Modern Architecture and Design for the Masses Throughout the profession, a common theme we hear is how to leverage what we do as architects. How can we leverage what we do for the good of more people? How can we take our unique skills and talents and use them to better serve the entire population? How do we benefit all of society as architects? This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Modern Architecture and Design for the Masses with Ben Uyeda of HomeMade Modern. Ben’s Origin Story Ben grew up in Southern California and remembers buying a raft out of two liter soda bottles after reading Huckleberry Finn. Design was something he found he was able to do by combining adventure with resourcefulness when there wasn’t access to something or you couldn’t afford to buy it. He attended Cornell University for both undergrad and his Masters, where he quickly learned that architecture is a little bit more than just building cool stuff. He loved the strong subculture within the university that really immersed him in the world of architecture. As he neared graduation, he wondered how he was going to make a living. When he talked to other recent graduates, the picture they painted was slightly less glamorous than what he expected. Though the faculty at the university made it out to be an upscale lifestyle, people a couple years out of college weren’t having the same experience. He then decided to take some risk earlier in his career when the personal risk was lower by learning as much about buildings as possible. Since residential is the most common type of buildings, they put their focus there. In 2005, Ben and his friend, Stephanie, entered a competition to design and build a solar-powered house and came in second out of twenty teams. Mostly importantly, they learned a ton and felt confident that they knew how to design a building. At that point, they were as ready as they could ever be. They knew there was a competitive advantage to being young and inexperienced, so they leveraged what they had: the internet. Though they didn’t have a portfolio, they focused on simple SEO centered around green and sustainable design. They found a strong community that could be focused around sustainable design, but didn’t have a lot of architects doing that. They built their website and worked to convert 1 out of 1000 website visitors. They were very honest with potential clients, letting them know that they didn’t have a lot of experience but that they could promised to work hard and use state-of-the-art tools like Revit. Do you think your early focus on the internet was the big break? Ben wouldn’t consider himself a hugely technological person, but he made a decision not to wait and to jump in feet first. The internet wasn’t some trick, he just knew that it was something he could use to his advantage over those who were older than him and may not have the technological edge. How did you get past the hurdle of not having a license?  When they teamed up for their first big projects, a lot of the contractors had a licensed architect in house. They collaborated with licensed architects as consultants and gave them credit for their parts in the design. Each licensed architect brought their own unique skills to each project, offering yet another advantage. Are there any areas now that young architects can take advantage of now? If you can produce content that’s visually compelling and that people can understand how it fits into context, you can find lots of social media followers. If you can make it...

The Architect Specialist This week on the podcast we have an architect pursuing his dreams, following his passions, serving a market outside the traditional design studio business model and building a successful company. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, The Architect Specialist with Alan Stein of Tanglewood Conservatories. Alan’s Origin Story As a kid, Alan always loved building things in his dad’s workshop out of anything he could think of. He loved to draw after being enrolled in some anatomical drawing classes; the idea of bringing life to something on a page was fascinating to him. Much later in life, he did a lot of wood working, home construction and cabinet making. He recognized that his skill as a craftsman was lacking the design side. He went through the architecture program at the University of Maryland and graduated with a degree as an architect. Because he loved making things himself, he didn’t love the traditional architecture path. After working with a design-build firm, he launched into his own design-build practice for some time. One day, a client showed him a picture of an English style conservatory and asked if he could build it. Alan said, “Sure!” Once they had the job, they hopped on a flight to England to do some research and then completed the project successfully. Following that, they had the same request from a different client. They quickly recognized a market niche and rebranded to go full fledged toward conservatories. In the beginning, they began by buying parts and pieces from manufacturers, and now they’ve integrated the company to a place where they do the design, engineering, installation, and more for projects all over the world. How does your process work? Most of the time, an architect or client approaches Tanglewood Conservatories with an idea. Their design department takes the concept and applies their specialized knowledge. Either the designer has conceived something that’s complicated and unbuildable, creating the difficult task of keeping the concept and making it doable, or architects don’t realize the full capacity of options they have, giving Tanglewood the collaborative process of showing them the different routes they can go from a simple design. Usually they go from conceptional design to design development as a precursor to construction and manufacturing documents. Once everyone’s in agreement with the design concept and costs, then they can move forward. Who’s your typical client? Most of the time architects are clients. The owner calls an architect to build a new house or do a renovation, but Alan’s team is brought in to do the conservatory aspect. What inspired you to start a company specifically focused on a target market? The more Alan got to know the rooms and the more research he did on conservatories, the more he fell in love with the concepts. They were the coolest spaces around with tons of glass in the roof and the expressive structure; he loved the fact that one can grow an orange tree in the middle of winter. There’s a wonderful history that he got to know and he fell in love with it. His specific focus and love for the concept allowed him to become an expert in the field.  What were some of the biggest barriers you encountered? Conservatories were not well-known on this side of the pond, so it was a young market at the time. As they found a measure of success, the competition from the UK became very fierce; at one point they were competing against a handful...

Developing Specifications for Small Projects How do you put together specifications for your projects as a small firm architect? Do you put them on drawings? Do you use a separate project manual? Should you use outline specifications? What are the different options for small firm architects putting together construction documents for a small project? Is there anything out there to make this process easier? This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Bill Jannott from ARCAT.com discusses Developing Specifications for Small Projects and the Future of Technology! Bill’s Origin Story When Bill was growing up, his dad was running Sweets catalogs publishing building and construction materials. Following that, he created the Architect’s Catalog in 1991 with just a few sales reps. One thing led to another, and Bill ended up taking a position with ARCAT.com, then a small website with only 13 pages. Aside from the home page, there were 12 pages of specifications that architects could access and use in their projects. Through a series of developments taking short, concise specs and adding a user interface around them, they created a program where someone could spec out an entire project in about 4 minutes. Why is ARCAT a free resource and how do you make money? They make money because every manufacturer pays to have their content on the website. Historically, architects don’t want to spend money on stuff like this and, if they are being charged, they’re not likely to keep up with the latest version. What’s the difference between outline specifications and short form? Short form is a smaller, 3-part spec. The outline is mostly where you define the product and its attributes and characteristics. What’s included in a typical outline specification that could become the document for a project? For example, in a residential project you may need several different kinds of paint: exterior, interior, and maybe a stain for the deck. The outline spec will have three parts, one for each product. You may or may not want to assign manufacturers, but the option is there. What’s the advantage to having specifications? If you don’t, the quality of your project will not be as high as you want because you won’t get the products and manufacturers that you want to use. If something goes wrong, a lot of finger pointing tends to happen. If you know your manufacturer and the quality of their project, you’re not going to get a call from the homeowner down the road that something isn’t holding up. If you have high quality materials specified in your plans and someone decides to go with a different material, you have a legally binding document to protect you. What’s in the future for architecture and specifications? Spec writers seem to be a dying breed, which is a shame as it’s such an important part of the process. ARCAT is updating their version of outline specs, and part of the new system is something along the lines of Trello where users have the ability to create new tasks, invite team members to be a part of projects, kick around ideas, add photos, and more. How do you see virtual reality changing the way architects design? Bill feels that virtual reality will completely change how architects work through the initial concepts of design. Right now, we start with pencil, pen and paper. The only negative of that, is the...

How to Succeed as a Married Couple in Architecture “Being a married couple in architecture may be the most difficult,  the most satisfying and the most successful approach at being small firm architects. It’s not always easy and it’s not always pretty, but I wouldn’t trade my life as an architect with my wife and partner Annmarie for anything. How we’ve established our roles and responsibilities for both our firm and our family is how we’ve become successful.” This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Mark R. LePage speaks with Claire and Cavin Costello from The Ranch Mine to share their story about How to Succeed as a Married Couple in Architecture. Cavin’s Origin Story Cavin is originally from Connecticut and attended Northeastern University for his undergraduate and graduate degree while working over two years in firms in Connecticut and Boston. After graduating, he felt a change was necessary and he packed up and moved to Phoenix, Arizona. A friend introduced him to Claire the first day he arrived, and the rest is history. Listen to episode 138 to hear Cavin’s full origin story and How To Design and Sell Modern Architecture. Claire’s Origin Story Claire was born and raised in Phoenix, and grew up studying furniture catalogues. Her grandfather built his own home and farm in Indiana; the pride he had and the stories he told about the building process painted a dialogue about creating a home. Similarly, her uncle in Tucson built a rammed earth house and, during a visit, she learned a lot about that process. Both people played a big part in fostering an interest in Claire about creating a home. Her degrees are in English and communication, but her personal relationships followed the design world. A mutual friend introduced her to Cavin, who was obviously very rooted in architecture, and the conversations they had about the built environment and what someone could do with design drew her in. They took a leap to purchase and renovate a foreclosure, and having survived that challenge early on makes other challenges that come their way surmountable. Would you recommend a foreclosure renovation to other married couples? The sequence of building their own designs was such a hands-on experience that Claire found a lot of value in the experience, though it did put them through the wringer. Cavin remembers the process being taxing from both a financial and emotional standpoint, and mixing both of those strains is not for the faint of heart. Jumping into the most difficult thing accelerated their growth and made everything down the road possible. For the Costellos, it was easier to take the risk at the beginning. By diving straight in, do you feel you were able to get some systems in place? It was eye-opening to see the architectural components of moving walls and doing additions, and then you have the interiors of cabinets, tiles, and other finished items. Some things don’t have to be decided at the design part, which they learned along the way. Now, there’s two sets of documents the clients receive including the architectural construction documents and the interior specifications book, which is easily changed if needed. It’s more manageable for clients to have all of the information in front of them with a timeline of the decisions and priorities. How is The Ranch Mine business structured? The Ranch Mine includes Cavin as the Registered...

How to Pursue Your Passion as a Small Firm Architect Most architects are born dreamers, but we tend to be afraid to pursue those dreams. Often our dreams are stuck in our head and it’s hard to find a way to reach them. Success in achieving our greatest goals can only occur if we… start. Make a plan and take the first step to move toward your dreams! This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Victor Caban-Diaz talks big ideas and Pursuing Your Passion as a Small Firm Architect.   Astronaut or Comic Book Artist? Victor didn’t make the decision to study architecture until he was ready to make a decision about where he wanted to go to college. Growing up, various professions like being an astronaut or a comic book artist were more appealing to him. In high school, he was great at math and art and wanted to pursue both skills, eventually landing on architecture and attending the University of Miami in Florida. He received his bachelor’s degree there and began his degree. In the beginning, he didn’t feel like he was doing anything of value. He ended up jumping around from firm to firm every two to three years because of the recession. He struggled with feeling like he was advancing and growing in his own value. Most recently Victor had been working for Fort Lauderdale and decided to go out on his own. Victor had the idea for Building Ingenuity for the last five years in his mind from the buzz surrounding the architect-as-developer concept. He had some previous experience with the direct marketing world, and it left an impact on him. The thought that someone could control a project and reap the rewards from it with residual income was amazing to him. He wanted to replicate the concept within the architecture world. The thought behind Building Ingenuity is to help other architects by offering traditional architecture, including residential, mixed-use and commercial, BIM consulting for architects, and development services.  Investing in Other Architects After reading the Richest Man in Babylon, Victor’s main take-away was to invest in other people’s talents. In his opinion, the best people to invest in architects are other architects. Through the architect-as-developer concept, he wants to perfect that business model and teach others how to do it and invest in their business. Victor wants to use the profits he makes on his business and reinvest them, with the goal to create growth and residual income for the whole network involved.  As Victor points out, architects are constantly being taught how to grow and improve, but they aren’t reaping any of the rewards. We are not taught how to pursue your passion as a small firm architect. If you have a mentor who’s invested in your success who’s showing you the way, you have a greater chance of achieving your dreams. What’s Next for Victor? Victor’s plan is to continue building funds and recruiting architects to join the franchise. Currently, he’s done some work to acquire a property in a neighborhood that’s great for what his target audience is looking for, and he now has one property that he is working to develop and build. Down the road, Victor hopes to have a large coworking-type office, filled with a wide variety of architects using their talents to enable greater investments in development for their clients. This industry is one that is ripe for disruption! What is the one thing that small firm architects can do today to build a better business tomorrow? “Get...

