Engineering Management Institute

UPCOMING TRAINING

Business Development

5 Ways to Convince Your Team to Implement New Technology

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This is a guest blog by Holly Welles

new technologyAdopting new technology into your workflow can have many benefits. With the right tech, you’ll find that you save money, increase efficiency, and improve performance. Despite these advantages, it can sometimes be challenging to get your team to accept new processes.

If you’re going to move forward with new technology, you’ll need your team’s support. Here are five ways you can help them realize the value of implementing new tech.

1. Keep Your Team’s Needs in Mind

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How to Navigate the Challenges of Managing Remote Work

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This is a guest blog by Trilby Lawless, BigTime Software

Remote Work

Over the last 10 years, remote work has grown in popularity by 91%. Even though the current pandemic has given businesses no other option but to move to remote work, many have seen it as a silver lining. The benefits for employees are clear: flexible work structures, improvement to work-life balance, job satisfaction, and productivity.   

But as leaders and managers, you may think: It’s great for individuals, but how do I make it great for the business? 

After all, you need to keep goals and projects moving forward, but managing teams and your firm’s operations simply looks different outside of the office. A new set of challenges can arise.  

The good news is that with the right tools in place, it is now easier than ever to make this happen and to make it happen efficiently. In this post, we’ll explore the three most common challenges of managing a remote or hybrid office for engineering firms, and the strategies you need to navigate them successfully.  

The goal is to have a new management outlook for remote work, so your firm can find its groove outside of the office and empower your team to be productive and grow.  

Let’s get into it.  

Challenge 1: Lacking an Operational Process That Fosters Communication and Insight Into Progress and Staff Utilization

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Factors Affecting Growth in the AEC Industry

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This is a guest blog by John Beck, MBA

AEC IndustryIt’s no secret that organic growth in any business follows a natural S-curve, with a period of infancy, followed by aggressive expansion, and ultimately maturity. Inherently, achieving exponential growth later in the business cycle is more challenging than achieving exponential growth at the outset.   

A vast majority of revenue at an established engineering firm often comes from existing clients, which makes scaling difficult and puts more pressure on relationship building and maintaining. There are a number of factors specific to the engineering industry that can affect growth. I’d like to highlight three factors that affects growth in the AEC Industry. 

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How to Sell Your Engineering Clients on Sustainable Initiatives

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This is a guest blog by Holly Welles

sustainable buildingAs an engineer, you’ll meet tons of clients who all feel differently about sustainability. Some will be for it, while others may need a little persuading. Luckily, getting others on board doesn’t have to be hard. The benefits of green buildings are abundant and can appeal to even the staunchest refusals.  You simply need to know how to sell your case. If you don’t know which selling points to hit, you’ve come to the right place. Discover six ways to win over clients with facts about sustainable building. 

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Starting an Engineering Firm: A Total Guide

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This is a guest blog by Jim Hughes

Starting an Engineering FirmThere are many reasons why a lot of engineers choose to start up their own firm. Basically, you get to be the boss, you get to decide which projects to take, and you get to pursue your engineering passions. And if you nail the right strategy, there are no limits to your income potential. However, starting an engineering firm is not easy. In fact, 90% of startups fail.

Becoming your own boss entails a lot of responsibilities. You have to take care of everything—from raising funds to hiring people and promoting your firm. And if you don’t deliver as intended, you’ll lose clients.

There’s a lot at stake the moment you quit your 9-to-5 job and decide to start up your own firm. To increase your chances of success, follow these guidelines:

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Licensing an Engineering Firm and Facilitating Organic Growth

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This is a guest blog by Christian Haring of Harbor Compliance

licensing an engineering firmYou want to grow your firm, yet when a prime opportunity arises in a new state, it’s not as simple as writing a proposal and jumping in. You have to consider the feasibility of licensing and registering your firm. Can you get a license in time to respond? Since licensing an engineering firm can take anywhere from four weeks to five months, that can be a difficult question to answer with any sort of confidence. 

