09 - Mariana Pickering - B.PUBLIC Prefab
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James: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Marketing Passive House, the podcast where we hear from architects, designers, builders, suppliers, owners, and other experts in the passive house and high performance building space. We'll be talking about what's working and what's needed when it comes to marketing buildings that meet or aspire to the passive house standard.

James: I'm your host, James Turner, and today I'm joined by Mariana Pickering, chief Brand Officer and community director at B.PUBLIC, prefab. Mariana, welcome to the show.

Mariana: Thank you very much for having me.

James: My pleasure. So before we get into it, and for people who are just meeting you for the first time, could you share a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you started on your passive house journey?

Mariana: Yeah, so I started in architecture undergrad at Wash U in St. Louis and did a master's in design science at University of Sydney and. Met Enrico Bonilauri there and we started an architecture firm in Italy called EMU Architetti, EMU Architects. And for about eight [00:01:00] years we did boutique kind of, you know, sustainably focused architectural design.

Mariana: And that's really where we found passive house as a standard. We had dabbled with lead, dabbled with Casa Clima, which is an Italian one. But when we found passive house you know, everybody probably says this, but think, well, well, why haven't I always been doing this? So we got very into it. And then Enrico and I decided to move the company to Colorado, to Denver, Colorado. And we had a big shift. We stopped doing architectural services and started, addressing what we saw as the biggest bottleneck for passive house, which was training of the workforce. So builders on site needed a lot of training from the architects on how to do it. Architects needed a lot of training.

Mariana: There's just a big gap there. So we became EMU Passive, and we were one of the first accredited education providers with PHI and started doing

James: Nice.

Mariana: the CPHT certified Passive House Tradesperson [00:02:00] course, and we developed a traveling workshop, went all over the United States with that. So I spent about seven or eight years as CEO and manager of the direct of the training program and. You know, going all over the place with our wild EMU trailer offering builder training everywhere. And then last year sold my partnership in EMU and kinda took a little pause. I joined AmeriCorps for the inaugural climate core,

James: Right.

Mariana: class. There were 17 of us across the US and helping build capacity in energy transition communities.

Mariana: And then we got DOGEd. In April. And and so that's how I kind of came to find my home at B.PUBLIC. I've known Edie and Jonah, two of the founders since kind of our early pa past days in the Rocky Mountains area. They're based out of New Mexico and Santa Fe. And so I've known them for a while.

Mariana: And after the AmeriCorps thing. Fell through. I was chatting with them and they were kind enough [00:03:00] to allow me to help them represent their wonderful brand. So now I'm brand officer and community director and helping kind of build their, their installer network.

James: Awesome. That is a great journey. It was perfect. That was so good. I really like, there's a few things that I, I would love to, to follow up on, but I, I really like that the, the. The biggest bottleneck issue that, that you're addressing that. 'cause that's definitely something that's come up

Mariana: Mm-hmm.

James: in my, you know, limited talks with people.

James: This is a fledgling podcast yet, but it, it's already a, a consistent theme of just like, especially tradespeople, like, not just not having people to do the work. Like you can make the plan, but if you can't find people to do what you've said or who know how to do it, it just ain't gonna happen. Right.

Mariana: Yeah, that's exactly how I word it usually is. You can design whatever you want, but if you don't have the, the crew on board with it, it's not gonna happen. And you know, I mean, [00:04:00] thinking back to our first class in 2017, we had, you know, seven people in class and, now it's, it's all over the states and there's probably over a thousand alumni across the states, but that's

James: Oh wow.

Mariana: a low number.

Mariana: You

James: Right.

Mariana: if you think about the construction industry in general, so yeah, it's about building those. Like local regional ecosystems of professional teams that can work together, you know, in, in the typical integrated design construction path. But with the pass pass knowledge,

James: Right. How did you find that? Like did you, did you get a lot of pushback, like when you were back in your seven student days? Was it, you know

Mariana: you know. It's interesting. I dunno, I was coming off of eight years in Italy as a young female,

James: right.

Mariana: pushback was, I was used to some pushback. But yeah, I find that that builders and construction professionals. They maybe have some skepticism at first because as with anything new, it could change their process and they're working with extremely [00:05:00] tight budgets and

James: Hmm.

