speaker-0: Hello and welcome to the Build Better Homes podcast. I am your host Royal Mortier and my trusty left-hand sidekick. Are you left-handed? I don't know. ⁓
speaker-1: right handed but that's right in Kelly.
speaker-0: You'll be on my life's always the right hand. So, ⁓ but with me in the studio today is my trusty left hand, John O'Shea. And how are you doing today, sir?
speaker-1: I'm doing fantastic. got a last day of sun for about a week here in Oregon. ⁓ Enjoyed a beautiful week here. ⁓ And it's just been absolutely gorgeous. The kids have been outside. They got their sandbox out. We got some stuff, you know, cleared out around the house. You know, honeydews done. And so it's just been a really gorgeous. So we always get about a week teaser. You might remember that from when you lived in the Northwest. There's always this like. Lull before the rains hit. And it's warmer here and it sprinkles and it rains for three months now before July. But yeah, we get this little teaser and it's fantastic. So outside.
speaker-0: The, the, the fall spring, fall Springs, second winter tip situation. It's been, it's been odd. mean, I was in Miami earlier this week for a forensic investigation. And when I left home, I'm in the panhandle Florida, gorgeous, sunny. mean, it was early morning, but it was still the whole forecast was gorgeous, sunny. And then I get to Miami and the rain was coming down so hard. could barely make out the terminal. from the airplane, you barely make out the terminal from the runway. Like it was that hard downpouring. And then it was just off and on all day. And I had to do an exterior forensic investigation and a ⁓ bus collided with a hotel right there in the Brickell district. I got to see the security footage and I mean,
speaker-1: Took off, right? Kept going?
speaker-0: I don't even know, I don't think he even hit his brakes. just, hit it, and I mean, he hit it hard. ⁓ Enough to fracture ⁓ a massive concrete beam, that's how hard, and the windshield of the bus came into the cab, and he just kept going, right onto the highway. Just kept going.
speaker-1: He had passengers. Do we ever figure out what happened?
speaker-0: I didn't, yeah, I have no idea if he had passengers or not, but still the fact that a charter bus driver and it was big, fancy charter bus. Yeah. hit a building and just kept going like, nah, we're good. I was, I was amazed by that as was the hotel management and everybody else has spoken. I they had their security cameras. had tons of footage from people just outside on their phones. And I shared some of that footage with you. Pretty hilarious. People's interactions and comments on it. But I didn't know until I got there that they were like, ⁓ yeah, well, he got on the highway. He kept on driving. He drove all the way to. their part, their station lot or whatever, the owner or manager for the place had no idea it had happened. She's like, wow.
speaker-1: ⁓ and it was a charter, private, it wasn't like a city bus that. No. Right. Gotcha. That's probably why he kept going.
speaker-0: Right. So, yeah, I mean, the, manager goes out, the windshields just inside the cab at the bus. Like it was, it was, I mean, get a number on it. So, ⁓ so yeah, so we've had some interesting weather, but overall been, very nice here, but, ⁓ I did hope to get some content filmed while I was in Miami on some really cool projects. First off our forensic investigation and secondly, some really cool. construction and engineering that's going on down there. Unfortunately, the weather really hindered that. we're gonna be, we're down there on the regular. We're gonna be doing a lot more traveling for content. We've got some more builders on board that are doing some cool stuff. So I'm really excited to see those things starting to come together with our social media to really share some cool things in the building industry and just with construction and engineering in general with our viewers and listeners.
speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, talking from the most humble place and not a self promotion place for clear us, but I mean, I think we are talking and there was 23 projects in the last month that have come from. ⁓ Some of the social media interactions, our IBS trip and all of that, which is a huge win for us.
speaker-0: Yeah, so that exclusively and I'll narrow that down exclusively. ⁓ ICF projects, so insulated concrete forms. We, we talked about it on this on, on here. We met with some ICF vendors and designers at the builder show and lot of bigger than the biggest thing. Yeah. And the biggest thing is we found is that. The there's it's like a new thing, but it's not anything.
speaker-1: I I was told.
speaker-0: Right. Yeah. I mean, I worked on my first ICF project almost 30 years ago. And, you know, that was when I don't even know if they had, know, Fox blocks was the, the main company on the block. They, no pun intended. They, I don't think they, don't even know if they actually had corner blocks at the time. There weren't variable sizes. It was just, that's what it was. And so to see us 30 years later, these additional manufacturers come into come into play, where you're seeing much more volume, you're seeing insurance companies realize how much more resilient ICF is. So it's been really cool to go from, I think last year we did two or three ICF projects total. And really just because we weren't even looking for it. They were just, I had prior contacts from my prior firm that reached out to us and said, hey, can you help with this? And We helped out and I just didn't know that the engineering community hadn't really stepped up to assist these ICF designers. And it's been, it's been a great opportunity for us and for our designers and for the clients, because we've been able to take these projects out of our norm that, you know, our norm has been wood construction. mean, we did over 2000 doors last year and the to then go and jump into this ICF really feet running and pick up a lot of projects in multiple different parts of the nation. And now we're getting licensed in Massachusetts. I just met with a guy today in Pennsylvania and Delaware. We've got one going in New York, we got one we just wrapped up in New York. We got one we're consulting on in New Jersey. It's not just Florida. Supplemental to that, there's ICF adjacent type products that are out there that we're talking with that the there's a company called Virocast. We've got the Herk, Herky wall from New Dura that we're talking with people. We've got the light deck systems that are coming about. So concrete residential ICF type four systems, all these different systems kind of coming about. it's really cool to see the growth in the industry and we're here to serve.
speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, I think we do all the we do all the quoting together for players and I think there's probably a dozen projects in the Quote Hopper and maybe a half a dozen already into production. And that's just like in the last couple of months, it feels like there's a lot going on. So.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, we've seen a, we've seen a massive, massive uptick and that, you know, that's again, in addition to our builders, which are builders that we serve have all seen a massive increase and the overall consumer sentiment in the residential industry has been, has been positive. You know, regardless of what's going on overseas, regardless of what, you know, interest rates may be doing, we're seeing a positive economic sentiment and that really drives a lot. If people are just overall in a negative mindset about what's going on, that's going to affect the market more regardless of what the numbers are doing than if people are just positive of, there's maybe these things going on, but the fact is, is we can persevere through this and things continue, need to continue to move forward.
speaker-1: Yeah, so cool. think ⁓ that's a perfect kind of segue into what we wanted to talk about today, which is pretty exciting for us, which is. You know, our relaunch, our re grand opening, if you will, ⁓ there's plans.
