
And print media is the same.
You know if you're, you know ifyou're a sustainably focused
practice or doing sustainabledesign, you may target like
(16:46):
Green Magazine, for instance,rather than another publication.
So you're trying to sort ofweave, like you said, the spider
web that creates this reallycohesive narrative of who you
are as a brand and as a business.
Ben Sutherland (17:00):
Yeah, and Gerard , I have a question for you,
because you're, I guess, yourbusiness having both you know
the artist side and also thearchitecture, and essentially,
your name, your company name isyour name.
So essentially, what you'redoing is you're creating a
personal brand.
(17:21):
How, how tied in is yourbasically your personal brand
with your company brand, or doyou kind of, is there any sort
of separation there, or is itjust essentially one and the
same, do you think?
Gerard Dombroski (17:36):
Yeah, it's kind of one of the same.
I guess one of the slightissues I've run into is that,
like you're trying to create abrand that's architecture,
furniture, art, I don't knowlike just the whole thing is art
in my mind.
It's hard to communicate topeople that you're an architect
(17:59):
and you do furniture and you dosomething else.
Like, for some reason, it ishard to communicate.
Sam Brown (18:05):
So you're getting pigeonholed into each one of
these sort of categories.
Gerard Dombroski (18:09):
Yeah, so sometimes I'll get asked oh so
when did you quit architecture?
Or Really, no, no, I got somelike.
Sam Brown (18:16):
I've got a bunch of projects on the go currently, so
that kind of brings us on toour next sort of like area or
topic discussion, which we'vesort of outlined today, and
that's understanding yourpersonal market and defining
your niche.
I mean, it sounds like you'resort of struggling in a way,
because I guess your niche isreally art or artistically
(18:38):
focused work, right?
Do you find that hard toportray?
Or sounds like you have find itquite hard to portray to the
market that you're looking totarget.
I don't know if it's hard toportray.
Gerard Dombroski (18:49):
But I think it's hard to portray that you do
multiple things.
So it's I think it's easy tocommunicate to Instagram that
you do one thing like the like.
It's an issue I've made myself.
I just am outputting lots ofchairs and lots of furniture and
(19:10):
then architectures a lot slowerand I've had an aversion to
renders for a very long time.
So I think I've only put outone render on my Instagram.
That was in a story I couldn'tbring myself to it.
Sam Brown (19:24):
Do you think that's something that you'd look to
sort of, maybe embrace a littlebit more to, to continue to
build that more cohesivenarrative like we've discussed?
Gerard Dombroski (19:33):
Yeah, I was wary of putting too many renders
out early Just because I wantedto build projects in there.
So then if people then seerenders, they you've got some
validation that you can delivera building which probably wasn't
(19:54):
, and like a wise way to goabout it.
But alas, it's done now Madethe bed.
But yeah, if we circle back tothe intent is to make like a
design practice thatmulti-disciplinary that I do
(20:15):
architecture the spoke furniture, so I have a love of design and
a strange need to do everything.
Ben Sutherland (20:25):
How would you describe your niche?
Can you describe it, or is itmore?
Gerard Dombroski (20:30):
of just like a personal brain.
Yeah, I think so.
My niche, I guess, is that itis my artistic output.
So I guess, like people go toSean Godsell for Sean Godsell
because he's got such a strongaesthetic, yeah, so I'm just
(20:51):
just want to be an architectthat people go to for for my
take on things, this isinteresting Is a personal brand
such as you know, like you werejust talking about, is a
personal brand, the niche,because essentially a niche is
more in my mind.
Ben Sutherland (21:13):
You know you create some sort of competitive
advantage, whereas architecture,especially, is so aesthetically
based that sometimes that yourniche just is, or people come to
you because they like yourdesigns or they like your
architecture, or that kind ofbecomes your stamp.
(21:35):
I guess your business card orsomething like that.
A visual language, it's notessentially a competitive
advantage.
Well, I guess it kind of is,because no one can do what
you're doing, because it's yourdesign.
Sam Brown (21:47):
If you're quick enough, you know, if you've got,
if you've got a very distinctstyle or if you've got a very
distinct way of operating thatsort of separates you from the
majority of your peers, then ittotally is a niche, I think.
