Want To Know Why You Should Get Paid For Architecture Advice?
(even when others are giving away advice and letting clients ‘pick their brain' for free) Continue to learn why it's so important to get paid for architecture advice.
You’ve heard me say this before …
No free advice!
No free site visit!
No free drawings!
When you get paid for architecture advice, you are telling potential clients that you are an ‘expert' architect, from start to finish. We don't walk into a doctor's office without paying for a costly consultation and you shouldn't do the work without getting paid, either.
Sell Your Design Services While Others Are Giving Them Away For Free
Can you really sell a pre-design advice service for $750 – $1500 while others are giving away designs and sketches and advice for free? Yes, yes you can.
Water can be free or you can pay $10 a bottle at a restaurant.
You can get free legal advice or pay thousands.
You can get free clothes from charity shops or you can pay thousands. Remember these three important points:
1. Price Is Only An Issue When Value Is A Mystery
To get paid for architecture advice, even when others are giving it and sketches away for free, you need three things:
The right mindset.
The right story to sell the LCC (Low Commitment Consultation).
The right LCC session to deliver, so people assign your services value and refer their friends.
2. Architects Add Value
You must agree that you’re a professional and that it means something. No surgeon would give a price for surgery or agree to operate without a thorough paid diagnosis first.
Yes, you can and do make it look easy when you deliver a breakthrough idea to a client in the first 20 minutes on site.
But that advice is worth thousands of dollars to the potential client and by giving it away for free, you are negating your innate value.
3. It’s Not The Hours You Bring To The Table, But The Value You Bring To Those Hours
Yes, in principle, you agree with me … but old habits are hard to break.
The phone rings; you tell them what you can do to help. Now you have to break the news that their site visit comes with a fee attached.
How do you feel at this moment?
If you are like many architects, you are tense. Worried that they will say ‘no’ or tell you that your fee is not worth it, or that other architects will do a site visit for free.
Some clients agree to your fee and others balk.
You hope that the next time you quote fees, your tension will reduce, but it doesn’t; the fever gets worse. It gets worse because deep down you may also believe that your fees for a site visit are ‘high.’ You may even project that feeling to the client.
Quote Your Fees With Confidence
You can give away your time for free like in the old days … so that uneasy feeling goes away. But then you are cheating yourself and all the hard work you've put into your profession by taking the easy way out … and in the long run, there is even more uneasiness in that.
Hey, if you believe your fees are too high … maybe they are!
If you are not sold on your value then why should anyone else be? You know the outcomes you produce better than anyone else.
Want to know why you should charge fees for advice? Check out How Giving Away Free Advice Can Kill The Project.
BUT IF YOU KNOW YOU CAN TRANSFORM LIVES WITH THE SPACES YOU DESIGN …
… then you should be able to look the client in the eye, quote your fee and know they’d be a darn fool to turn you down.
What’s that? You know your fees are fair, but the clients won’t understand?
Then you need to do a better job of educating them. That is called selling.
For more information, visit our post on 5 Sure Fire Ways To Get More Clients Now.
Visit our website for more information on how we can help you to get paid for architecture advice!