Mark: Today on PowerTips Unscripted, we talked to Dave Pollard, co-founder and design director of live companies in the suburbs of Chicago. Live Co has been leveraging the power of 3D design since they began design Build back in 2012. Initially used simply as a creative tool for developing ideas. They quickly learned that the 3D output could take them to higher levels of success.

Mark: They will share all their revelations in just a minute for Google.

David: I do this old fashioned way with two swords and maximum effort. Okay guys. Let’s get out there and make a difference.

Victoria: Hi, I’m Victoria Downing and welcome to PowerTips Unscripted where we talk about tips, tactics and techniques to help you build a strong, profitable remodeling company. And I’m here with my co-host, Mark Harari.

Mark: Hi there.

Victoria: How are you today?

Mark: I’m well. How are.

Victoria: You? I’m good. So it’s been an exciting week already. And then it’s almost Thanksgiving. And this is going to be, sort of a highlight of the week.

Mark: You know, you’re giving away secrets because this is going to air after Thanksgiving. So.

Victoria: That’s right.

Mark: They’re going to know it’s not live.

Victoria: Oh, well, hopefully they’ll forgive us as well.

Mark: So what you should say is I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving. I am full from that meal. Whoo wee shoo! That was a lot of turkey.

Victoria: I think we keep that part right in there like that. And then we just go on from there. And another exciting thing this week. You’re a published author?

Mark: Well, yeah.

Victoria: So your book, lobster on a Cheese Plate, was just, published hot off the press and,

Mark: For December 8th. Yes. Again, I don’t know the timing. You’re trying to play that game. It’s not working for you. All right. Comes out December 8th. Yeah.

Victoria: Okay. So, but today is a highlight of this week. And because we get to talk about design and sales and communication and marketing and all sorts of stuff that we love talking about, right.

Mark: I love it, and I love talking to Dave. Dave loves to talk to us.

Victoria: Yes, he loves.

Mark: To talk to anybody.

Victoria: Yeah. Yeah, he’s good though. He’s interesting. So that’s why we like listening to him as well. So let’s jump into this, shall we?

Mark: Jump away.

Victoria: Okay, so Dave Pollard is with us today. He is a principal and co-founder of Live Companies in Chicago suburbs, as Mark had mentioned. He is a leader of their design department. He’s going to join us today to talk a little bit about how they use 3D design to really make their company stand out. Welcome, Dave.

David: Hey, guys. Thanks for having me.

Victoria: Sure. It’s always wonderful to talk to you, especially about design hot topics.

David: Did you guys have a good Thanksgiving?

Victoria: Yeah. Well that’s awesome.

David: Great.

Victoria: So, so let’s talk a little bit about the whole process of the 3D design you use. And so I know you’ve been the design director of the company ever since it started in 2012.

David: Yeah. That’s right.

Victoria: So when did you really dive into using 3D as a marketing and sales tool?

David: Well, I think, coming from our architecture firm, that it was it was really always a part of my workflow since starting as an architect. And I think when we got into design, build work, it was it was really just kind of part of my normal design process. Even in college, I think we were starting to use it, you know, back in the early 2000.

David: So I think it’s been part of how my, my brain actually thinks through design as well. So it’s definitely always been a part of it.

Victoria: So talk to us a little bit about your design process. I mean, there’s so much conversation about, about this topic within our roundtables groups about how to streamline it, how to make it most effective. And so to share with us a little bit about what you’re using now in your whole process.

David: Yeah. So we we use several different, pieces of software. I think I have always tried to find just a single silver bullet, software that would work where we could really just take it from start to finish. But what we found is that, we try and use, what makes the most sense for each step of design, whether it’s trying to be creative or whether it’s trying to, deliver two dimensional drawings.

David: For prints, things of that nature. So what we do now and our two main software, and I don’t know how technical you guys want me to get, but the two main pieces of software that we use are Revit and SketchUp. Now, SketchUp is a really loose, free form, flowing, almost three dimensional drawing tool that is based more like your sketching.

David: So I think it’s more intuitive to just create and make and test things. And then Revit is really a much more robust technical tool, which is using building information modeling, but actually taking the 3D information, translating it to a database and pushing it out into, drawings or permitting it for construction. So Revit is a great tool once we get into our detailed design process.

David: But in early feasibility design, we really like the fluidity of SketchUp. So we’ve shaped our process over the last several years. And what we do now is we actually go and we field measure and hand markup sketches in order to bring the data back to the office. And then we start with a three dimensional model for the existing conditions.

