How Architect and Interior Design Referrals Can Boost Your Construction Business

In this episode, we explore how architect and interior design referrals can be a powerful game-changer for your construction business. By building trust, expanding your client base, and creating a steady flow of high-quality projects, you can grow without relying heavily on expensive marketing tactics. The key lies in fostering genuine relationships and delivering exceptional service that motivates architects, interior designers, and clients to refer you to others.

If you’re ready to grow your construction business organically, focusing on architect, interior design, and client referrals is a proven strategy for long-term success. Building a strong referral network takes time, but the rewards—like increased projects and credibility—are well worth the effort.

Watch/Listen/Read and learn with 3 Questions with BLC how to create a referral system that attracts high-quality clients, strengthens relationships, and keeps your construction business thriving.

Builder Lead Converter ATTRACTS, CAPTURES & CONVERTS high-quality leads for home builders & remodelers so they can pick & choose their clients & jobs. Find out how at https://www.builderleadconverter.com

Transcripts:

Rick: Today on Conversations That Convert we’re talking about architect and interior designer referrals. How and why and should a builder start a relationship and get more referral business. Let’s get going.

Narrator: Welcome to Conversations That Convert. Every week we’ll spend about 10 to 15 minutes tackling relevant lead generations. Marketing and sales topics for remodelers home improvement companies and home builders Conversations That Convert is brought to you by builder lead converter your perfect sales assistant and now here’s rick and Daiana

Rick: Hey everyone, welcome to Conversations That Convert Daiana.

How are you today?

Daiana: Very well. Thank you Welcome everyone excited to see what wants to happen and how we can generate more leads with our conversations

Rick: Absolutely. Absolutely. So what’s our topic

Daiana: Today? Referrals how to get more architect and interior design referrals for your custom home. And of course your remodeling business.

Rick: Yeah. And this is all part of our three questions with builder lead converter and Daiana. The usually when I’m talking to a builder and I say, okay, how are you getting leads right now? Number one is always referrals and it’s typically client referrals which we’re going to talk about actually in the next episode is ways to increase client referrals.

But there’s also a big referral network out there with business to business referrals. So in the previous episode, we talked about realtor referrals and what you can do to start relationships there. And now we’re going to talk about architect and interior design referrals. And the thing I love about business to business referrals is that it’s a one on many relationship.

And what that mean by that is that for every one good architect or interior design partner you have, you can get many referrals. Coming back to you. That’s the power behind a business to business referral partner like that. You know, client referrals, they kind of come and go. Obviously clients are more apt to refer you when they’re in the design stages or just starting or just completing their, their, their project.

What happens of course is with the business to business referrals is that you want to partner with somebody who goes after the same target market as you do. And obviously they offer a complimentary service. If you build a remodel homes. They can design either architecturally or interior provide interior design services for your clientele.

So it’s really a match made in heaven What do you say? Should we get started?

Daiana: Yes, and I have three questions for you today. So question number one if you are ready, how should a builder approach? architects and interior designers

Rick: Yes, that is the question like how do I get? And we’ve talked about this before.

We’re going to use this term that if you, some of you’ve been listening for a while, you’ve heard before, which is W I I F M that is an architects and interior designers favorite radio station. Of course, W I I F M stands for. What’s in it for me? Me, exactly, exactly. So when I’m going to approach them, I have to take my builder glasses off and I have to put my architect interior designers on.

And so we’re gonna go to them with an offer that they simply Now, one of the things you have to keep in mind is that most of their business comes from referral and repeat business. They don’t do a whole lot of heavy advertising. It’s mostly word of mouth. So the, the number one consideration that they have is If I refer you, will you make me look good?

Or more importantly, if I refer you, will you make me look bad? Because they want to look good in the eyes of their client because they are relying on that client to either come back and use them again for another project, or they’re going to refer friends, family, co workers, and neighbors to them for their business.