speaker-0: Right. Yeah. So just so people understand the structure of our companies. So, and you can go onto clearestco.com and see this. I, and I apologize. I'm going to apologize ahead of time. Today is kind of a, I don't want to call it a self promotion, but we're giving people backstory. We're to be providing backstory into what created Clearance or why Clearance was created. And. what we've done to try and better serve the industry and solve problems that existed that whether the general public understood they existed, they did exist in the home building industry. And we're trying to do this through a very service oriented mindset and finding ways to solve problems proactively. So in one of those items is Blair's plan. So If you go on plutersco.com, you'll see we have what our main service is, which is our direct service to builders. And with our direct service to builders, we manage house plans for them, meaning they either have already an in-house library of plans, or we use our partners, which are other home designers, and their library of plans, and bring those to the designer, to the builder, and say, You guys are wanting to add plans to your library. You're wanting to do this development and you have this criteria of your development. We already have these partnerships and we have these access to these plans that you're able to then get these plans into your lineup much more cost effectively. And we can do and then from there we can architecturally modify them. We can do the engineering. We can do everything that's needed to then get them to being a formidable plan set. The third option is we do actually have designers on staff and we have and can and have design new plans from scratch. And that's the more not cost effective, more time. of what they call, what they call charrettes where we're going back and forth significantly to develop a new plan from the start.
speaker-1: Come on.
speaker-0: Really, like to, there's only so many ways you can configure a square or a rectangle with four rooms and three bathrooms and a living room and a kitchen. There's only so many ways you can configure those things. And so we don't like to try and reinvent the box that's already been invented. So we really like to tap into our prior designers. Now, as a history of Clearis, Clearance originally started as a completion services company. So what that means is Clearance is actually Greek for complete. And Clearance plans was basically how we started, which was our goal was to complete the plans for other home designers and other house plan websites. And The reason being is many people don't understand this, but when you go online and you look at a set of house plans, those house plans likely are not to code for where you are going to be building, and they aren't engineered for where you're going to be building.
speaker-1: It's a basic set of drawings on a flat lot with the basic necessities that you need in order to get started with building a house, not the structural components that you need and not the jurisdictional and site-specific components that you need.
speaker-0: Go ahead. Exactly. So they, lot of these designers have, and some of these larger websites have thousands of plants you can choose from, but you have no idea when that house was originally designed, what code it was designed to, what energy code requirements existed at that time. If it, if it may have been engineered and there is engineering cited, it's likely not the same as what you're building to. So all of those things have to be considered. so when we started Clearance Plans, if you look on our, we also have an addition of Clearanceco.com, we Clearanceplans.com. We started partnering with home designers to market their plans as a hundred percent complete, which means the designer was still getting their licensing fee essentially. So they, You know, the designers, they're, selling the plans, right? That's the product. They're selling a plan that plan as a license associated with it that allows you the purchaser to use those plans, build your home. Well, we had agreements with these designers that we could grant that single use license. And then they were giving us the CAD files, which you typically have to pay extra for, but they were giving those to us at no extra cost to the client. So then we were the ones that brought the plans up to the code that the jurisdiction was enforcing. And then we could also do the structural engineering. And then in addition to that, we offered additional services of site plans, landscape plans, erosion control plans, ⁓ mechanical, electrical, plumbing designs, MEP, the things that the jurisdiction required to basically get you through. Anything that we could do remotely not having to come to the job site, we were trying to provide. And that is originally what started Clear's plans. And then, you know, we had, so we had design partners for Clear's plans and we had builder partners for Clear's code. And that's been the bulk of our, the backbone of our industry for our company so far. Now we are launching What is clear is forensics, which we'll talk about that on a totally different show, or we'll have some of our experts come on an interview, but. Clear's plans had some shortfalls and one of the biggest shortfalls was that we were marketing the plans as complete, right? And there is, there are some people that are looking just to get the plans to stew over, right? And so they'll come online and they'll buy those plans and they'll just kind of stew over them and maybe mark them up, edit them, or use a local person to modify them. Who knows what they're using. Or there there's jurisdictions that are super lax. That's the easiest way I can put it. ⁓ We've worked with some states in the Midwest that we don't even bother getting licensed in because the fact is the jurisdictions don't care. They, you come in, you build it. great, if it collapses, that's your fault. Like that's all basically their stance. We had one jurisdiction that we, or one state and jurisdiction we were working in that the builder was like, I only need architectural. I don't need any engineer. And we're like, okay. And so we provided the architectural and the plans examiner, we get a plan review letter and the plans examiner wanted us to clarify how the gutter and downspout was getting routed to the street. we're like, well, there's no curb and gutter at the street. So if the gutter and downspout is coming down and it's just getting routed out into the yard, there's no storm sewer or there's no storm, there's no sanitary sewer or area. There's no curb and gutter to route it to. And they were just like, we have to show it on the plans that you're routing the downspout all the way to the street. Well, what about the engineer? And they're like, we don't care about the engineer. We have to show that the downspout is routed to the street. I mean, that was it. He just had to get that box checked on his checklist. Didn't care about the engineer. Didn't care what the header sizes were. Didn't care what the foundation sizes were. They just get worried. Hey, downspout has to go to the street. That's my box to check. That's what it is. And that is the situation. So there is a lot of plans that are sold that just don't require that. So. The history of Clear in going back, where I came up with the idea of Clear's plans was at my last firm, we were a third party building department for multiple jurisdictions. think at the time I was there, we were a building department for over 60 jurisdiction. And it was a weekly thing that we would get somebody that had bought a set of plans online and was trying to submit them for permits. They just didn't know. Great. And so then the discussion has to be a, Hey, these plans aren't to code. You're missing all these things. They're not engineered. You now have to go meet with somebody to get these to completion. And that's a difficult conversation to have with some people because all they saw was I spent a thousand dollars on a set of house plans. Why can't I build the house? Not knowing that it's lacking all of this information. And so. Then you have to this conversation with them of, it's going to cost you four or five thousand dollars to get them brought up to code, to get them engineered, to do everything that you have to to comply with your site design criteria requirements and jurisdictional requirements. So, again, we were making it on Clearance plans very easy for the client because we just provided one flat fee. You click the button, you pay that one flat fee, we take care of everything. So again, what we thought was a simplicity thing really actually cut us out of what was, oddly enough, is this pretty significant amount of the market that just is coming online and buying a set of PDF plans or one set of plans for almost their exploratory reasoning. So as we are revamping this, and the other thing is for designers, designers, if you're listening to this, with our complete plan package, we were paying the designers a hundred percent of what their single use license fee was. A hundred percent. So they set their license fee, whether it was on their website or whatever, if they add their own website or they just got to set their license fee and we paid them a hundred percent of that because we were doing the extra work. We were doing the completion services and a typical house plan website that partners with other designers pays typically around 35, sometimes up to 45 % of that. So if they have a royalty fee or if they have a license fee of $1,000, that's what the PDF or single use license is being sold for. original designer is only getting 35 to 45 % of that. Now we were paying 100 in the fact of, hey, now these designers are getting more money because the plans are selling as you know, they're getting their 100 % royalty. We want to pay them for their artwork as we were coding it. And we're getting this extra work. The analogy I give is that, you you pay the artists, right? You buy a piece of artwork. Well, now that artwork has to be delivered. It's got to get hung on your wall. You've to get lighting installed. We were basically the company that took care of everything else. The original artist needs to get their money. It was their idea. It was their concept. They did the work to create the art. We're just doing everything else. And so that was the step. But again, we missed out on a lot of opportunities. So we're revamping how we're doing this. So now on Clear's plans and what will be our new website that will be coming out in the next week or so, there's going to be two options. One, you can still buy the complete plans. You select the plans, you purchase them. We take care of everything else. That's it. That's the clearest package, complete package, right? We take care everything the jurisdiction requires. We charge you one flat fee and you're done. The other option, and the original designer gets the 100 % of their single use license. The other option is you can buy just the PDF plan set. and get the single use license. And it will be the equivalent price of what the designer has it on their website, whatever. If you guys go that route, again, whatever. But the designer still gets a significant percentage of that licensing fee. It's not 100 % because we're doing the marketing, we're handling the transaction, we're handling all that work. But it's still a significant percentage more than what other websites are paying because if you come back to us down the road and say, Hey, I bought these set of plans from you. I would now like them completed for my bill. that designer now gets 100 % of that original licensing fee. So it's a tiered royalty system that goes into a situation where they get a significant percentage if all you buy is the plans. But if you come back to us and we do all the engineering and all the work, they get 100%. So it's a good option for them.