10 Steps for Creating Standard Operating Procedures for Architects Michael Gerber, the author of The E-Myth Revisited, said, “Organize around business functions, not people. Build systems within each business function. Let systems run the business and people run the systems. People come and go, but the systems remain constant.” This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Simple SOPs: 10 Steps for Creating Standard Operating Procedures for Architects. In business, standard operating procedures are the answer to your questions. How do you make more money? How can you find more work? How can you get your employees or contractors to do what you want them to? How do I get more done? The answer is SOPs; Standard Operating Procedures for Architects. They make you a stronger, more effective leader. They clarify your vision and communicate, support and help with decision-making for realizing that vision. SOPs build a better culture. They’re an intentional reinforcement of the behaviors that help us realize our vision and the kind of workplace that we want our firms to be. SOPs allow us to build better businesses, so we can be better architects. Once they’re developed, they allow us to focus on what matters most to us and spend more time on the things that we love to do. Creating SOPs might be the most important task we have as entrepreneurs.  Unfortunately, most of us don’t have standard operating procedures. Why? Because we feel that the systems will hinder our creativity? That if we great a standard process we’ll start to create standard projects? Of course not! They’ll allow us to have more time to spend on developing our creativity and give us more opportunities to be better architects. Or maybe we don’t create processes because we were never taught. We’re not business people, we’re architects. What are the 5 components of every SOP? A process, the manual methods used for accomplishing a task. Effective processes are clear, replicable, documented, supported by tools, and easily accessible. Systems, or automated methods for accomplishing tasks. Roles are the expectations for how someone doing the work should use his/her skills to achieve the goals. Skills are complete sets of knowledge that are used to execute the processes. Structure is how the different roles interact.  “For the first 25 years of my life, I wanted freedom. For the next 25 years I wanted order. For the next 25 years I realized the order is freedom.” – Winston Churchill 10 Steps to Creating Standard Operating Procedures for Architects 1. Company Identity // Your firm’s name, logo, letterhead. Maybe you want to document your firm’s mission and vision to remind your firm of the purpose of your work. 2. Introduction // Have clear communication about the background for the SOP. What is the purpose and scope? Why are you creating it? If your SOPs are digital, you can have keywords that are searchable for future reference. 3. Role // Which role is responsible for this SOP? 4. Responsibilities // What is included in performing this SOP? 5. Skills // What is required to accomplish this task? You want to align the skills with the responsibilities and roles, so pick someone who possesses the strengths needed for this role. 6....

 How to Grow Your Architecture Firm This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, How to Grow Your Architecture Firm with Todd Reding, President and CEO of Charrette Venture Group and Rena Klein, founder of RM Klein Consulting. What is Charrette Venture Group? Charrette Venture Group (CVG) is a firm that provides a wholistic approach to building a business; they provide services from management, leadership, finance, marketing, business development, and more to architecture firms who are seeking to build a strong business in the design space. What’s new for Charrette Venture Group? CVG is thrilled to announce a merge with RM Klein Consulting. The parallels with of Rena’s mission and CVG and with EntreArchitect led her to want to share what she knows with those around her, building a consulting practice to help architecture firms succeed. She was excited to meet the founder of CVG, Matt Ostanik, and join in an innovative approach to helping small firms succeed. She found that one of the barriers to success is having the money to invest and the help you need, so CVG’s model of investing as a team to help small firm architects appealed to her. Because her expertise is in operations and finance, it’s great to be a part of a team of experts with skills in different areas. As a consultant with CVG, Rena has enjoyed having a more “long term relationship” with clients to help them grow. After some time, it made sense to both Todd and Rena to merge their similar missions and specialized skills into one company. Rena brings some larger clients to the table, helping them to accomplish goals after initial growth like sustainability and value growth. One of the most exciting things about this merger is the creation of the CVG brand message. As kind of a startup going through a merger, they’re working to model the opportunities and decisions that investment partners are having to make these days. When CVG invests in a new partner firm, what happens? It’s different with each firm, but before even beginning CVG works with each firm to map out a five year plan. What do they need? When do they need it? One firm may need a lot of bookkeeping help right off the bat. Another may need a rebrand with a new website that fits them better. Then, the firm owners participate in a biweekly assessment to keep up with the progress that’s being made. Those are the kinds of services that are constructed and members of the team get involved at different parts of the process. Can you tell us about the ideal CVG partner? Typically it’s a firm under 10 employees with $500K in annual revenue, but they’re always interested in talking to firms larger than that. There’s a thorough assessment process, but it always comes down to the answer to, “What do you want out of this business?” Do you want to build a sustainable business that will allow you to do the work you enjoy and provide for you and your family?  CVG is looking for firm leaders who have aspirations for growth. While there’s nothing wrong with having a small firm and wanting it to stay that way, if you have a desire to grow you need to be willing to professionalize and give up control in certain areas to broaden what you imagine is possible for your business. If someone’s interested in taking the next step with CVG, how can they do so? There’s a space on the website to schedule a free consultation for...

Beautifully Simple Websites for Architects How can you find more work? How can you convert more proposals into projects? Tell your unique story to your target audience. That’s brand building, the essence of marketing. The best and maybe most important tool we have to accomplish this strategy is our website. When our potential clients start the process of seeking an architect, the first step is to search online for someone in their local region. Are you on the first page of Google? If not, you’re invisible. You need a website that can find its way to the first results of a search engine. When your prospects find your website, it has to be beautiful and clear, and it must tell your unique story as the first impression of your brand. We know you have so much to do and so little time. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Beautifully Simple Websites for Architects with Robert Yuen of Monograph.io. What is Monograph.io? Monograph is a website builder with a concierges’ service. As three previous architects diving into technology, we’re trying to build specific tools for architects. Three months after being launched, we have 150 architects on board already. What inspired you and your partners to leave architecture and start a company providing services for architects? Robert and his two partners were usually in charge of building websites for the architecture firms they were at for the first five to ten years of their careers. When they got to know each other, they felt they had a larger value to give back as digital designers verses traditional architects. After doing that on a freelance basis for a while, they came together to form an agency to provide digital tools for project management, team management, and processes for the back end of websites. Monograph is the evolution of that work. Since often architects can’t afford the fees of an agency model but the need is there to have a great way to represent their work, they could leverage the same technology and put it into Monograph. What does Monograph offer that models like WordPress, Wix, and SquareSpace don’t? Monograph starts with a product and then incorporates a concierges’ service. That means that any client gets round-the-clock service from the team regarding resolutions, responsiveness, optimizations, SEO, digital representation, what is possible and what isn’t, etc. Monograph also allows a feature to categorize for architects, to show the different types of work. If you’re doing residential and small commercial work, you can categorize your projects into whatever section is relevant. What is website responsiveness? A responsive website adapts to whatever device you’re using. If you change the size of your browser window and things don’t optimize, that means it’s static and doesn’t present as well as it could for a small business. How does Monograph work to get your website optimized so Google can find you? Fundamentally, Monograph is designed with a lot of things done automatically for every user. All the visuals and images are also pushed to the top as new clients may be looking for architectural inspiration. As a part of the concierges’ service, Monograph helps clients understand Google analytics and webmaster services, which essentially assess the website’s performance. Once the website is finished, how do you maintain and update it with Monograph? There’s no maintaining on the technical end, because...

Copyright Protection for Architects A question often raised is, “How do we protect our designs?” How can we deter a client from overextending their license to our ideas and using our designs beyond their initially intended or contractually bound uses? As creatives, how do we protect our creativity? This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Copyright Protection for Architects with Abe Cohn of Howard M. Cohn & Associates. Abe’s Origin Story Abe has always been interested in entrepreneurship, and finds it fascinating to deal with so many people in so many different areas who have such different and novel ideas. He started a tech company a few years ago and after dealing with a ton of intellectual property law there, it made sense for him to move over to the legal sides of things. What’s the difference between copyright, trademarks and patents? Intellectual property is a broad category that includes the intangibles involved in a new creation. Depending on what that is, you can turn to a specific piece of that property. If you were to walk into a shoe store and saw a swoosh; you would immediately recognize that product as a part of the Nike corporation. In that case, the swoosh is a trademark: a mark that serves as an identifier for a good. There’s also a servicemark, which is attached to a service being provided. Legally, the process is exactly the same. Next, you walk into a car shop and saw a gorgeous engine inside a Lamborghini. That engine is a creation that someone has invested a lot of time, money and talents into making. How do we protect that person’s rights? Patents protect novel processes, things that people are building and the ideas behind them. In any Harry Potter book, JK Rowling turned to copyrights to protect her creative manifestations. Copyrights protects her literary work and ensures that others can’t steal, use or copy her brilliant ideas. How are architects protected by copyright law? Architects have claims to different copyrights, like the drawings and designs of the building. About 25 years ago, Congress passed the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act to expand the scope of what it is that architects can actually copy, which states, “An original design of a building created in any tangible medium of expression, including a constructed building or architectural plans, models, or drawings…Protection extends to the overall form as well as the arrangement and composition of spaces and elements in the design but does not include individual standard features.” Now not only are the plans and drawings covered, but the building itself can be copyrighted. You can’t get a copyright on the door itself, but as it relates to some other features because your creative work is novel in that each composite features interacts with the adjacent features. What if you’re designing something that isn’t novel, like a standard Colonial house? Works that are copyrightable have to be in concrete form and have to be substantially unique enough. Part of the design could be copyrightable, while others are not because they aren’t unique. Why do you need a copyright? The moment you put your unique enterprise down, there’s a preliminary set of rights. You can’t stop someone from using it until you register with the copyright office. The legal distinction of registering your copyright is having it on paper is a notice...

Public Interest Design Firms At EntreArchitect, we’re learning that we need to build a better business so we can be better architects. We want to make the work a better place. That’s why we became architects in the first place. We want to provide a positive social impact. What if by building better businesses we built a better world? What if a part of what we do benefits the public in an impactful way? Stay tuned as we share a new online resource to learn more on this idea. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Public Interest Design Firms with Mia Scharphie and Gilad Meron of Proactive Practices. Mia’s Origin Story Mia has a masters in landscape architecture but feels that she’s secretly a social worker with designer skills. She’s always been interested in people who get left out and how to bring them back in for most of her life. She worked at a nonprofit in San Fransisco, Public Architecture, that takes on design challenges that the private market doesn’t have an incentive to be involved in. Today she runs Creative Agency, a research and design consulting practice that works with affordable housing and arts organizations focusing on projects that use creative tools to make change and Build Yourself Workshop, an empowerment workshop for women in creative fields teaching women how to negotiate, be an advocate, and be proactive. Gilad’s Origin Story Gilad has a background in design from a program called Design and Environmental Analysis, an interesting mix of social science research and architecture and design. He got involved in participatory planning and design as a method to shake the environments we live in. That led to public design or community design, as some like to call it. Currently he’s on the board at The Association for Community Design doing research writing with nonprofits and foundations who do different types of community development work. Living in New Orleans, he started a small coworking space and design collective, The Blue House, where others can come and have dialogue about civil issues. What is Proactive Practices? Proactive Practices is a web publication that collects case studies on socially impactful design firms. They’re mostly looking at the different ways that designers design for social impact and find ways to do that within their business models. They aren’t just telling the stories and the beauty of the project, but to look at the organizations that make these projects possible. They want to know how you can build a business where you can create social impact over and over again. What inspired you to do this? Mia, Gilad and Nick, their third teammate, had all previously worked or interned at Public Architecture in San Fransisco. At the time, with a limited amount of experience, they had to figure out what pieces were relevant for them to begin the work. Through that organization, they were connected with many people in the growing field of public interest design. There were a public interest projects in that area, but no examinations of the...

How to Build a Profitable Architecture Firm Profit… Then Art. In order to be a better architect, we must first be better business people. We need to build better businesses. This week’s guest is the author of Profit First, a book outlining the simple process of transforming any business from a cash-eating monster to a money-making machine. Accounting can be overwhelming and complicated, not to mention difficult to understand. This week, you’ll learn a step-by-step process to guarantee that you’ll be profitable. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, How to Build a Profitable Architecture Firm with author Mike Michalowicz. Mike’s Origin Story Mike was a Jersey boy all his life who worked at a computer store right out of college. He had a drive to start his own business and quickly realized that managing a business wasn’t as easy as he thought. It took him a few years of trial-by-fire to fall in love with entrepreneurship. He learned that as the solo-guy, you only eat what you kill; the fear kept him going. He sold his first business to a small private equity firm and then started a computer crime investigation company in the right place at the right time. Although a lot of people face struggles, few people talk about them. After selling his second company, Mike felt he was an expert entrepreneur, he thought he knew all there was to know about running a business. He went on a spending spree and became an angel investor… where he killed every business he invested in. After struggling to pay off his debts slowly, a fire was reignited in him to discover entrepreneurship the right way; he wanted to live a satisfying, sustainable life. He began writing books, at first to process and solve the problems he was personally facing. After hitting rock bottom and losing all his money, he went through a two-year bout of functional depression. Someone suggested journaling to vent, and it inspired him to not only write his problems, but log his solutions. Can you share your thoughts on small firm accounting? It boils down to our behavioral wiring. Many business owners follow certain practices, and GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) teaches us to use a system that counters our natural behaviors. For example, logically we should pass on desert, but behaviorally we eat it anyway. GAAP says that sales minus expenses equals profit. The problem is that when we put the profit last, it’s our behavior to disregard it. In order to prioritize profit, we have to put it first. Every time a deposit comes in, take a predetermined percentage for profit and put it somewhere safe. Then, run your business off of what’s remaining. Pay yourself first. Businesses that do this are all more profitable than they were in the past because the fundamental law says that what we have is what we use. If you have a small amount of food, you’ll eat that. What if someone says, “I already don’t make enough, how can I set anything aside?” If you’re making due with what you have now, you’re still scraping by. By taking the money off the table first, you’ll continue to scrape by but the difference is this time you’ve put money away for profit. Think of 401K: you get a gross payment for your job, but a percentage is taken for your 401K. You never think about the percentage that was taken away because you never see it, your life is already adjusted to live off of the remainder. When you take your profit first and don’t have the money to pay your bills, that’s a

