The TRUTH About Low Paying Architecture Jobs

The architecture profession has a dark history of advertising regulations imposed by the AIA, that although revoked 50 years ago, still leave the stench of social stigma on what’s appropriate for firms when it comes to promotion.
Add to that, that most small firm owners are designers by training and don’t understand what marketing is, and you have a recipe for struggle, which has left architecture as one of the lowest paid high education professions.
Marketing, for most architecture firms and business owners in general, is a loaded term associated with sleazy sales tactics and shameless self-promotion.
If that’s the case, then it makes sense that architects, who aim to authentically express themselves through design, and also hope to win more work with good design, would avoid marketing like the plague.
Thankfully, effective marketing has nothing to do with shameless self-promotion, so we can toss that idea out the window.
And sadly, portfolios - no matter how nicely laid out - aren’t the key factor in winning clients.