This is the transcript from EntreArchitect Podcast Episode 225, Growing Beyond the Sole Practitioner.
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Mark R. LePage:
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Mark R. LePage:
My name is Mark R. LePage and you are listening to EntreArchitect podcast where I speak with inspiring, passionate people who share their knowledge and expertise all to help you build a better business as a small firm entrepreneur architect. This is episode 225 and this week my friend Cavin Costello is back from The Ranch Mine and he’s back to talk about Growing Beyond the Sole Practitioner.
Mark R. LePage:
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Cavin Costello, welcome back to EntreArchitect podcast. It’s great having you back. You were in Episode 138, How to Design and Sell Modern Architecture, which was a great introduction to you and your firm. During that episode you had mentioned that your partners with your wife. I’m partners with my wife and so I wanted to have Claire, your wife come back with you and you did back in Episode 154 and we talked about How to Succeed as a Married Couple in Architecture, which was a great episode too. Because that’s a question that we get all the time how do I as a married to my partner, how do I run my firm? So that was a great episode. So anybody who has that question, go back to episode 154, and go check that out.
It’s been awhile since you were here. This is episode 225 and so it’s been awhile since you’ve been here, so I’d love for you to, share what’s going on with you and The Ranch Mine. But before that, let me just let people know who you are in case they haven’t listened to those other episodes. And then we’ll get into a little bit of your origin story and we’ll talk about what’s going on in your life. Cavin Costello is a multiple national award winning architect based in Phoenix, Arizona. He started the firm The Ranch Mine at the age of 24 with wife Claire in January of 2010 and, not settling for a hard hit economy to dictate their next move, they bought a fixer upper and experienced firsthand the trials and tribulations of a major renovation.
The two continued paving their own path, developing the first Phoenix Green Construction Code project, designing for Visionary Real Estate Developers and creating inspired homes for unique homeowners. Cavin and Claire have continued to push the envelope in designing for Pioneer Spirit, which won then the 2015 National American Institute of Architects contest the that named them the future of architecture. That’s pretty cool. I would agree to that. That landed them features on the NBC Today Show and with HGTV and have their work published in numerous publications such as the 150 Best Places, Best of the Best House Ideas, Architectural Record, Dwell Magazine, Atomic Ranch Magazine, Luxe Magazine, and websites all over the place such as Design Milk, Arch Daily, Dezeen. So if you haven’t seen them, I’m sure you will. Cavin, welcome back. It sounds like you’ve been busy. I want to hear what’s going on over at The Ranch Mine, how you;ve been.
Cavin Costello:
Good. I appreciate you having me back on and having the ability to speak again.
Mark R. LePage:
Yeah. Yeah. I always love talking with you. You have a great portfolio, a great firm. You’re very inspiring what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. So I love bringing back and sharing your story with our listeners. It’s been awhile. So why don’t you go back to your origin story, your full origin stories back in Episode 138, but why don’t you just sort of remind us of who you are, where you came from and then where you are today?
Cavin Costello:
I grew up in east coast in Connecticut, went to school in Boston, got my undergraduate and master’s degree in architecture, and then in 2009 after graduating I moved to Phoenix, Arizona, to experience a new way of life. Then when I moved out here it was basically the beginning or maybe the height of the recession, I don’t know what you would call it, early 2009 and there’s no jobs. So that’s when I met my wife to be Claire and we decided to buy a cheap foreclosed house and fix it up, to live in and potentially sell. We ended up just staying in it, but we got that house, a published on the front page of the Arizona Republic, the main newspaper here, and then just started getting a phone calls to do smaller projects. We got our bathroom published, we started with bathrooms, and bathrooms and kitchens and then sort of full house remodel, and then remodels and additions and then that led to some new build houses and then some, some town homes and sort of have just built it up step by step over the past eight years or so. Today we are still working out of that same house and we now have two employees since we last spoke, a one that we hired last week and a one that’s been with us for about six months.
Mark R. LePage:
That must’ve been a big step. Especially still working out of the house.
