Small firms, big impacts.

Small firms, big impacts. Small businesses account for 99.7 percent of all US employers, and for 63 percent of net new jobs created in the past decade. More than half of all US workers either own small businesses or work for them. Most AIA member firms consist of four or fewer persons, and many are sole practitioners.

The costs of capitalizing professional architecture practice today are significant—to acquire and maintain design software, to build office infrastructure, to carry insurance, to lease or buy space, and simply to be an employer. This translates into a need for sound business acumen among architects working in small practices.

The AIA must pay more attention to profitability and to the other factors that make or break smaller firms as going concerns. This means systematic sharing of information—about business and practice models, about sales and marketing techniques, about delivery methods, about pricing, and about all of the other factors we face as private practitioners in small firms.

Various advocacy groups regularly lobby Congress on small business issues, including paperwork reduction, tax relief, and growth incentives. The AIA can certainly support initiatives that help small business, but we face issues that are unique to architecture—internships, professional development, partnering and liability, specialty certifications—and these are the issues upon which AIA must focus resources.