If you wanna stand out from the crowd, you

need those original insights.

You need to draw in your expertise.

But it's not just about having ideas.

The skill lies in implementing them.

You don't have to have been an architect for 20 years.

You just have to have the vision.

You have to know what's happening in the next five years.

It's not about what's gone before.

It's about what's coming next.

Welcome to Architecture Business Club, the show that helps

you build a better business in architecture so you can enjoy more

freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment.

If you're joining us for the first time, don't forget to hit

the follow or subscribe button so you never miss another episode.

Antoinette Chappelle has worked in two professions, heavily transformed by

AI and automation, yet has remained resilient and agile throughout as a

translator, she spotted automation trends early and pivoted into copywriting

in 2019 ahead of the industry curve.

And in 2023 she wrote Copy that to help fellow translators develop

additional revenue streams.

Guidance that professional bodies are only now advocating.

Antoinette now specializes in executive thought leadership,

transforming busy leaders insights into compelling long form content.

To connect with Antoinette on LinkedIn, just click the link in the show notes.

Antoinette, welcome to

Architecture Business Club.

Thank you for having me, John.

Hmm.

It's great to have you here.

Great to have you here.

I'm really interested though, we, we've got a great topic to talk about, but

what do you like to do outside of work when you are, are, you know, not busy

with the, uh, the profession?

Uh.

Yeah, when I'm not busy doing my day job, as it were,

running my business or spending time with my family, I've got two grandchildren,

um, who I love spending time with.

I go swimming.

I'm a big swimmer, so I try and swim every day.

Something I do that makes me feel better mentally and physically.

I do a lot of my thinking in the pool.

I think that's largely to do with the fact that my phone

is locked away in the locker.

There's something about the re repetitiveness of swimming.

I don't know.

Uh, I just, my brain goes into a different state where I can just kind of do

high level thinking and strategizing.

I dunno why, even though I'm surrounded by swimmers, often

manically going, you know, backwards and forwards doing the front cord.

Just, I just, so now I can't explain it, but yeah, I'm, I'm

always my happiest in the pool.

There you go.

That's what I do.

Oh, that sounds really good.

It re reminds me that I, um, I've been telling myself for a while that I need

to get some more exercise, and I did, I always enjoyed swimming and it's

something I haven't done for ages, so maybe I need to, um, to dig out

my shorts and get back to the pool.

Yeah.

You

so that's good time.

I am.

I am.

Yeah.

I'm not sure that I'll be doing, um, you know, lengths of the pool, um, so

to speak, but I, I might be lounging.

Co cocktails by the pool.

Sounds good.

Yeah.

Yeah, I could go for that.

Yeah, that's my more, my holiday style.

We are gonna talk about how we can use written content to build your

authority so that you can become a thought leader in your sector.

I think.

Probably the best place to start with this is thought leader and thought leadership

like I think people might have heard that terminology thrown around, but maybe not.

Maybe not understand exactly what it means.

So what does it mean

to be a thought leader?

right.

Okay.

What being a thought leader means, um, it means that you are looking at your

industry, you are seeing what's wrong.

And you want to change it, and you can also see what's coming down the pipe.

Um, the people I work with, they often have a bit of a fire in their belly.

They're looking at the status quo and going, I'm so frustrated by X, Y,

Z. Why does everyone do it this way?

It'd be so much better if we did it this way.

And then they start talking about that and they start and they, they've got years

of experience usually in their field, and they're just, they see the bigger picture.

They're visionaries.

That conversation.

Um, that to me is a thought leader.

Examples would include, A great example is Richard Branson.

Think back to the eighties or nine when, I think it was the eighties, wasn't it?

He started Virgin, you know, doing the flights.

'cause he looked at British Airways and said they're doing it wrong.

This is annoying me so much.

I'm gonna start my own airline.

We want people like that to be our thought leaders.

We want people who are slightly disruptive.

Another example might be not very popular at the moment, but, uh, you know,

Elon Musk, someone who looks at what's going on, say with the automotive and

says, no, We're gonna shake that up.

Um, we're gonna do things differently.

We need to, so I like working with people when I, the people I work with.

To help them establish themselves as the thought leader are people that are

passionate about change, so they don't want things to stay the same, and they've

got a plan about how to change it.

I love that explanation.

So clear.

In particular the, the point you mentioned there that the beginning

there was about, that they, they see a different or better way to do things

or that they, they're already doing something a different way and they want

to see wider change in their industry.

