Marketing spending

In Zweig Group’s recently released 2019 Marketing Survey of AEC Firms, firms entered the amount of money they spent on marketing in the last fiscal year. Analyzing marketing spending as a percentage of net service revenue (NSR), firms in the AEC industry are dedicating more money to marketing themselves each year, reaching a peak of 6.8 percent in 2019. This is almost double the average marketing spending as a percentage of NSR from 2011 to 2016 (3.5 percent).

Participate in a survey and save $320 on any Zweig Group research publication. Visit bit.ly/TZLsp to learn more.

T R E N D L I N E S

F I R M I N D E X

W W W . T H E Z W E I G L E T T E R . C O M

T H E V O I C E O F R E A S O N F O R A E C F I R M S & M A N A G E M E N T C O N S U L T A N T S

ALL4 ....................................................10

Asuuri .....................................................4

Atlas .......................................................4

DY Consultants ......................................6

Haapio ....................................................4

Hellmann Consulting Group ..................10

HOK .....................................................12

Kolme Pihaa ...........................................4

Lahde .....................................................4

Layton Construction .............................10

Mead & Hunt ........................................12

S e p t e m b e r 9 , 2 0 1 9 , I s s u e 1 3 1 1

See JEN NEWMAN & DOUG PARKER, page 2

M O R E A R T I C L E Sxz MARK ZWEIG: Focusing on strengths vs. weaknesses Page 3

xz Excellent quality: Dennis Yap Page 6

xz BILL STRAUB: Owning ownership t ransition Page 9

xz ANDY KNAUF: Leveraging technology Page 11

Building a successful client relationship is just like building any relationship. It takes work. It’s really no different than building

relationships with your spouse, significant other, children, or best friend. Healthy, productive relationships require attention and intentional behavior.

It’s a common misconception that you can only build client relationships on the golf course or at a bar. Not true. In fact, there are a number of actions you can take to build successful relationships and never leave your desk. Industry statistics place the cost to win a new client at around five times more than what it does to keep an existing one. While developing new business is certainly critical, keeping the business – and clients – you have is equally (and arguably more) important. By employing these five strategies, you can build a culture where every member of your team – from your full-time business developers to project managers to administrative staff – contributes to client relationships and, ultimately, building your business.

1) Communicate:

z Listen. Active listening is the most important thing you can do to connect with a client (or your co-worker, or your spouse). Train your-self – and your team members – to remove distractions, engage, and truly listen to your client every single time you have an interaction. And if you can’t, call them back. Don’t risk missing important details from a conversation, or even subtle nuances your client may impart, because you aren’t focused on what they’re saying. Active listening gives you information to confirm what you are doing right and also what might need fixing. And, who doesn’t want to be heard? Listen to what your client is telling you and repeat back to them what you heard. This practice (of parroting) will ensure your client knows you’ve heard them and proves you are listening.

z Check in for no reason. Seriously. Call your clients just to check in. You certainly want to be respectful of their time, so make the call short. But, a friendly call to say “Hi” and ask how they are doing isn’t going to be offensive. Surprise and delight your client by calling with no agenda or motive, but as a friendly and sincere gesture.

z Gather intel. In the process of interacting with your clients, ask ques-tions. Take a few extra minutes to learn more about their needs and pain points. Ask if they have any future projects that would be an ex-cellent fit for your firm. Share the intel with your market leaders and marketers to help position your firm in the future.

z Send notecards. We receive 30,000 commercial messages a day. Stand out by sending your client a notecard. Make it simple: “I ap-preciate you as a client” or “Thank you for your business” or “It was so

Use these five strategies to maximize client relationships without leaving your desk.

Building your business

Doug Parker

Jen Newman

© Copyright 2019. Zweig Group.

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2

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great to meet you.” We are all pleasantly surprised when we go to our mailbox, and there is something other than junk. Your hand-written card might just brighten your client’s day.

2) Connect:

z Use LinkedIn. LinkedIn is an excellent resource for get-ting to know your clients and finding common interests. Connect with and follow your clients. And then share and comment (when appropriate) on their postings.

z Say their name. People love the sound of their name. Dale Carnegie famously said, “A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Use your client’s name as an important way to create a connection.

z Send items/intel of value. Work to know your clients. And when you do, take time to send them things or infor-mation that they can use, like a restaurant recommenda-tion if they’re a foodie, a travel tip for their upcoming vaca-tion, a business journal clipping mentioning them or their project, a bit on intelligence in the marketplace, or even a recent article you read about the importance of client rela-tionships. Clients like, and hire, firms who know and stay connected with them.

z Guide your clients through your services. Consistently offer to proactively talk through your project process or when you send any deliverable or report. Provide a forum for interaction and questions. This practice will improve your client’s experience and provide you a wealth of knowl-edge to understand and meet their needs. And, if they de-cline your offer, you’ve still demonstrated your willingness to connect.

z Debrief. Whether you win or lose a project, debrief every time. Ask for direct, honest feedback when not selected for a project and be clear you’ll use this information to better position your firm in the future. And when you win, it’s even more important to know why you were selected and what differentiated you from the competition (so you can repeat that in the future).

