Growing a Small Firm (AIA San Francisco)
This series, filmed live at AIA San Francisco and moderated by Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, is the definitive guide to growing a small firm. You will save valuable time and money, and many sleepless nights, from the insights provided from the expert panelists. Topics include:
Starting your own firm
Marketing and business development
Diversification strategies
Gaining market intelligence
Teaming with other small or larger firms
Crafting a compelling message
Getting published
Developing a strong identity and brand.
Take each of the 8 courses individually ($30 AIA members, $40 non-members) or SAVE 30% and earn 12 LUs. when registering for the 8-course series ($140 AIA members, $196 non-members).
Register for the series now and receive a FREE BONUS COURSE "Starting Your Own Firm".
These courses are presented in high definition video and are available on computers and most smart phones, tablets and mobile devices.
To SAVE EVEN MORE, inquire about our GROUP RATES for 10 or more people by emailing ContinuingEducation@aecKnowledge.com or calling 415.755.3058.
- Starting Your Own Firm
- Growing a Small Firm: Marketing
- Growing a Small Firm: Public Design Opportunities
- Growing a Small Firm: Elevating the Role of Women
- Growing a Small Firm: Teaming with Larger Firms
- Growing a Small Firm: Diversifying Your Practice and Entering New Markets
- Growing a Small Firm: Creating Successful Partnerships
- Growing a Small Firm: Developing Your Identity and Building Your Reputation
DISCOUNTED Course Bundles
- Course Bundle Overview
- Accessibility 2025 (AIA California)
- AIA Seattle 2024 Housing Forum
- AIA Los Angeles & AIA|LA COTE 2024 1.5 Degrees Symposium
- AIA California CALGreen Embodied Carbon
- Accessibility 2023 (AIA California)
- AIA Seattle 2023 Housing Summit
- AIA Seattle 2024 Climate Summit
- AIA Seattle 2023 Climate Summit
- AIA Seattle 2022 Housing Forum - Transforming Residential Practice
- AIA Seattle 2019 Housing Forum - Density Done Right
- AIA Seattle 2018 Housing Forum - Housing Innovations
- MDC 2022 Keynotes (AIA California)
- MDC 2019 Keynotes (AIA California)
- MDC 2017 Keynotes (AIA California)
- MDC 2017 Emerging Talent (AIA California)
- MDC 2015 Keynotes (AIA California)
- MDC 2013 Keynotes (AIA California)
- MDC 2011 Keynotes (AIA California)
- Accessibility 2017 (AIA California)
- Accessibility 2019 (AIA California)
- Accessibility 2021 (AIA California)
- AIA Seattle 2022 Equity & Advocacy in Rapid Decarbonization
- AIA Seattle 2021 Just Transitions - Upstream and Downstream Impacts of Decarbonization
- AIA Los Angeles & AIA|LA COTE 2020 Two Degrees Symposium
- Active Design (AIA New York)
- Sustainable Design (USGBC-NCC)
- Sustainability Practices (AIA New York, AIACC)
- Financial Management for Design Professionals
- Leadership Effectiveness (AIA Dallas)
- Practice Mgmt. (for small and mid-size firms)
- Project Delivery Methods (AIA California)
- Specifications & CA Phase Best Practices
- Risk Management
- Growing a Small Firm (AIA San Francisco)
DISCOUNTED Group Pricing
Course Providers
- All providers
- aecKnowledge
- AIA California - Accessibility
- AIA California - Climate Action and ZNCD
- AIA California - Monterey Design Conference
- AIA California - Practice Management
- AIA Dallas
- AIA Los Angeles - Climate Action
- AIA New York
- AIA San Francisco
- AIA Seattle
- USGBC-Northern California Chapter
Registering for a CE Course
- Step 1Sign in or register with aecKnowledge.com if you have not done so already.
- Step 2Select a course and follow instructions for course registration, registration and course viewing. Courses are available for 90 days following registration.
