The architects who specify your work should already know your name
Most of them do not. I fix that in your name and in your voice: your profile rebuilt, three posts a week about your actual work, and a week of hand picked invitations to the people who write specifications. You read everything before it goes anywhere.
No booking form. No discovery call unless you want one. Message me and I will walk you through what your first month would look like.
Long before anyone rings you, an architect has decided who they trust
Two industry studies say roughly the same thing about that decision, and neither of them is flattering to marketing.
of architects reach for a manufacturer's technical literature always or almost always when they are choosing a product.Building Boardroom, Intelligence from Architects, 300+ architects
trust marketing literature from a manufacturer. Nearly four in ten say plainly that they do not trust it at all.Same study
trust a recommendation from another architect. Familiarity outranks almost everything a budget can buy.Same study
admit they write specifications in a hurry, and 94% report difficulty creating or using them at all.NBS, specification research, 500+ respondents
So the name that gets typed into the document under time pressure belongs to somebody whose technical thinking that architect has already seen, or whose work a colleague brought up last month. That is the whole game, and it is won months before the drawing exists.
Word of mouth is excellent and very slow
You already know the arithmetic. The practices that know you keep you busy. Getting written into a new studio's spec takes showrooms, site visits, a job that went well and somebody who still remembers it two years later.
Nothing is wrong with that route. It is just narrow, and it stops moving when you stop.
There are more than 40,000 architects on the ARB register. You need perhaps twenty or thirty of them to know you properly. The question is only which twenty, and whether they hear your name from you or never hear it at all.
Four pieces of work, all of it in your name
Your voice, on tape
Two recorded conversations with me, an hour each. Materials, tolerances, the job that went sideways, the detail nobody else on site would notice. Everything that follows comes out of those two hours, which is why they are the only real demand on your time.
Your profile, rebuilt first
Week one, before a single invitation goes out. An architect checks you before they reply to you, and what they find has to hold up in front of someone technical. Headline, About and experience rewritten around the work you do rather than around adjectives.
Three posts a week, written as you
About your work, not about business. The choice of stone, the reason the joint is cut that way, what you told the contractor when the opening was 8mm out. Posts like that do the job of technical literature, which is the one thing architects said they use.
You approve every single one. If it does not sound like you, it does not go out.
150 invitations a week, picked by hand
Architects, interior designers and main contractors who specify what you make. Realistically 150 to 200 accept each month. Everyone who accepts hears from you within two days, with an offer of help and nothing asked in return. If they take you up on it, the conversation is yours and I am nowhere near it.
This is the whole pitch, and it is not a pitch
Agreed with you word for word before anything is sent. Nobody is chased, nobody is sold to, and nobody gets a second message unless they write back.
Thanks for connecting.
Quick note on what we do: [your specialty, in your words]. If you are ever weighing up a tricky decision in that area, on a live job or at design stage, I am happy to be a sounding board.
Nothing needed in return, just useful to know who to ask.
Your name / your company
An architect who has had one friendly exchange with you is in a different category to one who has seen your logo. That difference is the entire product.
Things this is not, and never will be
- No automation on your accountNothing likes, comments or reacts on your behalf. Your account behaves like a person because a person is running it.
- No bought audienceNo follower packages, no pods, no engagement swaps. The growth is slower and it is made of real specifiers.
- No scraped listsEvery name is chosen and checked one at a time against what you actually make. A wrong name costs you more than an empty week.
- No message you have not seenPosts and notes are approved before they exist in public. There is no draft folder I keep to myself.
- No guarantee of enquiriesNobody honest can promise you a number of leads. I can promise the audience gets built and that you will see the weekly numbers whether they are good or dull.
- No second seat in your categoryIf I work with a worktop maker, the next worktop maker gets a no. It costs me money and it is the only way the writing stays yours.