David: But we use Revit for that. Okay. The reason we do that is because Revit is actually really good at being scientific, where you can build out exactly what the walls are. Drop windows, it’s pretty efficient at that. But then we actually export that out into SketchUp and then use that original Revit model to start being creative. And so our entire feasibility process ends up in SketchUp.

David: And then we use Enscape to help visualize and create, really better renderings so that people can really have a better sense of what the space is going to be. And then when we go into detailed design, we already have that existing conditions. Revit model we can run run with with it from there. So I don’t know that it’s the ideal workflow in terms of using a single source software all the way through, but it works really well for us and gives us a lot of flexibility and a lot of detail and also very accurate drawings.

Mark: So, Dave, I just want to make sure I understood that correctly. You go from you started SketchUp, go to Revit and then go back to SketchUp.

David: Actually it’s the opposite. So we start with rabbit. So rabbit is really good for drawing anything that’s already known. But I don’t think it’s a very good tool for making your brain, brainstorm. Right. And be creative. So the existing conditions are known. So we’re just going to build in Revit right. Models built in two days or three days.

David: And then it’s export to SketchUp where we just start kind of sculpting it, taking it apart and then getting creative. And then once we know what that design is, then we can put that into Revit.

Victoria: And then the other software you mentioned, Enscape.

David: Yeah. So Enscape is a really cool product that we started using probably about a year ago. And it’s just a rendering plug in and it actually works for SketchUp. And Revit and probably some other softwares as well. It’s not very expensive. And it’s on the fly so I can run enscape while on drawing and my rendering will actually update.

David: So SketchUp can be very sketchy, right? Yes. It’s designed to be a little bit looser and not as photorealistic, and Enscape can do live updates to that as well as add really fast content. It makes it feel a little bit more fluid, like you’re like a, high level video game, okay. Where it moves really quickly and you can visualize things really well.

David: SketchUp and Revit by themselves don’t really carry that that level of quality in graphics.

Victoria: Can we back up for a second? Now your design build right. So I’m assuming the first step is some sort of a feasibility study or design development as your first step. So is all this we’ve been talking about deliverables at that first stage. Really. I like to back up just again some design build companies have the feasibility study that’s lesser less lesser cost, fewer deliverables then design development.

Victoria: Then construction. How do you do it and what are your deliverables at that design stage? Then.

David: So yeah, so our feasibility step is a standalone, product that we sell. That is our starting point. And in that that is where we’re, we’re delivering the full architectural visualization using SketchUp and Enscape. Okay. And and the reason we do that is because a, a floor plan may change once we really start developing with the spaces and understanding it three dimensionally.

David: So we think it’s really important to start three dimensionally because that is more valuable to us than the plan. And then the plan is part of that. But in some ways almost more of a result of what we’re shaping in the three dimensional space. And then with that, our deliverable ends up being a full vision visualization for our clients so they can really get a sense of what the space is beyond just the floor plan.

David: And then actually before this call, we just did one. It’s pretty mind blowing because they’re sitting in their house, because we’re doing them on zoom now, and they’re trying to figure out where we moved their kitchen, which is now over here in their existing house. And we kind of said, just don’t even think about that. All you need to think about is what this presentation is of what your house is going to be that we’re presenting to you right now.

David: And that’s that’s what it is. Don’t worry about what’s moving where. Let’s just think about what this entire, full concept is. So we’re delivering the rendered the renderings two dimensionally. We also create a fly through that we put on YouTube. We also in scapes really cool down to you can create, web link so they can actually click on the, the link and open it on a website.

David: And they can walk through the model themselves. We also do QR codes. So from Enscape you can set a view and then save a QR code that they can scan with their phone and hand through the space. So there’s some really incredible tools that are out there that work. They get better pretty much every every day.

David: So that we can, just continue to show our clients what our creative ideas are and really presenting to them.

Mark: Have you incorporated VR into any of it?

David: Great question. So with the QR codes it is kind of VR. But and it actually has an option to do whatever the VR is for the, Google Cardboard. And probably a year ago or thereabouts, we started to order some Google Cardboard and test them. And we could have them logo this list. Ho. So when they get their presentation, they could do it.

David: And I think it is kind of cool, but it’s almost a little too novelty and it really wasn’t right jiving as much. So we backed off a bit, but I think it’s pretty cool. And there’s definitely, you know, more and more potential there.

Victoria: Okay, so before we go on too far for those of the those of us who are not as techie as you guys, Google Cardboard question mark.

David: Yeah. So Google Cardboard is just it’s just a piece of cardboard that you unfold and you drop your phone into it, and then you wear it like a set of VR glasses. It’s just a two hour piece of cardboard.

