5
FROM THE FOUNDER
Crucial strategies to adopt
W hat most people call “strategies,” could also be called “philosophies” or “approaches” to how a business deals with a recurring problem, capitalizes on a specific opportunity, or differentiates itself from other firms in the same business. Implement these specific strategies to set the stage for your firm’s long-term growth and success.
If I was running an AEC firm right now, there are definitely a few specific strategies that I would be implementing to set the stage for the firm’s long-term growth and success. Here are a few of them: 1. Overspend on marketing so that you drive demand beyond your ability to supply it. Most people in our business don’t really understand this idea. They are preoccupied with what other firms they compete with spend on marketing, along with having a philosophy of spending as little as possible. They don’t realize that their marketing spend and activities drive sales. My experience over the last 45 years is the more you do marketing-wise, the easier it is to sell work, and the more likely you are to not cut prices to get work. That only happens when you have way more opportunities than you can handle. But the only way you will get there is by outspending/ outdoing your competitors on marketing.
2. Look for small firms to buy where the owner is a baby boomer and has no internal leadership or ownership transition plans. These kinds of acquisitions can get you into new markets, services, and geographies at a low cost. The goal is to give the owner a graceful exit and some liquidity for their years of toil. What you want are their people and their clients. The sellers who meet this description typically don’t have a lot of options and are amenable to financing the sale if they have confidence the buyer is a good operator who will pay them out over time. Buying these kinds of firms is one of my favorite growth strategies. 3. Sell small amounts of company stock to key people and finance 100 percent of it through payroll deduction. In general, I think firms in our business make way too big of a deal about who they will sell stock to. I think the reason
Mark Zweig
See MARK ZWEIG, page 6
THE ZWEIG LETTER SEPTEMBER 15, 2025, ISSUE 1601
ELEVATE THE INDUSTRY®
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker