Zweig News

I thought about a headline for this week’s treatise along the lines of “Second guessers, naysayers, and negative thinkers,” or “No more excuses,” or “Let’s cut the crap.” But I decided that none of these...

A/E/P and environmental consulting firms have a huge problem when it comes to retaining their best and brightest people. It’s not unusual for us to get a consulting project with a new client, and to...

The long anticipated, talked about, and dreaded shortage of qualified people is here. Ask principals in most firms, and they will tell you that it’s very difficult right now to find staff— particularly engineers, geologists,...

Most A/E/P and environmental firms spend a lot of money just for the opportunity to make a presentation to a client. You send your technical/professional staff chasing all over the countryside, hither and yon, looking...

This is the time of the year that the majority of firms in the A/E/P and environmental consulting industry decide who gets how much in the way of pay increases and/or bonuses— in other words,...

Sometimes I think the owners and managers of A/E and environmental firms need a strong dose of realism. We seem to want to bury our heads in the sand to avoid the obvious, or wish...

“Leadership development” for our industry too often translates into another boring all-day seminar on liability reduction, or a weekend retreat with a soft-spoken consultant who walks us through “team building” exercises. We say we want...

This is the time of year that many A/E/P and environmental consulting firms hold an annual management retreat. The larger a firm is, the more likely it is to have a retreat. Typically at these...

We finally received notice a few weeks ago that Zweig White & Associates was selected for the Inc. 500, a list of the fastest-growing privately held firms in the U.S. It’s something we are certainly...

We’ve all experienced the joy of doing business with a company that acts as if their people like serving you. It really is a great feeling. Most of the time, it happens with businesses like...

Every A/E/P and environmental firm I’ve encountered that has survived over the long haul has periodically made a push to improve its profitability. All the growth in the world won’t do you any good if...

It has been said that the only thing an A/E/P or environmental firm can do in a presentation is “not lose the job”— meaning that the selection decisions are made before presentation time, and can...

Quickie Conference Review— This year’s PSMA National Convention held at the Red Lion LaPosada Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, was the association’s best ever. It also marked the 20th anniversary of PSMA, which stands for Professional...

Most of us in A/E/P or environmental consulting firms who are at project manager level or higher must travel occasionally. The probability that you will have to travel increases the larger your firm is, the...

Every week, I have to come up with something relevant to say to architects, engineers, and environmental consultants who own or manage A/E/P and environmental consulting firms. That’s my job. I like it— and because...

It is almost heresy in this day and age of “customer service” to say it, but in the A/E/P and environmental consulting business, the customer is not always right. In fact, many times the customer...

Management junkies— There is a whole cadre of “management junkies” out there working in A/E/P and environmental consulting firms. These are smart people. But as a friend-of-a-friend of mine, Tony Pirrone (an octogenarian Cadillac salesman)...

I have yet to see an A/E/P or environmental consulting firm with a utopian project management system— one where every single job goes exactly the way it’s supposed to in every way. One of my...

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m not the sentimental type. But I must say— I love the people who work here. I love them because they work so hard, they never complain,...

A few weeks ago, I went to Colorado and gave an all-day presentation on marketing at the management retreat of a rapidly growing environmental consulting firm. I thought I’d share with our readers what it...

ONE OF OUR CLIENTS just hired a new marketing director. He’s a great guy— been in the business a long time— somebody with a firm handshake who makes friends easily. He can talk with anyone....

Several times in the last few months, I’ve been asked to speak on the topic of what keeps people in A/E/P and environmental firms happy and productive. The first thing I always tell folks is...

If you talked with as many people in A/E/P and environmental consulting firms as I have over the years, you would soon discover that “office politics” is a dirty term in our industry. Engineers, architects,...

There is simply no excuse for rudeness— in the A/E/P business, or in any business for that matter. Rude people turn off, or even worse, visibly upset clients, contractors, vendors, consultants, and employees. I like...