How to Rewrite the Story of Our Profession
With a twisted sense of pride, too many architects today accept the small firm stereotype of “starving artist”. Seeds planted in architecture school bloom into a full-on virus as professionals launch their own firms and find their way to small business. New firms are launched every day without proper planning, without an understanding of basic business fundamentals and often with an eager acceptance that life as an architect will be a difficult struggle.
I was born an entrepreneur. I learned from doing, working with my auto mechanic father as soon as I was old enough to lift a push broom. At the age of 13, I launched my own businesses detailing vehicles from the shop’s side lot and “flipping” American muscle cars, starting with my first purchase; a navy blue 1972 Camaro.
Working hard and making money came naturally. It’s in my blood.
Even my choice of Architect as a career was based on my naive understanding of the profession. At the age of 10, I chose architecture for my career path because, “Artists don’t make enough money. Architecture is a profession like law and medicine. Architects are rich.”
As I entered architecture school, it happened too quickly. Within days of starting first-year studio, I began to hear the stories. “Architecture is not about the money. We change the world through our art. You must love the art, because you will never make enough money as an architect.”
Does that sound familiar?
We all have similar stories. As students of architecture, we all learned to accept the myth that our paths were doomed to a life-long struggle.
We Are The Story We Tell Ourselves
Small firm architecture is small business, just like any other small business. Eighty percent of small businesses close their doors in failure within five years of launching. Twenty percent survive and grow into successful enterprises.
On paper, architects have a much higher success rate. Small firm architecture studios typically survive for decades, only as a result of our shear determination and refusal to give up. We’ve been told the story of architecture as a profession. Accepting the myth, we’ve planned for the struggle. We’ve embraced the pain. It is not unexpected, so we carry on with creating our art… and suffering… every day.
What if we changed the story?
What if we wrote a new draft? A tale of the successful small firm architect. A story of our lives filled with art, creativity and… profit. What if we embraced the psychology of success, learned the fundamentals of business and lived happily ever after?
We are the story we tell ourselves. When we accept the struggle, we live a life of struggle. When we stand up and fight, armed with knowledge and understanding, we will succeed.
So how do we rewrite the story?
Write a New Draft
Successful artists are NOT starving. During his time at Rhode Island School of Design, Shepard Fairey launched his career as an artist with a guerrilla campaign, spreading art through stickers (yes, stickers). He has since grown his OBEY brand into a thriving entrepreneurial enterprise earning him a net worth of $15 million.
Fairey has not accepted the story of “starving artist”. He built a business (actually several businesses), built a powerful brand and embraced the psychology of success.
What is your story? Reject the mentality of struggle, dream big and write a new narrative of success, freedom and making a difference in the world through your own achievements.
Go Back to School
Most of us small firm architects slept our way through the few semesters of Professional Practice class offered in architecture school. We were artists. We had already accepted the story.
For those of us who did show up, know (way too late) that most of Professional Practice had little to do with being an entrepreneur or how to run a small business.
It’s time to go back to school.
No. I am not suggesting an MBA or abandoning your firm for another degree. I am suggesting that we actively learn what we don’t know. Find an entrepreneurism program at your local community college. Take online courses. Enroll for membership at a virtual business academy. Do what you need to do to learn what you don’t know. Financial management. Sales. Marketing. Brand building. Learn the fundamentals of business and apply the rules of success to your small firm.
Share What You Know
As I entered the profession, I quickly learned how secretive we architects can be. We all heard the, all too often inaccurate, story of antitrust law suits and were directed to never again share information about fees. In fear of retribution from our government, as well as our own professional organization, we never discuss money or how we may be able to earn more of it.
When I relaunched this blog as EntreArchitect back in 2012, I did so with the clear intention of sharing everything I know about the business of architecture, including what I know about fees and making more money. I hope to encourage all small architects to open up and share their knowledge here and all across the globe.
I believe that it will be through sharing our knowledge that the story will be rewritten. Our profession, as well as future generations of architects, will begin to learn a new tale. Young architecture students will be told the optimistic new story of how we do change the world, we are talented artists and we do live happily ever after running successful, profitable small firms.
Let’s Start Right Here, Right Now
Share your best tip for making more money in architecture in the comments below. If we all provide one tip, this post may change the lives of other struggling architects. It may even become the pivot you need to take your firm to greater heights. Share what you know and you may be surprised by how successful you become.
Question: What is your best tip for making more money?
Photo Credit: Shutterstock / SWEviL
Hi Mark,
Thanks for running this blog for all Architects, to help them succeed. Part of why we also began ArCH (Architects Creating Homes), as you know.