Design-Build is the Future of Architecture Architecture, construction, interiors and furniture. This week’s guest is a successful architect from Austin, Texas serving the high-end residential market. He started his firm with a single speculative project and grew it into a $20 million integrated design-build firm. How does a design-build firm like this work? How do they structure their fees and communicate with one another? How do they ensure that every project is built to the exact standards promised by their powerful brand? This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Design-Build is the Future of Architecture with architect Luis Jauregui. Luis is originally from Mexico, and his family moved often when he was a child giving him great exposure to different architecture styles throughout the country. His father was a civil engineer, so the construction concept was already built into him. In high school, he discovered how exciting building was to him. He enrolled in the school of architecture in Mexico City, and within two months of starting school the teachers went on a strike that lasted for months. He then came to the US and attended Texas A&M with a degree in Environmental Design and a Masters in Architecture. He felt fortunate to have a professor who saw some of his work and helped him find a job with an architect. By the time he graduated with his Masters degree, he had six years of experience working with four different architecture firms. One of his mentors began developing his own projects as an entrepreneur and influenced Luis greatly. In Mexico, architects typically run their own construction companies and the consumer comes directly to them for a building. Within two years of graduation, Luis was ready to start his own design-only firm. Soon after, he pulled together some money for a lot and began developing properties in Austin and San Antonio. In 1986, the market crashed and and he felt really fortunate to still find some great commissions despite the downturn. Currently, Luis’s firm practices in Houston and Austin, and serves design-build clients throughout the Dallas area as well. Why did you decide to pursue client-service projects, rather than continue with spec buildings? Design came from a lesson learned: the speculative market has a lot of ups and downs. The custom business emphasized great design, and built them into a great, well-known brand which allows them to spread to other cities. They started the interior design branch of the company, which hurt the brand a bit with a lack of control of the interiors. When a client asked if they could offer furniture recommendations, the interior design team kicked Luis under the table so they jumped into furniture design despite the fear to try something new. Where did your initial fear with selection furniture come from? The fear came from it being an unknown thing and the fact that there were others in the market who were doing a great job. The entrepreneurial spirit pushed Luis forward to being a leader in the industry. How does your fee structure work? The speculative work is one price for everything. Because they’re selling a product, everything is included in the sale price. Client services are the custom part of the business so it works very traditionally. Instead of “architectural services”, Luis wants his clients to understand that they’re engaging a design-build enterprise; the final project is not going to be a design only. In the contract, they specify that they have ownership of the drawings until they go to construction. From that point on, they move to the “pre-construction” and then the construction contract from...

An Architect on the Inside at HGTV HGTV To many of us residential architects, that's a four letter word. Promoting unrealistic expectations for most projects regarding time, quality and budget, HGTV has made our tough job as architects even more difficult. This week's guest is a successful residential architect serving the southeastern region of Michigan. One day, about a year before we recorded this episode, she received a mysterious telephone call, which lead to her being the lead architect for the most recent HGTV Urban Oasis giveaway home. She shares the story of her experience of being on the inside at a HGTV project, how she landed the job and her quest to be a faithful representative of us small firm architects. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, An Architect on the Inside at HGTV with the founder of Studio Z Architecture, Dawn Zuber. An “Architect” Since She Was 11 Years Old: ) When Dawn was five, her grandparents moved to Florida from Ohio and they moved back when she was 11. They bought a house that worked for where they were, but they didn’t love it. Dawn, her mom and her grandma would visit open houses every weekend and she would collect the fliers in a folder. She began to redesign them and think about how to fit things into the spaces she saw. In high school, Dawn found herself lucky to have an art teacher who was from a generation that told her she could be a nurse or a teacher, but had a passion for architecture. During her junior year, they spent time looking at slides of homes to learn how to identify the different styles of architecture. When a pipe burst in the gymnasium floor, her drafting teacher invited her to use his drafting table and machine to draw up the painting of the gym floor so that the art students could transpose it onto the floor.  After spending a semester in London and graduating from University of Cincinnati, she met her future husband. In a five-month period, she got married, took the architecture license exam, and moved to southeastern Michigan. There she worked for a small firm that did mostly custom residential, and then moved to another company who did office and school buildings. How did you find your way to leadership with CRAN? Dawn was with CRAN (Custom Residential Architects Network) when they first started in Los Angeles almost 15 years ago at a pre-convention workshop about residential architecture. CRAN is a Knowledge Community that started as a grassroots movement allowing members to organize around specific interest areas, and eventually brought the idea to AIA. She’s been involved in the advisory group since 2009. How is the CRAN symposium organized? Typically the event is 3 days that starts with a home tour and includes cocktail receptions almost every evening and sponsor-hosted networking dinners. There are educational sessions and sponsor showcases for residential architects, and the event is also streamed online via Houzz and available on AIAU for people to watch later for credit. Everyone that attends is on the same track and enjoys the same experience, so it’s a great opportunity to connect with a network of support for residential architects. Tell us about your experience with HGVT. Dawn received a voicemail from a contractor who wanted her help designing a house in Ann Arbor. With her busy schedule, she pushed it aside and planned to call him later. Days later, a friend encouraged her to call him back saying,...

Public Relations Strategies for Architects You’re out there hustling, shaking hands and responding to all your RFPs, you’ve got your business development down. At the other end, you have a strong brand, your website is working and your marketing material is telling your story. Somewhere in between the two, lies a critical step to your success as a small firm architect: public relations. If you get it right, your phone will ring off the hook with your next best clients. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, “Design Evangelist” Julie Taylor joins Mark to share 3 Proven Public Relations Strategies for Small Firm Architects. With a background in art history and fine arts, Julie was always drawn to creative expression. As a secretary receptionist just out of college, Julie worked at an architecture firm in Chicago, learning various aspects of the industry. Following that, she worked for a magazine for interior designers and continued to pursue her own writing. When she decided to go into PR running the marketing in a large design center, she worked with architects and designers and began loving the industry. She began her own firm, Taylor & Company, shortly afterward and immersed herself in the architecture world. The art of taking something and creating a building that stands on its own and functions correctly was something she was unfamiliar with, so Julie loves being on the side of being an advocate for those who are able to create art in the business context of architecture. What is PR and how is it different from marketing? Marketing is more of the overall category. Public relations is your communications to the outside; it could be anything from how the phone is answered to publishing thoughts in magazines or online. Anything that you would put out to the public for clients to see. There are aspects like media relations, print or online, awards, where you present your work to be judged, speaking engagements to make connections in your certain area of expertise. What are 3 simple PR strategies for architects? Be consistent with your strategy and create a plan to allocate your time, effort and budget. Invest in professional photography and have enough photos at various angles. Partner with your clients. If you know your client is working on a press release, communicate to get your name in there. Finding out how to photograph and publish a project requires a human conversation to figure out how best to do these things. (Hint: It should be a part of your contract upfront!) Post a sign on your job site! It’s a simple, inexpensive way to get your name out there… and not enough of us do it. Develop your story and know how to talk about it. Often architects allow the writing and speech to be laden with archispeak. Speak to your clients at their level of understanding. Publishing: regional vs national? Regional publishing will talk to your local market more directly and can sometimes be a little easier to access. Since the editors and writers are in your area, you can work to make a connection and form a relationship with them. The competition for projects is very difficult with national publications, and often a project being good isn’t enough; it has to have a story behind it. Find publications with active online portals to gain a wider audience. Leverage any media you get. Let your potential and existing clients know what’s going on with you! What about design awards programs? Find out what competitions will give you the most exposure and plan out your budget...

How To Be Happy as an Architect Architecture is a tough profession. We work long hours for years with passion and dedication to become architects. We struggle to launch our firms without basic business fundamentals. We search for the best clients and then work to serve them to the best of our ability. Being entrepreneur architects gives us so many freedoms that we wouldn&#8217;t have if we were employed by another firm. It&#8217;s tough, but we wouldn&#8217;t have it any other way. Still, sometimes we question whether or not we made the right decision. Would we be happier working for someone else? True happiness is the result not of your profession, but of the choices you make and the person you choose to be. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Mark R. LePage shares his 3 Steps to Happiness as a Small Firm Architect. Love Love has a lot of meanings to a lot of different people. Love is about respecting and caring for one another. How can you be there for others and support them? Not just your spouse, kids or friends, but your fellow human beings that you encounter in the world. How many ways could you find in the day to be more patient, to be kinder? When you choose to be impatient or unkind to someone, it doesn&#8217;t only change their behaviors, it changes who you are. How can you love people with opposing view points? Our individual experiences lead to different ways of viewing the world, and it&#8217;s possible for us to come together and love one another. How does it make others feel when you love them? When you respect and care for someone, they will be more likely to follow your lead. Learn You&#8217;re probably visiting this podcast to learn. When you focus on a new skill, your mind grows and you become a better person. Imagine if you chose to focus on mastering the business of architecture. Would your home life be better? Your life as an architect? Your designs? Set a goal to learn something new every day. Be intentional and make a habit of it. What can you set out to learn that might change your life? You can work to master a new skill that will make you a better person. Commit to exercise or meditation, maybe learn a new form of keeping yourself in shape. Share This is where the world gets to benefit from what you love and what you&#8217;ve learned. What&#8217;s the point of having all the knowledge if you&#8217;re not going to share it? If the goal is to be happy, keeping it to yourself is only halfway there. If you learn something new, teach someone about it. When you find something that works, share it with other architects so that everyone in the profession can be more successful. When you share, others are inspired to share too. The more you give away, the more you get in return, the more fulfilled and happier you will be. Love, learn and share what you know. Do you serve your local community? How has that service resulted in your success? Visit the EntreArchitect Facebook Group and share your thoughts. Visit our Platform Sponsors TruStile is a leader in high end, architectural interior doors. Visit them at TruStile.com to learn more! Tanglewood Conservatories combines the romanticism of the 19th century glass architecture with state-of-the-art technology today. Learn more at <a href="http://tanglewoodconservatories.com"...

How To Succeed as a Residential Architect with Dale Mulfinger, FAIA It&#8217;s a difficult choice to pick a target market and focus all your energy, resources and effort on one market. It&#8217;s a decision many small architects are afraid to make because we&#8217;re afraid of missing out on other opportunities and we don&#8217;t want to have all our eggs in one basket. When you pick a target market and become an expert on it, you&#8217;ll find that your next best client will find their way to you. Our guest this week has succeeded in making that decision and focusing on a target market early on in the development of his firm, and he&#8217;s thrived for over thirty years because of that. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Dale Mulfinger, FAIA of SALA Architects joins me and he shares his knowledge about How to Succeed as a Residential Architect. A Minnesota Farm Kid Dale grew up as a farm kid in rural Minnesota. After discovering his lack of desire to pursue farming, he excelled in a drafting program in high school. He succeeded in getting into the university and chose to study architecture. Through the help of amazing friends, many of whom are still friends now, he was able to complete his degree and graduate six years later. Early in Dale&#8217;s career he was focused on urban design, working on campus planning, large city developments, and more, but came to the realization that it takes a long time to be implemented. He began working for various architects, and found that as the projects got smaller, he enjoyed them more. Out of that came an understanding that he might really enjoy residential architecture. A Pattern Language In 1983, he received an opportunity to design a house according to the ideas of Christopher Alexander&#8217;s book, A Pattern Language, and invited one of his graduate students, Sarah Susanka, to help him on the project. He wrote an article about that project and found a love of writing, which has stayed with him throughout his career. After being asked to design a cabin, with little knowledge he began his research and wrote articles about cabins for a local magazine. Seventy-two articles later, he began writing books on the process of building cabins. He noticed that nobody had really looked into cabins in depth, and worked to fill the void with architectural discussion around cabins. Cabins are rewarding to him because each cabin is uniquely different, because each person is so uniquely different. Many people build cabins as a legacy project, where they hope their children will seek to inherit for generations to come. How To Succeed as a Residential Architect SALA Architects began 30 years ago when Dale and Sarah realized that there wasn&#8217;t really anyone focused exclusively on residential architecture in their area. They hoped if they got the word out to the public about their interest in doing houses, that the public would be anxious for them to jump in. Because of that void, they grew rapidly. Yet, there are still unserved clients in their area who want to a create better home, whatever that may mean to them: more energy efficient, more beautiful, smaller or larger, etc. If you&#8217;re willing, as an architect, to help them do that, then they&#8217;re more than willing to pay for your service. When the decision came around to focus on residential architecture, their fear wasn&#8217;t how to grow the company, but how to serve their clients well.  Because there&#8217;s a wealth of other talented architects serving other markets, Dale doesn&#8217;t feel as though he&#8217;s missed out by choosing to focus on a targeted area. SALA continues to do other projects outside of the typical...

