Jon Clayton: How can you keep your practice website fresh and engaging even when you don't have new projects to showcase?

I'm joined by Rachel Stance, who will share how you can stay front of mind with people, even between projects by using your website like a magazine.

In this episode of Architecture Business Club, the weekly podcast for small firm founders who want to build their dream business in architecture and enjoy more freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment in what they do.

I'm John Clayton, your host.

Having spent over 20 years working in architecture, I know how hard it can be to explain your services so people truly understand and value what you do.

Many firms struggle with this, but by sharing your stories on podcasts, you can become the trusted voice in your market, grow your brand, and attract much better clients.

We can help you with everything from podcast strategy and launch production and management, podcast hosting and guesting through to promoting and growing your show.

If you'd like to discover how podcasting could benefit your business, click the link in the show notes to book a no obligation chat about working with me.

Or if you're interested in being a guest on this show, emo John.

That's JO n@architecturebusinessclub.com.

Now, let's meet Rachel.

Rachel Stanz has been writing professionally for more than 20 years.

First as a journalist and now as a copywriter and blogger.

She's always been interested in government, social justice, international development, and sustainability, so specializes in these areas.

Her work is story led, focused on people and how our work.

Interrelates to make an impact.

Rachel excels at simplifying complex topics for the public and writing for different audiences.

And she also runs the excellent Rachel's Writing Club for business owners that like to write but struggle to do it on their own.

So to learn more, head over to rachel x stands.com/rwc or click the link in the show notes.

Rachel, welcome to Architecture Business Club.

Rachel Extance: Thank you for having me.

It's great to be here.

Jon Clayton: Yeah, great to have you here.

We've we've known each other for a little while, haven't we?

Um, I can't think where we met originally.

It might have been at, um, a conference, like a topic on or something.

Rachel Extance: I'm not sure, but a few years now.

Jon Clayton: Yeah.

Yeah.

So, um, before we get into our topic, could you tell me a little bit about what you like to do outside of work?

Rachel Extance: Outside of work I listen to music a lot.

Um, theater and traveling, particularly train trips, so going on sort of epic things.

We've done like the east coast of America by train, so Boston, down to Washington, um, Sri Lanka by train.

Um, we're planning a trip in the summer, um, going over to Switzerland and Italy.

So yeah, those sorts of.

Jon Clayton: Oh, fantastic.

Yeah, I, I love traveling by train.

It's one of my, my favorite modes of transport.

And I know you mentioned music there.

I know that you're a huge pet shop boys fan, aren't you?

Rachel Extance: Yeah.

Yeah.

And the

Jon Clayton: many times have you

Rachel Extance: oh my goodness, how much I seen them.

Probably not that much for somebody who's a huge fan, but then that's mainly 'cause just life never really seems to put me in the right place, but about four or five times, um, yeah.

So quite, quite a few.

Jon Clayton: Cool.

And they're playing, um, they're playing in Norfolk, uh, in a few months time after the time of this recording.

So, I mean, you could always,

Rachel Extance: go.

But yes, people keep message me going, do you know that they're playing sand jingo?

Yes.

Yes, I do.

I would love to, but I can't.

Jon Clayton: Yeah.

Oh well, may maybe on the next tour.

So Rachel, we are going to talk about how, how we could use our websites like a magazine so that we can still keep ourselves front of mind with people between completed projects and, you know, between those times when we, we.

You know, we show off our work, particularly in the case of architects and architecture practices, where they might have some lovely photos of a completed project, that they're very keen and eager to show off on their portfolio on the website.

But what do we do in between, in between those projects?

So when you talk about using your website like a magazine, what do you mean?

Could you explain that to us?

Rachel Extance: So, as you said, you're gonna have these periods in between where if you are, if you're starting out your architecture practice, you haven't got anything to start with.

But if you are established, you're gonna have those points in between these, these.

Projects and keeping your website means you're more likely to rank higher on search engines like Google because they like to see a website that's updated.

So you want to be having things that you can share, and you also want to be showing prospective customers that you are, you know.

A, a live well, happy to have business, that sort of thing.

Uh, so when you think about using it, most people don't really think about all of the different things that they can do with the website.

All of the stories they can tell.