3) Care:

z Be client-centric. Engage. Ask questions. Know your cli-ent’s personal and professional goals. Treat them as you would a friend and in all things be genuine. Strong client relationships lead to more work and a better working rela-tionship.

z Always respond. Clients want to be heard. They want to feel important. To ensure you’re doing this, be responsive every time. Even if you don’t have an answer, respond that you’ll get back to your client ASAP with a solution.

z Don’t take your clients for granted. We tend to take our closest relationships for granted. Do you assume your best clients will keep hiring you? I promise you, there is a long line of competitors who are working to take your client

away from you and are likely showering them with atten-tion. If you’re not tending the relationship, at some point your client may give your competition a shot.

z Show your passion. We all like to work with people who are passionate about what they do. Your clients are no dif-ferent. They want to know the person they’re entrusting with their project is just as excited about a successful out-come as they are.

z Seek client feedback. Don’t wait until the project is over to seek input. Ask if you and your team are meeting your client’s needs and how you can improve throughout the life of a project. Develop a process for client feedback and put it to work.

4) Educate:

z Educate yourself. Understand your firm’s history, mis-sion, vision, values, and strategic goals so you can speak to clients about your firm with confidence. Understand your clients so you can understand their needs and frustrations. Know your markets so you can have informed conversa-tions with your clients. Share what you learn with your colleagues, leaders, and marketing team to position your firm to win.

z Educate your clients. You learn something every time you complete a project. Share that knowledge with your clients. Position yourself as an expert to build trust and confidence.

5) Prioritize:

z Make client relationship building (business develop-ment) a priority. Bookend your day by scheduling five minutes of business development activity before you start your day, before you check your email, and before you leave the office. Use Outlook as a tool to help you remember to follow through and employ the many strategies above.

Remember, the most successful client relationships are intentional and require persistence, time, and effort to be effective. If you want to maximize your return, employ everyone in your firm and teach them to focus on client relationships. At Zweig Group, we believe business development is everyone’s business. It can be at your firm, too!

Zweig Group is proud to offer In-House Doer-Seller training that will help you ELEVATE your doer-sellers. Visit youtu.be/DVmRY_ga0GU to learn more.

JEN NEWMAN, CPSM, managing director at Zweig Group, utilizes her more than 20 years of AEC specific experience to help firms grow their people and profits while ELEVATING THE INDUSTRY. Contact her at jnewman@zweiggroup.com.

DOUG PARKER, FSMPS, CPSM, brings a unique combination of operations and marketing experience specializing in professional services firm management to his role as managing principal and CMO at Zweig Group. He has developed award-winning brand strategies to position firms and key stakeholders to gain market share and increase revenue. Contact him at dparker@zweiggroup.com.

JEN NEWMAN & DOUG PARKER, from page 1

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THE ZWEIG LETTER September 9, 2019, ISSUE 1311

I had multiple discussions in the last week that really drove home a point I think everyone who runs an AEC firm should be considering. That is, we need to do a

much better job getting people doing what they already do well versus trying to bolster their weaknesses and turn them into something or someone they aren’t.

“Square peg for a round hole? No thanks! My first preference is square pegs in square holes!”

O P I N I O N

You see example after example of this. It’s part of our culture today. If our child shows a limited interest in or aptitude for math, our first instinct is to get them a tutor and make them work a lot harder at it. Makes sense on the surface. But maybe instead we should just say, “Fine, you like English so focus on your reading and writing instead.” Or how about the notion that everyone needs a college education? Some people would be better served to become plumbers or auto mechanics, so they don’t end up working at Starbucks with a five-year architectural degree when that was never their passion, interest, or strength. It’s crazy.

In the firms we work with, this problem of people in the wrong roles sometimes goes all the way up to the executive suite. I have seen CEOs who really wanted to be designers. As a result they were

unhappy and the firm didn’t do as well as it should because certain business aspects weren’t dealt with. I have also seen engineers who would rather be business developers but who were instead stuck in the office doing calculations all day. I don’t think these kinds of situations are unusual at all. I think they are pretty typical.

Focusing on strengths vs. weaknesses

Mark Zweig

See MARK ZWEIG, page 4

“Don’t forget most of your people have probably already told you what they like to do and what they don’t like to do. These two usually match up with what they are good at and what they are not so good at.”

© Copyright 2019. Zweig Group.

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Yet, why do so many of us seem obsessed with jamming square pegs into round holes when it comes to how we use our people? For example, none of us has enough people who can and will sell work. That’s why my preferred marketing strategy has always been some variation on the theme that if you can drive demand for what you do through more and better marketing, you will allow your people to work in roles they are more comfortable with naturally. In this case, that means responding to someone who contacts you with a problem or opportunity versus cold calling. It’s for the same reason I generally don’t recommend using project or client managers as front line bill collectors unless there is some sort of dispute about the work products themselves. They usually don’t enjoy that role and aren’t good at it. Accounting people do a much better job. Yet again, too often management gets hard-headed about collections being part of the PM’s job and insists that they WILL do it – even when we the evidence shows they aren’t doing well at it at all.

