2024 is nearly done.

What a year it's been.

So whilst you're finishing off your Christmas day leftovers, I'm taking

a quick look back at the year, gone by and doing a countdown of this

year's top five podcast episodes.

In this episode of architecture business club, the weekly podcast for

small foam 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.

I know that building an architecture business.

Can it feel hard, especially if you're a sole practitioner.

The good news is that you don't have to do it alone.

In October, 2024.

We'd launched our membership community to a small group of founding members,

including architects, architectural technologists, and interior designers.

We meet online each week and occasionally in person to support

each other in building our businesses and to have some fun along the way.

In 2025, we're opening the doors to a limited number of new members.

If you'd like to join this supportive group of like-minded

professionals, now's your chance.

Just go to architecture, business club.com forward slash waitlist, or click the

link in the show notes and enter your details so we can let you know when and

how you can join this incredible group.

And if you have any questions, just email Jon that's, J O

n@architecturebusinessclub.com.

Now let's take a look back at 2024.

Everyone.

Thank you for tuning into this special seasonal episode of

architecture business club.

This episode is going out on boxing day.

So if everything has gone to plan.

I've just had a.

A wonderful Christmas day with my family.

Um, We I've got my father-in-law over for Christmas lunch.

that's those quite amusing There's a little bit death, shall we say?

Um, so we do have some quite interesting conversations over the dinner table.

Christmas lunchtime.

And then boxing days usually.

Uh, nice dog walk.

Go out with a family, get some fresh air.

And.

The traditional thing that I do on boxing day actually is a whole ways,

make sure that we have enough leftovers.

From the Christmas lunch so that I can have my traditional Christmas

dinner sandwich that I always have.

So it's like a Christmas dinner.

In miniature.

I'm not going to talk just about my Christmas day experience, but I wanted

to just give you a flavor of what I'm likely up to as this episode is going out.

but we are going to be taking a look back at the past year.

I want to take a look at some of the achievements for at 2024.

So specifically in regard to the podcast.

In 2024, we released.

52 standalone podcast episodes.

So that was one every single week of the year for our 2024.

So the thing in itself, which I'm really proud of.

There were 13 solo episodes and I interviewed.

37 guests, which featured on the show.

Um, two of those guest interviews became two par episodes.

So there was a two-parter with Doug Hodgson from new works on, uh, mental

health and wellbeing in architecture.

And it was also a great two-parter with Helen Teebay, the sales lady.

All about what to do when sales are down.

So fantastic tips in that one as well.

And I had a podcast collaboration with Iowa bus, uh, from the

built environment marketing show.

So we did a.

A set of episodes where they went out on the same day on both shows and

they were companion episodes in one.

Uh, episode IO interviewed me.

And in the other episode, I interviewed IO.

Uh, if you haven't listened to that, that's also definitely worth Alyssa.

We've had.

As if the time of recording.

So between the 1st of January, 20, 24, up to the date of this recording, which

is now the 22nd of December, we've had 9,980 downloads, which is just.

Absolutely unbelievable.

Um, We celebrated the podcast first birthday in November, 2024.

And around that same time we passed.

A huge milestone of 10,000 total downloads.

Uh, since the podcast first launched in late 20, 23.

I also made my public speaking debut on stage in London.

Built.

And it was also that part of the year where we launched a free month trial

run of our membership community.

We've a small group of amazing founding members.

And we also held our first in-person meetup at a cozy Lyndon Pope.

And we had an awesome night together.

We had a meal.

We had a few drinks.

Uh, and some.

Absolutely fantastic conversation.

We do aim to organize more.

In-person events in the future because I do.

Feel in particular, particularly if you're a sole practitioner.

That that was something that I always missed the opportunity to.

Get together for social events and.

Just to meet with other people in the industry.

Um, that sort of thing, that it.

It can be quite difficult if you are working as a sole

practitioner in the industry.

So all in all, it's been a pretty incredible year for both the

podcast and for me personally, so.

Definitely something worth celebrating and.

This is something that's good for you guys to do as well.

If you haven't taken a look back and.

Looked back at your past year.

Like I always feel that this Christmas, new year period is

a good time to do that, to do.

A little review, just to kind of look back at some of the successes

and the challenges that you've had and to look at how you can make the

next year, even better than the last.

So.

I also wanted to look at a few of my favorite episodes for out of the year.

But I try to do this.

Like I was going to pick out a few personal favorites, but having looked

through the catalog of episodes.

There's just too many standard episodes for me to choose from.

I went down.

