The Business of Architecture Podcast: How Two Architects Built a Media Empire, with Rion Willard

For architects, the passion for design and creating often attracts people to the profession. But many don’t realize just how much business acumen is needed to run a successful practice. All the creative talent in the world doesn’t guarantee profits, clients, and smooth firm operations. After all, the first job of an architect is to win the client. Without the client, there is no design.

Rion Willard recognized this challenge early on. Although his skills and education were in architecture, he was fascinated by the business side of the profession. How could firm owners transform their passion into sustainable, thriving practices?

To explore this question, Rion started interviewing successful practice owners at the direction of a business mentor. “One of my assignments was to go and talk to other architects about how they were running a business to benefit my own architectural practice,” said Rion. “I figured it was a good idea to record these conversations.”

At first, Rion’s interest was to understand and apply insights from these interviews to his own practice, but he realized these conversations would also make for good podcast content. He reached out to Enoch Sears, inquiring if he could publish the interviews through his existing podcast, the Business of Architecture.

In the full conversation, listen to Rion talk about his experience co-hosting The Business of Architecture, including:

• How the show has evolved over the past 10 years
• The impact of the pandemic
• How the podcast enabled in-person events
• The team and workflows behind The Business of Architecture
• The impact of the podcast on Rion's career
• And much more

This episode was produced by Red Cedar Marketing. Need help launching and running a business podcast that actually produces results? Visit www.redcedarmarketing.com.