Architecture Portfolio Tips to Win More Clients for Your Business

Talking about a portfolio what is that so if want to put it in simple words, it is a sample of your past works in your profession that you use for employment generation, customer acquisition, or business collaboration. It is a great way to demonstrate the competencies you would list on the business profile that allows you to show your relevant skills, potential, and abilities to the clients. Architecture is not left behind as a profession to have a portfolio that attracts potential clients and it serves as a tool used to present and demonstrate the skills and services architects can provide to future clients. A portfolio is an introductory presentation from an architect that not only reveals work experience but also an instrument that represents the style and personality that separates him from the rest. Now the question is why you need this portfolio. In short words, you need it for business opportunities, to showcase a record, experience, and work you have done so far, or to achieve off your work. So, it is one of the most important items an architect should have because it’s your identity. After having a long discussion about what is a portfolio and why it is important for architecture, we can easily conclude that if you need a great position, you need a great portfolio. So, here are some tips to make your portfolio stand out and win more clients.

1. Consider Your Ideal Future Client

It is simple to make yourself what you want to attract. Start with your ideal future client in mind for example if you want more office-building projects make that emphasis on your portfolio. Highlight projects that most align with your client’s vision and yours.

2. Be Selective, “Sell more in less for better ROI”

Having too large a portfolio can also leave prospects feeling bored and overwhelmed. One of the most important things in an architecture portfolio is image selection. So, just don’t try to include every project but you should include only the best ones you have done so far because including every work of yours, you have done will water down your greatest accomplishment. Remember your portfolio is an extended copy of your architecture business whether you want to attract a business or a client. Through your portfolio, you are making an indirect sales pitch. In sales, there is a saying, “Do more by selling less.” A sales copy makes a high impact with the least number of words. This is the same as your portfolio. Target the type of architecture you want to venture in, develop two to three design samples around it and pitch it with the least appropriate number of words you can use. Using a high number of words in your portfolio design will create a sense of lag in communication through your drawings. As an architect, it is an unsaid rule to propagate your service philosophy through visuals, not by words. It will leave no scope of distrust among the potential lead in first contact and help them focus on your product and services.

3. Include Your USP [Unique Selling Proposition]

It is a marketing statement that differentiates a product or brand from its competitors. It is the marketing strategy of informing customers about how one’s brand or product is superior to its competitors. Its specific benefit makes a business stand out when compared to others. In this competitive business era USP (Unique Selling Proposition) section in your job resume, business pitch deck, and the sales pitch is a necessity. It defines your importance over other people in the same segment. A USP can be anything. If you are fresher, it can be your unique style and perspective. If you are experienced, it can be your experiences, the business problems you have solved, and your client base. So, include USP in your architecture portfolio and stand out.

4. Build Your Brand’s Design and Style

When someone looks at your portfolio, they should know immediately that it’s your firm so using the right visuals is important because it makes a strong first impression.   
• It is important to use high-quality 3D visualization images. These are the basics for an architect. Graphics are the selling point of your architectural portfolio. Any architect involved in the making of his/her portfolio should abstain from a casual approach to it.   
• If putting technical drawings in the portfolio, it should comply with architectural industry standards. This differentiates a professional architect from an amateur designer. Proper use of line weights, color, textures, and explicit texting with high-resolution results is what big firms provide to their clients.   
• A great architecture portfolio ticks all the principles of good UX/UI design. Don’t use up all available space when designing your architecture online portfolio; let the white space allow the viewer to concentrate on the main component of the page.   
• Create a standardized brand theme representing you and your architectural services using your brand’s logo, fonts color palette, and sync those with your drawing images. This will make your visuals speak for yourself.

An architecture portfolio is a collection of work samples that show off your skills as an architect. Read Brilliant Tips to make a Professional Architecture Portfolio and Learn how to build yours today!

5. Also Have an Extended Form of a Portfolio

A portfolio should be concise but there is a trend of linking these with a longer form of work. Today’s consumers are spoiled as never before. They want to have a platter of options to arrive at a buying decision. Provide them with all the architectural styles at their fingertips but they still want more. Creating a longer body of work is a requirement, therefore. This longer body of work will act as an extension to your concise portfolio that you are handling at the very first state of contact with potential collaborators and clients. Direct people to this longer body of work through your portfolio. It will help businesses sustain potential leads easily and for a long time. A long body of architectural work and ideas is also a plus in brand awareness.

