Put the big boy pants on and make a shed ton of cash. All right. Hello and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I am your host, Ryan Willard and today, I am going to talk about six different ways to start making more money in your business. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architectures flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment, and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smart practice method.com. Or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how it might be able to help you please follow the link in the information. Let's first have a little look at some of the issues that many architecture practices are facing at the moment. For me, one of my big intentions with this podcast with the work that we do our Business of Architecture is to reprioritize where the industry is facing. We do not talk about money enough in architecture. In fact, we barely talk about it at all. We've complained and moaned and you would have heard us on the podcast many times before talking about the complete and utter negation of the economic force that creates and drives architecture from our university education. This misgiving has profound and permanent side effects, which we are feeling right now, as our fees are incredibly low. And our salaries are pitiful, particularly here in the UK, which I think is you know, comparatively to other places in the, in the world. It's you know, I mean, I think in the architecture industry in general, it's pretty bad. Here, we're suffering quite quite a lot. We talk about things like our agency, and our ability to be able to act, we talk about having the possibility of a more diverse and inclusive profession. Yet one of the major identifiers or reasons why these things are difficult to impact is because we are financially impotent, okay, as a profession, we have ignored money. We do not like to talk about money, we say bullshit, like, I'm not in it for the money. I don't care about the money. That's not why I chose to be an architect. At the first day of many of our architectural education, we are met with a enthusiastic tutor or teacher who will say some nonsense along the lines of You will never make a lot of money as an architect. This is a vocation, this is a calling this is something that is from deep within side of you, and you will sacrifice they don't say sacrifice but you will sacrifice your time, your health, your relationships in order to further there's no war craft of architecture. This is the message that is drummed into us from an early age on our architectural journey. And it's very, very difficult to unpick, okay. You've heard you might have heard the other podcast that Nick and I did called the cult of design. This is the doctrine. This is the doctrine of the cult of design is one of these refrains that we will hear again and again and again. So the problems, we're not talking about money. That's leading us to low fees, low salaries, and lots of problems that come with it. We are an economically underperforming industry. The Old Guard methods of running a practice simply do not work anymore, or they are completely irrelevant. The way that we assess what growth is what successes in an architecture practice needs to be redefined for the individual practice. The profession is financially mute. We are lacking agency. We are going through this continuous feast or famine cycles. In our business, only a few businesses are actually run properly run well. And if we look at something like the beautifully curated and compiled Rieber benchmarking statistics, we are continually fed saddening results as we see a dreary, miserable underperforming industry where we look at a sole practice or sole practitioner who's taken 25,000 pounds home. You've got to be kidding me. Why the hell would you study for 10 years to take 25,000 pounds home? That is why we do not have diversity in the profession. If we look at the average wage of an architect for five years is about 40k. Again, why would you invest your blood sweat and tears for these pitiful salaries that we've come to accept as the norm? There's an exodus from the profession is difficult to enter. It's a challenge to remain. There's overwhelmed stress, burnout fear And talking about profit talking about growth. When I mentioned these things I'm often looked at like I'm some kind of sick creature or sick capitalist who's looking to pervert the industry into turning it into, you know, greedy, myopic, insane, corporate, you know, ignorant profit led businesses. That's not at all the case. Okay? That's absolutely not the case. Profit is massively, massively important. We will talk about that in just a second, late payments. Why is it so hard to get paid? Why are architects always the ones who were the weakest in negotiation, we are the weakest in being able to claim our fees. And when we do negotiate fees that perhaps are reasonable, then we have to wait six months to get them because the other consultants or developer knows that they can leverage their risk on the agreeable nature of the architect. Grow up, architects grow the hell up. low profit margins are accepted as a norm, the fantastic Aaron Pellegrino, she was talking recently on the web at an AIA panel somewhere in New York, I think it was. And she made a very pertinent point about, you know, lawyers will focus relentlessly on ensuring that they are protecting 3040 to 50% profit margins in their industry, architects, we have accepted 510 11% profit as being the norm, this will not do this is why the industry is suffering. This is why it is difficult to have the capacity to act. So the other issue is we've got the cult of design, go and check that podcast out. But I want to stand here and actually create a new possibility, a smart, agile practice a practice that is massively