Being known is not a number on a post
It is how many of the right people would recognise your name if it turned up on a drawing. Drag the month and watch that number build. Each dot is one architect, designer or contractor who specifies work like yours.
specifiers who know your name, every one of them opened with a note from you rather than a pitch
Arithmetic, not a forecast. 150 invitations a week at the acceptance rate I see today, rounded down. It says nothing about how many of them will buy, and anyone showing you a lead figure at this stage is guessing.
One client, running since July
I have been running this for a UK maker of bespoke steel doors since 6 July. She had never posted on LinkedIn before that, and she still does not write anything.
The interesting part is not the graph. It is that architects and designers she has never met now see how she thinks about a threshold detail every week, and a few of them have started talking to her.
impressions, against under 500 the quarter before
new followers, mostly architects and interior designers
people reached, around three quarters outside her network
Figures read at the end of August, rounded down, never up.
What that proves and what it does not. It proves the right audience is being built and that the work is landing in front of people who specify. It does not prove enquiries, and I am not going to dress it up as if it does. Ask me again in six months and you will get the real answer, including if the real answer is nothing much.
Two hours at the start, then twenty minutes a week
Two recorded conversations up front, an hour each, no forms and no homework. After that, 10 to 30 minutes a week reading what is due to go out and saying yes or asking for a change.
You will need Sales Navigator, about £80 a month paid to LinkedIn directly. That is the only cost on top of the fee, and it stays in your account.
This is narrow on purpose
Worth a conversation if
- You make something architects, designers or main contractors write into a spec: joinery, stone, steel, worktops, staircases, lighting, glass, decorative finishes
- The business is steady and the workshop can take more of the right work
- You would rather be known by thirty studios in two years than get a burst of enquiries this month
Not worth it if
- You need work in the diary within a fortnight, in which case this is the wrong tool and paid ads are the right one
- You are at the size you want to be
- You want somebody to run your account without you reading a word of it
Stated once, no countdown, no chasing
If the number is wrong for you this month, waiting is a better idea than starting halfway. I would rather hear that than talk you into it.
- Fee
- £750 a month for my first three clients. After those, £1,250 a month plus a £500 build fee, which founding clients skip entirely.
- Commitment
- Three months to start, because month one is mostly the build and judging the system after three weeks is judging scaffolding. Month to month afterwards.
- Exclusivity
- One company per category. Whoever takes the seat keeps it for as long as they want it.
- Tools
- Sales Navigator, roughly £80 a month, paid by you to LinkedIn.
- Ownership
- The profile, the network, the conversations and the recordings are yours. If you stop, you keep all of it.
The things people actually ask me
I do not write and I do not want to start
You never write anything. The posts come out of the two recorded conversations, in your words, about your jobs. Your part is reading them and saying yes or no. The maker I run this for now had not posted once before July.
How fast will I see enquiries?
Slower than you would like, and I would rather say so here than on a call. Month one is mostly the build and the compounding starts when the network does. If you need clients this month, that is paid advertising. I do not run ads, but I will point you at someone who does.
Is this you pretending to be me?
It is your voice, recorded, then written down and shown to you before it goes anywhere. Nothing is published or sent that you have not read. Plenty of directors have somebody draft what they sign, and the honest test is whether you would happily say it out loud to a client. If the answer is no, it does not go out.
What happens to the leads?
They arrive in your inbox and I do not touch them. No handover, no shared account, no commission on your work. If a conversation gets technical, which it will, you are the only person in it who can answer anyway.
What if my competitor wants in?
They get a no while you hold the seat. It is one company per category, and I read that literally enough to turn down work over it.
How do I know it is being done?
Weekly numbers land in your WhatsApp: what went out, who accepted, what happened. Dull weeks get reported the same as good ones, which is the only way the good ones mean anything.
If it is not for you, that is a perfectly good answer
If it might be, send me a message and I will walk you through what your first month would look like, with no slides and nothing to sign. Worst case we have a decent conversation about your work.
Peter Solarski, Forge Lead.