Inform your audience through engaging presentations designed to build A/E/C business knowledge.

Looking for a speaker for your next A/E/C event?
We’ve got you covered.

CVG’s team of industry experts travel the U.S. to share best practices with leaders of small and mid-sized A/E/C firms. Whether you’re seeking content about business planning, ownership transition, financial management, operations, marketing, business development, firm culture, leadership, or a combination of these topics, we can work with you to craft an interactive, engaging session that hits home for your audience.

Browse our content library to see a selection of previous presentations delivered to audiences at:

The AIA Conference on Architecture (2024, 2023, 2022, 2019, 2018)
The ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture
CRAN (Custom Residential Architects Network)
AIA Small Firms Exchange
AIA Small Firms Symposium (NY, PA, NJ)
Boston Society of Architects
AIA South Atlantic (ASPIRE)
Texas Society of Architects
AIA New York State
AIA Seattle
AIA Oregon

AIA North Carolina
AIA New Hampshire
AIA Houston
AIA DC
AIA Dallas
AIA New Mexico
AIA Austin
Association of Licensed Architects
SMPS (NERC)
SMPS Upstate NY
SMPS Boston
EntreArchitect

Featured Presentations

Click on the “+” for the full session description

  • Workshops range from 60 min - 4 hours

    Managing a growing design firm offers a variety of unique challenges and opportunities. An unpredictable business environment and a quickening pace of change requires firm owners to adapt, but how can firm owners proactively prepare for growth in uncertain times? We will demystify the business planning process.

    Each attendee will develop their own business plan outline in this interactive workshop* – so you can leave inspired, organized, and one step ahead of the competition!

    * depending on workshop length

Business Planning

  • What are the secrets behind a successful ownership transition? True success involves aligning emerging leaders' expectations and changing roles with those of current owners. This session bridges the generation gap between retiring firm owners and emerging leaders. It is designed to give an equal voice to each party in the leadership transition process. Retiring partners often focus exclusively on their retirement goals without factoring in the mentorship (and time) required to transfer knowledge to the next generation. Ensuring that existing and future firm leaders carry equal responsibility builds the foundation for a successful ownership transition.

  • How do firms succeed in transitioning ownership and leadership?

    What options are available to a firm founder who is approaching retirement without a likely successor?

    How can successors who are acquiring a firm truly leverage the knowledge and connections of the founder?

    We will explore these questions and others with scenarios that illustrate the key qualities of different kinds of successful transitions, including how to manage the risk inherent in change. This highly interactive workshop will include participatory exercises and ample time for questions and knowledge sharing with colleagues.

Ownership Transition

  • When it comes to marketing your small architecture firm, where should you focus your efforts? What tactics yield real results? In this workshop, we’ll cover the basics of building a strong, differentiated brand for your small firm. We’ll also review how to start a marketing strategy and build an actionable marketing plan that is realistic, budget-friendly, and measurable. Finally, we’ll discuss how authentic business development is separate from marketing but critical to building profitable relationships

  • Having crafted and strengthened the identities of dozens of small and mid-sized architecture firms, the marketing team at CVG understands what it takes to make your firm’s brand sing. In this session, we’ll discuss why branding is important, how (and why) to approach branding work, and best practices in website design. These points will be illustrated by case studies showing transformative rebrands with quantifiable results. We’ll also emphasize the role messaging plays in branding, with several examples of how authentic, clear communication supports your firm’s visual identity. Messaging exercises will help attendees refine their mission, vision, values, and value proposition. If your firm sometimes gets lost in the crowd, this marketing session will help you rethink how you communicate your unique qualities to a saturated marketplace.

  • Demystify the business development process and get ready to network! You’ll learn the difference between business development and marketing, how to design your BD program, and how to add actions to each portion of your sales funnel. To get you ready to execute your plan, we’ll cover the 7 steps to networking success. Designed for someone new to business development, this seminar will arm you with the tools you need to leave and start taking action.

  • Join us for an interactive workshop where we will map out the prospect-to-client journey. We'll explore what journey mapping is and how to use this exercise at your firm to find opportunities to inspire and delight prospects, turning them into loyal clients and advocates for your firm.

    Participants will learn the five stages of the prospect-to-client journey and how to build marketing touchpoints that encourage firm-wide engagement in each stage. This deep dive will get participants thinking about how they currently attract clients and where to find areas to engage better, improve ROI on marketing, and help prospects move along the casual observer-to-engaged prospect continuum.

