Networking/Client Relations

Providing Stellar Client Service: Engage Holistically

September 21, 2020 By EMI

This is a guest blog by Mike Burns, PE, PgMP, DBIA

As we commence a discussion about client service, I find myself reflecting on my first Engineering Management Institute (EMI) blog, “Think Big, Be Mindful.” Serving our clients and growing market share should create synergies with our individual goals and personal lives. Again, allowing us to evolve our vision as intentions, setting direction — not prescribing a destination. In this instance, we are going to set intentions by broadening our client perspective. This broader perspective allows us to avoid boundaries that might erode our individual and collective paths to success.

I thoroughly enjoy considering and discussing the complex programs and projects that AEC professionals serve. Like many of you, this enjoyment has allowed me to grow from technical roles into leadership positions with increasing business development (BD) responsibilities, realizing along the way that I am not a natural salesperson. Yet, I benefit from and continue to enjoy working with exceptional marketing, BD, and operations colleagues, who help me to refine my approach to winning work and providing stellar client services. Along the way, one of these wonderful colleagues introduced me to Heidi Gardner’s book.

Mrs. Gardner’s extended title necessitates a deeper read: “Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos.” I would not suggest taking on silos as a path toward exceptional client services. However, I wholeheartedly support her guidance, which promotes zippered relationships, allowing us to avoid cross-selling gaps as we orchestrate collaborative selling objectives. Silos emerge for reasons that we need to understand, especially where Wall Street-driven performance metrics and commercialization of our products create onerous metrics for hit rates, profit, loss, and utilization. We must explore ways to incrementally feed these metrics, concurrently exposing colleagues whose breadth of knowledge and desire to grow create mutually beneficial opportunities — opportunities where our collective experiences provide a premium experience for our clients.

Like any dynamic problem, the complexities associated with artfully incentivizing internal and external clients necessitate an elegant approach. I believe that sustained stellar client services starts with a people-centric program management approach, marrying a comprehensive stakeholder assessment with dynamic communication loops throughout the project delivery lifecycle.

Step 1: Understanding and supporting your internal and external clients

Building Community and Your Engineering Career

August 3, 2020 By EMI

This is a guest blog by Sabrina Rivera, P.E.

I was going to start with the definition of community, but I have a feeling you already have a few examples in mind. For me, community is something that is created through multiple positive interactions with a group of individuals. Over time, bonds form and community develops, as all members are looking for the betterment of themselves and the group overall.

There are many benefits to being involved with a community, both directly and indirectly related to your career. The obvious one is professional organizations, which provide networking technical enrichment and social functions. Indirect communities can also provide opportunities by introducing you to people who are part of your network but not anyone you had met before or people from different industries who can serve as mentors and friends. Additionally, working with communities indirectly related to your career can provide an avenue for a cross-pollination of ideas and be a source of inspiration.

My first real experience with building community occurred when I served as president of the California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) ASCE student club. Although our organization had existed for many years, there were ebbs and flows with involvement. During this year, my fantastic team and I were able to increase membership and excitement for the club. A few steps we took to build community were:

Building Confidence: Empathetic Stakeholder Engagement

February 17, 2020 By EMI

Empathetic Stakeholder Engagement is a guest blog by Michael Burns, PE, PgMP, DBIA

Previously, I encouraged you to broadly engage your network as you explore your professional intentions, creating balance, reducing stress, and inspiring learning objectives. A positive step in a naturally closed system, relying on trusted peers. Yet, as professionals in the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry, we learn early on in our careers that a wide variety of dynamic voices, which we refer to as stakeholders influence our work and the infrastructure assets we deliver. For sustained success, we must consider the voices who inform and are informed by our work.

So how do we build confidence as we face challenges, working with these dynamic stakeholder groups? The Project Management Institute (PMI) is one of many good resources to learn the science associated with stakeholder management. Let’s focus on the art of engaging diverse voices for our collective success — personally, professionally, and across the project delivery lifecycle.

How to Develop Relationships With Engineering Managers

November 18, 2019 By EMI

This is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee

As an engineer, you know it’s essential to be a team player, collaborate with your colleagues, and build your skills to advance your career. However, if you want to accelerate “climbing the ladder” or get access to pitch your ideas to the right people, then it’s worth building strong, positive relationships with engineering managers. Workers who maintain a strong, positive relationship with their managers not only increase their employment opportunities, but enhance engagement and improve productivity too. In fact, a Gallup survey highlights that companies with engaged employees increase productivity by 17%.

Without having a strong, positive relationship with your engineering manager, your boss may overlook you when someone is needed to take on a special assignment or travel to represent the company at a trade-show. Moreover, you risk hampering your job growth opportunities and becoming disengaged and unmotivated to work. So, it’s essential to develop positive and strong relationships with your engineering managers. Here’s how to do it:

How Mechanical Engineers Can Give Back to Their Community

September 2, 2019 By EMI

This is a guest blog by Nader Mowlaee

As a mechanical engineer (ME), you can look forward to the inherent rewards of a lucrative career. An in-demand job and even job mobility as mechanical engineers typically make above-average earnings here the United States. However, engineers today are looking for more than the monetary rewards that come with this dynamic role. That’s why many mechanical engineers often look to give back to their communities.

