The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Architect John C. Gresko Discusses the Importance of Architecture and the Challenges Facing the Profession

Episode Date: December 16, 2023

Architect John C. Gresko Discusses the Importance of Architecture and the Challenges Facing the Profession Greskoarchitects.com Show Notes About The Guest(s): John C. Gresko is an architect and founder of his own architectural practice. With over 25 years of experience in the field, he has held various roles and has a well-rounded understanding of the profession. He is also a coach, helping architects improve their businesses and navigate the challenges of the industry. John is dedicated to advocating for the architectural industry and inspiring others to reach their fullest potential. Summary: John C. Gresko, an architect and coach, joins the show to discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field of architecture. He highlights the importance of architecture in our lives, as it shapes the spaces we inhabit and influences our well-being. John also addresses the issues facing the architectural profession, such as burnout, low pay, and commoditization. He emphasizes the need for architects to prioritize their clients' needs and provide value through their services. John shares his coaching approach, which focuses on improving company culture, business development, and individual strengths. He encourages architects to think of themselves as service providers and to consider the impact of their designs on the community. Overall, John aims to elevate the profession of architecture and create a more unified and successful industry. Key Takeaways: Architecture is important because it shapes the spaces we inhabit and influences our well-being. The architectural profession is facing challenges such as burnout, low pay, and commoditization. Architects should prioritize their clients' needs and provide value through their services. Improving company culture and individual strengths can lead to better outcomes in the architectural profession. Architects should consider the impact of their designs on the community and strive to create buildings that are part of something greater. Quotes: "Architecture is important because humans spend 90 plus percent of their lives indoors." - John C. Gresko "Architects are overstressed, overworked, underpaid, and increasingly commoditized." - John C. Gresko "Architects need to think of themselves as service providers and have their clients' best interests at heart." - John C. Gresko

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, Moses Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. The Chris Voss Show.

There you go, ladies and gentlemen. The Iron Lady sings with us when you know it's official. The Christmas show is on, folks. Welcome, welcome. As always, the Christmas show is the family that loves you but doesn't judge you, at least not as harshly as your dad did the time that you took apart his watch, his favorite watch, and didn't put it back together. But my dad will forever hate me for that.

And, you know, what are you going to do? It's stuff you do when you're kids. So there you go. As always, folks, we've been bringing you bringing you what three to four shows a weekday 15 to 20 shows a week for 15 years now we bring you the most brilliant minds the ceos the billionaires the white house advisors we just had one on again recently the pulitzer prize winners the news journalists the anchors everyone on the planet has been on the show except for anyone who's not cool. Let's just do that for a joke.

But be sure to refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives. Go to goodreads.com, 4chatschrisfast, linkedin.com, 4chatschrisfast. Subscribe to the big LinkedIn newsletter, the big 130,000 LinkedIn group, chrisfastfacebook.com, and chrisfast1 on the tickety-tockety. Today, an amazing gentleman who's going to be talking to us about architecture and the impact that it has in this world and how it improves the quality and beauty of our world, I should say. Today, we're joined with John C. Gresko. He's the founder of his company, and so we'll be talking a little about entrepreneurism and everything else and how he coaches people. people over the rich over a rich and diverse 25 year career john gresko has adeptly navigated various professional roles showcasing his versatility as a project coordinator office

librarian job captain project architect constructional administrator lead designer technical director and aiaIA National Building Performance Advisor. Notably, he served as the leader in Southern California, overseeing all aspects from personnel to products. Under John's supervision, the company achieved financial success and earned accolades for its work culture. For five consecutive years, it was named the best place to work in architecture in the country, highlighting John's commitment to fostering talent and innovation. His leadership shaped the company's financial trajectory and enhanced its industry reputation. He leverages his extensive career experience and has embarked on two entrepreneurial ventures, a groundbreaking

architectural practice, and a coaching business. Beyond his successful career, he remains dedicated to advocating for the architectural industry, inspiring others to reach their fullest potential, and contributing to the growth and excellence of his esteemed discipline. Welcome to the show, John. How are you? I am great, Chris. Thank you for having me, and I'm really glad to hear that you think architects are cool. They are. I mean, can you imagine how ugly this world would be if it was still, you know, the IBM man universe where everything just built is monoliths? Yeah.

