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How One Layoff Built a Million-Download Business · Unstoppable Success Podcast

• 0:01
  Jaclyn Strominger: There we go.
• 0:03
  Lancy Cayko: Hello, everybody, and welcome to another amazing episode of Unstoppable Success.
• 0:08
  Lancy Cayko: I'm your host, Jaclyn Strominger.
• 0:10
  Lancy Cayko: And as you know, on this podcast, we hear from amazing leaders who want to share their insights, their tips, their tricks on how they have had unstoppable success.
• 0:19
  Lancy Cayko: And today I get to share with you Lance Cayko.
• 0:23
  Lancy Cayko: And let me tell you a little bit about Lance.
• 0:25
  Lancy Cayko: He is a visionary architect, entrepreneur, and community leader.
• 0:29
  Lancy Cayko: He is the co-founder of F9 Productions, and it's based in Colorado.
• 0:36
  Lancy Cayko: Now, this is an acclaimed design build firm that these two gentlemen started, and they're known for their expertise in residential and small commercial projects, and they have flourished, earning a reputation for both innovation and client-centered excellence.
• 0:54
  Lancy Cayko: Now, Lance's career began with a hands-on construction work across multiple trades before he pursued formal education.
• 1:03
  Lancy Cayko: He's got his master's in architecture, and he is here to share with us his insights on having unstoppable success.
• 1:12
  Lancy Cayko: So welcome, Lance.
• 1:13
  Jaclyn Strominger: Well, thank you for having me.
• 1:14
  Jaclyn Strominger: It's a pleasure to be here, Jaclyn.
• 1:16
  Lancy Cayko: Okay.
• 1:16
  Lancy Cayko: So so you just I just read you started in the trades, and then you went back to get formal education.
• 1:27
  Lancy Cayko: Talk a little bit about that journey, and that's that is having some grit in my brain.
• 1:34
  Jaclyn Strominger: Oh, yeah, I would say so.
• 1:35
  Jaclyn Strominger: Yeah, I think so.
• 1:36
  Jaclyn Strominger: I well, I'm 43.
• 1:38
  Jaclyn Strominger: My journey started about 30 years ago when I was 13.
• 1:41
  Jaclyn Strominger: I grew up in rural North Dakota between a cattle ranch and a sugar beet farm.
• 1:45
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I tried farming with my dad on the sugar beet farm, and I lasted about a week.
• 1:50
  Jaclyn Strominger: It wasn't that yeah, it wasn't and it wasn't it wasn't that I like didn't like farming.
• 1:54
  Jaclyn Strominger: It was because I literally have a nonprofit called Long Lawn Community Gardens that where I and I'm constantly urban gardening.
• 2:02
  Jaclyn Strominger: It was I just didn't get along with my dad too well.
• 2:04
  Jaclyn Strominger: And the work was not that appealing to me at that point.
• 2:08
  Jaclyn Strominger: So I quit and he said, We got to get a job.
• 2:11
  Jaclyn Strominger: I'm not buying those air Jordans.
• 2:12
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I go, All right, well, I'll get to get a job for those Jordans.
• 2:15
  Jaclyn Strominger: So I I called his best friend up.
• 2:17
  Jaclyn Strominger: His best friend is a contractor, his name is Bruce.
• 2:20
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I called him up and I said, Hey, I'll I'll do anything.
• 2:23
  Jaclyn Strominger: I'll pick up garbage.
• 2:24
  Jaclyn Strominger: Like, what do you got?
• 2:24
  Jaclyn Strominger: And he goes, Oh, cool.
• 2:26
  Jaclyn Strominger: Yeah, I need a guy like you.
• 2:27
  Jaclyn Strominger: I need a gopher.
• 2:27
  Jaclyn Strominger: Pay $725 an hour.
• 2:29
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I was like, Cool, what's a gopher?
• 2:30
  Jaclyn Strominger: And he goes, Ah, well, you you're gonna go for this, go for that.
• 2:33
  Jaclyn Strominger: When you're done going for the stuff, then you can get up on the roof and and learn how to roof.
• 2:37
  Jaclyn Strominger: And so I just fell in love with the work.
• 2:40
  Jaclyn Strominger: You talk about grit.
• 2:42
  Jaclyn Strominger: It was literally gritty, right?
• 2:44
  Jaclyn Strominger: With all the asphalt shingles and stuff like that.
• 2:47
  Jaclyn Strominger: Real hard work.
• 2:48
  Jaclyn Strominger: We were getting up at like five every day, tearing off a roof, putting it on the same day.
• 2:53
  Jaclyn Strominger: Just brutal stuff out in the sun.
• 2:56
  Jaclyn Strominger: But I loved it so much.
• 2:58
  Jaclyn Strominger: I loved the whole construction experience.
• 3:00
  Jaclyn Strominger: And so much so that I was like the best gopher he ever had.
• 3:03
  Jaclyn Strominger: He pulled me aside about halfway through the summer and said, give me my first business lesson.
• 3:08
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I'll never forget it.
• 3:09
  Jaclyn Strominger: And he's like, Well, I'm paying you $7.25 an hour.
• 3:12
  Jaclyn Strominger: What am I paying?