Cavin Costello:
Yes. It’s definitely been an interesting transition. We do have plans to create an office for ourself that it’s somewhat detached from the house, but for the time being, yes. It’s definitely, , going from just a husband and wife to having someone, that you previously didn’t know in your house every day is definitely a step in the way that you live at work. So there was, it was definitely a big transition.
Mark R. LePage:
So I want to dive into this a little bit about hiring and the process and the psychology and the emotion that goes with hiring that first employee and then, and then committing to a second employee because I think a lot of us in this community are in that position. We’re sole practitioners with very small firms, and to get from that working by yourself mode or working with a partner to hiring somebody that is a huge step. It takes a lot of courage and it takes a lot of emotion and there’s a lot of psychology behind it. Especially when you have a home office, you’re going to invite somebody into your home to work. Do you have dedicated workspace or is it sort of your house is your basically house?
Cavin Costello:
So you’re literally inviting this person into your house to work with you and you’re partners with your wife. That’s a whole other level of this. Can you talk about a little bit about the process of what triggered this sense? Okay. We need to hire somebody. , what was that like, let’s start there.
Sure. It started probably about maybe a year and a half ago actually. We started to get so much worse than even, , working a good amount of time. Our projects, it’s not that we weren’t able to complete them, but they were going too slow for the ability to be able to keep up with what we wanted to be able to do. So at that point we actually hired someone part time first, that was sort of moonlighting from their current job to get some after our work to help us with some construction documents.
Mark R. LePage:
How’d that work out?
Cavin Costello:
It worked out okay. I think it was difficult because there wasn’t the immediate, the speed increased a little bit, but it wasn’t as immediate as we had sort of hoped. We would get about 10 hours a week. But it was kind of a not every day kind of situation, , maybe they do two hours then and then four hours then, it wasn’t as consistent as sometimes you need it to be when you really need to push something out.
Mark R. LePage:
Is that because they’re working somewhere else and they’re not totally committed to you or where is it that you just didn’t have them working enough hours?
Cavin Costello:
They were working somewhere else and so it was kind of a second job for them. So we didn’t really have the capacity or really didn’t want to push them to an extreme. So it was really just a dipping the toe into the water kind of scenario, which helped a little bit. We set up a Dropbox at that time, so we have all our stuff on Dropbox and we were able to work remotely and we did start to figure out certain small things of how we needed to work that way, without a large expenditure because we’re doing it just on a per project fee. That worked out okay. But it definitely was only able to handle so much. And then, about last summer, we just, we got a bunch of projects in a span of a few weeks and just realized, okay, I think we’re gonna have to bump this up.
And we felt pretty confident because we basically got enough work to handle a simple salary for both of us as well as employees for a year. So we felt like we had a good buffer to be able to pay the employee, and ourselves for a significant amount of time to where, if something were to go wrong, we would have a little bit of a fallback. So we took the plunge and we would get emails asking about if we had job openings relatively frequently. And so, at the time it worked out, we got one that worked pretty well and had a skillset that was good for us just out of college. A graduate.
Mark R. LePage:
So you didn’t, you didn’t advertise, you just didn’t advertise for the next one to come in, see if it was a good one, a good fit?
Cavin Costello:
Pretty much. We’ve been getting, I don’t know, maybe one a week or every other week, so we knew that it was relatively consistent. Part of it was timing. Part of it was we do keep occasionally if we see a resume or something or a portfolio that looks really good, we’ll kind of keep it just in case. but it was an out of the blue, inquiry for a job and the timing was right and we just pulled the trigger.
Mark R. LePage:
Yeah. I want to just point out because people are wondering why do they get all these inquiries, go back to Episode 138 and listened to that story of how Cavin and Claire built The Ranch Mine, and what they do because the answer is they’re all over social media. They have a fantastic website. They worked really hard at PR and getting published and, you heard in the intro, all the different magazines and they’ve been on television and so they work really hard at being out there and getting noticed. And so there’s a whole process to that. And Cavin talked about that in Episode 138 and so that’s why he’s getting these consistent flow of people who want to work for him.