So if you think about your website as a magazine, magazines have all kinds of stories in them.

So.

You will have your, your gorgeous double page spread, which goes in depth, which is the kind of thing that you probably think about when you, when you do your nice pictures.

But then they've also got all these other stories around them, about what people are doing, what's coming up next, how people made something happen behind the scenes content.

So it's having a think about what are the other elements that you could be bringing in to help people.

Understand who you are, what you do, why you do it, how you do it, how they can work with you, whether you are the right kind of person for them and to give people inspiration.

So often with work, particularly for things, people like architects, somebody comes to you, they've never worked with an architect before, they've got no idea.

What an architect.

I mean, they have a vague idea of what an architect does, but they don't know what's involved in that.

They dunno how to have the conversation with you.

They dunno what questions to ask.

They might feel a little bit on the back foot.

They don't want to come across as.

Being stupid because they feel like I can't really ask that.

So you have an opportunity to answer those questions for them, to give them that background information and to give them the confidence to pick up the phone and say, hello, could we have a consultation with you please?

Jon Clayton: I love this.

I love this.

So, um, there's a couple of things there to just for me just to pick up on.

One of the things that you mentioned was about your prospective clients.

I.

Recognizing that you are, you're there, that you're still active, that you're, you're still alive.

And there is a sort of feeling of reassurance when you go on a business's website and you see, oh, they posted a blog post last week.

Oh, they're, they're active.

This, you know, when you go on a website and you discover that there's like pages on there that haven't been updated or there's a, there is a blog section, but like, there's two blog posts and they're both five years old.

But I can feel a little bit.

Unnerving, can't it?

If you kind of go on there and, um, they're like, oh, what's going on here?

Why, why isn't there any up to date content?

And, um.

The, the other thing that, the explanation that you've given us there about using it like a magazine immediately when you, when you said that, I was thinking about the, those sort of glossy home design magazines that we see on the shelves in W eight Smiths, or there are other news agents exist, but, um, those magazines that we see, like real homes and home building and renovating, self-build and Design that.

When you when you browse through those publications that it is not back to back portfolio photos.

They do have those big features that you mentioned, but between that, there's all sorts of other articles in there that makes up that, that whole magazine.

So that when I, when you said it, I was like, oh yeah, that makes so much sense.

Like why, why don't more people treat their websites that way?

So I suppose the question that if you're listening to this, you might have in your mind is, well, Rachel, John, this sounds amazing, but like, you know, what, what the heck am I gonna post?

Like, what sort of ideas could I post between my portfolio projects?

The good news is that Rachel has got some brilliant ideas to share today, and we're gonna walk through all of those.

You've got six blog ideas in particular for things that, we can share on our website when we don't have a new project to show off.

Could you just quickly list those ideas out for us, Rachel?

Um, before we dig into each one of those, one at a time.

Rachel Extance: Yes, of course.

Uh, so the first one are case studies, which is the one that you're probably most familiar with.

Then there's unpacking a key concept, origin stories, and everyone has more than one origin story.

It's not just simply how you started your business sales page supporter.

News stories.

Everybody when they think about a blog, they go, oh, I can't have a blog 'cause I don't have any news stories.

So news story is one of them, but as you can tell, it's one of only, only six.

And, and then an event or an experience write up.

So talking about something that you've been to or taken part in.

Jon Clayton: Thanks Rachel.

That's, that's brilliant.

There's six really good ideas there.

So we we're gonna dig into each one of those.

Now we're gonna help people out, uh, to understand a little bit more how they can use each of these ideas.

So let's start with case studies.

So what is the benefit of having a case study on your website versus just posting the portfolio photos?

How does it, how does it differ?

What's the benefit of having it as a case study?

Rachel Extance: So portfolio photos are gorgeous.

Obviously, we all love a portfolio photo.

We all look at them and go, Ooh, I like the look at that.

But a case study goes beyond this.

It takes you more in depth.

It sets the scene.

What was the problem that your client came to you with?

What was the brief that they had and how did you solve it?

How did you create that dream house?

Or how did you get around the fact that maybe it was in an awkward area or maybe there were planning restrictions or perhaps it was a type of house that they'd seen something somewhere else and they were saying, we wanna create this, and you're looking at it going, okay, but you don't live in.