profit, profitable, and a practice that has an incredible empowered culture around money, there is transparency from top to bottom, okay, the business owners are happy to report about architecture, they about money, they are happy to discuss and explain the roles of their younger team members, and how they can help making a profit and how profit will be distributed through the business and how profit is allocated and shared. amongst people. There'll be a healthy, transparent conversation around money around fees around time around timekeeping, and ensuring that actually good design is you hear it all the time. On the creative side of things, good design is fed by constraints. So why the bloody hell? Are we not constraining our design in a healthy manner in a balanced manner? With project budgets and fees? Why are we not paying attention to this? Why do we ignore it at university? So creating a business that is empowered around being able to do that, and a business that is profit with purpose centric, okay. And actually, the whole industry, I would love to see become so focused on profit with purpose. I'd like to introduce the idea of growth being defined for an individual practice, and success being defined for an individual practice what that means for them. And it doesn't just mean having loads of people. All right, we've seen this in the past that the way that architects flex upon one another, is you ask them, what kind of projects do you have, and they give a beautiful description of the intelligent clients that they're working with, or the design aren't focused people that they've managed to bag as one of their patrons. And then they'll say some nonsense about I've got eight people in my office, I've got six people, I've got 10 people, I've
got 15 people, when an architect tells me that I panic, I worry, because I'm pretty certain that you don't need that many people for doing whatever it is that you're doing. Okay, most of the time you do not most architects are very good, meaning well meaning people, then they'll make sure that they pay their team members as much as they can, which is not usually a lot, but it will usually be within the RBA poor benchmarking standards, and then they don't pay themselves particularly well. Okay, if at all, craziness. So that is not the kind of practice we want to envision. Here. We want to envision a practice where everybody is making a very good salary while above what the Rebbe benchmarking. Surveys are showing us and that a six figure architect is quite the norm. That is a normal thing to accomplish. Right from, you know, having 567 years experience, you should be looking forward to receiving a nice healthy six figure salary for your services and for the incredible amount of time and energy and effort that you've put into investing in that education. There's no need to give work away for free. I would like to see businesses becoming more diagnostic in their services, more proactive in their marketing and the way that they retrieve referrals, and that they are allowing themselves to create genuine business innovations that serve the clients needs. I'd like to see businesses that are that have stable, predictable cash flow, and that are charging the premium fees, businesses that are intelligent with the way that they're looking out for certain new opportunities. They develop micro niches, multiple areas of specialization. They become deep generalists on the inside of the practice. So that's multiple expertise and project typologies internally, but they learn the art of communicating as focused experts outside that's their target clients. Imagine a business that is giving prized strategic advice they are not viewed as a commodity, this is what is possible, I would like to introduce the idea of the 200 Club businesses that can actually turn over $200,000 per full time equivalent employee. That's about 160,000 pounds, I use $200,000. Because the majority of the work that I do is with the Americans. And the Americans in general are a little bit more hungry for business a little bit more enterprising, not always. And 200 Club sounds better than the 160 Club, doesn't it really. And imagine a flexible and networked practice. Okay, so the possibility for small practice has never been like it is today, it is quite extraordinary. So I'd like to just outline, actually, a few ways that you can start making more money in your business. The first, very simple, very easy, simply prioritize making money, okay, just make it a priority. This sounds almost daft with its obviousness. But making money in an architecture firm is, as I was saying earlier, it's usually just not it's not a priority. Rarely is it tracked rarely is it deemed important when compared to the architectural craft, it's often very uncomfortable to talk about making profit with clients or you're not transparent with the amount of profit that you're making. Just all conversations around money are generally uncomfortable. They're in ignored or avoided. And there's no backbone, there's no sort of want desire or need, or kind of training around being able to have those uncomfortable financial conversations. If you really hate doing that, and you are the owner of a business, then you either need to find someone who loves doing that, or who is good at doing that. And there's all sorts of personality profile types that you can discover who are good at doing this kind of thing. Or you train yourself to do it, you get good at it. Okay, we've had some amazing clients here at Business of Architecture who have uhm, much more on the introverted side, who have become very fierce in their collections and who have made sure that they go after money that is that is owed to them, or they become very skilled and being able to have upfront conversations about cash as soon as the project starts. Okay, so