• 3:14
  Jaclyn Strominger: What do you what do you think I'm charging the owners for every hour of labor?
• 3:17
  Jaclyn Strominger: Ah, $7.25 an hour, I said.
• 3:19
  Jaclyn Strominger: And he laughed and I was embarrassed.
• 3:21
  Jaclyn Strominger: And then he explained the multiplier to me.
• 3:23
  Jaclyn Strominger: And he goes, Oh, no, no, I'm charging, you know, two, three, sometimes four times your labor.
• 3:28
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I go, Isn't that stealing?
• 3:29
  Jaclyn Strominger: Isn't that like immoral?
• 3:30
  Jaclyn Strominger: And he laughed, Yeah.
• 3:32
  Jaclyn Strominger: He laughed again and I was embarrassed again.
• 3:35
  Jaclyn Strominger: And he goes, No, no, no.
• 3:36
  Jaclyn Strominger: And he explained business to me.
• 3:37
  Jaclyn Strominger: He explained overhead, the, you know, the risk of doing all of this work and then profit.
• 3:44
  Jaclyn Strominger: And that profit is a lifeblood and it's part of his reward for going out and taking all the risks.
• 3:49
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I I had so what I had at that moment, I didn't realize it until about 10 years ago after I read the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
• 3:56
  Jaclyn Strominger: I had the Rich Dad Poor Dad experience.
• 3:59
  Jaclyn Strominger: I went, oh, my rich dad was Bruce.
• 4:02
  Jaclyn Strominger: My poor dad was the dad who raised me.
• 4:04
  Jaclyn Strominger: Bruce had no anxiety around money.
• 4:06
  Jaclyn Strominger: It wasn't even that he had like boats and cars and all this.
• 4:09
  Jaclyn Strominger: It was just the way he operated with money.
• 4:13
  Jaclyn Strominger: There was not this anxiety around it.
• 4:14
  Jaclyn Strominger: Because I grew up with a mom and dad that would say all the time, having money isn't everything.
• 4:19
  Jaclyn Strominger: And that always bugged me.
• 4:21
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I didn't realize again until about 10 years ago, like why it bugged me.
• 4:26
  Jaclyn Strominger: And then my favorite rapper Kanye West the phrase for me.
• 4:30
  Jaclyn Strominger: He says, having money isn't everything, not having it is.
• 4:34
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I went, Oh, oh man, that that kind of feels a lot better in my chest.
• 4:38
  Jaclyn Strominger: Fast forward, fast forward to the end of the summer.
• 4:41
  Jaclyn Strominger: Bruce pulls me aside one more time.
• 4:43
  Jaclyn Strominger: You could just tell he was like, he saw some potential compared to the other guys.
• 4:50
  Jaclyn Strominger: Because I was a young guy and you know, who hadn't been tainted by just run through the ringer of life.
• 4:56
  Jaclyn Strominger: And he says, What do you want to be when you when you grow up?
• 5:00
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I go, Well, I don't want to take your company, I but I want to do what you do.
• 5:06
  Jaclyn Strominger: I was like, How do I do that?
• 5:07
  Jaclyn Strominger: And he goes, he said one of the most mature things, like emo, like emotionally mature things I think I've ever heard a man say to another man, essentially, and was like, Well, next year you don't work for me.
• 5:17
  Jaclyn Strominger: Next year you go work for a different general contractor and learn a different trade.
• 5:21
  Jaclyn Strominger: So I wanted to be a builder first, and I I took that as gospel.
• 5:25
  Jaclyn Strominger: Every summer after that, from 13 to 20, I worked a different trade.
• 5:29
  Jaclyn Strominger: I was like gung ho about I'm gonna be Bruce, I'm gonna be a general contractor, I'm gonna be a builder.
• 5:34
  Jaclyn Strominger: Went to tech school for two years, and that's when the first another light bulb went off as far as business goes.
• 5:41
  Jaclyn Strominger: And we had to build a our capstone project was building house together with our with our with our other fellow students.
• 5:48
  Jaclyn Strominger: And the word architect popped into my head because they rolled out blueprints, and I went, this is a 20-year-old thought, which is like I have a 21-year-old son who can't even get out of bed.
• 5:59
  Jaclyn Strominger: So, like I I think God just put it there, you know.
• 6:02
  Jaclyn Strominger: I'm really thankful for that.
• 6:03
  Jaclyn Strominger: And he and the the thing that went off in my head was, wow, I I suddenly like school.
• 6:08
  Jaclyn Strominger: Like, what if I just continue to go to school and went for architect?
• 6:13
  Jaclyn Strominger: If I got the clients first as an architect, I could fold them into build being a building project.
• 6:18
  Jaclyn Strominger: I get paid two times.
• 6:20
  Jaclyn Strominger: So that's what I did.
• 6:21
  Jaclyn Strominger: And then the last light bulb was developer, because when we did our capstone in architecture school, this word developer keeps coming up.
• 6:28
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I was like, Oh, well, one day I should be a developer too.
• 6:31
  Jaclyn Strominger: That I could do like all three and get paid three or four times.
• 6:35
  Jaclyn Strominger: Because to me, it was just about like ridding myself of this anxiety of not, and I'm not even a person with like a lot of possessions or anything.
