Life of an Architect, with Bob Borson

In this episode of Podcasting in Professional Services, Bob Borson, a principal at the multidisciplinary firm BOKA Powell and the creator behind the hugely successful Life of an Architect brand, joins the show to share his 16-year journey. It all started with a blog during the 2008-2011 recession as a way to learn new skills and stay creatively relevant, which eventually blossomed into a massive platform reaching up to 350,000 people a month. 

Bob Borson shares the transition from blogging to podcasting, why maintaining fierce independence over your content is crucial, and the real "secret sauce" to long-term consistency. In this episode, you'll learn: 

• How an 8-year blog laid the groundwork for a massive 2018 podcast launch
• Why refusing company equipment kept Bob's brand independent and protected his IP
• Why single deep-dive topics and a co-host with contrasting experience work best
• That honoring self-commitments and never missing a deadline drives consistency
• Why Bob edits audio to make guests sound brilliant rather than adding video
• How topics shifted from basic design to firm leadership as Bob's career advanced

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Welcome
01:31 Boca Powell Overview
02:52 Blogging Origins in 2010
07:10 Staying Independent and Owning IP
08:40 From Blog to Podcast Launch
13:06 Co Host Format and Episode Structure
19:32 Evolving Topics With Career Growth
24:48 Consistency and Billable Time Balance
29:18 Monetization Boundaries and Closing

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This episode was produced by Red Cedar Marketing.  Need help launching and running a business podcast that actually produces results? Visit www.redcedarmarketing.com. 

Transcript

Bob Borson 0:00

was getting 350,000 people a month through the website. Like it was big. And, um, the number of parents and children and if I go to like a ground zero architectural event, like a conference or a, you know, like if I go to the AIA National Convention, 100% I-- someone will walk up to me and say I'm the reason that they became an architect.

John Tyreman 0:26

Welcome business podcasters to another episode of Podcasting in Professional Services. I'm your host, John Tyreman, founder of Red Cedar, where we build media brands for experts like you. Today, my guest is Bob Borson, a principal at Boca Powell, a full-service architecture, interior design, and planning firm based in Dallas, Texas. Bob is also a co-host of "The Life of an Architect" podcast. Welcome to the show, Bob.

Bob Borson 0:54

Hey, John. Nice to see you. Thanks for having me on the show. Happy to be here.

John Tyreman 0:57

Yeah. Yeah. You've had a busy couple weeks going coast to coast. you were recently up in, uh, Saskatchewan, right? Giving a lecture.

Bob Borson 1:06

the fine folks of the Saskatchewan Association of Architects invited me to come up there and be one of the speakers at their yearly conference. So, that was a nice adventure, a little distraction for, you know, a couple weeks to prepare my presentation, and then, uh, and then the journey that is to get up to the northern area of the Saskatchewan province,

John Tyreman 1:29

that sounds like it was a, a fun adventure cool. So, uh, Bob, uh, can you set the stage for our listeners, business podcasters of all stripes, um, consulting firms, accounting firms. Can you set the stage and tell us a little bit about your firm, Boca Powell, and the kinds of work that you do?

Bob Borson 1:45

the firm where I'm at now, I'm a principal, been there for seven years. We're a multidisciplinary firm. We do project across many sectors, core and shell office building, hospitality, student housing, corporate office, a little interior repositioning. We kinda do a little bit of everything. We currently have four offices. We have one in Dallas, one in Fort Worth, one in Austin, and one in, Denver. During the time that I've been there, we've ranged between about 80 and 115 employees. the peak was right before COVID, and the low spot was shortly after COVID.

John Tyreman 2:24

Yeah. For a

Bob Borson 2:28

maybe even other industries, uh, know what it was like coming out of COVID and people kinda reassessing what they're doing with their lives.

John Tyreman 2:35

the years following COVID, I was among, uh, layoffs from a marketing agency, and but that's what set me out on my own, as an entrepreneur. So, you know, there's always a kind of a silver lining in all those things. Your life of an architect journey started well before your time at Boca Powell. So you started blogging around 2010, was that it?

Bob Borson 2:56

Yeah.

John Tyreman 2:57

So is that when you started creating content?

Bob Borson 3:01

You know, I, I don't even think anybody called it creating content back then. It was just kind of a, you know, everyone just referred to it as digital communication and, uh, social networking. And there were certain kind of words that were your cue. You know, a social network was the act-- The networking had to do with the idea of being social, and there was a certain etiquette that was in place back in that time.