speaker-1: That was a great holistic explanation of what's happening with the nuclear plan system. So a couple of things that come to my mind is, you know, the advantage of going through us, even if you buy the PDF set and the designer getting their fair share, or whether we provide a complete set, if you're going to need a site, you're going to need a place to build the house. so that we know what site specifics to put into that plan for you. the advantage of going with us would be that you purchase the plan through us and we at any time can shift and get you your site specific criteria and engineering. Even if you buy the PDF and you come back to us, we're going to be able to provide that engineering. one of the reason why I say this is because if you go to the plan designer and buy it there, then you're going to have to engage us initially. wouldn't have any contact with anybody in our CRM, would know who you were, you'd be coming in cold. ⁓ And so there's benefits to buying it from us in the first place. However, you know, we can do it either way. ⁓ But if you come through us, it seems like that would be a benefit because we're the whole thing, the whole ethos of Clearance is complete or vertically integrated. The problem in the industry that we were solving that Royal alluded to is in a couple of different ways. Traditionally has been you go out and find a piece of land and then the designer or architect comes in and they go walk your piece of property and they design you a custom piece of architecture for that property. And then they say, okay, that'll be X dollars. And then they say, but you need to go find out your site criteria or we can help with that. That'll be extra. Then you also need to go find an engineer. That'll be extra. Then you also need to figure out whether what type of, ⁓ you know, things you're going to put into your house, whether you need those MEPs, know, ⁓ and you also have to do a site plan. That's going to be extra, you know? And so the, the segmented five to six different tentacles you needed to put out there in order to pull a permit plan set together. was the vertical integration and the problem that was solved with Royals, Clearus, now my ⁓ participation in the company. so I'm saying that's kind of the, that's pulling it all together. That's the problem was that you may have to wait two or three weeks to get in line, just to get in line with an engineer to get a proposal might be another two or three weeks to get a, know, to, do all these five or six different things that are floating around. You're having to coordinate that as a PM or pay an architect to do that. so, ⁓ you know, we've, we've pulled all that together and made an offering to make it simple and it's the complete clearest name. ⁓ So I just kind of wanted to mention that that is the vertical integration that a solution for the industry, whether you're a builder, a one-time client, an ICF client. Even additions, we've been bidding additions lately and that's been going really well. So there's a lot of benefits to ⁓ engaging a program that's complete in nature. And we might not be the only solution out there, but we're one of the only ones in the game that's doing everything.
speaker-0: Right. Well, and to an advantage to the designers, and this is a big reason, you know, some of these designers are small. They may only have a sellable library of a couple of plans, a half dozen plans or so. It is not advantageous for them, economically advantageous for them to go through and create their own sales website, their own house plan sales website. nor is it advantageous for them to go and market on social media or any other avenues there to start their own podcast, to discuss the designs that they do, right? To get that information out of there. We are going at a national scale where not only can we market these smaller designers of a couple plans, a half dozen plans, whatever it is, we can also be partnering with some of these larger design companies that have specialized in home design. One in particular that is a big partner for us is MassCourt, which MassCourt has a couple thousand home designs that we're able to market them and market their stuff and just serve as a funnel. the fact of matter is, is when people have the ability to go into these, into our house plan website, punch in any of their search criteria and every designer that's partnered with us that has a home that meets that design criteria comes up, right? There's no preferential treatment. It's all who has the, who meets the criteria the best, who has the elevation that they like the most, right? And, but we're handling all of that marketing to create that traffic to hopefully get in front of their designs. The other thing is, I love marketing the artists. I have a cousin who is an amazing artist. I'm actually looking at a piece of his artwork over the edge of my desk here that I just received a couple of weeks ago. And he's an amazing artist and I respect artists. In addition to what we do as far as just the house plan sales on Clear's plans, all of our designers have their own landing page. So it talks about the designer. And whether that designer has one plan with us or a thousand plans with us, they get that landing page. They get all of their connections put onto that website. If a client comes on and goes, hey, I love this designer's work. I wonder if they could customize something for me. Because every designer, every architect has their niche. They have their thing that they do great. I'm thinking of one specific architect from my, my old hometown, ⁓ that you could drive around town and look at a building and based on the architecture of the building, knew exactly who designed that. You knew exactly who it was because his niche was that style. And everybody knew that if you wanted that style, that was who you went to. That was just. He built an amazing company doing that style. Great. And that style has been popular for a few decades now. And that's everybody just goes to him. Right. So it's that way with, with home designers as well, where they have specific things that they do. Great designs that they do. Great. There's designers that specialize in ICF. There's designers that specialize in SIP. There's, you know, there's designers that specialize in. farmhouse style fronteds. There's, you know, there's, there's all different designers that have their own specialty that they just do really well. And that's where we also get to market that at is, you know, it, whether you guys buy the plans through players plans, don't really care. We're here to try and market the small guy and the big guy. And we, the biggest thing that we do amazingly well, is the completion services. We will make sure that home is to code. We will make sure that home is engineered to your site design requirements. We will make sure that when you, when it's done, you are ready to submit for permits. And I hate plan review letters. I am not a fan of plan review letters. They said we did, we did almost 2000 doors last year. I think we maybe had what 10 to a dozen plan review letters. That's insane. percentages, right? We try and have everything complete, correct, and ready to go right out.