And if you think about you know, let's go back to like early F,
for instance, or like RogerWalker, or you know those guys
(22:10):
in those sort of like early 80s,90s and the stuff that they
were doing 100% they had a niche, without a doubt, and people
would go to them for thatspecific design and to work with
those specific architectsbecause that's what they wanted.
I think that's probably.
I'd argue that that's it'slesser the case these days
because we are not as as ageneral rule, you know,
(22:35):
throughout the industry.
Ben Sutherland (22:36):
We're less experimental and more complex
and our designs based, so it'shard to get around a lot of
those restrictions in terms ofplanning Well, in terms of
regulations, you know no, Ithink it's like clients attitude
for risk.
Sam Brown (22:54):
I agree with Gerard.
Gerard Dombroski (22:55):
I definitely think so, and I also also think
it's huge scope within ourbuilding code for a shit ton of
creative history, not as much asthen.
Sam Brown (23:06):
I think people want because people are so much more
careful with their money andmoney is a lot harder to like
get in terms of lending andthings like that these days.
I think people want I wouldargue People want a sure thing,
though right Resales also amassive consideration, more so
these days than I feel like itused to be.
Ben Sutherland (23:26):
So, as a situation, it's probably
mentality, because you know Iwould arguably back then people
kind of wanted to design a houseto live in it forever.
Now people are kind of choppingand changing.
Gerard Dombroski (23:39):
I had a real estate agent complaining to me
in the weekend about whyeveryone makes their houses
great Really.
Ben Sutherland (23:53):
I thought they loved it.
Gerard Dombroski (23:58):
Well, I think it makes it harder to sell
because it's just like everyoneelse.
So if you're doing a basichouse, exactly the same as
everyone else, it's going to behard to find that point.
Sam Brown (24:10):
Back on the niche thing.
Drabber sort of talked aboutyours, ben.
Your one's quite interesting aswell, because I feel like
you're coming at developmentfrom an architectural point of
view and we mentioned this inthe last episode and you sort of
I feel like you're following inthe footsteps, maybe
consciously or subconsciously,of people like that.
There's hype from Australia.
(24:32):
How do you, how are you lookingto separate yourself in that
realm?
Ben Sutherland (24:37):
I guess there's two avenues.
One I will never not have anarchitecture firm with a
construction company attached toit.
So I guess that is somewhat of acompetitive advantage and
that's just basically because ofmy history in construction and
my need to not only desire orcontrol the architecture side of
(25:01):
things but also theconstruction.
So that's, that's kind of oneavenue.
But in terms of the developmentside, interestingly my customer
is slightly different, as Iwould be mainly like.
I definitely have more generalarchitecture clients as well,
but they are mainly selling at adifferent stage.
(25:25):
So we're getting to sort ofbuild majority of the building
at least, or at least kind ofselling off plans or selling a
completed product as opposed todesigning for a client.
So the cost the end customerspurchasing a product that's
already maybe not beingcompleted but close to so yeah,
(25:51):
I guess, like our, from ourpoint of view, it's more of like
what Gerard was talking about,about, you know, not creating
gray houses and that sort ofthing.
It's more about like I'mkeeping an eye on what is market
trends and what people want andtargeting certain demographics
and understanding the market alittle bit better.
(26:14):
So not just designing a productor a house for the sake of
designing a house, but beinglike who's buying in this area?
What are they buying?
What do they need.
Do they need a three bedroom?
Is it like a family?
Was it like an elderlydemographic?
If it's elderly, do they needelevators?
(26:34):
You know it's like access needsto be designed completely
fascinating.
A lot of you know.
We talked to a lot of realestate agents and we try and
identify like, okay, they knowthis area, that that's their
profession, that's the job.
Who's buying, what are theybuying, what do they need,
what's selling, and we kind ofwork back from there.
(26:56):
But you know, obviously there'sthat whole brand as well, brand
identity.
So we're bringing our owndesign aesthetics to these
things and making them to thebest.
Sam Brown (27:07):
Do you reckon you're going to maintain like?
Do you feel like you'llmaintain quite a lot of
flexibility in your designaesthetic to fit in mold with
market trends though?
