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I pay my respects and acknowledge all Traditional Custodians of Country and on whose land I live and work. I recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present.

Holy moly reader

We're already one month into the year and I don't feel like I've found a good rhythm yet. That's school holidays for you! For all our best of intentions, there's always something to confound and challenge. My trick when that happens is to find the possibility in it. I hope you've found some possibility in all the craziness over the last couple of months (or even years). What are the positives that have come out of it that you're wanting to stick with? Take a moment to sit in that space of intention.

Despite the syncopated times I recently managed to launch a Practice Journal. I designed it to assist architects in identifying the areas of their architectural practice they might need to bring additional focus to, rethink or work on. The theme of this week's useletter has thus been elicited by a question I ask in the journal, How do other people describe your practice, especially clients? It's a question inspired by (ie stolen from) Margo Aaron from her Copy Workshop. It's one that can provide insights into how to present our work. There's much possibility in it. Allow me to explain...

I got you

Michael

not your words

Understanding how other people describe what you do is invaluable. Sure, testimonials are useful social proof, but this goes beyond a basic testimonial. The benefit of hearing how other's describe what you do is twofold (maybe morefold but here's two). Firstly, you can utilise the words of others in your own copy. Secondly, someone may describe work, services or practices of yours that you were unaware of or thought unremarkable.

The power of other people's words is not to be underestimated. We can struggle to write about our own work and what we offer our clients. It takes empathy, practice and often many tries to get it right (you rarely get it right first go). If instead we ask clients to write about and describe what we do, we can utilise this in our copy and how we talk about what we do. It's what Margo describes as, "assembled not written". We know this resonates with our clients, as it’s their words and way of describing what we do.

For example:

I might have received feedback, "Michael taught me many things I wish I'd learnt at university about how to design and run a practice." Of course this is a lovely testimonial, but I can also use it in my copy describing what I do, "I teach my clients the things that university doesn't teach you about designing and running an architectural practice." I can use that in Bio's, website copy, in conversations or in presentations. The important thing is it doesn’t need to be an exact quote, but to capture the idea and language as best as possible. Don't move too far away from the original language and do use the specific terminology or words where relevant.

You often miss your own remarkable attributes...

We can miss the things we take for granted or are intrinsic to what we do for our clients. It's usually that they're so innate or unremarkable to us we don't recognise them as important. Maybe, for example, you have a knack for doing articulate diagrams, drawings and presenting them in a way that’s readily understood. It's just what you do, you don't think anything of it until a client whose sick 8 year comes along to one of your meetings. They later remark that your presentation was so clear that even Miss 8 understood what you were proposing and got excited. You ask around your other clients and sure enough they’re also blown away by the exceptional clarity of your presentations, especially the ones with experience of other architect's work. You had no idea. You can utilise this insight into all future copy, including something along the lines of, "Architectural drawings can be intimidating and challenging, we present our work with a clarity that even an 8 year old can understand." It's not sparkling copy yet I’ll admit, but that description of your work might be a big winner for the potential client who is holding back on engaging an architect, self consciousness they may not comprehend what's being presented.

The bottom line in all of this, is always be asking for feedback in what you do. The insight will almost certainly be worthwhile, not to mention useful!

You got this.