How to Build a Brand That Resonates with Your Most Valuable Clients Your brand is more than just your logo. Your brand is your story in the minds of those interacting with your firm. It&#8217;s about emotions and feelings. It&#8217;s the way people see, feel, touch and experience our firms. This week at EntreArchitect podcast, Declan Keefe of Placetailor joins us once again to discuss How to Build a Brand that Resonates with Your Most Valuable Clients. What is branding? Branding is the story that the people who hear about your firm would tell somebody. Branding can be associated with the story that you tell as a firm, but you want it distill it down to what the client is left with. That&#8217;s the essence of what the brand really is. You know your brand, your company and what you want your organization to be, but good branding is a matter of what the client believes and what they&#8217;re left with. Moving past the colors and fonts on your website, branding expands to how your client feels when they see one of your projects, when they finish having a meeting with you, when they get through looking at your website. That feeling is what they&#8217;re going to share with others around them. Our memory works best when we&#8217;re remembering how we felt about something. How does your story evolve depending on your target market? To your client, your story has to share that you&#8217;re not only competent and able to do the work, but also that you&#8217;d be great to work with for a multitude of reasons. You want to welcome people into a process that&#8217;s often scary to a homeowner. Why isn&#8217;t there a finished portfolio on your home page? People are coming to our website for a potential project, and while they may want to be inspired by our finished work, another project we&#8217;ve done was built specifically for that specific client. It may not necessarily be what the next client would want. What the client wants is a company that is going to work with them to create what they really want as the client. Placetailor chooses to create a unique, safe space to welcome people into. A place that is fun and friendly. You can be a company that has the goods and services, but isn&#8217;t enjoyable to work with.  How do people get in touch with you? Placetailor has a short web form with name, email address and a few boxes to check regarding why they&#8217;re there. This way, Declan can have a one-on-one interaction with them based on their needs. To maximize time, he uses a general canned response and customizes it to the specific person. The goal is to humanize and create a very welcoming experience. What&#8217;s the vision behind your &#8220;What We Do&#8221; page? The idea was to separate architecture, construction and real estate development from each other as full services on their own as well as combined all together. They wanted to explain, in the most simple way, what they were offering and why. What are you doing outside of your website to build the brand Placetailor? The brand is about walking the walk. Living up to the claims you make is important to growing your brand. Placetailor is trying to get across that they&#8217;re open, honest and friendly people to work with, so it&#8217;s important to carry that over in every area.  Placetailor connects to the community by hosting events where they invite people into half-finished projects with local artists or nonprofits to support the local community. When we get to overlap the things we care about as a company, we can

How To Use Your Story to Find the Work You Want We all know that storytelling is a critical part of your success in business. We need to know our story and how to tell it to our target market. That&#8217;s how we find the work we love and the clients we want. How do we craft our story, to whom do we tell it, and how does our story help us find more work on a consistent basis? This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Jeff Echols of Echo Engagement joins us to discuss How To Use Your Story to Find the Work You Want. Jeff&#8217;s journey in architecture began when he moved from Atlanta to Chicago as a kid, growing up close to many Frank Lloyd Wright homes and watching This Old House with his dad every Saturday morning on PBS. He attended Ball State&#8217;s College of Architecture and Planning and worked first in Chicago and eventually moved to Indianapolis working for firms ranging from 3-people firms to one of the largest firms in the country. After over twenty years in the traditional architecture world in some kind of marketing role or another, he ventured out on his own in a different capacity. After interacting with tons of architects, he realized that by-and-large, most architects know little to nothing about marketing. He first launched ArchitectoftheInternet.com, which was an exploration into why many architects aren&#8217;t great at marketing and how they can be. Eventually he was contacted by a previous classmate who was running for national office with AIA, and Jeff helped run the campaign with messaging, speechwriting and more. After a series of transitions, Jeff set out to work as a marketing consultant by creating Echo Engagement where he helps others craft and tell their stories. The Structure of Marketing Business development is at the front of the marketing process, and is all about building relationships. Sales is the end, the ask and the closing of the deal. The stuff in between is the marketing: the brand and promotion of the brand on different storytelling channels with varying objectives. Jeff works on both marketing and branding, but believes the most important aspect is that you have a compelling story to tell. The key to repeat clients and referrals is to tell a story so powerfully that resonates with your ideal client that they feel compelled to share it with someone else. At Echo Engagement, they help architects, startups, and nonprofits craft their stories and get the word out. The Storytelling Process The storytelling process starts with producing a document that tells the story arc of the organization, beginning with the question, &#8220;Why do you do what you do?&#8221;. Then, they work to determine the ideal client and their &#8220;why&#8221;. Things start to resonate when there&#8217;s a cross between a firm&#8217;s &#8220;why&#8221; with their ideal clients&#8217; &#8220;why&#8221;. When telling your story, always think in your client&#8217;s terms, use their language and speak to them where they are. Drop the industry-specific jargon so they&#8217;re able to understand the terms you used in architecture school to help them understand on their level. How to Use Storytelling to Find and Keep Clients To get more work consistently in any market, it&#8217;s important to understand and resonate with your specific audience. When you know your audience and what they want, you can craft a story that relates to their questions and the goal they have. They might have struggles along the way to achieving that goal, but you can help them along the way when they choose to work with you. Start writing...

Living an Integrated Life As small firm architects, work life balance plays a critical role in the success of our businesses as well as the success of our personal lives. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Mark R. LePage shares his thoughts on Living an Integrated Life as a Small Firm Architect. The integrated life allows us to live one continuous life with both our business and personal lives at the same time. Sometimes it&#8217;s crazy, and sometimes it&#8217;s wonderful. For those of us who work from home or who are trying to juggle full time personal lives and full time professional lives, it becomes a struggle: we&#8217;re either going to end up with a failing firm because we focused on our family, or we&#8217;re going to end up with a forgotten family because we focused on our firm. Imbalance in life shows itself as stress. When our attention and intentions are appropriately distributed, the stress is reduced. This doesn&#8217;t mean that the distribution needs to be equal. How do we balance our time, our efforts, our attention between our firm and our family? Success comes when we stop trying to balance them perfectly, but instead, accept that work and life are one integrated experience.  Mark&#8217;s family does this by having one integrated calendar for the entire family. The calendar is filled with client meetings, doctor appointments, school plays, and more, so that at any given time, he and Annmarie are able to keep the various facets of their lives organized. By scheduling things out, you can give yourself permission to allow personal time into work hours because you know that you&#8217;ve scheduled something work related for typical &#8220;off hours&#8221; on an evening or weekend. Living an integrated life isn&#8217;t easy. It&#8217;s not about sacrificing one thing over another. It&#8217;s about being intentional and living the life we choose to live. It&#8217;s about being efficient to do the things that matter, both in both our firm and our family. Question: How do you live an integrated life? Profit for Small Firm Architects To learn more, visit EntreArchitect for the free course! Visit our Platform Sponsor EntreArchitect GetFocused Course. They key to success is to change our mindset about time. This course will help you get things done, live a stress free life, and be more successful by finding the time to focus on what matters most. To learn more and to get focused today, visit GetFocusedCourse.com.  &nbsp; The post EA139: Living an Integrated Life [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Gabl CESBuild Your BrandArchITAll Access

 How to Design and Sell Modern Architecture as a Small Firm Architect When the world was in the midst of an economic crisis and there were no jobs, a young architect moved to a new town with one contact and a ton of ambition. Today&#8217;s guest built his own business flipping ordinary ranch houses into modern architectural works of art. Using their unique story, they built a brand and made a profit. This week on EntreArchitect podcast, Cavin Costello of The Ranch Mine shares How to Design and Sell Modern Architecture as a Small Firm Architect. Gavin was first introduced to architecture when his father, a civil engineer, designed and built the house that he grew up in just before Cavin was born. In high school, a teacher suggested he go into architecture because he excelled at math proofs. With no previous experience in art or drawing, he attended Northeastern University in Boston because he didn&#8217;t have to have an art portfolio and because it was a co-op school, meaning he was able to do schooling alongside experience in an architecture firm. He pushed through challenging areas of his education until he found his niche in digital representation. He got his first job with a husband and wife firm at the age of 19, and that experience brought him a new love of residential architecture. Later jobs in large firms with projects data centers and banks left him feeling a lack of connection with clients. After graduating and earning his masters, he decided to move to Phoenix with no job and only a connection with a past professor. There he met his partner, now also wife, Claire, through a mutual friend. Cavin and Claire started driving around Arizona to experience more of the culture. They visited a lot of ranches and mines, which sparked the idea to fix up a ranch house &#8211; going in and sifting out the clutter to find a gem &#8211; similar to the mining process: mining ranch houses. They bought a foreclosure as a personal home project and got to work. After a couple projects, they sent one of their homes into a publication and were contacted instead about a possible feature on one of their inexpensive bathroom remodel in their own home. Their bathroom project was on the front page of the Arizona Republic and the requests from developers and homeowners for bathrooms, living spaces, additions and more began to trickle in. Since they&#8217;re a young firm, they don&#8217;t have a huge referral network with a ton of discretionary funds to build. Instead, they get a lot of traffic to their website from online publications and Google searches. Using a website form, they&#8217;re able to get basic information about potential clients to both weed out unrealistic projects as well as focus on projects they&#8217;re really interested in.  In addition to the initial information, Cavin and Claire work to figure out why clients want to do the project so they can focus on the how and the what aspects of the project. If it&#8217;s a good fit for both parties, they set up a time to meet in person and take the next steps. Because their brand was so important to them, they passed on projects that were confined to a specific box. They wanted to incorporate client&#8217;s living style through the specific The Ranch Mine process. By choosing the right projects with the right clients early on, they set themselves up for success. What is the one thing that small firm architects can do today to build a better business tomorrow? &#8220;Very simply, write down a list of your personal and professional inspirations. What you enjoy, what you&#8217;re inspired by, write down that list. Next to it, write down any critiques you have with  your area, your town, the built

Every architect has a dream of having their work published in books and magazines. For some, it&apos;s a right of passage a testament to hard work and years of focus. For others, it&#8217;s a marketing strategy. Publication is a form of social proof indicating that our designs are worthy of our prospective clients&apos; attention. Do you want to get your work published? Well stick around&#8230; This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Mark R. LePage will share How to Get Published as an Architect. 10 Steps to Get Published as an Architect 1. Design Interesting Details &amp; Spaces // Many of us don&#8217;t have huge budgets to design at the level we want to throughout the whole building. While you&#8217;re designing, think about the spaces you may be able to design with no extra budget that will create a great photographs for publishers. 2. Photography Matters // Unless you have the skills of a professional, you&#8217;re going to have to hire someone. Even if you have great architecture or a great story, editors are looking for great photography. 3. Cultivate Relationships // Get to know editors, writers &amp; scouts. Reach out and start a relationship with them. By having that relationship, they may reach out simply because they know the kind of work you do. 4. Build a Platform // Every architect needs a platform to share their story. Start a blog, a podcast, a YouTube channel, so that when you build this community of people who want to hear what you have to say, you have a way to share it with them and others. You can use this group to leverage your brand. 5. Be Helpful // Be an expert to help fill in the gaps for writers by answering questions, giving quotes for an article, or referring them to someone else. 6. Tell a Good Story // A well-crafted email sharing your unique story provides an incentive for any writer looking for their next article. Tell an great story and they&#8217;ll be very interested in pursuing it. 7. Self Publish // Share your own stories on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, your website or blog, or in a book. Just put it out there and you&#8217;ll be noticed. 8. Enter Competitions // Even if you don&#8217;t win, you may catch a publisher&#8217;s eye and find greater exposure. 9. Be Picky // Be selective in who you allow to publish your work. Some collections require exclusivity, so be aware of where you&#8217;re publishing your work. 10. Your Website Matters // You need to have a great website so that, when an editor or publisher is interested in your work, they can check out your website for your story, portfolio, and more information. Have you had your projects published? What works for you? Let us know your thoughts below! Register for our FREE Special Session Webinar <img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-11284 size-medium alignright" src="https://entrearchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/lepage151221-fivecat-593ME-300x190.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="190" srcset="https://entrearchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/lepage151221-fivecat-593ME-300x190.jpg 300w, https://entrearchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/lepage151221-fivecat-593ME-600x380.jpg 600w, https://entrearchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/lepage151221-fivecat-593ME-1024x649.jpg 1024w, https://entrearchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/lepage151221-fivecat-593ME-504x319.jpg 504w,...