That huge six bedroom, amazing thing with a whole load of land around you.

You live in a small terrace, and how are we going to give you what you want?

Within those restrictions.

So the benefit of doing this is that people with similar issues can see that you have solved this problem before.

You are familiar with that kind of house, or you are familiar with that kind of issue.

So it makes your portfolio much more relatable and you're building trust and connection.

And you might be thinking, oh gosh, you know, I need a wizzy website with all kinds of things.

These moving galleries, and all of you really don't.

You can, if you're just starting out your website, you can embed images through the text.

So if you use any of the main website builders, whether it's WordPress or Wix or Squarespace.

Write your text and then press the image, embed and put a picture in, and then write some more text image embed, put a picture in.

And actually that's very accessible for people because you can use alt text with that.

If you're not familiar with that, then that is the describing what those images tell you people.

So for anybody using a screen reader, they need that and you can capture them as well.

And you could also put video in as well.

So you could do a video walk around or you could do a piece to camera telling people about it.

Not everybody is a reader.

So for people that need to that process information orally, who much prefer to watch something or listen to something, having that ability to embed a video, you can host it on YouTube.

So again, that gives you another avenue into your business is that you can be putting things on YouTube so people can find you that way as well.

So your.

Widening the number of ways in which people can find you, and you're also giving people a much better understanding of how you work, the problems you solve, and showing them that you are a safe pair of hands.

Jon Clayton: I love this.

I love this.

So, um, we're giving people a much deeper understanding of how we help people.

We're giving them much more detail, uh, real life stories behind those glossy finished photos.

I.

But in doing this you also then mentioned about the different varieties of media that we can use.

And it can be that there are some images, there's written words.

It could be that there's videos.

It could be that if you are a practice that has a podcast.

Um, that you can embed a podcast player that if you're telling the story of a project you know, if you're talking about it on a podcast, you can even embed that on that article on your website.

So in terms of accessibility and.

Meeting people where they're at, that depending on how they're able or wish to consume that content we're giving them, potentially we can give them all those different options to be able to consume that content and learn more about what we do.

So yeah, I love that.

I think that's a great idea.

What about, you mentioned the second idea was unpacking a key concept, could you.

Could you explain that a little bit more for us?

Could you share perhaps, uh, an example of this for architects in particular?

Rachel Extance: Yeah, certainly.

So the way we use the internet is changing.

You know, we've got AI now, and so it used to be that you are.

Your old way of doing a a a an internet search would be how do you do this?

And you would get all of these articles about what is I don't know what, what, what, what, what does a passive house mean?

And these, these sorts of things.

And what you are looking to do now is create those things which Google and the other search engines cannot instantly produce for you.

So this is where it's your opportunity to share your thinking, to share your experience, your knowledge your project.

So you can bring in how you have used these things and talk about concepts in a relatable way to how you work.

Because nobody else has your experience.

Nobody else runs your business, nobody else designs like you do or works in the area that you do.

So this is your opportunity to unpack something and somebody's thinking about, you know, why do you specialize in introducing, um, environmentally friendly measures into your build?

Well, we do it like this and, and people might have questions about, well, what are the costs of this?

Or, or, or, I can't afford that.

It's gonna add another 30,000.

And you could say, well actually, you know, if we do this and we do that, you've got these benefits and you are able to talk in much more detail.

If you think about the fact that when people come to you, they've probably been thinking about getting some work done.

Now they could be at any stage of that.

It could be an idol.

I've just watched brand designs and wouldn't it be amazing if we could do this thing and they're sort of Googling around?

Or it could be that they're at the point where like, right, yes, we can't move where we are, so we're gonna have an extension.

What is that involved?

How do we do that?

Who could do that for us?

Or it could be that unbeknown to you, they've been looking around for a little while and they've narrowed it down now and they're like.

We like the look of this company and we like the look of that company.

And it's your opportunity to sort of go into a little, those things that you can go into more detail about, where they can say, yep, these people look like the ones that we want to ring up.

Because people, yes, they're gonna get their three quotes, but they're not gonna ring round 10, 15 different companies.

They're gonna narrow it down before they pick up the phone.

