Tags: business developmentmanagement
Episode 191

A Powerful Firm Culture Inside and Outside With Kenneth Baker of Gensler

Enoch SearsApr 4, 2017

Today is the second part of my interview with Kenneth P. Baker, the Co-Managing Principal of Gensler's Southeast Region.

Go here to watch the first half of our interview on From Designer to Executive: A Conversation

In addition to co-managing the southeast region and being on the Gensler Management Committee, Kenneth Baker is considered a global expert on workplace design and planning, having designed more than 10 million square fee of corporate headquarters and offices for law firms and financial institutions around the world.

If Gensler's Southeast Region were ranked separately from Genlser, it would be one of the 10 largest firms in the United States, to give you a sense of the size and responsibility of this position.

In today's episode, you'll discover:

  • The key to successful business development
  • How to maintain a firm culture that keeps employees (and makes them want to come back)
  • The spectacular advice Kenneth Baker would give to his younger self

Resources for today’s show:

Gensler

Interview Transcript and Members Only Resources:

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Kenneth Baker: Every day is not a gold star day. We should keep this in mind. It's the long game – you're there for the long game.

Enoch Sears: Business of Architecture, episode 191. Hello, I'm Enoch Sears, and this is the podcast for architects, where you'll discover tips, strategies, and secrets for running a profitable and impactful architecture practice. I'd like to invite you to discover how to double your architecture firm income and create your dream practice of freedom and impact by downloading my free, four-part architecture firm profit map. As a podcast listener, you can get instant access by going to FreeArchitectGift.com. Today is the second part of my interview with Kenneth P. Baker, the co-managing principle of Genzler's southeast region.

In addition to co-managing the southeast region and being on the Genzler management committee, Ken Baker's also considered a global expert in workplace design and planning, having designed more than 10 million square feet, corporate headquarters and offices for law firms and financial institutions around the world. In fact, he still is involved in the design, some of the design projects in this area. Now, if Genzler's southeast region were ranked separately from Genzler in terms of size, it would still be one of the ten largest firms in the US, if not the world, just to give you an idea of the size and responsibility of this position.

In today's episode, you'll discover the key to successful business development. How to maintain a firm culture that makes employees want to come back. Isn't that what we all want? Whether we're outsourcing or whether we're actually hiring employees and staff, having an organization that attracts the best talent is going to be one of the keys to success. Lastly, but not least, the powerful, powerful insight that Ken shares when he talks about the advice he would give to his younger self. Without further ado, let's get down to business. What would you say is the key to business development? Successful?

Kenneth Baker: That's a great question. I'm only hesitating because there's so many things. I think … I think at Genzler, you get asked to the dance, as we say, you get asked to interview, you're considered because they know we can do it. They know we have a good recognition on the streets in most cases. I think where we've messed up and done things that we haven't done at our best, we own up to it and we fix it, and we go right in. You need that credibility on the street, but we get asked to the dance because of people understanding what we bring. But at the end of the day, it really is about chemistry. You have to be … The people that are hiring us for projects and new business, they're looking at us saying, “Can I work with this guy for the next five years? Can I work with this team of people for the next five years? Do I like them?”

Yeah, you can bring the research manuals, and the work that we've done for other clients, and the case studies, and the benchmarking. But at the end of the day, they have to like the people that they're working with. The firm could walk in with all of those credentials and be arrogant and non-responsive and people can see where they're clearly the best people to do the work, and, “I don't think I could work with them for five years. I don't think I could trust them with all my money to develop this project for me.” It doesn't get away from that, Enoch. It just does not. There's been things that we've lost and people don't want to talk about the chemistry issues.

[inaudible 00:03:34] brief on something that we haven't lost that we've lost. A new business opportunity. Our leaders here that are involved are always going back and saying, “You know, what was it?” You kind of have to read between the lines, and we'll go right there and say, “Did the team connect with you? Did you feel comfortable with the team?” It's hard for people to say, “No, I didn't.” But you do get that, and we learn. We take those lessons learned back on board. You don't want to do it the next time around.

