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By Janki DePalma | A “hell yeah” mindset helps firms move from fear-based decisions to choices grounded in clarity and strategy.

By Tom Godin | In AEC M&A, the real risk isn’t finding deals; it’s being unprepared to integrate them.

By Aaron Quesada | By adapting to shifting expectations, embracing innovation, and acting with integrity, firms can become indispensable partners in their clients’ growth and success.

By Mark Zweig | For AEC firm owners and top managers who say they care about value but keep acting like they don’t.

By Will Swearingen | Environmental M&A is where sustainability and strategy meet, driving growth across the AEC industry.

By Tracey Eaves & Will Swearingen | The first quarter of 2025 saw big moves, bold strategies, and a clear shift toward specialization.

By Travis White | The rise of nearshoring can reduce costs, address talent shortages, and enhance growth opportunities for AEC firms.

By Matt Verderamo | Prioritize building relationships with clients and potential clients to build trust, credibility, and alignment for better outcomes.

  Domestic Transactions: 2/1/2023 International engineering, architecture, surveying, and geospatial solutions firm Merrick & Company (Greenwood Village, CO) acquired water/wastewater engineering specialist Mountain Waterworks (Boise, ID). Link to Details.   1/31/2023 Infrastructure and environmental solutions provider Atlas Technical Consultants (Austin, TX) entered...

By Chad Coldiron | How does a brand create a long-lasting legacy well beyond any individual contributor or even just its founders?

By Liisa Andreassen | Vice president of corporate development at J.S. Held, a global consulting firm providing technical, scientific, and financial expertise across all assets and value at risk.

By Derek Clyburn | AEC firms and the industry as a whole should be communicating the value we provide at every level of interaction and throughout the design process.

By Liisa Andreassen | Chief people officer at HEAPY (Dayton, OH), a nationally recognized leader in sustainable and resilient engineering design.

By Jim Toby | Taking the time to get it right the first time will lead to faster approvals, better plans, and overall project quality.

By Jane Lawler Smith | When it comes to our clients, employees, and brand, are we competing like AEC professionals or acting like Family Feud contestants, simply guessing at answers?

By Liisa Andreassen | President of Dewberry (Fairfax, VA), a nationwide planning, design, and construction firm with more than 50 locations and more than 2,000 professionals nationwide.

By Jim Toby | The quality of your projects sets your firm apart from the competition, so urge your prospective clients to look beyond the costs.

By Montgomery Spillane & Dillon Reio | If you’re willing to go the extra mile to help young professionals grow, they will also go that extra mile for you.

By Eduardo Smith | Strategic thinking enables us to enlarge the value and impact of our work, connecting it much more than a technical solution.

Managing partner at Method Architecture (Houston, TX), a firm that practices ego-free architecture, creatively solves problems, and provides unparalleled customer service.

By Eduardo Smith | It’s more important than ever to stay close to our clients, to understand their changing needs, and to help them achieve their business goals.

Lean methodologies can truly move the needle in an industry beleaguered by workforce shortages and increasingly pressed for our most valuable commodity – time.

Believing in your value is the first step to success in winning on value. The next step is to walk away when clients don’t fit your new standards.

Learn from attorneys, business advisors, and other professional service providers on how to avoid commoditization in the AEC industry.

Do you want to survive the next year, the next recession, and the ongoing reset of the workplace, the marketplace, and the recruiting space?

Founder and CEO of Wright Engineers (Best Firm #1 Structural for 2018), a Vegas-headquartered firm where perfection is the goal but excellence is tolerated.

It seems to me that one of the keys to being a really successful design professional is figuring out what you are really good at and doing more of it. No one is good at...

It is a widely-accepted idea that one of the defining characteristics of a successful enterprise working in a mature market is differentiation from all the other firms that provide similar products or services. Yet, in...

Evaluate where you are, how you can improve, rank yourself and your team, and then work through every way you want to perform better. Between wrapping up business and preparing for family time most of...

Continuing education is big business nowadays. With the advent of the smartphone and an extremely connected world, there aren't many places we can't go to learn something new – even in your PJs! At Zweig...