Ben Sutherland (27:18):
This is a great question and the reason is I've
been thinking a lot about thisrecently and essentially it
depends on when the product issold or when the purchaser
becomes a part of the process,Because if you're selling off
plans, then essentially you'recreating the structure, I guess,
(27:39):
but the actual purchase has theopportunity to make tweaks that
they kind of want to make, andthat's like you know, within a
certain extent.
You know we don't go and doanything that we don't think is
of good quality and good value,but then they have the chance to
(28:01):
adapt the building slightly to,you know, make some adjustments
that suit their needs a littlebit better.
So yeah, I guess a lot of thatdepends on when the building is
actually purchased or sold.
Sam Brown (28:14):
I want to just circle back quickly to an interesting
point that you just made about.
You work quite closely withreal estate agents and that's
something that we you know thatI feel like we don't often do as
architects, but something thatwe personally at a red have
started doing recently as well,as I actually think we realize
that there's a lot of benefitand Creating those relationships
(28:36):
with red estate agents.
As slimy as it might soundsometimes, they are, you're
right.
The other people that probablyhave the finger on the pulse of
the market particularly we'recoming at it from a residential
point of view, but I feel likethis is probably relevant to
commercial as well They've gotthe finger on the pulse what's
happening in the market.
(28:57):
They've got the connectionswith buyers and, you know, if
you ingratiate yourselves withRedisad agents, they can put you
on to potential clientsprobably more easily and more
effectively than you could everdo through other marketing
avenues.
Ben Sutherland (29:12):
Yeah, and it's a huge strategy, especially up
here.
This Act, sorry.
Real estate agents havepreferred architects and a lot
of clients go to our real estateagents.
We like I'm looking for suchand such and such in this kind
of area and they'll actuallyjust refer them to.
Sam Brown (29:29):
That's up in Auckland .
Ben Sutherland (29:31):
They're generally up in Auckland.
I haven't seen it as much, butthen again I haven't tried in
Wellington, but I'm sure thatthat same sort of yeah.
Gerard Dombroski (29:38):
I've got a friend to get a lot of work
through.
Sam Brown (29:41):
We're sort of targeting it down in Central
Otago as well, because I mean,that is one area that there's a
huge amount of Spear land or,like you know, development land
or plot to land that areavailable for new build.
And so we're really kind oftargeting the real estate agents
and and quite carefully youknow targeting the ones that
(30:01):
have their names all oversections rather than actual
houses, and coming to them andbeing like hey, we're here, if
you've got clients that areinterested, send them our way,
kind of thing.
Ben Sutherland (30:11):
Absolutely.
I think of it from a marketdevelopers perspective.
They, they need to know whatthe market is doing.
They're not going to go andbuild well, I mean a lot of them
do, but it's stupidity reallybut you know, they're not going
to go build a bunch of houseswithout doing that research and
they really just kind of designbecause that is what the market
(30:34):
wants and that's what selling inthose specific this kind of
continues on into that sort ofcollaboration Avenue that we're
talking about.
Well right, I was actually justjust quickly before we moved to
collaboration, sam.
I guess like you've gotsomething similar going on, but
(30:55):
with more of a, you know,another type of niche, which
would be like targeting certainTypologies of architecture, for
example, sustainability, andattracting people that are
like-minded people, essentially,that are interested in similar
things as you are, which is ahuge marketing stretch.
Sam Brown (31:15):
Yeah, it is and that's well.
Yeah, it's interesting, it'sdefinitely when we started out.
We always wanted to.
One of the big reasons forstarting my own firm was to kind
of work with the clients youwant to work with, but and, and
we have done that.
But it's taken probably aboutthree years for us to really
(31:37):
define what that meant and whenit's landed us in is what we
like to call this holisticarchitecture field, and that
might sound a bit like, you know, buddhist prayer flags,
airy-fairy kind of stuff, butwhat we're really trying to say
with the holistic architecturething is that it's architecture
that targets Every aspect ofdesign or every aspect of a
(31:57):
residential build.
So it's not just aesthetics,it's not just performance, it's
not just sustainability, it'severything all kind of bundled
up into one, and so it's whatwe've really looked to target
and present with our work.
