Whether you’re an aspiring firm owner, a small business owner looking to expand, or an up-and-coming entrepreneur, this course will give you the knowledge, tools, and strategies to turn your business ideas into successful ventures.

What you’ll gain:

Design professionals starting their own practice: Learn how to build a strong business foundation by defining your idea, conducting market research, and crafting a focused business plan tailored to your goals.

Firm owners looking to expand: Reevaluate and redefine your firm’s strategy and explore new growth opportunities to position your business for long-term success.

We’ll cover key topics like the entrepreneurial mindset, the seven stages of the entrepreneurial journey, traditional business models, and new approaches leveraging creativity and innovation. Each lesson is carefully structured to offer practical strategies—plus resources and tools—for your specific career stage, so you’re ready to lead confidently and thrive financially.

Develop the skills to craft an effective marketing strategy for your architectural practice. We’ll begin by defining the fundamentals of marketing and uncovering the key traits that make services marketable. Then, we’ll dive into the four essential pillars of marketing, learning how to apply them effectively to elevate your practice within the architecture industry.

You’ll learn how to create a marketing plan by first assessing your current market position and setting clear, achievable goals. Then, you’ll learn how to understand and reach your target audience—identifying and analyzing their needs and preferences.

We’ll uncover a range of marketing tactics tailored to architectural services, including how to guide prospective clients through a marketing funnel—from first contact to agreement. Finally, we’ll introduce various analytic tools and metrics to help you track and evaluate your success.

In today’s competitive and turbulent marketplace, it can be a challenge for design firms to reach and maintain sustained growth. That’s why developing your firm’s strategic planning and learning new growth strategies is vital to your firm’s success. In this course, you will learn about the strategic planning process and explore growth strategies such as market development, diversification, and strategic alliances. You’ll also understand how to incorporate the components of the business model canvas into your decision-making to develop and implement effective strategic plans that drive firm growth.