John Tyreman 3:21

at. And those were the ones that

Bob Borson 3:23

and we didn't really have trolls yet, and we didn't have people that were looking just to sow discord on the internet for entertainment purposes. So generally, it was, um, a bunch of well-intentioned people just trying to get out there and have conversations about whatever it is they wanted to talk about. see, I would've been in my early 40s, I guess,

John Tyreman 3:39

a position where

Bob Borson 3:40

and I was having, uh, Christmas drinks with a friend of mine who's an attorney who teaches other attorneys how to use software to do their jobs more effectively and efficiently.

John Tyreman 3:50

an architect?" And

Bob Borson 3:51

he knew some words, and we were just having a chat and, and I asked him some questions, and he goes, "Oh, well, just subscribe to the RSS feed and put it in your Google Reader." And I was like: What is-- I don't understand a word you just said. And I had this moment when I realized that

John Tyreman 4:05

that

Bob Borson 4:06

I was just getting better at doing things that I already knew how to do, and I had this, I don't know if epiphany's the right word, that sounds a little too big for the moment, but I had this realization that m-maybe I needed to branch out and learn some new things. So I decided, and I think that this might be true for a lot of people that, that have the same kinda genes that would make you think doing a podcast or a blog site would be a good idea, as I needed a creative outlet. I mean, that was 2010. We were right coming-- I mean, we were still in the 2008, 2011 recession. Um, something like 40% of all architects or people that worked in allied architectural industries were laid off. So here I am, I'm a creative person, and I needed an outlet. And so I just started doing it, I didn't have an agenda. I didn't have an editorial calendar. I didn't feel like the word, world was just dying to hear what I had to say. I just wanted to learn how to do something new and not fall any further behind in some of these emerging technologies, and that's what started the whole thing.

John Tyreman 5:08

And were you, were you a practicing architect at this time? Were you, were you part of layoffs or where, where were you career-wise?

Bob Borson 5:14

I, I was a practicing architect, and we did not lay anybody off. It's one of the great feathers in the cap of the c- place where I worked. There were only eight of us. We're a small office, and we didn't lay anybody off during that time. Now, w-we did go through one period where we did creatively, we called them furloughs. So everybody took a 10% pay cut, but we asked you to work 10% less.

John Tyreman 5:36

going on.

Bob Borson 5:37

nice, and the thing I give, uh, the owner at the time, one of the owners, all the credit in the world every time I see him is I go You know, this was a great move on your part, shows that he was a decent person, is that we didn't take your salary without asking you to work less. So when you worked more, your salary went back to what it was before. Because during that time period, a lot of people got like salary readjustments, and when the workload came back, there's-- they were still kind of working in a deficit of from where they started. So I take a great deal of pride in the fact that we didn't lay anybody off.

John Tyreman 6:11

Okay. So at, at the time you're going through the reverberations of the 2008 to 2010 financial crisis, um, that gave you kind of the bandwidth, might I say, of being able to kind of like establish that creative outlet. Do you think that was the spark that started

Bob Borson 6:28

You know, it, it wasn't really so much the bandwidth as it was the need to not feel irrelevant. you're a young-looking guy, good-looking guy, and I, and I go, at some point in your life, you realize what's next? Like, what's more? I mean, I mean, I hope, I hope that for most people. I hope staying curious is, was the secret to staying young, at least mentally. And I had this, um,

John Tyreman 6:53

um,

Bob Borson 6:54

drive to wanna better myself, at least through continuing education. And like a lot of people who fit my, my description, my playbill, I guess, uh, we learn by doing.

John Tyreman 7:06

doing.

Bob Borson 7:07

And so I did it just to, to do it. And the thing that, that I find interesting when I reflect back on the period when I started, I wrote almost everything I did sitting on the couch in front of the TV at nights. I didn't do it in my job. You know, and it's one of the things that the, the Life of an Architect brand

John Tyreman 7:27

has

Bob Borson 7:28

with me through three different places where I've worked. Because I've never used company equipment to do the work. I never used company equipment to produce the content. I didn't use, like, all the graphics I made, all the photos I took, like everything was mine. So when I left and they, they wanna go, "Hey, we don't wanna have this stuff on the website." And, uh, which nobody really ever did that. I would say like, "Well, too bad. I, it's my stuff. I made it. I own it." but I never left anywhere on bad terms, and so nobody really played that card. But it was a decision I made very early on that I was never going to let somebody tell me what I could or couldn't talk about. And so I wanted to hold myself to the highest standard possible so I didn't even have the, uh, like a position that would weaken my stance on what I could or couldn't do.