And yeah, you're right, whatthat's meant is we sort of
really put ourselves in thisniche of high performance,
(32:20):
sustainable architecture forclients that want exactly that
thing, because I think peoplearen't going to come to you
unless they've done theirresearch first, and if you're
not An expert and can't presentan expert opinion, then you sort
of sitting there a little bit,a little bit false.
So we've had to really likeupscale ourselves within our
practice to be able to like holdourselves in that niche and
(32:42):
validate ourselves as well.
Gerard Dombroski (32:44):
Yeah, if we get to the the meat of things
real quick.
I think an interesting Analysiswould be like if you've had
much feedback from presentingthis sort of these directions
via social media and things likedefined any of that marketing
paying off.
Ben Sutherland (33:02):
Does everyone call you asking for a
sustainable house?
Yes, and that's what.
Sam Brown (33:06):
Well, recently, yes, and that's kind of interesting,
and that one thing we're reallystruggling with is, you know,
we've got this list of projectsat work that we revisit weekly
and the growing list ofpotentials is Exciting.
The problem is none of them areconverting, so I'm not quite
sure how to get to that nextstage.
But, yes, heaps of people arecoming to us being like, look,
we've seen, well, we've seen youdo this, we're interested and
(33:29):
like there's a couple of avenuesthat I'll just quickly mention
that we've used to put ourselvesout to the public within this
realm.
One of those is formants, whoare the sip design partners that
we work with.
They run open days for thatbuild, both mid build, so you
can kind of see how the thingsare fitting together, and then
post build, which are open tothe general public.
(33:49):
And now we've actually we'verun several of those now I've
got and a post build open day atmy house down in Lake Harwear
next Wednesday, and that's agreat way of just being able to
showcase your work to thegeneral public.
Basically, the house is there,they come in, formants are there
where they're, the builders arethere, they can come in and
pick our brains, and we've hadseveral inquiries come through
(34:12):
that avenue.
Again, nothing converted, butit's definitely been a good way
of getting our work out there.
And then the other way thatwe've other avenue that we've
used is really kind of outliningourselves as specialists,
particularly with the NewZealand Green Building Council,
obviously through the homestarprocess, and I've been invited
to be an expert on the on ahousing panel at the New Zealand
(34:35):
Green Building Council housingsummit in May.
So it's just another way ofkind of presenting yourself to
the wider industry and generalpublic as an expert in the field
.
And yeah, we're gettingdefinitely getting um murmurs
but nothing concrete yet.
So hopefully that'll all startto sort of evolve into into
proper work.
Ben Sutherland (34:55):
Yeah, it'll be interesting.
So what you're talking about is, you know, networking and
Collaboration.
It's exactly.
Sam Brown (35:01):
That's a great segue, because those both of those
avenues once collaboration withformants and then the NZGBC
thing is totally networking.
Ben Sutherland (35:09):
Yeah, exactly, and it'll be really interesting
to hear A post event if you knowthe type of people you were
meeting and if anything comes,comes out of it, I would say, in
terms of the collaborationthere's, there's plenty of
opportunities.
Sam Brown (35:23):
Yeah, the collaboration ones an interest,
the collaboration thingsinteresting.
I found so far Anybody thatwe've worked with in a
collaborative Sense it's beenrelatively one-way traffic in
the sense that that sort of cometo us and being like, look, we
think that we can benefit fromworking together, we bring you
work, you bring us work andeveryone's happy.
(35:45):
So far all that we've realizedWith the collaborators that
we've worked with is that we'vejust given them work and
nothing's come back the otherway.
But all you can do is sort ofsit there, continue to build
that relationship and buy totime and hopefully something
kind of feeds back eventually.
Gerard Dombroski (36:05):
Yeah exactly.
These things take a long time.
I think that's underlying withlots of marketing.
Ben Sutherland (36:11):
Yeah, one thing that I find really interesting
in this area is the differencebetween, I guess, like what you
guys are traditionally typicallydoing, and what I'm doing is
with the one-off clients.
They're going to come to youfor a house or a building of
some description, but you're notgoing to come back next year
(36:32):
and ask for another one, so yourrepeated customers you know
clientele are quite low, whereasyou know, teaming up or
collaborating with a developer,for example, you're getting
ongoing work consistentlybecause you know they finish one
project they're straight on tothe next.