Cavin Costello:
Yeah, definitely that and consistent flow potential jobs which is possibly more important. But hat’s how it kind of worked out. And it was definitely a large transition for us. I mean, even from as simple as, okay, we’ve got to buy like a desk and a chair and all that kind of a very basic stuff to where they going to set up, how are we going to do this?
Mark R. LePage:
So get into that a little bit. What did you do? How’d you figure out where they’re going to work in the house, because I’m assuming that you guys have your dedicated workspaces, but to bring somebody into your space, what did you do? How did you do that?
Cavin Costello:
Yeah, so, myself being the principal architect, Claire runs the business, because we are hiring someone to help with the architecture part. They were going to work in my office slash bedroom and so we got rid of the guest bed and we purchased a desk and a chair and, trashcan and all those super simple things, notepads and pens and like a real office kind of thing and cleaned the house a lot more. So we just did that. We figured in here, closer to me would be better just because on a day to day basis that’s going to be more consistent questions and communication. So that was sort of the first step. The second was sort of figuring out what programs and stuff we would want to use and how would we would need to use them with the employee, and then schedule what are our consistent works as well. We had been on a consistent work schedule but this definitely made us sort of cemented in stone, a time to show up at work and time to take lunch, time to go home. and I mean there’s a variety of other small things that we can get into, but those were some of the major ones I guess.
Mark R. LePage:
So when you were working with a freelancer, you said that you started building some systems specifically to work with that person. Did that help with this transition to a full time employee?
Cavin Costello:
Yeah, for sure, because we had already set up the basically the server system. Before, it was basically just myself doing all of the drawings, so Claire basically had all of the business stuff on her computer and I had all of the architecture stuff on my computer. It was very simple, almost like a solo practitioner type system. And then when we got a part time employee we set up the Dropbox server system and that made me be a little bit more specific with the way that we label our folders and all that kind of stuff so that it could be easily read and communicated and tracked and monitored through the server system. So we were able to get some of those systems in place of how to have someone else that’s not within my head know what to do, where to do it, how to save it, all those kinds of things and be a lot more organized on the architecture side of things.
Mark R. LePage:
Would you say that it’s easier to have the full time employee sitting right next to you than it was having the remote employee or the remote freelancer?
Cavin Costello:
Definitely. Questions are immediately answered. Things can be worked out of a huge whiteboard next to me. Sometimes it’s difficult to sort of say what you want, so a quick sketch is often a very easy way to do that. Then the other person would get up to the whiteboard and be like, what about this? So it is way quicker. I was surprised when we got the first employee, how much more work were able to do.
Mark R. LePage:
If you could go back and do it all over again, would you still do it with the freelancer first and then an employee or would you just dive right into the employee?
Cavin Costello:
Good question. I mean, I guess it depends on the amount of work. I mean, I think for the time it worked out fine because I think it was a very inexpensive. I’m slower transition to figure out some things rather than an immediate because once you have someone sitting there eight hours a day, you have to be on top of it versus when someone’s swinging by once or twice a week and doing most of their stuff remotely, it’s a little bit easier to delegate work, to figure out how you’re going to do things, because you have way more time to set up for that. It’s not as like, okay, I need something now, I need something now, I need something now kind of situation.
Mark R. LePage:
What level did you hire? Is it an intern level or is it somebody that’s more experienced or somewhere in the middle?
Cavin Costello:
Just at a college graduate.
Mark R. LePage:
So is it considered an intern?
Cavin Costello:
Yeah, I’m not sure what the exact terminology is, but yeah, he got, he got a degree in architecture. Just graduated. So first job in architecture.
Mark R. LePage:
Yeah. So there’s a lot of teaching involved. How much time do you think you spend teaching them on what you need them to do?
Cavin Costello:
Not a ton. Early on there was a good amount, just getting the basic stuff up to a level of a normal seat for them in terms of how we work, what is a construction document set look like, what are we trying to do, what are the different things. We tried to sort of work that in slowly with things that they were more accustomed to doing, like 3D modeling and rendering and that kind of stuff. They come out of school typically better than the boss. So we kind of use that as a fallback to slowly work in some other stuff. So it wasn’t just, okay, this is gonna be a month long boot camp of how to do CDs and that kind of stuff. But sort of slowly introducing one thing at a time with layering in the stuff that they’re more familiar. So it wasn’t so overwhelming.
