Good Deals-Discounts

Can you really afford to give your client a discount ? Selling a service is not like selling a car or a chair where most of the costs of products are known. A service is almost open ended, unless you can specify very tighly in your contract/proposal. I think we should only give discount to a well defined scope. In order to get the discount the client needs to play a part like for example paying cash ahead of the project . 


For Example:


Scope:  Preliminary Planning Research for a restaurant


Senior architect: 6 hours @ $120 per hour 
Junior Architect: 2 hours @ $80 per hour
Adminstration: 2 hours @$60 per hour.


Drafting: To be determined if required.  Drafting @ $40 per hour
Printing to be billed at cost if paid within 7 days


Proposed Time : 10 hours
Total: $1000 
10% discount if all are paid up front.


So if the client wants to save $100. Ask them to pay up front. If not , break down into 2 payments the most for a small scope like this one.


A discount is not free. It should be in exchange of something that is valuable to your firm.

Other People's Business

Architecture practices in general are about other people's business. We wait for other people  to call us when they need a new house, a new mall, or a new township. I think we should not rely on other people to sort out our business and future. We should be a builder/banker/ developer/architect all in one.

Negotiation with clients

• Average architects typically are not  negotiating from position of  strength.
• If you have too much to lose, walk away from the negotiating table.
• Don't agree to anything that seems good currently. Always think long term.
• If you agree too fast ,too soon, you will look weak to the client. Don't be desperate.

  

Scope of works

If the architect and the client are both very experience, the scope of works can be defined in detail without much  explaining.
If the client is not very experience in the total scope and its various ramifications, the architect needs to take the time to explain to avoid misunderstandings.
If the architect has not enough experience, he/she needs to tell the client  to look for another architect  or bring in additional experienced consultants to help.  

Wealth Guide

Phil Ruffin ( not an architect of course) turned  $20 million  to $1.2 Billion. 

http://videos.kansas.com/vmix_hosted_apps/p/media?id=13092850

Dennis Felix's Wealth Guide

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article1084093.ece?token=null&offset=36&page=4

Architect Vs Client

What makes a project successful ? The architect’s ( + his/her consultant team) skill, judgement and experience is 50% of it . The other 50% is the client's  project experience, intellect and budget.

  

Dr Garry's insights into the profession

Interesting insights into the professoin and the training/conditioning of architects.

http://www.archsoc.com/kcas/Socialise.html

Bad Clients

It took a few projects to teach me to stay away from bad clients.
So before signing up any project , I advise you to spend a few minutes, hours or days  talking to your potential clients and get to know them .If you see the following signs you might want  not to work with them.


These are the few bad signs:
1-Bargaining dollars and cents with you right from the beginning.
2-No experience in dealing with architects, contractors or building projects.
3-Unrealistic schedule.
4-Unrealistic budgets.
5-Very high expectation. Expecting perfection,but has no real budget to support it.
6-Cannot really define what they want or expect.
7-Mentally unstable, easily stressed out.
8-Check or call you every 30 minutes.
9-Rude.
10-Ask you for discount. Tell you there will be future projects.
11-Bad mouth about other architects.
12-Bad credit ( yes you need to check their credit histroy)
13-Expect you to guarantee the work.
14-Playing good cop and bad cop games with you.
15-Knows someone in City Hall who can expedite things.
16-Sleazy. 
17-Don't trust your judgement




If you have any bad client stories , please share.

Architect As Developer

I think the best way for architect to gain control over design, reponsibility and making profits is by a being a developer/builder. Without it all we ended up with is a set of documents which the clients wants to pay zero for it and their lawyers can find all kinds of issues with it. 
There are many successful and rich architect/builders. The top 4 that came to mind over here at USA are :
John Portman (http://portmanusa.com/founder.html)
David Hovey http://www.optimaweb.com/Company/corporate_profile.html
Jonathan Segal. http://www.jonathansegalarchitect.com/
Isadore Sharp ( Canadian)  http://www.fourseasons.com/book/

RICH ARCHITECT

This blog is dedicating to all young and old architects who are starting  or running their own business.
I hope we can all share our passion for design and also the day to day war and success stories
of running our business, dealing with red tapes and clients. From here I hope we can gain strength and confidence in dealing with all out there.
And I hope this will all make us Rich Architect,  in experience and also in monetary term .