speaker-1: Yeah, I hold things I can echo that the last two builders that I worked for once we started doing vertical and lateral engineering and moving away from either combining architectural with structural and having one drawing and having mistakes in that or have. ⁓ know, architects do the sizing, let's say the vertical some of that really created, you know. a hundred land letters a month, let's say out of a hundred land submittals. Right. So once we started doing ⁓ the full packages and the structural drawings and all of that, that basically went almost to zero. So it was a huge, huge win there. And then I want to key off something else you said, which I think is really important, which is both, think we were talking about this before the podcast is both Royal and I are really passionate about the home building industry and what we're doing. ⁓ with clearists and so bringing on those designers that are either just cutting their teeth and getting out there and, and, and they have a very small library, ⁓ or they're, or they're just don't, or they only do the one style. Like what Royal said, ⁓ we want those, those people to come in and market through us as part of our group. ⁓ and we, we want to mark those plans. And that's one of the things that we're passionate about is kind of bringing people up with us because there's a lot of. space in the economy and in the world and in the world of plan creation. so ⁓ we think there's space enough for everyone. And so we want to bring those people up with us and be part of that. And I think that gets missed in business. Sometimes people can be cut throat and can be really difficult. And we're just not going that direction. We're assuming a more holistic approach of wanting to bring people up with us and raise people up. And we're hoping they'll do the same with us and that's kind of our culture and the way we look at it. And so if you're a designer out there, ⁓ we are currently recruiting to put you into our site, to give you that landing page, to give you that marketing, give you that exposure. ⁓ So that's exciting for the relaunch.
speaker-0: Yeah, it is. It's something I'm really excited about. It's a great step in the right direction. we already have one of the largest and most reputable independent home design companies already contracted with us set to go on that new stage with us. And it's great to see them. And I mean, they're a family-owned, I can give you an idea. The history of, you this is a plug for MassCord, but also plug for us. So the founder of MassCord worked with my grandfather. So founder of MassCord, MassCord, licensed architect. My grandfather was his main go-to engine, one of his main go-to engineers in the Northwest. So it was really interesting when we first launched the idea of Clearance Plans, we threw it out there to tons of designers and I had a meeting, Masquard was one of the few that returned our phone call, returned our email and Alan had no idea who I was. Alan actually wasn't even the person that I emailed. He was somebody else. And then in the video call, we're having a conversation and the call is getting to an end. And he goes, ⁓ well, Royal, what's your last name? And I sold him and he was like, any relation to Emil and I was like, well, that's my grandfather. he was like, I worked with Emil for decades. he did most like when I was like, when I was starting out, he was our go-to engineer. So, ⁓ you know, starting out in the late sixties, early seventies, he was the go-to engineer for residential. And so it was just kind of cool how that's come full circle. But you know, this is when you, when, when you partner with Clearance and Clearance Plans, like exactly what it is. partnership. We're not, we're we're, we're investing in you guys, our designers a lot, right? Cause we're, we're putting the websites together. We're putting the marketing together. We're talking about the designs. We're doing these things in hopes, right? In hopes that we get work, right? And hopes that the plan sell and it's no cost to the designer to get them on our website. So.
speaker-1: Yeah, we can grow together.
speaker-0: Yeah, so that's the value with it. and you know, there are a lot of other house plan sites out there. There's none of them offer a complete out the door package. None of them are vertically integrated. You're always going to be working with other people other than the original designer, the original company. If you go through and you do, if they have any kind of engineering or completion services, you're going to be Again, the octopus tentacles, these people do this and these people do that and those people do that. And, you know, it's just become a holistic focus of our team to provide these things.
speaker-1: Yeah, I think in the modifications you hit on that, right, the modifications go back to the designer as well. So ⁓ they're going to be calling on the designer or you. You're meeting the designer that's with us. That's who's going to be executing on those. So we refer them back to the designer for changes. Right.
speaker-0: Yeah, we call it the first right of refusal. So the original designer gets, gets first right of refusal for any architectural changes. So, you know, cause that is a good amount of business for them and we don't want to take that away from them. So, uh, and just so people are also clear, you know, lot of those house plan websites, it's all the same company, just a different website name. And so you're going to go on, you know, when they say we promised that you won't find this plan for less because they own the rights to that plan. And it's only marketed on their websites. that is the situation. They've really almost monopolized it and done a lot to, you know, they help some designers, they definitely, you get lost in the crowd and lost in the volume of everything with a lot of these smaller designers. which is really what we're trying to help out.
speaker-1: Yeah. And we're going to, we're going to have, I think there's at least 12 different styles or categories, you will, collections ⁓ that have different styles within them. And so we, have a really diverse palette of plans that are going to be coming out. you look today, there's 58 plans on there. We're going to, we're going to launch ⁓ roughly over a thousand.
speaker-0: Okay.
speaker-1: when we bring the new plan book in and then it should top out somewhere around 1800, but that's including walkouts and daylight basements that can be added to existing plans. But it'll be a significant content increase to cover anything that somebody might need in any style. So, pretty exciting.
speaker-0: Yeah, we're excited about it. going to be. It's a, it's a huge thing for a lot of people. mean, and again, we're, we're, we're part of some private Facebook groups that focus on residential design. And this is everybody in those groups. I hope to start seeing their plans on our website because. It's great for them. It's it's passive, right? I'm Mark. We're marketing on their behalf. They're not happy to go out there trying to seek out the work, trying to go to job sites and work with clients. It's literally just the stuff's coming in. this is finding an existing plan that's like what you like. What, what some, how do I explain that? Finding an existing design that is similar to what you like and making modifications from that to that with the original designer. It's probably one of the most cost effective. ways to get to a final home design. And then for them to have a partner that's familiar with the codes, familiar with the design requirements, familiar with everything in those areas, that is also very attuned to streamlining everything, cost effectiveness of the engineering, of the constructability. It makes everything go very smooth.
speaker-1: Yeah. So if you're out there looking for a house and you want to be efficient or have a site and you're looking for something to build, try and find that plan that's closest as possible. And then work from there because the back of the napkin sketch with the charrettes and all of that takes a long time and a lot of money, but it can be done. ⁓ finding that plan that's similar and just augmenting that is the easiest.
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, all right. Well, hey, if you're interested in marketing on our marketing on our upcoming website, do feel free to message us. You can message support at clearestplans.com. ⁓ That'll get you to us. You can call our toll free number 8334CLEARAS. You can DM us on any of the socials. Those are monitored. ⁓ And we can start sending you information. You can also direct message us through any of our websites. We have contact form on all of our websites. We're excited to get more plans going and more designers to market it on our plan, ⁓ market it on our website to help you guys out.
speaker-1: Look for the launch in the next couple of weeks and we'll be putting more content out about that. So stay tuned.
speaker-0: Great. All right. Well, do you have anything else,
speaker-1: You know, I thanks Royal again for having me on the pod and we're on the cast. However you want to put it. It's always, it's always fun. Or maybe you call it a podcast. I don't know. ⁓
speaker-0: I don't know how you abbreviate that one.
speaker-1: No, it was, it's always fun and I'm looking forward to getting this website launched and getting things going. It's been a lot of work for the group. over the last probably two quarters, ⁓ he's taken daily meetings, ⁓ with the web developer and the marketing manager and the social media manager and all these people to pull all this stuff together. And we're at the finish line. You got the contracts done. Things are good. we're, like, We're right there. So stay tuned folks. We're going to launch something big here shortly. I'm about it.
speaker-0: So am I. All right. Well, great. Well, if you enjoyed the show, please feel free to like, subscribe. We always appreciate if you can share our information with others that this may be of benefit to. If you'd like to get a hold of us, feel free to message us on any of our platforms. And otherwise, have a great day. Bye.
