135. Leveraging Partnerships With Adrian Ramsay

Designers might think they have the knowledge over costing. They don't. Sort of a bit blunt, but they don't.

Welcome to Professional Builder Secrets, the podcast for building company owners wanting to grow safely and securely. I'm your host, Will Blunt and today I'm joined by Adrian Ramsey. Adrian is a multi award winning Designer with over 20 years of experience in the building industry. He's founder of AR Design House, host of the Talk Design podcast and also the host of Dream Homes Revealed TV show. Adrian, welcome to the show.

Hey Will, it's a real honor to be here, man. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, love having a chat with you. We met last year at our professional Builders Summit in on the Gold coast actually and yeah, really excited to have a chat today because you were one of our top rated speakers that day.

Thank you. It was a great event to be.

Invited to speak at and I was sort of, you know, throwing something a little bit controversial for many builders out there.

So it was, I was kind of wondering what it was going to be.

Taken like and was really like excited by how it was received. So it was great.

Well, very good. We're very privileged to have you on the show given your experience in the industry. Can you share a bit of a background on that?

Sure.

About 20 in the, in the year.

2020, I think it was. No, 22. 2000. Sorry, yeah, get my numbers right.

Yeah, 2000, 2020 was only a coup years ago.

Exactly.

It feels like, it feels like it's gone like a blink of an eye. No, I, I set up a, basically a new career.

I'd done a lot of houses where I've flipped them and stuff like that in New Zealand and I came from a, from the fashion industry and from the fashion industry.

I had always wanted to study architecture.

When I was young and anyway, with.

That I couldn't because I was dyslexic.

I couldn't get into university to do and with that I was like sort of in one of those quandaries.

So I ended up with deciding to.

Go into the fashion industry. And with the fashion industry I learned lots obviously and traveled the world and was a design director for companies globally, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, cut a long story short, I ended up coming to Australia and deciding to follow my passion of housing and, and of course I had lots of experience in it and I had done study on building, building design, stuff like that and started flipping houses here.

Started from a business really.

Started originally from more of an interior design because it was small renovations and things like that. And then it grew and grew and grew and over the next 20 years plus it has turned into what it is now. And we focus on, we focus on great customers and then we, in that we focus on if it's new builds. Our specialty would be acreage, property builds. So large compound builds, things like that. When I say large, it doesn't have to be large, but where we're working across the land, we're very, very, I'm very attracted to the land and what, how the land behaves and what happens with that. And I created a program called Land Whispering with some people around the world from for that reason. And I think that we've got one land, you know, we've got one air, you know, we've got 1 water. We need to look after these things so in a holistic manner. So how can we do the best we can with the land is very important to me. And that doesn't mean that we just do things we do. All our houses are on land by the way, but none of them are at sea. But we do from.

Yeah, they could be. Yeah, well, it depends on global warming.

We do from beachfront to, you know, hinterland, etc. A lot of our work is in Queensland, otherwise it's around the country. So that's kind of the journey that happened. And I have a really cool team and it has allowed, the team has allowed me to also branch out and do my podcast, which is, you know, a design talk, design podcast. And then also to now be host for Queensland of Dream Homes Revealed. So in that journey we've done hundreds of houses and one of the things we're most proud of is the number of them that get built. And that's because of our builder relationships and our costing relationships that we lean on the builder for really. They're our partners, they're our success story. So much of architecture doesn't get built in this country. In most countries I don't know what the figures are in residential, but over 60% of architectural projects are drawn in Australia. Don't get built residential.

That could really shift though.

You know, commercial projects will get drawn but don't get built for multiple reasons. It's not always about cost. But residential projects are when the personal custom. They're a one on one kind of type process where somebody has a very strong dream and they're looking for a very, a perfect outcome for them. Not to get built means that somebody's taken a significant amount of money out of their pocket and applied it to getting a design. And generally it will mean, I would say in 90% of cases it couldn't afford to be built. The dream and the budget didn't mix.