James: usually

Mariana: difficult labor situations. I mean, in the whole entire process, I really think builders just have the most hurdles to jump through. And typically, you know, there's not a lot of like business background and training for a lot of the contractors that get into this. You know, they've just kind of arrived at this through the trades, not necessarily from the perspective of, you know, design systems and integration and all of that

James: Right, right.

Mariana: And so, and since Passive House relies on that kind of stuff so much that can be, you know, a really big hurdle. But the thing that I find really encouraging and rewarding about working primarily with builders. Is that once they see that the passive house standard really is just a vehicle for them being able to communicate their quality of craft, like that they are good at what they do and they're just building something of quality and look, it's to the standard, they take a lot of pride in it [00:06:00] and, you know, off to the races. And it's, it's really nice to kind of see when that happens. I've never, you know, once, once they go in that direction, you can't unlearn. You know,

James: Right.

Mariana: you can't unlearn high performance windows. Like once you know it, you know it. And then if you care about your craft, you really want to execute that.

James: Yeah. That's really interesting. I, I, I like the, the aha moment is like, oh, I, my val, my. Perceived value is, is higher here, kind of like

Mariana: right.

James: whether it's self perception or like,

Mariana: confidence and empowerment and just, you see their confidence grow as well because they, I think there are a lot of things that intuitively are, are difficult, like moisture management, you know,

James: Hmm.

Mariana: Builders and construction professionals. A lot would say they don't totally have a grip on that. You know,

James: right.

Mariana: it's a, an interesting scientific phenomenon. We, we [00:07:00] know we need to be more airtight, but where's the vapor going? You know,

James: Yeah.

Mariana: it's hard.

James: Yeah,

Mariana: think having a standard or having, you know, a, a, a design parameter, that codified thing, goal that you're trying

James: it was funny.

Mariana: just really helps define, oh, okay, I'm in safe zone, you know?

James: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I just, when you said about their pride in their craftsmanship, I, I wonder if there. Sort of, how do I put it? Like, like they're, they're, they try their best and it doesn't get recognized. So then you kind of, right. You kind of stop trying or you, it could be really thankless.

Mariana: slope. Mm-hmm. It's a slippery slope. Yeah.

James: Yeah. So then if you have a standard that's like measuring whether what you did was quality or not, then it, it gives you that incentive back. I can picture that, like I can think of when I started at a job, like, you know, actually my last job, job, I remember the first month I was like, superstar, amazing.

James: [00:08:00] Everyone you know was like, wow. He wrote that. Course so fast and da da da da and then like you sort of get into the culture and realize that it doesn't really amount to much. Like you get a little soft praise but it doesn't change anything. And then you kind of like you, you step back and you know, don't put your full self into things 'cause you could get by it.

James: Or maybe that's just my personality, but I think a lot of people have that kind of personality.

Mariana: I think so too. And I think that's kind of where the people that go for certification, that's a lot of the motivation is that not just the third party accountability, but the. Stamp of approval. Look, I did this, I put all this work in, you know,

James: Yeah.

Mariana: I actually achieved it. Which, you know, not all clients and not all projects want to go for certification and that's totally understandable.

Mariana: But but it does appeal to a lot of folks and that's kind of. passive house appeals to people is that it's this, it's a, it's a codified standard. It's not, it's not like a checklist kind of situation.

James: Mm-hmm.[00:09:00]

Mariana: you know, actually hitting a performance standard. So,

James: Yeah. Nice. Yeah. What I, I like that too, to think that that, that is marketing, like education is marketing like in, in my conception of why I called it marketing passive house is like there's, there's so many different directions in which to market and.

Mariana: Yeah, I mean, I have no formal marketing background. That's like what I do now.

James: It's probably for the best. I think you'll, you'll have more humane instincts.

Mariana: Both my parents are teachers and so, you know, come from a family where education and awareness has always been super important. And I think that's what attracted me to B.PUBLIC is similar to how I

James: Hmm.

Mariana: ran EMU.

Mariana: I think B.PUBLIC has a very education and awareness focused style for their brand and it's, it's great because there's just so much good quality content and information that people need to have.

