Engineering Management Institute

UPCOMING WEBINAR

TCEP 074: How to Communicate Effectively on Civil Engineering Projects

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

How to Communicate Effectively on Civil Engineering Projects

Civil Engineering ProjectsIn episode 074 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I talk with Steve Soldati, PE about how to communicate effectively on civil engineering projects.

Here are some of the questions I ask Steve about communicating effectively on civil engineering projects :

  • Why is communication important for engineering professionals?
  • What are some things you have done to improve your skills?
  • Are there any tools that you use or recommend to improve/streamline communications?
  • Can you give examples of positive/negative communication instances in your career?
  • Talk about team communication early in project development.
  • Tell us about conflict resolution within a team.

Engineering Quotes:

Civil Engineering Projects

Civil Engineering Projects

Here are some key points discussed in this episode:

[Read more…]

TCEP 064: Public Speaking for Engineers

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Public Speaking for EngineersIn episode 64 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I talk with Shoots Veis, P.E., author of the book called: Public Speaking for Engineers which was recently published by ASCE press. We will be talking about why public speaking for engineers is an important part of your professional development as an engineer.

Here are some of the questions I ask Shoots:

  • What made you write a book on public speaking?
  • Why is public speaking so important?
  • How can a civil engineer improve his or her public speaking skills?
  • What are visual aids and what is the right way to use them?
  • Tell us more about your acting career and how it helps you reduce stress in your life?

Engineering Quotes

Here are some key points discussed on Public Speaking for Engineers:

[Read more…]

TCEP 050: The Civil Engineering Compilation Episode

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Compilation episodeIn episode 50 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, we have prepared a special compilation episode to reinforce some of the career tips given in the first 50 episodes of The Civil Engineering Podcast (wow — can’t believe we’re at 50).

Engineering Quotes

Here are the key points discussed in the compilation episode:

  • Communication is key in order to have your audience understand what you are saying and why you are saying it.
  • Listen, be patient and flexible, and know whatever you do internationally is going to take time.
  • Use whatever skills you have to better others, and to better the world.
  • At the end of the day, what matters is how people communicate with each other. People have to find ways to communicate better with each other.
  • To a large extent, your clients become your mentors and your trainers. Getting client exposure allows you to see how a client thinks, and how to anticipate their needs.
  • The number one way to learn is to place yourself in a position that allows you to be successful.
  • When writing a proposal, lay the groundwork for your understanding of what the companies needs are. Also, test your strength and weaknesses with them, so that you are not guessing when you are writing a proposal. This will help you write a proposal faster and with a lot of more confidence.
  • Getting your MBA will give you the opportunity to work with different leaders that understand the different aspects in Civil Engineering.
  • A PMP certification can help civil engineers to understand the language of civil engineering projects.
  • A seller–doer is a technical person with a broad skill set that includes communication and/or networking and who also handles business development.  Seller-doers can “do engineering” and “sell engineering.”
  • A proposal is a blueprint of what needs to be done on a project. Understand what the process is and the timeline, and identify what needs to be done.
  • Creating mind maps will help you with sourcing ideas for your plan to implement your goals.
  • We need to look at others, not as competition, but just as really good businesses that are out there to do good things.

More details in this compilation episode…

About the guests:

Amanda Huffman, a former Air Force civil engineer who was deployed to Afghanistan on a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).
Paul Eng-Wong, Professional Engineer and Principal in the Newark office of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. (VHB) who achieved many rewards.
Rob D’Onofrio, PE specializes in claims evaluation and resolution.  Rob co-wrote Construction Schedule Delays, a comprehensive 1,110-page book on schedule delay law and analysis, which is published by Thomson Reuters and updated annually.
Shana Carroll, PE,  is an experienced and motivated geo-professional with extensive experience in sales, engineering, and construction.
Scott Wolter is a Forensic geologist, author and the host of History’s H2 network’s hit show America Unearthed.
Will Schnier, a licensed PE and the Chief Executive Officer of BIG RED DOG Engineering | Consulting.
Jim Rogers is the author of the American Council of Engineering Companies first ever book on the subject of proposal writing, “Win More Work: How to Writing Winning AEC Proposals.”
Mauricio Lara, PMP, MBA, PE, a Lead Engineer with over 15 years of experience as a leader and key contributor, including an extensive private and public sector background.
Amanda Payne is a business development and marketing expert in the engineering/architectural design services industry.
Jon Weinstein is a Project Management Professional and President of Line of Sight, a firm delivering organizational change, strategic planning, project management, and business process improvement services.
Todd Hay of Pennoni Associates has been working with multi-disciplined engineering projects during his nearly 23-year career as a civil engineer, project manager, and principal.
Stu  Walesh, Ph.D., P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, D.WRE writes, teaches, and provides advice about leadership, management, engineering, and education/training.
Kristi Hoke Mirambell, P.E. established K-Belle in 2008 and has had hands-on experience on a variety of projects. She helped design and manage inspections for more than 100 offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico; she designed major structures for chemical plants and much more.

