Architecture & Engineering Business Strategies

If you’re a doer-seller, you’re probably more comfortable “doing” than “selling.” Nobody goes to school to become an engineer, a designer, or an architect because they want to sell engineering, architecture, or design services. They want to do whatever their skill set is. But in today’s business world, doers need to become sellers—or at least active partners in the business development of the companies they work for. That’s what Iben Falconer has observed in her career. An architectural historian by training, she’s evolved into a marketing and business development leader, currently at SOM. In this Section Cut interview, Iben shares why you have to be organized, active, and focused about getting new work, and why everyone on the team has to play a role.

Interview Takeaways

• Don’t confuse marketing and business development
• Plan with your destination in mind
• Own your leads pipeline
• Forecast by looking ahead
• Ask: Do I really want this job?
• Assign a point person for prospects
• Recognize personal strengths
• Acknowledge your weaknesses
• Empower & guide your team
• Never take business development off your plate 
• Make every team member count
• Pitch even with a full plate

Show Links

• Check out SOM
• Connect with Iben Falconer on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Connect with George Valdes on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Check out Monograph
• Check out Section Cut
• Follow Monograph on LinkedIn or Instagram
• Listen and read more about Monograph 

If you want your business to run efficiently, you have to give your employees access to the proper tools and technology so they can get the job done. But it can be a challenge to find and implement the tools and tech that will best help your company achieve its goals. In this Section Cut interview, Scott Lelieur, director of operations at Lake Flato, and Director of Design Technology Daniel Stine, share how their company implements tools and technology to optimize their work at the intersection of sustainability and design technology.

Interview Takeaways

• Integrate tools and technology slowly
• Balance current and future needs
• Assess the efficiency of your tools and systems
• Give your team more independence
• Implement the right tools
• Leverage technology with care
• Cultivate a compelling culture
• Look to remote work
• Make the most of every opportunity
• Foster growth within your company
• Share similar values
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• Pinpoint your passions

Show Links

• Check out Lake Flato
• Connect with Scott Lelieur on LinkedIn
• Connect with Daniel Stine on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Connect with Chris Morgan on LinkedIn 
• Check out Monograph
• Check out Section Cut
• Follow Monograph on LinkedIn or Instagram
• Listen and read more about Monograph 

If your firm is considering going hybrid, it’s a much bigger decision than deciding how many hours per week you’ll ask staff to spend in the office. It also means overhauling processes that may have been in place for years or decades. Careful thought is needed, as is employee buy-in at every level. Evelyn Lee is the founder of Practice of Architecture and currently works at Slack. In this Section Cut interview, she shared the wisdom she’s gathered over the last 10 years as a workplace strategist, including where to focus your energy so you can innovate and thrive.

Interview Takeaways

• A hybrid practice is the hardest practice
• Re-examine your company culture
• Create shared ownership in culture
• Create new people processes
• Consider a year-long onboarding process
• Support employee career journeys
• Hybrid processes sometimes look like 100% remote
• Set time for live responses and deep work
• Invest in cloud technology
• Don’t get into process debt
• Hybrid work requires investment at all levels

Show Links

• Connect with Evelyn Lee on LinkedIn or Twitter 
• Check out Practice of Architecture 
• Connect with Joann Lui on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Check out Monograph
• Check out Section Cut
• Follow Monograph on LinkedIn or Instagram
• Listen and read more about Monograph 

With the surging demand for diversity in the workplace, many companies are scrambling to figure out how to increase—and manage—gender and ethnic diversity within their own firms. To help your people to work well together, you have to learn how to handle a diverse team of employees, which means focusing on four values: justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI). In this Section Cut interview, Yiselle Santos, VP and Director of Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at HSK, Inc., explains what a JEDI mindset looks like in the workplace and how to direct your company toward a more equitable future.

Interview Takeaways

• Prioritize a JEDI mentality
• Create a safe space
• Learn how to manage diversity
• Gender equality increases profitability
• Encourage authentic conversations
• Focus on transparency
• Challenge yourself and others
• Think people-first
• Establish goals to achieve success
• Accountability comes through transparency
• Disrupt your biases
• Data defines the truth

Show Links

• Check out HKS, Inc.
• Connect with Yiselle Santos on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Connect with George Valdes on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Check out Monograph
• Check out Section Cut
• Follow Monograph on LinkedIn or Instagram
• Listen and read more about Monograph 

Financial management isn’t just standard accounting. It also involves looking at the big picture of your financial performance to make smart business decisions. When you understand what’s going on financially, you can improve and plan for the future. In order to get that understanding, you need to track your time and do some calculations. In this Section Cut interview, Rena Klein, Vice President for Investment Partnerships at Charrette Venture Group, explains why firms need to know things like their utilization rate, break-even rate, and billable ratio in order to understand and enhance their profitability.

Interview Takeaways

• Understand financial management
• Conduct cash and accrual reporting
• Know your utilization and break even rate
• Track your hours
• Increase utilization rates
• Increase billable ratios
• Nix scope creep
• Use best practices to avoid over-delivery
• Have routine projects to up efficiency
• Calculate your hourly rate
• Check for profitability
• Use a fixed fee for greater profitability

Show Links

• Check out Charrette Venture Group
• Connect with Rena M. Klein on LinkedIn
• Connect with Joann Lui on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Check out Monograph
• Check out Section Cut
• Follow Monograph on LinkedIn or Instagram
• Listen and read more about Monograph 

The world is changing fast. In order for your practice to survive, you’ll have to change along with it. New technologies and new ways of communicating can be scary, but humans have always evolved and adapted by using new tools. During this Section Cut interview, Libo Li, CTO of KatalystDI, talked to us about how becoming an adaptive organization has to start from the firm culture, how better organization tools can lead to better design, and how experimentation and permission to fail is key to improving.

Interview Takeaways

• Adapt to survive
• Organize for better designs
• Move past paper-based communication
• Be a tool maker, not just a tool user
• Create an adaptable culture
• Experiment and iterate
• Adapt in the right direction
• Reduce blocking events & introduce independent action
• Create tools within Notion
• Use templates for repeatable work
• Code what you know
• Keep a growth mindset and allow failure

Show Links

• Check out KatalystDI
• Connect with Libo Li on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Connect with George Valdes on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Check out Monograph
• Check out Section Cut
• Follow Monograph on LinkedIn or Instagram
• Listen and read more about Monograph 

Finding and hiring top talent is a challenge for any company, especially in today’s competitive hiring environment. To give your business the best shot at attracting and retaining great employees, you have to know how to market your business to job candidates. In this Section Cut interview, Talentstar’s founder Marjanne Pearson and Principal Connector Linda Wallack share how to attract potential hires by knowing who your brand is, what values you need your employees to share, and how to utilize every company resource.

Interview Takeaways

• Acquire talent through effective marketing
• Know your brand
• Share core values and a common approach
• Stay competitive by following industry shifts
• Keep up with the latest technology
• Hire people with compatible goals
• Look at future potential
• Take care of your current team
• Cultivate diversity by getting involved
• Make every member a marketer
• Utilize a nontraditional workforce
• Ask tough questions

Show Links

• Check out Talentstar
• Connect with Marjanne Pearson on LinkedIn
• Connect with Linda Wallack on LinkedIn
• Connect with Chris Morgan on LinkedIn 
• Check out Monograph
• Check out Section Cut
• Follow Monograph on LinkedIn or Instagram
• Listen and read more about Monograph 

How can you finally say goodbye to an unwieldy spreadsheet system and streamline your operation from start to finish? At Workshop/APD, the team develops strategic and custom solutions at scale. When they doubled their team over the course of the pandemic, a smooth project management system became more important than ever. Thankfully, they already had their “secret weapon” in place in the form of Monograph. During this Section Cut interview, principal architect Thomas Zoli shares how the once boutique New York design firm is now bigger and better than ever.

Interview Takeaways

• Grow your verticals as you grow your firm 
• Foster cross-pollination
• Scale your custom work
• Use Monograph to enable data fluency 
• Let Monograph be your secret weapon 
• Say goodbye to Excel spreadsheets
• Don’t throw meeting money out the window
• Create an internal workflow
• Enable ownership of time tracking
• Drive meetings with Monograph 

Show Links

• Check out Workshop/APD
• Connect with Thomas Zoli on LinkedIn 
• Connect with Chris Morgan on LinkedIn 
• Check out Monograph
• Check out Section Cut
• Follow Monograph on LinkedIn or Instagram
• Listen and read more about Monograph 

Architects don’t receive a lot of training on business and finance. And staff members with business experience don’t often understand the design side. So, how do these two groups collaborate and run a practice? During this Section Cut interview, Arthur and Marie Eddy of Traverse Landscape Architects shared how they’re using Monograph to speak the same language across groups and get things done faster. From better understanding the project process to determining what’s working and what’s not, Monograph has allowed them to streamline tasks and educate their staff.

Interview Takeaways

• Use Monograph to take stock of business operations
• Educate people in the whole business
• Streamline reporting and accounting with Monograph 
• Understand what’s working
• Speak the same language
• Reduce time on monthly invoices
• Do revenue forecasting as a team
• Collaborate across projects

Show Links

• Check out Traverse Landscape Architects
• Connect with Arthur Eddy on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Connect with Marie Eddy on LinkedIn 
• Check out Monograph
• Check out Section Cut
• Connect with Joann Lui on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Follow Monograph on LinkedIn or Instagram
• Listen and read more about Monograph 

How do you operate a national practice that encompasses art, architecture, historical preservation, and construction documents all under one roof? That’s the task of Verdant Studio, an Arkansas-based firm with incredible breadth and reach. Founder Jessica Hester credits Monograph for keeping the team on schedule and on budget while shaving hours of meeting and accounting time off their plate every week. In this Section Cut interview, Jessica and colleague Natasha Brand shared how Verdant Studio tackles complex projects and uses Monograph to pave the way.

Interview Takeaways

• Create places people love
• Enable public art
• Bring historic projects to life
• Marry research and art
• Enable innovation with Monograph
• Reduce meeting time with Monograph
• Streamline billing with Monograph
• Use saved time to recharge

Show Links

• Check out Verdant Studio
• Connect with Jessica Hester on LinkedIn
• Connect with Natasha Brand on LinkedIn 
• Check out Monograph
• Check out Section Cut
• Connect with Joann Lui on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Follow Monograph on LinkedIn or Instagram
• Listen and read more about Monograph