James: Mm-hmm.

Mariana: From a marketing quote unquote sales perspective or whatever, [00:10:00] we're really just putting that information out

James: Yeah, that's right.

Mariana: you know, it's interesting to the right people and then the right people come.

James: Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely something really, it puts you in the next tier if you're, if you have a training arm to your practice. I think.

Mariana: Yeah. Yeah. And that's. And I think like a lot of companies in this area, even if they don't have a specific training, you know, even you had a specific training and B.PUBLIC has their specific installer training

James: Yeah. Yeah.

Mariana: But even if you don't have a specific offerings and you're in the passive house world, I think so much of what you end up doing is education and awareness and you know, and that, I think that's the, especially like in the consultative process, it's more like a. Education process, you know?

James: Right, right. Yeah. And so one of the other directions I thought to go when you were saying your intro is that I, I like that you're not only the chief [00:11:00] brand officer, but also the community director. Because I feel like that's, that, that's a nod to something special about the passive house world

Mariana: definitely.

James: you, how did, how did that come about?

Mariana: Well, I mean, you know, that's always been something extremely important to those of us that, that were the newbies in the, or the, the kind of, the first wave of, of passive well. shouldn't say first wave. We're not really the first

James: Right.

Mariana: there was a first wave and they were, you know, we stand on the shoulders of those giants, but there was very much, when I arrived in the US it very much felt like it was a lot of pioneering kind of freelancers that were very interested in it and had had some limited success in various places. of my interests right away was, okay, how can we kind of make this standard business practice, you know. And so, and I think again, it'd B.PUBLIC, same thing. They're really thinking, how do we scale this? How do we grow it? How do we, you know, develop a [00:12:00] decentralized manufacturing platform. So we've got regional partners all over the North America, all that kind of stuff.

James: Hmm.

Mariana: And. In order to do that, you know, we just keep coming back to the idea that you have to have good community and you've gotta have know, folks that you trust that you wanna work with, not just on one project, but long term on lots of projects. And so those relationships become really important. And, you know, for us it kind of starts with. Training and education and awareness side, but it's also continuing support for them through the project builds, making sure that they're happy with the products that are delivered. You know, satisfaction of not just the client or the homeowner, but like the professionals in the process need to be satisfied with it.

Mariana: And the thing that of. because I, I, I'm doing a lot of like brand interviews of folks that have worked with B.PUBLIC

James: Oh, nice.

Mariana: can understand 'cause

James: Yep.

Mariana: you know?

James: Yep.

Mariana: And just so I can understand kind of what you know, what people's experiences then.

James: Mm-hmm.

Mariana: And it's great 'cause they've got all these [00:13:00] wonderful advocate homeowners that love their houses, but they've also got all these builders that are like, oh man, that was the simplest, prefab process I've ever had.

Mariana: Definitely gonna be doing that again. And it, it really just kind of takes. The like scariness out of hitting high performance out of the picture.

James: Very cool.

Mariana: it easier. So I think all that feeds into the community building and so we wanted to make sure that my title was, you know, not. I'm really not doing much traditional marketing. It's really more, you know, talking to our community and building them up and holding lots of info sessions for them to come join. We're doing one this afternoon, in fact,

James: Nice.

Mariana: letting people come in and ask questions.

James: That is wonderful. Yeah. Right. I hadn't thought of that. I mean, you could subdivide marketing into brand and community. And so yeah, that's, that's, that's brilliant. And but calling it out is such a signal too. Like it's, it is in itself an act of, of, of marketing. If [00:14:00] marketing is sort of putting your flag in the ground and saying, this is the kind of company we are.

Mariana: Well, totally. I mean, their whole name, the name B.PUBLIC. I

James: Right. Yeah.

Mariana: it's, it's for the public, right? We're here to serve the public. And, you know, it, it's all about community. It's a public benefit corporation, women owned, you know, there's, it's all over their, their whole, their whole founding and growth.

Mariana: So

James: Yeah. Actually, yeah. Do you

Mariana: felt.

James: wanna talk about the public benefit side of things?

Mariana: Sure. I'm, I'm learning about it too. You know, every state kind of has a different way they do that entity structure. But everybody's kind of heard of either B Corp or public benefit corporations or,

James: Hmm.

