How an architect turns into a therapist
And other unlicensed tales of entrepreneurship, pivoting and finding a way to help
This is the story of how I went from architect to therapist. Not quite the bumpy road you'd imagine but a fun, fun ride.
This long(ish) text is meant as a way for me to get my thoughts in order, but I hope it can help you make sense of things and pivot, start up, relearn or reconnect.
A month ago (gasp!) I was in Flint MI learning how Placemaking can organize a killer art and music scene and become legendary. It may not solve most problems but those guys are doing some legendary stuff.
A few weeks perspective and I'm sitting in front of my screen, evaluating my own business. Which means the visit to Flint was beneficial as it stirred something.
The original inspiration to create the Storefront Placemaking concept was leveraging the efforts of individual small business owners to transform local economies. That is precisely the sort of massive impact from the bottom up that I saw in Flint.
Originally, and for the sake of making sense of the Storefront Placemaking concept, I focused exclusively on the design of storefronts.
Specifically, that meant the actual meeting point between the sidewalk and the store, and how those frontages are occupied and enhanced by business owners.
I made a Kickstarter to fund what initially was a photographic book that assessed the impact of those small businesses on their neighborhood and community.
I wasn't able to set it up for a number of reasons and I still see it, unfinished, if I open my Kickstarter app. So I needed to find some alternatives, because the core of the content was already written and I believed in its power.
I started reading about personal branding, marketing and self publishing books that talked about niche areas from a unique expertise.
That is how I learned about Dan Kennedy’s “No B.S.” series, and came to know @gumroad and the platform for creators that they offer.
I bought @jackbutcher's courses and spent thousands of hours creating something that was not worth a Kickstarter but that could make much more of an impact on individual small businesses.
My book, The Ten No-B.S. Rules For Successful Storefront Design came out of that process. It still had all the serious reflections of the other, not commercial book, but was more of a break down of each component of the storefront and how paying close attention to each one could serve the business by making it more visible, more coherent and more attractive.
A few pandemic months later, the book inspired the business model of my consultancy, Storefront Mastery. Having already produced the book with all the core knowledge about storefronts, the constant talks with other professionals and the collaboration with local organizations gave me the idea during lockdown.
The new tool’s objective was to help those reopening to gain perspective and reconnect with their initial inspiration to open up shop.
This is where the “Destroying Your Lockdown Anxiety” came from.
It was less than mildly successful.
After a few months, the lockdowns were a blur on the haste of small biz owners’ everyday tasks. I launched in June 2020, when everyone was on survival mode and freaking out about their aid applications.
By July I figured the “destroying your anxiety” playbook was no longer needed so the toolkit evolved to become "Storefront Mastery, a Do-It-Yourself Storefront Design Kit For Entrepreneurs Who Value Beauty".
You can find the Playbook here
The Storefront Mastery Playbook was great, not so much as a standalone product but as a tool to implement my system with clients. It gave me a unique knowledge about their business and informed better solutions.
Slowly, the laser focus of the book changed the nature of my practice. That made me nervous but excited to find a different, unique, even more niche yet incredibly impactful way of helping small business owners upgrade to the best possible version of their business.
I'm confident I created a very handy guide. It includes exercises to assess the current state of the business and to establish future possibilities. It helps sum up the elements of the public-facing aspect and even deals with how the owner envisions the store to look like.
Every customer that has tried it has loved it. It has given me a few precious friendships I am extremely grateful for, and has let me see an incredibly human side of small business owners, that is normally buried underneath paperwork and compliance stress.
Happy to say I made the shop design and experience creation parts a lot less overwhelming for them.
This last year and a half has also taught me tons about the dynamic between small biz and the organizations that help them. And about the nature of such organizations. Some of which we should be very grateful to have around.
But back to Flint and the changing focus. My practice started to look deeper into the core of the businesses, and not only into how the storefront looked.
I became a coach, counsel and therapist to owners who have been incredibly transparent and honest with me and with their customers.
The customers have rewarded that, too, which is a testament to my clients’ vision and hard work.
The results were incredible! The boost to owners' confidence, the creativity they found and the happiness they experienced when they saw results have been great!
The best part is that it has all been based on their passion for their business and the knowledge they have accrued after years of tending to their business, their industry, their ecosystem and their community.
I told these stories, plus specifics about how I’ve helped beyond design to my friend and mentor Joe Borgstrom of @PlaceAndMain while having coffee at the great Rhema’s in Flint.
I had coached many businesses through the Business Model Canvas to set up their business, but had never used it on mine. Joe suggested I did. A month later I can say I have clarity, especially about the value proposition of Storefront Mastery.
I’m writing this mostly as a reminder to me that pivoting a business sometimes comes naturally, and that it is wise to look for signs that your service is evolving in a different direction.
Most of the time, that direction will be determined by your customers and it may be a great, new, unexplored and fruitful direction.
In my website, Storefront Mastery you can find more information, my products, my services and other bits of information that you may find useful.
If what I wrote before resonates or if you found value in what you read, please help me by forwarding to someone who might be interested so we keep spreading the word.
If you are a small business owner, let's make your storefront legendary. If you are a Main St or Downtown manager, let's make your district legendary. Let’s chat.