Visalia, California; July 28, 2017 – The Architect Marketing Institute (AMI) presented its annual Best Architecture Business Transformation Award and $2,000 travel voucher to architect Jane Frederick of Frederick + Frederick Residential Architects at the June 2017 Architect Business Development Summit held in New York City.
“Jane shared with all of us a very clear story starting with the background of her firm and the challenging situation of being in a small town with ‘too many architects,’” says AMI co-founder Eric Bobrow. “Her descriptions of the marketing strategies that the firm employed made it clear that she and her team understood the strategies we advocate and took action successfully. Her results are stunning and an inspiration to us all.”
Although the transformation comes during a period when Forbes magazine had forecasted a mild economic rebound in 2017-18, residential construction has a long way to go. “Most of the [housing construction] gain was in apartments,” Forbes reported in September. “Multifamily starts are up 14 percent over the past year, but single family only 1.3 percent.” This makes Frederick’s story all the more remarkable.
Jane Frederick and her husband Michael, also an architect, moved to Beaufort, South Carolina – a barrier island that they call “Paradise” – 29 years ago and established a successful architecture practice. With the approach of the Great Recession, however, the firm slid onto a financial roller coaster. “Some quarters were great and then others not so,” she says.
They had to lay off all of their employees and didn’t regain the lost ground after the official end of the recession. Income was down two-thirds from 2007 receivables and that lasted until 2013. Though they had previously hired marketing firms to increase their visibility, Frederick says, “with AMI, I discovered an entirely new approach to marketing … completely different from the approach from earlier PR firms.”
Adopting AMI’s strategies, the firm created a special offer to look at a piece of land that a prospective client was considering buying. “The fee was $400,” says Frederick, making it what AMI teaches is a “Low Commitment Consultation,” and it led to a project with a $175,000 fee, the first of many.
The firm also sees unusually high success rates and maintains relationships with existing and prospective clients through AMI’s strategic methods. “We love living in Paradise,” Frederick says, “but we’re still on a barrier island off the coast in a town with too many architects. Thanks to AMI, our roller coaster is beginning to turn into a long, flat road” – a welcome relief.
The Architect Marketing Institute is a consulting firm focused on helping small design firms increase their success through effective marketing and sales processes by giving architecture firms around the world access to unprecedented support and success in a competitive market. More information at http://www.f-farchitects.com/ or archmarketing.org.