Mariana: and basically it, it just means that there is a concerted and intentional effort to address. Things like social justice and equity and fair pay and workforce, and, you know, being local and giving back to the community, but also kind of the environmental and sustainable aspects of it. and, you know, giving [00:15:00] back just as much as you make as a company.

James: Mm.

Mariana: and I'm, I'm learning a lot about it through Jonah and Edie and Charlotte as the, the owners, the co-founders of B.PUBLIC. But. They, they kind of run everything with that ethos. It's like we we're, we, we run at cost. We're not looking to profit,

James: Mm-hmm.

Mariana: over fist. It's about how do you scale this kind of smartly.

James: Right

Mariana: you know, I think there's been a few examples in the construction industry of like. disruptors that are gonna come in and make all this big venture capital money and, you know, fix the construction industry.

Mariana: I'm thinking of Coterra's, things like that.

James: Right.

Mariana: And and, you know, construction industry doesn't work like that. It's a slow moving ship that you have to steer in different direction, but it's also just [00:16:00] really nice to kind of see them thinking about intentional ways of growth rather than, than, you know. Building a huge factory and shipping long distances all over the United States

James: Hmm.

Mariana: They're looking at partnering with other manufacturing facilities so that, you know, we can have regional and everything still remains low carbon. And you know, carbon sequestering is a big part of the products that they make.

Mariana: The panels are, are carbon sequestering

James: Yeah,

Mariana: And so trying to maintain that with something where you've got logistics of shipping stuff, you know that that's a really great way to approach it.

James: that is awesome. Yeah, I remember, so I asked Edie that on a webinar and there was, the thing that stuck with me was just that not like having metrics other than profit by which to measure decisions, and I thought like that. It's, it's so good.

Mariana: Jonah, one time de described when I was, when I was new and I was asking lots of questions. Jonah was describing it [00:17:00] that, you know, and I, I thought this was really nice, is that a lot of times. And I, I imagine this doesn't always happen in manufacturing, but he was talking about the equipment being used in the factory and he was just saying that instead of. Allowing the equipment to dictate how we grow and how we scale and what our products are like, which can happen very easily because

James: Right?

Mariana: you know, specialized. they have this very intentional approach to make sure that the product is good, the product is what we want. The product is, is bringing, low carbon panels to passive house standard projects and not shipping it too far.

Mariana: You know, that's the primary goal. And then the equipment follows that.

James: Oh yeah. That's nice.

Mariana: Yeah.

James: I feel like we as humans, we could all use a bit of that. Do I, but do you need that gadget instead of getting it and then figuring out what you could do with it? Hmm. That's great. I'm curious to know if you felt now, and, and maybe you said, you know, it was all pushback, but [00:18:00] was there a similar I dunno, public appreciation for or pushback against passive house in Italy. Was it more accepted when you were working there? When it says too far back, you know, or too

Mariana: No, no, no. I mean, it was many, you know, it was, it was a while ago now, so I'm sure it's shifted a lot in Italy since then. It's interesting 'cause like you, it's like the old world, new World stuff, right? So anybody who's lived in

James: right.

Mariana: we were talking about this, you have some, some European well UK

James: British. Yeah.

Mariana: Yes. But there's this there's just a very different mentality. There's. It's very hard to move things outside of the box because

James: Right.

Mariana: there's a lot entrenched in the identity of the way things are done. And

James: Hmm

Mariana: don't change as fast as they do here.

James: hmm.

Mariana: that can be super frustrating, you know, if you're trying to do something new, which of course we were.

James: Right, right.

Mariana: you know, we're in rural Italy, you know, and, and that was kind of how we ended up being able to move to the States is [00:19:00] because of that of. resistance from folks. We ended up working with a lot of international people on consulting and

James: Huh.

Mariana: and so, you know, kind of back in that day it was, it was, the PA class community was pretty much only on Twitter and it's like how it

James: Wow.

Mariana: like everybody was talking to each other on Twitter. So it was great 'cause you could connect with people all over the place and, yeah. And so I think like, yes, there was pushback for sure, but again, similar themes like once you'd get on site with the builders, they took so much pride in being able to hit the metrics that we put out.