Sources/References:

The Engineering Mastermind
Project Management Institute Website

This episode is brought to you by PPI, the leader of civil engineering FE or PE exam preparations. Use promo code CIVIL for 20% discount at PPI2Pass.com/coach.

Books mentioned in this episode:

Construction Schedule Delays
Win More Work: How to Writing Winning AEC Proposals.
Introduction to Creativity and Innovation for Engineers
Engineering Your Future: The Professional Practice of Engineering

E-books:

Land Subdivision – A Practical Guide for Central Texas
The Book on License Agreements in the City of Austin

Please leave your comments or questions in the section below on our 50th compilation episode.

  • If you enjoyed this post, please consider downloading our free 3-part video series that provides tons of engineering career skills including how to use LinkedIn, how to communicate and how to develop your leadership abilities. Click the button below to download.

    Get Our FREE Career Videos

To your success,

Anthony Fasano, PE, LEED AP
Engineering Management Institute
Author of Engineer Your Own Success

TCEP 048: Seller-Doer Series – How to Generate Leads as a Civil Engineer

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Generate LeadsIn episode 048 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, part one of our Seller-Doer series, I interview Jim Rogers of The Seller-Doer Academy for Civil Engineers on how to generate leads using the RLOCK approach (Recognition, Leads, Opportunities, Close, Keep).  In this episode, we focus on the L in R-LOCK, representing Leads and explain how to overcome one of the biggest obstacles for civil engineers in doing business development, which is being able to generate new clients by reaching out and getting a first meeting with them.

IMPORTANT: Jim mentioned that there is a free assessment available for civil engineers to take to help you understand where you currently stand with your seller-doer skills sets. It will be open to the first 500 civil engineers to take it.  Click here to take the survey and your results will be sent to you once all of the results have been compiled.  Consider taking it now as it will provide invaluable information for your development.

Engineering Quotes:

Generate Leads

Generate Leads

Here are some key points discussed in Part One of our Seller-Doer Series:

  • If you want to do interesting work as a civil engineer and you want to have control over whether you do work for good clients and can fire your bad clients, then being able to attract the kind of clients that you want to serve is the first step.
  • Keeping good clients as a civil engineer is one of the best ways to get new business (repeat work), but generating and maintaining new leads and converting them into opportunities is something not anyone can do in their career.
  • To generate leads is one of the toughest things for civil engineers to do, because a lot of times it requires talking to or contacting people you don’t know, or you haven’t worked with before.
  • When you call somebody, have something to offer of value to them, and don’t just call and make it feel like a sales call. The key thing is for it to be an introductory call where your goal is to try to get face to face with somebody, because that’s where the magic really happens.
  • No matter how hard-hearted or logical we might be, there’s some emotional cost to rejection.
  • When measuring the different tools, you must balance the effectiveness including how quickly it can turn into a an opportunity to generate leads versus the emotional cost of doing it.
  • The cold call is the hardest one and has the highest emotional investment, because the potential for rejection is high. If it’s a warm call you can make that call with a lot more confidence. Warm calls mean that they’ll know who is calling them. It could be that you’re following up with somebody that you met at a networking event or through a referral.
  • You should get about an 80 to 90% effectiveness rate on asking for referrals.
  • Leave some space in conversations, because you can come away with some gems of information that you can then use to generate leads.
  • When asking for referrals one of the key things to do is to call your new connections and to do it early in the project as this will give you a higher success rate.
  • If you ask for a referral or if you soften people up by sending them something in advance like your book, white paper or tip sheet, they’re more likely to remember you, be willing to talk to you, and you’re also already starting to act like a trusted advisor to them.

Jim mentioned that there is a free assessment available for civil engineers to take to help you understand where you currently stand with your seller-doer skills sets. It will be open to the first 500 civil engineers to take it.  Click here to take the survey and your results will be sent to you once all of the results have been compiled.

More details in this episode…

About Jim Rogers:

jim-rogers

Jim Rogers is a nationally recognized proposal guru and author who helps professional services clients win more work. He is a consultant, speaker, author, and sales presentation coach. Civil engineers hire him to help build their authority and to help them prepare proposals and presentations that seal the deal.  He is the author of the book Win More Work: How to Write Better AEC Proposals. Today, he is a master distiller of ideas, that is, he helps his clients distill their ideas to the time and space allotted by their prospective clients. He is founder of Unbridled Revenue, Inc., which helps A/E/C firms win more work and also a co-founder of The Seller-Doer Academy for Civil Engineers.

Sources/References:

TCEP 027: The 5 Stages to Becoming a Seller-Doer as a Civil Engineer
Seller-Doer Academy for Civil Engineers
The Engineering Mastermind
The Seller-Doer Survey
Jim’s email address

This episode is brought to you by PPI, the leader of civil engineering FE or PE exam preparations. Use promo code CIVIL for 20% discount at PPI2Pass.com/coach.