And so that's one thing we see with our builders. They'll often have if someone brings designs to the situation rather than, rather than the builder controlling that design process, oftentimes their budget's way under what they were hoping to get from the design.

I see it, you know, every day and a lot of designers kind of complain about it and I. My attitude is we're the ones with the knowledge, so therefore we're the ones who should be the educators. Now designers might think they have the knowledge over costing. They don't. Sort of a bit blunt, but they don't. Designers knowledge of costing is nowhere near as intimate as the knowledge that a builder has. The builder actually is know, hammers the nails and gets the final invoice out and does everything else. Builder doesn't really know what they're going to earn until the job's finished at the end of the job that they then they can take stock and see it's a very complex process building. So for a designer to know that we've got a square meter rate or that we've got an understanding of it is really important. But a builder's just finished a job that they've got hard data reference to. When they belong to something like the association professional builders, they actually have hard data of a group of people. It's not them as a single builder with a funky spreadsheet, you know, they're actually working with a group of people and then all of a sudden that hard data becomes more valuable and the community becomes more valuable and they become super valuable to clients. Because at that point, if there's them and a designer and a client in the mix, you have some real hard data that can be quantified. And the only aim, the only reason.

Why the three people are sitting together.

Is because the people that want the new house or the new home or the renovated home or whatever it is, those people are trusting in that process. So trying to get the right people in the room at the right time is really big. And yeah, I hope that answered that it does.

I was going to ask how do you work with builders now? Do you typically work with the consumer where you design the homes or the remodeling and then take that to the builder or does the builder come? Do you have partnerships with builders as well where it comes the other way?

I do have both. I have some where builders bring me some work and I have. The majority would be where I take builders, the work. I have a group of builders, I suppose you'd call it like a group of alliances. And they all work slightly differently. Uh, but in that group of alliances, they all have. We all have sort of similar understanding. The job is to fulfill the dream of the client. Now, as you said before, the dream of the client should actually be bigger than their budget. If it isn't, then they're probably not dreaming hard enough. They're not probably asking for enough because.

They don't know, as the educators, they.

Don'T know what it's going to cost. We don't know what their dream's going to cost. What we're doing is we're looking at these things and trying to push the two together and having a hierarchy of needs and things like this over what that budget has to service. First, second, third, fourth, what happens there. And then whether it's square meter rates or whatever, it's the expertise of the builder that's going to tell us whether it's going to make it with that. All the builders that I work with and I say all, there's a couple that may be fresh and we don't have the rolling relationship that we need yet, but it's around creating a first meeting with the clients. Now, often that might just be me, but what I want really from then on in is the builder beside me. And I encourage my clients to work with one builder like they're working with one designer and follow a process for that to happen. You've got all different kinds of personalities of clients, and you need them to be able to go, okay, cool, so this person's got to come in early and establish a relationship as well. Got to be a comfortable relationship for the client, and it's one of huge trust for the client. And then we want a lot of transparency in what we're doing. We don't want sort of like hidden this and hidden that. We want to be able to be really open, show them where it is, show them even to the point that we're all going to make our money out of it so that they know that we're not going to go broke on them during the process. Show them that we know business, that we understand business, and that our business is. Is to get them as close to that dream as possible for that budget that they have.

So I have a tight relationship with.

Just about all the builders, and I love to be able to go to them and say, hey, got this job. A would it fit with your Schedule B, I think you'd fit with the client. So I've chosen you first. What would you want it and will it fit with the schedule? And then if they go, yes, then I go, okay, cool. Now let's go and get you to the client. I've told the client I've got a couple of different people I could talk to on their behalf, but that you're. You'd be my first choice, and I think that you'd be a good personality fit. And I get them with the client, and once I've got them with the client myself, then we will regroup as the builder and myself and say, okay, where do you think this sits? Not financially as in the process that we're going to follow that, how the client's going to adapt to that process. Because we don't want to go down the client's process. That will be a disaster. We want to go down the design and build process where we know how it works and we'll. We'll. Will the client come with us? And we had an example of this just recently. Lady rang me and anyway, I ended up talking to, chatting to her on the phone, of course, and then ended up going and seeing her and going and seeing her. She asked me about builders, and I said, well, there's a few different builders that I could suggest. She hinted towards a builder that I know, and she said she'd had a conversation with this builder and this builder had told her. So she's telling me what she wants, she's told me what her budget is, and I'm going, your budget's not going to get there. I didn't say it out loud. I just went, okay, keep listening. But her budget's not going to get there, not for what she's asking for. There's too many big earthwork problems and stuff like that.