Mark: Yeah. It’s a it’s it’s Google trying to give so people don’t have to buy 5000 $200 VR glasses.

Victoria: No kidding. Wow. Okay, so who is the person and I assume it’s you, but who’s who’s doing all the research and figuring this all out and diving in. So as you said, there’s all sorts of cool stuff one can do.

David: Yeah, that that is the hard part. You know, I think I definitely try and reach out to other RA members and see what they’re using. I think our, our roundtable group shared Inscape a lot. You see new stuff. We, we, I’ll test it. I think a lot of the people in our group are using similar software.

David: And then I’m always trying to learn and find out if there’s something better. We’ll definitely, you know, test chief architect. We’ve use 2020. We’re always, you know, doing some R&D to see if there’s a better solution, along the way. But, yeah, it’s hard. I think most of it is just kind of keeping in touch with my architectural network and see what people are doing.

Victoria: So how long, how much longer does it take to create deliverables like you’ve described versus what the average company out there is doing?

David: Yeah, I mean, I think we we definitely charge a premium over a lot of people for our feasibility studies. It ranges from 3500 to $8500. And maybe some people are charging that. But but I think with that allows us a good amount of time to, to deliver this full package. But what we’ve also learned is for us to do our full in-depth design and creative process, adding materials.

David: And our design team actually visualizing it is part of our process. So in some ways, delivering, you know, a YouTube video from that is doesn’t take any more time. It’s maybe 30 more minutes because we’ve already done the legwork in the design process to to come up with something, that is already ready, ready to be rendered.

David: That makes sense.

Mark: So does this. This is obviously a great sales tool for you, right? It’s it’s wowing the client. And they’re they’re able to visualize their project. Is is that really the the extent of what you do with this. Just it’s a sales tool.

David: I think it started as it was mostly a design tool and then as outputting better, visualization became easier. And to the Victorians last question, almost turnkey as part of what we’re delivering, it became a lot more valuable from a sales perspective. And people wanting to buy our visualization product, but it also tied into really a full marketing platform and being able to put our entire catalog of every project we’ve ever designed on YouTube, so that people can, can really see what we do.

David: And in our creative vision. So I think we’ve definitely kind of taken it across different platforms of sales and marketing. But it’s also just part of our design nature that it helps our team get excited about what we’re designing and helps us test ideas, and see them, I think it helps our construction team get excited about what they’re building as well.

David: I think, you know, there’s two dimensional drawings that we, submit to the to the village and then hand to the subcontractors are great, but that piece of paper that really shows what the space is going to be at the end of the day, is in some ways more valuable for a lot of our projects. So it really, really the weight of the three, the three dimensional deliverables and presentations really are, valuable across so many different channels of what we do.

David: For sure.

Victoria: So all the projects that you’ve done using this, you’re putting those videos, those fly thrus, I think is what you refer to them as on YouTube. Right. And then you’re are you marketing that to prospective to, to attract prospective clients?

David: Absolutely. So I think we’re always trying to take it to another to another level, which, you know, can be a rabbit hole in some ways. I’m trying to go too crazy with it. But yeah, it’s really fun when we come up with a project design. We’re really excited about it. We make this little video and then you edit it down, add some music, and then put it on Instagram.

David: Know, we, we have, on our YouTube channel. One of our playlists is called The Drawing Board. So people can just go and see what we’re working on and subscribe and see what our latest design is. We can put it across all of our social media channels. It’s it’s really easy. And I think, the hard part has been, editing it down to like under a minute using the video fly through, to really give the, the full picture and kind of emotional presence of a project in one minute is kind of a fun challenge.

Mark: Who’s doing all this work?

David: So our design, our feasibility design team is, Sarah, who’s an architect who works for us in me, and she’s primarily doing all of the design and feasibility presentations. And then, kind of overseeing that, from a design director standpoint and helping to, shape it into, the, the edited video with the music. That’s kind of my department does, weird like that.

Mark: So are you are you the the marketing director to then.

David: You got it. Yeah, exactly. So that it all ties together pretty well. Right?

Mark: Absolutely.

Victoria: No. Does Sarah have help in going, you know, putting all the details into Revit.

David: So once it goes out of feasibility it goes to Christopher who’s then taking the existing conditions rabbit model and converting that through the technical drawing process.

Victoria: Okay okay. So if when when Sarah came along did, did she know how to do all this or did you have to train her?

David: So I worked with Sarah way back when at a in a previous, job life. So she had a pretty good experience with, three dimensional software, but she’d actually gone, and became a pharmacist in the summer.