Regarding the anti-trust/price-fixing issues with DOJ and the AIA years ago, that was because a large professional organization was specifying (or at least proposing) certain percentage fee ranges. Personally, I liked that and wish that was still in place.
When we started ArCH, some members wanted to discuss that on the website. Personally, I thought that would be great. So, I had my firm’s legal counsel look into this; they happen to have a Federal Attorney on-board who was familiar with this issue.
He said that any INDIVIDUAL FIRM can talk about their prices and even post them on their website. Go right ahead. That’s part of our free market economy. He said it’s when an organization tries to propose a particular specific fee range or rates that ORGANIZATIONS can get into trouble.
ArCH is a nationwide professional organization, so we can’t allow any such discussions on the ArCH website, or post suggested fee rates (I wish we could, and this was a disappointment). We were told we can’t even reference (or post URLs of) other entity fee rates (such as the Federal Government, Various State procurement agencies and other North American countries) that published accepted fee rates for what we do. And that is a shame. I think if we could, that would help Clients to better understand what a value most Architects provide. The AIA has been vigilant about this through the years and instantly deletes any comments on their websites that venture into this territory, not wishing to have the Feds on their case again. Can’t blame them.
Whether your website is considered an organization? Personally, I don’t think it is, so it would seem that shouldn’t be a problem. But I’m no Attorney, and you may want to have your legal counsel look into that, just to be safe.
My guess is that any such discussions would conclude that most of us don’t charge adequately for what we do. I think that’ll probably be the extent of my involvement in this. Best of luck.
I’ll admit one of my biggest problems is spending too much time on a project – especially at the earliest phases. One symptom that can allow that is not having another project or four behind me pushing the first one out of the door.
When I have had projects (namely very small ones) that are easy to size up, easy to come up with a good design solution and I can get out of the door in a reasonable amount of time (notice I didn’t say quickly), then I do well on those projects. I do believing in raising our fees, but some projects will never pay any more than a certain rate – especially if you live and practice in a small town.
I agree with Rand above, we should post our fees independently on our websites. I have a brochure on mine that includes typical fees. It’s not on the front page, but it’s there. It makes it so much easier to talk to someone about fees if they’ve already heard them or have had time to process it before they meet with us.
As always, thanks Mark.
Some how I missed the college memo on Architects being poor. I never knew they were perceived as poor, nor did I ever think they were poor. If you don’t make money it isn’t necessarily because you are a bad architect, it is probably because you are a bad business person. I can separate friendship and business, but I know many can’t. I can go eat lunch with a friend and totally enjoy his company, but won’t use him as a consulting engineer because we have different business philosophies So I do separate architecture and business. I see them as two separate, but tightly interactive functions. Architecture to me was designing buildings. It was a skill I wanted to learn and an activity I wanted to practice. I have always told my kids “If you are good at what you do you will make money”. The greatest designer in the world, if he is a crappy business man will go broke. A sub-par.architect with above average business skills will stay in business.
I think the hardest part of determining a fee is convincing yourself what you need to charge to cover your time and expenses. Once I have convinced myself of what I should charge I ask myself would I get embarrassed if the client disagreed? If I can stand toe to toe with a client and tell him my fee and not blush if he tells me it is way over priced, then I know I have set a reasonable fee. If I give him a fee and he acts shocked and tells me he expected it to be substantially less, I say “If you want ME to do this project, this is what I have to charge. Thank you for the opportunity” I have never like when anyone backs down on their fee, because it leaves the client thinking were they trying to stick me? If you reduce your fee and your scope of work that is different in my eyes. If the client gives a sigh of relief and states he thought it would be three time that fee, some architects feel they have “left money on the table”, but I don’t. My fair fee is my fair fee. So once I determine my fee, I really don’t care what the client thinks. Again, the trying to determine what a fair fee is may be the hardest thing. Sometimes the amount of time involved makes the fee seem higher than what the project should be worth, but we charge for our time, expertise, and knowledge. Clients may not understand that, but we do.
So to me the bottom line is if we don’t charge enough, it is our own fault. We need to be business smart enough to determine how much to charge to pay our bills and ourselves. Once we determine that fee, charge it. If the client doesn’t want to pay it, move on. Look for clients who appreciate what you do and are willing to pay for it. That said we have all taken fees for less than we think we should because we have bills to pay and families to feed. It isn’t a perfect world, but there is no reason to constantly take less fees than you need to stay in business. If we are currently stuck in that rut , it is up to us to transition to better clients. We ,not our clients, are the master of our own destinies,
I’m an architecture undergrad from Mapua Institute of Technology, but I’m already practicing architecture and I’m getting clients of my own. But I subout most of the dirty work coz I’m not yet a licensed architect or have a GC license. But I do the design work and construction drawings. Sometimes, I partner with my colleagues who graduated and passed the board exam earlier than me and they outsource the 3D rendering to me.
