Building a Stronger Design Process with Landis Architects | Builders

Aaron Horner
Sometimes a short conversation with the right expert can save you years of wasted money, effort and headache. And today that expert for you is Chris Landis. Chris and his brother Ethan founded Landis architects and builders 35 years ago. All you have to do is look at their portfolio on their website and you can see why they’re considered one of the top firms in the country. Every project looks like it could have been pulled straight from Architectural Digest. It’s no surprise they’ve racked up dozens of NARI awards, including multiple Contractor of the Year wins. So that’s why we brought on Chris today to talk specifically about design. How to structure it, how to improve it. And remodelers earlier in their journey can do to build a stronger design and pre construction process.

Aaron Horner
If you want to speed up your learning curve for design, this is the episode to do it.

Logan Shinholser
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Contractor Growth Network podcast. I’m Logan Shinholser and today I’m joined by Chris Landis from Landis Architects and Builders. What’s really cool about having Chris on the podcast? So we got connected through Remodeler’s advantage, but Chris is coming in to talk about design, but he actually has a, a unique background where he’s a, an architect by trade. So to be able to have that background and then morph it into an actual design build remodeling company is something unique and different from a lot of other people in the industry. Chris, if you could go ahead and kick us off, give us your background in what it was like being an architect, you know, how did you want to get into that field? And then we’ll piggyback from there.

Chris Landis
Well, great. Yeah. My name is Chris Landis and basically I graduated from architecture school in 1980, which is, you know, a long time ago for many of you, but and I worked in Manhattan in commercial office space kind of design, things like that. I flipped from working for architectural firms to working for actually Wall street firms. It was the go 80s and they were putting brokerage firms all around the country, sort of like Madonna offices. I was involved in that. And then they deregulated the world and American firms could go overseas. So were doing stuff overseas and then I got relocated to Washington D.C. with a huge corporation called Mobil Oil. And then I got laid off. And it was 1990 and Bush Sr. Was shooting up Iraq highway but not going into Iraq. And now we all understand why.

Chris Landis
He was very wise and didn’t do that. But anyway, that’s when I was out of a job and there was A mini recession going on, and my brother was a real estate agent and not selling very much real estate. So that’s when we started our company. And basically we put on the tool belts and were out there doing handyman stuff. So we started very organically. And then if somebody said, hey, let’s do a bathroom design. Yeah, I could go get my main line out and draw it up and do some stuff. So we. That’s the way we started.

Logan Shinholser
And for you just, like, thinking back to that time, I mean, you’re an architect, you go to architecture school. That’s a. Let’s just call it what it is, a super prestigious, you know, career that you’re in. And then now you’re. Yeah. And now you’re going into putting on the tool belt. Handyman. I guess it’s from, like a. Emotional and, I don’t know, like, your identity. Where was that, like, exciting? And you’re like, hey, Ethan, you know, let’s do this thing. Or is that like, what felt like maybe a step back from. You had this trajectory of where you thought your career and your future was going, and now it’s completely shifted.

Chris Landis
It was a step back, clearly, but, you know, when. When you got to break a few eggs to make an omelette, so. And in hindsight, it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me because, you know, in large corporations, you can end up with a career path that gets you into middle management, and you stay there till the end of your days, and then they retire, you. Ageism creeps in, all kinds of other things happen, and you’re not in control of your future. When you’re running your own business, you’re much more in control of your own future. And we’ve had a lot of success, and that’s all because I got laid off. So, you know, it’s one of those things.

Chris Landis
It’s sort of like the old Silicon Valley story where they start in a garage, you know, and they’re soldering stuff together.

Logan Shinholser
Did. Did you. I mean, you’re. At this point, you have over 60 team members. Did you ever think at that point, you know, 35 years ago, at first off, this thing would still be around in 35 years, let alone you have now, you know, a very large staff operating in the company?

Chris Landis
Absolutely not. No, were just, you know, trying to make a paycheck and trying to make a living and doing the best we can, like the Amond Brothers song says.

Logan Shinholser
So when you now think about the overall growth of the company, I love to kind of shift into the idea of like, design. So unique background compared to most remodeling companies are going to come in with either no design background or they come in maybe with a little bit where they’d like to, I don’t know, draw growing up. But basically you know, you coming in as an actual architect is very different. So when you’re coming in and somebody is saying, you know, you’re doing kind of handyman work and bathroom remodels, I mean, you’re used to designing huge projects or much larger projects than a powder room, I guess. What was that like when you first started to figure out that design was going to be a thing for the business?

Chris Landis
Right. Well, I think, you know, it’s like a lot of bid build firms. I mean, you’re bidding, you’re giving people pricing, but you know, if you don’t have a drawing, you don’t even really know what you’re pricing. So I mean, you gotta have some drawings and you gotta do some stuff. And then initially you start giving that away for free. A lot of places still give it away for free or they don’t charge enough. And it is a lot of work and it’s a lot of time. And so then you realize the light bulb goes off, that you’ve gotta start charging for these services. And then obviously, you aspire to do bigger and better projects. So it’s natural that the bigger, better projects take more design.

Chris Landis
And then obviously, depending on where you live in the country, the complexity of getting stuff permitted and things like that in certain jurisdictions takes a lot. You know, there’s codes, there’s all kinds of stuff going on, historic issues, and there’s zoning. So you gotta know a lot of stuff, especially once you start adding onto houses and things like that. And all of that is a lot of knowledge. And you got to get it right the first time. And it takes some planning. So that’s. You just fall into it. Now, if you’re coming out of the trades, I mean, you realize all this stuff because you know what inspectors and building departments are asking you for, whether you can do it or not, or want to do it. But you can always hire people to do that.