James: Hmm.

Mariana: I remember there was a brick layer that worked with us I don't know if he'll hear this, but would be very excited for the shout out.

James: Shout out to.

Mariana: But he was. Really good mason, really good bricklayer. And we were explaining the concept of ifis external installation panels.

James: Mm-hmm.

Mariana: and he did the, the laying [00:20:00] of the, in installation panels, and he did it brilliantly because he's a mason, you know, and it was just beautiful and it was like probably one of the best jobs we've seen.

Mariana: And, you know,

James: Nice.

Mariana: back to like just pride in, in the work and, and then just general awareness. So as more people. Become aware, like passive house as a, a name has a, a different connotation in Europe. You know, it, there were some, well, I think everywhere it's got different struggles. The name passive house, you know,

James: Well, this is what I was wondering about exactly. Yeah. So I

Mariana: And so, and it's Casa Passiva in, in Italy, but in Germany, the first wave, and this is, you know, from what I understand

James: mm-hmm.

Mariana: was there but in Germany, the kind of the first wave of passive houses were really engineering driven and scientifically driven, not so much design driven. And so you got a lot of boxes, you know,

James: Right, right.

Mariana: so there was. A whole [00:21:00] phase where people were kind of like, oh, I don't want one of those ugly boxes. You know? And it was just very superficial reaction.

James: Interesting.

Mariana: born out of, you know, how that developed over time. And then in recent years, that's totally flipped on its head 'cause you've got these beautiful museums and, you know,

James: Mm-hmm.

Mariana: that are, are built to the passive standard, but from an architectural perspective. And so it's kind of. Interesting to see that happen in Europe.

James: Yeah. Well that, that was what I was wondering if. They were further ahead. 'cause I, I get the impression, you know, based on where the products are available and, and where the pa well, where passive house comes from, where the conference is, and that, that Europe, broadly speaking, would be ahead of North America.

Mariana: yes, yes, yes.

James: Yeah.

Mariana: hard for, yeah, and it's, there's certain things within the passive house world that are kind of. Indicative of that, or like the reasons for that. One of the big ones is windows and doors which we're catching up [00:22:00] now in America. Yay.

James: Yeah.

Mariana: But for a long time, I mean, even when we first came over from Italy, that was what, 2016?

Mariana: I think there, there were only. A couple passive house certified American window manufacturers. Luckily we were, we were right next the door to one of them, Alpen in Colorado. They were kind of one of the first ones to, to certify their American made products. But yeah, at the beginning you couldn't get a window to hit passive house standard

James: Mm-hmm.

Mariana: There weren't a lot of options, you know, now there are more, and importing has become Easy to do. There's more reps for other European products here and such. And so was a huge like bottleneck as we were saying before.

James: Right.

Mariana: then the Air seal products

James: Hmm.

Mariana: and I'm gonna add a third is the, the HRVs, the ERVs,

James: right.

Mariana: still limited.

James: still have way better stuff.[00:23:00]

Mariana: Yeah,

James: Hmm.

Mariana: is just, we don't have a lot of American made options and so why it's interesting to. For me now to see it from a manufacturer perspective, the hurdles that we face here as a country trying to get into that kind of stuff. You know, I don't think it, surface it seems like it's not incentivized as much as it is in Europe.

Mariana: And so that's interesting too,

James: Yeah. With, with, I feel like that's yet another form of marketing mar marketing to the, to the component suppliers that like, Hey, there's an in, there's, there's interest here. Like if, if you, if you supply it, they will buy it.

Mariana: and it's kind of like what? What most big American manufacturers consider a viable market opportunity has to be a lot larger than.

James: Hmm.

Mariana: would think in Europe necessarily, 'cause it's more regional there. And I, I don't know if I, I might be talking out,

James: Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. This is a speculative podcast.

Mariana: this is

James: No one, no one.[00:24:00]

Mariana: This is my impression and my understanding and I'm sure someone can get on here and, and correct me, but

James: Great. Well, we'll put it out there and let the voices be drawn out that way. I concur. Hmm. Yeah. And then of course, the yet another kind of marketing is the lobbying to the gov, like regulations and that kind of thing, where if the standards were higher, then there'd be more incentive to make better products.