So again, you’ve got to come at them. With that angle and always approach them as what, what is the benefit for them? Why would they want to partner with you? And and then again, we’ll move on to the, you know, another question here too, is that you’re going to give them an offer that they can’t refuse.

Any thoughts on that, Daiana?

Daiana: So, yeah, that’s, that’s amazing because you never think about that. Why the others will not send a referral to you, but it’s, it’s that. Maybe they will associate me with that referral and then I will break the relationship. So I think it’s important to assure someone, a client, when, hey, I will take care of your referral and make sure you have that conversation saying that, hey, you’re safe.

This is how I will approach the referral. So they will feel confident to, to, To send you new leads in process.

Rick: Most important thing is you never want to make them look bad in front of their client, because if they are going to put their reputation on the line to refer you you have to do whatever you can to protect that reputation.

And of course this is all, this is a long term relationship. This is not just a one off. And so that’s, that’s what’s the utmost consideration. So that’s, what’s going to be in the back of their mind. So as you may, as you do approach an interior designer or an architect, that’s the mentality to have.

And that’s how the the conversation has to go is like, Hey, here’s what I’m going to do to make you look good to make sure you get more referral business and to make sure that, you know, this customer is so happy with you recommending me as the builder. That they’re going to not only refer you, but they may come back for repeat business as well.

So primary consideration is right there. All right.

Daiana: Right. Question number two. Which architects and interior designers should a builder target?

Rick: So what I have heard at talking to builders around the country is that there’s two types of architects and interior designers. There is the architect that pretty much never refers builders out.

They just do their design, they get paid and they move on to the next client. And then there is the architect that actually will keep a pool of recommended builders. And as they go through the design process and learn about the needs, wants, and wishes of the clients, they will try to match the builder that is a best fit for the project and the client.

And so obviously, You’re not going to, you know, have anything good come from partnering with an architect that is only going to take clientele from you, not that it’s never going to give clientele from you. So that’s the first thing you need to establish is you know, is this, is this architect or interior designer actually, is this architect or interior designer actually, Is part of their their process or their offer to their clients where they would help match them their project to a builder Okay, so number one consideration number two, of course is going to be service area I mean do they work in your service area and then number three really really important is the types of homes and or projects they design so, you know, most builders want to do the bigger and bigger more expensive elaborate projects so they can make more from less clientele.

However, if you are not really, if you’re not, if you don’t have the infrastructure to say, do a really, really high end project, it doesn’t make sense to try to target that particular builder or that particular architect. Excuse me, because they’re going to look at you and say, you know, they’re going to question if you’re capable of doing this, and they’re probably never going to send somebody your way.

So you want to make sure you’re again targeting that, that, that type of architect. That is you know, willing to send somebody your way that feels like, yes, you are a great fit to do to fulfill the, the project that I’ve designed for my client. Now, a couple of a couple of things for consideration there.

Number one is you should have some sort of portfolio or believable. There’s gotta be something believable. But when you come to that architect and say you know, look, I can. I can fulfill these projects. You need to have your own portfolio, your own references, case studies, that sort of thing that, that can lend some credibility to just you getting together and having a conversation with them.

And the second thing that you really need to need to focus on is again, do you want to give them some exclusivity? Is it going to be that type of relationship or. Perhaps you want to, you know, look at some different offerings that you give, and you might want to say, well, I want to have, you know, an architect here that does say ADUs, as an example.

Okay, I want to partner for them and they’re my ADUs, but you also might do additions, whole house renovations, maybe custom homes. So then you could actually pick and choose those architects in your service area with those project types or home types that are a good fit for you. And certain architects are also known for certain motifs.

So there might be one that does a lot of very modern homes, right? Well, if you’re not known as a modern home builder, they’re probably not going to give you a whole lot of work. However, if you are known as a modern home builder, okay, it’s a mat, it’s a really good fit. So you really are trying to match your, complement their skills with, with, with your skills.

Any thoughts on that, Daiana?