• 6:42
  Jaclyn Strominger: I'm I live very minimally, but that's what that's what brought me here today, essentially, was and on my started my entrepreneurial journey.
• 6:50
  Lancy Cayko: I I absolutely love that.
• 6:52
  Lancy Cayko: So, like all these things on the way, it's amazing how one person can change somebody's trajectory.
• 7:02
  Jaclyn Strominger: Yeah, it's it is all right, and so like you gotta take your interaction seriously with people.
• 7:07
  Jaclyn Strominger: You know, I made a post on LinkedIn about that the other day, uh, coincidentally, where because I remember as a young person trying to get into the architecture profession, how hard it is to get your foot in the door.
• 7:20
  Jaclyn Strominger: Everybody wants experience.
• 7:20
  Jaclyn Strominger: Well, how do you get in with you don't have experience?
• 7:23
  Jaclyn Strominger: Somebody's got to give you a shot.
• 7:24
  Jaclyn Strominger: So when I have candidates reach out to me, I always reply to them, even if I am almost immediately, even if I don't have anything for them, just to let them know that, like, hey, I saw you, I see you, you know, maybe we are hiring right now, maybe we're not.
• 7:38
  Jaclyn Strominger: But how many times people get rejected just by silence?
• 7:42
  Jaclyn Strominger: And then those people end up being your competitors in maybe not the best way.
• 7:47
  Jaclyn Strominger: So you gotta really when you're in a position of authority or hiring, essentially, that's real important because this is the smallest little things can make a big difference in people's lives.
• 7:58
  Lancy Cayko: It it's so true.
• 7:58
  Lancy Cayko: And I feel like it speaks my language.
• 8:00
  Lancy Cayko: I talk about opportunities, and you never know when a conversation is going to lead to something.
• 8:04
  Lancy Cayko: And so I'm curious just to kind of like stay there for a minute, how did you get your break then in architecture?
• 8:12
  Jaclyn Strominger: Ha, first I got broken.
• 8:14
  Jaclyn Strominger: I had a I had a very short internship when I was in college with a firm up in Fargo, North Dakota, because that's where I went to school in North Dakota State.
• 8:24
  Jaclyn Strominger: But my big my first big break before I got broken was then I got one of the last internships in Colorado after I graduated.
• 8:32
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I say it was one of the last because the Great Recession was just about to hit.
• 8:36
  Jaclyn Strominger: And like I remember sitting at my, I lasted at that firm for about nine months and then got laid off.
• 8:44
  Jaclyn Strominger: And watching in that small firm, it was only four people, me included in the four, how they weren't actually treating it like a business and trying to procure work was shocking to me.
• 8:59
  Jaclyn Strominger: And so when I got laid off, like they really were just artists at the at a certain point.
• 9:04
  Jaclyn Strominger: And it wasn't like they were actively going out and trying to meet new people and you know, advertise the most simple thing, like that just advertise on Google that they had services available and stuff like that.
• 9:16
  Jaclyn Strominger: So I got laid off and cried my way home, called my grandma, was totally upset, you know, had to go home to my wife and two children.
• 9:24
  Jaclyn Strominger: One was a baby, and just completely dejected as a young guy, right?
• 9:28
  Jaclyn Strominger: You got worked so hard to graduate the top, and so but that plays into the law of polarity.
• 9:35
  Jaclyn Strominger: It's like that was the negative part.
• 9:36
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I've been so now I've just been on a war path for the past 17 years, essentially, trying to build and design and create a thriving business with an ecosystem that's sustainable, such that I'm not having to lay anybody off like I was laid off.
• 9:56
  Jaclyn Strominger: And so far, it's we haven't had any layoffs.
• 9:58
  Jaclyn Strominger: As a matter of fact, last year, because of the ecosystem we created where we have an architecture firm and a construction firm, we were light on architecture work, and I was able to pull the architects into the field, have them do a lot of construction administration, and fill that cash gap.
• 10:13
  Jaclyn Strominger: And it was like once we did the math at the end of the year and looked at our books, it was it was very obvious to us that if we didn't have that other company, we would have laid one person off.
• 10:25
  Lancy Cayko: Okay, so kind of go back to that in a second though.
• 10:28
  Lancy Cayko: So that firing, when you got fired, is that what then propelled you?
• 10:33
  Lancy Cayko: Because we shared to create F9.
• 10:35
  Lancy Cayko: And then did you do that with gentlemen from that company that you got laid off from?
• 10:41
  Jaclyn Strominger: Or yeah, that was exactly why I started our company, F9 Productions, because at that point, one statistic a lot of people lose track of is in the architecture, engineering, engineering, and construction community, during that great recession, half the people were laid off.
• 10:58
  Jaclyn Strominger: It was so drastic.
• 11:00
  Jaclyn Strominger: You couldn't get a job.
• 11:01
  Jaclyn Strominger: But I was able to like find work.
• 11:04
  Jaclyn Strominger: I've always I'd always been able to find my own little jobs and stuff, even when I was like a carpenter, a young carpenter and stuff and do side stuff.
• 11:11
  Jaclyn Strominger: So I was like, well, if if I start my own company, I can't like I could lay myself off, but you know what I mean.