Told me she'd spoken to this highly reputable builder and that he'd.

He'd.

I said, did you discuss your budget with him?

And she said, yes. And I said to her, okay, cool, that's great. I. I do know him. I said, yeah, I do know him. I know him well.

So. Okay, cool.

Well, let's regroup.

I might just have a chat, Tim, if that's okay.

Yeah, no problem. And there was a difference in the budget that she told me he had said was good and what he'd been told by her of $600,000. So you think there's a hole.

Wow.

And so I said to him, you.

Know, I'm keen to work with you, obviously, I know you well, all the rest, but I don't think that her budget and her expectation is going to match. And he was the same. He said, no, it won't be. He said, I'll have a chat to her. Anyway, she wasn't that pleased about me.

Sorry. She wasn't that pleased that I had.

Told him her budget that she had expressed to me. And I'm like, we're playing cat and mouse. Not only that, he was the one.

Who had told her to call me.

And she never said that to him either. And he said to me, he said, I don't want to do the job.

He said, well, I think this.

Yeah. Playing cat and mouse at that point.

Exactly. I mean that this comes back to qualifying prospects. Right. And, you know, spotting those red flags early on so that it's not a. Not a disastrous relationship.

Yeah. You know, like I could have jumped.

In and then just total along doing what I'm doing and he could have done the same and we would have had somewhere between $1 and $600,000. Different expectation for not getting it on the table to start with.

Yeah. And also you would have wasted a bunch of your resources and time putting into it.

So we only do a certain number of houses a year. And, you know, I was saying before about when I started talking, we're not looking for great. We are looking for great projects, but great projects come with great people and great people are the most important factor that we can deal with. The best project in the world has a great combination of a wonderful client who's open, trusting, comes on the journey, an amazing build partner, so that the journey actually gets. We get to, you know, Narnia. We don't just set off and end up in some pretty random place and with a lot of stress. And everybody makes the income that they were planning on making from it. So everybody gets paid fed, you know, whatever it is by the end of the job and the client has their expectations exceeded. That's what it's all about. So that's the kind of build partners that we're always looking for to work with. We have clients who bring builders to us. And that has a real mixed bag because we say, look, we're going to require this of the builder. These are the requirements we're going to have of the builder to make the process work well. And if they haven't worked with somebody who is very partnership oriented. Yeah, you'll get quotes of three lines instead of 30 pages and things like that. And I'm not saying all Quotes need to be 30 pages, but there is no data, there is no discussion, there is no way of finding the way comfortably and quickly. So therefore the profitability for both sides is affected in that. And as much as it's fun to draw houses and see people live in them, it's still a business, it's not a hobby. Of course, of course.

That's what everyone's listening to this for. Because they want to run a profitable building company.

So 100%.

And if you go, if you're a.

Builder and you're not wanting to run a profitable building company, you'll be like about 80% of them out there who think they do but aren't doing it.

Yeah, yeah. That's very different conversation though, isn't it? So how do you assess a builder? If you're looking for like as a potential partner, what kind of things are you looking for?

Obviously, communication skills with clients. And one of the big things is, and with ourselves, one of the big things is do they get pissed off or arc up quickly or do they have a very myopic view of how to get to something? Do they have a clear process that they can lay out for us and.

Say, this is how we always work.