John Tyreman 8:20

That's so fascinating. So you, um, you essentially founded a media brand on your own, kind of independently outside of working hours, and that, that was the blog at first, the website. B- and then eventually that kind of evolved into a podcast. So can you talk about that transition, and how that came to be at,

Bob Borson 8:45

Yeah, you know, it sounds, uh, it's kind of not as nice or as cool of a story, to be honest with you. the route it was, I was, I was maybe eight years into writing the, the website and, and it profoundly changed my, perception. not just in Dallas where I live or in Texas, the state where I practice, but, the whole country, the world. Like all of a sudden I became somebody, which was really bizarre because I hadn't really changed, I just didn't have a platform. and you know, and there's this, this moment people used to ask me, they'd go, "Oh, I could never do this." And I go, "I'm not doing anything that you couldn't do. You- the only difference between us is you're just not doing it. That's it." And that might be selling myself a little bit short. I hear that as well. You know, I like to, I'm pr- I, well, I like to think I'm clever, and most people, if they describe my personality, they'd say like I vastly between, like really intense and funny. Um, I kinda can play it both ways, and so my personality really came out on the website, and, uh, certainly when I started the blog. I started the blog really 'cause I was bored with the website.

John Tyreman 9:53

wanted to

Bob Borson 9:57

not really a fair thing to say 'cause it had, had contributed so much to what I was doing and gave me a position in my industry that I would not have ever had if left to my own, uh, devices without reaching out or engaging in digital communication. But I was... I, if, if, it was a grind. It just felt like another job. You know, before it was, it was a passion project, and I loved doing it. I never took ads, I never took money for it. 'Cause that kinda goes back to the first comment I had was, um, or at least something I said earlier was, I didn't want anybody telling me what I could or couldn't say. Like that mattered. And I had a job. I wasn't doing this for, for the money. Um, so in 2018, I opened it up and I said, "All right, I just wanted to learn something new." Same reason I started the website. So I started the podcast. But one of the differences I had that most people who start podcasts don't have, is I already had a really well-established platform. And so when I released the first podcast episode, it got about 3,000 downloads in the first day,

John Tyreman 11:02

Yeah.

Bob Borson 11:02

which, um, that doesn't happen very often. It's probably even harder for people to do it now if they don't have an established brand or fo- like people already knew who I was. The people that were already coming to the website, um, they just migrated along to the podcast. It just was, seemed like a natural extension So.

John Tyreman 11:21

Yeah. That's, that's one common characteristic that I've seen over the course of these interviews with other business podcasters, is that natural evolution from whether it was a blog or a newsletter or an established LinkedIn presence translating over to a podcast. That's been one route that I've seen take. Um, a podcast, you can kind of launch a podcast without a big network and use that as a relationship engine. I've seen it work out that way as well. but you mentioned one thing that I, I, I wanna highlight, and that was the fact that your personality oscillating between funny and intense, I like that. Um, that shone through on the blog, but I imagine that the podcast took that to a whole 'nother level.

Bob Borson 12:09

Well, you know, that would be great to say that's true, but it's not. Um, part of it is 'cause on the website it was 100% me. There was no filter. I didn't have to bounce anything off like a conversation with somebody else. And so I actually wrote an article about this once, and it had to do with something like, I don't know, grammar ain't all that. Like I, uh, like one of these really kind of terribly worded phrases intentionally because I like telling stories, and creating narratives around what architects do is a big part of what architects do from a design standpoint. You know, I don't-- If-- Like, if I'm designing a house for somebody and, and the only requirements are I need to have X number of bedrooms and bathrooms and don't let the water in, well, line forms to the left. Like, there's a billion people that could do that for you, and probably that would-- people that would charge you less than I would, 'cause they don't have the education or the, the skills that I might have developed over the years. So when I started the, the podcast, I had a couple decisions that I made right out of the gate that I think kind of helped shape the tone to it. The, the article, when I write them, I made up my own kind of grammar so that if you read them, you know whether or not it's me thinking in my head, me talking out loud, me kind of, "Hey, do you know what I'm saying?" Like whispering something in your ear if it's a private joke. So I used ellipses and italics and parentheses and gaps and dashes and everything so that you would read it in the same way I would say it. So I kind of developed my own little shorthand of that. What made sense to me. I didn't read a book about it, just, it's just how it kind of evolved. So if you read those website articles, you get a true sense of who I am and what my personality might be like. On the podcast, I didn't want to be just a talking head, right? So I needed a, a partner, and I've had two partners on my podcast. Uh, first guy was a guy named Landon. He was an awesome guy. Young employee, just started working at my company. And I thought, well, there's the convenience factor, 'cause he literally sits right next to me. So there's that And then the other part of it was I have 30 more years experience than he does. So if we wanna talk about something that's architecture related, which is kind of the point of the podcast, it would be nice to have contrasting experience levels to, to look at a, a, a, a discussion from two different ends of the spectrum.