So it's kind of like having something that is, you know, maybe something that

you do or you believe that's different to convention that's different to the

norm that you can become known for.

That's really cool.

Yes.

So what are the benefits of being seen as a thought leader?

Okay.

The benefits depend on.

So if you are an employee, if you are a C-Suite executive, the benefits for you.

On a personal level will be that you are more likely to be headhunted, you are

more likely to be noticed, and you're gonna be offered better positions.

So you're gonna have that career growth.

Um, you are also going to help you drive your company forward because

executive content has eight times more engagement in the corporate

pages because, you know, we all know people buy from people, people engage

with people, and you also have that.

Knock on effect of employee advocacy.

So it helps with talent, retention and attraction.

So you're gonna attract the best staff if everyone knows who you are and you

are constantly sort of online talking about how fantastic your staff are and

your company is, and what you are doing in the latest innovations, people are

gonna want to work for that company.

Think of someone like Steven Bartlett, who doesn't wanna work for him.

Um.

You know that.

So that's, that's one thing.

But if you're a founder, again, Steven Butler is a founder, um, rather than

being employees, also an investor, but if you're a founder, it makes your

company a whole lot more valuable.

So if you have an exit plan strategy where you wanna sell your company in

five years time, becoming a thought leader is a really good way of

increasing the value of your company.

Hmm.

Yeah, there's some, there's some compelling, compelling reasons to, to

consider being a thought leader for sure.

Uh, that was an interesting point you mentioned about you mentioned about how.

Executive, um, content versus like a corporate page.

So I suppose like in the example of LinkedIn, would that

be, say, posting something on

your LinkedIn personal profile

versus the

the company page as the CEO

of your business?

Yeah.

the CEO of Mark and Spencer, for example, I follow him and

he'll, they'll have a new sandwich range, you know, seasonally different things

coming out, and he'll do a post about it.

And that gets a whole lot more engagement, I think, than just

the m and s corporate page.

And then they employees get to interact with their CEO that they

wouldn't normally perhaps get to speak to thought leadership as well.

It's not just about the content, it's about your comments following up.

Mm

you know, so people get to know who you are as well.

It's not just always about what's going on in the industry.

People follow people that they look up to and that they respect,

and whose values, you know, resonate with theirs so that to it.

It's,

It's interesting once you dig into it.

yeah.

Very interesting.

Yeah.

Let's talk about content.

When it comes to building your authority why is long form content?

Better than short form content.

And when we talk about long form content, I mean we're typically talking about

things like long form blog articles.

It could be a long LinkedIn newsletter, it could be a podcast interview like this.

It could be a long YouTube video versus short form being.

The little snippets, like the tiny short Instagram post or the 15 second TikTok,

you know, video, that sort of thing.

So why is long form better than short form when it comes to building your

authority?

Yeah, uh, it's not necessarily better.

I think you need all those things.

It's 2025, so you do need short form content as well.

But what I special in specialize in is the long form content helping people

either that want to write it themselves, so I help 'em with the strategy, what

they're gonna talk about, creating their content pillars and things like that,

so they're not talking about everything.

They're being strategic about what they're posting and when they're

posting it, they're very clear about who they're talking to, who their

target audience is, and what, what their target audience wants to read about.

And they're educating, they're adding value, they're informing

them, they're providing insights.

So what long form content does that short form doesn't do is it provides

an opportunity for people to go deeper.

And what I mean by long form content, as you say, it's blogs, it's newspaper.

Uh, newsletters, it's LinkedIn articles.

I, I think of it like a pyramid.

So you start at the bottom, you might do a blog, sort of 800 to a thousand words.

Then every month you do a newsletter, and these are things that, that I do.

Then I'll do a LinkedIn article, and at the top of that

you've got your business book.

Often thought leaders want to create a content library, and what that content

library does over time is demonstrate their insights and expertise, position

them as that thought leader in their industry, and then they start, it

opens doors to opportunities to go and speak, whether that be with the media.

On a podcast in a situation like this, or it might give them the opportunity

to attend a conference, be a keynote speaker, and that's what they want.

They really, they want to build that platform.

And a platform means an opportunity to grow their audience, and that

then over the long term, establishes them as a thought leader and the

go-to person in that industry.

Mm. Yeah.

Yeah.

I think, I think it does.

Yeah.

So, yeah, in, in producing that.

That type of content that they're able to build their authority.

And you mentioned there about opening up opportunities,

opportunities to grow their business.