that's the first one just prioritize making money, prioritize making profits, learn to sell it, okay. So create it in the front part of the cell of the sale, and then learn to track it. Okay. There's an incredible amount of technology that's available today, like never before, it is easier to track profit in a business, like you wouldn't believe for countless loads and loads of systems, loads and loads of trainings, Business of Architecture here, we do all that kind of stuff. But you've got to get a handle on your profit in the business, tracking it from project to project. It is near nuts. If you're not doing that. That means timesheets. I know everyone hates timesheets, there's nothing sexy about them. There's nothing interesting about them. But ultimately, they are the most effective way for you to be able to understand what is happening in your business. They give you good data for you to be able to set the rest of your fees. It's important okay, tell your team why it's important. Make it a game, linkup. Timesheets being done accurately and timely in a timely manner to your profits. Okay, the profit distributions or your bonuses have it as a kind of criteria for for that kind of practice. Okay, so number one, prioritize making making money. Number two, learn deep negotiation. This is probably my favorite aspect of business. There's some good books here that I would recommend reading one is never split the difference by Chris Voss, he's an ex FBI negotiator, and is pretty phenomenal character. His kind of language structures, the pacing, the questions that he asks, and the kind of psychological tactics that are employed, are really, really brilliant, and he's very well documented in the book never split the difference. So do get a copy of that. But this is in the world of number two, which is learn deep negotiation. This is the art of getting into an understanding somebody else's world very deeply. This means understanding what's motivating that person, what are their pains, what are their pains around this project? What are the emotional motivators for wanting to engage in your services, okay? This also leans into being able to have a stomach for, and the comfort with having those uncomfortable conversations and having money conversations. Again, this ability to have uncomfortable conversations is not necessarily about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. It's just doing it even though it's uncomfortable. Okay, and there's a, there is a, certainly a sense of well being and achievement and accomplishment when you do have these difficult sales conversations. But as my sales mentor once said to me, you know, these are stressful conversations to have, because you're dealing with the underbelly of human beings are dealing with emotions. So to learn to get skillful in these types of negotiation conversations is absolutely essential. I cannot explain how much value can be created in your ability to number one to listen, and listen in a very specific way where you're helping and leading a client through to discover their own pain points in their own projects. So that you can then use that problem. So position, your own proposition, your own proposal. Okay? And yes, we do that the sales conversation is not an intellectual one, it is an emotional one. Many studies, psychologists have said that, in these kinds of big decisions, human beings will tend to make a decision with the majority based on their feelings, okay. And then we post rationalize our feelings. We have all sorts of intellectual reasons why. So it's important that people are able and have the capacity and feel safe with you to be able to feel something in the conversation. Your skill is to lead them through feeling and to ask those probing difficult, curious questions about why a project is happening. I'll give you an example of this many years ago, I was speaking with a homeowner, a woman about the reasons why she wanted to do her project. And I asked her a question something along the lines of what's your biggest concern here, with actually having this building built? Or why do you want to have this building? But what was the most the worst thing that could go wrong for you in this process? And she said, not getting planning permission. Now, that seems on the surface of it a very reasonable answer. And this is where it gets difficult. Okay, so the principle is easy is to listen. But we want to listen under what people have just answered with. So this lady has said
that the most important that the worst thing that could happen is not getting planning permission. So we want to ask why. Now, the skill of doing this in a sales conversation is that y can come across as quite an accusation or question. So you might replace the word why would the word what or how, and change the question of why is that and say something along the lines? What is it about the planning, not getting planning permission, that would be problematic for you? Okay, so that's phrased in a kind of way, which is a little bit safer for the person to start to explore their answer. Now, this lady was very gracious and felt kind of safe in the conversation and she said something along the lines of, well, I, it's really important for us to have our own personal stamp on this project. So I really want to make sure that we get planning permission. Ah, that's interesting. How would not get planning permission, impact, your ability to have your own personal stamp on it? She's like, well, I just don't want to, you know, the planning. I don't want to have another outside organization telling us no, we can't do something. And for us to have to make compromises. It's really important for me to feel like this space has got my identity in it. Alright, we're starting to get a little bit more real here. And a little bit more, kind of, you