John Tyreman 14:35

can look at it and have questions. Yeah, you got like the mentor-mentee relationship

Bob Borson 14:38

Yeah, you know, so Landon was his name. He, he taught me a lot of stuff. All right, so it kind of goes both ways, but sometimes when you've walked five times around the block, you know what's coming up when you go start lap six. He, he was just starting his first lap around the block, so he had questions and he saw things through fresh eyes, so it made conversations a little bit different. Well, during that time, Landon met his future wife, and something that I bet you can appreciate is that making podcasts takes a long time. Um, for ours, we-- I, I have to do a run sheet, which is kinda like a high-level breadcrumb of what my conversation is, because I'm prone to telling stories about the stories that I'm telling stories about, and next thing you know, I'm, I'm eight incomplete stories into it, and I don't remember what my point was, and there's no way of getting back, and I haven't actually finished telling a single story. So I write run sheets.

John Tyreman 15:35

you

Bob Borson 15:36

We made the decision to only cover a single topic, right? There were a couple of architectural podcasts that were currently in the marketplace when I started. They'd been there before me. And there were a couple things they did that I didn't l- I didn't care for. I'm sure other people love them. They just weren't for me.

John Tyreman 15:51

like- Like what?

Bob Borson 15:52

Well, uh, I didn't like when someone's, uh, like grab bag stuff. You know, like, "Hey, we're gonna have a 30 or 45-minute conversation, and we're gonna cover 17 different topics."

John Tyreman 16:02

Oh, God,

Bob Borson 16:03

R- right? You can't really get into it, and then sometimes they might say, "Hey, we're gonna talk about juggling cats," and you're like, "Oh, I, I love juggling cats. I wanna hear that part." And then you just have to bl- beat your way through all these things that you don't care about just to get to the juggling cats, only to find out they talked about it for 35 seconds, and you're like, "Ugh, what a waste of my time." So I decided I was never gonna do that. We're gonna pick one topic, and we're gonna try to do as deep a dive as we could within the timeframe that we set. And we're gonna do a, a... I don't know if it's considered long format, since there's some out there that are three-plus hours. Like, we wanna keep ours around an, an hour. That's what it

John Tyreman 16:38

idea. Yeah.

Bob Borson 16:39

So the thing that we ended up doing to try to show our personality and to show that we're not just a couple of old dudes talking about the good old days and stay off my lawn, is we decided that at the back end of every episode, and this really kinda came into its own when Andrew Hawkins, who's my current, uh, podcast partner, he started on episode 12, I believe, and he's been there for the last 188 of them. Like, so he, he-- essentially, he's been there for the whole time, even though it drives him crazy he wasn't there for number one. Um- But we decided that at the end of every serious conversation about whatever we're talking about, we were gonna do a question or some kind of hypothetical or, or would you rather, or what's, let's rank the worst deli meats. Something that would allow us to just be regular people sitting at a bar that you met and had a conversation with, and would allow us to show our personality and our, and our sense of humor in a way that talking about leadership and management don't really queue up for you.

John Tyreman 17:39

Love that. Love that. And so I guess like I'm, I'm curious why the co-hosted format and why not have guests come on the show?

Bob Borson 17:48

this is also something else that, you know, when we had our little exchange, uh, prior to actually recording today, most people don't have nice recording equipment. That's not something you have to deal with, 'cause you have other podcasters on the show,

John Tyreman 18:02

good point. Yep.

