This article is excerpted from a presentation the author gave at the AIA Sole Practitioner's Breakfast at the AIA national convention in Charlotte in May. The entire presentation currently is featured on the PIA Gateway. Check it out!

Today's turbulent business environment is unique in that it allows the architect to build on his or her skills and create a new connected partnership between practitioner and client. Architects need to transition from the commodity architecture market to the value-based consulting environment, where value is not in the deliverables but in what the service does for the client.

I recently attended the International Management Consultants (the people who work 20 hours per week and make $300,000–$500,000 per year) conference, which focused on this subject. I came away with some key findings.

• Consulting is a different biz than the design biz. It requires a different mind set in which you transition by 1) identifying opportunities, 2) identifying resources, and 3) capturing and leveraging your intellectual capital.
• Architects think clients are price sensitive, but clients are really value sensitive.
• To transition to higher fees, you need to transition from a "vendor mentality" to a "peer mentality." The five-step process to higher fees involves 1) identifying the economic buyer, 2) developing a relationship with the economic buyer, 3) developing an economic outcome based on business objectives, 4) establishing a measure of success for the project, 5) identifying your economic value.
• Collaboration is the next business trend. New practice areas require a significant learning curve, and self-education, collaboration, and mentoring are methods to build your practice. Look to networking groups that have social network (such as the conference at which I got these points).
• Outsourcing will continue.
• You need to sell your intellectual capital. Consultants are taking their specialty and breaking it down into incremental pieces that can be sold over the Web or are training and licensing other people in the consultants' specialties.
• The new trend is to be a "category authority," not a "boutique consultant."
• Clients spend 90 seconds to 4 minutes to make a decision about your proposal! You need to hit them with the value proposition up front.
• Learning to operate in a "value-added" mode is difficult because there is no easy path, however the networking opportunities available at conferences like this are a tremendous opportunity to take back practical building blocks that will continually build your confidence in communicating with business executives.

Credibility tips for dealing with business executives:
• Look up their stock price and PE ratio.
• Talk to employees/customers casually.
• Visit the competition.
• Find a unique fit.
• Buy the product or service.
• Talk to the receptionist.
• Drop a prior engagement and meet with the client.
• Figure out in advance what you would add.

One way to market value-added services is to present proposals in a "value package" that offers a smorgasbord of options. You can list them from lowest to highest cost and list the scope and value differences among the services offered. For example, from my own experience, value proposition for strategic facilities planning is not identifying the space, but translating that into earnings per share impact, then working with the client to manage and control costs over time. This is easier to sell to clients than you telling them how much space to build. You really get the client's attention when you toss out a comment like "this proposal will save you $100 million in operating-cost increases and capital expenditures over the next 10 years."

What a time of opportunity!
If you wanted to develop a management consulting practice right now, I could put you in touch with several management consultants who would like to train you and license their practice and tools for you to use. There has never been a better time for getting into a new field, because the mechanism for knowledge transfer—the Web—is in place and fully operational. Likewise, the new era of collaboration and the ability to break down and sell expertise to other consultants is a tremendous opportunity for value experts.

The greatest opportunities for consulting include:
• The blending of two professions (i.e., architecture and business)
• Planning
• Process improvement
• Marketing and image improvement
• Generation blending
• Human resources and finance controls (space standards can be a means of financial control; if you do a value analysis of a client's hypothetical growth with and without space standards and convert it to a Net Present Value, you would probably have an easy sell).

Think of your PIA as your portal to new business opportunities and reach out and talk to people. I think you will be glad you did.

Copyright 2002 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.