The Monday Morning Building Product Advisor
​Issue #98

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Picture this: it’s Christmas about five years ago.

Our daughter and her then-boyfriend (now son-in-law) are living in the basement apartment. They hand us an envelope. We’re expecting a card, maybe a gift certificate.

Nope! Instead, it was pieces of paper.

Not just any papers… they’d cut them into pieces we needed to put together. Like a puzzle. We laid them out on the kitchen table, and when we finally got them in the right order, they revealed a series of numbers.

And that’s when they told us the backstory:

When we bought the house years earlier, we knew there was a floor safe hidden in a closet under the basement stairs. The previous homeowners had it cast into the concrete floor. But they never left us the combination. We’d joked about it over the years… (”What could be in there? We’ll never know…”)

Turns out our daughter & son-in-law had been working on it. Quietly. Methodically. While living down there, they’d painstakingly cracked the combination.

Their gift wasn’t what was in the safe. Their gift was the solution to open it.

And let me tell ya… The anticipation of walking down those stairs, kneeling in the closet, and dialing those numbers was more exciting than anything inside.

What this reveals about how we think

Here’s what my son-in-law could have done:

Walk up to us 2 weeks before Christmas and say, “Hey, the safe combination is 24-18-6. There’s some stuff in there if you want to check it out.”

Same information. 30 seconds instead of two minutes.

But I wouldn’t be telling you this story 5 years later.

They turned information into an experience, and turned telling us into discovering. They turned passive receiving into active solving.

Now here’s what you should learn from this…

This is exactly how the architects you’re calling on are wired to think.

Why your architects ignore you (and it’s not personal)

We became architects because we love solving problems.

We spend all day looking at incomplete information… Site constraints, budget limits, code requirements, client wishes… And figuring out what should happen next.

• Spatial puzzles
• Technical puzzles
• Performance trade-offs.

It’s more than what we do. It’s how we think.

And then a rep shows up and tries to hand us complete information.

“Here’s our product. Here are the specs. Here are the benefits. Let me know if you have questions.”

You’re asking us to be passive when everything in our training says to be active.

That’s why we don’t engage.

Not because your information is bad. Because you’re asking us to operate in a mode that feels unnatural.

Consider this…

How many times this week are you about to “tell” an architect something, when you could let us discover it instead?

I’m not talking about playing games or being cute. I’m talking about understanding that architects respond to challenges the way other people respond to completed work.

Give us a problem to solve, and we’ll engage. Give us a solution to remember, and we’ll file it away (maybe).

The difference in response rate isn’t small. It’s dramatic.

The Framework: 4 questions

When you’re about to send something to an architect, stop and run through these four questions:

1. What information was I about to “tell” them?

Be specific. Not “product benefits.” But: “This material handles acoustic + impact + cleanability in one assembly.”

2. What would make discovering that information feel rewarding to an architect?

Does it validate our technical judgment? Test our material knowledge? Solve a problem we’re currently wrestling with? Give us insider knowledge we can use?

3. What’s the lowest-effort way to create that discovery?

Discovery doesn’t mean elaborate games. It just means we do something (even something tiny) to access the information:

• Evaluate or guess to confirm it
• Request it to receive it
• Solve a small challenge to unlock it
• Find it where we don’t expect it

4. How do I make engagement optional but valuable?

“If you have 30 seconds, try this. If not, no worries! I’ll send the answer Friday either way.”

This matters because we’re slammed. But when we do have 30 seconds, we’ll engage with something interesting over something routine every single time.

One Example: The Material Mystery Sample

Let me show you how this works with something you’re probably already doing: Sending samples.

The four questions in action:

1. What was I going to tell them? “This material solves acoustic, impact, and cleanability requirements.”
2. What makes discovering that rewarding to an architect? We evaluate materials constantly. Let us prove we’re good at it.
3. Lowest-effort discovery? Send the sample unlabeled. Give the performance requirements. Ask us to identify it.
4. How is engagement optional? “Email your guess (or don’t). I’ll send the reveal Friday either way.”

The execution (5 minutes of your time):

Mail the sample with a note: "You’re specifying a corridor ceiling in a healthcare facility. Requirements: STC 45+, Class III impact, bleach-cleanable, $24/SF budget.

What is this material?

Email me your guess, or just wait, and I’ll send the reveal Friday.”

Why this works from an architect’s perspective:

You’ve turned “here’s another sample” into “test your expertise.”

We get the same sample either way. But one version makes us think. One version validates our judgment. One version creates a conversation.

Same sample & information. Completely different experience.

Your challenge this week...

Take ONE thing you were planning to send to an architect.

Run it through the four questions.

Then do whatever your answers suggest.

Don’t copy my example. Your architects and products are likely different.

Don’t make it elaborate. Simple usually works better.

Don’t wait for perfection. We architects appreciate thoughtful attempts over polished emptiness.

Then email me what you tried and what happened.

I’m collecting examples from reps who understand this principle and are adapting it to their unique situations. Your variation might reveal something I never saw from the architect’s side of the desk.

What You’re Really Building

Your goal isn't to become “the puzzle rep.” You want to understand how architects process information and work with it, rather than against it.

Every time you’re about to hit send, pause and ask: “Am I asking them to receive or to engage?”

Most reps ask us to receive. You’re going to ask us to engage.

Because you understand that we’re problem-solvers who respond to challenges, not claim-makers who respond to presentations.

That floor safe is still in our house. Every time I walk past that closet, I don’t think about what was inside.

I think about how my daughter & son-in-law understood something fundamental about how I’m wired: I needed to solve it myself to care about it. Your architects are the same way.

We don’t need you to give us more information.

We need you to give us better experiences with the information you already have.

Want to go deeper? I’ve created a complete guide with four types of “puzzle moments” architects respond to, three more detailed examples, and worksheets to help you create your own discovery mechanisms.

Just hit REPLY and let me know you’d like it. And I’ll send it over shortly.

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That's it for this week!

Cheers to building more than just buildings, and see you next week,

Neil "Nothing’s in the Safe" Sutton
​Architect | Speaker | The Product Rep Coach

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P.S. Do you really want inside an architect's head?

When you’re ready, there are 3 ways you can start working with me:

• Product reps: If you want to be better at connecting with architects, hit reply, and let's chat.
• Business owners or Team Leaders: You can book an Architect Connections Training for your team. Hit reply, and I'll send you the details.
• Speaking: If you’d like me to present at an upcoming group meeting, reach out, and let’s talk!

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