So it's that opportunity to talk about, yes, we know about how to deal with an older home and insulation issues, or yes, we know what to do with a that property or we know what to do with listed buildings, uh, particularly in this area.

'cause obviously things differ from council to council.

So that opportunity to talk about your local area and the fact that you understand those situations is a real selling point for you.

It also gives you something to share in that kind of blue Peter way of, here's one I prepared earlier.

I, could you tell me more about that thing you said?

Oh, well actually I've got a got a blog article about that.

I'll email it to you.

Jon Clayton: I love that.

Um, yeah, so it's rather than us just saying on our homepage, in the example of say passive house.

We are passive house designers.

That could be it, that could be all that's on the website.

But if there was a blog article on there that was digging into that in a bit more detail, that concept or, or sharing something from a particular project, a specific challenge or something.

people love that sort of stuff.

It's, it's giving a.

An actual demonstration, the kind of like show don't tell thing, isn't it like an actual demonstration of your expertise and people love to see behind the scenes of, of how things work and what you do.

So yeah, I think that's a another great idea for content that we could use

Rachel Extance: you also have so many things where you look at it and go, yep, that's fine, but would it work for my house?

Jon Clayton: Yeah, absolutely.

And I think as well, there'll be a lot of things that.

As architects or architectural technologists, design professionals, there's probably an awful lot of stuff that you're doing every day, like every week.

And you might think, well, who'd be interested in this?

I mean, it's not that interesting, you know, but actually to somebody else, they'd be fascinated to see some of that work behind the scenes and to understand, um, a bit more about the work that you do.

So, um, I think it's a really good opportunity.

Rachel Extance: It is, we're all, we're so close to what we do.

It's so familiar to us.

We think everybody knows this, surely everybody knows and no, they really don't.

And also when you're going onto things like social media, you are going to be bombarded with posts about architecture.

You're gonna feel like everybody in the world is already talking about architecture.

That's simply because you work in architecture and the algorithm goes, oh, you write about this, or you post about this.

Oh, you must be interested in more things like this.

And you, you ended up in this little algorithmic bubble.

And it's remembering that actually the people that you are working with, your clients are not in that bubble.

Um, they will suddenly start getting sort of fed things if they want something like, um, Instagram, but they, they are not they're not as familiar with it as you are, and they have got questions that they need answering to give them the courage to pick up the phone.

Jon Clayton: Yeah.

Yeah, so important.

Rachel, could we talk about origin stories?

That was the next idea that you've mentioned.

I'd like to know what, why we should be sharing origin stories.

And also something that you mentioned earlier was that there's more than one.

Type of origin story so that I don't, that's a little bit of a double barreled question there, but perhaps if you could just explain what the different types of origin stories are and then why we should be sharing them.

Rachel Extance: Yeah.

So I dunno about you, but I'm very at going at the end of a project.

Like here it is, it's fully formed.

Um, we finished it.

Look, but.

That means people don't see all of the work.

They don't see the development of your thinking.

They don't see the twists and turns along the way.

We value things if we know that there was work involved, and we also value things if we can see the enjoyment somebody took in creating it.

So sharing your origin stories gives that opportunity for somebody to go behind the scenes, it gives 'em that opportunity to get to know you.

If you ever watch a chat show the interviewee is highly likely to be asked How did you start acting or singing or performing, or whatever it is.

And you will notice a particularly you're a fan of, so, so you mentioned earlier, I'm a fan of the pet shop boys.

I go in search of any interview that will tell me something that's different because all of the interviews, it's like, how did you meet?

Oh, you met and you met in this.

Oh, was it a pet?

No, it wasn't a bed shop.

It was a record store.

And this is what we did.

And you know, and they tell this origin story repeatedly.

Um.

But, and they will also possibly be asked the background on a key moment in their career.

And so you can tell your equivalent of that.

So you know, what led you to become an architect is one origin story.

What led you to set up your own practice is another origin story.

How did you start working on a project?

Is another origin story.

So we're all curious to know about how things came to be and this is an opportunity to share those things.

Show the journey.

You haven't just suddenly sprung up out of the ground.

You are a genuine, experienced, knowledgeable architect with lots of things to share and you know what you are doing and your origin story is part of building that know, like, and trust factor.