Can you work with us? Do they say to us, hey, we start with this, we do this, we do this, this is how we like to do it. Can we work with that process? Can they work with how our processes, how can we dovetail the two together? Especially in a first building thing, Will they be prepared to take on a job that is say a under a hundred thousand dollar job, which for some builders they won't, and all respect to them, but will they be prepared to take on a small job like that with us so that we can kind of bake our first cake together?

Yeah.

And get the bumps and the lumps out of the damn thing rather than finding it, you know, on a multimillion dollar job and it's flat, sitting in the bottom of the oven, brown, you know, crisp, like you've never seen. Because when that happens, that destroys all of our reputations and it puts a lot of stress on the client. A lot, a lot of stress on the client as well as ourselves.

So that's a really big part.

And then when they want to be able to present their, say, their quotes or their preliminary quotes, their estimate quotes, when they want to be able to present those, what's the format they do that in? Are they happy for us to be there as well? Do they want a pre meeting with us to take us through it not 10 minutes before, but like a week before, 10 days before so that we can go, oh, okay, geez, that's more than I thought.

Or so is there a better way we could do this to, to bring.

That costing into line or. Yeah, you never. I shouldn't say never. You very rarely see from our preliminary schematic design, we very rarely would see a quote that would fit the budget because we're in exploratory mode.

And so will the builder come on.

A journey with us where we might.

Overdo it, overcook it to bring it back to cut and change. And we don't want to be taking.

Things away from the client. We want to be developing things into a, into a picture. So are they on the journey or do they just want, you know, here's my bit of paper, here's my number, let's go. And so we can't work with those ones.

So we're doing that. We're also looking for references from them.

In the fact of who are the people they've worked with? What personality types will they get on best with? You know, are they want to check.

Out some of their houses as well?

Always, always the build quality.

Yeah, that goes without saying.

And what's their aspiration?

So what's their goals? Are they planning on doing and are they resourced to, to achieve their goals? Are they planning on doing, say 10 houses a year, but they've never done more than five? You know, it's a big jump.

Are they.

How do they see themselves in the marketplace? You know, they are what we'd call an architectural builder versus a custom builder versus a project home builder who's maybe wanting to come into custom building. You know, there's, there's different styles of those. We're trying to find the right match. Love working with builders who have had some project home experience because they are very process and cost driven. If they're too much. So they're not. It's not going to work for custom. You know, some builders will tell us on work custom builder and that they really manipulate preset plans.

Yeah. So it's semi custom.

Yeah.

Whereas you go to a full architectural.

Builder and they are used to zero tolerance this, zero tolerance that solution finding, you know, all these different things and they usually charge a little extra for that as well, but the outcome is a lot extra as well. So yeah, that's the first piece is just getting on the page and then.

Going, okay, can we give it a test?

Um, we recently had a builder who came to us who wanted to do this and we haven't built with them yet and maybe we won't. Great people, good systems. And one of the kind of flies in the ointment is. Is not super transparent costings for us to. To discuss. So between us, not necessary with the client, but between ourselves and also doesn't want to bid against any other builder. Now we don't want you to either necessarily, but basically it's a flat. No. If the client says oh well, I want to get somebody else to quote as well. I don't want to be involved in the job. We can't control the client wanting one bid, 10 bids, whatever. It's not our job to control them. If they need two to feel comfortable, then let them have two. But we try to make that relationship happen really early, not later. So just who are they? What's their personality? What's their business aspirations? Do we have similar goals? Do they respect the value of design?

Do they.

Do we respect their value in building that they're bringing?

If we can get all those things.

On the same page and we can see that they can run to timeline. Timelines that we can run to as well, then yeah, let's have a chat. Let's go further.

What are you looking for? Like what benefits are you getting from a partnership with a builder? Is it a two way referral situation or are you just looking for someone you can trust to deliver on the projects that you've got?

Oh, good question, man. We're looking for both, to tell you the truth. We're looking for two way relationships where they can bring us things as well. And that's probably a little rarer than people would think.