Bob Borson 18:03

and they have nice mics and good sound. And like, if I turned my camera around, you would see I have baffles and, uh, this is not a live room, and you're not gonna hear clicks and tinks, and I know not to hit the table when I'm talking. So your active editing might be a lot less than ours. So when we would have guests on, they like, they'd sound like, "Oh, I'm recording in the garage." And you're like, that's the like, why are you in the garage? It's the concrete and metal and it's noisy, and your wife just came home and opened the garage door. You know, it's like the amount of work that went into having guests on the show was profound compared to not having a guest on the show. Uh, we still have them on occasionally, and normally that's because we want to talk about a subject where we are not experts. Like we're curious about something and there's only so much, I don't know, op-ed value we can bring to a discussion. So we go, let's get somebody who actually knows what they're talking about, and we can just record a conversation like, "Hey, help me become a better version of myself." So that's when guests become of value on our show. And we've probably had about, I don't know, 30, 35 guests out of 200. Like, so it's not very often, but it does happen.

John Tyreman 19:14

Well, that, that's good. And that reminds me of a couple of other podcasters, co-hosted podcasters who've done the same thing. Um, I'm im- immediately reminded of, Jason Malicki and, um, Jeff McKay from "Rattle and Pedal." They do the same thing you mentioned something in a m- a recent episode. You celebrated your 200th episode on "Life of an Architect," and you mentioned something about the first 100 episodes really drew from topics that you wrote about on the blog, on the website. Um, but then that your content s- strategy shifted a little bit after that as your business grew and your career went in a different direction. Can you ex- expand on that a little bit?

Bob Borson 19:56

I've never had an editorial calendar in my life. The whole time we're doing this, we don't really plan ahead what we're gonna be talking about. Andrew's a full-time professor at Texas A&M University. I'm a principal in a pretty big firm, and I-- my days are full. Like if I, if I don't write a blog post or I don't record a podcast, I'm still working 60 hours a week. So we tend to make our topics based around what we're actually doing, right? So in the beginning, we chose, or I chose, um, to kind of feature like of all the-- Like if I took the most popular blog posts I ever wrote, there was something interesting to me about exploring a longer format discussion about, uh, that topic as opposed to what I could write about it from, you know, first-person perspective, right? Kind of a back and forth would make that conversation a bit more interesting.

John Tyreman 20:51

Okay.

Bob Borson 20:55

100, probably out of the first 100, probably less than half were actually like podcast versions of blog posts. It, it wasn't every single one. It was just, all right, hey, we talked about low-cost modern houses on the way-- I say we, it was me. we talked about how low-cost modern houses are like Santa Claus. You know, like you, you enthusiastically believe in until you get older and learn how just ridiculous that is. And so, uh, so let's get into it. Let's have a, let's have a longer form conversation about it. So that might be something that we'd revisit, or how much does an architect make, or, or what, like what does the day in a life of architect look like? 'Cause most people who aren't us have no clue, and then people who are even in college when they're listening to episodes, they all think architects graduate and become designers, which is not even close to being accurate. Um, like, you know, I start-- I would get emails from folks and they'd say, "I, I really wanna be an architect, but I'm bad at math," or, "I can't draw," you know, "I can't sketch very well," or, "I'm not artistic," or, "I'm not very creative." And I go, "Do you know how many jobs are made for someone who thinks like you do in the architectural profession?" If I have 100 people, maybe eight design. Like I count on eight to do design work for me. The other 92 have a completely different experience and expertise to do the job. So let's talk about that, as you know, which is too big of a topic to, to write about unless I wanna write a book, which I don't, so

John Tyreman 22:25

Okay. So, y- so you're, you're expanding on kind of like some like tangential topics around the life of an architect, all the different people in orbit around the work

Bob Borson 22:36

uh, I guess it's been 16 plus years since I started, even the topics I covered have evolved because my career has evolved. I don't talk about the same things I talked about in the beginning because I don't do the same things that I did in the beginning. Like when I started it, I was-- worked in a, a small firm that focused almost exclusively on high-end residential projects, right? So my blog posts reflected that, and my photos reflected that. The process of how do we design, or, "Look, I'm working on a bench right now. Here's what that looks like." Now I have more responsibilities in not only being my, doing my job, which is I'm a senior product designer, I'm a project manager, but I have management responsibility, I have leadership responsibilities, I have mentoring responsibilities, I have HR responsibilities. I have, like, I have running a company responsibilities now. I don't really design benches anymore, right? Like, 'cause it, it's not really what I spend my time doing. And since we've always made it, made the overarching goal to talk about things that we're literally doing right now, it has changed the topics that I discuss about. So now more I talk about is, you know, firm related things. Like what is the difference between leadership and management? Why do titles matter differently to you at the beginning of your career versus the middle of your career versus the end of your career? You know, firm transition, what does that look like? Why is it hard? The next episode we have coming out is on the-- it's titled "The Middle of Middle Management," and it has to do with that phase of your life when you feel like you have, uh, you have accountability without authority, meaning you're responsible for the outcome, but you don't really have your hand on the wheel in the same way. And why on one hand that's terrible and it's agonizing, and why it's really hard for people to go through that process. But then we end the show by talking about why it's a s- it's a type of apprenticeship and why it matters and why it's important for you to evolve into the thing that you're going to become.