Mariana: I always used to kind of joke, it's like a multi-pronged attack. You have to be educating the builder, the architect, the homeowner, the policymaker, the manufacturer, and all of them receive that information in a totally different way. And if you talk to all of them the same way about it, you're not gonna get anywhere because they don't. You know, nobody processes the same stuff that way. And so, you know, the way you speak to a homeowner about passive house is the health and indoor air quality and sound and no dust, and all these wonderful things

James: Mm-hmm.

Mariana: wonderful about living in a passive house. [00:25:00] when you talk to a designer, it's about, you know, the. The high performance standard that they're trying to reach with their designs. And if you're talking to a

James: Mm-hmm.

Mariana: it's about craftsmanship and quality. And if you're talking to a policymaker, it's about like the macro scale. How are we gonna hit our 2030 goals,

James: Right.

Mariana: you know? So it's, it's interesting 'cause it's like a little bit different messaging, but I, I think like flipping it around, a lot of times what you hear from people that have been in past house for a long time. that the thing we like about it is that if you, if you kind of think of the traditional, like someone's got a problem and you need to address it with a solution and

James: Mm-hmm.

Mariana: you know, address the unique value proposition you have for

James: Yep. Yep.

Mariana: That's kind of the, the formula for a pitch deck, right?

James: Yep.

Mariana: what people love about passive valves who know it really well is that no matter what problem somebody comes to you with, there's usually something about Passau that addresses that and has some solution that addresses it. [00:26:00] it's just the messaging changes and the, you know, everybody's problem is different.

Mariana: And that's why being empathetic and listening,

James: Mm-hmm.

Mariana: huge with builders. In fact, I did a presentation for the International Passivhaus conference in Germany a couple years ago. Because they don't, you know, they have a lot of scientific presentations, but they didn't really have a lot of marketing presentations at that time.

James: Yeah.

Mariana: the whole presentation was just on how to be empathetic and listen and that, know, a lot of times we as professionals get caught in the narrative that makes most sense to us about why I want passive house,

James: Yes. Yes.

Mariana: the person you're talking to may want it for some other reason, and typically there is a good one.

James: Yeah. That's great that the, the that's there lies the thesis of this entire endeavor right there. That when, when you listed out, or when you said that there were a bunch of different angles, I was really hoping you'd then go through and, and address the sort of high points for [00:27:00] each one that was like exquisite.

James: I'm gonna replay that a lot.

Mariana: Needs to be a graphic with that. Can you do

James: yeah. Well, I like a slide, like a slideshow, like this landing, the same landing page, if you will. But with the, the different messaging, I think that's, that's exactly how I think about it. Coming from where I come from, like you'd have to have run different ads and then when the ads would've, to have different messaging on the landing page and even like the call to action, whatever it would be, would, would also be different and.

Mariana: Mm-hmm. Well.

James: to the end, and then it's the same product.

Mariana: Right. Exactly. Yeah. And you know, I, I talk to builders a lot about how they can market to their potential clients.

James: Hmm.

Mariana: I always remind them, it's not the same stuff I'm saying to you,

James: Right.

Mariana: saying to you about passive house is what you really like about it and what makes your life easier.

Mariana: What removes your hurdle is what makes job sites more fun for you. they don't care.

James: Yeah, that's right.

Mariana: need to [00:28:00] hear a totally different story. And. And that's where I go back to just my praise of builders in this industry is, you know, they're being asked to be craftsmen, businessmen, and sales and marketing professionals typically, you know, the, especially the smaller design build firms, they're not gonna have super dedicated

James: Right.

Mariana: of that stuff a lot of times.

Mariana: And

James: Yeah,

Mariana: so it's, it's hard.

James: yeah, yeah. That's fair. Well, that's why we do, that's why. There's a, there's room for us, right?

Mariana: Exactly. And we need more of that. We need, so can you, probably have done it in previous podcasts that you've done, but could you just very quickly tell me like what your goal is for offering marketing in the passive house world?

James: Absolutely. And I haven't, and thanks for asking.

Mariana: Sure.