In today’s competitive job market, having multiple architecture portfolios is essential. Multiple portfolios can give you leverage in accessing more opportunities. You must consider reading Should you Really Build Multiple Architecture Portfolios?

6. Online Portfolio Presence > Hard Copies

By 2030, 7.5 billion people will use the internet. The big explosion of the internet has benefitted the architecture industry a lot. It has democratized the industry. Anybody with good architectural acumen can reach any person around the globe on social media. Either you can send a software copy of your architectural portfolio in just one click to firms, businesses, and prospects that can be your potential clients or you can put your one on a portfolio-sharing website with a greater user base. It has multiple benefits over a hard copy of a portfolio; it saves money from the pocket, saves time, and eases the process of reaching out to people. Sending hard copies to people can be a different experience altogether for them, I am not debating this but it is not very efficient for a new starter. There are multiple opportunities you can explore to market your architectural portfolio online –   
• Connect your business’s social media presence through contact details on your portfolio.   
• Nowadays businesses are attaching QRs of websites on their brochures and catalogs.

To know the detailed importance of an online portfolio read Should you really Build an Online Architecture Portfolio?

7. Storytelling is the Key

Look for an opportunity to add storytelling to your portfolio. Start with one project explaining the challenges you face and how you overcome that clients get what they wanted or highlight design aesthetic material choice. Think about a question that comes up during the project and use your portfolio as inspiration to answer the questions. Expert speaker Simon Sinek says, “People are not interested in what you do, they are interested in why you do it.” Keeping this in mind just address the “WHY” cause of your products and services to customers. However, firms and businesses are generally looking for the “HOW” equation i.e., how you solved a particular set of problems as an architect. You need to address “Why” and “How” more instead of “What” you are doing that is already comprehensible by your drawings. It will also help you in trimming some words in your portfolio.

A perfect portfolio would certainly help employers to understand the Importance Of Professional Experience For An Architect!!

8. Show Them That you Have a Variety of Offerings From your Side

What’s better than that if one business can bring variety and offer multiple skills? It’s needed in every profession so in architecture. While running your architecture practice also you don’t want to let go of any customer opportunity. Versatility in your extended form of the portfolio can bring more clients and experience you can brag about and who doesn’t love money?

9. Keep Updating Yourself and Your Portfolio

Make sure you always keep your portfolio updated with all your best projects. Make sure that you add diversity as you gain more and more experience to show the clients that you worked on a variety of designs. As the architecture field grows with time you even need to show that you are growing in the architecture field too. A single act of laziness by not updating yourself and your portfolio not only will keep you away from networking and monetary opportunities but it would have a compounding effect on your industry experience and push you light years behind your peers in the same industry.

Get ready to impress your clients with these 7 tips on improving your portfolio

10. Don’t be Afraid of Experimentation

Of course, there are some rules you need to follow for the development of your architectural portfolio but rules are meant to be broken. If you have your gut calling to go with your unique approach, you should go with it.   
• Your unconventional architectural style.   
• The problems you need to address in the market.   
• Your way of representing architectural drawings.   
• The ideas that you want one day to be executed and happen.   
Who Knows if this unconventionality will become your USP for clients and attract some good business? A good architecture professional makes great drawings but a great architect makes his/her idea happen. Deep down inside every architect desires to see their concepts taking the tangible form of reality. Be it in the shape of a building, structure, product, space, etc. So, go on and put those ideas that you want to execute in your portfolio with your flavor of representation to it. Don’t be afraid.

To know the importance of a portfolio in-depth, you must also check out Purpose to Make an Architecture Portfolio for an Architect

Architecture portfolios are generally your first sales pitch to clients. It is always clearly told, “First impression is the last impression.” Don’t ruin it. This article on “Architecture portfolio tips to win more clients for your business.” will help you better your portfolio pitches to clients. Deploy STAR (Situation, Task, Action, and Result) strategy in your architecture portfolio through this article and enjoy the client flow. In Planndesign, we regularly tip architects and interior designers about architectural drawings and design ideas. If you are an architect or an interior designer, this would help you and your portfolio grow.

Lastly, take a read to How Important are Blogs for Your Interior Design Business?

and 7 Tricks to Get More Clients for Your Architecture Business