The Zweig Letter

I just got back from a 1,720-mile motorcycle trip with my wife on our new Kawasaki ZG1000 sport touring bike. It was fantastic! We went up the coast of Maine from Kennebunkport to Bar Harbor....

My 80 year-old parents just came up from Kirkwood, Missouri, for a short visit. As is always the case, my dad and I eventually got around to talking about business. I don’t know anyone who...

I have always been interested in design and construction. When I was as young as seven years old, I was drawing up floor plans for houses on graph paper and building them with my Legos....

When it comes to staffing your A/E/P or environmental consulting firm, it’s one thing to have all of your seats filled. It’s another thing to have those seats filled with people who are motivated— motivated...

Exit stage left. If you are like most of our readers, you are probably a CEO, managing partner, president, chairperson, majority stockholder, or major shareholder in the A/E/P and environmental consulting firm you work in....

“What goes around comes around.” “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” “You reap what you sow.” “To get love, you need to give love.” These adages (and many more) all reinforce the thinking...

I’m bullish on this business. As a group of firms, we are doing better than ever. Revenue is up. Profits are up. And the projects are gratifying. It’s an ethical business. There are a lot...

Like the dinosaurs, some A/E/P and environmental firms are destined for extinction. These companies seem to be blindly stumbling down a path of self-destruction. But in this hot economy, their owners may be too content...

I just heard a story the other day about one of our clients from another clients (both large A/E firms). Evidently, the first firm had been called by a big client for help on a...

I had a 56-year-old client say to me the other day that he just isn’t having any fun anymore. He wants to change his life, and he had decided to sell his firm so that...

If there was ever a time when the moon lined up with the stars and the timing was right for A/E/P and environmental firms to raise prices, this is it! Never before has the unique...

Set to music from The Beverly Hillbillies: Let me tell a little story about a man named Jed, a poor engineer, barely kept his family fed. And then one day when designing to buy food,...

The idea came to me at 3:50 p.m. on Sunday, January 2, 2000. It was a balmy afternoon here in the Boston area— temperatures in the 60s, sunny and bright. I took out my wife’s...

It seems to me that a lot of people in leadership roles in A/E/P and environmental consulting firms are just waiting around. Whether the discussion around the table is related to dealing with a non-performer,...

Whenever I see people get all upset about some trivial detail in their lives or their work, I find it distressing. Life is so much easier if you spend appropriate amounts of mental and emotional...

Everything I need to know was not taught in kindergarten! In growing our own business and working with hundreds of firms over the years to help them grow theirs, I feel like I have learned...

One thing I know about smart people—they hate being treated like children. It’s insulting and demeaning. Unfortunately, we routinely see owners and managers of A/E/P and environmental firms who do just that to their employees....

Although most of our readers are unaware, 65% of our revenues here at Zweig White & Associates come from providing consulting services. We’re much more like our readers (and clients) than many folks think. That’s...

I hate to say it. I thought the past was behind us. But the fact is some architects are repeating history right now. They’re getting ready for another fall. They’re making the same mistakes they...

“You can lead a horse to water, but first, you’ve got to have a horse,” is one of the homilies my old friend Mike Latas of ) used to use all the time. I don’t...

I thank God every day that the business we serve (the A/E/P and environmental business) is, by and large, the most ethical “industry” you’ll find anywhere. I think most of us in this business assume...

As hard as it may seem to believe, 1999 is already wrapping up. We’re into the last quarter of the year now. Over the next couple of months, many A/E/P and environmental firms will be...

Is all business planning necessarily strategic planning? That was the topic of a lively discussion among some of our most successful management consulting folks a few weeks back— whether or not to lump all business...

I just got back from a College of Business Advisory Board meeting at my alma mater, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois. Thanks to the State of Illinois, I got my BS and MBA degrees...