Mark R. LePage:
So would you say that you’re sort of building the systems as you go?
Cavin Costello:
Yeah, I think it’s definitely changed. I think the one thing I didn’t really think about too much was how much it would change how I work. I worked for two firms in college and then a little bit freelancing outside and then started right away. I was very used to just here’s my project and I’d just do everything. Learning how to delegate and how to instruct and what is the most efficient for me to do versus what is the most efficient for me to teach. Early on it can be a little, not frustrating, but, you know that it’s going to be slower for them to do it. So there’s always that feeling of, well, I’ll just do it. But then they don’t learn. Right. There’s that balance of how much do you do versus how much do you give off for the feature benefit of being able to do less. That was a very large personal learning curve of figuring out how to really be someone who delegates because I had never done that before.
Mark R. LePage:
Talk about that a little bit more. What did you do and how difficult was it and are you still working through that process and that step of not only hiring somebody but then making sure that person has enough work and the level of work that they do. And like you said, so often, coming from basically working by yourself, you have all those systems down, you know what you need to do. It’s easier to just do it yourself sometimes. How do you get over that? How do you get to the point where you are like automatically delegating intentionally?
Cavin Costello:
Yes, it’s definitely challenging. There were definitely, and still are definitely, times where you feel a little bit more pressure because before you sort of just held yourself accountable, you put a checklist up on the board and you just kind of knocked through it, right? But now you have to spend more time upfront. It’s not kind of wake up and just go at it. You have to sort of plan ahead a lot more, a day to day, week to week, job to job, how you’re going to get stuff done, what stuff you can do versus what they can do versus what new stuff are you going to put on their plate to where you have a little bit more time so that you’re still gonna meet your deadline, but you’re still going to be like that teaching opportunity in the meantime.
It’s a balance of doing all those things. So it was just sort of like any other design problem in terms of how do I properly use my time, their time. And then when we got the last employee, now it sort of doubles and it becomes even more interesting because now you’re going from not just a one to one, but a one to two. And who does what and at what time and do you go project by project? There’s a lot of different ways that you can do it. It was definitely very challenging at first to think, oh my God, I got to fill 40 hours a week of work for this person and I’m not going to get the same 40 hours a week that I was typically getting because I have to spend a decent amount of my time answering questions and delegating and doing all that other stuff that it needs. So then you have to change your expectations of your time as well.
Mark R. LePage:
How prepared were you for that? You’re doing all the work and now you have other people doing a lot of the work, but you’re not doing a lot of the work that you used to do. You’re doing a whole bunch of other things now. How difficult was that sort of mentally and psychologically to shift that role?
Cavin Costello:
It’s very difficult. I mean, we’ve kind of always been in that position. We started from nothing when we knew almost nothing. So since since we were at 23, 24, we’ve been kind of doing that thing where it’s like, yeah, we could do that and then we’ll figure out how to do it on the fly. So that sort of practice of when we originally started the business to what we did our first remodel to when we did our first addition to our first new build, everything is a different new challenge of Oh my God, how are we going to to possibly do this? And then I think it just falls back into your original training of okay, here’s the problem and we just got solve it and it can be stressful and overwhelming at first. Even when you think about college or whatever, that first year when you start, I don’t know about you, but it was overwhelming for me.
I had never taken any, I didn’t take any art classes at and what I was doing and was so overwhelmed. And then by the time you’re a senior, it’s like, okay, I do this, this, this, this, this, this. Here’s a project, right? You sort of get into the flow, so I think it’s a similar sort of way, it’s a little overwhelming at first and then you just kinda figure out what works, what doesn’t work, and there may be some days that are better than others. I think because we felt we had a good runway, we knew that this was the best time to make the jump.