• 11:17
  Jaclyn Strominger: Like you can't lay yourself off.
• 11:19
  Jaclyn Strominger: And then it was just like everything's under my control.
• 11:22
  Jaclyn Strominger: My business partner, Al Gore, he worked for Studio Daniel Liebskin out in New York City at the same time before we both got laid off.
• 11:31
  Jaclyn Strominger: And same thing.
• 11:32
  Jaclyn Strominger: They that that firm put all their basket, all their eggs in one basket.
• 11:36
  Jaclyn Strominger: Once those eggs were gone, it was like, well, it's layoff time.
• 11:40
  Jaclyn Strominger: And that's who I teamed up with.
• 11:41
  Jaclyn Strominger: And Al Gore's my Al Gore's my best friend in college.
• 11:44
  Jaclyn Strominger: We did a couple projects together.
• 11:45
  Jaclyn Strominger: We won a competition, a couple competitions together.
• 11:48
  Jaclyn Strominger: And so I called him up after I was starting to get work after I'd been laid off.
• 11:52
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I go, hey, how much he was so sick of living with his mom and dad because he went back and lived with mom and dad.
• 11:56
  Jaclyn Strominger: Just again, embarrassed, ejected, all that.
• 11:59
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I go, Well, how much cash you got?
• 12:02
  Jaclyn Strominger: Like, I the I I think I can I think I've got a sales funnel going.
• 12:05
  Jaclyn Strominger: Like, do you have enough to come down for a couple months?
• 12:08
  Jaclyn Strominger: He goes, Yeah, I'll do anything.
• 12:09
  Jaclyn Strominger: I'll get out of here.
• 12:10
  Jaclyn Strominger: I just gotta get out of here.
• 12:11
  Jaclyn Strominger: And that's how we started the firm.
• 12:13
  Jaclyn Strominger: We started out of his apartment.
• 12:14
  Jaclyn Strominger: It's kind of like the garage story, you know.
• 12:17
  Lancy Cayko: Wow.
• 12:17
  Lancy Cayko: Okay.
• 12:17
  Lancy Cayko: So I want to kind of so just because I think people need to hear this, how did you start getting clients?
• 12:26
  Jaclyn Strominger: Very unorthodox, which is kind of what we've been doing ever since.
• 12:31
  Lancy Cayko: We just go I like unorthodox, I like that.
• 12:34
  Jaclyn Strominger: Okay, yeah, we've just always looked at it like, and we're architects too, so we always kind of do things a little differently and just weirdly we look at things like if something's black, we go, what if it's white?
• 12:44
  Jaclyn Strominger: You know, and like what does that look like, or whatever?
• 12:46
  Jaclyn Strominger: What does this building look like upside down?
• 12:48
  Jaclyn Strominger: And so nobody at that time in Colorado, when we started our firm, was like advertising online.
• 12:55
  Jaclyn Strominger: They weren't taking advantage of like lead generation websites, like we use Thumbtack, we still use it.
• 13:01
  Jaclyn Strominger: They weren't advertising on Google, but the most unorthodox way was we started advertising on Craigslist, which a lot of architects would look down on.
• 13:10
  Jaclyn Strominger: They probably still would, where they'd go, like, Craigslist, you're gonna be scraping at the bottom of the barrel with people.
• 13:15
  Jaclyn Strominger: And we kind of were, admittedly.
• 13:18
  Jaclyn Strominger: But then it became a challenge of once we started advertising on Craigslist and we started getting inquiries, it was all right, these people don't have as big a fee, or like pile of money to spend on architects as maybe a different one, somebody from a referral.
• 13:33
  Jaclyn Strominger: But how can we make it work?
• 13:36
  Jaclyn Strominger: How can we still eat as much as we need to to survive until we build a bigger client base?
• 13:44
  Jaclyn Strominger: So that became us looking inward and redefining our systems and how we draw, how we design, and making things more streamlined.
• 13:53
  Jaclyn Strominger: And then it led to another company we have, rubbitrocketship.com, where we made this amazing template with our CAD software.
• 14:01
  Jaclyn Strominger: Now we we've we've been teaching through the universities as we did for about a decade.
• 14:06
  Jaclyn Strominger: All of our students took the course, and professionals around the world now take the course.
• 14:10
  Jaclyn Strominger: So really it was like this sort of a self-challenge after we found the leads.
• 14:16
  Lancy Cayko: I absolutely love that.
• 14:17
  Lancy Cayko: So I like the unorthodox.
• 14:20
  Lancy Cayko: So how much do you do in in like personal reach out?
• 14:30
  Jaclyn Strominger: Oh, quite a bit.
• 14:31
  Jaclyn Strominger: Quite a bit.
• 14:32
  Jaclyn Strominger: There's all kinds of different ways.
• 14:34
  Jaclyn Strominger: So there's a lot of times where we'll be reaching out to like a builder we really like and want to team up with and just ask them if they're open to a lunch.
• 14:43
  Jaclyn Strominger: And or realtors.
• 14:44
  Jaclyn Strominger: Realtors are a really good one that we go after and just go say, hey Kate, I notice you're like kind of it in Longmont, for example, where our headquarters is a we're like I see your signs everywhere.
