advice

“Years ago, I worked for an A/E firm in Memphis by the name of Pickering, Wooten, Smith and Weiss. My boss was Don Smith and my mentor was Irving Weiss. Both of them taught me a lot about this business.”

“There’s a lot to know about your people. And we have to keep updating this information because your people are constantly changing.”

“There’s a lot to know about your own business that you cannot know if you aren’t intimately involved with every detail of it at some point.”

“Are you missing out on this valuable knowledge in these or any other areas that it is needed? If so, amend your evil ways and make better use of your marketing talent!”

“This was the fourth or fifth time since 1997 that Zweig Group has done one of these events coupled with a racing school. They always get me thinking.”

“A lot of managers in AEC firms – design and technical people who have become managers – need to learn a few supervisory basics.”

“Why do people lose interest in their own businesses and, perhaps more importantly, what can you do to keep this from happening?”

“It’s a debate that’s been ongoing for years in our industry, thanks in no small part to the popularity of Good to Great, an academic study of huge, publicly-traded corporations and other organizations.”

If your firm uses a doer-seller business development model, empowering your team is necessary for their success and your bottom line.

“You had better conquer those fears! Because the power of the information to inform, educate, and motivate your people is more powerful than any negative that could come from it.”

“Always be recruiting! That has to be the mantra for anyone who’s an owner or manager in an AEC firm today because finding people is crucial to your growth.”

“Even if you don’t apply it to your business, knowing probabilities of success will at least keep you from buying scratch tickets or blowing your cash in a slot machine at a casino somewhere!”