Victoria: Wow.

David: Now. So I think she had to relearn it a little bit, which she did really well. Okay. And Sarah was actually our first design hire. And, looking at her first job description is hilarious because it’s, you know, it’s everything. Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s crazy. So I think at some point as we grew and we, we, enlarge our design team and we sat down with Sarah and said, you know, what is it that you really want to do?

David: You’ve been doing everything. What do you really enjoy? And she she said she wanted to to work on these feasibility designs. I said, all right, hope you’re ready for it. And she’s definitely, you know, run with it and and pushed it to a to a new level. I mean our, our file size of our models have gotten a little big.

David: And that’s just a testament to how much content we’re adding to really help our clients understand what the spaces can be. Now, really fun. Part of that real quick, for sure. Favorite thing to do with that is when we field, measure and document the houses. We always take photos of all their artwork. A lot of our clients have really great kids artwork.

David: Yeah, photos of that. And then we can actually cut that, put it into the 3D model.

Victoria: Oh that’s awesome.

David: I’ll show our level of thought and also helps them, feel like it’s truly customizable.

Victoria: Oh that’s awesome. That’s a great, great, marketing thing, sales thing to do. Now, we talked a little bit about the expenses. Are there more expense for 3D modeling and so on. What about timing? What about the. Because one of the issues for a lot of our listeners is design getting bogged down, you know, everything projects getting stuck in design because it’s just taking so long does this.

Victoria: Yeah. There you go. Thank you. Is there how are you seeing that? How is this affecting that?

David: So I think we have a pretty good process down, and we have a good sense of how much time it’s likely going to take once we know what the design is. So usually, I think the hardest part of, of designing time for design is not in the production of it. It’s figuring out what it is right. So I think we, we usually leave, you know, probably a two week buffer to be able to figure out what exactly it is that we’re designing.

David: And then from there it goes relatively efficiently. And then probably the most important thing that we do to keep design from getting bogged down is we schedule those meetings early. So we already have on our calendar that we’re going to be meeting with that client in three and a half weeks. We have a hard deadline. And if you don’t do that, if you just say, hey, we’ll call you when the design is ready, you’ll just keep going.

David: Yeah, because you can always keep going. You can always design more. And you have especially in design, you have to follow that 8020 rule to get more of. So it’s it’s it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty daggone close to perfect. I think it’s ready to go. Right.

Victoria: Okay. Now, give me a rough idea of your company’s average job size. Just to give our listeners a bit of comparison.

David: I think now our average job size is probably around 200, maybe 250.

Victoria: Okay. All right. Great.

David: Then.

Victoria: So if anybody listening in wants to get started to use this sort of software to develop these sorts of sales marketing communication tools, do you have any advice for them?

David: Yeah. I mean, I think testing SketchUp is a really fun thing to do. My kids even like playing with it in their eight. So I would download a trial version and sketch up and just start kind of messing around with it and see if it clicks a little bit. You know, I think and I’m just not as familiar with a lot of the other softwares, but I would definitely try and see what you can do for video export.

David: Okay. If you’re using cheese or any of the other software 2020, see what you can do for a fly through export and maybe see if that’s something that you can leverage across marketing channels and things of that nature. If you’re trying to get into video, the way that I got into video was, my kids playing sports and taking video and actually taking a 45 minute sports match and compressing it into something that someone would want to watch for two minutes.

David: So that kind of gets it into it. So those are a couple.

Mark: Dave, this is great stuff. You know what? It’s time of the show that you’ve been so, so eager and excited for. It’s the lightning round. Yes.

David: Oh, and now here’s a remodelers advantage. Lightning round. It’s a draft.

Mark: We’re going to put 60s on the clock. Here we go. What’s your favorite business book and why?

David: That would be the ten Natural Laws of Successful Times in Life Management by Hyrum Smith. I don’t know that too many people even know what this book is, but I got it in college. I think I was supposed to read it in college, and I never did. It sat on my bookshelf. Somehow it moved with me.

David: So it was on my bookshelf for 15 years. I one year old daughter was sitting on a couch one day, and she reached back and took this book off the shelf and threw it at me. And it changed my life. And just understanding that happiness is a function of your control over what you can control, and a lot of tactics and, methods for achieving that.

David: And it really connected a lot of dots for me. It’s a good one.

Mark: And if you weren’t a remodeler slash architect slash designer, what do you think you’d be doing?

David: I think I would, I would definitely still be designing. But when I was a kid I always wanted to design cars, so I guess I would be an engineer, but I don’t think I would be very good at.