No, I can't imagine that. No. The world needs architects. The country needs architects. And I've got a message about architecture. There you go. All right. And are you going to give me the message or is the whole show going to be the message?

Well, yeah, we'll unpack it during the whole show. Oh, there we go. All right. So give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? They can find me on Instagram at John C. Grusko right here above my shoulder, LinkedIn, John Grusko, X, John C. Grusko, and my above my shoulder. LinkedIn, John Grusko, ex-John C. Grusko, and my website, johncgrusko.com. There you go. And so give us a 30,000 overview of what you do

now and how you do it in your words. Okay. So 30,000 feet. I'm a practicing architect. I just started my own company six months ago, seven months ago. So I'm still a practicing architect. I'm still working in the field of architecture, the profession of architecture, but I'm also coaching on the side. So over all those careers that you've mentioned in my bio, those are all different aspects of architecture within an architectural firm and a practice. And so what I was trying to convey there is that I have a very well-rounded experience in the profession. And oftentimes architects are pigeonholed right out of college

into a particular lane in the profession. And I have kind of steered in and out of those lanes. It's about a 12 lane highway, about 12 different particular roles within the field of architecture. So I'm bringing a very well-rounded experience to the profession. The long story short is, for 30,000 feet, is this profession is hurting, and I know how to fix it. There you go. Why is it hurting? So the American Institute of Architects is the largest network

and professional organization for licensed architects in this country. It's about 100,000 licensed architects and probably another 100,000 of associated non-licensed professionals like the project coordinators that I used to be when I started out in my career. They issue surveys and they have social media presence as well. And as it turns out, there's been a trend over the last 20 years and it's been particularly building in momentum over the last three or and it's been particularly building and momentum over the last three or four as it came out of the pandemic but architects are overstressed

architects are over overworked they're underpaid and they're increasingly commoditized so as it as it turns out there's a lot of burnout in the profession and there's a lot of competition for creatives, you know, in the past, going back before the internet, and even just going back 20 years ago before the internet and social media really rose to where it is today. A lot of creatives went into the profession of architecture. If you liked art and you like to draw, you would go into architecture. And now there's a lot of competing interests for architects.

Scrap design, there's web design, there's social media, there's influencers, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. And then within the industry of architecture and construction, which are linked together, there's been an evolution of an entirely new profession in the design and construction industry called construction managers. So from the construction side of the fence, they're recruiting architects. Architects get paid more to work on the other side of the fence as a construction personnel,

as a manager. And they're having more influence on the way we practice our profession. So there's a lot of external influences. And then there's some internal influences like we lowball one another and we compete against one another. And as it turns out, architects are really not good friends to other architects. And I'd like to see that change. Wow. So we need to get architects to be nice to each other, basically. That's what you're saying. We do. We kind of, we need to get architects to be nice to each other, basically, is what you're saying. We do.

We kind of, we need to actually unify. And if we all would stop racing to the bottom on our fees and stopped commoditizing ourselves, we could all, as an entire industry, live better. As it turns out, amongst the sort of traditional white-collar professionals, architects, if not at the bottom, are ranked very near the bottom. You look at doctors and lawyers and engineers. Architects have always traditionally been at the bottom. It's not a profession you get into to make a lot of money. It's a profession you get into because it's your passion. And I have ways to change that for people,

which is really the premise for my coaching. So as a private practicing architect, now having my own firm, I'm implementing a lot of this, but also I want to help build back up this profession, which is, if it's not the first, it's one of the oldest professions in human civilization. And it's kind of first, it's one of the oldest professions in human civilization. And it's kind of due for some disruption. There you go. And so when you coach with people, do you help them maybe make more money, build higher billables, justify their service better, sell themselves better, etc., etc.?

Yes, all of the above. Yeah. There you go. So why is architecture important? Let's lay a foundation for that. We had David Camp on the show who wrote a book about nature design and health and landscape and architecture. Why is architecture important?