Enoch Sears: From my experience, there's the natural tendency of chemistry, but then there's also things that a person can do to help facilitate that chemistry. I know that you had John Livesay come in and speak about telling stories and being able to connect and present a little bit better. What would you say are some of the things that are in the power of someone to control when it comes to creating that chemistry?

Kenneth Baker: Listening to when they talk. Answer the question that they ask. Get to the point, which I … Yeah, but you know, in doing what you're doing, they'll ask a question, and I hope I'm always in this interview, I'm giving you the direct answer to the question. I may illustrate it a bit, but I'm always going back to the point in those new business situations. There's so many … We saw it in the elections. Look, it's like newscasters interviewing candidates for public office, and it's like, as one of the local news people says, “That's great, but you didn't answer my question.” If a client says that and we're sitting at the table in an interview, I want to crawl under the table. It's like, “Get to the point.” Answer their question. Have one person answer that question. Listen and don't talk about what you want to talk about, but answer their question.

Enoch Sears: Let's finish up here, Ken, by jumping into some of the financial metrics that you look at in terms of helping these other offices that you're supporting. When you talked about you're looking at the financial metrics in your weekly call with them, what are the KPIs, or the key performance indicators, that you're always focused in on?

Kenneth Baker: Well, I mean, any business worth … Every business is talking about what the profitability of their operation is from … We do it one week to the next, and we roll it up on monthly for a big kind of meeting where we look at all of those financial metrics. Profitability is one. But [granularly 00:06:10], we want to get involved in like, “How do we get to …” We all have budgets. We put out a budget and we've got to strive to meet that budget or exceed that budget. We have kind of goals and objectives on our metrics. So we look at the building of new business, what we call the backlog or the pipeline of new business and how far that extends out. We look at our new business opportunities and how is this new opportunity, they haven't made up their mind yet, but are we over 80% sure we're going to get it?

That goes on a list. That enables us to plan like staffing. On that staffing things, we look at productivity. We look at the productivity of all of our technical staff. We look at … We have goals for productivity. You can't only be … We're a professional service firm, so we build [inaudible 00:07:12] to clients based on time spent on projects. That says two things. It says we got to get the client work done, but at the same time are we staying within the work plan for that particular project, and importantly, are people busy? There's a level that we want to keep them busy at that helps build our financial success.

Then there's another one, AR. [inaudible 00:07:38] something. Are we collecting the bills? We send invoices out every month. We like to see payment within 60 days, but sometimes it's longer, and there's circumstances for that. But you've got to stay on top of it. You got to win the work, you got to do the work, and you got to send it out, get it built and then you got to invoice, and you got to collect the money. I would say the kind of … The last one is we look at a thing called held time, and that's time that we accrue on projects that we can't bill to a client. Naturally, we'd like to minimize that, but in some cases, when we're building a new relationship, held time is something that we really look at.

Because it's kind of an investment we're making into [inaudible 00:08:29] with the client, or developing a new practice area. It's time that we're spending … We get benefit … There is an ROI around that. Like, we're gaining new experience. We're gaining a bigger and better relationship with a particular client, or in a particular practice area that the ROI is kind of the future investment of that money. We'll get back that money in other ways by getting new business in the future.

Enoch Sears: What kind of things get dumped into the held time bucket?

Kenneth Baker: Well it's time [inaudible 00:09:00]. If the client says, “Hey, I need my reception area redesigned, and you got to oversee the building of it,” and all that, and we develop the fee, and we've got billable rates for our things. If we go over, there's a work plan. It says, “John Doe can work 60 hours a week on this project,” whatever, or 40 hours a week, or 20 hours a week. If we spend 40 on a 20 hour week, then that extra 20 hours goes into held time. Sometimes it's a conscious effort that we make to build that business. Other times, it is … It's taking a lot longer to get to the finish line, and you're spending more time, and you have to honor your commitments. You have to honor your contracts.