speaker-1: right handed but that's right in Kelly.
speaker-0: You'll be on my life's always the right hand. So, ⁓ but with me in the studio today is my trusty left hand, John O'Shea. And how are you doing today, sir?
speaker-1: I'm doing fantastic. got a last day of sun for about a week here in Oregon. ⁓ Enjoyed a beautiful week here. ⁓ And it's just been absolutely gorgeous. The kids have been outside. They got their sandbox out. We got some stuff, you know, cleared out around the house. You know, honeydews done. And so it's just been a really gorgeous. So we always get about a week teaser. You might remember that from when you lived in the Northwest. There's always this like. Lull before the rains hit. And it's warmer here and it sprinkles and it rains for three months now before July. But yeah, we get this little teaser and it's fantastic. So outside.
speaker-0: The, the, the fall spring, fall Springs, second winter tip situation. It's been, it's been odd. mean, I was in Miami earlier this week for a forensic investigation. And when I left home, I'm in the panhandle Florida, gorgeous, sunny. mean, it was early morning, but it was still the whole forecast was gorgeous, sunny. And then I get to Miami and the rain was coming down so hard. could barely make out the terminal. from the airplane, you barely make out the terminal from the runway. Like it was that hard downpouring. And then it was just off and on all day. And I had to do an exterior forensic investigation and a ⁓ bus collided with a hotel right there in the Brickell district. I got to see the security footage and I mean,
speaker-1: Took off, right? Kept going?
speaker-0: I don't even know, I don't think he even hit his brakes. just, hit it, and I mean, he hit it hard. ⁓ Enough to fracture ⁓ a massive concrete beam, that's how hard, and the windshield of the bus came into the cab, and he just kept going, right onto the highway. Just kept going.
speaker-1: He had passengers. Do we ever figure out what happened?
speaker-0: I didn't, yeah, I have no idea if he had passengers or not, but still the fact that a charter bus driver and it was big, fancy charter bus. Yeah. hit a building and just kept going like, nah, we're good. I was, I was amazed by that as was the hotel management and everybody else has spoken. I they had their security cameras. had tons of footage from people just outside on their phones. And I shared some of that footage with you. Pretty hilarious. People's interactions and comments on it. But I didn't know until I got there that they were like, ⁓ yeah, well, he got on the highway. He kept on driving. He drove all the way to. their part, their station lot or whatever, the owner or manager for the place had no idea it had happened. She's like, wow.
speaker-1: ⁓ and it was a charter, private, it wasn't like a city bus that. No. Right. Gotcha. That's probably why he kept going.
speaker-0: Right. So, yeah, I mean, the, manager goes out, the windshields just inside the cab at the bus. Like it was, it was, I mean, get a number on it. So, ⁓ so yeah, so we've had some interesting weather, but overall been, very nice here, but, ⁓ I did hope to get some content filmed while I was in Miami on some really cool projects. First off our forensic investigation and secondly, some really cool. construction and engineering that's going on down there. Unfortunately, the weather really hindered that. we're gonna be, we're down there on the regular. We're gonna be doing a lot more traveling for content. We've got some more builders on board that are doing some cool stuff. So I'm really excited to see those things starting to come together with our social media to really share some cool things in the building industry and just with construction and engineering in general with our viewers and listeners.
speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, talking from the most humble place and not a self promotion place for clear us, but I mean, I think we are talking and there was 23 projects in the last month that have come from. ⁓ Some of the social media interactions, our IBS trip and all of that, which is a huge win for us.
speaker-0: Yeah, so that exclusively and I'll narrow that down exclusively. ⁓ ICF projects, so insulated concrete forms. We, we talked about it on this on, on here. We met with some ICF vendors and designers at the builder show and lot of bigger than the biggest thing. Yeah. And the biggest thing is we found is that. The there's it's like a new thing, but it's not anything.
speaker-1: I I was told.
speaker-0: Right. Yeah. I mean, I worked on my first ICF project almost 30 years ago. And, you know, that was when I don't even know if they had, know, Fox blocks was the, the main company on the block. They, no pun intended. They, I don't think they, don't even know if they actually had corner blocks at the time. There weren't variable sizes. It was just, that's what it was. And so to see us 30 years later, these additional manufacturers come into come into play, where you're seeing much more volume, you're seeing insurance companies realize how much more resilient ICF is. So it's been really cool to go from, I think last year we did two or three ICF projects total. And really just because we weren't even looking for it. They were just, I had prior contacts from my prior firm that reached out to us and said, hey, can you help with this? And We helped out and I just didn't know that the engineering community hadn't really stepped up to assist these ICF designers. And it's been, it's been a great opportunity for us and for our designers and for the clients, because we've been able to take these projects out of our norm that, you know, our norm has been wood construction. mean, we did over 2000 doors last year and the to then go and jump into this ICF really feet running and pick up a lot of projects in multiple different parts of the nation. And now we're getting licensed in Massachusetts. I just met with a guy today in Pennsylvania and Delaware. We've got one going in New York, we got one we just wrapped up in New York. We got one we're consulting on in New Jersey. It's not just Florida. Supplemental to that, there's ICF adjacent type products that are out there that we're talking with that the there's a company called Virocast. We've got the Herk, Herky wall from New Dura that we're talking with people. We've got the light deck systems that are coming about. So concrete residential ICF type four systems, all these different systems kind of coming about. it's really cool to see the growth in the industry and we're here to serve.
speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, I think we do all the we do all the quoting together for players and I think there's probably a dozen projects in the Quote Hopper and maybe a half a dozen already into production. And that's just like in the last couple of months, it feels like there's a lot going on. So.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, we've seen a, we've seen a massive, massive uptick and that, you know, that's again, in addition to our builders, which are builders that we serve have all seen a massive increase and the overall consumer sentiment in the residential industry has been, has been positive. You know, regardless of what's going on overseas, regardless of what, you know, interest rates may be doing, we're seeing a positive economic sentiment and that really drives a lot. If people are just overall in a negative mindset about what's going on, that's going to affect the market more regardless of what the numbers are doing than if people are just positive of, there's maybe these things going on, but the fact is, is we can persevere through this and things continue, need to continue to move forward.
speaker-1: Yeah, so cool. think ⁓ that's a perfect kind of segue into what we wanted to talk about today, which is pretty exciting for us, which is. You know, our relaunch, our re grand opening, if you will, ⁓ there's plans.