And you said about, opportunities to speak on stage or to secure podcast

interviews, all those sorts of things that are gonna help you grow personally

and professionally, ultimately to be able to grow your business.

Yeah.

So what about SEO?

What sort of long form content do search engines typically favor

Quality content.

quality

content.

Okay,

So what do I mean by

Hmm.

I think probably gonna be your next question.

What I mean by that is it's well written.

It has the audience in mind.

You're demonstrating expertise, authorit and trustworthiness.

There's a lot.

We all know there's a lot of content out there generated by Chat, EBT and

other AI bots, and that's fine and that serves most businesses well.

But if you wanna be a thought leader, what, what chat EBT, et

cetera do is they'll just say the average of what everyone's saying.

So you might say, I'm an architect, I want a blog this month about common

five common problems in in architecture.

And how to solve them.

And that's fine.

You and every other architect in England can do that and you'll get

a very similar blog and it will address those common problems.

But there's, it is not original.

Okay, so it's not really going to move you forward and establish

you as a thought leader.

If you wanna stand out from the crowd, you need those original insights.

You need to draw in your expertise.

And it's not to say you couldn't use AI just to help with as, as long

as you prompt it properly with your insights and expertise, and then

you might get that polished content.

But people are getting very used to spotting AI generated content,

and that's why I'm now looking to work with people who want.

Someone like me, I've got this professional background of writing.

So having been a translator, I'm used to taking concepts in one language and then

distill what are they actually saying?

If I don't understand the source text, I can't reproduce a target text.

Okay.

And my target text has to raise if it was written in English in the first

place because we always translate into our own language, The point being that

search engines recognize quality content.

They know if it's answer, if people are engaging with it.

Okay.

And they want it to be well structured and well written.

It doesn't mean you can't use ai, but use it wisely and

curate it properly and edit it.

And

not every, don't do that and make sure you prompt it to use British English.

There's a big difference.

Localization is something we do, you know, in translation it's.

I'll get asked to translate something from French into English, and it will be my

first question, do you want US English?

Do you want British English?

Do you want Australian English?

Do you want Canadian?

Which variant, basically, and they're very different, but there's subtle differences

and people don't always think about that.

Yeah, that's so true.

Yeah, and I think just on the, the AI generated written content point

tools like Chat, GPT and Claude and all the other ones out there,

they, they are really useful tools.

They're great, they're really useful.

They can save you time, but they are.

Pretty vanilla with the content.

I mean, it's like the whole ice ice cream flavor thing, isn't it?

You know, it's, you know, do we all want vanilla flavor or, or do we want like,

you know, triple chocolate brownie chunky monkey, or whatever it is, you know,

Antoinette Chappell: So how do you find out

in that crowded marketplace?

Yeah, if, if you are, if you are just posting the same stuff as everyone

else because it's perceived easier, but you're not, you're not, you're actually

almost damaging your own reputation.

You are not providing value for your audience.

You are not providing original content, uh, or expertise, and you're not

moving that conversation forward.

Do we all wanna just stay in 2025?

No, we don't.

We want, the world has to constantly keep moving forward.

So we need people to shake things up.

And that's how you stand out.

That's how you become that thought leader.

You, you're not saying don't use ai, but use it wisely.

Yeah, I mean, it can, it can get you part of the way there.

It, it might be able to help you with an outline for something, but

then you can personalize it, you can customize it, you can add your own

tone of voice, those sorts of things.

As you say though, that if we, uh.

Over rely on it, that there's so much content out there now as a sea of

content, and you're absolutely right.

If you wanna stand out, we, we've gotta have something that's original, you know?

So actually putting in the effort and investing in, you know, being seen as a

thought leader, like it, it's as important

as ever, you know,

in the, the days that we live in.

You know, I'm, if you Google me for example, I dominate page

one on Google, and that's because I've produced consistently long form content

and I've got a book sale on Amazon.

Um, I was working recently with a CEO of a large.

Company turns over more than 50 million pounds a year, and yet if you Google his

name, he doesn't even come up on Google, which actually bothered him because

his children at school were saying, oh, you know my dad's CEO of X, y, Z.

And then they Google his name and then there's their friends

are going, never heard of him.

No, he's not.

You're lying.

That bothered me.

And that's why that investment,

you can see, you know, on a human level, people, they spend a long time building

these careers, but they forget that actually, you know, Google only cares

are you, are you sharing your expertise?