John Tyreman 24:40

It's kinda like a rite of passage going through that, so you can kinda see both, both ends of it. It's like a baton handoff kinda thing. Yeah. Um- I'm, I'm really curious because, uh, one thing that a lot of architects, engineers, um, professionals who are doer sellers or who have a r- responsibility toward either marketing or sales within their organization, one of the things that they struggle with is how to balance that unbillable, those unbillable hours versus the billable hours. So, like, you've obviously mastered that with the consistency that you've been able to publish content for the last, like you said, 16 years. Like, what's the secret sauce there?

Bob Borson 25:25

There is no secret sauce. Uh, it's just telling your-- And, and maybe it, maybe it's my work ethic. I don't know. Uh, no one's ever told me... Well, that's not true now, but, um, like in the beginning when I first started, I told myself I was gonna publish something three days a week, and I did that, and I never missed a deadline. It didn't matter what I was doing, I did it 'cause I said, "I'm gonna do it." And, and to me, breaking my own word is almost a bigger crime than me breaking my word to somebody else, 'cause they're disappointed. Like I know the heart of it, right? Like, so I n- I never missed deadlines, and I was fairly maniacal about it, and it came at a cost, I'm not gonna lie. Uh, and so I backed off and I went to two a week, and now I publish one every two weeks. It's-- And now we just basically, unless I have some burning thing I wanna just get out of my head, uh, the blog posts I write now a- align with the podcast that gets released. Because we, I had so many people that liked the website and like, oh, architecture's a visual medium. We need graphics, like 'cause we're graphic people. Um, so I was like, all right, and so I just stayed with writing the, the po- the blog site. But it's... You could listen, you can listen to the podcast and never go to the website, or you could go to the website and never listen to the podcast, and you're gonna get the same sort of value from it. But I made the decision to do both. So the secret sauce is do the work. That's all it is.

John Tyreman 26:56

I-- And that's, that's what I was hoping that you would say. And, and I love that you, that you, um, mentioned that, like, you set a goal and breaking your own-- the word to yourself meant a lot, and so that you were, you held yourself accountable to that. And from everything that-- all the research that I've done and all the interviews that I've done, consistency in publishing content is one of the big keys to podcasting success, to blogging success. You mentioned something, Bob, that, uh, architecture is a visual medium, right? And one-- I'll just share a quick story. So I, uh, produce a podcast for an architect in, Ontario. He does lakeside homes, on the Canadian Shield. our approach was to showcase visually shots of his portfolio on YouTube, so it was very v-- like video f-focused podcast. And it ended up netting him some, some new business pretty quickly after we launched. I'm curious, have you considered video as a way to showcase kind of more of the visual medium of architecture on the podcast? Now, uh, I get asked that question

Bob Borson 28:00

You know, uh, I get asked that question with, uh A level of frequency that I should be embarrassed about because we haven't spent... No, no, no. It's the, it's the right question to ask, quite honestly, because, I don't know, I don't know the right way to put this other than I'm an architect first and second, and I do this just 'cause it was a creative outlet, and then I realized it was providing a value to all architects everywhere. Because the amount of-- Like at the peak, I was getting 350,000 people a month through the website. Like it was big. And, um, the number of parents and children and college, I, I mean, the, I, I don't think I can go to a, if I go to like a ground zero architectural event, like a conference or a, you know, like if I go to the AIA National Convention, 100% I-- someone will walk up to me and say I'm the reason that they became an architect. And, and, and I don't mean that like I'll sprain myself, pat myself on the back, but, but the, the reality is I didn't quit because I felt like it had turned into something that was bigger than me, and I felt like I had an obligation to the, to the industry, to the profession to keep doing this. Now, one of the things I didn't say, and I've kind of danced around a little bit, I never monetized the, the website, and I, I did that purposely.