There are so many dividends that come from having people in the right roles – ones they are interested in and can do well at. Everyone is happier. There’s less stress and less negativity. There’s less cynicism. Quality goes up. Turnover

goes down. Client satisfaction increases. Any one of these benefits would be reason enough to do a comprehensive assessment of your staff’s strengths, weaknesses, interests, and aptitudes. Yet very few firms ever make even a modest attempt to do any of this, much less re-assign people based on what they learn going through the process.

It shouldn’t cost much or take a lot of time to figure out this stuff. And don’t forget most of your people have probably already told you what they like to do and what they don’t like to do. These two usually match up with what they are good at and what they are not so good at.

Square peg for a round hole? No thanks! My first preference is square pegs in square holes!

MARK ZWEIG is Zweig Group’s chairman and founder. Contact him at mzweig@zweiggroup.com.

MARK ZWEIG, from page 3

“We need to do a much better job getting people doing what they already do well versus trying to bolster their weaknesses and turn them into something or someone they aren’t.”

BUSINESS NEWSFINALISTS SELECTED IN THE ARCHITECTURE COMPETITION FOR THE DESIGN OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF FINLAND’S NEW ANNEX The architecture competition for the annex to the National Museum of Finland, one of Helsinki’s most significant Art Nouveau buildings, is currently under way. It is gaining momentum as the newly appointed Finnish Government has included the extension project in its programme.By the early April deadline, the open competition received 184 proposals, of which the competition jury of 11 members selected five entries to move on to the actual design phase. The finalists are Asuuri, Atlas, Haapio, Kolme Pihaa, and Lahde. The competition winner will be announced in December.“We are grateful and delighted with the number and quality of proposals. A great deal of effort has been put into each entry”, says Director General of the National Museum Elina Anttila, also a member of the jury.The New National is a two-stage architecture competition for the design of the National Museum of Finland’s new annex. The competition is being organised by the Finnish Heritage Agency, the National Museum of Finland and Senate Properties.The competition jury will evaluate the proposals on their architectural overall approach and innovation, space flexibility, constructability and overall economy, and will also consider how the annex is situated in the urban landscape and its environment. The new annex must be aesthetically, technically

and economically sustainable and feasible. Reflecting the modern image of Finland, the new annex will be realised in accordance with the requirements of clean and environmentally friendly technology, sustainable construction and ecological thinking.The architecture competition is conducted according to the competition rules of the Finnish Association of Architects both anonymously and confidentially, meaning that the jury only knows the pseudonyms of the participants. The jury works with the same information as the general public, who can study the proposals online at uusikansallinen.fi.The main building of the National Museum of Finland is located right in the heart of the capital Helsinki. The museum building that opened its doors to the public in 1916 was designed by the famous architect group of its time consisting of Herman Gesellius, Armas Lindgren and Eliel Saarinen. Also at the beginning of the last century, the design for the National Museum was discovered through an architecture competition. Upon its completion in 1910, the National Museum’s castle-like Art Nouveau building exemplifying national romantic architecture was one of the most significant new builds of its time.The new annex will be located on the National Museum plot along Mannerheimintie. The museum plot includes an extensive courtyard park allowing for various types of solutions.

The architecture competition programme states that the current museum building, the annex and the open courtyard must form a unique overall experience that serves different operations and communities throughout the year. At the heart of the competition concept is the study of Finnish society, its cultural heritage and development from the perspective of cultural diversity. New National means a functional and architectural reinterpretation of the concept of “national.” The idea is that the annex will symbolise the driving force of culture and the construction of a national identity on multicultural values and a shared responsibility for the future.

The competition programme determines that the annex will be located at least partially underground. The annex will allow for the production of extensive and demanding international exhibitions for the National Museum of Finland. In addition to exhibitions, the adaptable facilities support the organisation of varied cultural, artistic and recreational events and conferences. The annex will also include the National Museum’s primary restaurant services and terraces.

The current museum building, the annex and the open courtyard available for urban events and communities throughout the year will form a unique overall experience. The complex is intended to be completed in 2025.

THE ZWEIG LETTER September 9, 2019, ISSUE 1311

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BUILD YOUR BUSINESS. BUILD YOUR BRAND. BUILD YOUR BRAIN.

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Zweig Group exists to advance the AEC profession. Our Mission is to Elevate the Industry. We believe in a world that celebrates the built environment and recognizes its impact on individuals, communities, and commerce. Empowering organizations with the resources they need – to perform better, grow and add jobs, pay better wages and to expand their impact on the community – is always at the forefront of our action.

QUESTIONS?For group rates, or if you have any questions, contact Melissa Swann at 479-305-3357, mswann@zweiggroup.com or visit zweiggroup.com.

JOIN ZWEIG GROUP FOR THE ELEVATE AEC CONFERENCEThe Elevate AEC Conference is the AEC industry’s premiere experience to connect global leaders, solve industry issues, present next practices, and celebrate the most successful firms in the built environment.

