Christian Haring

Licensing an Engineering Firm and Facilitating Organic Growth

October 14, 2019 By EMI

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.

6 Hacks for Maintaining and Tracking P.E. Licenses

April 22, 2019 By EMI

6 Hacks for Maintaining and Tracking P.E. Licenses is a guest blog
by Christian Haring of Harbor Compliance

Engineers are known for accuracy, attention to detail, and finding elegant solutions to complex problems. Yet when it comes to licensing, most firms lack a functional, comprehensive system to safeguard compliance. Every month, engineering boards report fresh citations for lapsed P.E. licenses. Unfortunately, once the lapse occurs, the damage is done.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to eliminate those risks and manage all aspects of your firm’s licensing efficiently and effectively.

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Climb Every Mountain: Great Song, Bad Strategy

December 12, 2018 By EMI

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 EMI

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.