know, why it seems portant she wants this place to have a sense of herself in it. Okay, lots of this we could assume. Okay. And but assumptions are not very useful in the sales conversation what they are, but we want the other person to tell us what they are actually feeling. Okay? We don't want to make the assumption we want them to tell us. Ah, what do you mind me asking this might sound like a silly question. But what is it about having your personal stamp on this? That's so important? Why is it Why are you willing to go through all the difficulty and the stresses and the challenges of doing a house renovation? She said, Well, at the moment, the house, the house is just like my, just like my husband's ex wife's. The whole space shifted, the conversation shifted, there was the truth. There was the real emotional motivator for the project. Okay, when somebody's that's a good sign when somebody's feeling that comfortable with you to share something like that. And it's there now for that's part of your intel, okay, that's a very important emotional driver. And in many cases, the other person will appreciate haven't had the capacity, you haven't had the capacity to listen to them. And to help them discover that, and it might be a bit of a relief for them to actually share that. Now. So important to be able to learn this art of deep negotiation. It means listening, it means uncovering things, it also means learning to hold other people accountable, whilst still empowering them. Okay. So likewise, in the sales conversation, we want to be able to talk about difficult things you want to be able to be probing and asking questions, and there's a whole structure and how to do this. We also want to be ensuring that the client or the press prospect understands what their responsibilities are going to be, and where yours end that needs to be discussed. Once we've able to find a lot of reasons, a lot of emotional pains, there's often the intellectual pains as well. We like intellectual pains to be quantified, usually quantified in terms of money, and cash. If you're talking with a developer, and they're struggling with getting approvals in certain parts of town, and they've tried a few things, go into that conversation, ask them what's been the damage that's been done, as a result of not getting approvals? What would the costs of the delays? How many times this happened that year? What was the total loss across X amount of projects that they have with these particular days? Delays with with their, with local authorities? How much did it all add up to? How much did it add up to in a year? If this continued on for the next 56789 10 years? What kind of losses would they be looking at? Okay, so now we've started to uncover the emotional pains, uncovered the intellectual pains that can be quantified. And then we're using a kind of multiplier, if you like to be able to kind of expand the impact of this problems. Brilliant. This is negotiation because that now sets the scene and is the context for which you will be presenting your own fees. Okay, so massively, massively important. It's never about your fees, it's always about the context with which your pay your fees have appeared. So the third is going to be just become an ally to your client. Okay, the person with the money, not just the end, user architects, in my experience, are very good at considering wider stakeholders. But sometimes the client, the person with the money, the one who is paying for the project is often viewed as an obstacle to the architects idea. This is a very outdated way and approach to be dealing with clients. I see architects all the time who deal with high net worth individuals and who don't like the wealthy, they're sickened by them. They're nauseated by them. And it's like, well, why the bloody hell? Are you working with them? Or is that more a reflection of your own crap around money and your own unhealthy financial beliefs and relationship to money making and profit? Okay, I invite you to investigate. There's a great financial psychologist called Dr. Brad Collins, who's written many books on money scripts. We've spoken about this here on the past and on the podcast, go and check that out. Go and check those that information out if you're interested in examining your own relationship to finance into money. Okay, I think all of us inherit and pick up these ideas around money. And we need to continually be kind of giving ourselves this mental cleansing thing to see where our own ideas around finance have become warped, and are actually preventing us from having the kind of life that we want to have, and preventing us from creating wealth and money and finance. So that we can have agency and the things that we say are important to us examine. So going back to the original point, which is becoming an ally to your clients, we're gonna become super interested in the business agendas of our clients, their financial cycles, their plans, their visions, where they're going, the market conditions that they're dealing with, their their problems, their money flows, their financial flows, everything that they have, or face or dealing with, as an industry, you want to become very knowledgeable about, you want to be able to speak the language of your client, you've probably heard this one spoken about many, many times. But it is absolutely true. And it goes a long way. When you are able to demonstrate insider industry knowledge, just think about how impressive it is, when someone who's a non architect starts talking to you about a Peterson Thor chapel, you're always like, Ah, this person has a modicum of taste here. Okay, so consider that if you listen to, if you listen properly, and you're using deep negotiation techniques, your own architectural agendas, your sustainability agendas, your housing agendas, can be