Jon Clayton: Oh, that's, that's brilliant because.

When I previously thought about origin stories, that I think there was that perception that there's just like one, but there isn't.

You, you just, you've kind of busted that myth there, that there's potentially a variety of different origin stories, whether that's for us, um, deciding to, to get into architecture, to start our own practice.

Origin stories of projects as well.

So yeah, there's a whole, a whole host of content ideas that we could work with there.

That's brilliant.

The other thing that you mentioned the next idea, you call this sales page supporter.

So could you explain what that is and why we need it versus just having a big sales page for like, that's just got everything on it.

Why, why do we need these other articles on our website?

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Rachel Extance: Yes, absolutely.

So very often we have a sales page and.

I mean, you could list out absolutely every single aspect of the design process from initial call to the brief to doing the, the, the surveys that you would have an enormously long page and you've got an issue of, some people absolutely know what they want and they don't need any of it.

Some people need to go into a huge amount of depth and.

You want that balance on your sales page, but you also want opportunities to be sharing about other things.

You don't want to always be sharing the same page over and over, so your sales page supporter gives you that opportunity to a pull out key things.

Maybe you have a particular methodology that you follow.

Maybe you are a fan of a particular kind of work.

Maybe you work in an area where there are specific, um, planning issues that you need to be aware of and that you are an expert in working through those things.

Listed buildings, for instance, that, that kind of thing.

It could be that you want to be able to write something about why somebody should work with you beyond a brief paragraph about, hello, this is me being an architect 15 years and I specialize in this kind of thing.

You might want to write something else about why that particular kind of thing, or what are the benefits of working with you on doing that, or These are the things that you should know about doing this or.

You pick up the phone, we have a conversation, what happens next?

All of these things give you opportunities to write what I call sales page support articles, which you can be sharing out, which add extra depth to your website.

It gives you more keywords.

If you're focused on SEO, you've got more things to to find on Google, and it gives you more material for people who want to go down the rabbit hole.

They can follow those internal links and find out more about you and really build a picture of you and see that yes, you genuinely are interested in me as a client.

You genuinely do want to help me.

You understand that I don't get this stuff and I would like to know and that I'm going to need more information.

And it gives you the opportunity to share more of those messages about the features, about the benefits without having a gigantically long.

Sales page that somebody might never get to the bottom of.

Jon Clayton: Okay, so let's just say we have a.

Architectural services package, which is the key thing that we sell.

I know a lot of practices sell all sorts of different things, but you know, if they have a certain type of client that they normally work with, and, and maybe it's, let's use the example of, um, practice that does.

Works with residential projects, so domestic clients doing home extensions, that sort of thing.

You might have a fairly set package that you, you, that you try to sell to, to most of those particular clients.

So what we're saying here is that there's a lot of information that they need to know about, about working with an architectural designer, rather than putting absolutely everything into what could potentially, if we.

If we were very thorough with this, this could be pages and pages of information that goes on that sales page to actually, they say, well, actually, you know what, what we, what we need is this, the, the sales page needs to, fulfill that function of.

What is the action we want them to take from reading this?

We want them to maybe book a call with us or book an appointment.

And as you mentioned, some people will be quite ready to do that, to take that step, somebody else won't.

So rather than giving everybody this mammoth page to Wade through, we are giving people options and I think.

If you were to think about the all of the common questions that you are asked, you know, if you're a practicing architect and there's gonna be common questions that you're getting asked all the time when you're talking to prospective clients and common objections that you get when it comes to presenting your proposal and that this idea of having these sales page supporters, it allows you to take one of those things.

And you can go quite deep on it in that you could have a whole blog article that's just about why we charge what we charge or what happens during the planning application

Rachel Extance: Hmm.

Jon Clayton: or, you know, why, why we specialize in passive house design.

Why we don't just do, general stuff.

You know, why it's so important to us to use sustainable materials on our projects.

And that, I mean.

If somebody sat down and wrote, wrote down all of those common questions, like literally that, that could be their, like content for like a year or more

Rachel Extance: Yes, you don't need very many ideas because you don't need to be producing.

A blog post every week.