James: Yeah, well, I mean, I've been following along since 2012 or something like that, almost before I started. My. Copywriting career. It, I, I'd, I'd gotten wind of it [00:29:00] and started like, you know, following people and dreaming about going to a conference and going on a, on a house tour and that kinda thing.

James: I was like, oh, it looks so cool. And then at the same time, I'm getting, the whole time I'm in marketing. You know, I, I've, I've been a copywriter for, I think this is my 11th official year since I.

Mariana: Mm-hmm.

James: Hung my shingle up. I, I've been all the whole time being told, you must niche, you must niche, you must choose an avenue and et cetera, et cetera.

James: And, and it, it took until like maybe two years ago, let's say that I was like, you know, there is one thing that I really like that also seems to have a gap of, of marketing. 'cause I like, that's what I found. Like I listened to the passive host accelerator. They're the, the Passive House Podcast with Matthew Cutler Welsh and Zack Semke.

James: I listen to it a lot, and the part that always like gets me interested is that part where there's little moments where they talk about, you know, the client, blah, blah, blah, or, you know, they talk about that and I, I feel like there's, [00:30:00] it's such a good idea.

Mariana: Mm-hmm.

James: But it needs to be handled carefully and it, it, it's also so easy to be lost on people.

James: And I know this just from trying to tell people about my, you know, sort of weird hobby interest that I've had. 'cause they're like, what? It's what? And then you what? And you know, they immediately go, oh yeah, I've heard of, of passive, like passive solar. They think of that kind of thing. I'm like, no, it's not really, it's not that.

James: And

Mariana: communication that goes into it that.

James: hmm.

Mariana: I feel like the recognition of science communication as a field is fairly new. In general. Just the idea

James: Hmm.

Mariana: scientific information into, you know, normal people speak.

James: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And so as a, as a copywriter and marketer, marketer, I've been doing that for tech companies,

Mariana: Mm-hmm.

Mariana: SaaS companies, a lot of B2B stuff. So taking this complex product and then breaking it down into simple terms for different audiences, depending if it's like, you know, even within the same organization, the person who has to buy [00:31:00] it versus the person who has to use it.

James: And I just thought, like I. I'm, I'm primed for this, but I'd really like to, I'd like to work for, for companies doing things that I really care about as well. 'cause you know, I.

Mariana: Well, and what's interesting about the, the passive house communication, which you know, I'm sure is the same in some other kinda more scientific, niches is that you can't just break it down into digestible pieces for the general public. You also

James: Hmm.

James: have

Mariana: to really ask them to level up a bit. You have to ask them to want to learn about it a little bit,

James: Right.

Mariana: break it down too much, they're not gonna get what they're expecting, you know?

Mariana: And

James: Hmm.

Mariana: of expectation is always such a huge piece with passive house. In all the different phases with all the different stakeholders. It's

James: Yeah.

Mariana: when we see failures, it's, it's a failure in expectations. Alignment.

James: [00:32:00] Interesting. Do you have like an anecdote or example that comes to mind?

Mariana: Yeah. I'm trying to think of a good example, but,

James: I.

Mariana: I can't, I can't think of a really good one. I mean, there's something that came up super recently just would B.PUBLIC, and this comes up a lot, would B.PUBLIC panels is, and, and prefab in general, high performance prefab panels

James: Right.

Mariana: is that there's this concept that prefab is cheaper.

James: Hmm.

Mariana: And that's not what it is. When you're talking high performance construction, high performance, high quality construction is high performance, high quality construction. The cost is gonna be about the same,

James: Right.

Mariana: the prefab path gives you a much more streamlined, higher quality assurance. It's a better way to get to that goal.

James: Yeah.

Mariana: it's a more streamlined way to achieve that, and it removes a lot of hurdles for people along the way. But I think. There's a lot of similar kind of things with that throughout the passive house journey [00:33:00] where the myth or the expectation is that, you know, windows are gonna be a normal process. I'm gonna pick out my windows after the fact and da, da da da.

Mariana: So I'm like, no,

James: Hmm.

Mariana: like, basically pick your windows, order them, and then design the house around them. Like

James: Right.