Giving back to your community comes with several benefits. Not only do you get to hone your leadership skills as a mechanical engineer, but it also provides you with networking opportunities and gives you the chance to gain new experiences. Whether you’re a senior mechanical engineer or an experienced mechanical engineering manager looking to share your insight, there are several opportunities you can take to give back to your community. Here’s a few of them:

How to Cultivate Excellent Professional Relationships

November 28, 2018 By EMI

How to Cultivate Excellent Professional Relationships is a blog post by guest author Patrick Sweet, P.Eng., MBA

Professional relationships are key to success in any profession. Engineering is no exception. Success is fueled as much by who you know as it is by what you know. While this may seem unfair, there’s a perfectly logical reason for this: people do business with people they know, like, and trust. And how do you get people to know, like, and trust you? Through relationships.

Today, I’m going to share five actions you can take to cultivate excellent professional relationships. All of these strategies are simple, and anyone can implement them, regardless of where you are in your career, or what industry you work in. All of them will help others to get to know, like, and trust you.

Building Real Friendships That Can Get Engineers Hired

November 21, 2018 By EMI

This is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee

It might sound contrary to the idea of career professionalism but building real friendships can and will get you hired. In fact, if you’re not making friends when you network, you’re not doing it properly.

Networking is the most powerful job search strategy because it will lead to getting referred in for jobs that aren’t yet advertised, meaning you’ll have much less or no competition going into the interview process.

Building real friendships works extremely well when they’re based on genuine attraction and interest; think about this not as ‘what someone can do for you,’ but rather, ‘what you can do for someone else’ without expecting anything back. That’s how you make a new friend. Help without expecting anything back. Genuine friendships always make sense and feel good when they originate, and they will always pay off in the long run.

Build Real Friendships That Are Genuine

Better Marketing for Engineering Firms Through Better Public Speaking

October 1, 2018 By EMI

Better Marketing for Engineering Firms Through Better Public Speaking is a guest post by Shoots Veis, P.E.

Colter has been enjoying working at his job as an engineer at a regional engineering firm. He is good at his job, liked by his co-workers and management, and has moved up a couple of rungs at the company. At his last performance evaluation, he visited with his manager about starting to take on client relations and they agreed Colter should look for an opportunity to begin creating a relationship with a client. He was motivated by the prestige of being a client manager, saw it as the chance to make another move up in the company, and begin planning how to cultivate the new client relationship.

A couple of months after his evaluation, Colter was invited to sit in on a strategic planning session for the company. One of the discussions was about how the firm could grow through the acquisition of new clients and specifically, how they could find new municipal clients. They listed about a dozen cities they would be interested in pursuing and it turns out that Colter knew the assistant public works director, Tim Harrison, in one of the cities. They had met through the local section of ASCE, served together on a couple of outreach projects, and usually sat with each other at the monthly luncheon.

Delivering Stellar Client Service to Engineering Clients

September 10, 2018 By Christian Knutson, PE, PgMP, PMP

Every A/E firm talks about delivering stellar client service and many deliver to that mark. Why? Well, before I can provide my opinion let’s set the definition for what constitutes stellar client service.

From my foxhole, stellar client service = responsiveness, collaboration, and establishment of crystal clear expectations. Without these three elements, you will certainly not develop stellar anything, let alone client service.

Thirty years ago, I learned what delivering stellar client service was as a bus boy, then as a waiter, in a posh restaurant. We in the A/E industry can learn a lot from the hospitality industry when it comes to client service and “delivering an experience”. From my time servicing clients on two-tops, then four-, six- and eight-tops, I learned how to gauge what our guests (i.e. clients) wanted and when. How to read body language, how to interact with the guests to establish rapport beyond a transactional relationship, and how to ensure they left with an experience, not just a meal.

In short, I learned how to turn eating into an experience. I also learned that when it’s done correctly, your fees (i.e. tips!) go up.

Delivering stellar client service in the A/E industry requires engineers to transform the technical act of engineering services from the technical stuff many clients don’t understand (or want to), into an experience. This is much like the transformation of eating dinner from a biological requirement into a memorable experience.

The 6 Ingredients for Stellar Client Service

How to be More Effective with your LinkedIn Connections

November 15, 2017 By EMI

How to be More Effective with your LinkedIn Connections is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee.

Whether you’re actively seeking a new job, recently graduated and just want any job, or are proactively seeking the right career growth opportunity, growing your LinkedIn connections and knowing how to use LinkedIn is necessary. We know having connections matter and that LinkedIn is the best tool for getting in front of decision makers and having more interviews, but yet, there’s no place lonelier than a LinkedIn profile once it’s cooled off and people stop writing back to you.

In this post, I want to show you how you can get the spark back into your LinkedIn connections and warm up some decent conversations. All you need to get started is to decide what you want, open your eyes, be present and positive, and listen to what I have to say in this article. Then, take action on what I’m going to share with you, and touch base with me if you need more help.

There happens to be particular differences between how big your LinkedIn network is and the caliber of your network connections. Even though the numbers do not lie, they can often be misleading, especially when the time comes to search for a job opportunity. Size does matter, but it’s not everything!

Concentrating on enhancing the quality of your LinkedIn connections by as little as 5 percent can enhance your outcomes up to 95 percent. On top of that, you will invest 5 times less time on LinkedIn and social networking; the response rates will likely be greater, simply because you are messaging current contacts, and also the interactions will likely be significantly less nerve-racking; usually we can even ask a shared connection for an introduction.

Then why do 90 percent of people looking for work concentrate mainly on adding new connections to their LinkedIn network, with no distinct objective or comprehensive strategy?