speaker-0: Right. Yeah. So just so people understand the structure of our companies. So, and you can go onto clearestco.com and see this. I, and I apologize. I'm going to apologize ahead of time. Today is kind of a, I don't want to call it a self promotion, but we're giving people backstory. We're to be providing backstory into what created Clearance or why Clearance was created. And. what we've done to try and better serve the industry and solve problems that existed that whether the general public understood they existed, they did exist in the home building industry. And we're trying to do this through a very service oriented mindset and finding ways to solve problems proactively. So in one of those items is Blair's plan. So If you go on plutersco.com, you'll see we have what our main service is, which is our direct service to builders. And with our direct service to builders, we manage house plans for them, meaning they either have already an in-house library of plans, or we use our partners, which are other home designers, and their library of plans, and bring those to the designer, to the builder, and say, You guys are wanting to add plans to your library. You're wanting to do this development and you have this criteria of your development. We already have these partnerships and we have these access to these plans that you're able to then get these plans into your lineup much more cost effectively. And we can do and then from there we can architecturally modify them. We can do the engineering. We can do everything that's needed to then get them to being a formidable plan set. The third option is we do actually have designers on staff and we have and can and have design new plans from scratch. And that's the more not cost effective, more time. of what they call, what they call charrettes where we're going back and forth significantly to develop a new plan from the start.
speaker-1: Come on.
speaker-0: Really, like to, there's only so many ways you can configure a square or a rectangle with four rooms and three bathrooms and a living room and a kitchen. There's only so many ways you can configure those things. And so we don't like to try and reinvent the box that's already been invented. So we really like to tap into our prior designers. Now, as a history of Clearis, Clearance originally started as a completion services company. So what that means is Clearance is actually Greek for complete. And Clearance plans was basically how we started, which was our goal was to complete the plans for other home designers and other house plan websites. And The reason being is many people don't understand this, but when you go online and you look at a set of house plans, those house plans likely are not to code for where you are going to be building, and they aren't engineered for where you're going to be building.
speaker-1: It's a basic set of drawings on a flat lot with the basic necessities that you need in order to get started with building a house, not the structural components that you need and not the jurisdictional and site-specific components that you need.
speaker-0: Go ahead. Exactly. So they, lot of these designers have, and some of these larger websites have thousands of plants you can choose from, but you have no idea when that house was originally designed, what code it was designed to, what energy code requirements existed at that time. If it, if it may have been engineered and there is engineering cited, it's likely not the same as what you're building to. So all of those things have to be considered. so when we started Clearance Plans, if you look on our, we also have an addition of Clearanceco.com, we Clearanceplans.com. We started partnering with home designers to market their plans as a hundred percent complete, which means the designer was still getting their licensing fee essentially. So they, You know, the designers, they're, selling the plans, right? That's the product. They're selling a plan that plan as a license associated with it that allows you the purchaser to use those plans, build your home. Well, we had agreements with these designers that we could grant that single use license. And then they were giving us the CAD files, which you typically have to pay extra for, but they were giving those to us at no extra cost to the client. So then we were the ones that brought the plans up to the code that the jurisdiction was enforcing. And then we could also do the structural engineering. And then in addition to that, we offered additional services of site plans, landscape plans, erosion control plans, ⁓ mechanical, electrical, plumbing designs, MEP, the things that the jurisdiction required to basically get you through. Anything that we could do remotely not having to come to the job site, we were trying to provide. And that is originally what started Clear's plans. And then, you know, we had, so we had design partners for Clear's plans and we had builder partners for Clear's code. And that's been the bulk of our, the backbone of our industry for our company so far. Now we are launching What is clear is forensics, which we'll talk about that on a totally different show, or we'll have some of our experts come on an interview, but. Clear's plans had some shortfalls and one of the biggest shortfalls was that we were marketing the plans as complete, right? And there is, there are some people that are looking just to get the plans to stew over, right? And so they'll come online and they'll buy those plans and they'll just kind of stew over them and maybe mark them up, edit them, or use a local person to modify them. Who knows what they're using. Or there there's jurisdictions that are super lax. That's the easiest way I can put it. ⁓ We've worked with some states in the Midwest that we don't even bother getting licensed in because the fact is the jurisdictions don't care. They, you come in, you build it. great, if it collapses, that's your fault. Like that's all basically their stance. We had one jurisdiction that we, or one state and jurisdiction we were working in that the builder was like, I only need architectural. I don't need any engineer. And we're like, okay. And so we provided the architectural and the plans examiner, we get a plan review letter and the plans examiner wanted us to clarify how the gutter and downspout was getting routed to the street. we're like, well, there's no curb and gutter at the street. So if the gutter and downspout is coming down and it's just getting routed out into the yard, there's no storm sewer or there's no storm, there's no sanitary sewer or area. There's no curb and gutter to route it to. And they were just like, we have to show it on the plans that you're routing the downspout all the way to the street. Well, what about the engineer? And they're like, we don't care about the engineer. We have to show that the downspout is routed to the street. I mean, that was it. He just had to get that box checked on his checklist. Didn't care about the engineer. Didn't care what the header sizes were. Didn't care what the foundation sizes were. They just get worried. Hey, downspout has to go to the street. That's my box to check. That's what it is. And that is the situation. So there is a lot of plans that are sold that just don't require that. So. The history of Clear in going back, where I came up with the idea of Clear's plans was at my last firm, we were a third party building department for multiple jurisdictions. think at the time I was there, we were a building department for over 60 jurisdiction. And it was a weekly thing that we would get somebody that had bought a set of plans online and was trying to submit them for permits. They just didn't know. Great. And so then the discussion has to be a, Hey, these plans aren't to code. You're missing all these things. They're not engineered. You now have to go meet with somebody to get these to completion. And that's a difficult conversation to have with some people because all they saw was I spent a thousand dollars on a set of house plans. Why can't I build the house? Not knowing that it's lacking all of this information. And so. Then you have to this conversation with them of, it's going to cost you four or five thousand dollars to get them brought up to code, to get them engineered, to do everything that you have to to comply with your site design criteria requirements and jurisdictional requirements. So, again, we were making it on Clearance plans very easy for the client because we just provided one flat fee. You click the button, you pay that one flat fee, we take care of everything. So again, what we thought was a simplicity thing really actually cut us out of what was, oddly enough, is this pretty significant amount of the market that just is coming online and buying a set of PDF plans or one set of plans for almost their exploratory reasoning. So as we are revamping this, and the other thing is for designers, designers, if you're listening to this, with our complete plan package, we were paying the designers a hundred percent of what their single use license fee was. A hundred percent. So they set their license fee, whether it was on their website or whatever, if they add their own website or they just got to set their license fee and we paid them a hundred percent of that because we were doing the extra work. We were doing the completion services and a typical house plan website that partners with other designers pays typically around 35, sometimes up to 45 % of that. So if they have a royalty fee or if they have a license fee of $1,000, that's what the PDF or single use license is being sold for. original designer is only getting 35 to 45 % of that. Now we were paying 100 in the fact of, hey, now these designers are getting more money because the plans are selling as you know, they're getting their 100 % royalty. We want to pay them for their artwork as we were coding it. And we're getting this extra work. The analogy I give is that, you you pay the artists, right? You buy a piece of artwork. Well, now that artwork has to be delivered. It's got to get hung on your wall. You've to get lighting installed. We were basically the company that took care of everything else. The original artist needs to get their money. It was their idea. It was their concept. They did the work to create the art. We're just doing everything else. And so that was the step. But again, we missed out on a lot of opportunities. So we're revamping how we're doing this. So now on Clear's plans and what will be our new website that will be coming out in the next week or so, there's going to be two options. One, you can still buy the complete plans. You select the plans, you purchase them. We take care of everything else. That's it. That's the clearest package, complete package, right? We take care everything the jurisdiction requires. We charge you one flat fee and you're done. The other option, and the original designer gets the 100 % of their single use license. The other option is you can buy just the PDF plan set. and get the single use license. And it will be the equivalent price of what the designer has it on their website, whatever. If you guys go that route, again, whatever. But the designer still gets a significant percentage of that licensing fee. It's not 100 % because we're doing the marketing, we're handling the transaction, we're handling all that work. But it's still a significant percentage more than what other websites are paying because if you come back to us down the road and say, Hey, I bought these set of plans from you. I would now like them completed for my bill. that designer now gets 100 % of that original licensing fee. So it's a tiered royalty system that goes into a situation where they get a significant percentage if all you buy is the plans. But if you come back to us and we do all the engineering and all the work, they get 100%. So it's a good option for them.