Books mentioned in this episode:

Win More Work: How to Write Winning A/E/C Proposals

win-more-work

 

 

 

 

How can I generate new leads as a Civil Engineer?

Please leave your comments or questions in the section below on how to generate leads as a Civil Engineer.

  • If you enjoyed this post, please consider downloading our free 3-part video series that provides tons of engineering career skills including how to use LinkedIn, how to communicate and how to develop your leadership abilities. Click the button below to download.

    Get Our FREE Career Videos

To your success,

Anthony Fasano, PE, LEED AP
Engineering Management Institute
Author of Engineer Your Own Success

 

 

TCEP 046: How to Run and Document Effective Project Meetings for Civil Engineers

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

meetingsIn episode 046 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I am going to discuss an excerpt from John Lowe’s book entitled A Guide to Managing Engineering and Architectural Design Services Contracts. The excerpt, which was discussed with the author’s permission, focuses on helpful strategies for effectively planning, executing and following up on engineering project meetings.

Engineering Quotes:

tcep46-quote-2

tcep46-quote-1

Here are 3 point to consider when arranging or holding a project meeting as a civil engineer:

[Read more…]

TCEP 30: Dan McNichol’s Journey Across the Nation Spotlights America’s Old Infrastructure

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

TCEP Ep30

reference: http://www.equipmentworld.com/national-public-works-week-kicks-off-with-low-and-slow-infrastructure-tour/

In episode 030 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I interview Dan McNichol, a number one best-selling author and an award-winning journalist who recently created and completed a year long national media tour in a 1949 Hudson that advocated for the rebuilding of the nation’s vital civic systems with the tag: “America’s infrastructure is as old, rusty and energy defunct as this original Detroit lead-sled.”  The conversation previews Dan’s upcoming keynote speech at the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) 2016 Joint Training Conference & Expo which will be this May in Arizona. [Read more…]

TCEP 017: Interviews with Some of the Most Successful Civil Engineers in the World from the ASCE 2015 Annual Conference

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

The Civil Engineering Podcast – Subscribe in iTunes

TCEP Ep17
In this special episode of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I interview some of the most successful civil engineers in the world during the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) 2015 Annual Conference in New York City.

Below is the list of interviews with timestamps and bullet points, click on the timestamps below to view a summary of the interview:

[3:27] Jon Magnusson, P.E., S.E., F.SEI, Dist.M.ASCE – CEO for 25 years
[7:27] West Point Cadets
[10:43] Mackenzie, graduate student from Arizona State
[13:53] Michael Goodkind, Ph.D., P.E., S.E., F.ASCE – 40 years of experience
[17:38] Kurt from Bentley Systems
[20:38] Albert Pozotrigo, P.E. – President of ASCE-MET Section
[31:47] Stefanie Reichman from City College of New York – ASCE-NY Chapter
[35:22] Dr. Bob Stevens, P.E., F.ASCE – Current (at time of interview) ASCE President
[36:08] Jonathan Richards, West Point Student
[39:02] Jose Acosta, P.E. – Vice President of Chen Moore and Associates
[48:04] Tony Begin, President of Canadian Society of Civil Engineering (CSCE)
[52:47] Tom Smith, ENV.SP., CAE, F.ASCE – Executive Director for ASCE
[54:16] Norma Jean Mattei, Ph.D., PE, F.SEI, M.COPRI, M.ASCE – Newly Installed President-Elect of ASCE
[1:00:57] Mark Woodson, P.E., L.S., D,WRE, F.ASCE – Newly Installed President of ASCE [Read more…]

TCEP 012: Forensics Geology, TV Personality and Traveling the World with Scott Wolter – The Civil Engineering Podcast

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

TCEP Ep12 In episode 012 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, Chris Knutson interviews Scott Wolter who is a Forensic geologist, author and the host of History’s H2 network’s hit show America Unearthed. He has been the principal petrographer in more than 7,000 material forensic investigations throughout the world, including the evaluation of fire-damaged concrete from the Pentagon following the attacks of September 11, 2001, which is our Civil Engineering Project of the week. Here are some key points in this episode: [Read more…]

TCEP 003: The Civil Engineering Podcast – Ethics, Mentoring, and 10 Keys to Civil Engineering Career Success with Paul Eng-Wong

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

TCEP Ep3

In this episode of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I interview Paul Eng-Wong, Professional Engineer and Principal in the Newark office of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. (VHB). We talk about professional ethics, mentoring, and the importance of being able to communicate effectively. Eng-Wong also gives 10 insightful strategies to help you advance your career as a civil engineer. Also in this episode, for our Civil Engineering Project of the Week Segment, we take a closer look at the Great Wall of China.

In this episode, you’ll learn:   [Read more…]