John Tyreman 29:26

purpose.

Bob Borson 29:28

it actually drove a lot of business to the companies where I worked. Uh, and at one point I, I went through the ROI and I found out that I generated more money as a blogger than I did as an architect, right? Like if I just exist as an architect, I would just be doing the work. But as a business development tool, the blog site drove millions of dollars of fees to the, to the companies, which is great, but it, it doesn't go in my pocket. So part of the reason when I did the podcast, I was like, okay, I pay like $600, $700, $1,000 a year as it kept growing and I needed bigger bandwidth and more space and more server room because all the blog posts I write are graphic intensive. I mean, there's a lot of images. It's not like popping up a, you know, a, a newsy article. And I-- this is all out of pocket for me. And so I decided I was gonna finally, I was gonna monetize the podcast. But even then, um, I drew a line in the sand, you know, and when, because it was such a well-established brand, I got invited. I put it out there in the, in the space where I exist that I was gonna do this, and a lot of some pretty big names reached out and said, "Okay, we want to talk to you about being the official-- like having the "Life of an Architect" podcast be our official podcast, right? And align ourselves with you." And I met with these people, and every single one of them, I told the same thing. "You don't get to tell me what to say. I'm not gonna do what you tell me to do. You know, I'm, I'm not gonna push ads for you because somebody bought a package." And now I need to have a heavy timber specialist on as a guest on my show. I go, "I'm not doing that." So if that's what you're interested to, in, then, you know, thanks, but I'm gonna pass. So I ended up finding a great partner that says like, "Yeah, no, no, you can do whatever you want." And so that's what we did. But we also charged probably 10X what the going rate was for ads. Like, it wasn't even close. Like, add a zero to what everyone else was asking, and that's what we asked. And we said, "Here's how this will work. I will not put more than w- there'll be one ad on every show. Uh, it'll be a five-minute spot in the middle of the episode. I will have somebody on in their voice in interview format so that you get to say whatever you wanna say in your voice." So it's not me, right? 'Cause I wanted to make a distinction between, I'm not telling you you should use this window manufacturer. I'm giving the window manufacturer the, the forum to say, "This is why our windows are worth your consideration." And that, that was, uh, kind of a big decision for us to make, for me to make. And I'm, I'm glad I did it. It helped put my daughter through college. Um, but it was... I still had rules about what I would do and what I wouldn't do and what I would talk about, and I own it, and you can't make me do something. But as soon as I agreed to that, now I did agree to a schedule. Now I am obligated to do the things that I do at the schedule and time that I do them. Um, which is not really a question, I just rabbit holed your question a little bit.

John Tyreman 32:34

no, no, no. Th- that's interesting. Let's, let's unpack that a little bit. So did that-- how did that impact your kind of view on the medium as a creative outlet? Because that's what it has been outside of a business development tool for the firms that you've worked at, but now it's, it's become a monetization vehicle. So h- did that shift your mindset at all?

Bob Borson 32:56

No. No, uh, 'cause you know what? I got a job. I'd walk... If, if, if I wanted to walk away from this tomorrow, I could, right? This is not part of my cash flow strategy. This is just kind of... It's worked out really nice for me, you know? And I'm happy for it. But as soonbuddy, as soon as somebody starts telling me, "This is what you gotta do," and yada, yada, yada, I've never been very good at doing what people want me to do if it doesn't align with my own beliefs, right? So if I, if I have somebody on the show and they're talking about fill in the blank, I would tell you those same things for free. You know, and the, and the, and the blog site w- got so big, I got invited to go lots and lots of places to go do lots and lots of things. In the early days, they just wanted you to be there almost like an influencer before influencer was even a word. But then as that started to evolve, the people that are putting these packages together, they're s- they're basically getting paid to get influencers together to come to some event or go to some kind of, kind of conference or whatever, and to talk about your stuff And so me agreeing to go, they're asking me, they're obligating me to post X number of pictures on Instagram, on LinkedIn, da, da, da, mention this, write a blog post. And I always said, "No. Here's, here's what I'll do for you. And if you don't want me to come, then I won't come. If it's nice and I like it, I'll talk about it. If it's not nice and I don't like it, I won't talk about it. Your choice."

John Tyreman 34:26

And that's the way it should be with influencer, uh, and I say that with air quotes, influencer relationships, right? Like, there should be some level of, like, belief and trust in, um, whatever they're there to promote or to champion, I should say.