Architecture is important because humans spend spend 90 plus percent of their lives indoors so every indoor space was created by an architect whether it's your studio that you're in your house your office building a hospital police station gas station, gas station, Costco, grocery stores, every building. Everything you see when you're driving around was created by architects. And the reason that they're standing up and not falling over when it's windy or raining or snowing or we have inclement weather is because of architects and their teams of engineers. And that's important because you want things to stand up, last time I checked. Yeah, you don't want your building falling over on you.

You don't want your building falling. You don't want to know what happened in New York City this week where the whole corner of the building falls off. Of course, it is a 100-year-old building, so that probably doesn't help. But, you know, I mean, we've seen inspirational beauty, and sometimes it's subtle, I suppose, in architecture. Like, sometimes you look at buildings you like that looks really cool but there's something that's good for us a set aesthetically in

appreciating beauty whether it's in art or architecture in Making it appealing and I think it affects us in a way. That's that's not It affects us in a way that the enlightens us or makes us appreciate what's going on. You can look at a dead square monolith sort of building and just, meh, whatever. Do you want to work there? I don't know. But when you see something that has some uniqueness or some beauty, the Frank Lloyd Wright stuff, like that, that really shine out. There's a difference to it. And just, just even simple things from my understanding of architecture, I'm a layman, by the way, I don't know anything. I flunked second grade, but you

know, higher ceilings and lighting, you know, open windows that are coming in and designing these things. We've had people that have been on the show that, you know, they design special giant windows that that can you know block certain types of light but let others in and and in in in create an ambience in in an office that makes it easier for people work there and a lot of people really they discount that they don't realize you know how much is going on with the wizard of oz behind the controls well first of all you know you say you're a layperson, but what you just described was excellent. And I really wish more people in society really were

paying attention to architecture. That's one of the goals that I would like to see happen in this industry is for it to be mainstream again. When I was in college, I lived in Versailles, France for nine months, my whole junior year of college. And so me and my classmates were able to experience how deeply rooted architecture is in Europe. And it was very special. And there's a lot of just gorgeous, old, historic, beautiful buildings

that have the character that you're talking about. And then when you, you know, you now living here in the U S and of course, I'm born here and lived here my whole life, but you know, the U S has a very different outlook on architecture. We don't seem to value buildings for their entire life cycle. Meaning if a building is designed for 50 years or 100 years, we don't really, we look at first cost versus the cost of a building over the entire span of its life, 50 or 100.

A hospital could be a 100-year building. A restaurant could be 10. And so it's very wasteful to design buildings that only have a 10-year lifespan. It's a huge investment. And that brings to mind aspects of sustainability and green design and reducing our energy consumption and all that. It's extremely vital to this profession. But I would love to see more people give feedback to their city councils and their architectural review boards on the buildings going up around them and it makes it makes all the difference in the world you know i you mentioned

older buildings like i'm a big fan of art deco like i l if i go to la and you know there's a lot of great buildings in la that have that old art deco look one of my favorite places is the casino on catalina island this is so beautiful the the the artistic nature of it and what went into it the chrysler building of course the empire state building you know all these different buildings that you know they're just iconic when you see them in the frank ride frank lloyd right stuff i want to say weber for some reason why am i doing that insane So do you guys have the problem in the business where there's not a lot of influx of new people joining

it because everyone wants to be a TikTok star these days in the youth? Yes, it is. I think I can't say with any specificity, but my hunch is that again, there's more competition for creative, artful people. And so we're getting, I think, fewer and fewer of the top talented candidates into the profession. And they're seeking other ways to make a living. And, I mean, is it an income that's a deterrent or it's just hard work? Or, you know, does this everyone want to be a TikTok star these days? Everyone wants to be a TikTok star. I mean, the kind of money they should make on TikTok is unbelievable.

I would trade it all in for the money that they're making on TikTok. That's why I have an OnlyFans on the side. Yeah, well, I'm still reluctantly going to, never mind. So back to your question, why don, you know, why don't people get into architecture? Yes, there are distractions. However, it's a very conflict heavy profession. That's something I didn't realize when I was going through, going to architecture school at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. I did not realize how much conflict there is. There's conflict every day. It's a tough profession.