Zweig Group’s annual conference is the largest gathering of award-winning AEC firms, making it the industry’s most comprehensive business conference for leaders and aspiring leaders of AEC firms in the US. EXPANDED EDUCATIONAL OFFERINGS This year, the Elevate AEC Conference marks another leap in the evolution of Zweig Group’s annual event with expanded educational offerings focused on firm management, senior marketers and HR professionals covering the latest strategies and emerging trends critical to grow your business.

M&A Next is a full-day symposium (pre-Elevate AEC Conference event) designed to provide M&A education. The conference-within-a-conference will provide practical application through interactive roundtable discussions, expert panel conversations, and focused networking to connect leaders from across the country.

SAVE $200 ON REGISTRATION THROUGH JULY 15 using PROMO CODE: CSElevate zweiggroup.com/elevate-aec-conference

THE ZWEIG LETTER September 9, 2019, ISSUE 1311

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P R O F I L E

Excellent quality: Dennis YapPresident of DY Consultants, a nationally-recognized aviation consulting firm based in New York City.

Yap has spent the past 35 years using his expertise as an airport planner and a civil engineer toward developing

DY Consultants, a nationally-recognized aviation consult-ing firm. He works with his team to provide solutions to some of the more sophisticated problems facing airports to-day, while designing and managing the most complex engi-neering projects. His firm has provided services to some of the nation’s largest airports, as well as the general aviation community.

“We do have a vision to transform the company toward ‘self-sufficiency,’ where the company is not dependent upon any one person or one group of individuals, including my-self,” Yap says. “We understand that this approach is impor-tant to our sustainability and long-term health. We’re well on our way to meeting this goal.”

A CONVERSATION WITH DENNIS YAP.

The Zweig Letter: What are the three to four key business performance indicators that you watch most carefully? Do you share that information with your staff?

Dennis Yap: That’s easy – in order of importance:

1. Quality, 2. Quality, 3. Quality, and 4. Quality. That’s been my approach from the beginning. It’s what distinguished us from our competitors when I was a “one person” firm and today as a 50-person firm. As long as you provide excellent quality services and deliverables, everything else will work itself out. We discuss this openly with staff and address matters of poor performance and celebrate client accolades.

TZL: How far into the future are you able to reliably pre-dict your workload and cashflow?

DY: Workload is more predictable than cash flow. We typi-cally project out a year’s worth of minimal workload for our planning and engineering staff as we often manage the pro-grams and have a good understanding of the needs of our repeat airport clients. Much of the services we provide are funded by public monies, such as federal and state grants which are planned a year in advance. Cashflow has sever-al variables. When working with projects funded by grants, there are many factors that impact the reliability of timely payments, including the efficiency of our clients being re-imbursed by the governing agencies. In addition, there’s a level of unpredictability when working with private clients,

By LIISA ANDREASSENCorrespondent

© Copyright 2019. Zweig Group.

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YEAR FOUNDED: 1991HEADQUARTERS: New York, NYNUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 49NUMBER OF OFFICE LOCATIONS: 4SERVICES z Planning: Facilities and

operations, terminal planning and design, aviation demand forecasts, airside planning, data analytics and operation research, environmental planning and permitting

z Engineering: Construction safety; phasing plans and implementation; pavement design, evaluation and quality acceptance; visual aids and airfield lighting system; navigational aids; airfield horizontal geometry; airfield vertical geometry; drainage; grading and earthwork

z Environmental: Environmental assessments, environmental impact statements, CATEX, Environmental short forms, local organization coordination, public workshops/involvement

z Construction project management: Civil and site, mechanical, structural, electrical, safety, environmental, geotechnical, surveyors

z Program management: Program planning, cost estimating and funding, project definition documents, bridging documents, scheduling, cost and scheduling management, delivery strategies, coordination and communication with all stakeholders, design management, and construction engineering oversight

SECTOR: Aviation

as well as working as a sub-consultant to a prime consultant, which is often impacted by their cashflow.

TZL: How much time do you spend work-ing “in the business” rather than “on the business?”

DY: At this stage of our growth, I find my-self working full-time “in the business” while I’m in the office, with a significant amount of attention working “on the busi-ness” when I’m away from the office. As a “hands-on” owner, I’m not proud that this is the case now. We do have a vision to trans-form the company toward “self-sufficiency,” where the company is not dependent upon any one person or one group of individuals, including myself. We understand that this approach is important to our sustainabili-ty and long-term health. We’re well on our way to meeting this goal.

TZL: What role does your family play in your career? Are work and family sepa-rate, or is there overlap?

DY: Family and friends have played a tre-mendous role in my career and in DY Con-sultants. The characteristics that have been instilled in myself and how our company operates has been described as personable and flexible with a hard work ethic. The per-spective I’ve gotten from my parents, my wife and kids, my friends, my employees, and my colleagues have all contributed to where I am today – technically and as a per-son. I also include employees in this group because they’re family to me too.

TZL: Artificial intelligence and machine learning are potential disruptors across all industries. Is your firm exploring how to incorporate these technologies into providing improved services for clients?

