Is It Time To Quit Your Architecture Business? | 087

Have you had enough of running your own business?

Have you had enough of architecture all together?

Maybe lately you've been tempted to jack it all in and get a job, but how

do you know if it's really time for you to call it quits and will getting

a job actually make you any happier?

Are there any alternatives?

That's exactly what we'll be exploring in this episode of Architecture

Business Club, the weekly podcast for small firm founders who want to build

their dream business in architecture and enjoy more freedom, flexibility,

and fulfillment in what they do.

I'm John Clayton, your host.

Having spent over 20 years working in architecture, I know how hard it can

be to explain your services so people truly understand and value what you do.

Many firms struggle with this, but by sharing your stories on podcasts,

you can become the trusted voice in your market, grow your brand,

and attract much better clients.

We can help you with everything from podcast strategy and launch

production and management, podcast hosting and guesting through to

promoting and growing your show.

If you'd like to discover how podcasting could benefit your business, click the

link in the show notes to book a noob obligation chat about working with me.

Or if you're interested in being a guest on this show, Imon John.

That's JO n@architecturebusinessclub.com.

Now, let's explore if it's really time for you to quit.

hey, thanks for joining me today.

We are going to be looking at quitting.

We're gonna explore whether or not it's time for you to quit

the business of architecture.

So this might sound like a bit of a heavy topic, but I think it's an important one.

You might be listening to this now and this might be something that's

weighing down on your mind right now.

So I wanna try and help you with that.

So firstly, let's begin by considering, what are some of the signs that

might be indicating that it is time for you to quit your business?

It could be because the market has changed.

There's been shifts in the market, maybe down to new technologies or increased

competition in your local market.

That's maybe just making your previous or current business model obsolete.

Just think of some of the huge changes, particularly uh, in the uk some of the

changes that we've had in recent years.

We've had Brexit, we've had COVID ID we've had we rising building costs, we

have labor shortages, we've got cost of materials going through the roof.

We've had the introduction of the Building Safety Act.

We've got the rise of ai.

All of these things might be impacting the viability of your business, so maybe

the way that you did things before.

Needs to change.

Maybe it isn't gonna work the way that you did it before.

The other thing that might have changed is just your personal situation.

Maybe if your personal situation has changed, that business model

doesn't work anymore for the future.

So it could be that there have been some health issues, or maybe

you've got changing family needs that mean that what's stacked

up before is no longer viable.

And you just may need to prioritize other aspects of your life right now.

Maybe a business hasn't been generating enough money.

Maybe it's just not generating enough income, or you've constantly

been running at a loss with no clear path to profitability.

Maybe you are lacking in passion for your business.

Perhaps you just don't enjoy doing it anymore.

Maybe you've lost that drive for your business, that drive that you had at

the very beginning, that excitement when you started your business.

Maybe that's, that's fizzled away.

If that's the case, it may be difficult for you to make the big changes that

might be needed for you to be able to make the business viable again, and for

you to work through those challenges.

Maybe your business is making you unhappy or unwell when you are.

Work is making you unhappy or it's constantly impacting your wellbeing.

This is not a good situation to be in.

So if you're feeling constantly stressed or exhausted, you are going to struggle to

make sound decisions about your business and your business will inevitably suffer.

Or maybe you're just feeling at the end of your tether that nothing you've tried

lately seems to have worked despite all of your best efforts, you just can't seem to

find a way to get your business to work.

So there's a lot of reasons why you might consider quitting closing

your business, but does quitting mean that you are a failure?

Thomas Edison once said,

I have not failed.

I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

When things don't work as you expect, you can see it as a failure, which

means your business is a failure.

Thus you are a failure, or at least that's how you feel, or you can see

each failure as a learning opportunity and experiment a positive step.

You might have heard people talking about failing fast or failing forward.

When you reframe how you think about failure, failure

actually becomes a good thing.

As the more you fail, the faster you can figure out how you can succeed.

So you either win or you learn.

