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Starting an Engineering Firm: A Total Guide

November 11, 2019 By EMI

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:

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.

TCEP 098: Management Skills that Civil Engineers Should Build

September 24, 2018 By EMI

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In episode 98 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I speak with Ben Walpole, a writer and editor for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) strategic communications team. We will talk about a few very important management skills that civil engineers should build in order to increase their effectiveness as civil engineering managers.

Engineering Quotes:

Here are some important management skills you should build as a civil engineer to increase your overall success:

TCEP 096: A Specific Recipe for Building Seller-Doer Skills

September 13, 2018 By EMI

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In episode 096 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I speak with Jim Rogers, author of Win More Work, and Co-Founder of the Seller-Doer Academy. Jim and I will be giving you a strategy for building your seller-doer skills which consists of three specific learning approaches.

Engineering Quotes:

Here are some key points discussed in this episode on building seller-doer skills:

Marketing and Business Development Strategies for your Engineering Company – Engineering Career TV Ep. 13

June 5, 2017 By EMI

Q: What Marketing and Business Development Strategies can I use at the company I work for?

Welcome to Episode #13 of Engineering Career TV. The topic for this episode is Marketing and Business Development Strategies for your Engineering Company.

I will spend most of the Engineering Career TV episodes answering questions that have been submitted from engineers around the world on how to rapidly advance their careers and live the lives they want to live.

You can submit questions for the show by clicking here.

Let’s jump into today’s topic, Marketing and Business Development Strategies for your Engineering Company, which is based on a question from Kyle, who asks the following: [Read more…] about Marketing and Business Development Strategies for your Engineering Company – Engineering Career TV Ep. 13

TCEP 053: How to Do Business Development Online for Civil Engineering Companies

March 15, 2017 By EMI

How to Do Business Development Online for Civil Engineering Companies…

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civil engineering companies

In episode 053 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I talk with Jason Mlicki, a marketing Consultant at Rattleback, about how civil engineering companies can do business development online and potentially get more clients through Google than using traditional business development strategies.

Here are some of the questions I ask Jason during this episode:

TCEP 033: Civil Engineering Interviews from the Society of American Military Engineers 2016 JETC

June 8, 2016 By EMI

The Civil Engineering Podcast visits Arizona for the SAME JETC conference…..

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SAME JETC

Episode 33 of The Civil Engineering Podcast was recorded in Phoenix, Arizona, where I interviewed successful individuals at the Society of American Military Engineers (aka SAME) Joint Engineer Training Conference & Expo (JETC).

Here are some of the key points I discussed with ask Adam Hughes during JETC:

Adam is a Civil Engineer in the United States Public Health Service that focuses on ensuring that Indian reservations/communities have clean water. He has been practicing in this industry for 12 years now.
His team consist out of 14 engineers, drafters, construction inspectors and civil engineering technicians. At the moment they are working with two tribes in southern Arizona.
For someone that is interested in management, he recommends to first develop your technical capability and to then develop your verbal and written communication skills. It is also important to find your own management style and gain awareness of your own limitations and preconceptions.
We don’t all see a problem the same way and it is not that one way is right and the other way wrong, it is more of trying to understand each other so that we can effectively communicate and work with people.
It’s not just about being able to crunch the numbers, you’ve got the take the next step if you want to make change as a civil engineer.

Here are some of the key points I discussed with Kris Prasad at JETC:

TCEP 032: Marketing for Civil Engineering Firms

May 25, 2016 By EMI

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In episode 32 of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I interview Alexi Lambert, who has leadership and management experience as a U.S. Naval Officer, about Marketing for Civil Engineering Firms. She was enlisted in the Navy as an E5 (2010) as a university student and commissioned as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy (2013) and promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade (2015).

Here are some of the questions I ask Alexi:

What tools do engineers use for their primary research for their jobs?
What are the common mistakes that engineering firms make when marketing themselves online?
How can engineers create content for their blogs?
What metrics are marketers for engineering firms typically measured on?
What is the key to getting civil engineering firms ranked for top searches in Google?

Quotes to think about:

Here are some key points discussed in this episode: [Read more…] about TCEP 032: Marketing for Civil Engineering Firms

TECC 110: How Engineers Can Effectively Sell and Market to Their Clients

April 4, 2016 By Christian Knutson, PE, PgMP, PMP

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marketing

In this episode, I interview David Hubbard, PEng, who started his career as an electrical engineer in the power industry but is now a Revenue Growth Expert and the person behind the Marketing Outfield on how engineers can build the skills to effectively sell and market to their clients. Even if small talk and cold calls repel you!

Engineering Success quotes:

Here are the key points: [Read more…] about TECC 110: How Engineers Can Effectively Sell and Market to Their Clients