The Questions That Change Everything
By: Maja Kovacic‑Kalra of Architect & Marketing
Last month a client paid me to write words for their website.
A week in, I still hadn’t written one.
Because I don’t start with words. I start with questions.
Here’s how it went.
“Maja, great news. We’re really pleased to move ahead.”
I sent the questionnaire.
Client: “Wow, this is really comprehensive.”
Me: “Yes. It’s the foundation for everything. It makes you think about your client a lot and write those thoughts down.”
Client: “It was actually so useful going through those questions.”
Me. 🙂
My questionnaire is not a “who you are and what you do” exercise. Those questions are easy. Those questions are everywhere.
And this might be hard to hear. The “who you are and what you do” questions are the reason most architectural websites sound the same.
Design led. Bespoke. Considered. Crafted. Innovative. Five words copy pasted across many architectural homepages.
The questions I send out are built for a different job. They do two things.
One. They pull out your personality, your human side, the why behind your work. They make you put words to things you’ve always felt but never used. The shape of the conversation you keep having with every client, written down. They give answers that separate you from everyone else in your field.
Two. They give us what we need to know about your clients. The fear. The feeling. The desire. The thing your client wants and can’t name.
Answering them, you might find out things you never thought about.
Those answers become the foundation for writing your website. We build all the messaging and positioning from them. Headlines. Subheads. About page. Every part of your website.
The answers are yours. And because of that, the website built from them is yours too. It sounds like you, not like the practice down the road. It says what you actually believe, not what every other website is saying.
It’s where you separate from everyone in your field.
It’s where a stranger reads your sentences and feels a connection. Feels like you understand them. Feels seen.
That feeling doesn’t come from technical, dry, safe copy. It comes from clarity. Clarity about what you believe. Clarity about who you’re for. Clarity about the one thing a client needs to know before anything else. The writing carries it. The questions create it.
This matters more now than it ever has. Clients are doing more research before they make first contact. They are reading websites at midnight. Comparing four practices in a single browser session. The work on your portfolio page got them in the door. The thinking on the rest of the site decides whether they stay.
Help them see themselves in the work you’ve already done. And see the human behind it. Someone whose way of thinking fits theirs.
Great architecture deserves a great website. And a great website creates great opportunities. What you do next is up to you :)
P.S. If you’re ready for your website copy to make clients think, “I want to hire you,” let’s start the conversation.