You never lose.

So maybe now you're thinking, okay, so quitting or closing my business,

that doesn't mean that I'm a failure, but you might still feel like your

business is your baby and you're just not sure that you can let it go.

Remember, babies eventually grow up and leave home, but I get it though.

You've put blood, sweat, and tears into making your business work, so I understand

why you don't want to let it go.

But if your business is losing money or it's making you unhappy, something

really does need to change your business.

Doesn't have to be forever.

Yes, it would be lovely if your business grew and grew to create a

lifelong legacy for you and your family.

And if your business model is right, you can have that.

Others certainly do.

There's lots of other examples of this.

But that's not the aim of most individuals that start a business.

Most people start a business because they want more freedom, flexibility,

and fulfillment in what they do.

They're not thinking about building out a big corporation

and creating a future legacy.

That's not usually the motivations and reasons why most people do it.

So does your business give you those things right now?

Do you have the level of flexibility that you really wanted?

Are you feeling fulfilled enough?

Do you truly feel like you're free?

If you've answered no to any of those questions, you are not alone.

I. Most small business owners feel cheated at some point after starting

up, usually because they've made the mistake of creating another

job rather than a business.

And this time with the world's worst boss.

Yeah, that's right.

I'm talking about you.

If you want to learn more about why most small businesses don't work, then

pick up a copy of the E-Myth Revisited.

A great book by Michael e Gerber.

So if your business doesn't seem to stack up anymore, there is

no shame in closing it down.

That doesn't take away all of the good things that you've achieved

throughout the course of its life.

You can look at it like a chapter that's closing.

So a new, more exciting, more appealing chapter can begin.

Bear in mind though that closing a business isn't without cost.

It will take time and money.

You'll have winding up costs like accounting fees, maybe legal fees.

You'll need to settle any outstanding debts that you have if you have a

loan or a business credit card, and you'll likely have to pay for runoff,

professional indemnity insurance.

So before you rush to go and close down your business.

I'd like you to just step back from the brink and consider your options,

and you really have three options.

You can stay, you can stop, or you can start.

So let's look at each of those in turn.

So to stay is to continue on as you are.

It's the status quo, and this might feel like the safest option, even though that

right now your business is not providing enough income or enough security or enough

fulfillment for you, but it is familiar.

It's what you know.

It's what you've been doing.

And there's probably a little voice in your head that says, hang

on in there, because next year things are going to be better.

If I can just hang on there long enough, things will turn around for the better.

So in the short term, this may feel like the best option, certainly the least

painful as you won't have to put your big pants on and face up to the fact.

That your business isn't really viable right now.

You won't have to make any big, scary, life changing decisions, but in doing

nothing and avoiding that painful stuff, you will delay any positive change.

So it's like accepting a slow death instead of just ripping off the bandaid.

I've had firsthand experience of this, of hoping my business would improve

if I just hung in there long enough.

When my family and I relocated to Norfolk in 2016, my work really slowed down.

We'd moved to a small market town and compared to where we used to live.

There was twice as many competitors and less than half the number of properties

locally, so that was less than half the number of prospective clients.

Now, that in itself should have raised some major alarm bells.

I did have concerns, but in my usual, optimistic way, I thought.

This is gonna be fine.

Like things will come good.

I just need to make a few little tweaks.

So I made tweaks to my website.

I changed my branding, I updated my offers in reality.

All too little avail at the time.

These felt like big changes to me, but in hindsight, I hadn't

really changed anything at all except maybe the window dressing.

I mean, after all, I was still trying to sell exactly the same thing, architectural

services to homeowners that were maybe planning home renovations or home

extension projects, and that was in a local market where there just was not

enough demand for that particular service.

I spent the next seven years struggling to make this work.

Seven years of inconsistent and insufficient cash flow.

Seven years of growing frustration, seven years of uncertainty for me and my family.

Seven years of staying the same.

Finally, I realized and accepted that my business wasn't

viable in its current form.