When did you discover architecture? At what age did you learn that architecture was something you could do as a profession? When did you decide to become an architect? What was it that inspired you? Why did YOU choose to become an architect? Those are questions Mark asks every guest at EntreArchitect Podcast. Were there places; Were there people in your life that guided you or inspired you to make a difference through buildings? This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, we dive deep into one entrepreneur architect&apos;s story. She shares her very early influences, her inspirations, her passions and her reconsideration of her entire life plan. This week, The Journey to Design the Thrivable Home with Architect Stacia Hood. Stacia knew in the second grade that she wanted to be an architect, inviting her friends over to draw and build playhouses complete with elevators and balance beam. When she moved to a small mountain town across the country, she created an amazing friendship with a young woman with disabilities who taught her how to laugh, and inspired her to design things accessible to all ages and abilities. She taught as a special education substitute teacher for several years, working to understand how people with unique abilities interact with the world and vise versa. She attended school at the University of Oregon and worked at a small commercial firm, where she felt disconnected from the people that the buildings were being created for. Grappling with the belief that it was too hard to make money in residential architecture, she found a firm who was succeeding in residential architecture, SALA Architects, and read everything she could find about them. SALA was educating the public about what architects do and how they can serve homeowners. Stacia attended a local event where SALA architect Sarah Susanka, author of The Not So Big House, spoke and, on Sarah&#8217;s recommendation, she eventually worked up the courage to call SALA and speak with Dale Mulfinger. Through a progression of conversations, she found herself interviewing there several months later and moving her whole life (golden retriever included) to Minnesota in 2001 to work in the newly opened Excelsior office. When projects came in with clients who had interests in accessibility, adaptability and universal design, many of them were handed to Stacia because of her interest there. She was able to meet with clients and recognize the needs they had, and found the connection in the emotional pieces of living spaces. Stacia began to realize that it wasn&#8217;t just about creating homes for specific people&#8217;s needs, but that we&#8217;re all connected: &#8220;It&#8217;s about creating homes that support and embrace all needs and all abilities because we don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going to happen to us and what&#8217;s going to happen to those we love. Maybe someone we love wants to come over for Thanksgiving dinner in a wheelchair, and it&#8217;s asking, &#8220;Can they get into our homes to visit and to be a part of the family?&#8221; Stacia&#8217;s mission is to create a bridge to connect people to what this approach to design looks like and why it matters to all of us, not just the clients asking for it: this is a Thrivable Home. Stacia left SALA and the architecture world after her son was born and stepped into the role of &#8220;mom&#8221; for seven years. Following that, she&#8217;s spent the last several years on a journey to figure out how to step back into architecture in a way that supports her as a mom and as a woman and allows her to practice in a new, different way than...

How To Pass the Architect Registration Exam When Real Life Gets in the Way How long did it take you to become a licensed architect? How many years went by before you focused on your studies and passed the Architect Registration Exam (ARE)? How do you do all the things that are going on in your life and find enough time to study and pass the ARE? This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Evan Troxel of Archispeak Podcast talks about How to Hack Your Life for ARE Success and Beyond. Evan grew up in the mountains as a very outdoor-loving person, always building houses and projects out of rocks and sticks. He jokes that his dad must have had the longest-standing permit for an addition to their house in Tahoe where they worked indoors in the winter and outdoors in the summer. He learned carpentry and construction skills from working with his dad, loved taking this apart and putting them back together, and developed technical drawing and writing skills throughout his education. He went on to win a Regional Opportunity Program (ROP) house design competition at the age of 16. He was accepted into Cal Poly Pomona, where he became aware that he would have to unlearn the things that he had learned all his life. In his third year, it finally clicked and he became more aware of why he was there: to be an architect. He currently works as a Senior Designer on higher education, K12 and civic projects. Evan loves involving his family and kids in helping to create things that allow them to go on adventures together. Right now, they&#8217;re working on designing a family camping trailer from the ground up. Follow their journey on SpaceShop.co. One day, Evan, Neal Pann, and Cormac Phalen connected on Twitter following an AIA Convention and the idea of starting a podcast got thrown into the mix. They came together with various talents and created Archispeak Podcast as &#8220;the talk you&#8217;d hear in the office around the water cooler&#8221;. Evan&#8217;s newest project is a book he&#8217;s been working on about his 15-year process of completing the Architect Registration Exam and earning his license to practice architecture. Learn more about ARE Hacks here. Why go through the Architect Registration Exam process when you don&#8217;t NEED to?  Becoming a Better Person // Studying caused Evan to get up earlier, cut out things that weren&#8217;t important to him or pushing him to grow, and create discipline in his life. Finding a Seat at the Table // Being a licensed architect allowed him to be &#8220;in the club&#8221; to make the profession better. Personal Pride // The title of &#8220;licensed architect&#8221; freed him and allowed him to acknowledge and take pride in the work he completed to get there. What are some life-hacks to accomplish the Architect Registration Exam? Ask yourself: Where can you study? When can you study? What are you studying? How will you have study materials with you when you need them? How can you show up every day to accomplish the task? It&#8217;s very easy to schedule a test and show up to take it, but the hard part is to prepare: diet, nutrition, how to deal with distractions, learning to study, choosing to study with others or...

Using Technology to Leverage a Powerful Idea for Predictable Revenue For the month of August at EntreArchitect Podcast, we&#8217;re focusing on Personal Development and we encourage you to dedicate some time to building a better you. This week, enjoy the Best of EntreArchitect Podcast as Mark R. LePage and Jared Perry, the founder of Paeven.com, discuss Using Technology to Leverage a Powerful Idea for Predictable Revenue. For full show notes and a list of references from the original podcast, visit EntreArchitect.com/EA125. Connect with Jared on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and online at Paeven.com. Enrollment for the EntreArchitect Academy opens in September! To learn more and sign up for our early-bird mailing list, visit EntreArchitect Academy today! Visit our Platform Sponsor FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) The post The Quest for Predictable Revenue (Best of EntreArchitect Podcast) appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:All AccessArchITBuild Your BrandGabl CES

Profit&#8230;Then Art: 12 Steps to Business Success in Architecture For the month of August at EntreArchitect Podcast, we focused on Personal Development and encouraged you to dedicate some time to building a better you. For our final installment, enjoy the Best of EntreArchitect Podcast as Mark R. LePage shares 12 Steps to Business Success in Architecture. For full show notes and a list of references from the original podcast, visit https://entrearchitect.com/podcast/ea092-profit-art-podcast/. FREE Special Session Webinar Want to learn about the 3 critical business systems you need to succeed as a small firm architect? Register for our FREE special session webinar on September 7th at 6 PM EST. Visit EntreArchitect.com/FreeWebinar. Visit our Platform Sponsor FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) Photo credit: Pixabay // TBIT &nbsp; The post Profit&#8230;Then Art (Best of EntreArchitect Podcast) appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Build Your BrandGabl CESAll AccessArchIT

Risks &amp; Rewards as an Architect Developer For the month of August at EntreArchitect Podcast, we&#8217;re focusing on Personal Development and we encourage you to dedicate some time to building a better you. This week, enjoy the Best of EntreArchitect Podcast as Mark R. LePage speaks with Jim Zack of San Fransisco-based Zack de Vito Architecture about the Risks and Rewards as an Architect Developer. For full show notes and a list of references from the original podcast, visit EntreArchitect.com/EA102. Connect with Jim online at ZackdeVito.com or find him on LinkedIn. Enrollment for the EntreArchitect Academy opens in September! To learn more and sign up for our early-bird mailing list, visit EntreArchitect Academy today! Visit our Platform Sponsor FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) The post Risks &#038; Rewards as an Architect Developer (Best of EntreArchitect Podcast) appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Gabl CESBuild Your BrandAll AccessArchIT

Passive Income for Architects For the month of August at EntreArchitect Podcast, we&#8217;re focusing on Personal Development and we encourage you to dedicate some time to building a better you. This week, enjoy the Best of EntreArchitect Podcast as Mark R. LePage speaks with Eric Reinholdt of 30X40 Design Workshop about Passive Income for Architects. For full show notes and a list of references from the original podcast, visit EntreArchitect.com/EA089. Connect with Eric online at ThirtybyForty.com, or find him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. Enrollment for the EntreArchitect Academy opens in September! To learn more and sign up for our early-bird mailing list, visit EntreArchitect Academy today! Visit our Platform Sponsor FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) The post Passive Income for Architects (Best of EntreArchitect Podcast) appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:ArchITAll AccessGabl CESBuild Your Brand

&nbsp; Branding for Architects For the month of August at EntreArchitect Podcast, we&#8217;re focusing on Personal Development and we encourage you to dedicate some time to building a better you. This week, enjoy the Best of EntreArchitect Podcast as Mark R. LePage speaks with Emily Hall about the importance of Branding for Architects. For full show notes and a list of references from the podcast, visit EntreArchitect.com/EA065. Find Emily online at UnionStudioArch.com, and connect on Twitter @unionstudioarch, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Enrollment for the EntreArchitect Academy opens in September! To learn more and sign up for our early-bird mailing list, visit EntreArchitect Academy Visit our Platform Sponsor FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) The post Branding for Architects (Best of EntreArchitect Podcast) appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Gabl CESBuild Your BrandAll AccessArchIT

This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, we invited Declan Keefe of Placetailor back to share his knowledge about How to Get Started as an Architect Developer. To hear Declan&#8217;s origin story about how he was hired by a firm as a student and ended up owning it less than three years later, check out EntreArchitect Podcast Episode 130. Placetailor is an architecture firm that provides architecture services, construction services, and real estate development. They look at architecture as the genesis of ideas, and wanted to figure out how they were going to take control over the revenue and profit side of the business. After taking over a company that was in quite a bit of debt, the team decided they needed a &#8220;silver bullet&#8221; to pull them out: real estate development. They saw a conjuncture between architecture and real estate development in that they&#8217;re including an important piece in the middle of the relationship &#8211; the builder &#8211; where most of the revenue exists. Depending on how you set up the structure of your business, we know for sure that profits feed through the construction arm. The Architect as Developer model would function as a developer who expenses architecture as an overhead cost and relies on the profits from development to pay itself back on the architecture side. The major difference is that you can&#8217;t pay the entire cost of construction on the profits on development (Architect as Developer), whereas you can potentially pay the entire cost of the architecture fees on the profits from development (Architect as Builder-Developer). Placetailor has a design-build business and then they have a development, LLC for each project, for a few reasons. First is liability: if one of the projects fail, the entire business doesn&#8217;t have to go under. Also, they&#8217;re an employee-owned cooperative. Different members of the cooperative can be on different projects, as well as leave an opening to bring in people who aren&#8217;t within the coop to be partial owners in the project if needed. How to Get Started as an Architect Developer Step 1: Find an Opportunity Declan and his partner, Evan, walk around a neighborhood to see the land that&#8217;s available and what&#8217;s going on in the area to see if there&#8217;s an opportunity, usually for residential condo-based development. Then there&#8217;s a little research into the properties, the leans, who owns it, and any complexities they may or may not want to deal with. Step 2: Is it a good decision as a financial model?  Placetailor has created a lot of spreadsheet tools to do both quick and detailed analyses. If the number at the end looks like it could be a decent project, they decide to go after it. Step 3: Put an Offer In Based on the analysis, they know how high they can go and where to start with an offer. Don&#8217;t get attached emotionally and be prepared to walk away if it doesn&#8217;t work out. Step 4: Financing If/when the offer is accepted, they have to figure out the financials behind it. There&#8217;s a few approaches: they&#8217;ve used a crowd-funding approach and they worked to pitch their brand with confidence to people who they knew cared about it. They said, &#8220;We&#8217;re doing something new, we want to push the boundaries of high-performance building and we want to test it in the real estate development world.&#8221; Step 5: Establish Contacts Keep track of people who are...

Do you have an idea for a new product, service or business? Today, with all the tools available and so many of them free, you no longer have an excuse. If it&#8217;s something you really want and the only thing standing in your way is fear, just try! Mark R. LePage is talking with someone who&#8217;s been doing just that ever since he discovered a need in grad school and couldn&#8217;t find the solution, so he decided to create the solution himself. Learn how he started his many companies, how he&#8217;s managing each project, and the tools he uses to communicate with his virtual teams. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Mark R. LePage is joined by Robert Yuen, co-founder of SectionCut.com  and Monograph.io, as he shares his thoughts on The Power of Trying.  Born and raised in Chicago, Robert was the son of Chinese immigrants who played with legos, imagined building and creating things. He took drafting and architectural classes in high school and competed city-wide in various contests. He had a great mentor teacher who helped steer him in the path of architecture to use his passion and abilities in design. He went to the University of Illinois Chicago, where he won a traveling fellowship and spent a year backpacking around 20+ countries. Upon his return, he worked small, high-end residential before he decided to attend grad school at the University of Michigan. With a heavy focus on technology, Robert started to figure out exactly what focus he wanted to have. Most recently he&#8217;s gone full time with his many projects as an entrepreneur. After realizing a lack in the profession during both in school and out of school, he asked himself how he could most effectively save the things that were valuable to him in a way that was easy for him to find again. As an answer to that question, SectionCut.com was created as a platform for a collective of designers and architects to share what&#8217;s going on in today&#8217;s practice. Through back and forth conversations between Robert and a few freelancers, they decided to try out an agency model. Dixon &amp; Moe was established to provide tech design and software consulting to large firms. Their current location in San Fransisco gives them the opportunity provide support from up-and-coming startups to big companies. Monograph.io started as more of a blogging platform for makers. It was critiqued and reborn to be a simple, portfolio-building website for architects. Architects want to be found, and since Monograph is so focused on architects, they can design their own technology and SEO algorithms to allow an architect of a specific type or region to get connected easily. Coming soon may be a simple, technology-based RFP plugin, project management and staff management, and accounting plugins. During Robert&#8217;s earlier days in the industry, he did a lot of computer-intensive, heavy 3D modeling and renderings, where he noticed most of his time was spent not working, but waiting for the computer to produce what he needed. BigFluffy.io is an idea to solve that problem: a computer on the web. Here you can have access to your machine through a browser that you can rent as often as you want and increase or decrease your power to speed up what you need to do. How are you getting all this done? Not all projects are going on at the same time. He

The road to success is a long and bumpy ride. For us licensed architects, we all dealt with the challenge of passing the Architect Registration Exam. For those of you studying to pass the ARE today, you&#8217;re working through that challenge right now. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Mark R. LePage discusses How to Pass the Architect Registration Exam with Michael Riscica. As a creative child, Michael loved to draw, build model cars and create. After high school, he landed a job with an interior design school that told him he could have it if he learned CAD. He followed that with a few community college classes, and then attended the Boston Architecture College (BAC) at night while he worked full time. When he moved to Long Island, he finished his degree at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIY). During this time, he traveled and participated in various extracurricular activities. Where school previously hadn&#8217;t been one of his strong suits, the design studios in architecture school brought a passion where he realized he could have a career as an architect.  While living in Boston, he fell deeply in love with cycling and began researching to complete a 400 mile bike ride from Boston to New York. In 2005, his dream of cycling across America was born and achieved when he rode from Virginia to Washington. In 2006, he hiked the Appalachian Trail for several weeks.  After graduating in 2007, he made another trip across the US with a group of friends and decided to stay in Portland, where he&#8217;s lived and worked ever since. He began studying for his AREs in 2009, and had to take a two-year break because he was so burned out and exhausted. When he got back into it, he checked out for the entire year of 2013 and did almost nothing but studying and taking the exams, successfully receiving his license at the end of that year. With no room for creativity in the past few years of studying, he felt like he needed a new creative project: writing a blog for young architects. He put full effort into Young Architect, sharing study successes, failure stories and the experience of going through the AREs. When several of his articles went viral, he used some content to write How to Pass the Architecture Registration Exam. With a lot of inquiries to help others get ready for their exams, he created the ARE Bootcamp to fill the gap between architecture school and preparing for the exam itself. In the ARE Bootcamp, small groups gather weekly  for 10 weeks to move through a syllabus of what to study, how to recall the necessary information, and figuring out how to get up to speed to study for the exam. Once you take the program, you&#8217;re in the community forever. Michael&#8217;s been running the current ARE Bootcamp on his latest tour where he&#8217;s racked up 2800 miles in the last 50 days since the Philadelphia AIA Convention. He&#8217;ll be in Portland sometime soon to connect with the World Domination Summit, a conference for creative people who are doing various projects to change the world. Connect with Michael online at YoungArchitect.com and visit his Coast2Coast Bike Ride Blog, on LinkedIn, Instagram &amp; Twitter @BikeTouring999, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MichaelRiscicaArchitect/?fref=ts"...

Most of us, when we launched our firms, we started solo, working by ourselves from a small private studio and wearing every hat required to run a successful architecture firm. We worked that way for as long as we could, but we finally reached a point when we knew it was time to get some help but how? Where do I look? What if I hire the wrong person? How am I going to pay them week after week. That first hire is a pivotal point in every successful architecture firm. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast residential architect Marica McKeel joined Mark R. LePage to talk about How to Overcome the Fear of Hiring Your First Employee. Marica&#8217;s journey began when she was recruited as a diver at North Carolina State University, where she decided to study architecture. After graduating, she moved back to Tampa to work for a commercial architecture firm. When she had a project for a multi-family space, she realized she loved the residential side of architecture. She pursued a masters at Parsons Fashion, Art and Design School in New York, where she fell in love with the New York City. She was hired at Santiago Calatrava, where she worked on the Chicago Spire, the PATH Station at Ground Zero and Santiago&#8217;s personal home in Connecticut. In 2010, after seeing the great desire for weekend homes by those who lived and worked in the city, she ventured out to start her own residential architecture firm. In the last year, she went from a solo firm to three employees. Q: How long were you in business before your first employee? A: 4 years. Q: What made you say, &#8220;I need to get an employee&#8221;? A: I was trying to maintain a client-happy business. If I failed at that because I was unable to keep up with my projects, I was doing my clients a disservice. Q: How did you start out hiring someone? A: I hired a contractor I was familiar with who worked about 60% of the time to test the waters. I quickly realized that he had other things going on and he wasn&#8217;t 100% focused on being part of my team. Q: Do you see that first hire as a mistake? A: I see it as a stepping stone. If I were to give someone advice, I would say you don&#8217;t need that stepping stone. For me, I needed someone quickly and I probably would have rushed a hiring decision. Q: What role did you hire for the first time? Was it a high level or low level person? A: You&#8217;re typically supposed to hire a high level person so you don&#8217;t have to teach as much. I hired someone straight out of undergrad at an entry-level role, and her energy and excitement might be more important than anything else. Q: What was the process you went through to hire the first person? A: I put out a job ad on Archinect and filtered through those applications. I was looking for those who did their research: they knew who I was, what type of work I did and what was important to me. I wanted them to want to work for my firm. Q: Once you found your top 3, how did you decide on the right person? A: Mostly based on the conversation, but I could have probably narrowed it down to the cover letter. As architects, we have to present ourselves well. Q: Can you tell us about hire #2? A: The second hire was someone I&#8217;d worked with for years and always hoped would come to work for me eventually. She called two months after the first hire, and I said, &#8220;Absolutely. Let&#8217;s do this.&#8221; She is a partner without having a partner. She runs the office and loves a challenge, so I was able to unload a lot of my responsibility to her so I could get back to being an...

This month, we&#8217;re shifting our focus from technology to management. How do we build a successful business? How do we build the right systems and team? How can we efficiently and effectively do what we do as architects in the most profitable way? This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Declan Keefe of Placetailor talks about How to Build a Successful Architecture Firm That Works.  Declan spent his younger years focused on photography and fine arts before realizing that wasn&#8217;t the direction he wanted to go. He began to think about architecture as large-scale, &#8220;occupiable&#8221; sculpture, convincing himself that it was okay to transfer into architecture without compromising his creative path. While still in school, Declan found a job as a founding employee to start Placetailor, a firm that wanted to fully integrate the design and building process of architecture. Every member of the team had to have an understanding and a base skill set of being able to both design and build. Three years into the business, when he was a project manager and still in school, the founder of the company stepped away. Rather than allowing Placetailor to die, Declan stepped into the role of owner in 2013. Placetailor is working to provide a fun experience for clients by creating a brand with loud colors, snarky commentary, and relevance to the times. While splitting his time between design and working in the field, Declan realized that they needed to do some work to actually run a business. He put his head down in the office to figure out how to let people know who Placetailor was and how to convince potential clients that what they&#8217;re doing is a good idea. His plan was to transfer the business into an employee-owned cooperative. They began to test the boundaries of where architecture and construction met, and to figure out their roles in high-performance and energy-efficient buildings. How did he work to make that transition to a successful cooperative? Help each other to balance different strengths and weaknesses Incentivize with a three-year vesting period prior to becoming an employee-owner Test geographic and technological boundaries Strategized to streamline systems on larger scales for sustainability Developed bylaws as a cooperative, an operating agreement and general rules and guidelines for how they operate as a team How do they dream and decide on which decisions to move forward? A dream is born Decide how much time &amp; money can be allotted to pursue that dream Invest in the idea first before someone else does Let ideas work through the architecture, development, construction and investment arms Prepare for meetings by trying to anticipate where different people are going to end up so the meeting can continue to think through impacts on the business Use digital minutes to track decisions throughout meetings Connect with Declan online at Placetailor.com and on Twitter @placetailor &amp; Instagram. Visit our Platform Sponsor FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at...

Have you ever had a great big idea for a product or service? Something bigger or completely different from what you&apos;re doing now? Do you ever wonder what your life would be like, if you pursued that idea? This week we&apos;re chatting with someone who had an idea in architecture school inspired by the technology he was using every day. He decided to take that path and pursue his passion. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, we go From Architect to Tech StartUp with Qi Su of Modelo.io. From childhood, Qi was surrounded by structural engineering, architecture and design, and artwork, and eventually decided to major in architecture &#8211; his second love behind soccer &#8211; at University of Southern California. He then pursued a degree combining design and computer development through Harvard University. It was there working with the different softwares that he had the inspiration for Modelo. Modelo is a browser-based building and design collaboration and presentation platform for architects, engineers and general contractors offering trial-based hosting, management, communication and presentation services, allowing you and your clients to visualize,  and markup 3D models through any browser no matter the CAD service you use. Modelo&#8217;s Startup Timeline March &#8217;14: Qi was accepted into an accelerator, sort of an ecosystem for startups to launch and develop your idea, the company officially launched. April &#8217;14: Since it was important to Qi to have someone to bounce ideas off of and collaborate with, he found his partner and co-founder, Tian Deng, to join the Modelo team. September &#8217;14: The first prototype was released to much excitement from users. January &#8217;15: After fundraising and pitching to investors, funding was received and they were able to hire people to grow the team. January &#8217;17: Development of the software will be completed and ready to launch. Visit Modelo.io to sign up and try it for free!  Visit our Platform Sponsor FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) The post EA129: From Architect to Tech Startup with Qi Su of Modelo.io [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Build Your BrandGabl CESArchITAll Access

Technology It can help us in so many ways. All month long, we&apos;ve been sharing information here at EntreArchitect Podcast and over at the blog on the many ways that technology can help us be better architects. At times, technology can be a burden. It can be overwhelming. It can be complicated and frustrating. It can be time consuming and distracting. Truthfully, technology can be downright stressful. Over two years ago Mark decided to step away from news in every form: TV, radio, print and internet. The day he stopped listening to all that stuff and started paying attention to the things that actually were in his control, his stress was radically reduced. Mark encourages you to commit to a full media blackout by eliminating any technology that causes you stress. What if we could use technology to reduce our stress? This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Mark will share 5 Ways to Use Technology to Reduce Our Stress. Mark&#8217;s commitment is to make the world a better place by doing more things within his control, and you can do the same thing. Music // Music has always been used to reduce stress. We have access to music anytime and anywhere depending on what we&#8217;re in the mood for. Meditation // As meditation has become more mainstream, more are turning to this focused practice of sitting in silence for a period of time. Check out our list of recommended apps below. Exercise // Of course we can exercise without technology, but there&#8217;s so many ways to use great technology to help you get out there and get moving! Find things that work with your activities to keep you motivated. Use technology to set reminders and block time to exercise! Automation // We&#8217;re doing so many things every day and all day long, and the easiest way to slim down that burden is to automate things. Check out the post on the blog this week,  How to Automate Your Small Firm Architecture Studio, for ideas how to do this and keep searching for others that work for you. The fewer tasks we have, the less stressed we&#8217;ll be. Develop Systems // It&#8217;s so important to the success of our businesses and to our health. Developing systems allow us to feel confident that the work will get done without us so we can focus on the things we love. Developing systems is the most important goal that you can set for your success. What are some ways you use technology to reduce your stress? Tell us about them in the comments below! Visit our Platform Sponsor FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) Referenced in This Episode 10% Happier by Dan Harris (book), 10% Happier Website, and 10% Happier Meditation App Meditation Apps: Headspace, Omvana, Buddhify, <a...