Are you providing value for your audience?

Are you leading that conversation?

And it's not, people always think as well, they haven't got

That's something I hear a lot.

Um, And that's where they can work with someone like me who will ghost write

it for and work with them very closely, establish their tone of voice, et cetera.

And they can just provide voice notes and things, and I can

turn that into monthly content.

As I say, other people want to write their own content.

It's, it's all out there for the do, but it pays off over time.

But it is a marathon.

It's not sprint it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not something where there's like instant, well, typically

it's not like instant quick wins.

It is something that it's a bit more of a long game, which I think it's

a bit like podcasting to be honest.

So how, how can we be more strategic with our content?

Well to start with, have a strategy.

So many people I see on LinkedIn, for example, which is the platform I'm on,

obviously, uh, it's a scatter approach.

They're just like throwing random posts out as and when it suits them,

different times of day, different days of the week, or they've been to certain

event, and they'll post about that, but they're not actually providing.

Any valuable content to their audience demonstrating their expertise, and so

they're sort of wondering why perhaps they're not getting the results they want.

If we consider LinkedIn as the biggest network in the world and it's free,

I use the free version, but it works for me and I get clients through it.

You don't need to spend a lot of money.

You don't need to have sales aggregator and spend 80 pounds a month.

Okay.

Um, You just need to be authentic.

You need to invest a little bit of time scheduling your posts.

That's what I do, schedule my posts in a week in advance.

Um, if something comes up that I think, oh, I really want to do a post

about that, then I can shift next Wednesday's post to the Wednesday after.

If it's just a kind of something general about thought leader.

So definitely have a strategy.

Know who your target audience is.

Know the kind of questions that they have.

What, how can I help them?

Put yourselves in their mind?

What do they say to you?

Is it your industry peers?

It probably is because even though you want to grow your business, once

you get respect from your industry peers, they will become your advocates.

They will start talking about you and selling for you.

Provide them with value first.

That's how then you are the go-to person and you're interesting like Yeah.

But if you've seen John Clayton, he's amazing.

His podcast is awesome, for example.

Yeah.

And he writes really good blogs and his newsletter.

Oh, it's so funny.

And I just love everything he says and how, how he views the world.

And that's what you want other people to be talking about.

You People don't really tend to ever.

As a thought leader or even know that they are, other people will

recognize it, and that's what you want.

When people are saying, I love your content.

You must have people say, I love your podcast, and it'd be random people you

probably don't know and you wouldn't.

Does that happen to you?

It, it does.

Yeah.

I, um, usually when it happens, I keep, keep it, I take a screenshot

and I have a little folder where I keep the nice messages and reviews

and, and comments and things.

Um, so if I ever need like a, a little pick me up, um, I just open

that folder up and have a look.

And then, uh, it just reminds me of the, the good

work that I've been doing.

Antoinette Chappell: Oh, that's really nice.

I love, that's a really good takeaway, isn't it?

I think we could all do that because I, you know, occasionally I get messages

people will say, I love your content.

find that really valuable.

Um, And you just say, oh, it is worth doing because sometimes.

You're not sure who you, you don't ever know who the algorithm's presenting it to.

You dunno who's read what.

Yes, you get some likes, but there's a lot of lurkers as well.

Aren't there a lot of people that don't comment or likes?

So you, and it's always a surprise, people you would never think would be

reading your post or listening to your podcast suddenly go, I love your content.

You're like, really?

Mm. There are a lot of lurkers for sure.

Yeah.

on LinkedIn.

Did you know I found this out last week.

I couldn't believe it.

Only 1% of people on LinkedIn actually post 99% of members

on LinkedIn are consumers.

So if you are a creator, whether that's long form content, podcast

videos, whatever you are creating in terms of content, you're in that 1%

Wow, that's That's pretty incredible

really

isn't it, when you think about it?

Yeah, that really shocked me.

Yeah, just 1%.

Wow.

Of us are actually creating content on LinkedIn.

The rest are just consuming.

Mm. When it comes to content, a lot of, a lot of content

that is created by, shall we say, professional service providers.

So, so people like architects?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Us, um, architects, interior designers in particular that

might be listening to this show.

A lot of that content that they produce, it can often fail to land.

Like, why do you think that is?

Have you got an interesting story about running your architecture practice?

Have you done something different in your business that's been hugely successful?

Or has a failure taught you an important lesson that you'd be willing to share?

Then why not apply to be a guest on this podcast?

