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By Mark Zweig | AEC firms that want better marketing need to sound more human, move faster, and stop hiding behind safe, forgettable messaging.

By Mark Zweig | Strong leaders address underperformance directly, clearly, and quickly before it damages culture, client relationships, and team morale.

By Lindsay Young | Practicing interview presentations may feel like homework, but it’s what turns expertise into confidence and clarity.

By Mark Zweig | A cautionary AEC story about control, delayed succession, and how avoiding transition can undo decades of good work.

By Kyle Ahern | A closer look reveals hiring and retention pressures demanding smarter, people-focused strategies.

By Sara Grayum | In a world where perception drives engagement, the AEC industry is waking up to a new kind of visibility.

By Mark Zweig | There are things you can do to stay positive and prevent pessimism from ruining your ability to lead.

By Jane Lawler Smith | Marketing professionals are the unsung heroes of the AEC industry, driving synchronization, strategy, and success in securing projects.

By Gabe Lett | Enhance marketing by embracing creativity and disruption to craft surprising, memorable, and engaging campaigns.

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

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 Jason Wilson | Problem-solving unforeseen challenges in order to boost productivity and regain work-life balance when working from home.

By Janki DePalma | Late bloomers gain wisdom, resilience, and unique insights, proving there’s no fixed timeline for achievement.

By Stuart McLendon | Facing a talent shortage exacerbated by baby boomers’ exodus from the workforce, AEC firms must innovate to succeed.

By Mark Zweig | Leverage construction loans for AEC business real estate ownership, enhancing assets and financial health.

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 Mark Zweig | Open-book management is about sharing financial performance data with employees to foster trust, educate, and improve the firm’s overall performance.

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

By Janki DePalma | When you notice feelings of resentment, take a moment to explore what that warning sign is trying to tell you before it escalates into something more.

By Ashley Heinnickel | Dedicate time and energy to your rollout to ensure the best possible outcome when launching a new strategic initiative.

By Liisa Andreassen | Design principal and founder of Ross Barney Architects (Chicago, IL), an architecture, urban design, and landscape architecture studio.

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

By Randy Wilburn | Podcasting is one of the best ways you can tell the story of your brand.

By Kraig Kern | The next time you have a proposal or presentation kickoff, trust and empower your marketing team to do what they do best.

By Jane Lawler Smith | If it doesn’t support the mission of your firm, enhance your brand story, and provide relatable value to the recipient, it might be time to rethink spending money on it at all.

By Matt Hoying | Open up and embrace full company transparency, not just financial, to enhance your firm’s culture.

By Mark Zweig | Improving this will not only help you attract and keep good people, but it will also bring in new clients.

By Liisa Andreassen | Partner at Method Architecture (Houston, TX), a full-service architecture firm that is uniquely ego-free in its commitment to a systematic, client-focused creative process.

By Angelique Silvestre | Companies can still create strong team bonds by using technology to implement team building activities that foster company values, trust, and friendship among co-workers.

By Mark Zweig | You are in control of your business, and its success depends on your ability to keep a level head and keep making things happen.

By Mark Zweig | What really makes people take responsibility for something and give it their all – to truly be accountable?

By Jane Lawler Smith | When interviewing your co-workers, peers, and clients, take a walk and harness the power of storytelling together.

By Mark Zweig | Firms that can quickly fill any opening with excellent people have a major advantage over their competition in any market.

By Sara Parkman | President of Shive-Hattery (Cedar Rapids, IA), a multi-disciplinary architecture and engineering firm that recognizes the power of design in transforming the human experience.

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

By Mark Zweig | “Being allowed to teach what I’ve learned about entrepreneurship and business to my students over my long career has been one of my greatest honors and privileges.”

When you don’t meet your commitments, you disappoint people and they remember it. If people can’t count on you, they won’t hire or promote you.

There are countless ways to develop business without being a business developer, and you are most likely doing some of these things already.

Successful leaders have to be able to deliver tough messages. Use these six strategies to navigate difficult conversations.

Taylor Dayton, EIT, is a project engineer at Aspect Consulting’s office in Wenatchee, Washington.

Being cautious and reasonable about your growth plans is a smarter move than filling seats just for the sake of beefing up the org chart.

Portland office leader for PCS Structural Solutions believes in the legacy of engineering as a community builder.

Giving gifts to your clients is a great show of appreciation, but make sure you know the differences between public and private entities. In the AEC business, the holiday season can be 45 very pleasant...

They are everywhere, but they don’t have to win. Identify their behavior and rectify it, or risk losing your staff. Regrettably, we have all been there, regardless of the profession. Whether it’s real estate, marketing,...

So you got the position you wanted, but that’s just the first step. You have to (help) create something bigger than yourself. Last month I wrote about my good fortune of meeting Art Gensler and...

Let’s try to tell our story so that we can go above and beyond the traditional marketing that AEC firms are known for. Think about some of the most iconic advertisements of the past. Many...

Talent and skill are essential, but keep a close eye on cultural fit if you want to avoid the mistake of bringing the wrong person on board. I was recently talking with a client who...

We all need a lengthy, unadulterated turning-off of our brains. How do you start? Try taking a break from the lifelong grind. Sabbatical – rooted in the Greek word sabbatikos – the word speaks to...

