1. Gap between the SWOTs (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat): Conduct a SWOT analysis on your practice to reveal and clarify what’s really working (even if it remains a largely untapped focal point).  Then conduct a 2nd SWOT analysis on your marketing.  Ask yourself if the results of the two exercises reinforce each other.
2. Standard marketing plan: Review your marketing plan for any activities that you keep up just because they are standard fare in an architect’s marketing plan. Assess whether there might be bigger opportunity to replace them with activities better aligned with either your interests or your desired growth market.  Alternatively, if your resources are being stretched, consider dropping some activities altogether and focusing more deeply on a shorter list of activities.
3. The website formula: Your portfolio photos might be fabulous.  They might even be teeming with stories about how you overcame challenges and came through for your clients.  But what will the prospective client unfamiliar with your work be able to read into them?  Consider whether a business message, creatively introduced through graphics and text, might bring a deeper understanding to the value your firm offers.
4. Accessibility of social media: Social media reaches the marketplace in a way that simply wasn’t on the table with traditional marketing, as little as 10 years ago.  But without a voice, filler tweets, posts and profiles won’t be moving your practice any closer to your goals.
5. Fear to specialize: Ask yourself if you are telling the world that your firm is full service and that it caters to every audience because that’s how you wish to practice or because you worry about walking away from opportunity.  Consider that it will always be harder for your audience to believe that your firm is good at everything rather than believing in the value of a specialty skill.
6. Big strategy misconstrued as big budget: Websites fully loaded with all the bells and whistles, prestigious addresses and all encompassing marketing programs can be costly.  But, without the backing of a solid brand and marketing direction, none will necessarily result in a powerful image.  On the other hand, it is absolutely feasible to build a powerful image without them, when the direction is clear and unwavering.
7. Overlap in skill with graphic design and marketing: The skill of an architect overlaps with many complementary professionals: interior designers, lighting designers, landscape architects, photographers and even engineers.  Yet, when you identify where and how you will work with allied professionals your practice grows stronger.  The same applies to marketing and graphic design professionals. You are architects.  That’s a lot in and of itself.
8. Doubt about point of difference: Most of my first encounters with clients are the same.  I ask about point of difference and find that there is either uncertainty that it exists or certainty that it does not.  By the 3rd meeting, it’s usually clear to me that it does exist. Sometimes, it’s being taken for granted.  Often, it remains an untapped opportunity.
9. Group think: It’s always harder to experiment with new ideas when a cohesive group has arrived at consensus with regards to what they consider to be normal.  If you think that this behaviour might be playing out when it comes to marketing your practice, challenge it.

So, if it’s not with a wide target market and portfolio photos that speak for themselves, as an architect how can you recession proof your practice? Make a decision about what excites you most about your work and pursue it, full steam ahead, no apologies.  Lead the way in this effort with marketing that, instead of masking this one big idea, very nearly shouts it out.

Shaking off that false sense of security won’t feel safe.

But in reality, backed by thoughtful, strategic planning, shaking things up to inject your image with power might be the safest way to develop your practice.