  • If you build it, they will come. If only that were true! Entering new markets takes time and a strategy, whether expanding your firm's geographic footprint or leveraging your portfolio to attract clients from a new-to-you market sector. Small firms with limited resources often get stuck hoping to get a “foot in the door” without an actionable plan. In this session, we’ll explore what it takes to successfully enter new markets. Learn how to conduct and leverage market research and what to consider when developing your new market strategy. You will leave the session confidently, knowing you can help your team expand and grow its business.

  • The marketing team at CVG has years of experience re-branding and crafting the identities of small to mid-sized architecture firms. What have we learned through these processes? A lot.

    Join us for a frank discussion that will cover our top ten “lessons learned.” We’ll start with a quick review of rebrands that we’ve completed for architecture firms, explaining messaging intention, process, and design solution. Then we’ll generalize about our experience with the branding process, working with small architecture firm leaders, and the “do’s” and “don’ts” to consider when approaching a rebrand from first-hand experience.

    If you’ve thought about changing your firm name, graphic identity, or redesigning your website, take advantage of this free webinar before starting the process!

Marketing and Business Development

  • Financial management is an integral part of running an architecture firm. In fact, having a system in place to manage your finances has a direct impact on your firm’s cash flow and its profitability. In this workshop, CVG will help you understand the basics of managing your finances and how that can make significant impact on your firm profitability.

Financial Management

  • Business planning and professional development mean little without proper implementation. How will you structure your team for the greatest results? What bottlenecks are slowing down your design execution? Can clear roles and responsibilities improve operations while also creating paths for advancement? This session will explore alternative ways of thinking about your day-to-day operations using case studies from other small design firms.

  • Appropriate administrative support can transform the operations of a small architecture firm. The function, and funding, of this type of position is often a mystery to firms that have never invested in, nor directed, an administrator. Likewise, architecture firms that have made the investment in an office administrator often wonder how they ever lived without. Listen in on this in-depth discussion with three experienced administrators inside small architecture firms to learn about their responsibilities, their methods, and their thoughts on best tools and practices.

Operations

  • If you’re tired of “going it alone” as a small architecture firm leader, you may be considering your options. Perhaps you’re considering bringing on a new partner, elevating an emerging leader, or even merging with another firm. These options are valid growth strategies – and they are also VERY important decisions for your business and emotional health. In this session, CVG will discuss the complexities of partnership, including how to know when you’re ready to share leadership responsibilities, what to look for in a business partner, and how to constructively address leadership conflicts.

  • Does your business partner occasionally drive you crazy? Do you occasionally drive your business partner crazy? The answer is most likely yes…and yes. Running a small or mid-sized design firm isn’t easy, especially when two or more partners are at the helm. Decision-making can be difficult. Responsibilities can feel unbalanced. Priorities can differ. But the good news is you’re not alone – and there’s no such thing as a perfect partnership. There are lessons to be learned from those who have managed differences constructively.

  • Will you make the list? In this lighthearted, interactive webinar, CVG will list the most common unproductive business behaviors we see exhibited by small design firm leaders.

    Having worked with hundreds of small design firms, CVG observes many of the same bad management habits being repeated regardless of industry sector or geography. Most firm leaders don’t even realize they’re self-sabotaging, causing more work for themselves, and leaving profit on the table. Join us to identify your negative business behaviors – and learn how to correct them. Come prepared to share your own stories of “epic time sucks” or simply self-realizations that you wished someone had told you earlier in your career.

  • The leadership team at Charrette Venture Group (CVG) has coached dozens of small firm architects on how to improve and grow their firms. On average, firms with longer-term consulting engagements with CVG have seen their revenue increase by 58%. CVG makes this impact by helping firm leaders better understand key business priorities and common pitfalls. Join us for a casual conversation with CVG's CEO, Todd Reding, and V.P. of Marketing, Emily Hall, about a few simple things small firm architects can do to change unproductive business behaviors. We'll reference lessons learned from our direct experience. Some of the topics we'll address include: - Talent recruitment and retention - Ownership transition planning - How "being too busy" affects profitability - Business development during COVID - Tips for delegating successfully. We'll also answer any questions you may have about running your firm.

  • Small and mid-sized architecture firm leaders often fear becoming too “corporate” when faced with practices, systems, and policies used by big firms. But to get big, larger firms must be doing something right. Join CVG to learn which large firm business practices are most applicable to smaller firms – and why. We’ll discuss how larger firms approach project delivery, strategy, business development, operations, and organization, and which aspects of these approaches might be instructive to smaller firms. Lastly, we’ll explore how this understanding creates opportunities for smaller firms to effectively compete, successfully differentiate themselves, and strategically partner.

Leadership and Firm Culture