President and CEO of McAdams (Best Firm Civil #17 and Hot Firm #29 for 2017), a 180-person civil engineering firm based in Durham, North Carolina. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent “There are many challenges with growth,...

Success in recruiting is relational, not transactional, so keep those contacts warm and be prepared to wait for that all-star to join your team. Last year I had the privilege of watching the courting of...

Clients want to learn about your firm’s capabilities, resources, and experience, but only as it relates to them and their projects. One of the best-known songs in the Pink Floyd catalogue includes a voiceover that...

President and CEO of Hargrove Engineers + Constructors, a Mobile, Alabama-based company with 1,200-teammates in 11 states. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent For Hargrove, success starts with company culture. In fact, he says, culture to a...

Anyone who knows me can tell you I’m about as “New Age” as the 1930 Model A Ford sitting in my garage awaiting its flathead V-8 transplant. That said, there really is something to the...

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.”...

My Dad, Fred Zweig, died on August 16. He was born in 1920 – lived a long and, for the most part, happy life. He grew up poor in St. Louis. His mom was married...

A good communication plan is vital when things don’t go your way, so put a little thought into who’s going to do the talking when people start asking questions. Not a day goes by that...

If a firm wants to succeed at a high level, it must keep a keen eye on the documents, and have an ear for what the client needs. It’s my experience that too many firms...

Distinguishing between marketing and sales offers a true perspective of investment. We have a problem in this industry. Many of us have a simple-minded perspective of “marketing.” For many firms, the marketing department is a...

Five ways to increase your digital footprint in branding and recruiting the best and brightest in 2015. As we approach the end of 2014, I’m amazed at how much has changed in such a short...

It’s your employees; Mark Zweig offers five solutions to help deal with them better. I got a call from an old friend of mine from Boston the other day. He wanted to tell me how...

Listen to your staff, have an appealing culture, hire selectively and keep your employees for the long-term. I’m hearing more and more about the market firming up and people being in demand. So, I think...

By W. Hobson Hogan ZweigWhite Principal, Investment Banking I have represented many businesses in M&A processes and I have analyzed both great and not-so-great firms. In all of these M&A processes, I have witnessed some...

By Jeff Clark, Managing Director & Principal, Investment Banking Get out there and make it happen. Tell people, from your accountant to your attorney to your friends and business associates on all your social networks,...

By Hobson Hogan EBITDA can be measured in different ways, and confusion over it sometimes leads us to wonder if we are speaking the same language. I often hear people make statements like “I heard...

With so much negative information coming in— project cancellations, Warren Buffet stating in an interview that “the economy has fallen off a cliff,” and amazing stock market declines— along with layoffs and, for those who...

I just sold a house this past weekend that I have had on the market for quite some time— much longer than it usually takes me to sell one. This was a beautiful little 1925...

I have often felt that architecture, engineering, planning, and environmental firms pay lip service to the notion that they should keep their best clients happy— and KEEP their best clients clients. It always seems like...

The other day, I was standing in the front yard of a house I am redoing in Fayetteville. A woman from down the street came walking up to me, saying, “Mark, Mark— I have a...

As a founder of a twice-named Inc. 500 fastest-growing, privately-held firm and researcher and consultant to the A/E/P and environmental industry for many years, I learned long ago that one path to being more successful...

I was talking with a woman recently who started her own design firm a couple years ago. Her passion for her work and her business was fantastic. She thought about it/planned/worked every waking hour. She...

Regardless of your opinion of Bill Clinton (and I am sure, for the majority of A/E firm principals, it’s negative— as a group, you are 48% Republicans and only 17% Democrats!), you cannot deny one...

“Take this job and shove it” was a phrase popularized by country singer Johnny Paycheck back in the 1970s. The song told a story about a hard-working factory man whose wife left him, so he...

Remember the story about the emperor who had no clothes? Everyone was afraid to tell him, though, so he paraded around in the buff and made a complete fool of himself. I see the same...

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,...

Traveling all the time is no party, as anyone who does it can tell you. But it’s a fact of life for many of the top people working in the A/E/P and environmental (as well...

I just came back from a management retreat with a client we first worked for a couple of years back. They are what I would call a mid-sized firm in a large metro area. And...

Let’s face it. Some clients just aren’t worth dealing with. They are too much trouble, they are dishonest, they don’t pay, they don’t do what they say they will...and the aggravation that comes from trying...

I spoke last week at the Iowa Engineering Society’s Annual Meeting in Cedar Rapids. My topic was “The Future of the Engineering Profession: Engineers as Leaders.” But before I get into that, I want to...

Until the 69,000 firms who make up the A/E/P and environmental consulting industry wake up and start doing something different marketing-wise, we’re destined to remain a fragmented group of small firms owned by people who...

Fred White and I just returned from the 14th annual Inc. 500 Conference and Awards Ceremony, which was held this year at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. The event is held to recognize...

Client-driven organization structures for A/E/P and environmental consulting firms are built around serving particular client types. Sure— it’s a popular management trend right now to be “client directed,” or “client centered.” But don’t think these...

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...

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...

You would think that architects and engineers would pay better attention to the location of their own office space. For many firms, location analysis and site selection for office facilities is part of the work...

With more than 40,000 architecture, engineering and environmental consulting firms in the U.S., most of which have less than 20 people, no one is going to tell me that design professionals aren’t entrepreneurial. If they...