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TCEP 146: What Does Hostage Negotiation Have to Do With Consulting Engineers?

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Hostage NegotiationIn this episode of The Civil Engineering Podcast, I talk to Dan Oblinger about hostage negotiation. Dan explains how hostage negotiation fits into consulting engineering and also provides five specific ways that engineering firms should look at to evaluate their negotiation and communication abilities.

Engineering Quotes:

Hostage Negotiation

Here Are Some of the Questions I Ask Dan:

  • With the current situation in the United States, is it a challenge for you to go to work every day?
  • Can you talk to us about how you got into consulting with engineers and how you went to some AE companies and pitched the idea of negotiation to them?
  • What should civil engineering consultants look for to evaluate their negotiation and communication abilities?
  • Do you have a framework in your day-to-day hostage negotiations?
  • Are there specific strategies that you use in your negotiations?
  • Is there a challenging situation that you dealt with that you are open to sharing with our listeners?

Here Are Some Key Points Discussed in This Episode About Negotiation Culture in Your Civil Engineering Practice:

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Better Marketing for Engineering Firms Through Better Public Speaking

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

Marketing

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.

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TCEP 050: The Civil Engineering Compilation Episode

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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:

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