Clients have evolved, and if you want stay connected with them, you have to learn who they are, what they want, and where you fit. Change – a simple yet loaded word, particularly these days....

You lament the commoditization of your services, but are you doing anything to differentiate your firm, and in turn, earn better fees? We have all had the experience of standing with a group of our...

Depending on why they left – and what they did while they were gone – it might be a good idea to welcome them back into the fold. It’s not uncommon when sorting through a...

President of CMTA (Hot Firm #2 for 2017), a 250-person consulting engineering firm, and a leader in net-zero energy, based in Louisville, Kentucky. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent “I think it’s important not to micro-manage people,”...

When you think about it, management of the design process for a complex construction project is all about accomplishing things through others. Many different people have to come together to get something done by a...

When your marketing people are not empowered to make big decisions, their great concepts often get parked in committees, where they die. Marketing is where the creativity is, right? Not always. Too many marketing departments...

Donald Trump has single handedly breathed life back into the “other social media app” – Twitter. The platform had gone stale. It loses money every year and had a declining user base. Cue the late-night...

Growth is all but assured in a healthy market, but if a firm doesn’t watch out, it can grow helter-skelter to the point of extinction. Many firms are experiencing growth during this post-recession period and...

It’s not always the employees’ fault. Improve the quality of your office, celebrate the individual, and watch your staff come alive. Workplaces across the globe are suffering through a zombie apocalypse. These zombies don’t have...

A visionary rather than a command-and-control type of leader, Mike Sanderson has a musical side to him that some might find surprising. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent He doesn’t like the word “client.” He prefers “customer.”...

Figure out what your firm is and what its values are, and remain disciplined if you want to flourish in a competitive market. The competitive environment continues to change at light speed, and that in...

Firms like to talk about growth, but fear of risk, and even laziness, contribute to lackluster marketing and timid strategic plans. If asked to offer words that describe your firm, would you use ordinary, average,...

A professional firm should have professional collateral, but all too often, bad photos, poor design, and sloppy writing dilute the brand. Of course you’re not an amateur. You are a professional. You work for a...

Although Zweig Group's M&A Survey offers a variety of responses to the question "why are you considering an acquisition", there are, essentially, only two reasons that firms pursue inorganic growth. These reasons are to either...

Over-confidence going into a proposal or interview can create a self-fulfilling prophecy; front-runners must be sure to wow clients. We have all been there. We find out we are short-listed for that project that we...

Five facts to consider during the recruiting process at your firm. Managing expectations in an executive search process can be a burdensome task. After all, you’re eager to quickly find that perfect new team member...

If vertical or horizontal expansion (or both) is in the cards for you, approach with caution. Business has been good lately in the A/E professions. Opportunities abound, yet many firms struggle with the question of...

Go deeper on the statements you make to potential clients. Convincing them to hire you takes a customized approach every time. How many times have you used the “we’re local” crutch as one of your...

Are you able to charge the fees you think your services should command? The July issue of Interior Design magazine featured the “2013 Rising Giants 101-200” – in other words, the second group of 100...

Press Release: April 14, 2011 FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (April 14, 2011) – Many design industry services are becoming highly commoditized, with builders and architects often treating certain types of engineering services as merchandise, practitioners proclaim in...

By Hobson Hogan I recently attended a conference on alternative investments for asset managers and investors. The attendees were mostly representatives from large institutional investors, endowments, hedge fund managers, and corporate bankers. The conference focused...

Press Release: February 8, 2011 Increasing regulation and a new focus on efficiency are turning the water market into one of the hottest commodities for engineering firms, The Zweig Letter discovers. A reinvigorated focus on...

Last Saturday morning a friend of mine, Peter Sisk, called to see if he could stop by my house on his way out of town to visit his aging parents in Hartford. He had the...

One of the key determinants of any architecture, consulting engineering, or environmental consulting firm’s ability to get work at decent fees is how well “positioned” it is. Positioning means becoming established as an expert service...