So that is a form ofcollaboration that has been
(36:53):
working really well for me andthat I have been pushing really
hard.
Sam Brown (36:57):
I agree, ben, you're right in the sense that,
particularly for architects thatpredominantly do bespoke
residential work, it's you don'thave repeat custom and to, I
guess, to supplement that avenueof work, you do need to have
(37:18):
sort of an offshoot, and a lotof the times architecture firms
won't even tell you about them,but you need an offshoot of work
that's just constant andongoing, and you know we're
fortunate that we've got.
You know we present ourselvesas residential architects but we
still do quite a bit ofhospitality and commercial work
and we're actually, you know,we're doing more and more in the
hospitality realm and we've gotMojo as one of our key clients
(37:42):
now and a lot of repeat workthrough them.
And so you know that'ssomething that we'll probably
start to lean more into from apromotional point of view is
that, hey, we do more than justhouses, we do this as well, but
it's a whole chicken and eggthing.
We haven't had the finishedprojects until very recently to
be able to present to the widerpublic, you know.
Gerard Dombroski (38:00):
Do you want to give us a rundown on a bit more
depth?
Sam Brown (38:03):
into your story.
Gerard Dombroski (38:04):
I'm intrigued to see how that works.
So that's heavy on thecollaboration networking side of
things.
Ben Sutherland (38:13):
Yeah, which part exactly?
The development side of it?
Sam Brown (38:17):
Yeah, I think if you can delve into, just like well
one, what networking you do tokind of ingratiate yourself with
more developers, but and thenalso like how how it works
collaborating with them and onan ongoing basis.
Would be interesting to hearabout that.
Ben Sutherland (38:33):
Yeah, okay, well , I guess, similar to you, sam,
I have the opportunity to, Iguess, collaborate with another
construction company as well.
But a lot of developers kind ofgo to them.
They kind of work backwards.
I guess they're all aboutfeasibility and pricing.
So they start with theconstruction company.
(38:54):
Because a lot of these biggerdevelopers, because they need to
know build costs at an earlystage, they need to understand
the numbers before they evenpurchase the property to make
sure things will stack up.
So so I kind of get a lotthrough that avenue through
collaborating with otherconstruction companies or
directly with developers.
(39:16):
At the moment, our constructionside of things is only, you know
, small scale, residential.
So that does.
Actually, I had one lady ringme the other day and she's like
oh, you know, I see what you'redoing in Auckland.
I saw your sign out.
That's awesome, which isanother form of marketing can't
(39:36):
go wrong with a good old jobsign.
And so she called me and she'slike this is you guys, are you
know, I see what you're doinghere.
I've got something similar Iwant to do, like, will you come
to this open home with me andcheck out this project?
Sam Brown (39:51):
And I'm like just, quickly hold you on that open
home thing, ben.
I went to an open home with afriend the other day, the house
that they're looking atpurchasing in Wellington.
He was just like, look, youknow, can you come with me and
just kind of you know, as a mate, tell me what I couldn't,
couldn't do?
So I did that obviously justjust to help a brother out.
But the afterwards he was likewhy don't you offer this service
(40:13):
to everybody?
You know anybody, that'sanybody that's looking to buy a
house.
He's like why don't you justsay, hey look, we can come.
You know, one off fee of Xamount.
It gets absorbed into theoverall contract if you want to
move ahead with us to dorenovation works or what have
you.
But I feel like it would givebuyers a lot of confidence going
into a purchase.
(40:34):
They had some an expert therebeside them telling them what
they could have couldn't doInteresting Avenue to Target.
Just sorry, just sorry to justpause you, but you know it's
interesting to hear you havethat very similar experience to
what I've had recently.
Ben Sutherland (40:47):
Yeah, I go to a fair amount of open homes, even
just like being those interests.
You know, I like to see, I liketo see what's out there.
I like to see what otherarchitects do.
Gerard Dombroski (40:58):
It's a good marketing technique.
Sam Brown (40:59):
Leave your cards or tishously on the bathroom vanity
.
Ben Sutherland (41:04):
Honestly, I think key with the essential,
the fundamental key to marketingis just being active being as
active as possible in as manyavenues as possible, talking to
as many people, trying to get,as you know, as much built as
possible.