Mariana: windows is such a huge, you know, driver in that. And if the builder or the architect does not. Queue up for the homeowner, the concept that these windows may make or break their projects and they're not gonna have all the options in the world.

Mariana: And if you wanna hit

James: Hmm.

Mariana: passive house, if that's actually a goal that you wanna hit, high performance, then are a thing we need to pick early on in the process and everything.

James: Right,

Mariana: off of those, whereas I think a lot of homeowners coming at it from a traditional perspective would've thought it's just like a finish.

Mariana: So I'll just pick a, a, a

James: right. Like a door handle. Yeah.

Mariana: you know? Yeah, yeah. So little things like that. I don't know. There's, there's a few

James: Hmm.

Mariana: items. I don't know. I have to think about it. There's [00:34:00] more, but

James: Yeah, no, I wasn't trying to put you on the spot. I just, I, I was just genuinely curious 'cause that it makes perfect sense. Like, like broadly speaking expectation alignment is, you know, why parents fight with their children and why like, everything, everything we don't like is, is when what we expect isn't what happened.

James: So,

Mariana: Right, right.

James: yeah. That's interesting. I, i, I, I, when you said that about people expect prefab to be cheaper, and I get, I get that too. They're like, oh, it's, you know, it's like the, like a, a mobile home type of mentality, right? Like,

Mariana: that's the other thing, like

James: yeah.

Mariana: panels versus volumetric prefab

James: Right.

Mariana: yeah.

James: Yeah. But on the other hand, there's also this, I've found in some circles that I get pushback that like passive houses.

James: Only elitist and high, like it's inaccessible. And for sort of,

Mariana: okay. Okay. So there's a thing [00:35:00] that I have to say on as many channels as I can possibly say it. I used to say it on all my presentations,

James: here's one.

Mariana: but the perception the leap that that going from code to passive house is the perception of how big that leap is, is so much bigger than the actual leap. So.

James: Hmm.

Mariana: A lot of builders that are kind of into like you know, the keep craft alive movement and long live our buildings and all of these kind of, you know, Matt Risinger folks, like all of the builders that are really working to try to increase their quality of build past code, be better than code,

James: Mm-hmm.

Mariana: all that work they're putting in to being better than code. That's the big lift. Like once they know about your ceiling and they know about sequencing and such, then it's really just a small shift to get all the way to passive house. It's a huge shift performance wise, but practice wise, it's not as big as [00:36:00] people think it is. You know?

James: Gotcha.

Mariana: I think there are a lot of builders in America right now that are recommendations of, you know, better than code.

James: Mm-hmm.

Mariana: influencers and much of that can very easily be applied to a passive house sequencing. You

James: Interesting. So they're close. They're closer than they think.

Mariana: close, I

James: Yeah. Yeah.

Mariana: lot, a lot closer than we'd think. And codes are increasing to, to the point that that gap is decreasing as well. The

James: Right.

Mariana: codes and passive house is decreasing every year.

Mariana: Every year they're getting, you know, more and more stringent in various areas. And of course certain regions are doing it more than others, but.

James: Yeah. Awesome. Well, a lot to think about.

Mariana: It's

James: attainable. That's right. That's right.

Mariana: attainable.

James: This has been amazing. Thank you so much.

Mariana: Yeah.

James: Before we go, where's the best place for people to go to find out more about you or, and or B.PUBLIC? Prefab

Mariana: B.PUBLIC. prefab.com is our [00:37:00] website and I'm Mariana at

James: nice.

Mariana: me.

James: One R one n.

Mariana: yep, that's correct, like the trench. and I am on, pretty active on LinkedIn and Blue Sky.

James: Nice.

Mariana: those are my platforms right now, which is. funny being a brand officer and not being on the main platforms anymore.

Mariana: But our company is also on Instagram and such. But me personally, I'm on LinkedIn and Blue Sky, so I'm thinking I'm passive. Mariana on Blue Sky.

James: Sweet. Alright, I'll link to those, not the big platforms. Of course, we're not that sort of a podcast in the show notes. And this has been great. Thank you so much.

Mariana: Thank you.

James: You've been listening to Marketing Passive House. I'm James Turner and I hope you'll join me again next time.