I don’t know what you need – please tell me

9th August 2011

I had a real eye-opener yesterday, at the hands of one Roy Sheppard. I went to a marketing meeting at the suggestion of the very talented Martha Harley, director of The Commsultancy Wheel Ltd.

So, architects and marketing? Together, in the same room? Unheard of.. I thought we just had to be nice, listen, paint pretty pictures and it would be obvious, nay unmistakeable what solid, committed professionals we are. Clients would flock to me, beating a path.. Well, it turns out that’s not true.

The thing is, as Roy pointed out to me, and Martha I daresay also would have, had I asked (perhaps she did and I wasn’t listening), the language I and many other architects use constantly is all about us and what we do, not about the client and what they want and aspire to.

We can produce lovely portfolios of work, but do we really, deeply consider how and what this is communicating to the most important people – our clients? I suspect the answer is probably “no”. It talks about us and our work, and perhaps if it’s just an aspirational thing, that’s enough, but I think that is largely missing the target by a long way.

Well, in the cold light of day that seems really obvious. It is true to say that I and many of my colleagues are deeply concerned with producing people’s dream homes, inspirational workplaces, beautiful environments – it’s all we do for 5 years in college (well, that and develop our egos!) – but somehow we forget how to convey that to our clients.

Most if not all of my clients I hope, know this, but I’m going to check anyway, and try to find out a bit more about what they feel about the work I do.

Thanks Roy, and thanks Martha for getting me there!

BTW the meeting group is here.