If clients change their mind and do different things, the clients I'm working with are like, “Look, Ken. I know we asked you to do this, and then we changed our minds and we went back to this, and we changed the terms of the contract.” But that doesn't always happen that way either. We've got to manage our … I guess the point I'm making, in any of those metrics, we've got to manage ourselves. We've got to be very professional, accountable to our clients. And if we give them a fee, we have to stand behind that fee. If there's a fee and a clear outcome for that fee that the client is expecting, we have to get to that outcome.

Enoch Sears: That's fantastic. What advice would you give to architects who want to flourish within an organization?

Kenneth Baker: They have to … I think today, they have to be … It's not just about, in their own minds, developing their own career and their own, you know, getting to various titles and various levels of their career. You do that by servicing the needs of your client. Anybody here that is client-focused and is achieving their client's needs is going to grow [inaudible 00:11:06]. I would say the other things that we look at is involvement in the community, involvement in new initiatives inside the firm, or inside the profession, but professional organizations. Professional stature that's recognized in the community helps build careers, helps build reputations.

We get the benefit of it. Those people growing professionally outside the firm gets us more business, gets Genzler recognized in whole different areas. I always tell people it's not just about the tangible rewards about getting raises and bonuses and titles and things like that. It's like, personal satisfaction from a client calling up and saying, “This person really …” And we get this, I love it, we get it every week of people calling me up, people I don't even know, clients that I haven't had interface with saying, “I just need to tell you that this person really hit it out of the park for us, and we love this person. Do not take them off our project to put them on another. We want them to come back next year and do this other work for us.” That is a great, thrilling moment.

Enoch Sears: I believe that it's your 20 year anniversary at Genzler. Do I have the timeline correct?

Kenneth Baker: It'll be 21st year in February 17th. 21st year, so I'm in my 20th year. Yeah.

Enoch Sears: Congratulations.

Kenneth Baker: Thank you. Yeah, it's flown by so quickly, Enoch, it seems like yesterday. I left Chicago in the beginning of 96, after a very long career there, and I guess I always thought I'd be in Chicago. But I was recruited by Diane for this office, and I joined Genzler and see the world. It took me to London, it's taken me to Asia, it's taken me to points far flung, and I've gained so many international client relationships, and local client relationships, and global client relationships. It was a great decision to make. And I worked for good firms. I started working for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill right out of college. I went from Skidmore to another great firm, Swanke Hayden Connell [inaudible 00:13:25] Chicago, although they were a New York firm. They're sadly no longer a firm. They're not in business, but I came from Swanke to another firm that guy took over that operation, stayed with him for a number of years, and then I went to work for Genzler.

I think all of those firms, all of the firms I worked for were great learning opportunities, and really professionally well-managed firms. I will say bias, I drank the kool-aid very early on. I think Genzler's the best managed. I think we do it the right way. There's a lot of great firms out there. We've got great competition, but think we're … That 20 years just flew by because it's been … There's been bumps in the road, but we get through them and we still grow. We've grown … This office was, it was under 100 people. I think it was like 70 … I think I was employee [inaudible 00:14:27] when I joined, and now we're over 400, and the firm's grown to over 5,000.

Enoch Sears: Now, you've probably touched on this all through the entire interview, however, what would you say is the key. You said you really deeply feel that Genzler's the best managed, and I wouldn't expect you to say anything else. If you did, I'd be a little concerned.

Kenneth Baker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Enoch Sears: However, what would you say from your perspective, what's the key to that?