• 14:55
  Jaclyn Strominger: Would love to see if you're looking for it to add another architect to your referral list and stuff like that.
• 15:00
  Jaclyn Strominger: And one of the one thing I was want to maybe make sure the audience understands is because I didn't understand this either, is like I've been hearing over and over and over again from other architecture colleagues that referrals are where they get most of their work.
• 15:15
  Jaclyn Strominger: And like, well, where where are all our referrals?
• 15:18
  Jaclyn Strominger: You know, and it's a long game.
• 15:21
  Jaclyn Strominger: So just having that coffee with one of those two entities or another, you know, tertiary entity, it doesn't mean it's gonna happen that day.
• 15:30
  Jaclyn Strominger: It's really about staying in front of them, keeping on their radar, linking in with them, adding them to your newsletter.
• 15:37
  Jaclyn Strominger: The what a statistic I've heard recently, which I believe is like it takes about 10 touches before you get one of these kind of clients, especially for a designer or like a builder.
• 15:48
  Lancy Cayko: Like 10 to 12.
• 15:49
  Lancy Cayko: Yeah.
• 15:50
  Lancy Cayko: I mean, right, it's 10 to 12 touches, actually, and it really is.
• 15:53
  Lancy Cayko: And it's actually, and sometimes it's actually that's some of the statistics is it's 10 to 12 touches before you might even get a callback.
• 16:02
  Lancy Cayko: Right.
• 16:04
  Lancy Cayko: So but kudos to you for understanding that because that's nurturing that's the long game.
• 16:11
  Lancy Cayko: You're nurturing the relationship and it's making it go from something that's transactional to transformational.
• 16:17
  Lancy Cayko: It's not, it's not, it's it's building on something that is really important.
• 16:23
  Lancy Cayko: So people are getting to know you, and you're not the used car salesman saying, Hey, I've got a building to build for you today at 999, right?
• 16:32
  Lancy Cayko: You know what I mean?
• 16:33
  Lancy Cayko: It's like you're you're they're getting to see your work and know that they're that it's not something that you just take for take lightly.
• 16:45
  Jaclyn Strominger: Yeah, and even just following up with folks.
• 16:47
  Jaclyn Strominger: So if we get a if we get a cold call or a cold email from somebody, text, whatever, and they're reaching out to us and they want to potentially do like I'm I'm I've been talking with this gal now for five months about a huge remodel in the town.
• 17:03
  Jaclyn Strominger: It's like a dream project for us because we would do the designing plus the building.
• 17:07
  Jaclyn Strominger: It's like 10 minutes away.
• 17:09
  Jaclyn Strominger: It's great, it's but I I know that it's for her to write that first check, it's a big deal.
• 17:16
  Jaclyn Strominger: This is a life-changing event, right?
• 17:19
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I don't want to come off like with sales breadth.
• 17:23
  Jaclyn Strominger: So the touches are have to be crafted, and you have to get real creative with them, right?
• 17:31
  Jaclyn Strominger: So, for example, one of the so I've been I I've probably touched base with her like 10, 12 times so far, but I think it's probably gonna take four or five more.
• 17:38
  Jaclyn Strominger: She's almost ready to sign.
• 17:39
  Jaclyn Strominger: I think it's gonna happen in June.
• 17:41
  Jaclyn Strominger: But like one example of a real creative one is we just got a commission to do a pool house in about 20 minutes west of her.
• 17:49
  Jaclyn Strominger: And so I reached out just to stay on a radar.
• 17:52
  Jaclyn Strominger: Hey, could you pass on that pool company's information that you wanted to use for your house?
• 17:57
  Jaclyn Strominger: We just got a pool house just west of you, and that at least keeps her top of mind.
• 18:02
  Jaclyn Strominger: She's sort of helping me out, I'm helping her out.
• 18:04
  Jaclyn Strominger: She really building the repertoire of like, look, pool house, see, we're doing one.
• 18:10
  Jaclyn Strominger: And she already knows, like, yeah, I know, I want you to do one for me too.
• 18:13
  Jaclyn Strominger: So it's those kind of like interesting things, or just trying to be helpful to people.
• 18:17
  Jaclyn Strominger: And we've gotten five-star reviews for just being helpful to people, even though they haven't even hired us.
• 18:21
  Jaclyn Strominger: So, yeah, it's like all the way back to that first point again of right, you know.
• 18:25
  Lancy Cayko: But but that's a key thing.
• 18:26
  Lancy Cayko: You're you're and and and listeners, I want you to understand this because you know, Lance, you've had grit, right?
• 18:33
  Lancy Cayko: You've had to go through stuff.
• 18:34
  Lancy Cayko: There's highs and lows.
• 18:35
  Lancy Cayko: It's not always right, you the trajectory is not a straight lineup, right?
• 18:38
  Lancy Cayko: There's but one thing that you just said is that people would give you reviews just for serving.
• 18:47
  Jaclyn Strominger: 100%.
• 18:48
  Lancy Cayko: For serving.
• 18:49
  Lancy Cayko: Like I like I'll share, I don't not that it's it's it's being able to say to somebody, hey, I can help you.
• 18:56
  Lancy Cayko: Why?
