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O P I N I O N
Undeniable truths
T here is no question that after working as long as I have in the AEC industry with so many firms throughout the land, certain common undeniable truths present themselves: “There is no question that after working as long as I have in the AEC industry with so many firms throughout the land, certain common undeniable truths present themselves.”
1)Firm owners say that hiring is their number one problem, yet most have little or no recruiting budget. This is something I do not understand. Businesses respond to most problems by spending money to fix them. But in this business, we act as if we cannot budget for and consistently spend money on recruiting. That is why it has been and remains a problem today for most companies. And we aren’t just competing with each other for the limited talent pool in many fields. We have to contend with both the public sector and larger industries recruiting architects and engineers. We need to be realistic about what hiring costs are and commit to spending the necessary cash to be sure we are successful with our efforts. And, in nearly every company I have observed or worked with, it is a lot more than we are currently spending. 2)Business development is a poorly managed (or completely unmanaged) function in 99 percent of firms. My theory is that we have so many people out there selling who are not only not very good at it and don’t put in anywhere near the effort
they should because we have no professional sales management. Sales management will require much greater numbers of calls, meetings, and work to refine sales techniques in business development people to advance the close. The only firms in our industry I have ever seen that have it are a few of the largest environmental consulting and materials and soils testing firms. When business development people report directly to those with no professional sales training or management themselves, it is no wonder the majority fail on the job. 3)Pricing may be more critical than project management. I have long said there is only so much profit you can get through optimizing project management, as there is a limit to what process improvements can deliver and how much costs can be reduced. But there is no limit to what a firm can charge if a client is willing to pay it. Efforts spent to raise fees probably pay greater dividends than spending more on project management
Mark Zweig
See MARK ZWEIG, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER December 30, 2019, ISSUE 1325
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