Stop trying to protect jobs and start automating the work that everyone hates.
Proactively use AI to eliminate the mind-numbing, low-value work your people would gladly give up anyway. This reframes AI from a threat to a relief valve, and it also accelerates adoption by targeting the tasks employees never fight to keep. Don’t promise AI won’t replace jobs. Promise it will replace the parts of everyone’s job they resent.
Facing More Competition? Do This…Now.
When conditions soften in a particular client market, bigger firms start chasing smaller projects and, overall, you start seeing more firms chasing few projects. What do you do? Get closer to your strategic clients. Conduct a client satisfaction survey and learn where you are strong and where you aren’t. Use this data to build a moat around your highest quality clients. By the way, if they don’t offer any criticism about your fees, that might be your sign that your fees are too low. To focus on your highest quality clients, consider saying goodbye to your low-value/high-maintenance clients, and watch employee morale and productivity improve.
Good Fences Make Good Projects.
We all know the phrase ‘good fences make good neighbors." Well, good fences also help to avoid blown budgets and lousy project profits. Fence in every scope item in your proposal to give you the upper hand in negotiations and delivery. For example, don’t just say that you will “attend planning meetings”. Instead, specify the exact number of meetings with something like “attend up to four planning meetings”. Another example is specifying a number of design revisions, site visits, and so on. In PSMJ’s AEC Project Management Bootcamp, we teach you how to always put a quantitative “fence” around an effort.
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There’s More to Good M&A than EBITDA.
Ever hear that phrase “you name the price, and I’ll name the terms”? In AEC M&A, this underscores the critical point that purchase price and after-tax proceeds can be very different numbers. More than that, the purchase price should be based on the future and not the past. Of course, historical Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) is a critical number. But determining the value of an AEC firm doesn’t even come close to ending there. Risk in areas such as client concentration, project size, business development, leadership development, and other non-financial areas can have a big impact on what a buyer will pay and on what a seller takes home after the closing. Don’t make the mistake of starting and stopping at EBITDA.
Stop chasing projects and start chasing clients.
Most firms focus on their project pipeline. The best firms focus on their client portfolio. Long-term sustainable growth doesn’t come from winning more projects; it comes from deepening relationships with the right clients who share your values, challenge your team, and trust your judgment. Drop the bottom 10% of your clients in 2026 and redirect that freed-up capacity toward expanding with the top 10%. Learn more about getting business development right in your firm at PSMJ’s Simplified AEC Business Development Workshop.
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