Just click the link in the show notes to send us your

details and get started today.

And if you're joining us for the first time, don't forget to hit

the follow or subscribe button so you never miss another episode.

Now let's get back to the show.

they haven't got the right strategy, what do I say to people

who want to be thought leaders is okay?

Work out three, no more than three content pillars.

And what I mean by that, three areas in which you, you really know your stuff.

Okay, whatever that may be.

And then just focus on them, cycle through those.

So when you are scheduling, planning your posts for that month and

do create content planner, AI is great help for idea generation.

Say, these are my content pillars.

These are three things that I really will, can you help me with

a content plan for the next month?

And it will.

And then you bring your experience, your memories.

Your stories and you create those posts in a way that AI doesn't have those memory

stories, experience, expertise, et cetera.

But you've got the ideas, you've got the headings, and it's a starting point.

Um, and what also a lot of people don't do is realize that people, we

all know, people buy from people.

It's very important if you're on professional services because

they might know five protects who they're gonna buy from, the one

they know I can trust the most.

Okay.

And that's just how it is in any.

So show a little bit of yourself.

Not too much.

But you know, like you said earlier, we talked about, I like swimming.

People might like that.

You know, some people are really into their dogs or they're

into rugby or whatever it is.

We're all human as well.

Just show a bit of yourself.

So I've tend to, Monday and Friday posts are a bit more personal.

I try and.

Make them relevant to what I do, but also drop a little bit in about me or my life.

You know, maybe I like cooking.

I did this.

I don't wanna turn it to Facebook, but I just want people to realize I'm human too.

And you know.

I have this background life beyond being, uh, thought leadership,

ghost writer and strategist.

So that, that's the thing why people's posts aren't landing.

It just comes back to strategy.

They haven't got a plan.

They are just randomly posting stuff.

And don't go off on a tangent, don't.

Go and post about something you saw in someone else's industry

because it's not really gonna help you do that somewhere else.

Maybe Facebook, LinkedIn, I don't know.

Uh, Instagram.

I mean, don't do it on LinkedIn.

Stick to what you know.

If you want to be known for something, then just circle through.

Keep talking about it repetitively because that algorithm won't necessarily show

it to all your followers or contact.

So you don't know who's seeing what when, so just keep talking about the same thing.

So everyone knows you are the go-to person.

For example, John, he's, he's the go-to for, for podcasts with

an architectural spin on them.

He's that guy.

So whenever now I meet an architect.

In fact, I think I connected you with the lady last week, didn't I?

The

other week before.

Who,

and I'm like, well you have to meet John.

You have to listen to his podcast.

And that's now what I say when I, because now you are my, the go-to.

I know other architects, but I dunno, other architects that do podcasts,

Mm.

Antoinette Chappell: that's really your thing.

And I like that.

That makes you special.

Oh, that's very kind of you to say.

So I love that you bear me in

mind when you meet new people as well.

That's the benefit of your hard work over two years when you

set, I remember meeting you two years ago at atomic com, then you set this up and

I've been following you on LinkedIn and you wouldn't think someone like me, why

would she follow an architect's podcast?

But I followed that journey because I met you.

I liked you, you know, I thought he's a nice guy.

This is interesting.

I wanna see how he gets on following that journey.

Journey.

And now it starts to pay off where I, I can, you know, start connecting.

You can see how it works.

It's that long range, isn't it?

absolutely.

I've got a very quick question to ask just about your, um,

your content posting schedule.

How often are you.

Posting on LinkedIn is your platform of

choice, just outta curiosity.

Um, uh, my goal is five days a week.

Occasionally I'll do a weekend post, um, if it's a bit like last

weekend I did one a post about building your content library.

Um, So that was a long form article on LinkedIn and I think people have more

time over the weekend to digest that.

You'd be surprised how many people are LinkedIn over the weekend.

Um, So I thought that was a good time to post that.

I don't think people have got time midweek, you know, necessarily,

unless they're on a train or sometimes they do, but generally

everyone's sort of scrolling through.

Oh, I like that.

Like that, like that, you know, what was it?

They say that we scroll, I don't know, the height of the Eiffel

Tower every day of something's

Oh, no way.

I'm sure some people are, are, are worse than others with that.

Yeah, I try not to do too, too much content consumption and, and try

and focus more on content creation, but I, I know a lot of

people do like to sit and scroll.

Okay.

So, in doing this though, what, what's, what's the long term effect of publishing?

Quality long form content.

