TZL 1408 (web)

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F R O M T H E F O U N D E R

Y ou may be an architect or engineer and honestly think you aren’t really motivated by money. That said, nothing is cheap these days. Have you tried to buy a house or car lately, or pay for college tuition? Everything has gone up! Not to mention the fact that money is a scorecard in the game of business, and “winning” is fun! You may be an architect or engineer and think you aren’t really motivated by money. But money is a scorecard in the game of business, and ‘winning’ is fun! So you want to make more money?

Mark Zweig

If you had more than 40 years of opportunity to observe incredibly successful design professionals as I have, you would know there are some major differences in how they do things. Here are some of the distinguishing characteristics I have seen in the firm owners who knock the cover off the ball versus those who just do OK: 1)They value their time. They give very little away. They figure out a way to get paid for front-end work that the other guys don’t charge for. And when they do quote fees they are less concerned about their cost to deliver and more concerned about what they think the client will be willing to pay. They know giving too much away is a slippery slope that is hard to get out of later. So they set the expectations early. This is fundamental to making money in this business. 2)They are very selective about who they work for. They don’t just jump in their car, or get on a plane every time a new potential client reaches out to them for help. They study the situation and see how

that specific client and project fits into the business they are trying to build. And if they sense anyone is going to be difficult to work with or resistant to paying a proper fee for their efforts, they drop them – fast – before wasting much time. You can’t make a lot of money if you work for just anyone. 3)They consistently invest in PR, brand-building, and other sustainable marketing activities so they do not have to make calls to get work. When I say this, many firm owners bristle and tell me that if not for their BD efforts, they’d have little to no work. But it is precisely because they don’t invest in these other things that requires them to constantly call new and existing clients to ask them for work. Believe it or not, there are some firms in this business with principals who never have to make a sales call. The phone rings, or an email comes in, or an RFP lands, and they react (selectively!). This is how they keep fees high, quality of projects high, and can afford to hire and invest in good people.

See MARK ZWEIG, page 12

THE ZWEIG LETTER SEPTEMBER 13, 2021, ISSUE 1408

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