Everything I know about architectural practice, and business in general, I learned from my former employers and small firm architects around the world. I’m also struggling to pursue my dreams of having my own design empire. I’ve already accepted that architecture school will not teach me how to become an entrepreneur that’s why I surround myself with people who know better in business, online and offline.
I don’t want to be a ‘starving architect’. When the time comes when I’m a fullfledged architect, I want my PRC license to mean something, and not just another pvc plastic card.
We pay for groceries before we eat. We pay for a car before we drive away. We pay for our home before we move in. Clients actually understand it, accept it and even expect it. A few may ask the designers to “finance” the design process and after doing that several times and ending up deep in debt each time I have chosen to work on a prepaid retainer basis. We do as much as the client has prepaid for. When it comes time to go to next step, we ask for more fee and proceed as we are paid.
When prepaid retainer payment is slow coming we put project on hold. We are available for face to face discussions about project but do not put staff or our own office time into unpaid projects.
The old way where a client who owed us fees for work already completed needed this and that additional work from us before he could “close” on his financing drug us deeper and deeper into debt. And more often than not we ended up with uncolllectable fee amounts.
We have found that working on a prepaid retainer basis disciplines us to do only what the client is willing to pay for and the clients are more disciplined to only expect what they are able to pay for. A win-win situation.
Excellent thinking here. And if you bill hourly, the next payment chunk can be applied to the future hours, until the prepaid amount is used.
Another method that my firm uses is the Initial Payment method. It functions like a deposit but is not refundable and remains on account until the last invoice of the project. It is up to us whether or not to allow any particular amount of work to exceed this amount, which is a risk. So, the Initial Payment should, in a perfect world, be at least as much as what you believe your most robust invoices will be (likely during CDs).
Also, you should have your agreement indicate payment within 10 days or less of the invoice date. We’ve been doing that for the last decade. I can only recall 3 or 4 times in all those years where a Client late paid. Because, like 99% of the other businesses in our country, you should have late payment charges beyond a short grace period.
A long time ago, I was one of the Project Architects at a popular architectural firm in an urban area. They routinely had 90, 120 and 180 days on their receivables. After limping along that way for many years, they finally crashed, becoming insolvent. I was determined to not let that happen to me and my own companies.
Might want to check out ArCH’s AOA2015 for clauses like this:
http://www.archomes.org/product/the-archforms-aoa-2015-architect-owner-agreement-2015-edition
I know many of us were never trained in the business of architecture and just wanted to design. However, if you don’t take care of your cashflow, you can end up working for someone else who does. I think I’d rather run my own show. Through hard-knocks, if we live long enough as Architects, these lessons are taught to us. Hopefully, we learn from them and improve our practices.
This discussion is not limited to base fee, but also additional services.
On my last few projects I have tracked owner direction (potential additional services such as redesign items to substitution requests) during the construction contract admin. phase in a log.
I’m now using this log format in the design phase too, and I like the way it’s working out (up to #102 owner directives on one flat-fee project).
It’s interesting how an innocuous client phone call can lead to 10 “small” or “quick little” design changes. The reality is they add up. From the design standpoint in my current example, I’m tracking most of the #102 items as base services, but I was able to flag contract adds as they were initiated. On a few items I’m tracking “hold” as the status, as the client wanted to think about if they wanted to really add it. On others, notice to proceed was provided. I also now have a pretty good record of if/when direction was provided, and when follow-up conversation or progress occurred.
I’m tracking this in Excel – column headings are: task number; work status (open/closed); task description; PM assigned (usually me); staff assigned; consultant (if any); date task initiated; notice to proceed on task given; notes; cost (in base scope/hourly rates/not to exceed X); Invoice #; Invoice Status (open/closed).
When a task is given to staff or a consulting engineer, I tell them the task number so they can track their time using that number. I sometimes use the task number in emails to the client, so they understand the process too. I have one client who asks for the task number, when he calls me and gives me a task.
Which is why we typically prefer to go hourly. But that sounds like a thoughtful system if your trying to work things out on a fixed fee.
Don’t be afraid to say “no thanks” to the people who treat you as a commodity. Once you go down that slippery slope, it’s so hard to climb back up. You have a value, and should earn that value. Teach your potential clients about that value.