So you've got more content,like everything that every work
(41:26):
that we generate comes from.
Like us, you know eithertalking or doing something to
actually acquire customers.
Very rarely, if ever, you knowwe we just kind of get someone
walking in the door.
Yeah, activities key.
Sam Brown (41:44):
And it's.
That's something that we'veprobably only really not
cottoned onto but really kind ofrealized.
The worth of recently is thatyou can't wait for something to
happen.
You've really got to push andit's, I feel, like, you know,
for a lot of us it's notnecessarily in our character but
, holy man, you've just got togo, got like all guns blazing
(42:08):
and you've got to just not beafraid of the world.
You know, like if what's theworst that somebody can say, oh,
bugger off, we're notinterested, but you know if
they're, you know, for the every10 that say bugger off, one
says, yes, it's worth it.
Ben Sutherland (42:21):
Oh, absolutely, I think.
And so, like all of thesenetworking events like
essentially it doesn't matter ifit's a potential client or
potential collaboration, likejust getting out there and, for
example, gerard, your art,showcasing your art, you're
doing an amazing job of thathave you found that?
Obviously, that's been workingquite well for you.
Gerard Dombroski (42:43):
Yeah, it's quite nice Socially and really
cool to meet other people, likeall of those exhibitions and
supper in Auckland, the last onein fungeray.
But every time I go up north toAuckland or something, I try to
catch up with one or two peopleI haven't met before.
(43:06):
One leads to one.
Ben Sutherland (43:07):
Instagram is great.
Gerard Dombroski (43:09):
Yeah, I don't know.
It's just nice to meet otherpeople doing the same thing as
you as well.
Make friends, I guess, as itwere.
Yeah, like, because the otherside of my niche, I guess, would
be my workshop, that I makethings, and there's just no real
(43:30):
other makers in Wellington, sothere's no real like anybody to
hang out with.
Sam Brown (43:35):
You're exhibiting at Fungare Art Museum at the moment
.
Right, Gerard, Do you findthose sort of things a great
avenue to further theopportunity to be able to
present your work?
Gerard Dombroski (43:48):
Definitely Like it adds to viewership, I
guess, and I've had quite a fewexhibitions now, and so you just
it's more of a feeling Like Ican't see it tangibly, but
obviously people are seeing theexsyncs slowly, so to me it just
feels like a slow building ofawareness or visibility of my
(44:14):
work, which been an incrediblyslow process.
But it's, it's working becausewe've got, like we've got, an
article in Island magazine.
It's like a just a big pageabout my workshop, but I don't
know if people read Islandmagazine.
Ben Sutherland (44:36):
You have to send us a copy.
Sam Brown (44:38):
I was going to say you know you're talking about
you're talking about that slowbuild, and that's an interesting
thing as well, and I guess it'sa, it's a hope for a lot of us.
But do you feel that slow build, at some point the dam's going
to burst and then you're goingto be like anundated and you're
going to be like oh, shit.
Gerard Dombroski (44:55):
What do I do now?
The workshop sites definitelygetting there.
Like got quite a lot of shit inthe workshop to build at the
moment, but I guess that's likemost of the media have had is
art or furniture, and thepiccolo, the little house, was
(45:17):
the first, the only, probably.
Oh no, I've had a little.
I had a little kiln shed inhere, mac, but there's very
little architecture like this.
There's a building of donecoming out soon in the magazine,
so it'll be interesting to seeif that has any change to the
balance.
So for all the stuff I've had,I've never had like a.
(45:41):
I've had one email but I'venever had a job come out of any
of the media I've had hey.
Ben Sutherland (45:47):
I've got a, I've got a question for you, just
out of interest and this is toyou, sam, as well has anyone
done any paid marketing?
Gerard Dombroski (45:56):
I did like a $10 add on some chairs because I
tried to have a crack atproducts.
So I've got like the one offcommissioners that I build and
then just a line of products.
I mean I don't know I've done.
Yeah, I really like people.
(46:19):
I was pretty curious about it.
Sam Brown (46:21):
Like and through a few different methods, like
we've put down paid ads onInstagram quite a bit, paid ads
on Google quite a bit, justparticularly in the early days,
to just get more eyes and moreexposure, and what that resulted
in was more followers, but nowork.