- Step 3Take the CE Quiz after viewing the entire course. After you have successfully passed the quiz, a Certificate of completion will be automatically downloaded to your computer for you to save. If you are an AIA member, your AIA CES Learning Units will automatically be submitted.
Continuing Education FAQs
Starting Your Own Firm
Find out whether you have the skills, personality and stomach to start your own firm as you watch this 90-minute panel discussion featuring five principals of renowned architecture and design firms.
Filmed live at AIA San Francisco, each panelist provides insights and invaluable lessons from years filled with joy and anguish. This inspiring and eye-opening conversation offers candid advice and practical tips on everything from building a portfolio and branding a firm to managing cash flow, motivating staff and responding to relentless client demands. This course should be on the "essential viewing" list for anyone thinking about starting an architecture or design firm.
Presenter:
Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, David Darling, FAIA, Mark Horton, FAIA, Primo Orpilla and Verda Alexander
| Provider: | AIA San Francisco |
|---|---|
| Certification: | AIA/CES |
| Learning Units: | 1.5 hours |
Growing a Small Firm: Marketing
Filmed live at AIA San Francisco as part of its Growing a Small Firm series moderated by Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, this 90-minute panel discussion focuses on marketing and business development.
Through their passion, collaborative perspectives and willingness to step outside of their comfort zones, each of the presenters built highly successful design firms. This course captures their insights and provides invaluable advice to professionals who have recently branched out on their own and those considering starting their own firm.
Although the panelists practice in small firms, their insights will apply to practitioners interested in growing a firm of any size and to emerging professionals of any discipline.
Presenter:
Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, Samuel Fajner, Sylvia Kwan, FAIA, Cass Calder Smith, FAIA, and Melissa Werner
| Provider: | AIA San Francisco |
|---|---|
| Certification: | AIA/CES |
| Learning Units: | 1.5 hours |
Growing a Small Firm: Public Design Opportunities
Garnering widely sought after public-sector projects can be daunting for a small or growing firm. By the time you arrive at a pre-proposal conference amidst a sea of other qualified firms, the opportunities to differentiate your firm and eventually sway a selection committee are already slim. You look around at your colleagues, many from firms much larger than yours, listen to the qualification criteria, and eventually ask yourself, Why am I spending my valuable time and limited resources chasing this project..
Filmed live at AIA San Francisco as part of its Growing a Small Firm series moderated by Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, this 90-minute panel discussion captures the insights and advice of owner representatives responsible for hiring and working with small firms on small- and large-scale public projects. The panelists are remarkably candid in describing how to gain market intelligence on upcoming projects, what happens behind the scenes in selection deliberations, and what strategies resonate most during selection interviews.
Although the panelists practice in small firms, their insights will apply to practitioners interested in growing a firm of any size and to emerging professionals of any discipline.
Presenter:
Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, Rob Gayle, Edgar Lopez, Rona Rothenberg, FAIA, and Ivar Satero
| Provider: | AIA San Francisco |
|---|---|
| Certification: | AIA/CES |
| Learning Units: | 1.5 hours |
Growing a Small Firm: Elevating the Role of Women
Filmed live at AIA San Francisco as part of its Growing a Small Firm series moderated by Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, this 90-minute panel discussion focuses on the challenges women face in elevating their roles as design professionals, navigating work/life challenges, and competing against other accomplished professionals within the male-dominated professions of architecture, landscape architecture and construction.
As panelist Marsha Maytum, FAIA, stated, "It's a matter of being able to find your voice in that group and feel of equal value."
The four women panelists, each of whom has found her voice and successfully navigated her way to an influential position, offer candid advice to both genders about work/life balance, finding the right mentor and partners, publicizing your achievements, establishing yourself on a construction site, and staying true to your passions.
Although the four panelists practice in small firms, their insights will apply to women in any size firm and to emerging professionals of any discipline.