DY: As airport planners and designers, the industry is growing at a pace I’ve never ex-perienced. The techniques involved in solv-ing complex issues at airports necessitate the ability to automate and analyze infor-mation quicker than what was expected in the past. DY has made a concerted effort to-ward advancing technology with a commit-ment toward R&D. One example is our abil-ity to analyze massive amounts of data and using it to solve complex problems, such as maximizing efficiencies in the airspace, on the airfield, and at the terminals at the bus-iest airports in the world.

TZL: What, if anything, are you doing to protect your firm from a potential eco-nomic slowdown in the future?

DY: There is no doubt that this wave we’re

riding will come to an end. We’ve taken a diversified approach within the airport in-dustry. Our business plan and our market-ing approach consider opportunities from additional types of clientele and expanding our reach geographically while exploring additional services we may be able to pro-vide, to address upcoming industry needs.

TZL: It is often said that people leave managers, not companies. What are you doing to ensure that your line leadership are great people managers?

DY: I’m a big believer in developing young professionals into managers. Being young, driven, hardworking, and creative is what makes up the DY brand. One of the chal-lenges we have is to develop talented indi-viduals within our firm, who have proven to be technically smart and loyal individu-als, into great people managers. The compa-ny does provide leadership training to our management group with a focus on team building, inspiring and motivating staff to meet their personal and corporate goals.

TZL: How are you balancing investment in the next generation – which is at an all-time high – with rewards for tenured staff?

DY: This has always been a challenge, but seems heightened as investments in de-velopment have increased. We are a young company. The average age of our group is mid-30s. I’m a big supporter of providing everyone equal input when it comes to the growth of DY, and I have and will contin-ue to invest in our staff, regardless of age. The needs of the “next generation” or the millennials are different than those of the baby boomers and I totally understand that their needs and the types of rewards that resonate with them may be different from others. At DY, the quantity of investment is equal across the board, but the type of in-vestment and rewards may be different.

TZL: What novel approaches are you bringing to recruitment, and how are your brand and differentiators perform-ing in the talent wars?

DY: Our approach toward recruitment re-lies heavily on word of mouth. We’re for-tunate to have a great reputation and our marketing department does a great job in getting the message out to colleagues – do-mestically and globally. We advertise in traditional trade journals, on social me-dia, through our website and use talent re-search firms, but often talent comes to us through discussions with either colleagues in the industry or with DY’s existing staff.

See EXCELLENT QUALITY, page 8

© Copyright 2019. Zweig Group.

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8

TZL: Does your firm work closely with any higher edu-cation institutions to gain access to the latest technolo-gy, experience, and innovation and/or recruiting to find qualified resources?

DY: We have and will continue to work with universities, lo-cally and nationally. Unfortunately, the number of higher education institutions that focus on airport planning and engineering is limited. DY has promoted the advancement of this topic in some of the engineering schools in our re-gion. For example, our planners have coordinated through the ASCE to hold brown bag lunches at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering to introduce students to airport planning. Another example of collaboration with the uni-versities includes our use and coordination with Virginia Tech on the use of aviation software used for reducing de-lays at airports.

TZL: Is change management a topic regularly addressed by the leadership at your firm? If so, elaborate.

DY: We recognize that change is essential to company growth, especially when it comes to providing professional services to airports. We ourselves are going through an in-teresting time in our corporate history, and, for us to move into the next stage of our development, we need to make adjustments. We’ve established a committee of core indi-viduals to convene quarterly to discuss the “New Direction” we look to instill as we move forward. This includes engag-ing outside ideas from management firms experienced in this field to developing an advisory board that may include a network of industry leaders.

TZL: What financial metrics do you monitor to gauge the health of your firm?

DY: I look for reports to confirm that we are invoicing more than we’re spending with an acceptable level of profit built in. I review four reports each month:

1) P/L statements (accrual and cash) – Review of revenues vs. expenses

2) Utilization reports – Ensuring staff is productive

3) Individual project financial reports – Ensuring we’re staying on schedule and within budget

4) Monthly projections – Upcoming months’ anticipated finan-cial projections

TZL: They say failure is a great teacher. What’s the big-gest lesson you’ve had to learn the hard way?

DY: To make decisions as quickly as possible. I recognize that even a wrong decision is better than no decision. I’ve been in situations where I’ve let circumstances continue, which has impacted us financially and operationally. When the problem is left alone it’s been detrimental to company growth.

TZL: Research shows that PMs are overworked, under-staffed, and that many firms do not have formal training programs for PMs. What is your firm doing to support its PMs?

DY: We are particularly sensitive to this issue – for every-one. I’m a hard worker and need to pay particular attention

to the fact that our staff is extremely motivated and driven. I know the concept of providing rewards to those who work hard helps, but I also know that overworking for an extend-ed period of time is not sustainable. The leadership train-ing we provide our managers addresses issues such as time management, handling work-life balance, and providing them as much support as possible with available resources.

TZL: How many years of experience – or large enough book of business – is enough to become a principal in your firm? Are you naming principals in their 20s or 30s?

DY: My barometer is based on the amount of contribution they’ve made to the company, their commitment to main-taining our excellent reputation and taking it to the next level such that all individuals within the firm will benefit and our clients will get a level of service that is more than expected. A person in their 20s or 30s is certainly capable of being a principal at DY.

