PRODUCTION MODEL - BUSINESS OF ARCHITECTURE 03

There are 6 aspects to Business Development also known as MARKETING MATRIX.

You must understand your PRODUCT and what you offer. This goes back to the approach of your firm’s orientation such as DESIGN driven, SERVICE driven or PRODUCTION driven. Most start-up will start with PRODUCTION driven. This what known as the “bread and butter” of architecture where recycle of workable plans, fast churning of production drawings and fast authority approval for a mediocre fee are the order of the day. When you are in the market for some time and able to survive the “red-ocean”, you want to carve a name for yourself you start to leech to newbies developer, you start to shift gear to SERVICE driven. Some goes as low as to “SLEEP” with potential clients to get JOB. Some went into POLITICS and be the cronies. Ultimately the performance is measure as to how good your relationships with the Clients. The quality of your product does not count. When you are comfortable enough with the jobs available, you have the opportunity to choose and select and such potentially make you a Starachitect. On this pedestal only then you are DESIGN driven in a “Blue-Ocean” you had created.

You must understand who you are OFFERING to. What will be your market segment? Start-up will approach individual owners because you have no precedent to showcase. Interior works are best to start with for its short gestation period and potentially gloss over magazines. Later they will be promoted to engage with Developers with all kinds underlying tactics. Some will operate as “in-house” others will be engaged as outsourcing that the firm will need to finance itself during the gestation period – also called delayed gratification. Some will be partnering with foreign firms in creating their blue ocean and the lists go on.

You must understand if your offering is UNIQUE. There goes your branding liked ECO-ARCHITECTURE, BIO-CLIMATIC, ICONIC and so forth. This is to create your own market segment – we called “Blue-Ocean” strategy. To garner such you must appear to be EXCLUSIVE. For example, there is a Firm whose individuals happened to be once the President of the Institute of Architecture. He lobbied and headed the newly minted Green Certifying Body under the auspice of the institute. He set his rule and game plan. For out of the Blue, he champions for Green Building and marketed his firm as Guaranteed Green Building Certified Architect in town. Whoever developers wannabe Green must go to him for he only knows how to go about it and no one else.

You must know your PRICE. It is true that the bottom line of any commercial decision is the price. Do you know how much your service worth? It is naïve to think that there is no price war within architectural practices although it is mandatory for all to follow the minimum fee rule. The BIG BOYS are throwing their fee just to keep their organization afloat and the SMALL FRIES are surviving on shoe-string budget waiting to go bust. Price war is the stupidest thing to do and yet is the most practical thing happening in this industry. Both the Board and the Institute cannot do anything about it because it is believed that they are the party to it as well. Learn to be smart with pricing.

You must know how to PROMOTE. Promoting a BRAND is a better choice of word. The practice as a BRAND where Brand Promises, individual don’t. You must be a MEDIA’s darling. You must create events and generate awareness. You must be seen championing a cause. You must engage in Social Media. You must cultivate Brand Awareness within your own organization. You must LIVE as the Brand. You must communicate with the Brand via your writings, speeches, social works and so forth. It must be a 360 days awareness campaign to make your Brand jingles in everybody’s head. If nobody ever knew you existed in the first place, you are a total FAILURE.

In summary, you must have a good PRODUCT. Then you BRAND the product. Next, you PROMOTE the Brand. With the Brand you open up your MARKET SEGMENT. The Market Segment will indicate your PRICE – This is PROGRAMMING.

---