How to find your first few clients

Getting your first few clients

This is probably the hardest, and certainly the most important part of establishing a practice. You need projects, clients and, most importantly, money coming in. After two years of running a residential practice, here’s my take.

Swing in to the job

I’m not here to advise you, but I can say from my experience, I found it so much less daunting doing some jobs on the weekends and finding out if this was something I really wanted to do before making the big decision to leave my job for this.  It was much less daunting starting my own practice knowing that I had a stable job to go to in the meantime. I’m not a huge advocate for doing private jobs for the sake of it (enjoy your downtime!) but if you’re planning on starting your own practice, holding down your day job and doing some work on the weekends until you get a groove going is a much safer way to establish a practice. If you do have a day job in architecture, most practices will have a policy about doing work on the side, so its always best to broach the topic with your bosses first.

Tell your friends – especially your architecture friends

I was lucky that I had a supportive boss that knew that I was planning on starting my own practice. Because of this I didn’t have to be sneaky and find work on the down-low, so I created a website and an Instagram account and shared it with everyone I knew. I got two jobs with friends within the first fortnight. Sure, I got pretty lucky, but once people know you are looking for work you’ll start to attract it.

If you are trying to do this on the down-low crank up the email and start contacting everyone you know to tell them that you’re starting a firm and are looking for projects. Even if you are doing the Instagram/website approach, I’ve been told that email marketing is much more fruitful than Instagram so go ahead and do it too (although this is a topic for another day).

Pro tip - focus on telling your architecture friends. The mere fact that they’re architects, they’re probably getting the occasional request from friends and family for little projects that they probably don’t want to do – be there to take these projects off their hands.

Working with friends and family – a word of caution

Unless you’re coming from a commercial practice background and are bringing an arm full of clients with you, its highly likely your first few projects will be from friends and family.  This is certainly the most traditional route to practice. Having old uncle Bob as your client will change your relationship with them. I’m not saying that you won’t be inviting him to Christmas lunch from now on, but you’re now responsible for their money (often, their lifesavings). It is a big responsibility. Get a formal agreement in place (in Australia, use the AIA or ACA Client Architect Agreement), talk about fees early, get things in writing and treat them just like you would any other client – in fact, I’d say you want to be more careful and formal with them than a regular client.  I’ve put together another article on how I price for friends and family. I’ve found in my experience that it might be best to do short, targeted engagements, such as do their briefing as a standalone service. If things are going well, progress to concept with them.  Architecture projects are long and expensive. As I said, tread carefully. Just as many would say don’t go into business with friends or family, they might also say don’t start a project with them. But in reality, I know this is by far the most common way to start (and also the way I started), but heed my warnings!

Approach other practices you’re friendly with

Recently I looked back over all of the leads and projects of my first two years in practice and found that a lot of my earliest projects were with friends and family. They weren’t very high fees and they weren’t very profitable. Interestingly, some of my most profitable and rewarding projects came from other architects. You can read more about it here.

I was lucky that I started my practice in a residential construction boom so everyone else had enough work on.  If they were too busy, or the projects weren’t a good fit they’d send them my way. Grab a coffee with them, send them an email – essentially let them know that you’re interested – and if you have a good network and are trustworthy, you’ll likely get some enquiries.

Be prepared to lose some leads

I’ve heard ‘business moves at the speed of trust’ and I think its true - people want to work with people that they like and that they trust.  This is especially true in architecture where the fees are high and the projects are usually in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Convincing someone to part with that kind of money and trust you with a large asset like this can be a big challenge in the early days. I’m assuming you’ve got the design and project experience to manage this part of the job, but if your prospective client isn’t from your immediate network and you don’t have years of projects that you can show them, or a professional looking website yet you might lose a few before you win some. This is fine and totally normal.

Discount with caution

Be cautious about discounting fees to win work. You might be working with this client and servicing this job for 2 years. If you put in low fees to win work early this could be an albatross around your neck for the first few years of your practice. If you feel that you’re struggling to win work, reduce your scope instead of discounting.

Get innovative

Without a track record selling an entire set of traditional services can be a real challenge. Look for other ways to break up your services. Propose a fee for a standalone briefing phase. Show them how good and professional and insightful you are and their more likely to sign up for the next phase.