Daiana: So I can share from my experience as a client that I learned that on the hard way, just choosing an architect that without this infrastructure and all the support, and I had to look for that by myself, and it was, it was not pleasant. So no,

Rick: it’s not pleasant, right? And you, okay, I’m just going to go out on a limb here.

You’re probably not going to refer that architect to somebody else, right? So that’s the one thing that they are trying to avoid at all costs is to lose that referral relationship with them.

Daiana: Because then, okay, they will do the project, but then what? I need to implement that project.

Rick: Yeah, exactly. It’s one thing to design it.

It’s another thing. Again, it’s them putting their reputation on the line by saying, here’s a builder that I would recommend because if things fall apart with you, and that’s the, that’s the biggest challenge, of course, is just getting the relationship started because you don’t have that history. Once you have that history established with that architect and there is that trusted relationship, you know, then things get a whole lot easier.

It’s just getting the flywheel going, which we’re going to talk about next with our third question.

Daiana: Yes, and I have one more question for you. How can a builder start to network with local architects and interior designers?

Rick: Yeah. So where do I start? It’s like, okay, Rick, I like this idea. I want to build my network up of architects and interior designers, increase my business to business referrals.

Wonderful. All right. So you got to have a method to the madness. Again, we talked about how you want to approach an architect. We talked about the type of architects and interior designers that you may want to target. So now the question is, how do I do that? What does that roadmap look like? All right. So the first thing you want to do is you want to come up with an offer.

Okay. So this is again, really, we’ve talked about this before. And when you’re advertising or marketing to your end users or your clients is you have to give them an offer. And that offer is going to vary at different stages. Okay. Of your sales process. You’re going to give the same type of offer to a potential referral partner like an architect or interior designer so you you start with an offer that they can’t refuse I can guarantee you this that if you contact an architect and you say hey I am looking for an architect to help design homes For my clients in such and such an area in such and such a price point You’re If that’s a fit for their target market, they’re going to take your call.

Conversely, if you come to an interior designer and say, I would like to bring my clients to you to offer interior design services and the type of homes that you build, the type of clients you work with. Are the same target market is that interior designer? They will take your call So they will not refuse an offer to bring them business Okay So that is how you’re going to get your foot in the door Is again offer to bring you them business now, you might be thinking well rick.

I don’t have anybody to bring to them That’s okay. You’re simply going to use that offer as a way to get your foot in the door and establish that relationship. So hey, yeah, I’d like to meet with you. Sit down, Diane. I’d like to understand a little bit more about how you work, fee structure, type of clientele you prefer to work with.

And you know, we want to you know, start promoting you to our, to our clients. They’re going to take your call, you know, so again, give them an offer that they can’t refuse. All right. So next, once you have your foot in the door, now what you want to do is you want to introduce the concept of saying, Hey Daiana, I, what I’d really love to do is create a mutually beneficial longterm relationship with you.

Now that’s a pretty way of saying, if I scratch your back, I want you to scratch mine. In other words, if I bring you a client. Are you willing to give me a client in return? And and so how do they like to work with builders, you know getting one of those first questions Do they like to try to match their clients and their projects to a builder where they’re going to send you referrals?

So going back to one of those criteria when you approach an architect, it’s just asking that question How do you prefer to work with with builders? If they do do that, okay game on if they’re like No, we only design and we let the the client figure it out themselves. Okay maybe that’s not a good architect or interior designer that you want to work with next cross promotion.

So this is a big one. When we partner with builders, one of the things we struggle with the most is getting really high quality visual images and video. For their website because that is like the number one item that a perspective home building client or custom home client or renovation client is looking for, is looking for design ideas.

Now, architects obviously have a portfolio of homes that they have designed. Often times they have Photos to go with that so you can partner with an architect and you can say look I want to promote your Projects on my website and then you can give them credit in the images and or videos You might even be so kind to give them a backlink, you know to again linking back to their website Same thing with interior designers show some of the work that they have done because you need that content anyway and obviously, obviously they do really cutting edge stuff.

