Architectural proposals are the way you sell your firm. A well written proposal will pay for itself many times over. This is your chance to impress and show why clients should be excited to work with you.
Yet, we consistently see so many bad proposals. Proposals that are a mess and hard to understand. Proposals that are missing things your clients asked for. Proposals that look the same as every other proposal submitted. Fix those amateur mistakes to bring in those clients who appreciate you.
A letter proposal is simply a letter to the client – like an architecture cover letter and resume. These proposals are usually the result of meetings with existing clients. Often there is no competition to these proposal letters. The client already likes your work – they just want to know how you would go about solving their problem. An architectural letter proposal doesn’t contain any designs or contracts – those come after the client has decided to move ahead. A letter proposal is mainly to communicate to the client your basic understanding of a project and the way you would go about completing the scope of work. A standard architectural letter proposal should contain the following:
If a client accepts your letter proposal, you would move forward to the next step using either an old-fashioned handshake, a Letter of Intent, a Letter of Agreement, an Architect-Prepared Contract, or AIA Contract Documents. Each of these provide varying levels of legal protection for you, with a handshake providing no legal protection at all and Architect-Prepared Contracts or AIA Contract Documents providing full legal protection. What you use is up to you and depends on your level of comfort with the client, however we advise avoiding using a handshake.
A request for proposal (RFP) is a more formal and complicated process than architectural letter proposals. The RFP will detail the exact specifications for submitting an architectural proposal and each client will have different requirements. With RFPs you can expect more competition and you will have to list your qualifications. You will need to focus more on the marketing side than with letter proposals to sell yourself to the client. Clients can get 30 or more responses to an RFP, so typically there are several steps of a proposal competition to narrow down the candidates.
At each of these steps, the clients will be removing firms from their list and a final selection will be made at the end of the proposal competition. The steps included will depend on the client and what they request in the RFP.
Every proposal will look different due to various client requests, but they should all contain similar components. Keeping track of winning proposals will give you good templates for quickly creating winning proposals in the future.
One of the most important parts of your architectural proposal: this statement contains standard information that could assist clients in selecting an architect. A standard Architects’ Qualification Statement should contain:
Qualification Statements can also be used to sell your firm to a potential client when they don’t even have a project yet. Say you meet up with a client and they learn you are skilled at green design. You could give them a Qualification Statement with green design work samples for them to reference if they have a related project come up.
Chances are, if you state in your proposal that you are uniquely qualified for a project and proceed to list reasons you are unique, most other submitting firms will also include some of your “unique” qualifications in their proposal. Your key to winning great projects is knowing the one thing that you can do that other firms cannot do or that they cannot do as well. Do you provide exceptional client service and make it a point to go above and beyond for clients? Do you have specialized technical expertise? Spend time to find your strength and to develop it. Fully understand it, so, when the time comes, you can smoothly explain your strength to potential clients.
If you cannot find something that is truly unique about your firm:
Most small firms will partner with other firms on proposals. They do not have the capacity to take on most projects alone. Even before you partner with another firm, one of the first things they will want to know is your strengths. Knowing your strengths will win you more proposals and have more firms wanting to partner with you.
In appropriate areas of the Statement of Qualifications, like the professional history, tell whatever great story you have. Are the reasons you started your firm or the way it started up interesting? Does one of the team members have an interesting story? Any exciting projects you have worked on? Do you donate 50% of your fees to a charity you are associated with? Hunt these great stories down and highlight them.
As architects, charts, tables, and, especially pictures, are an integral part of our proposals. Clients want to see what past projects you have worked on with their own eyes – they want to be able to see what their project might look like. Use your pictures to further your message. Go with your best work that shows off your unique skills or that illustrates your interesting story. Cut out any graphic that muddies your message.
When working on a new proposal, there are several things you should keep in mind during the process. Pondering these questions will make your proposal more helpful to the client and, ultimately, make you more successful.
One of the most important things to consider when writing a proposal is if you shouldn’t write a proposal. Proposals take a lot of time and money. Don’t just submit, because you think you should.
Separate each RFP into three categories: high chance of winning, moderate chance of winning, and low chance of winning. Mostly go after projects with a high chance of winning. Look individually at those projects with a moderate chance of winning. Only allow a portion of the proposals you send out to be in this category.
If you think there is no way you can win a project, listen to that. Take a hard look at the project. Is there nothing that could bump your chances of winning into the moderate category? If there is truly nothing, then move on. It isn’t worth your time and effort. Plus, winning and losing is often psychological. If your team is experiencing too many loses - even if they have lots of wins – they can start to feel down.
One of the biggest mistakes people make is not taking the time to fully understand what the client needs. Sometimes even the clients aren’t sure what they need. Make the effort to understand the problem, so you can give them the best solution. Take the opportunity to ask questions during the meetings and tailor your proposal to respond to the answers they give.
Often, the client will get proposals with the same things in them. After all, how many variations on a building design can you find? Most proposals address only the project as presented by the client. They don’t go any further. This is a chance to show clients that you have their interests at the forefront, you know their project and have been through projects like it before, and you are prepared for multiple curve balls. They want to know they can trust you.
If a request for a proposal comes in for a building, look at what other aspects the client might need help with. Will they potentially need help with legal or permitting matters? Is there some technical aspect of the project they haven’t considered yet? Provide the solution to those problems as an optional part of your proposal.
When you go into most stores or restaurants, you can see a wide variety of prices. However, most of the prices will be on the lower to medium range, with only a few highly priced items. This approach is called the 80/20 demand curve. You will mainly have two types of clients: those with more time than money and those with more money than time.
If you submit proposals with only one fee, you will be chasing away some clients who can’t afford what you are suggesting and disappointing some clients who are willing to pay more for premium service. Cater to all these people at once by providing multiple fees within your proposal. This can lead to up to a 27% revenue increase for your firm.
Here are a few rules to follow when using this approach:
Hybrid proposals situate the architect’s fees as somewhat between a flat fee and a percentage-based fee. This type of proposal works best for residential projects or some small commercial projects. Essentially, you work at a flat rate until the project’s scope and budget are solidified. Once the total cost of the project’s construction has been determined, your fee after that point would be a percentage of that total cost.