And then on the other, we are.

Definitely looking for the other that we can trust them to bring a project through that. That's most critical.

I guess though, if a builder is also giving you work and it's a give take situation, then you probably favor them when you've got work to refer on as well, I imagine.

Yes, always. Like we have builders that do bring us work, which is lovely and we can. We will. I was going to say jump higher. That's probably not a great example or a great wording. We will go always the extra mile for whatever it is. When we have builders that bring us work that we work with with them really closely, we tend to be more embedded in their process and that makes it easier for us to apply our resources and when they need something from us, which we would usually charge for to go and do or to help with or whatever or if they've got like a job that's a little outside of our normal genre or whatever it is. Well, always go, yeah, how can we help? How can we help? What can we do to get you there? And we, we always, in this. It's a really tight conversation. Like I have those builders I'm talking to every week. Even if it's not whether to do with a job, we will just have a quick in the car.

Hey, how you going?

Anything on the horizon that you're talking about? Anything that you need us for? How's your wife? How's your kids? Or might be the woman, might be the builder. How's. How's things going? You know, what's happening? You know, we've seen this, thought this might interest you, share information. So that part of it is, yeah, we, we definitely favor those ones. And then it doesn't mean that we just stick with them because sometimes they're not necessarily a match for the client. We've got a couple of fabulous builders and they, one of them, their dynamic is, is pretty, you know, straight down a very narrow line. And we'll have clients that you just wouldn't mix those two people. You just. One would drive the other crazy. And so, yeah, it's plenty of opportunities.

To be driven crazy during a build as well.

Yeah.

Right from the day you start.

Yeah.

So, Adrian, that's. You've just been explaining about how you work with builders, but for the builders out there looking to establish design partnerships with designers, maybe in their local area, how would you recommend they go about that?

Carefully. It's a slightly tricky question in some ways because first of all, they've got. The builders got to know themselves and know what kind of projects they A, aspire for and B, are currently doing. If they're a builder that is currently doing jobs where they have very low need for a designer, but they want to move into a marketplace where it's more sophisticated and design skills would be useful to them. I would suggest, first of all, that they check what's happening on social media in their space, especially Instagram, and have a look at what designers are around. Also just do a Google search what designers are in your area, whether that's building designers or architects. And I'll just sort of clarify the difference there as well. Building design versus architecture. Architecture is a study of the. The built space, the structure, the landscape, the engineering qualities that are required. And it's taken from a point of view of creating something sustainable and I want to say from an art view. Whereas if you look, look at a building designer the way they are trained and architects are in this as well. However, the way they are trained is from a technical point of view of drafting. So they're trained in technicalities and codes, local compliances, those things and architecture, and they get that as well. However, what they do is, is they look at it from a much, much bigger picture and in the way they approach it is very different from that. Trying to shift the overall outcomes to better housing, to better residences, to better buildings at a much higher level. Now, they also in both cases have their limitations. So in building design, it might be that they don't see it far enough or broadly enough. And in architecture, they could be so far pushed, you know, in advance that they may lose the common person. So It's a catch 22. So looking at what you're, as a builder, you're looking to do in the future and how far you are prepared to push the limits of control. So if you want to be building beautiful architectural projects that stand out or maybe blend perfectly with the landscape and are hardly seen and those kinds of things, you probably want to talk to some architects and just get a feel about what they're doing. Overall esthetic is what that, what their values are. And then on the other side of it, if you are wanting to do a lot more sort of regular style homes that, that sort of want to say, fit with the run of the mill. I don't mean that because we're building designers and we certainly play heavily in the other space, you're probably going to have an easier road of control, I would say, into that space. With building designers, their technical ability won't be any less than their architectural counterpart. What their vision ability will be could be very, very different. And I go to architectural conferences all around the world and I mix with architects more than I mix with building designers. And with that, I see the differences in how they look at spaces or look at the environment. And that's what created us to create the land whispering programs, the emotional floor plan programs, these kinds of things where it's not just about the function of creating a home, it's a, it's about a function of creating something that fits with the environment, something that fits with the consumer and elevates the knowledge that we've got or elevates the opportunity. So it's a, It's a catch 22. I would do as if I was a builder and I was looking, I would look at both, I would go, okay, here's some architects. What are they offering and would we suit working with one of them? And then on the other side of it, I'd go, there's some building designers and would it suit working with them? There's various organizations, obviously, like the Australian Institute of Architecture. They can give you some leads into your local area and beyond. And then also there's things like most states have a building designers association or the BDAA or something like that, where they have these associations, they will have certain limits around them. But what you're trying to look for is people that are in that you can have an actual conversation with and actually make sense with that.