Ben Sutherland (46:45):
I mean, that's how it starts.
Sam Brown (46:47):
We've also paid for a couple of newspaper or like
advertising slots, which, in allhonesty, was a total waste of
time and money.
Do they bring you and try toget everybody that gets
newspaper just puts it straightinto the firebox.
So they did ring and sell thedream.
(47:08):
We've got an interestingly abuilder that we work with
compound down in Queenstown.
They're having a featurearticle in Business South
magazine and business south'shounding on our door at the
moment to try and pay for anadvert to go alongside the
feature article, and I'm likelook to be honest.
I just cannot see this havingany benefit benefit.
Ben Sutherland (47:29):
And they're like oh, I'm pretty sure we've been
in that as well and had the sameexperience, and you get sucked
in and a lot of the time.
Sam Brown (47:35):
It's interesting.
I don't know if you guys evermet Scotty from Scotty's
construction in Wellington is anincredibly high energy, lovely
guy.
But I was chatting to him theother day and he was like he's
like all it takes is one job.
You know like he's like youknow, even if you throw 10K and
into advertising, all it takesis one job and you'll realize
(47:56):
that benefit back.
And he has a good point.
The problem being is that wedon't have that money.
Ben Sutherland (48:00):
We don't have that money to advertise, yeah
every other industry pays foradvertising.
It's just something about the Idon't know acting.
I also think to be honest.
Sam Brown (48:15):
I mean, I don't know about you guys, but as a
generally, as a small business,we run pretty close to the line
and like we don't have a hugeamount of just like back capital
to be able to like plug intomarketing, and maybe that's the
shortcoming on our behalf andmaybe we should annually like
put together an advertisingbudget.
(48:35):
We don't, but maybe we shouldWell is this something?
Ben Sutherland (48:40):
is there some sort of creative way that I
guess like architects?
What are other creative waysthat architects do to exhibit
their products?
Or data podcasts, data podcasts, absolutely.
Sam Brown (48:56):
Hard, given it's not a visual medium, quite hard to
showcase your work through apodcast.
Ben Sutherland (49:10):
I'm here for the good, yeah, not the bad thing,
by the way.
I think different tactics youknow.
Sam Brown (49:16):
Like Ben, you talked about different tactics.
One of them you know, forinstance, like those open home
or those open days for us areinvaluable, right, and I think
that's something that architectsshould probably look to do a
bit more.
You know, if you've got aproject and we've just seen it
with the in situ conference inAuckland, they did a trip to
(49:37):
Waikia Island to check out someprojects over there.
But that was just architectspresenting to architects.
You should be doing that to thegeneral public.
You know you finish a supercool build.
Say, hey, come in, as long asthe clients are okay with it.
Obviously.
Say, hey, come and check it out.
I think that's a great avenueto get work.
Here make does their open homes,which I think like I've been to
(49:58):
one of those in Wellingtonbefore and that was like a good
mix of it's interesting becauseI listened to a podcast about
marketing, particularlyarchitectural marketing, last
year and my biggest takeaway waslike two hours long.
There's a lot of waffle, but mybiggest takeaway from the whole
thing was architects shouldtarget people that don't know
(50:19):
that they need or want anarchitect yet.
And I thought that was reallyinteresting because they were
saying basically what they weresaying, particularly for smaller
businesses, is that by the timesomebody has decided that they
want to engage an architect or adesigner or an artist or
something they're, then they'rethen researching the field right
.
So you're instantly incompetition with a bunch of
(50:40):
people unless they're coming toyou for a specific purpose.
But if you target them beforethey know that they need you,
then they'll be like I rememberwhen, you know, gerard from
Gerard Dombarowski Workshop cameand talked to me that time
Maybe I'll use him to do myproject kind of kind of vibe,
and I thought that was reallyinteresting.
And that's definitely sort ofan approach that we've decided
(51:02):
to take with our marketing isput ourselves before the public
before they know that they needus.
Ben Sutherland (51:09):
Yeah, so that's interesting.
And diving a little bit deeper,does that mean that you're
talking to them before they?
Sam Brown (51:17):
have generally, yeah, and I think that's like Get
them young, because I guess theother way to think about it.