Chris Landis
So that’s a whole nother part of the conversation.

Logan Shinholser
So with you having a background in this, was there ever a thought of we can hire out, you kind of know what’s what, but then we’ll have a designer come in and help out. Or have you always, you know, or at least for the first part of running the company. Always handle design.

Chris Landis
Well, I did handle design, but I also was out there in the field, and I was very involved in sales and very involved in marketing. So that was sort of my area of expertise. So. We were one of the first firms to have a website back. Back in the day. Now they’re down, they’re commonplace, but really in the day, back in the day, they weren’t around very much. We had somebody, a client who designed websites, and we. We did a barter and trade, but it was before really anything was going on out there. And then selling. I mean, we actually, I. I marketed big boxes. We. We actually were an installer for Home Depot at one time. Not Home Depot per se, but Expo. I don’t know if you remember them. And then there was another big box in this neighborhood, Heckinger’s.

Chris Landis
We never worked for them for more than 10% of our work, but I mean, it was part of the marketing process. And then obviously doing all the other things that you do in marketing, designing, obviously. And then, you know, you’re. You’re in management, so you have to pay the guys at the end of the week. You have to go check on the jobs, you have to do all that stuff. So it’s very organic. You’re wearing every hat in the company. And as you grow and you say, look, I’ve got more than I can handle, you have to hire different people to do them. It’s like hiring another carpenter. It’s hiring a plumber or hiring an electrician. You know, an architect or a designer is not that much different.

Chris Landis
I mean, it is different in the sense of what they do and what they bring to the party. But overall, I mean, design can end up being about as much as the plumbing component of a job.

Logan Shinholser
And when you would, like, let’s say, try to attract designers or architects coming in to work with you or work for you. Excuse me. Is it a different approach versus, like, because I’d imagine. I mean, I went to Virginia Tech, so, like, we had a very big architecture program there.

Chris Landis
Sure.

Logan Shinholser
And a lot of those. Like, one of my good friends was there, and his goal was basically to graduate and go move up to New York and do all that, which is a very different, I guess, life path than come do residential remodeling, you know, plans and stuff like that. So is it a. A very specific type of person that you are trying to attract to come work for Landis that you kind of have identified, like, this is who you need to be, or is it like, hey, architecture is so broad that basically you come out of school and a third of the people that come out of school would want to do it on the residential side. So it’s not as difficult to convince someone to come work for you.

Chris Landis
Yeah, that’s a. That’s a great question. And you could write a book about it. But the short version is that. And we’ve hired people from Virginia Tech. Great school. Initially I would hire students from Catholic University that only wanted to work part time because I didn’t have a full time job. And then, you know, and they would always disappear during exam time and stuff like that. And they didn’t know a whole lot. So you had to sort of teach them and train them. And then, you know, as soon as you get more work, you want more experience and you want somebody to sort of know what they’re doing and not be that needy in terms of information all the time. So it’s organic. And obviously you have to find the people that want to do what you’re doing. And that’s a big thing too.

Chris Landis
Because even young people, if they’re willing to work in a design build firm, they may not stay there. They want to get some experience and then they either want to go do something else or work for somebody that’s bigger or does more designy projects. So you just don’t know what’s going on with people. People are full time job to manage. That’s the truth.

Logan Shinholser
So let’s talk about your actual the design process that we go through now. Because then what I want to do is talk about how do we get to this point of this is our process and like what some of the changes were. So could you walk us through what Landis is just high level overview what the design process is at this time?

Chris Landis
Okay, I just wanted to mention that we do, we have what we call our full bore design process. But we also sell a number of other services that are design related. And I’ll just throw this out there. We do a feasibility study. It’s really the first part of design. It’s sort of like speed dating. It gets you to know the client, it gets you to know the project. And then it also is a lot less of a cost than full design. And we obviously would like to sell full design all day long because that has the highest success rate and the fewest dropouts and things like that. And I can talk about that in a second. The feasibility study I mentioned pre construction services.

Chris Landis
And these are things that really the marketplace asked us for and we decided, okay, let’s put a name on it and let’s call it something and let’s figure out how much to charge for it because we don’t want to give anything away for free, necessarily. So pre construction services is, and every contractor listening to you will realize this. You get a call and somebody says, well, I’ve got a set of drawings. Can you get me a number? Or, you know, I, I, I’ve fallen out with my architect or my designers disappeared on me or whatever the case may be. Okay, send me some drawings. I’ll give you a, a napkin price, a ballpark.

Chris Landis
And then if you want to go any further than that, we’re going to charge some money and we’re going to dig deeper and spend some time and you know, you’re going to get some good intellectual property at the end of the day. So that’s kind of what pre construction services is with an estimate, you know, a harder estimate broken out with categories and all that kind of stuff. And then you find, well, you get into the drawings and you find they’re not finished. Finishes aren’t specified, zoning mistakes, code mistakes, any number of things haven’t been thought through. And then you have to add some design services to whatever it is to get it to where it needs to go. You know what I mean? So, and you can spend a lot of time on a project like that. So it can be complicated.

Logan Shinholser
And all of that, what you just included, that’s all part of your just feasibility study just to really, I’m guessing, see.