speaker-1: That was a great holistic explanation of what's happening with the nuclear plan system. So a couple of things that come to my mind is, you know, the advantage of going through us, even if you buy the PDF set and the designer getting their fair share, or whether we provide a complete set, if you're going to need a site, you're going to need a place to build the house. so that we know what site specifics to put into that plan for you. the advantage of going with us would be that you purchase the plan through us and we at any time can shift and get you your site specific criteria and engineering. Even if you buy the PDF and you come back to us, we're going to be able to provide that engineering. one of the reason why I say this is because if you go to the plan designer and buy it there, then you're going to have to engage us initially. wouldn't have any contact with anybody in our CRM, would know who you were, you'd be coming in cold. ⁓ And so there's benefits to buying it from us in the first place. However, you know, we can do it either way. ⁓ But if you come through us, it seems like that would be a benefit because we're the whole thing, the whole ethos of Clearance is complete or vertically integrated. The problem in the industry that we were solving that Royal alluded to is in a couple of different ways. Traditionally has been you go out and find a piece of land and then the designer or architect comes in and they go walk your piece of property and they design you a custom piece of architecture for that property. And then they say, okay, that'll be X dollars. And then they say, but you need to go find out your site criteria or we can help with that. That'll be extra. Then you also need to go find an engineer. That'll be extra. Then you also need to figure out whether what type of, ⁓ you know, things you're going to put into your house, whether you need those MEPs, know, ⁓ and you also have to do a site plan. That's going to be extra, you know? And so the, the segmented five to six different tentacles you needed to put out there in order to pull a permit plan set together. was the vertical integration and the problem that was solved with Royals, Clearus, now my ⁓ participation in the company. so I'm saying that's kind of the, that's pulling it all together. That's the problem was that you may have to wait two or three weeks to get in line, just to get in line with an engineer to get a proposal might be another two or three weeks to get a, know, to, do all these five or six different things that are floating around. You're having to coordinate that as a PM or pay an architect to do that. so, ⁓ you know, we've, we've pulled all that together and made an offering to make it simple and it's the complete clearest name. ⁓ So I just kind of wanted to mention that that is the vertical integration that a solution for the industry, whether you're a builder, a one-time client, an ICF client. Even additions, we've been bidding additions lately and that's been going really well. So there's a lot of benefits to ⁓ engaging a program that's complete in nature. And we might not be the only solution out there, but we're one of the only ones in the game that's doing everything.
speaker-0: Right. Well, and to an advantage to the designers, and this is a big reason, you know, some of these designers are small. They may only have a sellable library of a couple of plans, a half dozen plans or so. It is not advantageous for them, economically advantageous for them to go through and create their own sales website, their own house plan sales website. nor is it advantageous for them to go and market on social media or any other avenues there to start their own podcast, to discuss the designs that they do, right? To get that information out of there. We are going at a national scale where not only can we market these smaller designers of a couple plans, a half dozen plans, whatever it is, we can also be partnering with some of these larger design companies that have specialized in home design. One in particular that is a big partner for us is MassCourt, which MassCourt has a couple thousand home designs that we're able to market them and market their stuff and just serve as a funnel. the fact of matter is, is when people have the ability to go into these, into our house plan website, punch in any of their search criteria and every designer that's partnered with us that has a home that meets that design criteria comes up, right? There's no preferential treatment. It's all who has the, who meets the criteria the best, who has the elevation that they like the most, right? And, but we're handling all of that marketing to create that traffic to hopefully get in front of their designs. The other thing is, I love marketing the artists. I have a cousin who is an amazing artist. I'm actually looking at a piece of his artwork over the edge of my desk here that I just received a couple of weeks ago. And he's an amazing artist and I respect artists. In addition to what we do as far as just the house plan sales on Clear's plans, all of our designers have their own landing page. So it talks about the designer. And whether that designer has one plan with us or a thousand plans with us, they get that landing page. They get all of their connections put onto that website. If a client comes on and goes, hey, I love this designer's work. I wonder if they could customize something for me. Because every designer, every architect has their niche. They have their thing that they do great. I'm thinking of one specific architect from my, my old hometown, ⁓ that you could drive around town and look at a building and based on the architecture of the building, knew exactly who designed that. You knew exactly who it was because his niche was that style. And everybody knew that if you wanted that style, that was who you went to. That was just. He built an amazing company doing that style. Great. And that style has been popular for a few decades now. And that's everybody just goes to him. Right. So it's that way with, with home designers as well, where they have specific things that they do. Great designs that they do. Great. There's designers that specialize in ICF. There's designers that specialize in SIP. There's, you know, there's designers that specialize in. farmhouse style fronteds. There's, you know, there's, there's all different designers that have their own specialty that they just do really well. And that's where we also get to market that at is, you know, it, whether you guys buy the plans through players plans, don't really care. We're here to try and market the small guy and the big guy. And we, the biggest thing that we do amazingly well, is the completion services. We will make sure that home is to code. We will make sure that home is engineered to your site design requirements. We will make sure that when you, when it's done, you are ready to submit for permits. And I hate plan review letters. I am not a fan of plan review letters. They said we did, we did almost 2000 doors last year. I think we maybe had what 10 to a dozen plan review letters. That's insane. percentages, right? We try and have everything complete, correct, and ready to go right out.