Kenneth Baker: We have a set of guiding principles. I won't recite them all, but one of them is it all begins and ends with our clients. There's the published 10 kind of points of guiding principles that we've got that touch everything from people. It's all about our people. Again, it's about good business practices and respect that we give. It's design innovation, all of the above. But those guiding principles that is the DNA of Genzler culture is something that we kind of put out there for people to read, but we expect them to practice by it too. I don't expect people to recite them, I can't recite them. But I do have a thing that I can refer to that shows all of those. I don't hesitate to bring those out when a client's asking something similar. But the big one is it all begins and ends with our clients and the work that we're doing for clients.

Enoch Sears: Well, and it's one thing to have guiding principles. I would say everyone has those. The rubber meets the road, of course, in the application and staying true to those.

Kenneth Baker: Practice what you preach, yeah.

Enoch Sears: How do you guys stay … What procedures, or policies, or culture do you have to make sure that that is foremost and it actually gets implemented?

Kenneth Baker: Well, we in building new business with … a new client relationships, [inaudible 00:16:18] people to testify on our behalf and get case studies and proof statements from other individuals that hired us to do similar things, and we bring the knowledge back from other clients scenarios that we had to help other clients. Obviously, respect confidentiality and all of that. We don't name names. We don't give budgets. We don't say how much this company spent on their space. But what we will do is bring the lessons learned to all new client opportunities. That's something … I mean, I do a lot of law firms. Law firms are built, they make decisions make on precedence. They always want to be the first to be second.

We can bring innovative techniques and solutions to the next firm and say, “This made this client's solution very successful. You may want to consider that in yours.” I do think it's like the rubber meets the road with keeping your promises to clients. I mentioned a bit about the fees. If you give a fee, you stand by the fee. You don't bait and switch. We promise people to projects. We assign a team. Those people are taken to an interview. Don't bait and switch the people. You keep those people on the team. If there are problems with the people, if there's personalities that don't quite work out, you make those changes right away. Again, we all want to be perfect, we all want to do great things, but there are bumps in the road. There are mistakes that are made. We're people. People are doing the work. If we do make a mistake, and own up to it and fix it, and make the client comfortable.

Enoch Sears: What is Genzler doing to help the staff and the people that work at Genzler all be pointing in the same direction in terms of those core values that you mentioned?

Kenneth Baker: Oh gosh. We have lots of programs. We have these things called super meetings where we bring people from all of our offices. They're different themes. We have 31 practice areas, so we'll have a super meeting, as we just had about practice areas and about client relationships, which is another axis of the firm. We have a super meeting about offices, the things that offices deal with. We have a super meeting about design and delivery, where we bring our design talent, our technical talent, and our management talent all together to share [inaudible 00:18:52] processes. We've got initiatives for every practice area. Each practice area has initiatives that they're working on.

It's a one firm firm philosophy. It's a global connectivity. Another one of those tenants that we live by is that one firm firm philosophy. We don't compete with each other. We share the knowledge. I think you may have heard, people know things about Genzler. We have a call every Monday morning. In DC, it starts at 11 o'clock. It goes, well, [inaudible 00:19:24] hours, and two and a half hours. But we start with Asia, and every office leader in the entire firm, 40 some offices, reports on the new business activities and wins. That is done so everybody [inaudible 00:19:38] and jump in on that call and say, “Hey, wait. I know that person.” Or, “We did this for them.” Or, whatever. Or, “We may want to coordinate this effort because I know so and so that knows so and so.” That way, we don't step on each other. Then, the meeting minutes are published from that. Everybody reads it. We distribute it to our business leaders, and the office leaders are on the call. We help each other build the business. We do not compete with each other.

Enoch Sears: Ken, if you could go back sometime in the past and have a conversation with yourself, what advice would you give to your younger self?

Kenneth Baker: Don't take things personally. There's rewards and set backs that you get in your career, but you have to … When you're working for an organization, a big organization, there's decisions are made for many, many, many reasons. You have to kind of trust in the people that are running that business that you're part of, that they're making decisions based on building the business and helping to build people. But you're not always going to get … Your expectations are not always going to be met, but you have to have the longer … It's a long game, and you've got to keep that long game in mind. It's not just about winning the next project, or getting the next promotion, or getting a bigger bonus, or being recognized in some magazine, or award. It's about what is the longer game? Building the experience, building your client base, making your office successful. You're not always going to get … Every day is not a gold star day. Keep that in mind, but it's the long game. You're there for the long game.