effectively fulfilled if you're, if you've chosen the right client to be working with. And if you've negotiating, well, you have more choice and the kinds of clients that you that you have, then both agendas can be fulfilled. And it's a very, very fulfilling and you you are appreciated, the client appreciates you and you can be well renumerated. And you can also be the first one in line to win work. Okay. So as I said, is wonderful that we consider the wider stakeholders of a building, we must do that that's part of our civic responsibility. As architects, we also have a responsibility to the client. And we also have a responsibility to directing the client to their own civic responsibility. We can't do that unless we are an ally. And I'll and we have developed good skills of being able to listen and understand, certainly, you know, understand the business agendas of our clients as well. Again, I come back to this idea of being fluent in finance and fluent in business, because this is why a lot of clients just don't allow an architect to be at the seat at the table. Because we're financially mute, we're financially impotent. We've got no knowledge about money, or very rarely we do the architects that do who can speak the language of money, they progress, okay, they're able to get into other kinds of conversations. If you don't know and can't speak about money, or feel like money is alien to you, then that is something that we want to be able to address and start to learn about because it opens up lots of doors.
Number four, to make more money in your practice, just simply spend more bloomin time marketing and selling and doing high value operation or work. Okay. So as a partner, as an owner in your business, there's going to be three areas that you need to be relatively skilled in one is winning the work one is doing the work and one is supporting the work. Okay. And most architects are very good at doing the work, don't really think about the supporting the work. So that means the finance, the HR, admin, all the things that go around it, but we can get people there to help us the other one is winning the work. Okay, that is usually ignored. And then I hear the most useless piece of advice from architects all over the world telling me this, that the best way to win work is just to do good work. Okay, that's really unhelpful and is basically the baseline that every business should be operating at. Okay, I'm going to do that as a given you do bloody good work. Okay, do good work. You're an architect. That's what we do. We do good work. And a lot of the time because you're not marketing, you're not selling you don't you can't do good work, because you're saying yes to crap clients. Okay, so, no, doing good work is not the whole picture. And the reality of it is as well is that if you're working with a client and you don't, okay, you don't make a mess. You don't make a complete balls up, then it's likely that the client won't want to go for the discomfort of trying to find another architect. Okay, so just hold on a minute. It's not it's not like we're up doing being absolutely amazing. Okay. It's rather the client, the process of the client, finding another architect is more painful. All right, so what this highlights too is that in a lot of business says that the winning of work is totally reactive, totally, totally reactive, if you're working in a sector that you love, and you're winning more work that you and you've got great work and you're winning more of the great kind of work, then okay, you've had a little bit of you've earned something there, or you've tapped in and got lucky. But even those practices are still looking to enter into new sectors and progress and to grow. So they keep the conversation running. Alright. But in general, we're very reactive as a species of professionals. And we're not spending enough time marketing and selling, learning about marketing and selling, we deeply misunderstand these two things, we think they're just add on skills that you can learn in a weekend, they are not, they are as complex and as take the time and energy to master as the craft of architecture itself. Does that you've chosen to wear the hat of a business owner? So you've got to master them? Okay, that is the that is what business is about. It's about marketing. It's about selling, and it's about the finance. All right, the technic, the technical aspect of it, that's going to be for the craftspeople who you're playing you're paying for. So you've got to, you've got to get engaged with the high value activities in your business. There's high value activities and design. We'll talk about that another time. But the high value activities in marketing and selling, you got to be spending at least 25% of your time doing this. Okay, if you're doing less, it's irresponsible. So and if you're struggling with any of the things we've spoken about before low fees, low salaries, cashflow problems, you're not spending enough of your time marketing and selling, okay, so one day a week, get off your and pick up the phone and start networking. If you hate it, if you hate it so much, then you're going to have to find someone else to do it. You're going to have to either employ somebody, enroll someone identify someone who your office's is good at it, but you've got to be able to do it. Okay, you've got to be able to do it if you're I've met many, many introverts who don't like being in public spaces or talking to people who have become quite masterful negotiators and salespeople. All right, that is just a reality of running a business. Either you got to do it, or you've got to find someone else do it. I don't care if you like it, or enjoy it. But it needs to be done. Because you've taken the responsibility of running a business and your career, livelihood. financial well being your mental