You know, even if you just did 12 a year, it would keep your website ticking over and you would gradually build up a bank of them and you've got, that gives you material that you could be using on something like Pinterest.

Where you can create your different pins with a different image of one of your projects and a nice heading about why we do passive house or you know, whatever it is.

And that gives you another way into your website, another way of getting yourself in front of people with a nicely designed pin that directs people back to your website.

Jon Clayton: Absolutely.

Yeah.

That that using Pinterest came up actually on a recent conversation with Heidi Uri, and we also did a episode a little while back with Faye Strange.

Specifically on using Pinterest.

So if you're interested in learning how to use Pinterest as well to tie into what Rachel's been talking about today, then please go and check out those episodes too.

The next item, the next idea was about news stories.

And I know that there'll be people listening to this thinking, well, well, what have I, what news have I got to talk about?

You know, so.

What, what news would you say is newsworthy enough for us to share on our website?

Rachel Extance: So we tend to think that news has to be something amazing, and that also puts people off blogging or I, I don't have enough news to sustain a blog.

Um, so the obvious.

Want people to think about is awards, which is great.

If you've won an award, fantastic.

It could be you've got a new person joining your team, so you could do a little profile of them.

10 questions or, or whatever it is.

It doesn't need to be terribly in depth or scary.

It could just be a nice piece about a memory of your team and you could.

Uh, this isn't a news story, but you, you could decide that one of the things you want to do on your blog is profile a different member of the team every two, three months.

You could choose a different person, and again, that's another thing you have throw into the mix, but it could be that you want to help people with things like changes in planning law.

Is there something locally that shifted?

Or something nationally that people need to be aware of and what that means for your clients.

It could be that you, your business is really involved in the local community, so you want to talk about a charity that you support, or maybe you've been asked to speak at an event, and those can be news stories as well.

It's opportunities for people to get to know you, people to hear you.

Maybe you have been invited onto a podcast.

Do you have a news story about your podcast appearance?

Where can people listen to you talking about them?

Jon Clayton: That's, uh, that's another batch of great ideas, I think.

Um, another one I, uh, Rachel is I.

We talked earlier about case studies.

I think actually as well that there's an opportunity to have some news articles about projects that then can back link and, and interlink with the case studies.

It could be that you, you have a case study that you are developing over time on your website about a particular project you're working on.

Maybe it's a big project, but then you might hit a key milestone.

Let's say you secure planning permission for it.

That could be a separate news article to say.

We're really excited about this.

We've just got planning for this.

These are some of the challenges that we had, and then that can then get linked back to that case study as well.

So yeah, it's, um, another, another batch of brilliant ideas there for us to be using on our websites.

Rachel Extance: Looking at those opportunities for interlinking.

In your website, those, those chances where you can say, we've written about passive house.

This is a project about passive house.

This is the background.

This is something that you might need to know about it planning wise, or are you considering this x Things to think about when you are planning this project.

So you, all of these things can link together, and that makes a really rich, lovely website for search engines to crawl around and get the hands on and go, oh, yeah, this is definitely a, a, an interesting place to be.

And if you're thinking about, oh, well, nowadays with ai, you get your little summary at the top.

Well, actually, your AI search engines like Claude or Chat GPT or perplexity you put in, you know.

Where can I find architects in or architect who would, I don't know, install a ground source heat pump or whatever, whatever it is, you know how, how what you are thinking of.

And it will come up with a list.

If you've got those things on your website, it's gonna find you and recommend you.

Jon Clayton: And, uh, I mean, aside from the SEO benefits with search engines, I mean.

We're really doing our customers a favor as well, because if we've got this really rich website that's got all of these articles on there and they're reading one article and it's like, ooh, there's a little link in the text there that I could learn a little bit more about, well, ground horse seat, uh, heat, sorry, put my teeth back in.

Ground source heat pumps.

I can click that link and I could read this other article.

And, uh, it ends up being something where people can kind of end up.

Binging through a lot of this content if they want to, if they're the sort of person that wants to understand and know an awful lot about, about what you do and about the type of project that they're thinking of doing.

As you said before, I mean there are still gonna be some people that just.

Nope, I'm ready to hire somebody.

I'm just gonna book a call and that's fine.