• 18:56
  Lancy Cayko: Why are you helping me?
• 18:57
  Lancy Cayko: Just because.
• 18:59
  unknown: Yeah.
• 19:00
  Jaclyn Strominger: Yeah.
• 19:01
  Jaclyn Strominger: I'm I'm always re I'm I'm almost more proud of those five-star reviews than the ones where we've served somebody for several years.
• 19:08
  Jaclyn Strominger: Because at that point, like, I mean, you can make the argument on the opposite end where it's like serving somebody for three years, holy cow.
• 19:16
  Jaclyn Strominger: That's a long sequence.
• 19:17
  Jaclyn Strominger: You're gonna get tired of each other, probably, especially if you build for them, then it gets real interesting.
• 19:22
  Jaclyn Strominger: But yeah, the little ones where I'm just like for you know, people will reach out and they'll go, I haven't been able to get any.
• 19:28
  Jaclyn Strominger: You're the first architect to pick up the phone.
• 19:30
  Jaclyn Strominger: Everybody else just won't even return my calls.
• 19:32
  Jaclyn Strominger: I'm like, Oh, I'm sorry about that.
• 19:33
  Jaclyn Strominger: Well, how can I help you?
• 19:34
  Jaclyn Strominger: Well, I don't, I want to know if I can do this, that, this, that, and the other on my on this property.
• 19:38
  Jaclyn Strominger: Oh, sure.
• 19:38
  Jaclyn Strominger: Let me look into that for you.
• 19:39
  Jaclyn Strominger: It takes me sometimes like five minutes.
• 19:42
  Jaclyn Strominger: And then I don't ask, I don't even ask for the review when they often give it for me not even getting paid to do billable stuff.
• 19:50
  Jaclyn Strominger: It's just they're so grateful.
• 19:52
  Jaclyn Strominger: I'm like, oh, that was cool.
• 19:53
  Jaclyn Strominger: What a cool experience.
• 19:56
  Lancy Cayko: And sometimes I think it's the those referrals that you get that are not solicited are so great.
• 20:03
  Lancy Cayko: They're really great.
• 20:04
  Lancy Cayko: Now, you've had your firm for obviously 17 years, right?
• 20:08
  Lancy Cayko: Is what you said.
• 20:09
  Lancy Cayko: How do you keep morale up and things going inside the firm so that you don't lose people?
• 20:17
  Jaclyn Strominger: Well, you really got to care.
• 20:18
  Jaclyn Strominger: I mean, you really they're people.
• 20:20
  Jaclyn Strominger: That's a for they're not machines, they're not the terminator.
• 20:23
  Jaclyn Strominger: I don't want the terminator working for me.
• 20:25
  Jaclyn Strominger: He might turn on me one day.
• 20:26
  Jaclyn Strominger: We really concentrate on personal, professional growth.
• 20:36
  Jaclyn Strominger: And you can do it professionally so that it just filters into the personal.
• 20:41
  Jaclyn Strominger: So one of the things we started doing six, I think six or seven years ago, is we started doing a every at the beginning of every year, we read a book for self-improvement.
• 20:52
  Jaclyn Strominger: And they're they're professional ones, but they filter, they just naturally filter into your personal development.
• 21:00
  Jaclyn Strominger: And so the first one that we did is I won't go through all of them, but some of the highlights.
• 21:04
  Jaclyn Strominger: First one is uh Paul Akers two second lean.
• 21:07
  Jaclyn Strominger: And what that has done is it really uh gave us a framework for continual improvement in the office, personally and professionally.
• 21:18
  Jaclyn Strominger: Because what the whole concept of the book is Paul Akers went to, he was looking at why are the US auto manufacturers falling behind to Toyota?
• 21:28
  Jaclyn Strominger: Like, why is T Toyota able to produce a better vehicle, especially in the 90s, early 2000s, for a lower cost?
• 21:36
  Jaclyn Strominger: They're beat they're beating the pants out of us.
• 21:38
  Jaclyn Strominger: So he went over to and look went over to the uh Toyota manufacturer companies in in Japan, and he and he was they did two second liens.
• 21:47
  Jaclyn Strominger: So all they did is they were like, okay, we have to make this door a million times.
• 21:51
  Jaclyn Strominger: How do we make that two seconds faster?
• 21:53
  Jaclyn Strominger: Like all the components that go into it.
• 21:55
  Jaclyn Strominger: We got to multiply it times a million.
• 21:57
  Jaclyn Strominger: Holy cow, that saved a lot of time and money, and now we're Able to lower our prices.
• 22:01
  Jaclyn Strominger: And so now on every day we have a two-second lean meeting where somebody has to present a personal win.
• 22:07
  Jaclyn Strominger: So they tell us about their weekend.
• 22:09
  Jaclyn Strominger: Hey, I went hiking with my girlfriend, boyfriend, cool, whatever something cool I did with my family.
• 22:14
  Jaclyn Strominger: Here's my professional win.
• 22:16
  Jaclyn Strominger: I had this problem I was trying to solve with the client.
• 22:18
  Jaclyn Strominger: And then here's the here's one of the principles of the F9.
• 22:22
  Jaclyn Strominger: That there's nine of them, those principles that were used.