Bob Borson 34:45

And so if I circle just slightly back to, to your original question is, so why, why wouldn't I, since architecture is a visual medium, why wouldn't I put together something that would work across platforms, like put some on YouTube? And I, I know that now you can...

John Tyreman 35:03

can,

Bob Borson 35:05

edit our, our audio extensively, right? So if, if you're a guest on my show and you uh, um, and you know, like we get rid of all that. You s- you'll sound like a genius, right? Just people don't realize when they're recording themselves that there's lots of audible mental pauses that people make that your brain just kind of filters out in real life. But when you put on headphones and you're, and you're the person listening to a podcast and somebody says like or lot or um, well, you know, like I don't want that on there. I don't want you, the listener, to have to listen to somebody gotta think through the sentence that they're building in their head. I just want to get to the sentence.

John Tyreman 35:46

better."

Bob Borson 35:47

And so we tell people, "If you're coming on a show, if you say something you wish you hadn't said, let me know. If you mumble mouth something, we'll say it again." Like we'll, we'll clean it up, right? 'Cause I want them to sound like the genius that they are. It's why I have them on the show. So I don't know how that works if I try to tie in video, quite honestly. I've never taken the time to figure out how can I sync up audio other than cut away from the two people speaking to put a graphic on and then re-sync it up. Like I'll just put a graphic at where the mouth moving and the audio mumbling doesn't come out, you know, it's not in sync or whatever. I just don't have the time to do it, and I'm too cheap to pay somebody else to do it without knowing its value. And I don't want people to think of me as a-- Like I used to hate when I would go somewhere and people would say, "Oh, this is Bob Borson. He's a blogger." And I'd go, "I went to college for like a long time. I have one of the hardest licenses to ob- to obtain in all the world, And I have 20 years experience doing this. I'm an architect. I'm not a blogger. I'm an architect who happens to write about what he does." And I don't know why that bristled me so much Um, I, I want people to know me as a multifaceted person if they choose to think about me at all. But I want architect to be the primary th-- I mean, other than he's a good dad, you know, or he's a nice friend, or he's funny. I mean, personality qualities notwithstanding. I don't, I don't wanna be known as a blogger. I don't wanna be known as a podcaster. I'm an architect who talks about what he does on a podcast or writes about what he does on a blog site. And I think that mentality makes a bit of a difference because, uh, I think the best compliment I ever got, maybe this is the easy way to describe it. The best compliment I've ever gotten, I've gotten this a lot, and so I, I feel very at peace with, with the regularity I get it. People will meet me and say I'm exactly how they thought I was, and the only way they know me is through the website. You know? And I, I take great pride in being genuine in all the thing. Like, we're having this chat right now, and I'm telling you, if you were sitting in this room with me, it would be the exact same. Okay? I, I don't, I don't put on airs. I don't pretend to be something that I'm not. Um, and that, that ha- that strategy has worked well for me.

John Tyreman 38:11

And you know, Bob, I think that's a, that's a perfect place for us to close this conversation out because that's exactly, I think what that mindset of you're an architect first and you're talking about this, and your fierce defense of your intellectual property. and then your, self-accountability to, making sure that you're publishing on a consistent basis over the course of 16 years. I mean, to me, those are some of the keys to your success. thank you so much for sharing, all of your insights and your experience and the, all of your stories today. Is there anything that we didn't talk about, about life of an architect that you'd like our listeners to know?

Bob Borson 38:57

mean, n-now it's an experience, right? So if, if you're, if you're, uh... The website and the podcast appeal to a couple different types of people. Either you are an architect, you wanna be an architect, or you're an architectural enthusiast. You don't have to have an education to listen to the show to get some value out of it. We purposely try to make it approachable and accessible to everybody, uh, not just, you know, people that have architectural degrees. so if, if they fit any of those categories, then it's probably worth checking out. but because I don't define myself by it, I'm okay if you don't. if Klingon speaking and knitting and cat juggling are your three things, go find that podcast. Like, I'm sure it'll be a great one for you. Yeah.

John Tyreman 39:37

Uh, well, um, folks can check out, Life of an Architect" podcast wherever they get their podcasts, um, lifeofanarchitect.com. And, um, Bob, thank you so much again for your time. This has been an awesome conversation.

Bob Borson 39:50

Thanks, John. I appreciate you having me on the show and giving me your time.