Chris Landis
Well, there’s pre construction design services. When they’ve worked with somebody else or they have a set of plans, or even if you know, they’re halfway through their project and they’ve gotten shut down and their contractors run off because many kinds of issues can happen. That’s where you get involved. The feasibility study really is the reason you do that is because two things. One is there’s so many solutions to this person’s problem that you don’t know which direction they’re going to go into. And the range of solutions can be pretty drastic. So, you know, let’s say it’s a house. You, you could add onto the left side, the right side, the backside, you could pop it up, you could reorganize the inside, you could finish the basement. They just need some more space. So what are you going to do?

Chris Landis
You know, and maybe sometimes there’s just, there’s one solution, sometimes there’s two or three solutions. And then another times there are clients that say, you know, this is my budget, I’ve got $100,000, that’s my last penny. And you know, what they want is going to cost a little bit more. So the only way to get there is to say let’s do a feasibility study, really put all the pieces on a piece of paper and then maybe you can self perform some of those pieces at the end or do whatever or figure out how to save some money and do whatever and get where you need to do or not finish certain parts of it so that you can do those later when your cash flow, whatever. That’s one approach.

Logan Shinholser
And then so that’s your feasibility side. And then your full design. Would that be if somebody comes in and they have no plans, they’re not starting with anything and they just. So, Chris, we want to work with you potentially, but we have X amount of money. What can we do to maximize our space in our house? Is that.

Chris Landis
Absolutely, absolutely. So full design would come in, you know, on the sales side, it could come in through the website, or it could come in through a phone call or you know, at a fair, something like that. It’s a lead and then we have a conversation with the lead. This is on more on the sales side, but obviously you want to vet your leads. You want to make sure that their budget somewhat matches their scope of work that they’re interested in. And then once that’s done, you say, okay, well, let’s come out to your house. Still on the sales side, you want to see their house, you want to get context and visualize what they’re talking about. And then we come back, we have a two step sales process really where we put together a design proposal and that’s.

Chris Landis
We can, I can talk more about that, but really once they sign that design contract, then you’re starting design. And design has three phases for us. And the reason you have phases is because you want to progress from the simple toward the complex. And you want to build up layers of information. And at each stage you want the client to sign off. Because what invariably happens is you start talking about finishes. Some people for the first thing because that’s what they’re excited about. But then, you know, if you don’t agree on a schematic design or something, you may be undoing a lot of work and time that you’ve spent. So you really want to go slowly and build incrementally and get the client to sign off at each stage.

Chris Landis
And then if the client changes their mind or wants to go backwards, obviously that might Be an additional cost or time. So the first phase is schematic design, South Dakota, we call it schematic design. And that’s where you’re going to go out and measure the house as built. Generate a 3D model, all the dimensions and everything in there. You’re going to start with the zoning analysis, you’re going to start with the code analysis, and then you’re going to provide two or three schematic designs of different possibilities. Really, it’s mostly in plan, but it can be, since it’s 3D and we’re using 3D software these days, I mean, you will have elevations, but you won’t have. You don’t do any finishes, you don’t do any reflected ceiling plans or electric plants. It’s just the layout. It’s circulation adjacencies.

Chris Landis
You’re talking about people where you know, how do you live, what do you do, what do you use, what kind of furniture are you going to put in here? All that kind of stuff. Because you do want to show the furniture. So, you know about circulation. And it’s really addressing the inside versus the outside. And if it’s, you know, in the back of the house, how does it relate to the backyard and all that kind of stuff? And then once you’re at the end of that, they pick a scheme you generate. Obviously, if you have two or three schemes, you can be generating sort of ballpark pricing as you go along. So there’s good, better, best, obviously, if you want to have happy clients and keep them throughout the process, you want to come in somewhere close to where you originally said.

Chris Landis
But then there’s project creep, as you know, and things expand. One of the things that is in the design letter is a pretty complete scope of work as far as the salesman has discussed with the client. But once the designer starts on it, they want to reiterate. And, you know, you can say, okay, we’re going to have a shower in the master bedroom, but there can be a bench in it, there can be two shower heads, there can be a steam shower. All of these things can go into a shower. And they could. It can make it two or three times as expensive as just a generic shower. So really, it’s those kind of details that you want to establish early on.

Chris Landis
And then you have to see, okay, is this in the original scope of the design contract and is it in the original budget? Because obviously, budgets can I always say design is an additive process. It’s not a subtractive process.

Logan Shinholser
So anyway, with that, sorry, real Fast. How do you align like sales and the designer? Because like sales is going in, they’re doing their thing, making sure they understand what the client really wants. But then the handoff to the designer, I’d imagine there can sometimes be some friction, some things that we just forgot to mention. So, like, what have you guys done to make sure that sales and design is aligned on what the client actually wants?

Chris Landis
And that’s a good question, I think. So since I was a salesperson and a designer, I mean, it was always, you know, I’d been to all the meetings and knew what it was. And we’ve created what we call a team leader function, which is a salesperson. But obviously sales. Sales in the name of anything is kind of pejorative. So really what that enables us to do is you can bring a designer to the initial sales meeting especially. I always say, don’t go to a gunfight with a knife. You want to bring a designer, especially if they want larger, more complicated projects. And then they’ll know exactly what the scope is from the very beginning and they’ll have part of that. They’ll have input into that design letter. So it’s really integrated.