But we're trying to create a website that's useful for, for everybody, you know, so if there's people that do want to do a bit more research and, you know, learn about what we do, we've, we've got that there for them too.

Rachel, the other idea that you, you mentioned the last of the ideas was, um, about events.

So could you share, share some examples of this for articles?

What sort of events we could be talking about?

Rachel Extance: Yeah, so I saw this call, this event, but it can be pretty much anything.

So it's an opportunity to share continuing professional development.

So maybe you've been to a conference, or an exhibition, or you are part of, and again, this looks back to news.

Maybe you are part of a business show or something like that, but it could be that you've attended a talk or.

Even if you've listened to a podcast episode or, or read a particular book that's given you some inspiration or some things to share, it's helped shape your thinking.

Um, maybe there's something new on the market.

Maybe it's that people are coming to you asking about a particular area of planning and you're like, oh, well actually.

I did think this thing, but now I've been doing some research and actually you could do this.

Or there's this new something or other, or, I heard about this great idea on this.

You've got the opportunity to inspire people.

With all of these things, it's helping people with the art of the possible.

Most people do not know what is possible.

They might come with a fixed perception.

Of what you can do with their house or what your, what their project will be like, what could happen with their budget.

And you've got the opportunity to say, well, actually, there were these different options, or we could play around with this.

Or have you considered that actually you could do this thing?

And ideas that they wouldn't have had otherwise that can lead them to have a much better result.

Jon Clayton: Yeah, that, that's great.

Rachel, do you have any other tips that you'd like to share that you think would help make a great blog article?

Rachel Extance: Always focus on one thing.

Very often when people start writing and I'm, and I'm helping them with it.

They'll send something over and it is 2, 3, 4, maybe even five articles all in one because you feel like you need to put all of these things in.

And I sit there and I say, right, we take that bit out and that's an article over here about this.

We take that bit out and that's an article over here about this.

You have got much more material than you think you do, so focus on one thing.

Focus on what you want each article to do.

So what is the end result of it?

They get to the end of it.

What do you want them to have done when they've finished reading your article?

Is it that they're, they understand about something?

Is it that they're ready to pick up the phone?

Is it that they're going to download something from your website?

What is it that, that you want them to be able to do at the end of that?

And.

Read it back through and ask yourself whether you, it answered the question that you posed or if it sticks to the topic.

Unless it's a technical issue, you do not need to be technical in your article, so you need to make it really easy for clients to understand you are writing to one person.

I think that's really important.

So many people.

Try to write to lots of people.

Focus on one key client in your mind.

If you're, that's people living in a terrorist house.

That's people living in a terrorist house.

If somebody is living in a rural area with gas with, with oil fired heating and I don't know, some something else that, that makes them unique, write an article for them.

You can write about the same topic.

For a different audience, but make it specific.

But remember, people are not trained architects, so you are thinking much more.

How would they do this on grand designs or this is a slightly different one.

It's not architecture, but it's kind of similar.

Um, sort your life out.

What's the way of doing something which is applicable to somebody's home, their situation now, rather than thinking about, you're talking at Reba event.

You've got that, you know, what's, what's your client coming to you with?

Jon Clayton: That's so true, Rachel.

I think a lot of people make that mistake with their content that they, they make it for their peers.

So we have articles that are written that are like by an architect.

For an architect, rather than thinking, actually this.

This person's level, our actual readers that we're trying to target, the level of awareness about what we do is actually far much lower.

'cause they're not an architect, so they don't know any of this stuff.

So, um, yeah, I think that's, having that awareness of who it's for is, is so important.

Rachel, what, what would be the main thing that you'd like everyone to take away from this conversation we've had today?

Rachel Extance: That there were so many stories you could be sharing.

You've got an awful lot of material and you don't feel like you are over faced with it.

Don't feel like you've got so much now that you've you're really, really busy and you don't have time to write all these things.

You don't have to write all these things, but if you're not writing anything at the moment, you've definitely got stories that you can be sharing, and it doesn't need to be complicated.

Jon Clayton: I totally agree.

I love that.

Was there anything else you wanted to say about the topic that we haven't already covered?