It was like, oh, that episode was great.

So was that one I really enjoyed the interview.

At the harvest.

That was a good solo episode that I was really proud of.

And I just really could not whittle this list down.

So I thought let's forget about that.

I'm going to skip that.

And I thought let's just.

Rely on the data to help us curate which episodes get an

honorable mentioned this year.

So.

We're going to do a little countdown of the top five episodes of 2024.

So these were episodes that were released.

During 2024.

And we're going to count down from five to one.

And these are the episodes that had the highest number of downloads in 2024.

So without further ado.

In at number five was launched your way to success.

Noble feast and famine with Sigrun.

That was episode number 44.

So here's sacred explaining the concept of using launches in your

business or why that is so important.

What do we mean when we're talking about launching?

A launch is a marketing campaign, where do you create excitement

for the product or the service?

Ideally ahead of time so that when it's available for purchase that they

can make a lot of sales in less time.

And this is what people do in online business.

Uh, we use launches to sell programs, online programs, online courses,

uh, anything we sell really.

Because if you don't launch, you know, if something is available

all the time and you don't announce to people what's special about it,

or there's no limited edition or, or there's no sense of urgency.

Well, then you're going to think to yourself, I can buy it tomorrow.

I can buy it next week.

I can buy it next year.

And you forget about it.

You don't buy it.

So let's say you have an interested buyer, but since you're not communicating

that you're only going to work with 10 clients this year or this month,

there is no sense of urgency for them.

And then they knock on your door and you're fully booked.

And then they're like, Oh, and they need to go somewhere else.

So by communicating that you have the limited spot.

Or limited projects actually, it's going to help you sell more

and you'd rather be sold out.

And again, it's very smart to communicate that you're sold out.

We're fully booked for the summer.

Uh, we're taking on new projects as of 1st of October.

You want to get on the wait list?

That brings another, uh, you know, influx of clients because they're like, Oh, I'm

not going to miss out on that opportunity because if I don't register here,

maybe I have to wait until next year.

And I don't want to wait until next year.

So it absolutely works in service based industry a lot as well.

Remember, don't forget to join the wait list for

our membership community, where you can meet other business owners

who want the same thing as you.

If a thriving business that gives you more freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment.

just go to architecture, business club.com forward slash waitlist, or

click the link in the show notes.

And enter your details.

So you don't miss out on this amazing opportunity to improve

your business and your life.

And if you're enjoying the show, then please leave a five-star review or

rating wherever you listen to podcasts.

Now, back to the show.

and in it before we've got LinkedIn post ideas to win clients with Nicole.

And that was episode 34.

It's Nicole's top tips to get more from LinkedIn.

what

would be the main thing that you'd like the listeners

to take away

from this conversation?

I would like them to, first of all, have a

look at their profile again.

And see it through the eyes of their potential clients.

you including all of the things which they need to know about you?

Are you showing a bit of personality?

Is your profile optimized?

Do you have content which appeals to them?

So that would be the first thing.

Then the next thing I really like them to do is John, really what you brought

up in the beginning, which is really to think about the kind of questions

they get and their discovery calls.

You know, when they didn't get, when they didn't win a pitch

or proposal, why was that?

It's that content they could be adding to their LinkedIn routine?

And then the final thing I would just like to mention, I would encourage

everyone to consider actually, do I have a LinkedIn routine, which

covers all the different areas?

I know you and I, we talked a lot today about posting and what to post, but, what

about growing your network strategically?

What about being active in the DMs?

All of these are key components of LinkedIn success.

Now, wherever you are, you can always take that next step.

So I just really want people to feel encouraged that they can do it.

And it doesn't have to be perfect.

Nothing ever is perfect when we start, but just enjoy it and let yourself learn.

At number three on our countdown was mental health and

wellbeing in architecture with Doug Hodgson part one that was episode 46.

There was a follow on episode, episode 47.

The second part of that, but episode 46 comes in at number three on our countdown.

And here's, Doug's take on how architectural staff could avoid.

Overwhelm and burnout.

I mean, as a profession, more and more is expected of us these days.

So how, how do you think we can avoid overwhelm?

Or worst case burnout.

So Tom, my business partner and I have discussed this a

lot in setting up New-works and we strongly believe that we need to, as a

profession, specialise and collaborate.

So what we mean by that is to this concentrate as individuals as individual

architects on what we're good at.

And be honest with ourselves about what we're good at, but also what we enjoy.

So, um, do, are we good at the creative front end, which is very sort of

client facing other consultant facing.

