Some time ago I was part of a local business networking group in Brainerd, Minnesota. It was a group that met once a week and gave professionals an opportunity to mingle with other professionals in the area and build better business relationships. I was a member of this group for about two years and made several friends and associations that I value.
At one point I had an opportunity to meet with another professional in this group who represented a construction company in the commercial and residential building market. His company is actually a design build firm in which the primary business is construction but they offer architecture and design services as part of their package. I remember him telling me that they “give away their design services for free.” This was their marketing pitch. When I challenged him, he insisted that they “eat the design costs.”
I was immediately skeptical. Clearly, their staff architects, engineers, draftsman and others who produce the design are getting paid a salary. The money to pay those salaries has to come from somewhere and I know construction margins are not high enough to “eat” theses costs. I think it’s clear, that they simply charge enough in their fees to cover those costs, they just don’t tell the client what those costs are. The other option, if it’s true that they “eat the design costs,” just isn’t a profitable business model.
Regardless of the veracity of his comments, it has led me to consider the idea of giving away the design for free. How do I, as an architect, compete with that? I don’t offer any other services for which I could charge enough to cover the costs of generating the design. As this company would likely be a direct competitor for me on the design side, this didn’t seem to bode well for me.
As I thought more on this, it occurred to me, that this is a clear indication of how much they, as a company, value design. They are literally telling their clients that It’s not even worth paying for. Isn’t that a dangerous precedent to set? On a side note, how does it make the architects at the company feel about the work they do when the company says they are just going to “give it away?” Again, how do I compete with that?
But then I had had an epiphany.
I don’t have to compete with that. In fact, I don’t WANT to compete with that. If you think that design should be free or even “cheap,” I will never be the right architect for you. It’s the difference between price, and value. I will compete on value. Then again, what’s the old adage? “You get what you pay for.”