• 22:25
  Jaclyn Strominger: It could be like serve one of them that I think number one is serve the client, contractor, and city.
• 22:29
  Jaclyn Strominger: So you talk about service.
• 22:31
  Jaclyn Strominger: And then another book that's been really instrumental is we had everybody read seven habits of highly effective people.
• 22:37
  Jaclyn Strominger: And that now has actually been our language every day is like part of that book.
• 22:44
  Jaclyn Strominger: Hey, I'm just seeking to understand.
• 22:46
  Jaclyn Strominger: Way different, way different kind of approach.
• 22:49
  Jaclyn Strominger: Hey, I'm gonna start this project.
• 22:51
  Jaclyn Strominger: I'm gonna begin with the end goal in mind.
• 22:54
  Jaclyn Strominger: How do we get there the fastest, most efficient way?
• 22:57
  Jaclyn Strominger: Those are the I think because we go those extra layers in the firm, I I and we do compensate people, we try to compensate them as much as we possibly can.
• 23:07
  Jaclyn Strominger: You know, it's not profit over people here, it's sort of one-in-one type of thing.
• 23:12
  Jaclyn Strominger: Right.
• 23:13
  Jaclyn Strominger: I I think those that sort of cultural shift has really made a big difference in our firm.
• 23:18
  Lancy Cayko: Okay, so what book are you reading this year?
• 23:21
  Jaclyn Strominger: Oh, we read we read three different ones.
• 23:24
  Jaclyn Strominger: And gosh, you're putting me on the spot and I don't even know more enough.
• 23:28
  Jaclyn Strominger: And that's so funny.
• 23:29
  Jaclyn Strominger: I love books.
• 23:30
  Jaclyn Strominger: One one person had to, so the the junior staff, people who are not licensed, they read The Sabbath Habits of Highly Effective People.
• 23:39
  Jaclyn Strominger: One of our project architects, we specifically made one, made him read a one that's just a little bit more specific to what he sort of needed to improve on.
• 23:52
  Jaclyn Strominger: And that one is called Drive.
• 23:54
  Jaclyn Strominger: And then the last one is called it's a CEO book, but this one is for our project leaders or like our project architects who are leaders, and it was it's coming up the switched on CEO, how to think like a world-class leader.
• 24:13
  Lancy Cayko: Cool.
• 24:14
  Lancy Cayko: I love those.
• 24:15
  Lancy Cayko: That's great.
• 24:15
  Lancy Cayko: Great book recommendations.
• 24:17
  Lancy Cayko: Okay, so one thing that you also do, and and I love this, that you started a podcast.
• 24:23
  Lancy Cayko: And I think, I mean, I love podcasts, I love helping people.
• 24:26
  Lancy Cayko: It helps a great, great way to learn.
• 24:28
  Lancy Cayko: And that seems to be another way for you to also be able to serve not just you know your your people, but it helps to serve others.
• 24:36
  Lancy Cayko: So share a little bit about that.
• 24:38
  Jaclyn Strominger: Yeah, we started, so we got to, I'm a big numbers person, like I'm kind of that's where I get a little woo-woo about like numbers.
• 24:47
  Jaclyn Strominger: I'm like, uh, three special, the Trinity, the 12 apostles, and then there's the number seven.
• 24:53
  Jaclyn Strominger: And the number seven is like, well, most businesses fail within the first seven years.
• 24:59
  Jaclyn Strominger: And we got to year seven, and we went, oh, we haven't failed yet.
• 25:03
  Jaclyn Strominger: We should tell our story.
• 25:05
  Jaclyn Strominger: We should tell our story because I want more architects who are entrepreneurs, and now it's more manifest in it to you.
• 25:12
  Jaclyn Strominger: Now we want more architects who are not only entrepreneurs, but like, hey, if you're tired of not getting paid and what you think you should be, and you're tired of the builders taking on more of the architect's role, then you need to become a builder too.
• 25:25
  Jaclyn Strominger: And so over the past 10 years now, 800 episodes deep, almost a million downloads.
• 25:32
  Jaclyn Strominger: That's that's the focus of the Friday show is we're bringing folks with a raw, unfiltered look inside the firm.
• 25:38
  Jaclyn Strominger: Alex and I are without naming names, telling client horror stories, success stories, how to do things, how to start up, how to market.
• 25:46
  Jaclyn Strominger: We tell some really interesting marketing ideas.
• 25:48
  Jaclyn Strominger: Like one time we did, we almost got Jeff Bezos to respond to us with an email.
• 25:55
  Jaclyn Strominger: We watched him open it, but he never he never responded it to us, where we try to like capture the zeitgeist of the moment.
• 26:01
  Jaclyn Strominger: So if you remember, like I think six, seven years ago, maybe longer than that, Amazon was looking to put a new headquarters somewhere.
• 26:08
  Jaclyn Strominger: So we did a we did a little study on like what would it look like if we put the biggest skyscraper downtown Denver, Amazon came there.
• 26:15
  Jaclyn Strominger: We didn't get the skyscraper, we didn't get Amazon, but we did get in a bunch of media and local papers, and a developer reached out to us and we got a 12-town home project.