Enoch Sears: So sort of the idea that you might lose some battles, but ultimately, if you persevere, you're going to win the war?

Kenneth Baker: You'll win in other ways.

Enoch Sears: Yeah, yeah.

Kenneth Baker: No matter where we are in that hierarchy of whatever firm you're with, whatever firm you're with, there are going to be things that happen that you're disappointed about. But ultimately, you may be disappointed about this, but [inaudible 00:21:58] comes in another way because of that. I guess what I would struggle with is we're all very ambitious and upwardly mobile in our careers. I think … And we love to see people like that. We also had people that get to a certain level, and that's where they want to stay, and that's fine. There's lots of people like that. We've got to understand and support people that want to do that. We've got to understand and support people that want to jump to the next level.

But you always have to keep it in mind that there's reasons for things happening, and it's … We're a firm that has a very strong one firm firm culture. We may not be right for everybody, but [inaudible 00:22:46] big success rate with what we call boomerangs, people that leave the firm for one better opportunity, they grow, they come back. That is the best testimonial to Genzler's … We give [inaudible 00:23:01] you know, every December 15th when we do the promotions. People that have come back to the firm after they even get a boomerang. It's inscribed, and some people have three boomerangs. It's great.

Enoch Sears: I'm just thinking because this, the primary audience here, Ken, of my podcast would be younger professionals, and also a lot of sole practitioners that have smaller firms. A recurring theme, something that I've seen from the outside that Genzler seems to do very well is this idea of, like you said, the fact that people are coming back to Genzler shows that you guys are doing something right with your culture. You've touched on helping people grow. You've touched on trusting them and that being as one of the keys. Is there anything else that you would like to that in terms of the secret sauce that you could recommend other people implement when they're thinking about creating a culture where people want to be at and where they can thrive?

Kenneth Baker: I think, you know, I'm going back to your [inaudible 00:24:02] in smaller firms that are interested in this kind of dialogue. I would say to them, and younger folks too, it is no matter what's … You know, we're a big firm, made up of [inaudible 00:24:20] of much smaller business entities. Our building block for our firm is the studio. In the DC office, there's like nine studios. Or, no. Actually there's more than that now. Each studio is more than just kind of a homeroom. Business is built in those studios, and they are built as their own businesses within like the DC office, or within the Baltimore office, or within the Atlanta office.

We look at their profitability, and their AR, and their held time, and their all of those metrics, and their promotions of people, and their experts of people, and their marketing experience, and all of that. I guess what I would say to them is big firm or small firm, you got to kind of approach it with … You've got to approach the parts and pieces of your firm with a small firm mentality and kind of an introspection on what are the building blocks of that. But you also have to bring that together with an overarching dialogue and a sensibility about how you bring all of those parts and pieces together to grow.

I would also answer the question in a little bit different way. I think we were a small … When I joined the firm in 96, this region was bigger than … Well, our region right now is bigger than the entire firm of Genzler was in 96. I'll say that. That's been [inaudible 00:25:51] hundred people. When I joined in like 96, there was like 700 people. Getting to a thousand was a big benchmark, and getting to two-thousand. It's a relative scalable discussion, but because of our studio make up being the building blocks we do approach our office … People don't feel like they're lost in a big mixing bowl, or a big sea of individuals. I think we really focus on this individual.

