Finding a new client as an architect is an ordeal and can be accomplished with masterful marketing techniques and rapport (connecting with clients on a level of trust), but what happens when you finally have that new company or client in your boardroom, and asking for more, how do you get them to reach into their pockets deep fast and supply money to fund an even greater process quickly and securing your services and eliminating competition. Most architects & companies fail at this stage, the financial risks, working on risk are huge and this type of stress can sometimes make or break a small firm and over a long period cause severe financial stress in bigger architectural companies. Working on risk is poison to cash flow.
I have worked as a design architect for 17 years for several large firms and have discovered a unique secret adjustment that I have used for larger firms to securing fees for my clients, some of them the biggest architectural practices in South Africa doing commercial mixed-use work and some of the small to medium size practices that specialise in residential and smaller scale work, this really doesn't matter at any scale , and I am about to reveal this small but powerful strategic trick to allow the cash to flow.
The secret is out, and in a few words, you are going to see what it is.........................
The truth is 2 words .......................Excitement at the Pe Concept Stage, pushing down the accelerator pedal at the concept design phase is the key in securing and defining much interest, this process is needed to stimulate the project.
Imagine this a client comes to his second meeting with you after you chatted about what he wants,he is sitting in the boardroom and you open up the visuals on powerpoint and show him a scheme that has been pushed to a detailed conceptual design, which didn't take to much of the offices time but shows a seductive concept that looks like 10 people spent the weekend slogging away. The client doesn't understand how you managed to take his idea, his plot of land to this level of understanding so quickly, and he goes home with the brochure who's intellectual property belongs to you and decides that he wants to fund the process to see if he can raise more money.
You may say "Daah, is this guy an idiot, this is obvious". But if you read further, it is not so obvious. Normally Small to medium size teams focuses all their in-house labor resources on final production and project management issues.
When a concept is created it is produced very thin, and the amount of work is limited to a few sketches and photoshop precedent. But there are ways to make something so simple look like a team of people have cooked up a storm, when the client engages in this he will get excited and dish out the money that is so needed to achieve securing your fees with huge excitement.
Final design drawings get modelled and rendered by outsources 3d visualization teams, but this process is way down the line.....we are making a groundbreaking statement here and saying, this needs to happen at the beginning, and we believe many design teams underestimate the time spent on concept and presentation.
When it comes time to present a powerful concept, most resources are focused elsewhere as projects need to be developed and design specialization takes a back seat, in exchange for design development and project management. SWitching from these key ways of rethinking are very difficult for some architects,a nd in some small firms it is done with less passion.
When Clients get excited about the process, the money flows
What is meant by the conceptual process is launching a well thought through planning and 3d realization of that planning, setting out the project in its context so it can be visualized with a seductive presentation techniques on electronic and paper mediums? Remember a powerful point of departure, is like swapping a stick of dynamite for nuclear fission.
So you may ask, what's so different from what I already do in my practice?
It is not so different from any normal process, the point of focus is that conceptual design that is developed to a higher level of presentation and design refinement, has a powerful knock-on effect, when more resources are used at the beginning of a process it will undoubtedly catapult the process faster into manifesting fees and being built
Why do we believe we have strength over other design architects to help other Architectural firms produce these ideas?
Over the years we have learned presentation and design flow techniques and working fast and efficiently by using innovative software tricks and designing hundreds of projects over the years has allowed us to economies on our staff, churn has allowed us to refine the techniques used in each stage from planning to building models and finally to put them on paper. All our planning is done by specialist architects that excel in their area of planning expertise. Retail, Hospitality, Commercial Offices, health.
Communicating The Design and our process to your clients
The key is once all the work has been created, it is condensed into a power point and compiled into an a3 brochure, the principal architect can now enter the boardroom and be confident with a refined design.
Cost of Design Teams is key
Larger firms can cope with using a concept design team, this is a huge overhead cost
In small to medium sized architectural practices because of overhead costs, there is normally not an in-house team dedicated to conceptual design and besides this, the skills needed are a different skill set that, that can sometimes be more a shift in mindset from traditional processes followed, for example, a student that is using Revit, doesn't want to jump into a conceptual process using SketchUp or very, lumion or photoshop......
Also, another key understanding is that most people who are hooking up presentations with all these groundbreaking design software, like Revit ArchiCAD and SketchUp l software aren't designers, mainly they have picked up design skills over the years but they focus on presentation.
tedious is more of a specialization in areas of SketchUp Photoshop and 3d modeling. Existing teams, normally struggle to create seductive design and presentation times. The production of advanced conceptual drawings earlier on in the design process is what ultimately will secure your client's interest and not only this will also define the project for costing and a fast unfolding.
Igniting the beginning of the design process with what I call "The design process catapult", is an essential ingredient for achieving maximum success in securing new work(securing fees).
Please comment on what I have said I am interested in getting feedback from more designers out there. I would love to hear other designers feedback.
I have worked as a design architect for 17 years for several large firms and have discovered a unique secret adjustment that I have used for larger firms to securing fees for my clients, some of them the biggest architectural practices in South Africa doing commercial mixed-use work and some of the small to medium size practices that specialise in residential and smaller scale work, this really doesn't matter at any scale , and I am about to reveal this small but powerful strategic trick to allow the cash to flow.
The secret is out, and in a few words, you are going to see what it is.........................
The truth is 2 words .......................Excitement at the Pe Concept Stage, pushing down the accelerator pedal at the concept design phase is the key in securing and defining much interest, this process is needed to stimulate the project.
Imagine this a client comes to his second meeting with you after you chatted about what he wants,he is sitting in the boardroom and you open up the visuals on powerpoint and show him a scheme that has been pushed to a detailed conceptual design, which didn't take to much of the offices time but shows a seductive concept that looks like 10 people spent the weekend slogging away. The client doesn't understand how you managed to take his idea, his plot of land to this level of understanding so quickly, and he goes home with the brochure who's intellectual property belongs to you and decides that he wants to fund the process to see if he can raise more money.
When a concept is created it is produced very thin, and the amount of work is limited to a few sketches and photoshop precedent. But there are ways to make something so simple look like a team of people have cooked up a storm, when the client engages in this he will get excited and dish out the money that is so needed to achieve securing your fees with huge excitement.
Final design drawings get modelled and rendered by outsources 3d visualization teams, but this process is way down the line.....we are making a groundbreaking statement here and saying, this needs to happen at the beginning, and we believe many design teams underestimate the time spent on concept and presentation.
It is not so different from any normal process, the point of focus is that conceptual design that is developed to a higher level of presentation and design refinement, has a powerful knock-on effect, when more resources are used at the beginning of a process it will undoubtedly catapult the process faster into manifesting fees and being built
