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By Hannah Miller | Great content builds trust by showcasing expertise, culture, and value, creating lasting impressions long before opportunities arise.

By Mercedez Thompson | As our industry and client expectations evolve, so must our strategies for winning complex, high-stakes project pursuits.

By Elizabeth Preston | Grammar rules are useful tools, but writers should prioritize clarity and reader engagement over strict adherence to them.

By Sarah R. Adams-Slominski | Team leaders can more effectively manage employees of all ages through strategic communication practices.

By Mercedez Thompson | Win themes should tell a compelling story about why your firm should win a client’s work, but without the right strategy they can inadvertently lose you the deal.

By Sara Parkman | Zweig Group’s 2024 Marketing Excellence Award winners share the strategies behind their winning campaigns and the impact on their firms’ success.

By Mercedez Thompson | A client extension should be utilized to review, refine, and enhance the existing proposal, rather than expanding or revamping it.

By Tom Godin | How the military’s mission command principles can improve leadership and management in AEC firms.

By John Butt | This strategy empowers leaders to align their teams with organizational goals, provide feedback and recognition, and foster a culture of growth.

By Leisbel Lam | To integrate effective change management, identify needs, understand deeply, honor the past, mandate change, and provide a precise, optimistic roadmap forward.

By Greg Sepeda | If you can clear out the unnecessary underbrush, you will benefit from a staff that finally can breathe, see new paths, and move your firm forward.

By Mercedez Thompson | Proposals have adapted to a new way of reading, emphasizing concise, compelling headings to convey complex solutions and deliver winning messages.

By Brad Thurman | Define and nurture a strong company culture by articulating a concise core purpose, aligning actions with values, and embracing consistency.

By Javier Suarez | Successful newsletters are relevant and valuable to readers, easy to consume, actionable, and loyal to your brand.

By Conrey Guy | Your mission, vision, and values make up the backbone of your firms’ identity.

By Raoul Rañoa | There are various techniques and tools you can use distill complex data into digestible and actionable insights.

By John Shaw | Communication and relationships are the greatest driving forces in success or failure during a change journey.

By Javier Suarez | SOQs that are assembled without any direction just end up in the delete folder or the wastebasket. There’s a better way.

By Dan Piselli | While the symbolic act of signing a voluntary environmental commitment is important, action toward honoring it is more meaningful.

By Christina Zweig Niehues | The words you use have the power to influence your audience: choose them carefully.

By Mark Zweig | Marketing for AEC firms has come a long way in the last few decades, but we still have a number of problems that could be easily solved.

By Justin Smith | Calling the ideal plays will only work for you if your team understands the role that they each play in executing.

By Julia DeFrances | With the right tools and some best practices, anyone can create a persuasive and compelling proposal.

By Aya Shitanishi & Megan Chang | A good project meeting is like a dinner party: You’re the host and it’s your job to make sure your guests have a great experience.

By Tim Spence | There is a third option that empowers leaders at all levels, provides a foundation for growth, and offers a sound path forward.

By Mercedez Thompson | Create client-focused cover letters that build trust, provide clear client benefits, and connect to your client’s broader goals or vision.

When you underestimate the proposal and fail to invest in its development, you risk losing money and wasting business development resources.

President and senior principal of ICON Architecture (Boston, MA), a women-owned, SOMBDA certified firm that’s staffed over 50 percent by women.

President and CEO of Falcon Engineering, a woman-owned engineering firm in Cary, North Carolina.

The most successful business developers spend time with their clients, so show up and give them your full attention.

CEO of SidePlate (Best Firm Structural #4 for 2018), a civil engineering firm based in Mission Viejo, California. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent “There is no question that organic growth is the way to go,” Gallart...

Davis Construction (Rockville, MD), a 400-person general contracting construction firm, won first place in the Website category of Zweig Group’s 2017 Marketing Excellence Awards. Davis Construction launched a completely new website early in 2016. Stepping...

‘Why in the hell should we hire you over all these other firms?’ It’s a simple question you’d better be ready to answer if you want the contract. If you watched any of the Olympics...

Under threat, firms solve problems when leaders commit to the right roles and the right people to inform, inquire, and act. You’ve all been there. A room full of eight, 18, or even 80 anxious...

Do you want to win a project, identify a new service offering, or attract a new employee? Pick the right medium and have at it! Humans have been communicating through stories for more than 25,000...

Can strategic thinking be learned? Sure, if you know where to start and are mindful of the mileposts along the way. Halfway through a two-day strategic planning retreat, a senior leadership team member nervously pulled...

President of Ross & Baruzzini (Hot Firm #57 for 2017), a 270-person international design and consulting company based in St. Louis. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent “We’ve offloaded some of our IT functions to the cloud...

Davis Construction (Rockville, MD), a 400-person general contracting construction firm, won first place in the Website category of Zweig Group’s 2017 Marketing Excellence Awards. Davis Construction launched a completely new website early in 2016. Stepping...

If you’re looking to sell, it’s critical you attract the right buyers with a detailed yet concise overview of your firm. The M&A transaction “teaser” is the first document that a prospective buyer will review...

Philadelphia firm undertakes huge effort to improve CRM, update brand, and otherwise remain ahead of the curve. For Pennoni (Hot Firm #48 for 2016) marketing “success” can be viewed in a variety of ways –...

Having fun and encouraging creativity can lead to the generation of fresh, new business ideas. I have long felt one of the problems with the A/E/P and environmental consulting business is that we have so...

Architectural colleague shares new scale for assessing employees’ impact on the firm, community, world in areas of attitude, capability, performance. I’ve always been skeptical of the “performance review” style of evaluating. I believe in a...

Diverse firms can implement rules-of-thumb to establish priorities and see results for years to come. By Andrea Bennett Managing Editor A/E/P and environmental firms have several items on their to-do lists at any given time:...

And since they are, follow these eight tips to improve their effectiveness. What is a job posting? C’mon, think about it. It’s simply an advertisement. Aren’t you advertising an opening that you want to fill?...

By Tracey Jeffers Principal, Valuation Consulting ZweigWhite I recently worked on a valuation engagement for a project management firm involving minority shareholder value in a litigation. Besides the relevant financial data, one of the first...

As most long-time readers of The Zweig Letter know, I can’t stand it when someone quotes the latest pop management book or article. The authors are always a little too smug in the universal applicability...

We often run into firms that need help turning things around. The scenario usually includes some combination of the following: Principals/top managers who aren’t billable. Excess debt caused by poor collection of accounts receivable. Owners...

The experts will say “You have to learn to delegate if you are going to be an effective manager.” On this point, conventional wisdom is actually right. Delegation is critical to your ability to get...

Some readers might think that a discussion of writing has no place in a management publication aimed at architects, engineers, and scientists. They couldn’t be further off the mark. Good writing skills are absolutely critical...