What I would put out there is like we do we call PDPE's, and it happens once a year. Then, there's a touch base, and those are your reviews. Our reviews are not performance reviews. They're not done … If there's been issues with an individual, we don't save all those little things up and say, “Okay, you came in late three weeks ago, and that was bad.” We deal with those things as they occur. Those [inaudible 00:26:48] what they've accomplished and talking about goals for the next year, and talking about lessons learned. We develop goals jointly with those individuals, and then we say, “How can we help you? When you've got to do certain things to attain those goals and get to the finish line and that, and we've got to do certain things. And what is the agreement between us?”

And it's all written down, and when we do the touch back six months later, which in the process of doing now, we're going, “You know, you've done this,” and I don't usually have to read it on a piece of paper. I can see it. I can see it, so I'm doing those PDPs with the office leaders and the principles. There's studio leaders who doing it with everybody in their studios. Design leaders, they're doing it with the designers of the firm, talking about what was successful with [inaudible 00:27:41], successful with technical. How did you innovate these projects? So you're mentored and looked at from a number of different lenses, all towards success. But the point of it is individual. Focus on the individual, and how the individual fits into the studio and how the studio fit into the office, and how the office fits into the region, and the region's fit together. So it's kind of this building effect.

Enoch Sears: I think that … Yeah, I think that's very, very clear. Thank you for making that explanation about how the people structure works. I'm curious how the financial structure works in terms of the money that gets billed. Does it get put into a central pot? Is it kept in the local offices? Can you give me an overview of how the money flows, and then flows back?

Kenneth Baker: Well, we're a one firm firm, so eventually the money all goes to the same place. It all goes to the firm. The studios, the offices, the regions, we keep metrics for all of those. So, yeah, I can see … Our DC office has metrics at the end of the day. I look at all eight offices in our region. Adding all that up gives me the regional total. Firm adds up all the regions, and that's what it is. But it all goes … All the profit goes to the same bottom line. Yes, you have to look at it. You have to break it down so you know where the money's coming from, where the issues are coming from, or what the growth factors are, et cetera. But it all goes to the same place. That's what makes it good.

It's not this … There are other firms that keep totally separate entities, and it fosters a different type of competition. Naturally, I think we're all competitive, and you want to see your region do really well, and you're responsible for your region doing well. But when we reward people, we reward them based on the fact that the firm did well, the region did well, your office did well, you did well, your studio did well, and your clients are happy, and you're doing all these things to help build the business. One firm firm.

Enoch Sears: That is awesome. Ken, I'd like to finish up here with one last question. Just in your own life, what is something right now that has you excited? The next stage of growth or learning. What are you learning and growing, and maybe even struggling with right now in your life to get to kind of the next level? And it could be anything. I could be personal, it could be career.

Kenneth Baker: Well, I'm 58 right now, and so I guess people start to think about retirement when it's 65 or whatever. I keep joking that I think they're going to have to burn the building down around me to get me out of it. I want to stay working and stay vital and work with clients and people as long as I can. I love coming to the office every day. I love the interaction with the clients and the people in our office, and that's part of my DNA. I'm single, so the office, I've got friendships here. But I also have outside activities. I have [inaudible 00:31:02], place that I want to retire to. But I think one of the things that I'm kind of thinking about right now is my partner, Jordan Goldstein, who co-manages a region with me and myself have a master plan for our region.

We are always looking for replacements for ourselves. Say I work till 70, I'm not going to stay in this role till I'm 70. There will be a certain point that I [inaudible 00:31:27] the role because somebody else has to get the keys to the car. Somebody else … I've got to help groom that person and I've got to help bring them up to that level of leadership to be handing the keys to the car over to that individual. My partner, Jordan, is younger than me, so he's got a little bit more longevity than I do. I'm not going to fade away, but it's this constant like looking to the next generation to replace us and build that firm.

But am I going to do. I'm really into furniture design. I helped build that practice area. I guess my own plan would be someday I would hope that being a passion, that maybe if I'm not leading an office, maybe I just focus full time on product design. I go back to that design capability that I've got, and make that the focus of some growth and profitability for the firm as well, and enjoyment for myself.