Chris Landis
So the scope is not like, hey, I can’t do this for this price because I wasn’t there and I didn’t see it. And now things have changed. Plus, the salesperson is supposed to, the team leader person is supposed to stay with the project all the way through. And they have a commission component and that’s based on profitability and client satisfaction. So they’re, you know, they have skin in the game all the way through. They have to manage it. They have to manage the designer to a certain extent. Sometimes the salesperson can be the designer in our model, although there are just purely team leaders that don’t do design and then they’re purely designers that don’t do sales as well.

Logan Shinholser
And then your team leader, are they also like a project manager or do you have separate project managers and the team leaders?

Chris Landis
We have separate project managers, yeah. That’s one thing they don’t do. We have, we have one person that does, does project management, but that’s more like pinch hitting. When, when something falls apart, they may, they can jump in.

Logan Shinholser
Got it. Okay. So you have your team leader that’s like, they’re the ones basically from start to finish. So client comes in, you’re starting your process all the way through completion. They’re on it the whole time, just kind of making sure that, well, correct me if I’M wrong. Like the vision of what the client wants and what was discussed is carried through the whole project, but you still have other people touching it throughout it.

Chris Landis
Right? And yeah, obviously the smaller you are, the more hats you’re going to wear. So your salesperson can be an owner. Like I was a salesperson, a designer, and even a project manager to a certain extent, because I did fair amount of project management in my day and my brother vice versa. And then, then as you grow, you can. People tend to specialize and you hopefully take off some of the hats that you have to wear.

Logan Shinholser
Perfect. And then, so you have the handoff zone looks nice and neat for the people. Like, you know, when you first started, I, I imagine this whole process has shifted over time because when you’re trying to do all the hats, are you still, you know, you have a feasibility study and you’re doing all these different steps or has this progressed? Your whole design phase progressed. As time has gone on and as I’m guessing you’ve grown and gotten more people, you’re able to have more specialists to step in and help out throughout the process.

Chris Landis
So let me go back. So the feasibility study, let’s say you sell a feasibility study at right after you’ve shown them the first set of designs. Basically, that’s where it ends. And if they, obviously they are going to want to change things, they’re going to want to make this bigger, that smaller, and then we got to get into all the other details. So that’s when you sell the feasibility study into full design. As I’ve discussed, the first phase of full design is schematic design. And really a feasibility study is really the first half of feasibility study of schematic design. Excuse me. The feasibility study is the first half of schematic design because you’ve got the as builts, you’ve got the first set of plans, and you’ve got decided one of those plans.

Chris Landis
So really then from there you’re, you know, you’re doing more details, more. You’re obviously modifying it a couple times to get it where the client wants. And then at the end of schematic design, you’re starting dd, which is design development. So DD includes reflected ceiling plans, electrical plans, elevations and finishes. So there’s the whole other level of detail that you’re adding to it. That’s when you start to hire the structural engineer if you need one. You get the soils engineer in any. Anybody else, any specialists, if you’re adding a third story in our area you have to have a soils engineer and you have to dig a test pit. So there are lots of things that come into play. If you’re in a historic district, you’ve got to start engaging with the historic district and say, hey, is this schematic design going to fly?

Chris Landis
Are you going to accept it? Is it going to be agreed to at the staff level, or do we have to go to a full board meeting? These kinds of things are in play. So there’s lot of stuff going on. Then at the end of dd, you start cd, and that’s construction documents, and that’s the details, the footings, the bringing in the finalized engineering plans and framing plans and things like that, all the details that you need and in CD and end of dd. So we have this sort of difference between a permit set and a construction set, too. And a lot of jurisdictions are taking a lot of time to get permits, and permits don’t require, generally finishes and things like that. So they don’t need interior elevations. They don’t need all the finishes.

Chris Landis
So you can speed up the process a little bit by going straight to a permit set. So you can get it, you know, downtown and get it into the building department. And they can sit on it as they do for a long time before even looking at it. But it’s part of the calendar and it’s built in anyway. That’s just a strategy to speed things up. And that’s a. That’s a different, Slightly different discussion. But.

Logan Shinholser
And with all this, I mean, like, this is a very intricate process. I’d imagine you’re not doing this for a powder room, or somebody comes to you and says, hey, I got a hallway bath. Can you do some stuff on it? I mean, like, have you. As. As this has progressed and gotten more, hey, we’re going to, you know, the board to make sure that we can actually do it on this historic home. Have your projects also started to skew more and more larger, more intricate because of the specialty of knowing how to make all this stuff happen?

Chris Landis
Yes. Clearly the larger projects need. Need the more formal process. I think one of the things that you learn in business is that once you create a process and as you scale, it’s really important to have that process, you know, available and everybody trained in it so that they’re all doing the same thing. You know, it’s like pulling on. On the oars in a boat. You know, you want. You want both sides balanced and everything. So that’s. That’s part of it is that you can, you can skip stuff for smaller projects, but as you grow, the smaller projects become much less efficient for you. And a lot of companies our size will have minimum project size, unless maybe they’re a past client or something like that.

Chris Landis
Because it’s just not, you’ve got to, you know, there’s so much you’ve got to do even for a small project.

Logan Shinholser
How much training are you providing? So somebody, you know, you bring on a new team member and they need to know, I’m guessing most of this stuff. Do you have like a set like, hey, this is our onboarding and our training plan. So that way people actually understand when they come work for us, everything that’s entailed with getting something through design.