Rachel Extance: I know this's a tip other guests have shared before, but keep a note of what you've worked on during the week or what con or what questions clients have asked.

'cause they are all perfect for writing articles about.

Also if you do find writing difficult, then there are quite a few ways around this.

Um, you could ask somebody else in your practice to ask you questions and you could record that conversation.

If you are, if you do it on Zoom, I know it might seem a little bit odd to have a Zoom call with somebody in the office, but fathom ai or do you a brilliant transcript.

You could also dictate into Word or enter a Google Doc and that gets you past that blank page.

If structuring an article finds hard, then you can have a conversation with Claude, which is an II AI tool, and that will help you shape what you want to say.

So there were lots of ways of creating blog post content without you having to sit down with a blank page knowing I really don't like doing this, so I'd love to do anything else.

Jon Clayton: That's brilliant.

Thank you so much for sharing those ideas.

Okay, so I'd like to ask you another question, Rachel.

Um, it's not to do with blogging or anything like that.

I love to travel to discover new places and I wondered if you could tell me about one of your favorite places and what you'd love about it.

And it can be somewhere near or far.

Rachel Extance: This is a bit too big a question 'cause I really do love traveling.

Um, so you already know one of my favorite places, which is Cambridge, where I live.

Um, I love it because of the green spaces.

It's a great place to walk around.

And then my destination for far, I'm gonna go Sri Lanka, which we went to on our honeymoon.

We stayed at a place called Ben Tota by the Sea.

It's got gorgeous views, it's got amazing food.

And, uh, for, for architects, there's a wonderful garden created by a landscape architect called Bevis Bauer.

So that's a nice bit of inspiration if you wanna go and do

Jon Clayton: Oh,

Rachel Extance: There's also a rainforest nearby if you like, nature Adventures.

Jon Clayton: oh, that sounds so cool.

I've never been to Sri Lanka, but um, it was a favorite destination of a past guest on the show.

Derek Timms.

We did an episode, uh, about outsourcing for architects, and he works with a team that are based out in Sri Lanka.

So he goes out there quite regularly and, uh, yeah, he had some great things to say about the place.

So, yeah, um, I've added it to my, like, growing bucket list of places that I would love to one day visit, but, but realistically, we'll not get the chance to, to visit

Rachel Extance: business club on tour.

Jon Clayton: Oh, that'd be good, wouldn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's organize that for a future

Rachel Extance: Stories from around the world.

Jon Clayton: Yeah.

Yeah, that sounds good.

Um, Rachel, thank you so much for joining us today, sharing your expertise on the show.

Uh, we're really grateful for that.

Could you please just remind everyone the best place to connect with your online?

Where would that be?

Rachel Extance: Um, I am on LinkedIn, Rachel Exton will find you, find me on LinkedIn, and then my website, rachel exton.com.

Jon Clayton: Okay, perfect.

And can you just very briefly remind us about your writing club?

Rachel Extance: Yeah, so I run Rachel's Writing Club.

It's for business owners who want to write like writing, but find it's always that thing that just keeps slipping down.

The task list we meet on Monday, lunchtimes 12 till one.

On Zoom and I give you a prompt.

So it's designed for pretty much any business to come and do it because whatever you write will be unique to you.

But I give you a prompt for something to write about.

We have a bit of a chat.

Probably go into breakout rooms, have a bit of a chat about it, come back.

Share our ideas and then you will write for about half an hour.

So it might be that what you get down is an ideas list.

It might be that you write a newsletter or a fully form blog post, and we also do co-working as well.

Uh, so that gives you that opportunity to come along and write something more in depth.

So if it's that you want to put any of these ideas into action, but you're not finding the time for it, if you come along and you write with me, you can have an appointment with me because it's much easier to keep an appointment with somebody else than an appointment with yourself.

And that's rachel nce.com um slash IWC gets you the writing club, and it also gives you my writing course, which walks you through all six articles that we've talked about today.

Jon Clayton: Brilliant, and I'll make sure that we put a link to that in the show notes.

Rachel, thanks again.

Rachel Extance: Great to be here.

Thank you.

Jon Clayton: Next time I'm joined by Catherine Turner to learn how personal brand photography can benefit your practice.

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Running your architecture business.

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This is architecture business club.