Mark R. LePage:
Michael Gerber in The E-Myth talks about the technicians and the managers and the entrepreneurs. You guys obviously are entrepreneurs and you were all in technicians, you were doing it all yourself and now you’re bringing on employees. Your employees are now going to be the technicians and you have to take the role of the manager, which you never had before.
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Mark R. LePage:
How hard is it for you to go from technician to manager and how much do you sort of want to go back to that technician?
Cavin Costello:
It is hard, because you’re breaking that cycle that you’re so used to. It’s been since the beginning of college that you just, you do a project all the way through. For me it’s been about 15 years of that pattern. It’s very hard to break. I think just giving up some of the control is probably the most difficult part because you go from sort of, I don’t know how other firms were, but I basically do a lot of the upfront creative type stuff and then sort of pass it off and then kind of do the backend proofing kind of stuff. Missing that middle part of actually doing it not only changes the way that you work on a day to day basis, but for me changed the way that I had to design.
Because a lot of times you figure out stuff through the creation of the drawings and the models and that kind of stuff, you have it sort of partially designed in your mind or on a sketch and then you kind of figure it out through whatever Sketchup, Cad, whatever you’re using. Figuring it out actually changed the way that I have to think about designing things because I’m not with it the entire way through. I mean, I check in on it obviously, but you’re not doing every single thing where you’re like, oh, this corner I didn’t really think about. Right? When you’re drawing into this 3D model, you’re gonna have to think about it. Right? So figuring out, even as simple as, I have to design differently now, was even a big change. Not only going through as a manager, but also going from an architect who just does it all the way through to an architect who just designs up front proofs on the back end, and does some stuff in the middle. That was the change that I also was completely unaware that would be necessary to happen.
Mark R. LePage:
Okay. And how do you keep your quality standards up as well? Just to let everybody know, Cavin and his firm, they design custom modern architecture. So these are one off projects. These are not traditional homes that have the same details and the same moldings in every house, and every project they’re doing is new and unique and different. And so how do you let that middle piece go and keep the standard up at the level that you expect it to be?
Cavin Costello:
Sure. Well, what’s interesting is I’ve found that it actually standard has actually gone up because of the extra time that we have. So before it was a lot of, okay, here’s a project and you kind of design it through, but because of your limited time, you can’t try as many iterations of certain things. You can’t go as deep as many things. So it’s really a trial and error, back and forth process to that middle of, okay, here’s a moment that I want to do something different or specialized or whatever. Let’s do up some options, sketch a few things on the board model now and then let’s look at them together. So it’s a lot more of an iterative process now than before where it was sort of a single path all the way through. Now we have the flexibility and opportunity to try a lot more things, which I think has, if anything, made a quality better in that we’re able to work things out with more detail and more time with that back and forth process.
Mark R. LePage:
Yeah. And you’re developing new systems. Just as a default of having somebody there and having to learn how to work with this person and keep the standard where you want it to be, your systems are being created just through that process. Are you documenting those systems so as you grow, that makes that process easier? Or do you not still not have the time to do that?
Cavin Costello:
Yeah, I mean, I don’t know if there’s an official documentation, we keep basic logs of what we’re doing, time sheets and a specific task and the time and there’s no sort of specific system in place where, okay, you’re definitely going to do this and then I’m going to definitely do this. That has been more tricky to do because of the range of projects that we work on. If you’re doing just an interior renovation versus a 5,000 square foot custom house, there a lot different stuff that you have to do right for those kinds of projects. We have gotten a little bit more specific with differentiating new builds from reno additions to renos and city lots versus mountain or desert lots. We do have different pathways for each of those projects but nothing in the day to day, but I would say is a system.
Mark R. LePage:
Having this employee and now two employees coming into your house, how important is that the personality of these people, that sort of, the background of who they are and whether you like them or not, that personal connection. How important is that and, and what did you do to make sure that did work or it or did you just get lucky?