We are living during an amazing period of time with rapid change and global innovation. Human society is changing before our very eyes. The world I knew as a pre-internet child no longer exists and the world we are experiencing today will be unrecognizable in less than a decade. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast I share my thoughts on 6 Technologies That Will Radically Change the Architecture Profession in Less Than 10 Years. The next generation of technology is coming and it&#8217;s going to change the profession radically. Will you be there to take advantage of that opportunity as an early adapter? In the next 5-10 years, these technologies will be mainstream. 3D Printing // Design a 3D model of a building or parts of the building on the computer and print it out to see how it would look and work in real life. We&#8217;ll no longer be limited to the available parts and products, we&#8217;ll be able to 3D print whatever we want! Virtual Reality // VR 360 headsets to walk through models virtually. We&#8217;ll be able to walk clients through buildings, get decisions made more quickly and plan for lighting and emergency situations. Drones // Drones are soon to be introduced as consumer products that you can program to go do what you want it to do. They can be used for photography and videography, but also delivery of materials, marketing, various inspections, even flight-assembled architecture. Robots // Can be used to scan the room to create a 3D model of existing conditions, as a demolition crew, and any tasks like painting, excavating, masonry, framing, welding, cutting, and manufacturing in architecture and construction. Artificial Intelligence // Imagine computers that are intelligent enough to creatively design buildings. Instead of pre-programming tasks, the system will be able to train itself and improving. Cryptocurrency // Bitcoin and electronic currency may eventually be the norm in the future. These things are coming, so let&#8217;s choose, as architects, to become the leaders of them. Machines and technologies will be our tools to change the way we do what we do. Change is inevitable and it&#8217;s coming quickly; we can either embrace it or reject it for others to seize. &nbsp; Visit our Platform Sponsor FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) Photo Credit: Shutterstock / William Bradberry &nbsp; The post EA127: 6 Technologies That Will Radically Change the Architecture Profession in Less Than 10 Years [Podcast] appeared first on EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects. Mentioned in this episode:Gabl CESBuild Your BrandAll AccessArchIT

It&apos;s June and all month long we here at EntreArchitect are focusing our content on the category of Technology. On the blog, here on the podcast and inside EntreArchitect Academy we are diving deep into the many technologies we can use to make our architecture firms run more efficiently and more effectively. This week Mark R. LePage invited the co-founder of a relatively new firm to join us to discuss the many technologies that he is using to launch his small firm. Architect Danny Cerezo is on the show and he and Mark discussed Successful Technologies for an Architect StartUp. Danny Cerezo is based in Los Angeles, CA and is the principal and co-founder at c|s design. After spending time in service with the Navy, Danny worked for a developer near Palm Springs. He attended Woodbury University in San Diego and graduated with a Masters in Real Estate Development geared for and taught by architects, following that up with working to earn his general contractor&#8217;s license. After finishing and selling some projects, creating relationships and getting requests for architecture work on the side, he and his wife, Pam, formed c|s design. What technologies are you using in your firm? Design Software // Whatever&#8217;s best for the task at hand. For renovation and addition projects, Chief Architect. Primarily for design they use Revit, but are considering switching to ArchiCad as Mac users. Project Management // For overall project management, Trello for the big picture to create systems, project templates, and identify steps for each phase. For detailed task management, ToDoist. Evernote to easily scan documents, record audio, organize, search and share files for each project. &#8220;If anybody&#8217;s not using EverNote, I would say pause the podcast right now, go download it and then come back. It&#8217;s fantastic.&#8220; Danny also uses a smart pen called Livescribe that&#8217;s digitally connected so that every page from the notebook automatically gets uploaded to Evernote. Accounting // FreshBooks for the ease of use and its robustness where clients can come in to check retainers, invoices received and paid, expenses and track time. QuickBooks as a preference for their accountant, who&#8217;s then able to check their work. In order to avoid doing the work twice, a Zapier account integrates the two softwares. Communication // Primarily using email but considering using Slack to capture all the information in one repository. Mobile Apps // Dropbox as a server. Social media apps like Morpholio to share creative ideas and SquareSpace to host their website. Website // CandSDesign.com and the blog are geared more towards clients. To share

Have you ever had an idea to improve your process; to make it more efficient or more effective in some big way? Maybe you are inspired to start a new business that will help take your architecture firm to the next level and in doing so, will change the profession for all of us, forever. This week&apos;s guest is striving to do just that. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, I invite Jared Perry, the founder of Paeven.com, a new online platform for architects and engineers, to discuss how to use technology to leverage a powerful idea for predictable revenue. Jared is a professional engineer based in Westlake, Ohio and a co-founder and principal at Sixmo Inc. He attended school at Ohio University with an original focus on transportation engineering before switching over to where his greater interest was, in structural engineering. At Sixmo, the architecture department focuses primarily on aquatic facilities and microbreweries. Structurally they deal a lot in commercial, retail, and light industrial work. Paeven was designed to support growth and competition in the architecture and engineering industry. The whole idea behind it was to create predictable revenue by logging into an online platform to pick jobs in a market where your skills are. What does the process look like for consultant? Create a profile // company, background, contact information, credentials, confirm licensure and agree to the ethical conduct policy Search the database // filter based on discipline, location, market, etc. Found a project? // view any RFIs and download RFP to determine if you&#8217;d like to place a bid Place a bid // select your cost, schedule, and hourly rate Results // you&#8217;ll be immediately notified based on the preliminary selection criteria that the owner put in the system to see where your bid finished in comparison to others and Paeven will calculate what your percentage is to get that job Decision // the owner has two weeks to decide who to award the bid to Introduction // Paeven passes the baton to introduce the client to the owner There are many architects and engineers who have these ideas and inspiration to create something to better the world they&#8217;re in, and they don&#8217;t know where to start. When you came up with this idea, how did you get it to where it is now? Thought about it when he was running and wrote it down immediately Brainstormed what to do and what not to do Got support from his spouse Talked to those in his network who have different talents like computer programming to figure out costs and recommendations Found a firm who spoke their language to partner with them doing design and development Worked to get their name out there through passive marketing via social media Connect with Jared on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and online at Paeven.com. Reach out and ask him how or why he did it and if you should do it too! Visit our Platform Sponsor FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) Referenced in This...

CVG Architecture Business Plan Competition 2016 Recorded live from the Sonesta Hotel in Downtown Philadelphia the awards reception for the 2016 Charrette Venture Group Architecture Business Plan Competition. We chat with all the finalists, learn about the history of the competition and I sit down for a live one-on-one interview with the winner. We will learn more about their firm, how it was founded and their plans for the future, transitioning from design/build to architect as developer. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast we have a very special episode. And the winner is&#8230; What is the history of the Architecture Business Plan Competition? The Architecture Business Plan Competition is an annual event sponsored by Charrette Venture Group. Charrette Venture Group was founded by Matt Ostanik after Matt&#8217;s experience in both the architecture and technology worlds. He observed that many architects tend to struggle with successfully growing their business and he found through the tech industry that, in many areas, there&#8217;s an abundance of resources to grow your business. Not so in the architecture space. Charrette Venture Group&#8217;s goal is to provide resources and invest in architect entrepreneurs to help them grow their business. What&#8217;s the most important thing you learned while developing your plan for the Architecture Business Plan Competition? Brian M. Johnson with Arch.406, an architect-led design-build firm, found benefits from intentionally planning and thinking about how to get to the end result, sharing that that exercise alone has helped them significantly improve the quality of their business. They also found it incredibly beneficial to have something that forced them to lay out and communicate their firm&#8217;s priorities and understand the financials of the firm and where they want the costs and revenues to be. Clever Moderns is an an online platform for owner-builders to get online support, plans and empowerment to change their lives by building their own house. The most important thing Earl Parson learned through this competition was that even in moments lacking clarity, the world is so full of resources and information that you can find answers to whatever you&#8217;re looking for if you take the time and the effort to search for them. Courtney Brinegar, who created ADD+Venture as a nonprofit architect-as-developer practice, felt that the secret ingredient is the importance of a strong vision to drive everything forward. Lindsey Love &amp; Lindsay Schack partner to create Love | Schack Architecture, which focuses on natural buildings and sustainable design. They found it vital to keep a tight timeline in order to work together to distill what exactly their firm is all about. Victor Caban-Diaz with Building Ingenuity learned that sometimes you can&#8217;t dive too deep into the details, but rather you should keep your focus on the bottom line. Hear from the winners!  The name &#8220;Arch.406&#8221; comes from the area code of the state of Montana and the preface for the word &#8220;architecture&#8221; as an architect-led design-build. The firm came about because of Brian M. Johnson, Nick Pancheau, and Jeff Kanning&#8217;s observations at Collaborative Design Architects that architects get to work with the client for long periods of time designing the project, developing their intricacies and how they go about the process. Then, the relationship ends and clients are turned over to the general contractor. Instead of breaking that relationship, Arch.406 wants...

How to Use Sketches to Pass the Architecture Registration Exam In and among the everyday workings of being an architect, or studying to become one, we often find ourselves with new and innovative ideas for doing what we do more efficiently, more effectively or just more enjoyably. We might develop these ideas into new systems or new processes to make our world a little better. If these innovative ideas work for you, they most likely will work for others as well. And in the world of instant connnectability and a community of like-minded architects growing every day on our many social media channels, there is no reason to not share your ideas with the world. You hear it at the end of every episode &#8220;Share what you know.&#8221; This week on this episode of EntreArchitect Podcast, I am chatting with a friend, whom I met while sharing what I know on the internet, to discuss an innovative idea that she had and is now sharing it with her world. Join me for a conversation with architect Lora Teagarden about her journey to pass the architecture registration exam and how today she is helping others sketch their way to success. Visit our Platform Sponsor FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) Referenced in This Episode Learn more about EntreArchitect Academy (Enrollment closes May 30, 2016) ARE Sketches Volume 1: A Visual Study Guide to the Architecture Registration Exam Paper by 53 App Subscribe to the ARE Sketches Newsletter Gary Vaynerchuk Mark Schaefer Mike Riscica Eric Reinholdt AIA Mississippi L2DesignLLC on Instagram L2DesignLLC on Twitter #ArchiTalks Blog Series Bob Borson &#8211; Life of an...

Happy clients are the result of clients knowing what to expect, when to expect it, and how much it&#8217;s going to cost when their expectations are met. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Mark R. LePage shares How to Build a System to Manage Your Architecture Clients&#8217; Expectations. How do we deliver services to our clients in a way that meets or exceeds their expectations? How do we ensure that every interaction results in a happy, satisfied client? Under promise, over deliver. Don&#8217;t say you&#8217;re going to do something and then fail to follow through. Always do, at the very least, what you say you&#8217;re going to do. Know the time it will take you to do something and give yourself more than enough time. Then delivery the results early whenever you&#8217;re able to. Manage expectations. Our clients want to know what to expect, when to expect it, and what it&#8217;s going to cost them when the expectation is finally realized. Managing their expectations manages their happiness. Create a system for client expectation management. Put together a step-by-step process of items that will keep your clients feeling fully in control from pre-contract through design and construction to the end of project close-out. Schedule time to review each project once you complete it. Once you have identified the various phases, figure out how to communicate the start and end of each phase to your client. How to Build Business Systems for Architects This month on the EntreArchitect Academy, founder of Business + Architecture and author of The E-Myth Architect Norbert Lemermeyer joins members as our expert trainer to share his knowledge and research on how to build business systems for architects. He&#8217;ll share his own templates for his proprietary Client Fulfillment System. EntreArchitect Academy expert training sessions are only available to members inside EntreArchitect Academy. For more information, click here to learn more about our all-inclusive online membership program for small firm architects. Enrollment is open but is limited! Click here to enroll in the EntreArchitect Academy Visit our Platform Sponsors FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) Referenced in This Episode The E-Myth Architect by Norbert Lemermeyer Join us in Philadelphia at the <a href="http://www.evite.com/event/02F7V4SGGM3ZXM5X4EPF7KQOW647XI?utm_source=NA&amp;utm_medium=sharable_invite&amp;utm_campaign=send_sharable_link"...

In architecture school, we all had a dream of what we would become when we became architects; designing beautiful spaces and making the world a better place with each project. We each told ourselves a story of success as an architect. We imagined a studio filled with light, working with talented people and surrounded by the iterations of our creativity. Powerful projects, patrons and processes of purpose that allowed us to pursue our passions. How is your dream looking today? Are you succeeding or are you struggling? This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Mark R. LePage will share The 12 Critical Categories of Business That Will Take Your Architecture Firm from a Struggling Studio to Small Firm Success Story. Business is a game, and like any game, you have to be able to learn and play by the rules to win. There are critical steps that need to be taken in order for our firms to thrive and become the success stories of our dreams. The only way to small firm architecture success is to hit each one of these twelve critical categories: Finance // Are your books in order? The numbers are how we make it all work financially. How do you manage your money? How do you put together your financial reports? Should you use debt to grow or not? Business Development (Sales) // If you don&apos;t have sales, you don&apos;t have business, you don&apos;t have an architecture firm. Are you selling your services? Leadership // Are you a strong leader? How can you become a small leader? Do you know how to build strong teams? Are you familiar with the roles, responsibilities, and results expected in your firm? Culture // Have you defined what your firm&#8217;s culture looks like? Are you intentionally developing your firm culture? Client Fulfillment // How do you manage the expectations of your clients? How do you develop systems that help you fulfill clients&#8217; needs? How can you develop strong project management skills? Are you using the EntreArchitect Hybrid Proposal? Technology // What design software are you using? Are you using the best equipment and software that you can afford to make you into the most productive in what you do? Is your technology relevant and are you looking to the future technologies that architects will be using? Business Management // Who are the people in our firm and how are they working? What are the processes that those people are working with? What are the products and services that we&#8217;re creating and serving with? Do you have an interview process, a hiring process, a conflict/resolution process, a firing process? Are they documented? Personal Development // Are you learning and exploring to build a better you? What are you doing on a daily basis to care for yourself mentally and physically to make sure that you stay strong and healthy? Are you sharing what you know with others? Marketing // What strategies and systems of marketing do you have in place now? What types of marketing should you be developing? Are you connected through social networks? Is your website telling your story in a captivating way? Is it a way for you to connect further?  Life // How do you integrate your firm with your personal life? Are you learning the skills of scheduling and prioritizing to live a better, more integrated life? Community // How can you build a business that does good for others while building a business that does well? Planning // Do you take time...