What happens if we stick with this?

Yeah.

What's the compound effect?

Uh, well, I think we just, we just talked about that, didn't we?

So now you, you're starting to get the referrals, the recommendations being

known as the go-to person for X, Y, Z. As I say, you are now, I'm, I'm just saying

any architect I, me, I'm like, you have to, I have to introduce you to John.

You know, maybe you wanna listen to his podcast.

Maybe you make a good guess for him.

I don't that as a good connection.

Um, I think the people I meet after having, I've written a business

book, so I help people with time.

Um, People are starting to see me as the go-to person of thought leadership.

So anyone they know that sort of wants to grow has a bit of fire in

their belly, wants to disrupt their industry, doesn't really know where

to start, they'll send 'em to me.

So the long-term effect is it takes time, but then you start to again get that

opens the door to speaking opportunities.

So I've got a couple of things in the pipeline and aside from this,

which is speaking opportunities, and I'm hoping to do more of those.

It's about being recognized as that someone in your space who's an

expert because they've demonstrated that you've built the trust online

by constantly talking about the same thing over and over again.

People know your value.

They know that you want to help them.

That's something people forget as well about thought leadership.

It's about giving back.

We spend years building our careers and all this knowledge.

And it's nice to share that with people who are perhaps earlier in that

journey, at the start of their careers.

Um, otherwise sort of what's the point, you know?

And are you creating a legacy for yourself as well?

Particularly people that write business books a great legacy.

It's passive incomes.

There, there are many benefits I.

And I think if you're listening to this thinking that.

Well, you know, I'm, I'm not enough of an expert to do this thing.

Like, you know, I, I can't be a thought leader.

These, that, that is just a narrative that you're telling yourself that's

not, it's not necessarily true.

It's not, it's not true because,

Type thing isn't it?

Or the para on your shoulder that's saying, oh, you're crap.

We all have that.

Yeah.

So it's very important to overcome that.

That's right.

You don't need to necessarily have been in industry for 20 years or so.

My background's translation.

I did that for since 2007.

I still do some translation work, you know, but I've evolved into

this space, um, through copywriting and everything I've done so far

has brought me to this point.

Where I, I'm actually very well set up to talk about it.

As I said, bio you read out, um, in my industry, I'm now getting

people asking me, can you please do a talk at translation conference?

Because what, it's incredible how I've sort of, I started working

with a business coach in 2018.

2019, end of 2019, became a copywriter.

2023. Wrote a book about that.

I was saying I could see that I needed to pivot.

That automation was heavily impacting my industry.

The rates were going down, it wasn't gonna get any better, and now we're seeing

other people worried about their jobs.

I, I feel like it's already happened to me.

So then I got to copywriting, then chat.

GPT came out at the end of 2022.

And you know, you can see how, in a way.

I was looking at my industry, nobody was saying, this is happening.

You all need to retrain.

Now they're saying it in 2025

and people are saying, can you please come and talk about it?

Because you've now moved and evolved into all these other things.

See what I mean?

Um, and so I feel like I do have some experience of having seen an industry go

through massive change and also having had a bit of foresight about I need to evolve.

this isn't sustainable.

Uh.

And and then happened not only in transition, but in copywriting.

And now I'm here and I'm like, yeah, I, I have a fire in my belly about this

subject because it's kind of happened to me and people need to speak up.

Don't wait for your industry, don't wait for the establishment.

'cause the establishment doesn't want things to change

so off often.

Yeah.

It, it's almost like academia, you know, they're kind of stuck in their ways

and they want things to be status quo.

Yeah.

It's so, um, so brave of you that, I mean, you were ahead of the curve

with this and I think that there are certainly in architecture that

there's similar things going on.

There's a lot of changes, there's new tools coming out all the

time, and I think that the.

The industry's gonna be really different in a few years.

You know, I, I just think that there is so many AI tools and automations and things

that are coming out that I, I can't see things being the same as they are now.

Like, if you're still doing things the old way, then you, you're gonna get

left behind because somebody else is gonna be, be able to do produce work.

As well, if not better than you've been producing in less

time with less resources.

And if you keep doing it the old way, then you are gonna get left behind.

So it's um,

definitely.

But

It's survival of the fit, isn't it?

It's that evolutionary idea of Darwin, isn't it?

Evolve or die.

And I think that's so happening across the board in so many professions and

industries, and people have to realize that there's no such thing as a job for

life or a career for life, everything.

We have to be very agile.