• 26:25
  Jaclyn Strominger: So we we yeah, all kinds of tips, tricks, just interesting stuff on the show is what we talk about.
• 26:30
  Jaclyn Strominger: We're just advocating for more people to step out of their comfort zone and like take control.
• 26:37
  Lancy Cayko: That's really really cool.
• 26:38
  Lancy Cayko: So, and what's the name of that podcast?
• 26:40
  Jaclyn Strominger: Inside the firm podcast.
• 26:41
  Lancy Cayko: Inside the firm, okay.
• 26:42
  Lancy Cayko: And then you also said you do another one as well.
• 26:46
  Jaclyn Strominger: Well, yeah, we do a Monday show.
• 26:47
  Jaclyn Strominger: And it's called Monday morning coffee with Inside the Firm.
• 26:50
  Jaclyn Strominger: And I have folks on, like yourself, some other famous people, like John McAfee from McAfee Software was on one time.
• 26:56
  Jaclyn Strominger: I try to pick people's brains and just pull over like business professionals from other professions who a lot of architects are always like looking outwards and going, well, why do the why do the lawyers make all this money and seem successful?
• 27:11
  Jaclyn Strominger: Doctors or whatever.
• 27:13
  Jaclyn Strominger: And so I bring those folks on to hopefully we can learn from them and and grow and be better professionals.
• 27:20
  Lancy Cayko: I absolutely love it.
• 27:22
  Lancy Cayko: I I think what you're doing is absolutely fantastic.
• 27:24
  Lancy Cayko: And I love the insight that you're giving, you know, just you know, being able to think outside the box when you're actually doing marketing and and actually reaching out to people.
• 27:32
  Lancy Cayko: I feel like that is actually one of the things that I feel like, God, I I can't say enough, right?
• 27:39
  Lancy Cayko: You know, you know, if there's a way to go against the grain, do a little different, you know, you know, if you want to have Jeff Bezos as your client, go after it.
• 27:51
  Lancy Cayko: What's right?
• 27:52
  Lancy Cayko: Right.
• 27:53
  Jaclyn Strominger: Yeah.
• 27:53
  Lancy Cayko: What's stopping you, right?
• 27:55
  Lancy Cayko: Go after it.
• 27:56
  Lancy Cayko: So so Lance, how can our listeners get to know and connect connect with you directly, learn more about what you're doing?
• 28:05
  Lancy Cayko: Besides, I mean, I'll put all everything all the other links in the show notes, but how can they connect with you?
• 28:09
  Jaclyn Strominger: I would love it if they linked in with me.
• 28:11
  Jaclyn Strominger: I try to post not only the cool stuff that we're doing all the time at the different companies we have, but just inspirational stuff reflecting back on my career, where it's going, how people can, you know, learn from me, maybe avoid some of the mistakes.
• 28:26
  Jaclyn Strominger: They just go to LinkedIn, type in my name, L-A-N-C-E, last name psycho, C-A-Y-K-O.
• 28:30
  Jaclyn Strominger: I will link in with anybody.
• 28:32
  Jaclyn Strominger: And then they can go to they can also go to F9productions.com, sign up for a newsletter, and reach out there.
• 28:37
  Lancy Cayko: Fantastic.
• 28:38
  Lancy Cayko: Well, I will put all of that in the show notes.
• 28:40
  Lancy Cayko: Listeners, Lance had some great tips here.
• 28:43
  Lancy Cayko: So please do me the favor and share this episode with your friends, colleagues, and business associates that you know, because this is uh some must hear knowledge and must-see knowledge.
• 28:52
  Lancy Cayko: Um, and then please do me the other favor if you haven't already subscribed, make sure you do hit subscribe.
• 28:56
  Lancy Cayko: And lastly but not least, we have a great, an amazing community happening on the school platform.
• 29:02
  Lancy Cayko: It's unstoppable success.
• 29:04
  Lancy Cayko: I invite you to come in, come into the platform, come into the community and join us on Unstoppable Success.
• 29:09
  Lancy Cayko: We are sharing lots of great information, tips, insights for you to have unstoppable success.
• 29:15
  Lancy Cayko: And every Wednesday at three, we have a power, and I should say three Pacific time, we have a power hour to help you work on something that you need to work on to power through the hour because we all know how those days are.
• 29:29
  Lancy Cayko: So join us on school.
• 29:30
  Lancy Cayko: We'll have that link in the show notes too.
• 29:32
  Lancy Cayko: And Lance, thank you for being an amazing guest and sharing with us.
• 29:36
  Jaclyn Strominger: Thank you so much for having me.
• 29:37
  Jaclyn Strominger: It was a pleasure.
• 29:38
  Lancy Cayko: Great.
• 29:38
  Lancy Cayko: And this is Unstoppable Success.
• 29:40
  Lancy Cayko: We're helping you leap to your greatest success.
• 29:43
  Lancy Cayko: I'm your host, Jaclyn Strominger, and tune in every Tuesday and Thursday.
• 29:46
  Lancy Cayko: Well, you'll get great insights from amazing, amazing people out there doing the work.
• 29:52
  Lancy Cayko: Again, thank you for listening and thank you.
• 29:54
  Lancy Cayko: Thank you, Lance.