Enoch Sears: There's one additional question that I think I neglected to ask, but it regards the structure, because every time I hear you talking about the different regions, you talk about co-managers. Is every region co-managed? Are there always-

Kenneth Baker: We like to see co-managers in every region, yes. All the regions don't have co-managers right at the moment, but that's something that the firm moves towards. In fact, it's kind of a model that we really like in the offices. Even our smaller offices, like [inaudible 00:33:06] office, we don't have directors of that office yet. We've got one. But Miami is the next office that … The next newest offices, and we just made a co-manager there this year. It's great to have a partner in running the business. That's how we feel. There's so many things that we expect of our office leaders and our regional leaders that you really have to have two people to do it. Diane and I ran this region together. When she became … When her CEO requirements drew more time, we needed to be focused on who was going to partner with me. I got Jordan, which was great. Because there is so much to do, especially with an office with eight regions, or eight offices, a region with eight offices. Excuse me.

So yes, co … And then you have a partner. You're not kind of out there on your own. You've got somebody to bounce it back. Just to add one more illustrative point to it, we're not all doing the same thing. Jordan and I aren't in those roles to sit and make co-decisions on everything. There are trust me points that we give each other. He's focused on the design and delivery leadership across our region. I am focused on client relationships across the region. He may be focused on some other initiatives with technology. I'm focused on maybe some other initiatives regarding financial building, and hiring, and mentoring. You really need … There's so much stuff to do to build a successful practice that you need a partner.

Enoch Sears: Is there some question that I should have asked you, Ken? Are you thinking in their head, “Man, I wish Enoch would have touched on this,” or, “Here's something that is kind of a passion of mine?”

Kenneth Baker: Maybe what is it that would give me the most professional satisfaction at the end of the day? Two things, and I said it in a round about way earlier, and that's seeing young people grow into really great, recognized leaders in their profession and in the world. The second thing is the relationship I get with my clients. That means … I've had this client, Sidley Austin, for 20 years. If they were to decide tomorrow that they didn't want to work with us, that would be tough for me. I would say, “I could have been doing something better,” but the fact that … And just because I've been doing it for 20 years doesn't mean that it is going to continue. It's hard work every week, on top of running the region, to keep that situation in a really good place. But at the end of the day, I have great personal satisfaction that those people are friends of mine.

We can look at each other, I was at a meeting with them the other day in Chicago saying, “Look,” we were talking to another group of people and we said, “Look, we've been doing this for 20 years, but if I did something wrong, they can tell me, and I can … or if they're doing something wrong that I think they're not allowing us to serve them the right way, I can tell them that and nobody's like getting offended or defensive about it.” We can talk very plainly. But that respect that you get is something that I value and validates my professional life really.

Enoch Sears: Thank you so much. So today we've been talking with Mr. Kenneth Baker. Ken, good talking with you today. He's the co-managing principle of Genzler's southeast region. Thanks again.

Kenneth Baker: Enoch, thank you. It was great talking with you.

Enoch Sears: That is a wrap. Thank you for listening today. If you are looking for more time, freedom, impact, and income as an architect, get instant access to my free four part architect profit map by visiting FreeArchitectGift.com. The sponsor for today's show is Arch Reach, the client relationship management tool, built specifically for architects. If you want to systematize your marketing and business development, Arch Reach will help you do it. Visit ArchReach.com to learn more. The views expressed on this show by my guest do not represent those of the host, and I make no representation, promise, guarantee, pledge, warranty, contract, bond, or commitment except to help you conquer the world.

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ABOUT

ENOCH SEARS

Enoch Bartlett Sears is the founder of the Architect Business Institute, Business of Architecture and co-founder of the Architect Marketing Institute. He helps architects become category leaders in their market. Enoch hosts the #1 rated interview podcast for architects, the Business of Architecture Show where prominent guests like M. Arthur Gensler, Jr. and Thom Mayne share tips and strategies for success in architecture.

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