Yeah, let me give you an example. When you design a car, if you're a car manufacturer, and you're working on a new Toyota Prius, and you're going to iterate and draw and create 50 to 60 prototypes of a specific model before it gets released to the public. Okay. So there's not a lot of recalls, right? The goal is no recalls. Make a lot of money, no recalls. In architecture, the prototype is the final product. You are building it, designing and building a building. It's the first time it will have ever existed in that spot on earth ever. It's the test fit and it's the prototype and the final product at the same time, which means mistakes happen. If you're not, you're not going to build your house off on the side to test fit, test how

to make it and then build you the final product. You're doing it at the same time. So there's human error. And there is going to inevitably be human error in anything architects design and contractors build. And when you have error, you have conflict. So part of my coaching and part of what I'm doing in my private practice is implementing strategies and methodologies to navigate and handle conflict because it's inevitable. So let's just address it with soft skill training, but also some strategies about managing expectations from the very beginning of the project and reiterating them all the way through. So, Chris, a typical architectural project could be a year of design and four years

of construction. These are not short endeavors. These are long-term relationships also. These are not transactional, like you just buy a new phone and that's it for a year. You buy a building, you buy a site, you hire an architect, you design it. You're talking about tens and tens of thousands of hours of design time and construction time so again prototype equals the final product the process equals the product also yeah and and it and the value of the building can be enhanced by the architectural design of it in its appearance and it's you know how aesthetic beauty it brings to maybe an environment you know you can look i love looking across any cityscape and seeing the unique buildings that are there i i don't know why i enjoy it but it's pleasing

it's pleasing to the eye it's pleasing makes you feel good you're like that's really cool you know and you're like those other buildings are boring they all look the same yeah character is nice diversity and architecture is great too yeah you use a key word there that i think is really important character so you know i can look at most cityscapes and know the character of the city and know what city it's in so like i had somebody on the other day who's an attorney and he had like a big banner up and i'm like that's la in the background right and he goes yeah and it was a pretty tight shot and but i just knew the buildings and the uniqueness of the la cityscape and you know we find that appealing there's something there's an allure to it sometimes i think especially the big city and the life and the excitement and and things that go into it but even something like a home you know

something that's a a home a neighborhood, you know, the architecture, if it's unique, it's not a cookie cutter home, you know, that sort of Levittown sort of home. If it's a unique home, you know, and it's design, it's beauty, set of quality, it just makes all the difference in appealing and value wise. I think something that's more beauty. Do you guys find that in industry you know there's a

in many industries you know there's kind of the 80 20 rule where 20 of the people are the top dogs when it comes to really being the creatives the designers and whatever i've kind of found that in today's world it seems to be the 95 5 rule where the five top person you know there's not not everyone's running around being Frank Lloyd Wright. Right. Yeah. Designers, you know, some people are doing the, the, the, the work that, you know, still is great, but it's not, you know.

Yeah. It's not crazy creative. You know, I think he even went kind of broke trying to do everything he did, didn't he? Didn't he start making money? Yeah, he's not, he didn't make the money that he would have made today yeah i think it's more like 95 5 also if i was actually initially thinking knee-jerk reaction was 99 1 um there are so few architects that are known publicly in modern society frank gary is the one that most people think of as the one of the most famous living architects you know

based out of LA it's on a lot of beautiful buildings like the Disney concert hall which is one of my favorite buildings the truth is society still thinks of architects like like Frank Lloyd Wright like celebrity architects and really the truth is is it's very large teams of people behind the scenes the amount of work that one architect can do is very limited you really need in modern modern architecture really needs a team of a lot of folks behind the scenes and and none of them get the credit they deserve so i i really do think it's 99-1. The 1% are the ones that are published in magazines and are making a really good living. But I'm here to help the 99% behind the scenes, behind the facade of the architecture profession.

Sort of the unsung heroes. And so helping them improve you know, improve the quality of their business things, probably marketing. Do you help them with marketing too? I can help them with marketing, but you know, my, for sure that in business development, but my real, my strength, what I've done for the last company that I worked for before I went out on my own was I improved their culture. So it starts with having fun at work. And I like to have a lot of fun at work. I'm a practical joker.