And that’s the kind of things if you’re trying to do a high end design, build a type of offering, that’s what you need to have on your website. So that’s that cross promotion is really, really paramount. And they’re very, usually very happy to get their stuff out there because they’re looking just to get more exposure like you are.

Hey, the other thing you can do from a cross promotion standpoint is you can do co co events. So you might do if you guys do a project together, you can obviously do an open house where you can meet the builder and meet the architect. You can do a home show type events together. You might even do a webinar event together.

You might even do you know, a white paper, something for a lead magnet on your website together joint advertising is another thing. Okay. So when you affiliate yourself with an architect or architects or interior designers, obviously you get a lot of cross promotion. Well, you can. Split budgets this way and because you really have the same target target market and then finally I think this is the key This is really where the the make it or break it is that you get a joint client So you you have a case study in other words so either you bring somebody to them or they’re bringing somebody to you and you’re going to you know work together To do this project, then you can document it and then oftentimes you have a built in referral or at least a review or testimonial of the architectural interior design services along with the building services that you provide.

Now, what’s really important here is that this is worth spending some money on in the form of incentivizing the client. So what I mean is that if you have a joint client you know, whether you are I would say incentivizing them on saying, giving them some additional services, and I don’t like the word discount.

I don’t think you should discount your services, but I think what you can do is you can provide some additional services that would not cost them anything. So the, the end result would be you would have a higher. A higher end home, a higher end remodeling project, something that has a really cool finish level.

That’s what you’re, that’s what you’re looking for. And you always want to ask to have, make sure that they agree up front to provide some sort of a testimonial or review. The best would be a video testimonial in their project, talking about the experience of, of working with the architect, interior designer and builder.

Now from a communication schedule, there’s two words to keep in mind. Number one, you gotta be persistent and number two, you have to be consistent. So persistent to get your foot in the door. So this might, this can take weeks, months. Sometimes years you just have to continue To knock on that door to try to get your foot in the door And then once you do get that relationship established you have to be consistent with it so when i’m when i’m coaching sales people talking about our b2b relationships say with realtors, What we talk about again is a it’s a 90 10 approach.

So you have your top 10 list of realtors These are the realtors that are actively doing a lot of business And This your service area for your types of homes and or remodeling projects and your price point. So you’re, you may be only going to find 10, sometimes less than that. So you’re going to, that’s the ones you’re going to stay really persistent with your communication, lunches, happy hours.

Dinners, golfing, whatever it might be, but stay, you know, continue to network with them and stay top of mind by really being that, that face to face pressing the flesh, you know, type of type of relationship. And then you’re going to have everyone else. So you might have a different approach to just trying to search out and find new architects.

And that can be a combination of email and text messaging. And a lot of that can be. I’m automated. And so you can wait for someone to raise their hand. And then once they raise your hand, you can actually, you know, start your face to face approach from there. So it’s got to be persistent, got to be consistent.

That is how I would start to network with local architects and interior designers. Any final thoughts, Daiana?

Daiana: Well, there are so many activities and all you have to do is to start and then just take it from take it from there and just move on. That’s the very important thing that will bring you business in the future.

Rick: Yep. And ideally, if you have a client that you could bring to them to start that relationship, it, that’s usually going to be the best way to get the relationship started. In other words, you give them something first. And then once that relationship is established, they’re much more likely to reciprocate that and bring a client to you in the, in the future.

Daiana: Yeah,

Rick: so I hope this was helpful And if you would like to talk more about this or any other way that you can attract capture and convert High quality leads so you too can pick and choose your clients and jobs Just use the link below to schedule your strategy call And we’ll be happy to talk more about your business and see if we might be Be able to help you grow not only in revenue, but also in profitability So for my brothers and sisters in christ may the grace to the lord Jesus christ the love of god and the fellowship of the holy spirit be with you all always You We’ll see you next time on Conversations That Convert.

Daiana: Take care. Bye.