Chris Landis
Absolutely, absolutely. Just going back to your question. So those are the three phases of design. You know, we generally charge a certain percentage of the construction costs for design. So for design, for schematic Design, we’ll charge 50% of the design percent the cost of design up front. And then at the end of, when you start DD, you charge 25% and then when you’re done with CDs, you charge the last 25%. I mean that enables you to always be ahead of the client to a certain extent, especially in the beginning phases. And that’s a good thing. Obviously. It’s like even in construction, you know, we learned a long time ago, don’t bill at the end of a phase because the client can always question, hey, there are a few holes left or you haven’t quite finished that bill at the beginning of the phase.

Chris Landis
Because then there’s no question you’re starting drywall, okay, Finishing drywall. There’s maybe holes that you need to leave open for something that’s going to happen later, but they don’t understand that. And then you don’t want to have the argument issue and everything. And I’d rather give money back to a client than have to chase them down for money. So that’s the benefit of, of that billing system. Going back to your previous question, remind me what that is.

Logan Shinholser
The training, you know, it’s the training. Yeah, there’s a lot of like moving parts, I’d imagine. So what does like training look like for this?

Chris Landis
Well, so really what we do is we have a set of drawings in the office that’s sort of a master set that is, you know, well, for each type of project, whether it’s a pop up or an addition in the back or it’s a dig out in the basement or something like that. We have a set of drawings that’s sort of a master set. And you know, somebody coming in can just take a look at that and see everything that goes in there, from line weight to the paging to the size of the lettering, everything like that. A lot of it is prescribed by the jurisdiction. You know, jurisdictions want drawings that look kind of similar and have pages in certain order so they can find stuff and their reviewers can find stuff. So there’s a lot of that’s already baked in.

Chris Landis
We also have checklists. So you have a schematic design checklist, you have a DD checklist and you have a CD checklist. So it’s all the stuff that you should have done. Did you do zoning? Did you do codes? Did you know, and you have to check it off. It’s like driving an airplane. That’s why they need checklists. I mean it’s obviously if you don’t land with your wheels down, then you’re going to have bigger problems.

Logan Shinholser
So when somebody then comes in, I mean basically if everything’s like, hey, this is your bullet point list of what to do. But imagine that just expedites their training process to then make sure that the basic stuff that happens on every project now is taken care of every single time.

Chris Landis
Right. They can have that set of drawings on their backboard and they can refer to it themselves constantly. And then if they have questions outside of that, obviously they have somebody they can ask.

Logan Shinholser
Have you always had designers in house or do you ever still work with people that are outside of Landis? Like if somebody comes in and goes, look, I, I have my architect, I love them, I move into the DC area, but I’ve been with this person for years. Will you work with them or is it basically you want to kind of control the full process?

Chris Landis
No, we will work for them. And that’s why we have that pre construction agreement that I told you about. And just going back a little bit in history, we did have, you know, third party architects outside that we used as consultants. We even tried offshore for a while. You know, they all have their pluses and negatives which I’m not going to get into at this point. But we’ve tried, we tried just about everything. I mean in house it’s like, you know, it’s like self performing work. Bid build firms are set up just to have project managers and then everything’s subbed. Now the thing that’s great for, you know, profitability and you know, as Long as your scope of work is nailed down and they’re not going to come back to you with a lot of change orders.

Chris Landis
But then you can’t control the employee or the subcontractor. They could maybe say, well, I’m too busy, I can’t show up for two weeks. And then you can have that problem with an employee as well. But you have more control with employees and it’s obviously a selling point that you have more control and that it’s all in house, so. Absolutely. And I know there are other businesses in our area that have that model where they may have a small department where they will do projects up to a certain size, like bathrooms and kitchens in house, but then if they get a larger job, they’ll go outside for it. You know what I mean?

Logan Shinholser
Would you recommend that, hey, as you grow, bring it all in house as much as possible?

Chris Landis
Well, you know, so it’s interesting because I mean, I would personally on the design end, because the other thing is as you scale as a firm, designers are incredibly resourceful people. As you know, you went to Virginia Tech, I mean, look where you are now. But they’ll do anything and they’re smart and they’ve been trained. So a designer can not only design, but they can answer the phones, they can do marketing, they can do a lot of things. They can even do project management so they don’t have to just wear one hat when you hire them, especially when you’re small. They can do any number of things and they can help in sales. They can do all kinds of things, so they’re very useful.

Chris Landis
And design is the first part where you have a lot of client contact and it’s setting up the whole process for success. You know, if you don’t get good drawings and you don’t order stuff correctly, production is going to fall down at some point. And that’s where you make 9/10 of your money is in production. And if that’s not set up for success, then you can have slippage, you can have all kinds of things going on that you don’t want.

Logan Shinholser
So when you talk about like the wearing the multiple hats, what do you look for? And when you’re trying to hire a designer to come in, are there certain soft skills? Like, I mean, hey, you’re going to be client facing, so if you can’t carry a conversation, it’s going to be a non starter. So like what do you look for?

Chris Landis
Well, I mean, it really can depend at this stage when we’re large enough. I mean, obviously it’s right now you’re looking for, you can be looking for registered architects, you can be looking for people that have a lot of structural know how and can do actually simple calculations and things like that. So you can set up your structural engineer for success. You can look for people that are really good on interiors with finishes. You can develop a separate interiors department so that on a larger project you could have a, an architect that really does the envelope and all the drawings, but then somebody comes in and does all the finishes. And then you can really get into interior design where you’re actually buying furniture and doing fabrics and window dressings for people too.