Mark: What are you not very good at?

David: I’m not very good at being patient.

Mark: Giving your desk or your car. Which would you clean first?

David: Definitely my room. Because it’s the one thing that I share with my wife.

Mark: What do you think is the greatest invention ever?

David: I’m looking outside of my front yard right now. I think rope light.

David: Is pretty decorations out.

Mark: Yes or no? Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

David: Yeah. That’s one.

Mark: If someone wrote a biography about you, what would the title be?

David:

Victoria: Crazy, right? Well, I’ve look forward to read that one already. Hey. Well, David, this has been great. Thank you so much for sharing this. And, if people wanted to look at some of the things you’ve been talking about, how would they do that?

David: We have a lot of information on our website at, live companies.com, but also if you want to see what we’re doing for possibilities, check out our YouTube channel, which is live companies, also all of our social media channels and usually trying to put a lot out there. So on Instagram, Facebook, great, great and all that stuff.

Victoria: Awesome. I’m very excited to go look at that even more. Even though I’ve seen a bunch, it’s great stuff. So before I let you go and I very much appreciate you taking the time to do this, we’ve been wanting to have you on for some time. I want you to share with our listening audience your five words of wisdom and why they resonate with you.

Victoria: And you sort of did a little sneak on this one. I saw.

David: Yeah, yeah. So I, I was watching a Ted talk. And because I love PowerTips, I’m always thinking about what my five words of wisdom would be. And I think it always changes. But I saw one a couple weeks ago and said learn from everyone following no one.

Victoria:

David: And I think where we are right now as a company, I think when we started we were definitely trying to follow. But you get to a point where, where you’re, you’re really trying to break out and develop your own, individual, nature of what your company is. So I think we’re trying to continually learn, but not necessarily follow what everybody else is doing is trying to learn from.

Victoria: I think that’s great. That’s that’s awesome. Thank you so much. We very much appreciate it. And, we’ll have you on again one day. David.

David: Cool.

Mark: Thanks, guys. Thanks, Dave.

Victoria: Bye.

Mark: Yes, I think he utilized the old handy dandy hyphen that, it’s that five words always.

Victoria: Yeah, it’s just a little bit there. But, you know, in terms of the podcast itself, doesn’t he make it sound easy.

Mark: In terms of a podcast?

Victoria: No, in terms of what he’s doing. Oh sketch it in Revit and Enscape. And I mean it sounds the way he was describing it, it sounds easy and it sounds like well, I’ve seen some of the videos are extremely powerful from a consumer point of view in a marketing point of view.

Mark: Yeah. Well, it’s easy when you when you’ve been doing it, you know, because it becomes second nature. I mean, I’m sure there’s a learning curve of understanding the platform, understanding the software, all that fun stuff. So I wonder, you know, we didn’t ask how long it took him to get know.

Victoria: Get what say? So we’ve been using it for about a year.

Mark: Which one?

Victoria: Well, the least the enscape enscape.

Mark: Yeah, that’s the renderer, right?

Victoria: I think that’s the best part because that, you know, that’s the most fun for me to look at.

Mark: Well, yeah. You know.

Victoria: As built a floor plans, the rendering, the 3D fly through though, it’s very cool.

Mark: Yeah. It’s cool. And, you know, hey, you know, it’s funny, I, I kind of agree with him that. Well, not I agree with him. He he kind of saw that it was leaning that way, that the, using the VR and the, the cardboard was almost more kind of,

Victoria: Gimmicky.

Mark: Gimmicky, right, as opposed to giving added value. But, you know, I think that’s it’s still so new, relatively speaking, that I think it’s going to find its place and people will get more and more into using that, because I think there’s definitely a place for the VR experience as well.

Victoria: So but you know, just the idea that you can get, you can get such a much better feel for what your space is going to look like. I can’t help but think the consumers must be blown away. And although everybody could be doing this, we know that there are not very many that are doing it. And so they’ve got to stand out in the marketplace.

Mark: Which is great. Absolutely. I think, anyone listening should definitely check out his YouTube channel. It’s pretty cool. And he’s he’s a, man after my own heart when it comes to creativity and having some fun with marketing. I mean, they do, you know, coloring pages for the, for the kids and all kinds of stuff. So they really get out there with their marketing.

Mark: I think it’s great. So good stuff. We want to thank Dave Pollard for joining us today and sharing his 3D design insights. And of course, we want to thank you for listening week in and week out. I am Mark Harari.

Victoria: And I’m Victoria Downing. See you next week.