Question for Entrepreneurs out there

[alias_marks]

Alright guys, here goes it. I’ve jumped into the entrepreneurial pool and am hoping, as my colleagues here (that I’ve looked up to for close to 3 years now), that you may be able to help out with a little advice (Nils, Eddie Leon, Ernest, Chris Nichols, Brian Smith?, I know you guys like to actively help out us on the boards here I’m beginning a company with a partner out in San Francisco and am working on putting our “bag of business tools” together. Specifically here, I’m concentrating on the hard numbers on the return on investment that possible clients will receive. I know a lot of us are friendly competitors here, so keep it as broad or as specific as you feel comfortable. I’m happy to get any advice, at any level you are willing.

 

As far as I can tell the industry of visualization is based on pretty soft benefits. i.e. Images and animation will help to communicate your ideas and add that extra sparkle to your projects. Yes, you’re clients will be able to experience the space before it is built, and wow! that’s great, well, and good. When I’m going to possible clients to meet, greet, and show off the goods, it’s great to “tell” them that this is going to make their project stand out among others and we’re going to show it off in such an innovative way; it’s going to blow the competition out of the water. But there’s still something missing I feel like.

 

So here’s the question:

 

What hard number figures and case studies do you show them to express the actual return they are going to see by investing in your creative business? A lot of times, you’re probably able to sell a lot of work just based on the “soft benefits” but to be even more well rounded, I’d love to get some feedback here on what information and aspects of projects you associate hard returns for your clients on. Do you even consider this?

 

A couple aspects I could theoretically see linking dollar amounts to the work we produce:

-Saved labor time when in the city planning and approval stages of a project to move the approval along

-Pre-Lease tenant spaces that would have been otherwise empty until after construction completion

-Help architecture firms Pre-Viz their spaces to make material, texture, and design decisions ahead of time instead of re-installing after the fact when it didn’t turn out the way you expect

-Immediate return for clients who use our images/animations for fundraising and gather cash to move projects forward from investors

 

Like I said, keep it as broad or specific as you’re comfortable. I’d just like to open up the discussion.

 

Thanks!

 

DownTown MikeBrown

 

edit:

apologize if you already caught this on the vray forums...

Edited July 29, 2008 by alias_marks

[Ernest Burden III]

When I’m going to possible clients to meet, greet, and show off the goods, it’s great to “tell” them that this is going to make their project stand out among others and we’re going to show it off in such an innovative way; it’s going to blow the competition out of the water.

 

What will your new business do? You didn't say. I know there is a bit of 'it's obvious' but perhaps you should learn to introduce your business before you get to wondering on the pitch. When you let others assume they know what you offer, they will see you in the same way they see your competition.

 

What about your work is going to be innovative? It's a great word but what do you mean by it?

 

Good luck, and enjoy my city in my absence. I miss it daily.

[Sawyer]

I am thinking that you may be over thinking this. Most of the time we aren't selling an idea, we are selling a service and most of my clients are familiar with what a rendering is. So I don't need to sell them on a rendering I need to sell them on MY rendering. I don't know if I would have much luck convincing people to buy a rendering if they don't want it. I have been told I am not that cheap. Architects come to me when they need what I do and because they trust me and like what I do. Keep in mind that there have been archi illustrators around for a long time and most people are used to the idea.

 

Now the main benefit I always see is that architects get a test round of the design and I don't think I have ever worked on a job where something didn't get changed on the fly after seeing it for the first time on screen.

 

I also make a point not to ask too much about project once they leave my desk. I am not responsible for winning a contest. I present a design in the best light I can (with the time I have) but I don't want to have an architect get the idea that I am open for taking the fall if their design doesn't sell.

[ikinman]

It’s been a long time since I had to sell a client on the merits of visualization. The value (or lack thereof) is pretty much set in the marketplace.

 

I do continue to pitch the merits of types of visualization – animation versus still renderings for instance. Or renderings versus a physical model, interactive multimedia versus movie. When I mention the pros and cons of such things, I talk about ease/difficulty of use, cost of production, etc. But I usually don’t talk about hard returns, because they are essentially impossible to figure out.

 

When one of our clients develops a building, a whole team of people get involved in the selling – marketers, brokers, graphic designers – and it is almost impossible to tease out hard sales figures and peg it to one person or individual piece of marketing collateral. The best we have ever been able to do is place ads (newspaper, online, TV) and track subsequent hits to the website; then at least you can get a rough correlation.

 

If we were involved in a successful project, we will tell the next client, “Here is what we did for this project; it sold out in 4 months.” Of course our client knows that we weren’t 100% responsible for the success of that project – we may not even be responsible for 1% of the success – who can tell. But we were part of a team that ended up being a success, so we say so. That’s been the best approach in my book.

 

We are all advertisers, and it’s a soft science.

 

-Ian

[Charles Leo]

I agree with all the guys posting above. I also posted a response to this duplicate post over on the Chaos/Vray Forum:

 

I agree with Jon here (on the Chaos Forum.) My website is top-ranked in Google for a variety of terms and is found rather easily so I experience a variety of situations - from those architects and developers just starting out to those companies with more visualization experience.

 

There's a few situations which can occur when I get a phone call or email:

 

1)The clients which call me up usually know what they want. They're almost always guaranteed to shop around and even try other companies - sometimes coming back after they have a bad experience or feel like they're getting charged too much. Those are the big clients - and also the repeat ones.

 

There's really no point in explaining how you add value to their services as they generally can see what that value is. In fact, their marketing department could probably tell you more about it then you ever wanted to know in the first place.

 

The only time I've ever encountered the opposite of 'not seeing the value' is when an architect can look at an elevation/plan and doesn't need a rendering to show them what they already have in their heads. They often only do renderings for other people/non-architects.

