| Five Bold Moves
 by Paul Eagle
Summary: I don’t know about you, but if I read one more article in the business media about how a new back-to-basics, no-frills approach to pursuing work is the “new” new thing, I am going to scream. The new millennium interpretation of “batten down the hatches” is in full throttle across the design discipline. Professional firms, who two years ago were invigorating clients as well as their own practices with fresh and challenging ideas, have become highly conservative. A rote approach to business has become the norm in a down economy. Creativity implies additional cost and risk. But innovation and off-grid thinking can result in wild success. Some of the most widespread innovations have occurred in times of downturn. For example, the twin Popsicle was invented during the Depression so that two children could share one treat. So consider the following five bold moves for your practice.
Paul Eagle is the managing director of the Perkins+Will New York office and national director of the firm’s planning + strategies discipline. With more than 25 years of consulting experience in the field of pre-architectural programming, long range master planning, and strategic facility development, Paul brings his passion for encouraging the diverse ways people work, collaborate, and play.
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Bold Move 1—Add client value as one
marketing tool
First, keep this article away from your operations director whose job it is to hammer on project managers and office supply clerks alike. Then, take a moment to think clearly about what your clients are currently asking about. Many are concerned about their own job security and are looking to prove value to their organization. There is not a better way to secure a current client’s
current position then to help them bring information of value to
their business. This will more often be in the form of a brief planning
study, some benchmark metrics, or a high-level cost alternative study.
But this minimal investment will engage deeply with your client and
may help you to reach superiors in your client’s organization that you have previously not had accessed.
Bold Move 2—Mine deeply
Architects and designers know a lot more about their client’s business or organization than they think they do. Review your staff’s abilities and professional skills and evaluate what other services you can offer your current clients. As in Move 1, the trusted relationship that you have built with your client is a potent tool to leverage during these troubled times. It’s an old saw, but keeping existing clients is so much more cost effective than acquiring new ones.
Bold Move 3—Say “I don’t know” more often
A phrase that we are loathe to say as professionals but one that will allow you to partner with your client to develop answers that serve your client’s needs. This can lead to paths of new (paid) opportunities for you to explore with your client because it is highly likely that if you don’t know an answer to a client’s question, your competition probably won’t either.
Bold Move 4—Provocative marketing
The March 2009 Harvard Business Review has a good piece on provocative marketing, an approach that posits that solution-selling is an arcane model in this new economy and that by pushing your clients to think about problems that are either unacknowledged or poorly understood in their organization, you help them address the problem as well as develop a market for your practice. This essentially makes the case for the architecture firm to market more like traditional consulting practices.
Bold Move 5—Embrace meritocracy
As collaborative as many professional practices are, the fact of the matter is we all work in a meritocracy work environment. It is particularly important to recognize and promote all-stars in a highly competitive environment. A firm-wide freeze on promotions and raises, while democratic in intent, will be demotivating to your best staff. The key contributors in a practice are always apparent—your primary objective should be to keep them focused and productive.
A number of years ago, Tom Peters reworked an old phrase by stating: “If it isn’t broken, break it.” His counter flow position is that moving in a separate direction from your competition will place you in a much less crowded field and position you as client-focused innovators as opposed to commodity and market-driven practitioners. Of course, this can require steely nerves, but for the practice that is willing to take these bold moves, that steel can attract clients like magnets. |