There's a return on how it makes.

Sense, that's what you're really looking for and that you can establish a relationship with. Your architects have often a bad name because they want to control a project from start to finish, where a building designer might be happy to do the design but not want to do contract administration or construction administration. But architectural firms often do that as.

Part of what they do.

Both of them have great skills to bring to what it is. I would say that in general, what you're looking for is not a draftsperson. If you're going to get a designer, it's not about a draftsperson. It's actually about somebody who's got the awareness of the land, the awareness of the climate, and I mean in depth in these spaces, and then also high empathy, awareness of the client. And in the case, if you're the builder, when you're trying to form a partnership, you're actually kind of like clients for each other. So you've got to have that empathy in that piece as well.

But then empathy with the person who.

Is actually, we'd call them the patron.

Rather than the client.

The patron is going to pay for you to create the masterpiece and that's masterpiece is going to be their dream.

It's.

Yeah. And to your point as well, I mean, it sounds like it comes back to really what the builders out there are actually like, what their business model is, what, what type of houses they're building, what's their ideal client profile, who they're working with and what type of homes are they trying to build? Because then that will lead you in the right direction for the right kind of partnership.

And if you don't get that bit right, you'll end up with the wrong design partner and you'll spend. Well, you won't necessarily spend money, but their client will spend money, but you'll waste time and you'll also end up, when you're a builder and you go looking at a house and you start walking around, you go, oh look, all the windows are full zero tolerance. You know, all the doors are, let's just say all the door tracks are stuck in the ceiling and you can't.

Even see where they're running.

These things take a level of expertise that builders develop as opposed to naturally just come out of apprenticeship with, you know, if they haven't had any experience with it and then they get that on a set of plans. Aid can they cost it and not go broke building it because the stress will be on them when those that level of finishes is required. You know, when there's no place to hide anything, there's no skirting boards or there's no cornices, there's zero tolerance windows. You know, everything becomes really critical when it's all off form concrete, you know, these kinds of things. You don't want it to be your first rodeo.

Yeah.

And it's easy for a designer to draw it. It's less detailed than the other way. So it's, it's a bit of a catch 22. And so just matching yourself with the type of project you like to do and that you know that you can do profitably as a builder and then looking at a designer and really questioning them on what they would bring to that and how comfortably they are to be led by you as the builder. On this point, architects, building designers, they really don't have real time. And I said this before, real time costing information. You as a builder can do a couple of things. One is you can make the project by working innovatively and within what you're happy to put on your license to come up with solutions and outcomes. Often when you're working with a designer, they'll be pushing for newer or other ways of creating things, but you still have to get comfortable enough as the builder. The other thing you can do as a builder is you can kill everything by just saying it costs too much. And then if you're doing that, you're actually just wasting your time and their time. It has to be a partnership where it works. But the designer also has to hear when you say it costs too much. That's a $10,000 difference, not a hundred dollar difference. You know, the designer needs to go, oh, okay, well what could we get that would emulate that or how close.

Could we get to that for, for.

How much money and can we make that work in a budget? So the designer has to come fully open to be innovative and work with the builder and the builder has to be careful about just putting roadblocks in front of the designer.

Otherwise don't waste your time trying to.

Find a match that works.