Presenter:
Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, Elizabeth Ranieri, FAIA, LEED AP, Marsha Maytum, FAIA, LEED AP, Andrea Cochran, FASLA, and Ive Haugeland
| Provider: | AIA San Francisco |
|---|---|
| Certification: | AIA/CES |
| Learning Units: | 1.5 hours |
Growing a Small Firm: Teaming with Larger Firms
Filmed live at AIA San Francisco as part of its Growing a Small Firm series moderated by Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, this 90-minute panel discussion focuses on how small firms can broaden their skills and obtain larger commissions by teaming with larger firms.
The panelists, based on decades of experience teaming with larger firms, offer candid advice about how to identify the right firms with whom to team, which projects are most appropriate for teaming, how to align cultures, how to make a smaller firm attractive to larger firms, how to navigate potential problems, what to consider when allocating scope and fees, and, of equal importance, when to run away from a teaming opportunity.
Their insights will help your firm form valuable relationships and deliver better projects while saving you countless sleepless nights.
Presenter:
Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, Amy Elliot, AIA, Marc L'Italien, FAIA, LEED AP, BD+C, Paulett Taggart, FAIA, LEED AP
| Provider: | AIA San Francisco |
|---|---|
| Certification: | AIA/CES |
| Learning Units: | 1.5 hours |
Growing a Small Firm: Diversifying Your Practice and Entering New Markets
Filmed live at AIA San Francisco as part of its Growing a Small Firm series moderated by Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, this 90-minute panel discussion focuses on how small firms can diversify their practices and effectively enter new markets.
The panelists, based on decades of experience, provide pointed advice about how to effectively identify new marketing opportunities, build a brain trust, leverage technology and social media, partner and joint venture with other firms, and overcome marketing barriers unique to small and growing firms. Their insights will help you broaden your firm’s base, gain entry into highly desirable market sectors and appeal to a growing list of clients.
The panelists bring experience from small, medium and large firms, and their insights will apply to practitioners interested in growing a firm of any size and to emerging professionals of any discipline.
Presenter:
Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, Anne Fougeron, FAIA, Beverly Prior, FAIA, LEED AP B+C, Carsten Voecker, AIA, RIBA, and E.B. Min, AIA
| Provider: | AIA San Francisco |
|---|---|
| Certification: | AIA/CES |
| Learning Units: | 1.5 hours |
Growing a Small Firm: Creating Successful Partnerships
Filmed live at AIA San Francisco as part of its Growing a Small Firm series moderated by Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, this 90-minute panel discussion focuses on how small firms how small firms can benefit from teaming with other small firms.
The panelists, each from small architectural firms that have successfully navigated the often long and ambitious journey of partnering with other small firms, discuss: how to become more viable for projects by partnering with other small firms; how partnering can help your firm diversify its services, project types and geographic reach; how to present your team to prospective clients and communicate your team’s value proposition; and why developing a familiarity and clarifying your roles and responsibilities are essential when partnering with other firms.
Presenter:
Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, Eliza Hart, AIA, Alex Bergtraun, AIA, Cary Bernstein, AIA LEED AP, and Tom McElroy, AIA, LEED AP
| Provider: | AIA San Francisco |
|---|---|
| Certification: | AIA/CES |
| Learning Units: | 1.5 hours |
Growing a Small Firm: Developing Your Identity and Building Your Reputation
Filmed live at AIA San Francisco as part of its Growing a Small Firm series moderated by Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, this 90-minute panel discussion focuses on how small firms can effectively develop their identity, brand their business and build a solid reputation.
The panel of communications experts and architects, each of who has created their own strong identities, offer candid advice about defining and building your firm’s reputation, the benefits of communicating your values and distinct personality, the importance of establishing your authenticity through word of mouth and in-person contact, and why focusing on your clients’ goals and seeking their advice is essential for developing and communicating your identity.
Presenter:
Mark Cavagnero, FAIA, Amanda Walter, David Baker, FAIA, Yosh Asato, and Tim Culvahouse, FAIA
| Provider: | AIA San Francisco |
|---|---|
| Certification: | AIA/CES |
| Learning Units: | 1.5 hours |