 

2) The potential client doesn't know what they want. Often they're a medium-sized firm. They have an idea what the potential outcome is. Sometimes I have to elaborate why a rendering costs 'x amount of dollars' as some people think the whole process is just a 'push of the button.' Often, they come to me because somebody else requested to see 3D images and is willing to spend the capital.

 

From there it boils down to your quality of your portfolio and your price-range.

 

3) The potential client (usually individual homeowners) doesn't know what they want and freak out when they hear the price of a rendering.

 

In a nutshell, I feel price and quality ultimately determines whether someone will or will not use your service. The other factor which plays into the sales equation is time - they're almost always guaranteed to have wanted it 'yesterday' so I feel it's really not worth mentioning. I don't think the industry needs much explaining as to how it adds value - they can see what their big competitors are doing just by looking up at a billboard as they drive to work. And if they do need explaining, it typically means that they have no idea as to what they are doing in the first place. The only explaining one really needs is a few images - they're worth a thousand words.

 

As for trying to put a specific dollar figure to an example - that's really hard to do and it almost forces you to live to those standards you mention. You may actually compromise your position. Obviously, there's a difference between building a skyscraper and a coffee-shop down the street. One costs a heck of a lot more.

 

The aspects you mention are all valid points - but I would leave it at that and try to leave out numbers when doing the 'convincing.'

[Ernest Burden III]

My website is top-ranked in Google

 

This is a slight detour from the thread, but I looked at your site and found one item puzzling:

 

"LunarStudio is a group of highly-acclaimed ASAI certified artists..."

 

ASAI certifies artists?

[blowback]

........

 

ASAI certifies artists?

 

 

attention to detail, thats what I like about this place...... btw, nice cover image.

 

sorry Michael .... let's stay on topic.

 

what r u selling/servicing? awards or clients? work it. man Good luck ...

Edited July 31, 2008 by blowback

[alias_marks]

Great advice and insight, really appreciate the time you took here to share your thoughts. I think you've touched a nerve here. The clients that need this type convincing are usually not the ones who don't allow for you to achieve your best work.

 

I'm definitely sensitive to not letting ourselves become "contained" by this type of hard number evaluation. The true potential and value, as you stated, is driven from the quality of work in your portfolio and the artistic talent. My intention for pursuing some of these questions is to serve the larger goal of having a well rounded business perspective on the services you're providing to "enter" a conversation with potential clients. If the "barrier to entry" of a great client is the fact that they would like to see some business payoff, it'd be great to understand that side of it as much as possible.so you can work past that and get to the artistic payoff that they might not see as clearly. Make sense? no?

 

We're working on the part of our pitch that explains the unique side of our services as well, but for now, I'm just interested in focusing on how some others (if at all) are taking this approach.

 

Thanks again

 

Michael

[Nils Norgren]

I agree with all of what has been said so far, I would say that things now are very different, along the lines of what Ian mentioned. When we started we fought the battle between digital vs traditional, very often our clients were deciding whether to get animation, still renderings or physical models and traditional renderings. Now, the marketplace is much more saturated with this kind of imagery, people expect it, and many firms have capable in-house artists. Many of the studios like ours focus on developers more often than architects, but I would suspect this takes time and architects are where your initial network of contacts may exist.

 

Rather than having hard data we often use case studies, until you have some concrete examples under your belt that can be pointed too, the better approach is more along the lines of, we have more resources, expertise, and manpower (if you do) than your in-house vis team, so we are better equipped to deal with circumstances like competitions and high client expectations wand short schedules.

 

I don't know how this maps on your business plan, but I would say that setting yourselves apart from the in-house resources is going to be a challenge / opportunity that if successful can create lasting relationships.

 

One of the most thorny issues is how to compete, is it on price, type of services offered, resources, quality, ability to meet face to face and interact, etc. There are many options for different providers in the marketplace. If you sell something at a low price, remember that that client will always expect that same price, and the idea of "this doesn't have to be a super rendering, just something to get the idea across" doesn't work, there is only one quality setting, no client sees a portfolio and then settles for less.

 

Hope this helps,

 

-Nils

[Ernest Burden III]

setting yourselves apart from the in-house resources is going to be a challenge / opportunity

 

Great point, and I will add that you need to be sure you do not insult their in-house work. You want to work with those people, not against them. Maybe it comes in the form of offering to be their backup for overflow, or the 'closers' who takes their scene files and does the visual magic that they can't do in-house. Pitch how you can build on whatever they already have in place.

[Nic H]

If you sell something at a low price, remember that that client will always expect that same price, and the idea of "this doesn't have to be a super rendering, just something to get the idea across" doesn't work, there is only one quality setting, no client sees a portfolio and then settles for less.

 

very sound advice, the studio I used to work for tried to do this for ages, convinced it was a great idea, and got badly done over in several 'quick' jobs as the client kept on referring to our 'real' work as reference.

[Brian Cassil]

Good luck to you Michael. I've thought about going out on my own more times than I could count over the years but the opportunities I have had with the architecture firm I work at always seemed to just barely outpace the risk/reward of going out on my own.

 

So are you moving to SF or targeting on that market? Sorry if I missed this being mentioned in your post.

[EddieLeon]

...that if successful can create lasting relationships.

 

This is a very important point. Selling 3d services is relatively easy. Many good points have been made here about refining your pitch in order to land that first deal. But, if you cannot build a strong relationship with a client in order to land the next deal then you might spend too much time and energy in sales mode.

 

I have read studies that successful architecture firms generate over 80% of their work from repeat clients. In the arch viz business I would guess that the number is a lot lower. Maybe 40-50%. I wonder what we can do to increase our rate (if anything). Maybe our industry is just too competitive...