Ben Sutherland (51:27):
What does that look like?
Who do they go to once theyhave a project on who's the
first person?
Well, a lot of the time it'sbuilders.
Sam Brown (51:34):
you know we've found, particularly with residential
projects, a lot of time peoplecome to a builder before they
come to an architect, and Beninteresting.
I guess interestingly you knowyou're talking about your
discussion with real estateagents.
They're the first people youknow.
People have to buy propertyright and the state agent has to
broker that deal generally.
So they're the first peoplethat they're up you know face to
(51:57):
face with, and so yourengagement with them, I think,
is actually pretty critical.
Ben Sutherland (52:02):
Yeah, because that's quite interesting.
Like, think about that a littlebit more.
How many people, how manyclients that you guys have had
already had the land or alreadyhad a building, you know?
Like, I guess, if it's arenovation and they have lived
in the house for a period oftime, that might be like, okay,
(52:22):
it's time to renovate.
But most of them would be like,okay, cool, I'm looking to buy
this land and build a projectwhere I'm looking to sell my
current house and buy a house.
Sam Brown (52:33):
Either that or they've just recently purchased.
Gerard Dombroski (52:35):
You know they've either just bought a new
home and been like we need toupgrade.
Sam Brown (52:39):
Or they've just built a piece of land and like we
need to build.
But if you're, but at thatpoint they know that they're
looking for architects, sothey're shopping the field, but
if you're there before that,then you're the forefront of
that mind.
So that's our tactic.
So what are some ways you cando that?
Like I said, I think it's justwell, it is, it's Instagram.
(53:01):
It's being present and I thinkyou know one thing we briefly
touched on it.
You know you talked abouthaving a site sign.
It's those little things.
It's when people having a signon your car, whether that's
beneficial or not, I mean we do,and I've had people been like
oh, I've seen you sign aroundtown, kind of thing before.
Gerard Dombroski (53:22):
I think it's just kind of being present and
constant and people subconscioushelps a lot as well, yeah, I
think, staying visible and thenagain, like using your tools to
create a clear sort of messageso you get sort of like minded
clients.
It's just so relational thatyou really need to really want
(53:44):
people that you gel with it.
Ben Sutherland (53:46):
So that brand identity really just comes into
it.
Yeah, you don't want to drinkthe wrong customers.
Gerard Dombroski (53:58):
One of my big learnings is I think I lent real
hard on thinking Arc Dailywould get me heaps of work.
Ben Sutherland (54:07):
I begin that promotion just to ArcTeX again.
Gerard Dombroski (54:10):
You know, it's like media, media print,
whereas word of mouth is prettyinvaluable, like that's a pretty
excellent way to get work Ifyou just do a good job and
hopefully they tell, say nicethings about you, be a nice
person.
But I think like we've all gotpretty clear understandings of
(54:33):
what we do.
And then time man, yeah,consistency.
Ben Sutherland (54:39):
Yeah, showing up and giving it a go.
Gerard Dombroski (54:44):
Yeah, I think, being slightly tactical with
your jobs, I try to be verytactical with my jobs.
I only realized, like last year, that people have, like these
background jobs that they don'tshow.
Sam Brown (54:58):
Oh yeah, man, I'd say that, like 80% of the work we
do, we don't portray.
Gerard Dombroski (55:04):
I have a policy where I only do work if
it's magazine.
Sam Brown (55:07):
It's going to limit you, man.
Ben Sutherland (55:08):
Yeah, good on you, you would be mind blowing
at the amount of free work I doJust to chase leads.
Oh man, chase and leads is ahuge part of my day to day
activities, absolutely man,that's a whole pod on its own,
(55:31):
though Maybe we should wrap thatup there, that sounds good.
It's a good discussion.
Please, you know, if you likeour content, let us know and
feel free to rate and subscribeand click the question.
Sam Brown (55:43):
Email any questions or feedback that you might have
to info atdesignprinciplespodcom as well.
Ben Sutherland (55:51):
That's our marketing for the day.
Gerard Dombroski (55:56):
Now, last but not the biggest, condolence for
our visual, visual art and checkMarshall for our soundbar.
Ben Sutherland (56:03):
All right peace.
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