Like I mentioned before, as we're getting on here, that I actually used to do improv at Second City in Chicago in the late 90s. And that didn't work out. So I stuck with architecture. But, you know, I like to have fun. And what I have found is that when people like the culture, the office culture that they're working in, they produce the best work. It's kind of the Southwest Airlines model. You take really good care of your employees and they have taken great care of your customers. And your business comes in the door because you have a lot of repeat work. So that's the first thing is I look at the culture of the company. Second thing, I look at how they're operating. And like a football

team, like a manager on the sidelines, I look at how the plays are flowing and how everyone's interacting. I help them with the proposals, how we write fee proposals to our clients. I make sure that they've got the scope of work correct the the remuneration the compensation is correct and then lastly i look at each individual player on the team again thinking of a football analogy is the quarterback the right person to be a quarterback or should they be a wide receiver right and so i will look at the different talents and skills of the people on the team and i look at everybody as like a puzzle piece everyone has any and outie parts to the puzzle piece

strengths and weaknesses and i don't think there are weaknesses in the professional architecture i think you need to just find compatibility like the adjacent puzzle piece and once you get all these puzzle pieces coming together and gluing together you're going to have a really solid team where you're playing to everyone's strengths because as i mentioned it's not one architect it's usually a team of five to twelve behind the scenes helping the one that you see on camera what would you what would you say to people who are out there listening that might be interested or thinking about getting into architecture or maybe they're artists you know what type of people get into architecture

are those the people that i see that you know they can draw something really beautiful they're you know they have that imagination that i don't have where they can you know they can look at a piece of empty paper and they can and they can put something beautiful down on top of it. They might want to consider this as a career business. You were kind of talking about it, Chris. It's how you feel when you see buildings. You know, what I've told people, kids in high school before, they're thinking about going into architecture. If you just go to your local downtown or if you go to your city.

So I'm from Chicago. I now live in L.A. So there's two big cities. I just tell them, go into the city, and if you can find a favorite building or something that really resonates with you, and you go inside and it makes you feel a certain way, because like you were describing, Chris, the volume of the space, the height of the ceilings, the amount of glass, whether it's really bright or diffused, shaded. Think about how it makes you feel. And if you're that kind of person that's affected by buildings, you should be an architect because that's what we need more of.

We need people that really have that 3D sensibility to how architecture can impact our lives. We need more of that. We've got a lot of people in architecture that produce a lot of ugly buildings and we need a lot that's kind of rude well i would be shaming buildings they have feelings too buildings have feelings yeah they're corporations according to mitt romney so they have feelings yeah well some buildings some buildings would be really sad then.

Some buildings probably wish to be knocked over. Oh, there you go. Look, I think this is... I think the one in New York was committing suicide this week. That's why it fell. That's why it imploded. It was suicide. It's just so depressing.

Yeah. Don't do that, people. No, don't, don't, don't. No, but I mean, really, I've, you know, I've, I am doing things outside of my professional environment. I'm involved in my community in other ways. I talk to people all the time. And I'm always asking them what they think about buildings. And the general prevailing attitude is, eh, architects, they just do what they do for themselves they're not really doing what the community wants to see and i hear that a lot and i mean there's some

truth to it yeah there's some truth to it the way we're trained in college is we're really trying to think about the project as our own as if we are these little artists and this is our build our building the architect the building isn't for the architect yeah the building is for the the people who use it so putting yourself in someone else's shoes and having some empathy for the users of a building i think is a one of the the best traits for a budding architect and there's so much that goes into it like i said we we had this one company on a while ago then they they make the glass for for architectural glass for building for big buildings and so there's there's different uv designs and there's there's ways that light can improve people people's moods

you know getting the vitamin d and stuff and you know just bad beauty but without you know glaring sunlight you know blasting into you know where you're sitting D and stuff and, you know, just that beauty, but without, you know, glaring sunlight, you know, blasting into, you know, where you're sitting at your desk and it's melting. Without the heat loads. Yeah. Without the heat loads. And, you know, it's, they're kind of designed to, you know, keep heat down for environmental, you know, energy usage as well. But just part of it, you know, is just the aesthetic quality. And it's really, you know, some of it's beautiful and designed to, you know, for what architects want to do that's really cool. Some of it's just plate glass windows that you see and you're like, I don't know what those are. They're just windows. But they do so much.