Although we delivered many projects as TDO, and enjoyed in part some

of those processes, we really came to the realization it wasn't

what we were, uh, enjoyed the most and, um, others were better at it.

So companies like Veritech, uh, who we collaborate with regularly,

they only do that delivery side.

They come in at any stage you need them to alongside you.

but they take over that lead design role really within stage three

through stage four and stage five.

So one of the things that we were just absolutely astonished

by was how calm their offices.

They're considering they only do that stage of work.

There's also a way in which contractors, um, deal with a company like that,

that they just don't behave the same way as they do to a young, design

led, small ish architectural practice.

they don't get those incredibly rude phone calls or emails or WhatsApps

or, you know, whatever it might be at random times of the day.

Which just completely destroy the working day.

You know, they have very strict structures, which are then backed up

throughout the, um, the, that their organization and it's, and that means

that the people that are working within that practice, within those delivery

stages are then they're protected.

They, their mental health is protected and they enjoy it.

And we enjoy being part of that, what we're actually enjoying more

on a day to day basis, what we want to be able to, to do when we can,

what we're excited about when we come to work is that earlier stage.

Um, that's our, that's our priority.

At number two, just missing out on the coveted top spot was 10 lessons

from 10 years as a sole practitioner.

This was episode number 17.

It was a solo episode that I put together for everybody.

And here's a short clip of me talking about the loneliness of running your own

business and what you can do about that.

I consider myself to be.

More of an introvert than an extrovert.

I like my own company, so I thought working alone would suit me.

And besides.

Some colleagues could be a little bit annoying, frankly,

a bit useless sometimes.

Um, I'm not gonna mention any names.

So when I went all in on my business full time and I left the other practice that

I was working on, I was really surprised at how much I missed having colleagues.

I didn't have anyone by my side to quickly run ideas by or to.

Sense check how to respond to a psych query or a client request.

There was none of those like water cooler moments or chats during the

coffee breaks about, you know, what we've been up to at the weekend or

about the, the TV box set that somebody was hooked on all the amazing gig

that someone had been to recently.

There is no more office nights out or staff summer barbecues or

Christmas parties to get invited to.

Running your own architecture business can be very lonely as,

especially as a sole practitioner.

And at times I felt really lonely.

Especially when we, we first relocated to Norfolk.

What I didn't realize at the time was that I was, I was craving connection.

Connection that had been lost.

So, if you're feeling this way, don't wait for somebody to call

you or, or wait for that event, invitation to land in your inbox.

Be proactive and seek out ways to connect with your kind of people, whether that's

in-person over the phone or online.

So Don't do this alone.

Go find your tribe.

And aim for the amount of connection that you personally need to stay sane to

make being your own boss is enjoyable.

And from.

Whether that's a little or a lot of connection, whatever works

for you is absolutely fine.

I suppose now would be the time that we would have a drum

roll or special sound effects.

So cue drum roll.

If we've got one available.

And in it, number one on our countdown of the top episodes of 2024, the

episode that had the highest number of downloads in the whole of 20, 24 was.

Episode 30, starting your own architecture practice with Ian Knowles.

Here's his recommendation for anyone thinking about setting up

that own architecture practice.

What would be the number one thing that you would recommend that they do

for thinking of setting up a practice?

To kind of go for it, I suppose.

There's only one way of doing it and it's kind of jopping in.

Life.

If you, if you, you feel like you're going to regret it,

you've just got to kind of do it.

Otherwise there'll always be, there'll always be a reason not to, there's

never going to be the right time.

And even if, even if it fails, don't be kind of, don't be scared of it failing

because you're not, as long as you understand or realize why it's not worked.

There's so many examples of successful business, business owners that have

failed, they really, the reason why they got to where they got was

because they, they happened to fail and they didn't let that stop them.

And they reflected on it and they changed what they did and it ended

up being something more successful.

So I hope you enjoyed that quick whistle-stop tour

through a few highlights from 2024.

We now have a treasure trove of over 60 episodes to choose from.

So if you haven't listened to them all yet, Then maybe it's time to

browse through the back catalog.

You may stumble across a real jam.

Um, I can honestly say that there's no duds in there at all.

So.

Please do go back and take a look at some of the older episodes.

If you've missed one or two of them.

And that just leads me to say.

Merry Christmas and happy new year.

And I will see you in 2025.

Next time, it will be 2025.

So I'll be looking ahead and sharing with you.

What's in store for the coming weeks on architecture business club.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of architecture business club.

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The best place to connect with me online, though is on LinkedIn.

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.