AIArchitect, Apr. 22-29, 2002 - Negotiating with the Client: Easy as 1,2,3

BEST PRACTICES

Negotiating with the Client: Easy as 1,2,3

by Gordon E. Landreth, AIA

In response to last week's Best Practice tip, "Dealing with Aggressive Negotiators: Don't Respond in Kind," Gordon E. Landreth, AIA, principal of Cotten Landreth Kramer Architects & Associates, Inc., Corpus Christi, Tex., sent us his own tip.

Calvin E. Powitzky Jr., a principal with Bay Architects Inc., in Houston, showed me this tool for negotiating.

You draw three circles on a piece of paper or napkin or whatever. Inside one circle, you write "Dollars;" in another, you write "Quality;" and in the last, you write "Square Feet."

You explain to the client that he or she can choose any two of the circles in planning for the new project, but you must be able to keep the third circle. [Hold your mouse pointer over the image to the right to start a "live" demonstration.] It works this way: If the client chooses Dollars & Quality, then you control the Square Feet that can be built for that combination. If the client chooses Quality & Square Feet, then you are left the task of determining the Dollars required to make it happen. Or, if the client chooses Square Feet & Dollars, then you control the Quality of the finishes, etc. that the client should expect to see on the job site.

Our clients very quickly see how these three elements must work together and how they may not be able to have it all as they had envisioned. Write it on scraps of paper, paper coasters on a dinner table, or anything handy. Don't go with these three circles plotted by CADD—present it spontaneously.

Reference

For more information on setting and meeting client expectations, refer to Section 5.2 of The Architects Handbook for Professional Practice, 13th Edition ($225 AIA members/$250 nonmembers).To order the Handbook from the AIA Bookstore, phone: 800-242-3837 option #4; fax 202-626-7519; or send an email. AIA eClassroom offers a number of distance learning programs about negotiating, including • S36 Eight Ways to Negotiate More Profitable Fees • S20 Lessons from the War Room: Negotiating Owner-Architect Agreements. For a complete list of AIA eClassroom distance learning programs, click here. The AIA national convention in Charlotte, May 9 to 11, offers a number of workshops and seminars. Got a BEST PRACTICES tip on any subject that you'd like to share with your peers via AIArchitect This Week? Send an email to Managing Editor Stephanie Stubbs and tell her what it's about. We'll get in touch—we'll even write it for you!