TZL: In one word or phrase, what do you describe as your number one job responsibility as CEO?

DY: Create an environment of self-sufficiency and sustain-ability.

TZL: Diversity and inclusion is lacking. What steps are you taking to address the issue?

DY: As a Minority Business Enterprise, we take diversity se-riously and appreciate the benefits that come along with it. The majority of DY’s staff is made up of international pro-fessionals from around the world with a large percentage of them being minorities and women. Although a sensitive topic these days, I find it irresponsible not to include talent that will make a positive contribution to our team, regard-less of their ethnicity or gender.

TZL: A firm’s longevity is valuable. What are you doing to encourage your staff to stick around?

DY: Our group is a family and we work hard to create an at-mosphere and environment that is conducive to providing a great product to our client, but more importantly bene-fiting our staff with experiences they cannot get anywhere else. It’s not unusual to walk in the doors of DY and see a celebration for a personal birthday or major success. I be-lieve our team recognizes that each individual plays an im-portant role in our firm and they are able to advance their careers faster at DY than anywhere else.

EXCELLENT QUALITY, from page 7

DY staff enjoying social time. Photo credit: Gabriella Toth Photo

9

THE ZWEIG LETTER September 9, 2019, ISSUE 1311

In 2018, All4 Inc. successfully navigated its first ownership transition through a transaction with JMH Capital. ALL4 had two primary objectives from its transaction

in 2018: (1) To successfully transition ownership from two founding partners who were nearing retirement, and (2) To position ALL4 to execute its growth plan. The ALL4 growth plan is composed of an aggressive organic growth strategy combined with a prudent acquisition strategy in the areas of geographic opportunities, complimentary air quality services, and expansion into other environmental media.

The effort to chart a new path should begin long before firm founders retire, and should be exhaustive.

O P I N I O N

ALL4, an environmental consulting company specializing in air quality, was in the position of having two founding partners approaching retirement age and having reached a size and valuation that would require us to consider various options to accomplish our two primary objectives. These objectives were to (1) Provide a fair return to our retiring partners, and (2) Position ALL4 financially to execute our growth plan. Our process began in 2015 when we initiated the following activities:

1) Educated ourselves by attending seminars and net-working with industry peers about how this process occurred at other environmental consulting firms.

2) Investigated various transition options to accom-plish our objectives. These options included:

z “Staying the course” with the remaining two part-ners buying the outstanding shares.

z Rolling into a larger consulting firm (either multi-disciplinary or air quality centric).

z Creating an employee stock ownership program (ESOP).

z Bringing in an outside investment partner.

3) Instituted an advisory board. We envisioned the advisory board as an opportunity to experience out-side input and different perspective/thinking in our decision-making processes.

4) Engaged with an outside party to perform a compa-ny valuation and to highlight those areas where we could implement changes to improve our valuation.

JMH AS AN INVESTMENT PARTNER. In early 2018, we com-pleted our transaction that brought JMH in as an investment partner. JMH was a unique partner for

Owning ownership transition

Bill Straub

See BILL STRAUB, page 10

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ALL4 based on two key distinctions: First, JMH principals themselves are former consultants and helped grow a con-sulting practice. Second, JMH’s investment strategy and our shared vision is based on a longer investment timeline than many private equity firms. This past experience and investment timeline really resonated with my remaining partner and myself, and with the ALL4 leadership team. This experience and timeline will enable us to grow both organically and through acquisition and will enable us to grow our leadership team which will facilitate our leader-ship succession plan. The process was not as simple as un-covering these two distinctions and “signing on the dotted line!” I would highlight the following keys to reaching our natural conclusion:

1) ALL4 and JMH were aligned that we wanted to build on our foundation culture. This culture extends beyond being a great place to work or having fun, it is centered on our commitment to, and investment in, others. Consistent with our vision statement, we openly share our expertise externally and we are structured internally to teach and share technical learn-ings and expertise across the company for the benefit of all our clients. The openness of our consultants to invest in the growth and development of others is a major differentiator.

2) Formulating and collaborating with the JMH principals felt no different than if they were our original founding partners or our advisory board – they are each relationships that were built on trust and mutual respect. Our relationship with JMH was built over a 12-month period and included personal and team assessments ranging from determining financial biases to working through situational “dilemmas” or “what if scenar-ios” that we anticipated we could face in the future. That level of trust and understanding of how we would react as a team enabled us to hit the ground running.

3) Our shared “ALL4 2.0 Vision” identified investments required in systems and people to stimulate the growth plan that we

declared. We recognized some of the things that could inhibit our growth and we addressed those immediately. For exam-ple, we hired a CFO, we invested in a new enterprise resource planning system, and we completed a detailed benchmarking assessment. Each of these actions were intended to facilitate our growth.

