“Please do something simple….. we are not that rich…..”
Or…. “budget is a constraint”…
They want to work with us… we are most certainly not a “star” practice…They have seen or experienced our work and, most likely, been recommended by people who have worked with us earlier.
It took me ages to realise, that it wasn’t an indictment of us.. this is how an overwhelming majority of people see our industry. These are not people who are scraping together to build a couple of rooms on a small plot somewhere. In most cases, they are senior administrators, in charge of the purse strings for a corporate or an institution.
And therein lies the catch. We don’t start the conversation by a premise of value. The value of a well designed, well engineered and well detailed and documented project, where every penny being spent has a demonstrable logic behind it, exactly for its specific context, including its economic brackets.
Unlike something as mass as a coffee or burger chain, our patrons come in with a premise, that they are flying blind.There is no assurance or even predictability of quality.
Ever so often, corporates have spent weeks and months debating and discussion coercive clauses in design contracts, because they consider they need to “protect their interests”… the premise being, that by having a professional on board, somehow, their interests are not automatically protected!!!!!
It’s taken us a quarter century to realise really what we need to focus on, as a key communication from us.
We Care Deeply….. We promise to work very hard and take each project as an individual and unique opportunity.. no cookie cutters….. and we trust in the fact, that there is an ecosystem of a strong professional network, that is up to any challenge that a project may throw at us.
And , a burning desire to hear our patrons say, that they know, they will receive extraordinary value for their project in our stewardship…