And, you know, people don't really realize it. You know, a while ago we had Michael Kimmelman, who's a, I believe he's a, believe he's with the new york times he's with the new york times he's an architect critic and writer and he started doing this thing and i believe it was during covid because the city was kind of dead and empty and they would do walkabouts where they would go around and and and he had places he picked out in new york that you know these architectural you know kind of interesting things like maybe the chrysler building or what's the building that's the it's a diamond shape that's cut and it kind of sits funny that's in new york fuck it's right on the edge but that that's kind of unique building it cuts a v through the road and and roads have to converge around it

was built a long time ago. I think someone recently bid on it and bought it, but he did a thing where they would walk around and they would do tours of walkabouts, if you would, of incredible buildings. Back in the early 2000s, Instagram was really big. We would do photo walks where we'd take photographers out and some people just bring their stupid phone cameras and stuff, but we do photo walks where you'd walk around the city and take photos and i've done a lot of photo jaunts where i've gone out i'll do day jaunts where i take the cameras out and then i just go photograph stuff so i've done a lot of la venice beach shooting stuff and so maybe there needs to be more of that like appreciation things to to get people more aware of the beauty that's in their city and some of the history.

The history and the stories are what makes it too. Oh, I love that. Again, I'd like to see society make architecture mainstream again. It's one of the, we're too busy looking at our phones to really care about what's really around us. We're too busy looking at our phones to even drive our cars, let alone look at the buildings on the side of the road. It's tough. There's a lot of competition. But I mean, I'm here to say that architecture is, it's one of the oldest professions. Humans had to have shelter and protection and security.

And that happens inside buildings. We need places to live, work, play, heal, be educated. And I think over the last 20 or so years, architects, not all of them, there are some really great examples of architecture. Don't get me wrong. But I think it's the industry that prioritizes the first cost of a building and through commoditization of architects, the race to the bottom for fees produces by no other way possible some of the ugliest buildings out there right if you're competing on fee and not on your skills and talent and not on your own reputation and abilities and you just have to provide something that meets the code barely and your client doesn't care about aesthetics or about even being part of a neighborhood they just need to get a building up get it, let's get out of here and sell it maybe. That doesn't really help the surrounding landscape. Yeah. I had a college professor, Dr. Michael Kim, who mentored me throughout my master's degree in architecture and civil construction management.

But he kind of coined this phrase mironic design and it's it's greek for being a part of okay okay so whenever we design buildings we should always think about the context uh around where they're going and and that's the the miros part trying to be part of something greater than yourself it's a. It's a great concept for every single thing on earth, but particularly for architecture, because the architecture has an ability to change the entire backdrop of a neighborhood or city or street. There you go. So is it more the issue of the people who are buying aren't appreciating architecture as much as they should? Or how does that work?

It's not the people that are buying. So it depends what kind of building it is. But let's just take a commercial office building, for example. The client might be an investment company, and they're just motivated by roi okay well roi is kind of at i'm not saying you can't do great architecture on a on a budget because you can but it's harder and and i think so oftentimes you have other more business interests in the development and design of architecture than the, the essence of what the architecture is for.

There you go. And so it's just, I mean, if you, if you raise the value of what you're pricing your stuff and what you're doing yourself and everybody follows the same format, then, you know,

there you are. We see that in the podcasting business where everybody thinks if you just get a mic and a phone and, you know, I have so many people that come to me and they go, I want to start a podcast like yours, Chris. And I'm like, I've been talking for 16 years and it's kind of my thing being a CEO of companies that you just, you have a mouth. But I also find people interesting and stories interesting and I love collecting them. I'm a story collector.

I'm a griot, if you will. So to me, it's valuable. But, you know, people say to me, you know, here's my idea for a podcast. I'm like, you have an episode. You have a half an hour talking points. That's not a podcast. And I don't know what you're going to. And that's why 98% of them fail.