speaker-1: Yeah, I hold things I can echo that the last two builders that I worked for once we started doing vertical and lateral engineering and moving away from either combining architectural with structural and having one drawing and having mistakes in that or have. ⁓ know, architects do the sizing, let's say the vertical some of that really created, you know. a hundred land letters a month, let's say out of a hundred land submittals. Right. So once we started doing ⁓ the full packages and the structural drawings and all of that, that basically went almost to zero. So it was a huge, huge win there. And then I want to key off something else you said, which I think is really important, which is both, think we were talking about this before the podcast is both Royal and I are really passionate about the home building industry and what we're doing. ⁓ with clearists and so bringing on those designers that are either just cutting their teeth and getting out there and, and, and they have a very small library, ⁓ or they're, or they're just don't, or they only do the one style. Like what Royal said, ⁓ we want those, those people to come in and market through us as part of our group. ⁓ and we, we want to mark those plans. And that's one of the things that we're passionate about is kind of bringing people up with us because there's a lot of. space in the economy and in the world and in the world of plan creation. so ⁓ we think there's space enough for everyone. And so we want to bring those people up with us and be part of that. And I think that gets missed in business. Sometimes people can be cut throat and can be really difficult. And we're just not going that direction. We're assuming a more holistic approach of wanting to bring people up with us and raise people up. And we're hoping they'll do the same with us and that's kind of our culture and the way we look at it. And so if you're a designer out there, ⁓ we are currently recruiting to put you into our site, to give you that landing page, to give you that marketing, give you that exposure. ⁓ So that's exciting for the relaunch.
speaker-0: Yeah, it is. It's something I'm really excited about. It's a great step in the right direction. we already have one of the largest and most reputable independent home design companies already contracted with us set to go on that new stage with us. And it's great to see them. And I mean, they're a family-owned, I can give you an idea. The history of, you this is a plug for MassCord, but also plug for us. So the founder of MassCord worked with my grandfather. So founder of MassCord, MassCord, licensed architect. My grandfather was his main go-to engine, one of his main go-to engineers in the Northwest. So it was really interesting when we first launched the idea of Clearance Plans, we threw it out there to tons of designers and I had a meeting, Masquard was one of the few that returned our phone call, returned our email and Alan had no idea who I was. Alan actually wasn't even the person that I emailed. He was somebody else. And then in the video call, we're having a conversation and the call is getting to an end. And he goes, ⁓ well, Royal, what's your last name? And I sold him and he was like, any relation to Emil and I was like, well, that's my grandfather. he was like, I worked with Emil for decades. he did most like when I was like, when I was starting out, he was our go-to engineer. So, ⁓ you know, starting out in the late sixties, early seventies, he was the go-to engineer for residential. And so it was just kind of cool how that's come full circle. But you know, this is when you, when, when you partner with Clearance and Clearance Plans, like exactly what it is. partnership. We're not, we're we're, we're investing in you guys, our designers a lot, right? Cause we're, we're putting the websites together. We're putting the marketing together. We're talking about the designs. We're doing these things in hopes, right? In hopes that we get work, right? And hopes that the plan sell and it's no cost to the designer to get them on our website. So.
speaker-1: Yeah, we can grow together.
speaker-0: Yeah, so that's the value with it. and you know, there are a lot of other house plan sites out there. There's none of them offer a complete out the door package. None of them are vertically integrated. You're always going to be working with other people other than the original designer, the original company. If you go through and you do, if they have any kind of engineering or completion services, you're going to be Again, the octopus tentacles, these people do this and these people do that and those people do that. And, you know, it's just become a holistic focus of our team to provide these things.
speaker-1: Yeah, I think in the modifications you hit on that, right, the modifications go back to the designer as well. So ⁓ they're going to be calling on the designer or you. You're meeting the designer that's with us. That's who's going to be executing on those. So we refer them back to the designer for changes. Right.
speaker-0: Yeah, we call it the first right of refusal. So the original designer gets, gets first right of refusal for any architectural changes. So, you know, cause that is a good amount of business for them and we don't want to take that away from them. So, uh, and just so people are also clear, you know, lot of those house plan websites, it's all the same company, just a different website name. And so you're going to go on, you know, when they say we promised that you won't find this plan for less because they own the rights to that plan. And it's only marketed on their websites. that is the situation. They've really almost monopolized it and done a lot to, you know, they help some designers, they definitely, you get lost in the crowd and lost in the volume of everything with a lot of these smaller designers. which is really what we're trying to help out.
speaker-1: Yeah. And we're going to, we're going to have, I think there's at least 12 different styles or categories, you will, collections ⁓ that have different styles within them. And so we, have a really diverse palette of plans that are going to be coming out. you look today, there's 58 plans on there. We're going to, we're going to launch ⁓ roughly over a thousand.
speaker-0: Okay.
speaker-1: when we bring the new plan book in and then it should top out somewhere around 1800, but that's including walkouts and daylight basements that can be added to existing plans. But it'll be a significant content increase to cover anything that somebody might need in any style. So, pretty exciting.
speaker-0: Yeah, we're excited about it. going to be. It's a, it's a huge thing for a lot of people. mean, and again, we're, we're, we're part of some private Facebook groups that focus on residential design. And this is everybody in those groups. I hope to start seeing their plans on our website because. It's great for them. It's it's passive, right? I'm Mark. We're marketing on their behalf. They're not happy to go out there trying to seek out the work, trying to go to job sites and work with clients. It's literally just the stuff's coming in. this is finding an existing plan that's like what you like. What, what some, how do I explain that? Finding an existing design that is similar to what you like and making modifications from that to that with the original designer. It's probably one of the most cost effective. ways to get to a final home design. And then for them to have a partner that's familiar with the codes, familiar with the design requirements, familiar with everything in those areas, that is also very attuned to streamlining everything, cost effectiveness of the engineering, of the constructability. It makes everything go very smooth.
speaker-1: Yeah. So if you're out there looking for a house and you want to be efficient or have a site and you're looking for something to build, try and find that plan that's closest as possible. And then work from there because the back of the napkin sketch with the charrettes and all of that takes a long time and a lot of money, but it can be done. ⁓ finding that plan that's similar and just augmenting that is the easiest.
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, all right. Well, hey, if you're interested in marketing on our marketing on our upcoming website, do feel free to message us. You can message support at clearestplans.com. ⁓ That'll get you to us. You can call our toll free number 8334CLEARAS. You can DM us on any of the socials. Those are monitored. ⁓ And we can start sending you information. You can also direct message us through any of our websites. We have contact form on all of our websites. We're excited to get more plans going and more designers to market it on our plan, ⁓ market it on our website to help you guys out.
speaker-1: Look for the launch in the next couple of weeks and we'll be putting more content out about that. So stay tuned.
speaker-0: Great. All right. Well, do you have anything else,
speaker-1: You know, I thanks Royal again for having me on the pod and we're on the cast. However you want to put it. It's always, it's always fun. Or maybe you call it a podcast. I don't know. ⁓
speaker-0: I don't know how you abbreviate that one.
speaker-1: No, it was, it's always fun and I'm looking forward to getting this website launched and getting things going. It's been a lot of work for the group. over the last probably two quarters, ⁓ he's taken daily meetings, ⁓ with the web developer and the marketing manager and the social media manager and all these people to pull all this stuff together. And we're at the finish line. You got the contracts done. Things are good. we're, like, We're right there. So stay tuned folks. We're going to launch something big here shortly. I'm about it.
speaker-0: So am I. All right. Well, great. Well, if you enjoyed the show, please feel free to like, subscribe. We always appreciate if you can share our information with others that this may be of benefit to. If you'd like to get a hold of us, feel free to message us on any of our platforms. And otherwise, have a great day. Bye.