Yeah. What I'm hearing as well is you're very empathetic to what the builder, the builder's experience and the builders costings and all that kind of stuff. And it needs to work in the other, other way as well. The builder needs to be empathetic and understanding and look through the lens of the designer or the architect that they're working with in the same way they do with their client. And that's how the partnership, you know, develops and flourishes.

Yeah.

If it doesn't do that, well you're 100% man. If it doesn't do that, it falls in a heap.

Yeah.

And you know like we have projects, so we're in the Sunshine coast, we have projects in Victoria, we have projects in New South Wales, we have a project in Africa, we've done projects in India, we've done projects in New Zealand, we've done projects in America. And each of those cases we are super reliant on all the people that are beyond us that have the regular contact all the time to make the thing work for our client. We're currently talking to clients in England and so we will put an architect of record in place with us to do the job. We will work really closely with the client on the design side of it and creating what it needs to be. But the architect of record will act like what they call a project architect.

And completely run and oversee the job for us.

And we're not talking about, you know, a hundred thousand dollar job, we're talking.

About a multi million pound job.

Yep. That's amazing. Some of that. You've done projects in all those different countries. What, what was the one you did in Africa?

We're doing that currently. It's a house for a, a house for a minister actually who heads up a charity. And we're doing it as a pro bono job because we support the charity.

Okay, cool.

And through that charity we, we saw it as a way that we could give something special to the founder of the charity. And so yeah, it's an, it's a really interesting process because guess what? They build in cinder block or concrete block or whatever. For most, the most part they used to very set things that we can't push the envelope so far. We can with form but we can't with fit out. You know, windows are windows and we can't go, oh, we'd like this fancy window like this and all those, it just doesn't exist there. So staying within the limitations is actually a lot of the challenge of it. But then also they're culturally different in how they live. You know, when we work in somewhere like India, they're very, very culturally different. Yet they do not want an Indian looking house. They want something that looks like it's been plucked off the side of the hill and, you know, New South Wales somewhere, because it's got a certain amount of status to it because it's a Western designed home. But how they congregate and communicate and live is different from how we do. You know, they have a lot of extended family situations, we don't have many. They have different eating habits, they have different rituals around how they do those things. And so the joy of the journey is actually, while you might have a facade that looks very Western, the joy of the journey is understanding how they live and how that those nuances are and what that requires.

You know, there's the fun of the.

Design, it's the big challenge. And also what's the climate conditions and how, how do we deal with those? Australia's got very vast climate conditions. So, you know, there's parts of Australia that are very like India. We just might not build in them.

Yeah, and same in Africa, it sounds like. I mean, just with design and building in general, it's all about restraints. Understanding the climate is one of those restraints. But the costings and what you've got available, you've just got to work within those restraints to get the best possible outcome right.

It is, it's a big. It's the edit. Everything happens in the edit. Like the ideas. I always say to people, look, ideas are cheap, but it's not until you actually try to put them into action.

That they get bloody expensive.

That's it. Well, Adrian, I've really enjoyed having a chat with you today on the Professional Builder Secrets podcast. What's the best place for people to go next to find out more about AR Design House, the Talk Design podcast and everything you're doing?

Yeah, man, thanks for asking. AR Design House is literally ardesignhouse.com and so anybody can find us on the website. They'll find me under Adrian Ramsey on Instagram, which is probably our main platform. We have some groups on Facebook and stuff as well. Then the podcast is called Talk Design and anywhere where you listen to podcasts, you should be able to find Talk Design. It also we have a website for it which is Talk Design Show.

Yep.