And so it's interesting to me, you know, how many people can do the work, but if, if everyone kind of in the business said, Hey, we're not going to take this amateur stuff in the business anymore and let's raise our professional standards, I think it'd be great. But also coaching how to do better business, like you're doing, how to improve your game from across the thing probably can really help raise ticket sales or, you know, moving to higher ticket sales and whatever people want. And, you know, part of it is to, correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm not in your industry, but I've been a salesman all my life and I'm on a lot of companies. And the one thing I've learned is part of selling is selling the value of what you have

over something else. And, you know, there's a lot of competing interest in just about everything there is but being able to sell yourself as this is why i'm fucking different this is why i'm worth being paid more and this is why you should do business with me makes all the difference in in what i'm selling and while not everybody may not be able to afford it or may be able to see the value and i guess people like we see the value in it you know some people like we don't give a shit you know whatever the the people that i can convert will will be the the core sales and that's kind of what every company does it sells a value uh aspect of return for investment on value you know do i i want to pay the cable company 100 bucks a month well

if i want to you know enjoy you know some of some of these, whatever's on Netflix this week, I don't know why people are paying $100 for cable. I am, so I don't know why. But there's a trade-off value. And when it comes to high-end stuff, there's a way to sell that as well. Is there the same in your industry where you find if people can demand and sell better the value of their product they can command a higher ticket price yes that's that one percent yeah the one percent has the reputation and it's it's predominantly a an aesthetic driven big name um reputation the start the stark architects is what we call them. For the other 99%,

they're somewhat indistinguishable. I've worked for several large companies, some of the largest in the world. I've worked for small companies and I worked for medium-sized companies. And they all kind of blend together. And so that is exactly what is contributing to the burnout, the low revenue, the stress, the lack of growth for architects in the industry because everyone's doing it the same. And sadly, and I'm going to get criticized for this, but sadly, most architects in the business are in it for themselves. The big distinguishing factor going forward, what I'm advocating for, is that we need to think of ourselves as service providers, not the know-it-all master architect of the 2,000 years ago. We are leaders. We need to be managers.

We need to have our clients' best interest at heart always. And I have found the greatest success, my value, I think my value in particular is that I am my client's biggest advocate and so if my client says I need the following I need the building to perform this way and I needed to have this and that and a particular ROI I can do that for them because I understand I understand what they're asking for again this is this is counterintuitive to most architects most architects are are trained in college and And remember, we have to go to school for quite a while. So just so you know, to become an architect,

you have to go to an accredited school. It's a four or five-year degree. You can go on for postgraduate and master's, which will reduce some of your career mentorship time that's required, or you can just go out of a bachelor's, come out with a bachelor's and work for a while. The average time frame after college to become licensed is you have to acquire about five years of on-the-job training before you can sit to take six or seven exams. These exams take three or four years to pass, average. I've been doing this for 25 years. I still know people that are trying to take their exams and get through them now. It's ridiculous that it's taken that long. Everything in architecture is against the

architects succeeding. Laws and codes and regulations and architects beating up on architects. And now we've got really tough exams that are difficult for people, particularly people that don't speak English as their first language, pass them. And we need a lot of, we need more talented architects in this country. But anyways, my point was in school and even a lot of young architects have a very self-centered view on their design. And I'm trying to say, it's not the architect's design, it's your client's design. And when architects start speaking like business people and think about what the value, don't think about who we are. Think about what you can do as a service provider for your client.

That's what makes you more valuable to them. And that's how it is in any business. I mean, everything you're citing in what we're discussing today, these are all lessons for entrepreneurs, you know, even like coaches, you know, you mentioned how, you know,

everybody tries to do everything and look the same and it just is bland to anybody seeing it. And they're just like, I don't know what's the difference between these people and do you know, I learned a long time ago in sales, I have to differentiate myself for, and, and,

and infer or provide or be able to sell them that I have a higher value and that I can do something different or better for them. And as you mentioned, have their interests at heart. Every one of my sales teams is taught to ask people, what are you trying to accomplish? And shut up and listen is the first question to the client other than hello. And helping them achieve what they want to take and do is there an aspect of you know one of the one of the one of the aspects of architecture is you know protractors and and pocket protectors and all that nerdy sort of stuff is that one of the issues maybe with your industry where you need more i don't know joe nema type rock stars people walking around industry where you need more, I don't know, Joe Namath type rock stars, people walking around, you know, being more flashy and, I don't know, putting more pizzazz into the thing?