well being depends on your ability to go out and do these things. And guess what, it's actually quite fun. Okay, it's actually quite fun. And there's loads of resources and loads of people who can help you. There's loads of brilliant consultants, like here at Business of Architecture, we help train practices in what we call the rainmaking flow, which is a process for positioning yourself for marketing, for the copy for your messaging, and then the fundamentals of actually conversational negotiation, and how to put together agreements and negotiate the proposal less proposal. Number five, create a growth plan. Alright, what does growth look like for you? We often call this a vision framework. And a vision framework will include core values and beliefs. It will include things like a purpose statement, and a mission. Okay, a clear mission. Where are you going? What do you want the business to look like? And then another part of this is a five year business plan, which we call a summit map, which is a one page graphical version of a five year business plan. 10 years is a little bit nebulous, it's very difficult to imagine that far. And so many things can change. Five years is a little bit more tangible. But having a growth plan, having a vision, writing it down, sharing it, sharing it with your team, this is really, really important. And it's okay to grow. It's okay to make a shit ton of money. It's okay to make loads and loads of cash. You can define what growth means for you. You can define success on your own terms. It doesn't necessarily mean having a massive practice, but it should mean creating financial targets and generating money and creating purpose and meaning around why those targets are an absolute must. Okay, an absolute must. It's so important that when you create your vision for what you want the business to look like that you've got clear financial objectives and targets and you've got a why behind them. I can't hear any more people telling me that they're not in it for the money. I get it. I get it. I Get it. Okay. But this is a very superficial statement that is were using it as a safety blanket to pretend and to justify our own financial mediocrity, okay, we're using it as a defense mechanism, it's not helpful. It's not useful. It's just living in denial. Okay, it's time for us as an industry to wake up, wake up. Okay, I want everybody to be setting ambitious financial goals and targets and that we start to talk about them, that we start to share them, we share them with our teams, we share our, you know, the people in our business, this is where we want to go that you're starting to think about your architecture practice, as a mechanism for creating wealth, creating wealth for you. And for the people that are working in signing it and creating wealth for the people who you're engaging with and who you're selling services to. The final one got I'll kind of wrap up with on here is get help hire a coach, hire consultants to help you do the last five things that I've spoken about, obviously, I'm going to suggest getting in contact with us here at Business of Architecture, Inc, and myself, and Nicole and our team for the last, you know, three years and you know, Enix been refining this for more than a decade, I've been consulting for the best part of five, six years now. And we brought our minds together and have created the smart practice program and the journey, the six phase journey to becoming a free architect. And we've distilled everything that we know. And, and there's still more to go. Okay, but this practice this this pathway, we have seen create enormous benefit, profitable practices, we've seen businesses stop themselves from bleeding out profit to making very healthy profit margins of 20%. And above. We've seen businesses turn themselves around, we've seen good businesses go to flipping great businesses. And you I mean, you need to actually see some of the financial reports from some of the clients that we have, I can't share those with you, unfortunately. But it's extraordinary. It's extraordinary some of the results that these people are producing. And what's often the case is that the highest performers will hire coaches and consultants and experts and outside eyes just think of any great sports person, they will have a team of coaches around them nutritionists you know, weight specialists, performance or techniques, specialists, or, you know, they'll be working on every aspect of their particular athletic ability. With a specialist coach. Architects,
we can do the same thing in our business. Architects are good at architecture, they're not often they just haven't been trained in the world of business. So get consultants to help you. Business architecture, we're here you can get in touch with with us. There'll be details in the podcast information. I interview brilliant consultants all the time on the podcast, from copywriters, to marketeers to finance professionals, to CPAs, to discussion succession planners, the whole gamut, you just go through the list of podcasts that we've got, you'll see there is an enormous amount of brilliant consultants who are there to help architecture practices. So that's it for now. I really hope that this has been of use and a value, maybe even a bit exciting and perhaps inspiring. I'd love to hear your feedback and your comments about it. I love talking about this. This is what I want my this is what my life is about making economic empowerment for the architecture profession, or reality. I want to see us all making loads more money. I want to see more different types of people entering into the profession. I want to see the profession grow up, put the big boy pants on and make a shed ton of cash. I've been writing and will od of Business of Architecture. Thank you very much, and I shall see you shortly.