Chris Landis
Historically we haven’t done that, but we’re adding that component now so you can add layers of expertise.

Logan Shinholser
So basically it sounds like whatever the needs of the company are, as you’re progressing, that’s first and foremost what you’re going for. And then do you have designers or architects that you’re going to say look amazing at picking finishes? However, they just don’t really seem to jive well with clients. So we’re going to keep them more behind the scenes versus client facing or does everybody have to basically have that sweet spot of they need to be able to carry the conversation and guide the client well?

Chris Landis
And that’s, you know, another question too. When you sell something, obviously even when a lead comes in, you know it will be handed off to a salesperson or a team leader that will hopefully live in that neighborhood. So they don’t have a lot of commuting and hopefully they have expertise in the type of project that lead represents. And the same is true of a designer. You don’t want to put an interior designer on a large, complicated structural project. So it’s like opening up your tool bag and which is the right tool. You know, you as an owner know you’ve worked with people in your firm. So you know who might be the better fit not only as a team leader but as a designer. So you’re, there’s a lot of that going on.

Chris Landis
Obviously there’s availability and bandwidth and all those things that go into those kinds of questions and answers.

Logan Shinholser
So is that how you split it though? Where like if somebody lives in, let’s say Georgetown, are you then trying to find a team leader that lives in Georgetown to then be the one that takes on that project?

Chris Landis
Ideally, I wouldn’t necessarily, wouldn’t have to be right in Georgetown because it could be in, you know, Glover park or somewhere or Chevy Chase, because that’s not such a far commute. But also if it’s in Potomac, if you have somebody that lives in Potomac, then that’s the place to go. If it’s in Burtonsville, obviously somebody maybe lives out that way. If somebody lives, you know, if it’s in Northern Virginia, ideally it’s somebody that lives in Virginia and also is practiced in Virginia, because Virginia, you know, we do the district, Virginia and Maryland they both, they all have different building departments, they have different code requirements, and you might even end up using different subcontractors and everything because they don’t, you know, people don’t want to commute more than an hour generally.

Logan Shinholser
So you’re, so you’re doing more. So because of the commute and the familiarity of, like the area, it can.

Chris Landis
Be, it can be. But then also there, then there’s the experience level and the type of project, and then there’s the fit with the client. You know, these super high end. Is it just the bathroom? Is it a large addition? You know, it can, it has to do with that.

Logan Shinholser
Got it. And then when you do your design process, I mean, this is a pretty complex process. I’d imagine it takes a while. What do you guys do to keep clients excited during this? You know, because I, you know, we’re doing an addition at my house right now to get the permits through. I mean, it took months down here in Charlotte. And like, sure, though, it’s not fun because you’re all excited. You, you call up, you have all your consults and your designs, and then you’re in this waiting period. What do you guys do to keep clients, like, in it as this is all happening?

Chris Landis
Well, I mean, obviously it’s really nice to have a client that’s motivated and wants their project done. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Clients have things that happen in their personal life. They put things on hold. Anything can happen from people dying to getting divorced. But once they’re motivated, we provide a schedule, a design schedule, and then there’s a production schedule so they can look at day one, how long each phase is going to take. And this creates an expectation between you and them. Obviously, they want the project done. And you can say, well, look, you know, we’re supposed to have made this decision by now. We need to move to the next phase. And they understand that because they’ve been told, hey, this is the schedule, and they can ask for a few more days and things like that.

Chris Landis
But you want them motivated, you want to move the process through, you want to get to the next phase where you get paid. That helps with your cash flow. So you’re motivated as well and to keep the excitement. I mean, obviously you can show them where the excitement is and where things are not that exciting, but they’re not that involved like in CDs, you know, they’re. We’re going to show them a final set and walk them through everything. But they don’t need to see how the sausage is getting made on that end of things, but they’re excited about the design piece of it and their finishes piece of it. And that’s, you know, available. And now with online, you know, they have their own portal and they can go see all their finishes.

Chris Landis
Even three months later, they can see every decision they made and checked off online.

Logan Shinholser
And with the design itself, you have a showroom, you have a headquarters. Are you bringing clients in to do the full presentation there or is this more of like just a quick email and then touch your base over Zoom? I guess. How’s like the presentation of all this happen?

Chris Landis
Right. Well, you know, for the design process, a lot of it, since COVID does happen via Zoom and online, I would say there’s the initial design when you started D.C. and you’ve picked out all the finishes, obviously you’ve had a lot of conversation with the client about what they want and you’ve looked at photos of what they’ve showed you they’re interested in and you’re presenting all this stuff. I mean, I think it’s ideal to have them in the office. And a lot of this stuff is tactile. You look at it also getting the colors right and things like that. And the initial meeting, hopefully you can get a lot of decisions made there.

Chris Landis
And then following up, there’s software that you can put all this stuff in the cloud and they can go to and then they can see three options for sink faucets and they can click one and the finishes and all that stuff. And then once it’s decided, they’ve checked on it and it’s there. And then it can go to your ordering department months later when you need to order it just in time so it can get installed.

Logan Shinholser
Do you guys ever, I mean, you’ve been in business for a very like, you know, 35 years. Do you ever go into a project and the, for the feasibility study, the client asks you, hey, these are the things that we want, and you just get stumped, like there ever. Do you ever happen at this point or you guys, like, you have experience, you know how to make it all happen pretty much regardless of the situation.