We have to be creative, but it's not just about having ideas.

The skill lies in implementing them.

So you wanna be a thought leader.

You can see people in your space, the architects, if you can see what's

wrong, where people, where's your look forward, where do you see an architect?

What do you see an architect's job looking like in 20 28, 20 30, right?

Start working towards that.

If you, and I'm a bit anti sort of qualifications now

because why chatty BT knows.

Every language.

There's no point in me learning it, you know, I mean it, nurse,

I can do it for a hobby, but I'm talking about professionally.

Um, I don't see the value in it.

What I see the value in is us having ideas about how to move our

industries and businesses forward in a creative way, use using AI as, as an

assistant, you know, a low as it were.

Um, And it's, I'm actually exploring an idea where I

create a SAS product using ai.

And I think that's the thing, isn't it?

And, and follow Daniel Pri.

Daniel Pricy.

I dunno if you follow him.

I like his take on things

I,

actually the, the,

yeah.

the creator era.

But we have to, we can't just be a creative, we can't, he says this,

you can't just have those ideas.

You have to do something with them.

And that's, that's clever.

That's where the successful people are gonna be,

Mm.

That's the difference.

Yeah.

I think that

So start writing your content now.

Build that content library, is my advice to people.

Become that thought leader.

You don't have to have been an architect for 20 years.

You just have to have the vision.

You have to know what's happening in the next five years.

You have to be able to see that it's not about what's gone before.

It's about what's coming next.

Oh, I love that.

I love that.

That's makes people a

thought leader.

Something else I wanted to talk about before we, we, we wrap things

up today is, um, you also work with.

Property Connects networking, uh, which I think that's gonna be

really interesting for our audience.

Could you share a little bit about that please?

And just

tell us what that is?

So Property Connect networking has been running for 20 years.

I'm the director of communications and I work closely with Alex

Butterworth and Keith Keith Glenister, and they're the founders.

So they set it up 20 years ago as a very informal, authentic old school

networking where you get together.

It's usually in a pub.

Uh, we have them up and down the country.

Um, people just talk.

We don't have any speeches.

We don't have any sort of 60 seconds, no pitches, no talks, nothing.

It is literally you have to work the room.

And we have some really, really high hitting players coming.

So especially our flagship London Bridge, which I co-host,

I also co-host the Brighton one.

We are growing that network, so we have people coming from the north down to

our southern groups and vice versa.

I, I recently, in May, I was up at the Liverpool one and planning on going up

to the LEED one and hopefully September.

Um, we've got our north up there, James Mitchie.

Um, Yeah, and we're just, we're just growing it because people are

actually, I think post pandemic, they're really craving that authentic

face-to-face networking and.

People don't always wanna, there are plenty of groups that do

the talks, that do the pitches, but that's not what we're about.

We're old school authentic networking.

So it is designed for anyone in property construction or facilities management.

So anyone in your listeners, you know, who's an architect them more than

welcome to come along and they will meet developers and other people that

work in that space, in those industries.

Mm. Sounds really good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel like I should,

I should come along to one of these events And uh,

come

and

tag along too.

I don't think we've got one in East Anglia.

You could open a group.

We're always open to people who wanna run a new group.

You could perhaps have one in Norfolk.

Oh, okay.

Cool.

Yeah, that'd be good.

Yeah, I, well, maybe I'll, um, I'll speak to you about that.

one other thing about that, we're also looking for sponsors.

So we've got our 20 year anniversary next year.

It's gonna be a big black tie event in London.

Can't wait working on the details at the moment.

Um, So yeah, we're also looking for sponsors for those events and

we'll happily support you and, you know, be part of our social

media campaign if you sponsor an event, if anyone wants to do that.

Oh, sounds really cool.

Well, I'll, um, I'll, I'll put a link in the, the show notes to the property

connect networking as well so people can find that and, and go and check it out.

Go and attend one of those events.

Antoinette, what?

What would be the main thing that you'd like people to take away from

our conversation?

The main thing I'd like 'em to take away,

not everyone out there probably wants to be a thought leader.

Not everyone wants to be in the limelight, but if you're on LinkedIn, please just

take away what it's, have a strategy.

Think about what you're posting.

Think about when thinking about why.

about your target audience.

What value can you add for them?

What insights can you share?

What tips can you give them that will make their their life better and just

build the, the valuable content library?

That's my advice for everyone.

Good advice.

Thank you for that.