Yet there are resources that provide clarity on state requirements for registering and licensing an engineering firm. In addition, there are best practices you can use to facilitate organic growth in your own time, and on your own terms. 

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Redefining Business Development for Engineering Professionals

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This is a guest blog by Lindsay Diven, CPSM

Redefining Business DevelopmentIt’s interesting that in the engineering industry, our sales teams are often referred to as Business Developers or Client Managers. The sound of the word “sales” makes you think of a used car salesperson or a telemarketer. I get it. You studied to be an engineer and practice your craft with pride, as you should. You are very skilled in your expertise.

However, there is a point, when you must win that next project for your team or firm. This typically involves finding potential new clients and meeting with decision makers. Having worked with engineers for more than a decade, I know that this is easier said than done.

Resisting Business Development Meetings

You may resist meeting with clients because you feel you must sell your experience and ideas. This often feels like a “dog and pony show.” The clients often feel this way too. They don’t want to sit in an hour-long meeting listening to how great you and your firm are. They are busy too and more often not taking as many “sales” meetings or are making them shorter. I have experienced some clients only giving us 15 minutes!

So, how do you make business development easier for you and more accepting for your clients? How do you make those type of meetings valuable to both you and your client so that each party feels their time wasn’t wasted?

You do this by redefining business development.

First, let’s start with the original definition.

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Tips to Engineer Your Leadership and Coaching Skills for Better Product Development

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This is a guest blog by Nader Mowlaee

Product DevelopmentSo, you have an awesome idea for a new technology for product development. This is the one. It’s going to make you a millionaire. Or so you think. The problem is, 90 percent of new startups fail, and a lack of collaboration is one of the reasons why.

Sure, you want to take the credit and take action and start developing your new product as quickly as possible, however, you can’t do everything yourself. Instead, you need a team of experienced engineers, managers, and stakeholders to help you along the way. And, you’ll need to provide them with leadership, accountability, and coaching. Here’s why: [Read more…] about Tips to Engineer Your Leadership and Coaching Skills for Better Product Development

Climb Every Mountain: Great Song, Bad Strategy

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This is a guest post by Christian Haring of Harbor Compliance

If you’re like me, when it comes to things like growing your business and expanding your capabilities, your go-to position is, “Yes, we can!” It’s part of the sales personality: we think positive. Yet too much of that can-do, climb-every-mountain spirit can sap your teams, and eventually you’ll see the evidence in numbers like sales, utilization rates, and overhead burden.

One of the best ways to improve your numbers is to focus your firm’s finite time and resources on what you do best. Knowing what to outsource, and when, is a key part of that equation for firms of all sizes.

Many firms we speak to are unaware that they can outsource business licensing and entity management. In fact, firms that outsource these functions to us routinely enjoy returns of 30X and up. How? Let me walk you through the factors and how they relate to AEC firms.

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For Engineering Firms, It Takes More Than Talent to Win

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For Engineering Firms, It Takes More Than Talent to Win is a guest post by Christian HaringTalent

You’ve got plenty of talent and depth on your bench, and your sales team is doing a great job putting together compelling proposals. Yet too often, your team is cut in the final round, or turned away before you’ve even had a chance to show what you’re capable of. If you’ve been in this business for any length of time, you know every play can’t be a touchdown. Yet if you find yourself going up against the same competitors over and over again, or pursuing projects that aren’t an ideal fit, there’s one way to refresh that pipeline and win more business that few engineering firms appreciate or exploit. In fact, it’s probably the last aspect of your business that you would associate with winning anything, let alone new business: regulatory compliance.

Whether you see it as a growth driver or not, licensing and entity management are basically the playing field you provide for your business development teams. And at key moments throughout your firm’s corporate lifecycle, licensing influences your playbook as well, affecting agility, profitability, and performance long after the contracts are signed. By creating a favorable regulatory playing field, equipping your team, and embracing the power of compliance to enhance your brand, you can position your firm to win more of the projects you really want.

Own the Field

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