On Instagram it is Talk Design with so you should be able to find that there. And then on the up and coming season three of Dream Homes Revealed, you'll be able to find me as the Queensland host of the show. We do some Archie tours as well and Archie Adventures where we take people overseas and give them design experiences and adventure experiences actually wrapped into design. So one of the ones that we're doing in October this year is we'll be going to Austin, Texas and we will be, I like to call it the, the Architecture Building Blues and Barbecue tour. And the reason for that is, is Austin, Texas is a. It's the music capital of the south of America. So people think it's Nashville, but Nashville's the music capital for country music for the world. But Austin is the south of America. It controls all the music down there and it's rockets country. It's every, every genre blended together. The Austin City Limits Music Festival is on in October. If people wanted to catch a three day music festival, they'd be able to do that. And then also if they're a Formula one fan, it's on at the same time as well. So over three weekends there's going on three things.

Yeah.

So you got Formula One on the only purpose built Formula one track in America in Austin. And then you've got the AIA Austin's Homes tour which we're actually sponsors of as a design house or actually talk design podcast. We have sponsors of it. And if you go onto my podcast you'll be able to find tour series where we talk to the architects of different places and then we have close relationships with some builders as well. There one that most people, most of your builders are probably know would be Matt Risinger. Matt's a good friend and you know we often have conversations so we've, we've got architects and builders and even interior designs that come on that tour. We will get Matt and to have a chat to us and maybe even do a site visit. Just depends. So we might go with an architect and Matt to one of the projects they're doing and then do a site visit and then everybody gets a bit more up close and personal with things like that. Otherwise they'll tour about nine houses from the extraordinary to the, I was going to say less extraordinary. That's probably not fair to, to more model.

You don't like to downplay anything.

Yeah, no, it's to more modest houses. You know, like it might be a, a very clever duplex project or it might be a very clever ADU accessory dwelling unit, granny flat type project that Might be on the tour as well.

So it's not all just super highbrow.

It can be at all levels, and it can be, you know, this kind.

Of money shot versus this money shot.

And that is really fascinating. You often get to talk to the builders. You get to talk to the architects and interior designers. And then through my community, we take that even a bit further and then sort of package that up for people. Get them there, get them into a hotel, get them onto a bus, get them to those tours, herd them up, feed them food, take them to listen to some blues, get them to eat some barbecue, experience some local Austin culture, all while they're doing it as a learning experience. And so for them, it's tax deductible. So if anybody's interested in that, reach out to me. And we have some others coming up in Europe next year, and then we're going to have some ones in America next year as well, which will be private plane stuff on a private plane and dotting into different places to look at houses in the southwest of America. So through probably starting in Texas, but we'll see. It might be starting in Arizona and.

Going and exploring some stuff, but with.

That mix, builders, designers, and then great food and maybe a little side adventure as well.

Very cool. I'm sure there's lots of builders out there that want to. Want to check that out, Adrian.

Yeah.

It's good to expand their knowledge and build their network. And you guys have even got, like, you've got a coach that's based in Texas. Yes.

Yes. Eric.

He's based in Texas.

Yeah.

If there was anybody from you guys coming along on that tour, you know, we would say, hey, let's get Eric involved in that conversation as well. And even if there isn't people from your tour, we should get Eric involved in that. From your business. We should get Eric involved in that conversation as well with our people.

Very good. Yeah. And for any APB members out there that want to find out more about our design house, you are a rewards partner as well. So they can correct with you through there and get a cash rebate, which is. Which is awesome.

Yeah.

Well, Adrian, thank you so much for coming on the show and taking some time out of your busy schedule. You got a lot going on, and we really appreciate you coming on and sharing some insights with our audience.

Well, absolute pleasure. I love what you guys do and the ability to work with builders who are coached, where you can form a common language, because they understand business and they understand their goals, and they know where they're going is a dream scenario compared to the other guys out there.

Well, that's a good, that's a good vote of confidence for getting into coaching then.

100% man like it. It means that there's some surety and some knowledge behind it and there's a support system. And as a designer, I'm coached with business and with in the architectural community.

Yeah.

Super valuable. Well, thanks, Adrian. And also a big thank you to our listeners wherever you are in the world. If you like the show today, please subscribe to Professional Builder Secrets on your platform of choice. And if you're feeling generous, leave us a review. But until next time, have a great day.