That what had worked where we used to live just didn't work in our new location,

that there just wasn't enough of those domestic clients locally to go round.

So the size of the opportunity just wasn't big enough for me.

I ask you, do you want seven more years of not enough, or do you

want things to change quicker?

If you want to avoid the prolonged pain that I've been through, staying the

same really isn't an option for you.

So what else can you do?

So probably the scariest option is to stop to close your business.

So this is the scariest thing you could do, but it's also the bravest and it's

the one that affords you a clean slate.

Imagine how freeing it would feel to be free of all of the bad stuff that you've

been having to deal with on your own.

No more demanding clients.

No more unreliable income.

No more wearing a dozen different hats.

No more stress.

No more sleepless nights or unhappiness, and no more burnout.

You could get a job.

You've already been looking at job ads.

You could get paid more working for someone else than

you pay yourself right now.

You'd also get proper holidays where you could fully switch off and

you'd finish work on time every day.

Finding clients would be.

Someone else's responsibility again, and you'd never have to do the tasks that

you hate, like bookkeeping ever again.

And social media, I mean, you really hated doing social media.

That would be somebody else's job too.

It sounds lovely, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Sounds great.

Why would you ever want to run your own business again when

you could have a job like that?

And I agree, it sounds very enticing, but let's take a reality check.

Is that really a balanced, realistic view of being employed?

I mean, how likely is it that you are actually going to land a perfect job?

That dream job that I've just described, and let's be really honest about this.

There's no such thing as a perfect job.

If there was, you would've never have started your own

business in the first place.

There are just some jobs that are better than other jobs.

Being employed, there may still be tasks that you have to do that you

really don't like, and you might still have to work late sometimes.

Or you might have to miss out on something to attend a work

meeting or to meet a work deadline.

So ultimately it's going to be a trade off, but there are definitely things you

could gain by being employed depending on what your current situation is.

But what is it that you stand to lose if you worked for another company?

What would you miss about working for yourself?

I. Well, for me, I'd miss being able to work from a coffee shop whenever I

like, or being able to choose my working hours to suit my own energy levels

and to fit around my family so I never miss things like the kids' sports day.

I'd also miss being fully in control of my availability for meetings and

calls, having full autonomy over creative decisions and what personal and

professional development I choose to do.

These sorts of things are often the reasons why we start our own

business in the first place, but sometimes we can lose sight of this.

So I'd love to know.

Why did you start your own business?

How did that come about?

What were the reasons behind it?

Because thinking about that, again, might just give you clarity on whether

you should close your business and get a job, or if you should change

your business, which leads us on to, to start to start something new.

So if you've accepted that things do need to change, but you're still

sitting on the fence about closing your business and looking for a job,

this might be the best option for you.

And the good news is you don't need to go for the nuclear option

of closing your business down.

Instead, you can pivot, you could start serving a new market.

You could offer new services or change your business model entirely.

I. You could go into a completely different line of work using

the same limited company that you've already set up.

Did you know that you can use a different trading name to your limited company

name, or that if you wanted to change your limited company name or your business

category with company's house in the uk, it's quick and easy to do it, and if

you're a sole trader, it's even easier.

And if you're a sole practitioner.

You don't have to get permission from multiple stakeholders or have

to consider how your new business direction affects your employees.

You just need to decide on what needs to change, make

those changes and get started.

So changing things can be much easier and quicker than perhaps you might think.

Plus, if you've been in business for a while, you'll have a wealth of data you

can use to give yourself a head start.

And if you tried lots of things already that haven't worked, that's great.

You now know what not to do.

But what else haven't you tried?

Can you see another way forward with your business?

Do you have ideas for a new service or for a new business model?

If you're not 100% sure, you don't even have to go a hundred percent all in.

You can keep doing a bit of what you do now or what you did

previously alongside something new.

Experiment.

Have some fun.

Smell what sells.

Keep doing what works and ditch what doesn't.