Cavin Costello:
The second employee actually is the person that we had working part time. Okay. So that one we tried out. The first employee, it was just more of luck. I kind of liken it to having a roommate. When you go to college and you kinda feel them out and figure ou what works, what doesn’t work. It’s rare enough to find your wife that you want to live with forever. Nevertheless, it’s some other person and you’re with that person eight hours a day in your house, right? So there’s definitely a learning curve to that. Figuring out how you work and your schedules and what you’re going to listen to or, just the simple things throughout the day.
It definitely is a large transition to just, again, bringing in someone to be there day to day, but I will say one thing that it has helped, I think it’s made us more accountable for every minute that we work. When it’s just you, you don’t have that accountability necessarily other than just other than just to yourself how it is. Like if you’re working, if you’re not feeling it or whatever to just kinda check out a little bit. You don’t really have that opportunity anymore. It’s definitely upped our game to have someone else they’re pushing us and I think after a certain time working for yourself, sometimes it’s nice to add something new to challenge you and change the way, make you look at yourself and how you’re working and what you could do better as well when you’re looking at someone else.
Mark R. LePage:
Yeah, exactly. It holds you accountable. Those systems have to be eventually built if you want to grow. By having employees come in, it sort of forces you to develop those standards and to build those systems. And you had mentioned earlier that you’re outgrowing the house. What is the plan for the next step?
Cavin Costello:
The next step is we’re adding an addition to our house and we will have an office as part of that, but it’ll be accessed from the exterior. So it’s attached to the house, but it’s not really attached to the house,so that we can have a separate entrance for the employees to come in, which sort of makes the house private and a home again, and then turns that into just a dedicated office.
Mark R. LePage:
Will you have clients come to that office as well?
Cavin Costello:
Probably not. We’ve never worked that way. Being in residential, we really like to go to the site, which, whether it’s an existing home or a plot of land and then if not we go to coffee shops. Being in a city, it’s pretty easy to do. We actually kinda liked the separation of this is our home. We’ve never really wanted to have clients or vendors specifically over to the house, so we try to keep that separate so it’s just purely for working.
Mark R. LePage:
Yup. What’s your plan for the future? How big do you want to get and how many employees do you imagine you have?
Cavin Costello:
Oh, it’s so hard to say. If you asked me, and maybe you did five years ago, I don’t even know what number I would’ve said. I like the pace at which we’re growing. I don’t ever see it being a super large firm, but if good work continues to come in. The deciding factor is we do get a lot of inquiries, we get probably one a week or so. And so we are fortunate to be able to pick and choose type of jobs we get. So if the type of jobs and the quality of those jobs continue to be better and better then we’re definitely open to taking the steps to be able to achieve those projects for our clients.
Mark R. LePage:
There are some people listening right now who are in the position you were in where they’re working by themselves and they know they need to hire somebody, but they’re afraid to hire. They don’t know what the first step is. What advice do you give that person that’s listening right now? Who needs to take that step but just doesn’t know what to do?
Cavin Costello:
It’s very cliche, but don’t wait for the perfect moment because there’s always reasons not to. I would say that the second you feel like you’ve got enough work for whatever amount of time, if you’re tracking the way that you get jobs, you should be able to sort of figure out a sort of project your quarter to to half year to annual projectionsm, when you feel comfortable with that, I would just say just do it.
Mark R. LePage:
And you, you had mentioned that you had a buffer. What type of buffer do you recommend?
Cavin Costello:
We were fortunate enough to have a year buffer. I mean obviously we would like to make more than the sort of base that we put ourselves into that buffer, but we felt very comfortable with that.
Mark R. LePage:
You had twelve months of employee salary saved before you hired them?
Cavin Costello:
Yeah, theirs, ours and expenses.
Mark R. LePage:
So you had full expenses including your expense. Okay, that’s, that’s good to know. Alright, cool. Well it is great to hear your story and to sort of hear the update on The Ranch Mine and hear where you are because I think there are a lot of people in this community who are right there. That’s what this community is. There are sole practitioners and they’re very small firms and, there are thousands of people in your position right now who don’t know what to do and so I appreciate you sharing your story and giving some advice and some background on what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. So I appreciate it.
Cavin Costello:
Well, thanks Mark.