Chris Landis
You know, I, I would say 98 of the time, you know how to make it happen. There’s some, there’s some projects. Well, there’s some project where people, you know, don’t know. They have, you know, restriction lines or setback lines that preclude the addition that they want. And then sometimes, you know, they might have a historic tree in their backyard and you’re not allowed to cut those down or you have to pay a huge fine. So things can happen like that where people will say, well, you know, thanks for that information. I think I’ll sell my house and go get the house that I want or buy something that I can actually add on to. You know, there’s a lot of, well, you can have hidden easements on your property, gas lines underneath.

Chris Landis
You can have all kinds of stuff that people don’t necessarily know about.

Logan Shinholser
So, so at this point, most of the stuff that could get you is more of just like zoning and permitting issues rather than like, I mean, like my house was built in 1946, and when were looking at stuff with the designer, they were like, oh, we could see where like the first renovation happened, the second renovation hat like they’re pointing out like, sure, everything. So they can see it pretty easily. So it sounds like you’re kind of in that boat too, where you’ve seen it all. But the weird stuff that’s under the ground, that’s what gets you.

Chris Landis
Well, yeah, no, and as soon as you open things up. But those are usually, you know, you know, you can find termites, you can find broken stacks, you can find broken beams, things like that you need to replace. Obviously those involve change orders, but they’re not going to kill the project.

Logan Shinholser
And at this point, I mean, you’ve transitioned out, you’ve, you retired a few years ago. What is your day to day role? And I guess, like, how do you then still. Or do you still pop in, help out, make sure the stuff that you set up over the past 32 years is still running smoothly? I guess. What does your day to day look like with the company at this point?

Chris Landis
Really? I don’t have much to do with the company. I am, I’m a board member. So I go back, we go back, I go back for board meetings, which, you know, on a good year would happen four times a year or good years, probably less than bad years. Obviously you want a more you jump more in and help out. Maybe micromanaging too much, but no, my brother runs the company, my two sons are in the company. We can have dinner conversations and things like that. But I’m not, you know, I try to stay out of the knitting and, and let them do their thing and you know, the successes rests on their shoulders.

Logan Shinholser
So tell me a bit about your experience with Remodeler’s Advantage. I know you’re in it. When did you join? What’s it done for you? Just curious what that journey’s looked like for you.

Chris Landis
Well, Remodeler’s advantage, I mean, I think we first joined our local trade association and back in the day it was called NARI and now it’s called Pro. And we, you know, they were there, Victoria and Linda Case were there and they were giving courses on profitability and markup and stuff like that, which you know, nobody talks about generally. And it was music to our ears because were obviously not charging enough. And then we decided to join, I think, you know, how many years have we been part of RER? I would say probably, I don’t know, 16, 18, something. It’s a large number and you know, it’s just a fantastic experience. It’s more than the sum of the parts. It’s, you know, it’s not just an education, it’s not just best practices.

Chris Landis
You know, it’s going to incredible venues because you’re with like firms but in non competing markets. So it’s around the country. You get to go to places you never go, you get to see people. The bedrock of America, I call it doing small business in America, which is just a fantastic thing, you know, and they’re, and you’re helping them with their success and they’re helping you with your success. So it’s a, it’s an amazing process actually. But you have to be open to listening and you have to be open to change because that’s the critical part.

Logan Shinholser
Is there anything that, like whether it’s growing the company design, joining an organization that I haven’t asked you about that you are just dying to talk about.

Chris Landis
Wow. You know, there’s sales and marketing, which are two things we haven’t talked about, but I do know a huge amount about. You know, I would say I think you’ve touched on a lot.

Logan Shinholser
So we’ll talk to me about the sales and marketing me. You’re doing very intricate projects how you market a million dollar whole home remodel is going to be different than if you’re a bath fitter or you’re just like a production shop. So I guess I’m a marketing guy, so I also can speak the marketing language. Talk to me about it, I guess, if you don’t mind. Like, how do you guys approach your marketing? Like, what are you guys doing to really stand out?

Chris Landis
Well, I think, you know, it starts with a website. I think one of the things that we do that’s kind of unique. Well, there are a lot of things, but there’s the website, there’s SEO and that. And then obviously you have to get a good portfolio, and that takes a long time. You have to enter into some award contests because that helps you and then forces you to put stuff in the can. Otherwise you never get around to a lot of stuff. You’re so busy just doing what you do. And you have to have a marketing budget. You have to have people internally or externally that are good at marketing, and you have to have money for them to do that. And it is a cost of business.

Chris Landis
I mean, I think, you know, RER recommends anywhere from, you know, 2% to 5% for a marketing budget of your gross revenue. I think most firms, you know, will do 2 or 3%, but obviously the specialty people, like the window and door and the roofers, they’ll spend 15 to 20% of their gross margins for marketing. So they, because they have to, you know, get in front of a lot of people, most of whom won’t buy. But.

Logan Shinholser
And I mean, your photos that are on your site, I mean, they’re beautiful. Have you always put a big priority into, like, hey, when we do a project, let’s make this thing look awesome, or has that also been kind of a. A journey into realizing, like, to get the good stuff, you got to show off the good stuff?

Chris Landis
Absolutely. And I think that’s part of entering these awards, Whether it’s your local chapter of whatever, that’s what you need to do, because that’s your portfolio, that’s what people buy. And obviously it needs to be refreshed constantly, so. And also it’s a record. I mean, it’s a record of what you’ve done, so it’s what you’re proud of. So nice.