What if you were going to start your firm today, from scratch, with the knowledge that you now have? Would you do things differently? How could you ensure that the firm is prosperous and encourages equity for everyone involved? This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Rosa Sheng, AIA joins Mark R. LePage to share The 7 Essential Elements of an Equitable Architecture Firm. Creating a Culture of Equity&#8230; by Design Rosa Sheng, AIA, is a founding member of the Bohlin Cywinski Jackson San Francisco office, whose work includes the Pixar Animation offices and Apple glass structures. She&apos;s also a founder of Equity by Design. Started as a grassroots effort to gauge the conditions of practice and what people were going through in the life of an architect, Equity by Design soon evolved to capture a larger conversation about the state of practice. What was and wasn&apos;t working? What can we do to better to improve the conditions for architects and designers as well as their clients? There are lots of hurdles throughout a profession that could cause you to leave: hiring, the state of the economy, needing to &#8220;pay dues&#8221;, licensure, jumping through hoops, caring for kids, selves or others, the glass ceiling. Equity by Design was formed to provide valuable information that people need in order to keep themselves in the profession. Equity in architecture comes into play when the leaders and innovators of tomorrow commit to each part of the process of creating a more equitable practice. How does equity affect a firm culture and visa versa? How can we be intentional about designing a firm around a culture that&apos;s based on equity? The 7 Essential Elements of an Equitable Architecture Firm Mindset for Equity // There is a critical difference between Equity and Equality. Equity is about recognizing difference and providing just and fair opportunities for people to have access to the same success. Equality is about &#8220;sameness&#8221; and recognizing that everyone gets the same &#8220;piece of the pie&#8221;. Implicit Bias // Everyone has bias. Acknowledge your biases and say, I know these things about myself. Now how can I change them to improve the workplace culture so I&apos;m not just hiring and interacting with people like myself? Work Life Integration // Allow for flexible work hours. Embrace the concept of &#8220;core hours&#8221;. Schedule the bulk of your meetings at  core hours to allow for flexibility in work hours and avoid the stress of people missing out. Leave of Absences // Develop a paid leave plan. Whether you&apos;re on maternity or paternity leave, taking care of a sick or elderly family member, or a caregiver. Confidence that one&#8217;s position is secure in times of crisis is critical to a culture of equity. Mentors &amp; Champions // Build a culture of organic mentorship that supports people&apos;s passions and unique skill sets. Allow that to feed back into the firm. Build relationships with &#8220;champions;&#8221; people that purposely and conscientiously look out for you, your personal development, and your advancement opportunities. Clear Promotion Policy // One of the top issues for people leaving firms is that no clear criteria for advancement exists. Create a clear and transparent promotion policy that outlines what steps and skill sets are needed in order to advance within the firm leadership structure. Metrics &amp; Pay Equity // You can&apos;t know how you&apos;re progressing if you don&apos;t self-measure. Track specific metrics that will allow you to look at your payroll on an annual basis and see how you&apos;re doing. Are you hiring in a diverse way? Are you...

When we talk about firm culture, our first thoughts lead us to a busy studio full of staff working with dozens of clients. Don&apos;t we need a firm full of people before we can have a firm culture? What if we work alone, as many of you do? Do you have a culture? If so, how important is it to our ultimate success as an architect? As you may have guessed, Mark R. LePage has a few ideas on that subject. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Mark shares his thoughts on The Sole Practitioner Architecture Firm Culture. Culture is one of those things that sits there and becomes what it becomes if it&#8217;s not intentionally thought about and planned. Is your firm culture positive and healthy? Is it doing what it&#8217;s supposed to be doing? Is it a negative culture that&#8217;s harming your success? Take a look at last week&#8217;s episode for more about the importance of scheduling some time to think about your culture and develop your own Foundation of Values. Marica McKeel, guest writer for this week&#8217;s EntreArchitect blog, is working hard to build her newly-growing firm&#8217;s culture using off-site weekend retreats to build into her team. But what if you practice alone and don&#8217;t have any staff&#8230;do you still have to worry about firm culture? Even a firm culture of one is important. A firm culture refers to the beliefs and behaviors that determine how our teams interact and how they handle transactions inside and outside of the studio environment. If you have beliefs and behaviors and you interact with others inside and outside of the studio environment, then you have a culture; it&#8217;s a firm culture of one. What makes up a firm culture of one? Physical Studio Space // Do you have your own dedicated work space? Have you created a private, well-defined space for your firm that&#8217;s dedicated to your firm&#8217;s architecture? Is it efficiently designed? Is it well-equipped with updated computers and other devices? Work-Life Integration // If you have a home office, is it a separate space where clients can come without going through your home? Can you intentionally design your life to integrate your firm and your family? Are you planning space for various responsibilities both at work and at home? Work Hours // Do you have set work hours? Can you create boundaries for work and home time? Relationships // How do you interact with people both inside and outside of the studio? How are your home-life relationships affecting your firm&#8217;s culture? Making Money // Do you have power and resources to do more of the good things you want to do? Have you created profit plans and systems to make your business work so you can focus on the parts of being an architect that you love? Systems // Do you have systems in place to make things easier since you are one person wearing many different hats in your firm? Are your systems effective? Time-saving? Replicable? Efficient? Success of Your Firm // Do you feel successful and content in your work? Are you doing what you love and what you want to be doing? Think of firm culture as the &#8220;vibe&#8221;. When you walk into your space, what&#8217;s the vibe you get? Is it a good feeling, or do you feel your body tense up and your head start to hurt? That&#8217;s your culture speaking to you. Just as in large firms, sole practitioners have to be intentional about their firm culture. Visit our Platform Sponsors FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time.<br...

Architecture Firm Culture Many of us architects are so focused on our business, our design and all the things we have going on that we don&apos;t think about culture. We may not even think it&apos;s that important to the success of our firm compared to financial management, design, sales or marketing. What if you were told that a positive, healthy culture is critical to the success of any business? When Southwest Airlines&apos; CEO Gary Kelly was asked his thoughts on the importance of culture, he said, I think it&apos;s everything. It&apos;s more than just critical, it&apos;s literally everything for a company . This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Episode 118, Mark R. LePage discusses what firm culture is and shares some aspects that will build your team&#8217;s culture. A firm culture refers to the beliefs and behaviors that affect how your team interacts and how they handle transactions inside and outside the studio. There are many things that make up your firm culture: Interactions: Think about how you want your team to interact and treat others, whether it be someone in a leadership position, a coworker or a client. Is there good communication inside the firm and outside? Is there transparency? Are there people corroding your team with gossip? What does your customer service look like? Time: What are your work hours? Maybe you give your staff the ability to work when they want to or work remotely. Environment: What does your physical studio environment look like? Loyalty: Does your team feel like they&apos;re a part of something unique? Do they have a purpose and desire to stay and develop the firm with you? Finances: How do people get paid and when? Is your firm building equity? All of these factors apply whether you&apos;re a sole proprietor or you&apos;re managing a team of fifty; you must manage and be intentional about how you&apos;re going to address them. Your values on which you&apos;ve built your firm guide your decisions, your policies, and how you how you do business. If you haven&apos;t already, create a Foundation of Values that encompasses all the qualities you want your firm to uphold to include in your business plan. For the rest of this month, we&apos;re going to get deeper into some specific values that make up culture. We&apos;ll talk about work/life integration, customer service, and maybe even equity in architecture. For now, think about your firm culture. Is it positive, healthy, and thriving? Is it an exciting place that you want to go to every day? Is it contributing to the success of your firm or is it harming you? Are you struggling to keep it together because your culture just isn&apos;t great? Take a critical look inside your firm today. Visit our Platform Sponsors FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) Referenced in this Episode Equity X Design // Rosa Sheng, AIA How to Develop a Strong Culture at Your Architecture Firm (blog) Photo Credit: Shutterstock / Gustavo Frazao The post <a rel="nofollow"...

Every new generation of architects hopes that they will make a difference and change society for the better. We have so many new skills, access to new tools, and a driving passion to serve others. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, Mark R. LePage talks with the National President of the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS), Danielle Mitchell, about How the Next Generation of Architects will Change the World. Danielle Mitchell, President of American Institute of Architecture Students Starting as Chapter President in her second year at Penn State, elected to North East Quad Director (leading chapters from Virginia to Maine) and eventually being elected as the 59th National President of the AIAS, Danielle Mitchell&#8217;s mission is to promote leadership and excellence within architecture. She is working to create a community of architecture students looking to push forward and do more. The role of AIAS is to fill the void in an educational experience by promoting advocacy for what architecture students are passionate about, in school or in the profession in general. They support students, encourage them to create change in the culture around them and help them to develop a personal track to become an entrepreneur architect. Why is it important for architecture students to be leaders? Architects tend to have a unique skill set: they have a unique ability to solve problems, understand complex situations, and take a holistic approach toward solutions. While they might not fit a traditional role of leadership, architects have a particular ability to understand people and context, allowing them to make connections and bring various perspectives to the table. In the same way that architects can change the shape of building, they can certainly change the shape of complex problems that our communities are facing. Leadership ultimately comes down to being able to use our architectural skill set to do more. How is AIAS advancing architecture students as leaders? The annual Grassroots Leadership Conference has different tracks, ranging from entrepreneurship to technology, for chapter leaders to learn about leadership excellence, how to work with others on a team, how to connect with professionals, and how to budget and fundraise. This generation of architects wants to create businesses that are thriving and profitable while serving and giving back. Mark says, &#8220;The more profit you make, the more you are able to give back.&#8221; It&apos;s important to work toward changing the unhealthy studio behaviors of an all-nighter, ego-driven culture. AIAS is trying to encourage students to become leaders for what healthy, balanced success actually look like. Danielle&apos;s encouragement: Whenever challenges occur and when times get tough, remember back to the inspiring days that lead you to architecture and design; how your leadership skills can push that forward for the upcoming generation. Visit our Platform Sponsors FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) Referenced in this Episode AIAS.org Connect with Danielle on <a...

Presentation Skills for Architects Leadership is about visions and ideas and being able to clearly communicate that knowledge to an audience. This week on the EntreArchitect Podcast, I welcome back futurist and professional speaker David Zach and we talk about How to Successfully Prepare and Present Your Ideas as an Architect. What steps can you take when preparing for a presentation? Design the presentation of information in a way that will meet your audience where they are. Confirm that the technology works beforehand; do a run-through with the audio/visual team! Look at all the angles of what could go wrong and have backups of your presentation and printed documents. Do your due diligence on the audience to whom you&apos;re presenting; ask two questions, What gets your people up early in the morning because they&apos;re excited?, and, What keeps your people up late at night because they&apos;re worried? Know your subject to give yourself flexibility to adjust the presentation to give the same idea from a different perspective if needed. Be interested and be interesting. Connect people, things, and ideas that you didn&apos;t think were connectable. What are some critical elements of a successful presentation? Learn to think on your feet. Show up fully prepared to be nowhere else; give your client your fullest attention. Ask specific questions to draw the client out. Try to be good and unique, don&apos;t try to be perfect. What to wear? Know your audience and don&apos;t over or underdress. Dress for the comfort of your audience. Put enough attention into what you wear, but not too much attention. What tips do you have for telling a good story? Mind Mapping: Map out a presentation with a cluster of ideas branched together. Only some of the things in your map will enter into the presentation, but then you have other material in your brain to use if needed. Cross Impact Analysis. Take various ideas in the presentation and spread them out. Then, figure out how they connect. Visit our Platform Sponsors FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) Referenced in this Episode Connect with David at davidzach.com, on Twitter @davidzach and Pinterest. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Gar Reynolds (book) <a...

Are you an expert on a specific topic or technique? Do you have a passion for a specific cause? Do you seek to influence a group of people? Are you a leader or want to be one for innovation and change? This week on the EntreArchitect Podcast, I will share How to Become a Thought Leader in Architecture. What is a Thought Leader? Jayson Demers, Founder and CEO of AudienceBloom, defines a Thought Leader as an individual who drives innovation and new ideas in a given industry . Thought Leaders advance causes, influence groups of people, drive an audience to your business to better serve your clients, and make an impact by helping others and giving back. So how do you put yourself in a position to become a Thought Leader? Be a leader in a specific subject. You have to have knowledge, expertise, and skill in a certain field you can&apos;t fake this! Create a personal brand so people know who you are. Establish a presence on social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Periscope, Instagram, Slack Communities, etc.) Blog your thoughts on a specific topic on a regular basis. Syndicate your content through different avenues. Get out there and interact with the communities that you&apos;re working to influence through open forums. Reach out to mentors. Find people who are already talking about things in your area and connect with them however you can! Grow your network. Work together to support those who are doing what you&apos;re trying to do. Get published. Find larger blogs, magazines or newsletters that are talking about the things that you want to talk about and volunteer to guest write for them. This will establish credibility and point back to your own work. Write a book! Drive change and innovation. You&apos;re an established leader in this subject, so it&apos;s time to start moving new ideas&#8230; your ideas. Your thoughts! Show your ideas through your work in your own company. Going through this process takes a lot of time, but during that time you&apos;re making a change in the world around you. In order to succeed, your passion for this process and your intent to become a leader needs to be done in the service of and to benefit others. Visit our Platform Sponsors FreshBooks The easiest way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access Your 30-Day Free Trial at FreshBooks.com/architect (Enter EntreArchitect) Referenced in this Episode 5 Steps to Becoming a Thought Leader in Your Industry Equity X Design // Rosa Sheng, AIA Architect as Developer // Jonathan Segal, FAIA The Architect and the Oracle // Jeff Echols, AIA AIA Custom Residential Architects Network 5 Principles of Servant Leadership Photo Credit: Pixabay / Stux The post EA115: How to...