I don't know. Well, first of all, architects are the cool, are supposed to be cool. We wear black. Now, the engineers are the nerdy ones. They're doing all the calculations to make our structure stand. And they're the ones with pocket protectors. But now we all use computer programs now. We don't really do a lot of hand drawing anymore.

You know, can the architecture business use a celebrity public figure? Maybe. You know, maybe. You know, we've had our hand full of reality TV shows, like I go back to Trading Spaces. You know, and I used to call that show pimp your neighbor's house, you know, because you would just go and mess up your neighbor's house for TV. That kind of did a disservice to design professionals because again, it made, do you remember the TV show?

What was it again? The trading spaces. Trading spaces. So you would switch, switch homes with your neighbor for a week, and then you'd each change someone's room in their home, and they could be surprised on the following weekend. Yeah, or horrified. So there's a lot of shows that have come out. That's probably a show that's 20 years old now, but that was kind of the first wave of reality interior design TV shows and flip your home shows. And a lot of them do a good job, but a lot of them just do what's in the best interest of the designer.

And then they do that because it's in the best interest of ratings and getting good TV, TV viewing. It's not necessarily how designers and architects work, which I think is another, it's done a little bit of a disservice to our profession. I think people are a little scared of architects. What's this person or what's this team going to do for me? I'm giving them a lot of money, a lot of money.

I'm a little worried about what they're going to do. So now I'm going to hire a construction manager to manage them because I don't like conflict as the client. So I'm going to have someone else manage the architect. And you'd be surprised to know that in most institutional civic and public you know public and even some very large commercial endeavors the architects are managed by a third party because we have a bad reputation in the industry of just doing what we want to do and over designing wow then it's it's an interesting industry so you help people do that through coaching and stuff.

How can they onboard with you? What are some of the offers you have or packages, etc., etc.? So all the packages are on my website, www.johncgresco.com. The pricing is really tailored towards the need. So I think the best thing to do is to sign up on the website using Calendly and we could do a, you know, introduction call and see if I'm a good fit for you and vice versa. And then we go from there. There you go. There you go.

So give us your.com as we go out and people can find you on the interwebs. Look to John C. Grusko on Instagram. out people can find you on the interwebs look to john c gresco on instagram i post weekly tips and i share a lot of my wisdom as a practicing architect and coach on there so if you want some great free advice check out john c gresco on instagram and john gresco on linkedin x is john c gresco and again the website john c gresco.com there you go and hopefully we can get a new generation of people into architecture and loving it and stuff. I mean, we need more beauty in the world.

I get tired of seeing, I don't like Levittown cookie cutter homes. Yeah. I don't like it. I agree with you. But I see the point of, I mean, imagine function and form for some things. But anything that's designed better, you just see it and you just go wow that's really beautiful that looks really cool it just gives you quality of life have you ever driven through a master plans community i may have i think like in like in summerland or something in las vegas or hollywood i mean i've been through hollywood that's i'm i

live in south orange county now and there's a lot of unincorporated areas and there's a lot of master plan communities. And the difference in a master plan community is every road, all the landscaping, every home, there's a lot of character designed in. They did a really good job developing these towns down here versus some sprawling suburbs where there's no master plan thought put into it. The way you feel driving through a master plan community is it looks like there's pride in your community. And when people have a sense of pride in any neighborhood, street, village, town, or city they live in because they like the way it looks, it makes them feel,

guess what happens? They take good care of it. Crime goes down. People are happier. That's the value of architects is we can literally change the way people, we can influence the way that people use and work and live and worship in their spaces. There you go. So it's been fun to have you on, John.

It's been a great discussion. And, of course, a lot of this can be transposed onto entrepreneurism running businesses marketing or services and you know making something different you know and probably being a visionary i i don't know if that applies to what you've talked about here but for me being a visionary is something i've always sold in in selling a product and you know between steve jobs and and other people that have taken things and turned them into a vision that's excitable that's motivating is also a great way to sell as well and so i think that's a that's another bonus so thank you very much for coming on john we really appreciate it thank you very much chris i appreciate it too there you go and thanks for tuning in go to

goodreads.com for just christmas linkedinzFiles, LinkedIn.com, 4ChestCruzFiles. Subscribe to the big LinkedIn newsletter and the LinkedIn, what is it, 130,000 group over there. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.