Logan Shinholser
All right, well, Chris, I appreciate this, man. This is. It’s cool because usually, like when we’ve talked about design before, it’s been simply just we have in house design, and we’re really focused on the Remodeling side. So to kind of touch on the architectural side and like what that process looks like as people are growing and scaling up is awesome. So, Chris?

Chris Landis
Yeah. You know, I think there’s one thing I would add, and I was, I would say that, you know, one of the things RER teaches you is that you need to know your numbers on the production side. You need to know all your costs so that you can get a fair return on your labor and investment. And generally the goal is to have, you know, a 10% net profit. That’s what RER recommends. And I think a lot of design build firms, there’s always this saying, that which cannot be, which is not measured, cannot be improved. And I love that saying because that applies to the design side too. So you need to keep track of your hours in design, you need to keep track of all your costs. And then you need to understand whether you’re making a profit in design.

Chris Landis
A lot of times people will say, well, design is a loss leader. I don’t really care, as long as I get the construction, I’ll make it back or whatever. Sometimes they can put the design costs into the construction side of things. So, I mean, there’s more financial talk that we probably could have done. But anyway, I’m just saying that you want to, you want to measure it and achieve a profit. And there are a lot of reasons for that. One is that if you don’t make a profit in a certain area, you’re not going to want to develop it, you’re not going to want to grow it, you’re not going to want to compensate people for it, necessarily. It’s like anybody, if they do a good job, you want to give them a promotion and a raise. And the same is true in design.

Chris Landis
And if you’re not making money in that area, then you’re not going to do that. So then you’re going to be shooting yourself in the foot and maybe not as successful as you might as well be. You know what I mean?

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, I, I never. That’s an interesting way of putting. Because I never thought about it that way of like, instead of treating. Because if you’re treating design as a loss leader, then you’re almost going to approach it as, hey, this is just a loss leader. So how much energy and effort are we really going to put into it? And versus if you’re charging a bunch of money for it’s got to then be worth it to the client. So to be worth it for the client, you got to bring in designers that are great and know what they’re doing. And that 10 to 12% of their project, I mean, for Yalls projects is not chump change. So you got to have somebody in there that’s going to own it and really be able to like, pour themselves into that process.

Chris Landis
Right. And if you’re, you know, if you’re not making money, you’re going to be rushed. You want to get it done as fast as you can, you want to keep it simple. And then you wonder why your portfolio looks like a lot of vinyl boxes or whatever. Because, hey, that’s simple. People can get it done and they can get onto the part where they’re going to make their money. And. But that’s not maybe where you want to be and it’s not. Not where you aspire to be in 10 years or something.

Logan Shinholser
So I imagine, I mean, at this point, like, everybody talks about hiring and the hiring pool and stuff like that, but like, if you are charging a good amount for a design that allows you to bring in some top people to come in and really take your design to the next level each time you have to go out and hire.

Chris Landis
Right. I mean, it’s like the production side of the house or any side of the house, administrative. You’ve got overhead, you’ve got Benefits, you’ve got 401k plans, you’ve got nice offices, you’ve got the lights, you’ve got insurance, you got all this stuff. And it applies to whoever you hire. And you need to know what that component is, and you need to build that into your pricing structure. And, you know, prices are not going down, they’re only going up.

Logan Shinholser
So are you showing off? Like, when somebody comes and applies to work for Landis, let’s say they come out of Virginia Tech. Right. They’re obviously very smart. Are they like, looking at all your projects and saying, wow, I. I can see what I can actually design? So now it’s. They can kind of see what their, you know, career or their role is going to look like.

Chris Landis
Absolutely. I mean, that’s one of the big benefits of design build. Not only can they see that, you know, the offices are nice and where they’re going to actually work is nice and their computers and everything are great, but they’re going to see that they get to work with, you know, they can walk out to a job and meet the project manager and review stuff. They can sit down with the estimator. They can get to understanding, estimating they can go over and see the marketing department. They see how marketing is. They actually get to see the design contracts. And a lot of firms, you never get. Sometimes you don’t even get introduced to the client.

Chris Landis
You know, you could spend years doing in large firms doing details for steers and who knows what and not see the client, not even know how much money the firm is making. I mean, there’s the whole open Burke nature of firms or that kind of stuff that goes on where a lot of that is shared in our company. So it’s like, you know, anyway, it’s a big difference. But benefits are obviously a big thing too. A lot of smaller firms, they can’t afford 401k plans. They can’t afford a lot of holidays. They can’t afford basic stuff that we all take for granted if we’re in a larger firm.

Logan Shinholser
So you got to know your numbers and charge the right stuff to get there, huh?

Chris Landis
Yes. Well. And it’s that virtuous circle. I mean, if you pay people well, they will stay with you, they will do well, and then your clients will be happy. And then your clients are happy, they’ll pay more. And then as you pay more, your fees go up and your profit margins are juicier. And then it’s the virtuous circle. It all goes around. Obviously, if you reverse that whole process, you. Can you imagine where you end up?

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. Cool. All right, Chris. Well, I appreciate it, man. This is awesome. Everybody will see you next time for the next episode. But I would say my biggest takeaway from this, like, this was all great. The last part of just about don’t look at design as your loss leader or like you’re just checking at a box to get the project, and we’re gonna stuff that. That’s. That’s a huge mindset shift. So that’s awesome.

Chris Landis
So great.

Logan Shinholser
Chris. Thank you very much.

Chris Landis
You’re welcome. Thank you, Logan.