CHECKING IN ON OUR PROGRESS. Fifteen months into our new relationship with JMH and I can honestly say that we’d do it all over again! John Nies, JMH founding principal, said it best: “While I don’t think we have had a deal take that long to close, I have also never felt so comfortable about the team and the strategy moving forward.” As a leader-ship team and company that is competitive, we have been challenged to be more demanding of ourselves, but always from a position of “Does this support our ALL4 2.0 Vi-sion?” This type of challenge is inspiring, rewarding, and completely aligned with our desire to provide growth op-portunities for our consultants that enables them to see a future at ALL4.

BILL STRAUB is a founding principal of ALL4 and is the president and CEO. He has more than 29 years of professional experience that encompasses many aspects of the consulting industry with an emphasis on air quality. Straub led the successful ownership transition of two founding partners and his current focus is charting the ALL4 growth strategy including leading ALL4’s acquisition strategy. He can be reached at wstraub@all4inc.com.

BILL STRAUB, from page 9

“The ALL4 growth plan is composed of an aggressive organic growth strategy combined with a prudent acquisition strategy in the areas of geographic opportunities, complimentary air quality services, and expansion into other environmental media.”

ON THE MOVELAYTON CONSTRUCTION APPOINTS BOONE HELLMANN, FAIA TO BOARD OF DIRECTORS Layton Construction announced the appointment of Boone Hellmann, FAIA to its board of directors. As a director on Layton’s board, Hellmann will offer valuable insights to the company based on his 30 years of experience from the owner’s side where he helped select and administer billions of dollars’ worth of construction projects.“Boone is a welcome addition to Layton’s Board of Directors,” said David Layton, president and CEO of Layton Construction. “As an independent director, Boone brings invaluable experience overseeing major design and construction projects as well as significant leadership expertise to our board.”Hellmann currently consults for design professionals and contractors through his firm, Hellmann Consulting Group. He recently retired from the University of California, San Diego, after almost 30 years of service as the associate vice chancellor for facilities design and construction and the campus architect.

In this role he was responsible for more than 70 professional and technical staff providing all architectural/engineering design, construction administration, inspection, contract, and fiscal management services for the more than 35,000 student university, including two academic medical center teaching hospitals. During his tenure, Hellmann oversaw the design and construction of approximately 12 million square feet of new space capital improvements valued at more than $4.5 billion.“It is a particularly exciting time to join Layton Construction as it continues to grow into a major national general contractor,” said Hellmann. “Layton has seen incredible growth throughout the Western U.S., including my home state of California. The commitment of the company to predictable outcomes is the primary reason it has so many repeat customers and delights new customers.”Layton Construction, one of the largest general contractors in the U.S., has completed projects in more than 40 states and has

offices in California including Irvine, San Diego and San Jose, as well as Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Tennessee, and Utah. Layton Construction currently works extensively in the areas of healthcare, data centers, hospitality, retail, entertainment, warehouse, and distribution and commercial offices.Layton Construction Company is consistently ranked among the top commercial contractors in the nation, currently the 44th largest builder on ENR’s Top 400 Commercial Contractors list, with revenues of $1.8 billion annually. Layton specializes in construction management, design-build construction and general contracting. Layton’s construction projects are found throughout the United States, and cover a wide spectrum of industry sectors, including healthcare, hospitality, education, data centers, office buildings, manufacturing, warehouse and distribution, sports and entertainment, detention, and public safety. Headquartered in Utah, Layton also has regional offices in California, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, and Tennessee.

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THE ZWEIG LETTER September 9, 2019, ISSUE 1311

Adopting new technology is vital to support the growth of any firm. Being adaptable and open to new technologies can set a quickly-growing company up for

success while refusing to evolve with technology can spell failure.

If you’re looking to grow your firm, be diligent and adaptable in finding the IT system that suits your needs.

O P I N I O N

Mead & Hunt has learned this lesson firsthand. Our company is in the middle of a growth spurt. In the last 25 years, we’ve grown from two offices to more than 35, and from 130 employees to more than 750. Our revenue has increased tenfold, from $13 million to $136 million annually. We have an ambitious vision for our future involving intense growth. We could not achieve this without strategically applying new technologies.

To achieve our growth goals, we needed to be able to bid on projects regardless of their location, and we needed to be able to access the very best talent from across the nation. We also needed to consider the cultural shift towards telecommuting we were seeing in our industry. Employees need files, software, and resources available immediately, no matter where they are working, and expectations of speed, safety, and accuracy continue to rise.

We needed to identify and implement a solution

that met our company’s extensive and evolving needs. The task seemed daunting, but by breaking it into smaller steps, we were able to succeed.

z Evaluate the company’s needs. Our IT team man-ages the needs of a widespread network of archi-tects, engineers, and technical professionals. They needed the ability to send extremely large, graphic files to clients and partnering firms across the coun-try. In addition, our staff were demanding software speed that matched previous experiences even while working out in the field – or anywhere else. Physical workstations have a great user experience but are time-consuming and expensive to deploy and man-age. They require costly hardware and take a long time to get up and running, so they limit our ability to pursue projects where we do not have a branch office.