Was there anything else you wanted to add that we haven't already covered

about the topic?

No, I think it's been quite comprehensive.

Unless there's any, anything else you wanna ask me that

you think I've not covered?

Well, I do, I do have one more question that I wanna

ask, but it's not about the topic.

Um, so I, I love to travel and to discover new places, and I wondered if

you could tell me one of your favorite places and what you'd love about it.

This could be somewhere near or far.

For me, my favorite foreign destination is Florence.

Um, the reason being, when I did my first degree, which was in modern

foreign languages and I did French and Italian, I got my third year, I spent

six months in Florence and I was 21.

This is, gosh, 1994.

It's a long time ago, but it's before the internet.

I remember coming back the year after was my final year, and someone in the library

at uni said there's this thing called the worldwide web, and we've got one computer.

You can look things up.

I'm gonna do that.

There's a whole library full of books anyway, so it was a very different world.

So I I, I'd been to Italy once when I was 12 on a ski trip,

but I'd never really seen it.

How beautiful Italy was.

So Florence is somewhere I absolutely love.

It's very gots very special place in my heart and I really enjoyed

living there for six months.

Um, You've got the history, your architecture, your It's just beautiful.

Um, And it always has this kind of pink glows, how I remember it.

The skyes often pink and you go to Pi, Michelangelo and you can look down over

the city, and it was just stunning.

So that's one of my favorite places.

If people haven't been to Florence, I highly recommend it.

Make a great weekend away.

There you go.

absolutely.

I visited Florence oh geez, it would be over 20 years ago now.

So I was in my early twenties on a backpacking trip around Europe and

um, it was one of the, just one of many places that I visited and, um.

Yeah, I, I, from what I recall, I, I think I had a great time while I was there.

I don't remember too many specifics.

I think my friend and I, a lot of our interests were more like,

you know, where's, where's,

the pub?

You know, that was

well there were, I remember when I was there,

I, I worked in an English pub actually, which is interesting, run by three

Italians from growing up in Nottingham.

It's very strange.

It's not there anymore.

It's called the Robin Hood, because they're noting, but there were,

we had three Irish bars as well.

I mean, I think that's the thing, wherever you go in the world, there's

always an Irish pub, isn't there?

Yeah, I would, I would caveat this to say that now if I

go away, I'm, I am, uh, you know, a bit more cultured than I used to be.

I, I still do enjoy a drink, but like, you know, um, it, I'm not like I was in my

early twenties when it was

No, you have different priorities, don't

you, when you're in your twenties.

I also think when people do sort of inter raining, uh, it can be a bit

overwhelming 'cause you're seeing all these beautiful city, everyday new one.

But when you just.

Go and spend time in one place.

I suppose it's that focus, it's a bit like coming back to short form content.

Um, Long form content is like going to Florence, on that.

Okay.

Um, You know, you provide that depth and that, that just, yeah.

More powerful experience.

Whereas short form content can be a bit like, yeah, get on a train.

Get off a train, okay, this, that, but where's the actual long term value?

I'm

Yeah.

Yeah, I think they call it, it's like slow travel, isn't it?

It's, it's more that sort of approach.

Yeah.

Which that sounds, that sounds pretty good to me.

So, Antoinette, I really enjoyed the conversation today.

Thank you so much for being a

guest on the show.

Really do appreciate it.

Where, where's the best place

online for people to connect with you?

Oh, LinkedIn, just find me on LinkedIn.

Antoinette

Chapel.

Oh, okay.

okay.

I shall put the, your, your LinkedIn profile link in the

show notes and, um, yeah.

Thank, thanks again.

Oh, one other question.

Would you like to tell us your website address as well?

If people would like

to

learn more about you on your website?

So my company is called Arc a RC, arc

Writing and Translation Services.

You can find me at www dot arc, so arc wts.co uk.

Perfect.

Thanks again.

Okay.

you.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode

of Architecture Business Club.

If you liked this episode, think other people might enjoy it or just want to

show your support for the show, then please leave a five star review or

rating wherever you listen to podcasts.

It would mean so much to me and it makes it easier for new

listeners to discover the show.

And if you haven't done so already, don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe

button so you never miss another episode.

And if you'd like to connect with me online, you can do that

on most social media platforms.

Just search for @mrjonclayton.

The best place to connect with me online is LinkedIn and you can find a

link to my profile in the show notes.

Remember running your architecture business doesn't have to be hard

and you don't need to do it alone.

This is Architecture Business Club.