Business Development

Starting an Engineering Firm: A Total Guide

November 11, 2019 By Anthony Fasano

This is a guest blog by Jim Hughes

There 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:

Licensing an Engineering Firm and Facilitating Organic Growth

October 14, 2019 By Anthony Fasano

This is a guest blog by Christian Haring of Harbor Compliance

You 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.

Redefining Business Development for Engineering Professionals

September 16, 2019 By Anthony Fasano

This is a guest blog by Lindsay Diven, CPSM

It’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.

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

April 15, 2019 By Anthony Fasano

***This* *is a guest blog by Nader Mowlaee***

So, 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

December 12, 2018 By Anthony Fasano

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.

For Engineering Firms, It Takes More Than Talent to Win

October 9, 2018 By Anthony Fasano

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

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

5 Reasons Why an Entrepreneurial Mindset Is Essential for Business

March 7, 2018 By Anthony Fasano

This is a guest post by Johanna Cider

Note from Founder: Hello this is Anthony Fasano, P.E., founder of the Engineering Management Institute (EMI). At EMI we are focused on helping engineers become more effective managers and leaders. In this post, guest author Johanna Cider talks about the importance an entrepreneurial mindset can have when growing a business. Well, I believe that this mindset can also help you in growing a successful engineering career and becoming a partner/owner in your engineering company. Enjoy the article, and please consider implementing some of the recommended strategies, whether you’re a student or an owner…

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If you’re starting out in the business world, you might feel a little overwhelmed with all of the information out there. You’ve probably been doing plenty of research, and you might’ve come across the idea of an entrepreneurial mindset, which is, above all, a mindset that will help you to succeed in the world of business. The essentials of an entrepreneurial mindset are, among other characteristics, the lack of fear when it comes to innovation and taking risks, and the ability to take failures into stride. If you consider yourself an entrepreneur, it’s important to know why entrepreneurial mindset is important for business.

Process Optimization for Engineers: How to Simplify Processes Instead of Multitasking

November 14, 2016 By Anthony Fasano

This is a guest blog post by Carol Evenson

Innovative engineers are deploying business process management (BPM) streamlining to increase organizational productivity. The technology is trending among corporate leaders, because it helps enterprises streamline and connect their operational processes. BPM implementation begins with evaluating corporate requirements. Based on these requirements, managers can develop a deployment strategy. Firms must select the right team members for successful implementation. As BPM technology grows more mobile and functional, more executives turn to the tool to improve enterprise performance.

The Rise of Business Process Management

Your Ability to Facilitate New Business Development will Greatly Impact Your Engineering Career Development

April 18, 2013 By Anthony Fasano

When I talk to CEOs of engineering companies, I always ask them what they are looking for when they hire engineers, especially in this economy where they hire fewer than they used to. They all answer this question the same way: they reply that they are looking for engineers who do more than just engineering. They are looking for engineers who can also manage projects, manage people, and ultimately bring in more business for the firm.

I noticed this in my engineering career first hand when I worked for an engineering design firm. Those engineers that could bring in new clients and new projects essentially put themselves on the fast-track to the next promotion, because they were directly impacting the company’s bottom line, and there is nothing that executives love more than a positive impact to the bottom line.

The challenge here is that there are very few engineering schools (if any) that have undergraduate or graduate engineering courses on business development. To be good at developing new business for your engineering company, you will need to have above-average people skills, including your ability to network and build strong relationships. The following are seven strategies that you can employ in your engineering career to help you find and develop project leads for your company:

Improve your people skills. People always say that you must have good people skills or interpersonal skills to be a great engineer, but the question is, how do you get them? My recommendation to you would be to read a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (affiliate link), or listen to it. I listen to this audiobook whenever I have a long car ride, and it has dramatically changed my ability to interact with people, especially people who are angry or upset. [Read more…] about Your Ability to Facilitate New Business Development will Greatly Impact Your Engineering Career Development