Now, I shared with you earlier how I realized that my own architecture

business needed to change.

I realized after seven years of struggle that if I wanted my architecture

business to thrive, I'd need to widen my niche to include non-domestic projects

like most traditional local firms.

Or I'd need to widen the area that I served, or I would need to do

something completely different.

Honestly, the idea of being a generalist practiced it.

It really didn't appeal to me.

I enjoyed working with homeowners and it would mean accepting other

local inquiries that I'd previously been very happy to keep turning away.

Things like.

Plans for agricultural buildings or planning permission for an

illuminated sign over a local takeaway, like stuff like that.

Like just stuff that really didn't light me up.

Widening the area that I served.

Also felt really tricky because most of the clients that I'd had contact with

preferred working with local providers.

I felt that I'd have to become amazingly good at architectural design to

attract clients from further afield.

I was certainly competent at design, but not exceptional.

This felt like too much of a stretch, and I also didn't feel

brave enough to close my business.

So the change that I decided to make was, in hindsight, quite unconventional.

I decided to launch this podcast to be more visible, to build my personal brand.

I did it because for a long time I'd wanted to help other people like me.

People who had started their own business in architecture and then discovered

it was harder than they ever realized.

That there was all this other stuff they needed to learn about,

like business sales and marketing.

I thought that over time that this could lead to new revenue streams.

And if I'm really honest, at the time I just didn't know what else to do.

I'd love the idea of podcasting for years, but I'd never felt brave enough to do it.

But I got to the point where launching this podcast felt less scary than

the other options The option of closing my business and certainly

more appealing than working on projects that didn't light me up.

So I planned to carry on accepting domestic client projects until I'd

figured out a new way to make a living.

I thought this would take three months or so.

In reality, it took around 18 months to figure out what my next

chapter would be and how I would make a living in the future.

And I'll be honest with you, it's been really hard.

It wasn't until CIAT asked me to produce their Where it's at podcast that I

finally realized what I wanted to do.

I wanted to help other businesses get into podcasting, particularly those operating

in and around the world of architecture.

And it just clicked.

It felt right.

It was the first time in years that I felt excited about my work again,

and I felt completely confident in my abilities to help them.

Turns out, without realizing it, in building this podcast,

I'd built my portfolio.

I guess sometimes your niche really does choose you, so back to you.

I'd consider how you're feeling right now and what you would feel like in

a year's time if nothing had changed for you or if things had gotten even

worse, what would that do to you?

What would it do to your finances?

What would it do to your health and wellbeing?

What would it do to your family?

How would it affect your most important relationships?

If things aren't going well, don't wait for things to change on their own.

Be the change that you want to see because true change comes from from within.

Only you can change the things in your world, and you have far more

control over things in your life than you realise So what to do next?

I'd say before you make any big decisions, I'd encourage you to take some time out.

So I would block out your calendar.

I would book an away day, even better, book a holiday, give this

decision the space and time that it deserves, and consider what your

life would be like if you choose to stay, stop, or start something new.

Then decide what you're going to do, and if you're still feeling

unsure, feel free to reach out to me.

I'd be glad to help you if I can.

Hope this episode's been useful to you, and if you think it would

help somebody else, then please share it with your network.

I'd be most grateful.

Next time we're joined by Jason McDade to explore how we can

normalize imposter syndrome.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of architecture business club.

If you liked this episode, think other people might enjoy it.

Or just want to show your support for the show.

Then please leave a glowing five-star review or rating wherever you listen

to podcasts, it would mean so much to me and makes it easier for new

listeners to discover the show.

And if you haven't already done, so don't forget to hit the subscribe button.

So you never miss another episode.

If you want to connect with me, you can do that on most social media platforms,

just search for at Mr. John Clayton.

The best place to connect with me online, though is on LinkedIn.

You can find a link to my profile in the show notes.

Remember.

Running your architecture business.

Doesn't have to be hard and you don't need to do it alone.

This is architecture business club.