Mark R. LePage:
Let me ask you our question that we ask everybody. What’s one one thing that a small firm architect can do today to build a better business for tomorrow?
Cavin Costello:
So I didn’t think about this one yet because of answered it I think twice before. But let me see if I can wrap one into what we talked about today.
I think from a simple business point of view, put the items in place to where you can track as consistently as you can, your billing and your workload so that you can accurately project where you’re going. I think if you can figure out the lulls, the heights, why they’re happening, why they’re not happening. I think a lot of times we think it’s just kind of random whenever someone’s going to contact us, but it’s not really. We’ve been tracking it now for about six to seven years and you can really start to see patterns and if you can sort of find what that pattern is and then feel comfortable enough to make that jump, then do it immediately and just kind of jump in and do it. Someone in I think one of the recent episodes I had a very similar mindset to that I have which is what’s the worst that can happen? That’s always what I asked myself. I always ask myself that question with everything that we do. Ask yourself that question and when you look at those projections, if you can make it work for a certain amount of time, then then what’s the harm in doing a trial run? It doesn’t have to be forever. I think a lot of times you think, oh, this is my life now, it doesn’t have to be forever. People know, if you can’t afford to pay them, then they’ll move on somewhere else. especially in this economy, there’s a lot of jobs out there. So I think doing a trial, maybe even doing that part time thing where you just start to get your feet wet and see what kind of systems and if it helps you in all. But I do think that having the everyday is way more efficient than having the part time.
Mark R. LePage:
Yeah. Yeah. Track your patterns is really good advice, to track your processes that you go through and the people, the projects that come in and the inquiries that come in so you can start planning on what you’re going to do in the future, because that will help you set up for that employee. If you understand how your business works, then you, you’ll be more prepared to start with a new employee. So I appreciate that. That’s good advice. On the web, it’s TheRanchMine.com. Go check it out. Great website, great work, beautiful architecture. I’m on instagram. It’s @TheRanchMineOfficial. Those are the best places. You definitely follow follow Cavin on Instagram. Really interesting fee that sort of follows his process.
Mark R. LePage:
So Cavin, I appreciate you for being here and thanks for sharing your knowledge here at EntreArchitect podcast.
Cavin Costello:
Well, thanks for having me, Mark. Just again, love your podcast and it’s been probably six years now. I’ve been listening to it and it gets better every year. So, I really appreciate what you’re doing for the community.
Mark R. LePage:
Yeah, you’re welcome. Thank you for that. I appreciate that.
Well, before we wrap up here, I have a few little items here. I’m in New York City, so if you find me, if you see me, please come say hi. I love meeting you and I want to meet you and say hello. So if you see me, definitely tap me on your shoulder and say, “Hey, I know you, you’re Mark R. LePage. You do EntreArchitect podcasts.” Definitely reach out and say hello to me. Please share this episode. This is episode 225 EntreArchitect.com/episode225. Post it on Facebook, post it on Twitter, post it on instagram. Email it to your friends. Tell everybody. Definitely check out my friends ArchiSpeak ArchiSpeak podcast and Inside the Firm Podcast, I think two thirds of the ArchiSpeak crew are here at the conference.
So look for them as well. Tell him I said that you should say hi to them. And the guys from Inside the Firm, they’re still over in Colorado. Definitely check out ArchiSpeak podcast and Inside the Firm Podcasts, search it up on itunes and wherever else you listen to podcasts. And while you’re there, subscribe to the EntreArchitect podcasts, and go to Facebook right now: EntreArchitect.com/group. We’ll get you there. The EntreArchitect community on Facebook, it’s a free private group. It is the most interactive, most supportive, most encouraging, most positive place on the Internet. For small firm architects, you post a question, you will get an abundance of answers from experienced and encouraging and enthusiastic small firm architects all in there working together to make the world a better place. EntreArchitect.com/group. Come join us. It’s a lot of fun. My name is Mark R. LePage and I am an entrepreneur architect. If you see me, say hi and I encourage you to go build a better business so you can be a better architect. Love, learn, share. Thanks for listening. Have a great week.
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