To meet our growth goals, we needed to be able to work from anywhere a project takes us. Physical

Leveraging technology

Andy Knauf

See ANDY KNAUF, page 12

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workstations were just not cutting it. We knew we needed to completely overhaul our IT infrastructure.

z Be adaptable if a solution doesn’t pan out. The first solu-tion we tried was on-premises virtual desktop infrastructure. VDI is technology that hosts a desktop operating system on a centralized server. Hosting the VDI on-premises required massive capital expenditures just to get the first workstation up and running, and the ongoing maintenance needed a lot of IT resources. After a month in production, I received feedback that user productivity had dropped 15 percent – exactly the opposite of what we were trying to achieve. We needed a new approach.

z Explore a different approach. After much trial and error, we found a solution called Workspot that used a different ap-proach: cloud-native Desktop-as-a-Service. DaaS is a form of VDI which is outsourced and handled by a third party, so it is supplied complete and ready to operate. This solution would not work for every firm, but it worked for our needs: with many small offices and field work, this solution fits our niche need to produce high-level work from anywhere.

With a cloud-native DaaS approach, we can run high-perfor-mance workstations in regions across the nation, and easily deploy new cloud workstations around the world. This allows us to be extremely agile – we can get a new office up and running within minutes. This also means that we are more prepared in terms of disaster recovery: if an office were to burn down, we could be back online within five minutes, thus saving valuable time and money. Finally, the solution was re-ally a no-brainer when it comes to cost. After crunching the numbers, it was shown that implementing cloud workstations would save our firm $42,000 over five years. Sold! Now, we were ready to put it to a performance test.

z Test it out! We launched a pilot of Workspot Workstation Cloud on Microsoft Azure, which is a Microsoft service creat-ed for building and testing applications and services through Microsoft-managed data centers. This was up and running in just a few days. We were surprised but happy to find that the cloud workstations performed the same or better than our high-end physical workstations. There could be absolutely no compromises on performance for our power users, and Workspot passed the crucial test in providing a great experi-ence for them.

Unlike the other solutions we evaluated, there were no up-front capital expenses, and there was no infrastructure to maintain. Our employees can be creative and productive from anywhere. We can hire people based on talent, expertise, and skill without being limited by their geographic location. If Mead & Hunt opens a new branch office, our use of cloud workstations allows us to do it faster and at a significantly lower cost than before.

End result? Through our adoption of a cloud-native approach, we have been able to keep up with our ambitious growth goals. My IT team is happy, the design engineers are happy, and we get a consistent cost every month. Our IT costs remain stable even as we are growing at least 15 percent per year. Our network is better protected, and we’ve been able to improve our disaster preparedness. Additional workstations are ready to be activated in an alternate Azure region in the (unlikely) event of an Azure outage, providing peace of mind and protecting productivity.

My team and I are excited to find that next innovation that will give us the edge we need to continue to grow. Does this solution make sense for every firm? Definitely not. However, I believe it could become more common in the future and adopting this approach could eventually help with external collaboration with teaming partners and clients. We live in an exciting time – technology continues to develop ways for us to get more done faster. I look forward to seeing where it takes us in the future.

As CIO/Vice President, ANDY KNAUF securely connects Mead & Hunt professionals with clients and each other. As head of the Information Technology Department, he stays on top of the latest technologies, overseeing IT-related purchasing, anticipating future network needs and security, and identifying proactive solutions. Contact him at andy.knauf@meadhunt.com.

ANDY KNAUF, from page 11

“We needed to identify and implement a solution that met our company’s extensive and evolving needs. The task seemed daunting, but by breaking it into smaller steps, we were able to succeed.”

BUSINESS NEWSBRE GLOBAL LAUNCHES BREEAM NEW CONSTRUCTION FOR THE USA Following a consultation process and collaboration with global design, architecture, engineering, and planning firm HOK, BRE Global, the world’s leading building science center, announced adaptations of the BREEAM International New Construction standard to streamline the pathway to certification for projects located in the United States.The announcement is the result of a nearly year-long partnership to Americanize the BREEAM International New Construction standard and marks the latest development in BRE Global’s effort to expand in the U.S. market. Earlier this month, BRE Global announced the planned update to the BREEAM In-Use standard to include, for the first time, the assessment and

certification of sustainability performance for existing residential and multifamily buildings in the U.S.The newly unveiled adaptations for the BREEAM International New Construction standard include a regional approach that accounts for varying building codes, best practices and industry standards across the US. These changes ensure that BREEAM delivers the most appropriate sustainable solutions for each project in an efficient way, thereby delivering the maximum value. BREEAM New Construction also includes an option to work with non-standard buildings through the BREEAM Bespoke process, driving more sustainable outcomes for buildings with uncommon space types or in unusual locations.

Shamir Ghumra, Director of BREEAM at BRE Global said: “The adoption of BREEAM International by HOK marks another significant step forward for BREEAM. This will give more built environment stakeholders even more access to BREEAM in the USA; building on our growing number of customers for BREEAM In-Use. HOK have shown great leadership in taking forward BREEAM International.”

BREEAM was developed in 1990 by BRE Global, the world’s leading multidisciplinary building science organization. With more than 2 million registered projects and more than 567,000 certified buildings in 81 countries, it has more certifications than any other green building rating system in the world.