Find the Lost Dollars

Training Program

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There’s a faster, simpler, and more profitable way to grow your A&E Firm. Get yourself and your employees started with our three-step proven system, designed to help A&E firms like yours grow, develop, and prosper.

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HIT Profit TARGETS

Z

Develop future business leaders

Transform processes & systems

Guide Your Firm to Greater Profits using our simple 3-step program:

1

Assess where employees are struggling and where new processes and better systems will help them to be more productive.

2

Online and group business training to teach employees how to deliver profitable projects.

3

Develop new processes and improve systems to reduce scope creep and make employees more efficient and happy.

STEP 1: ASSESS

Quickly find out exactly where business processes, systems and training are failing your employees and costing you money.

Don’t guess what your employees are thinking.

Progressive A&E Firm Leaders ask their employees how to be better…

The Find the Lost Dollars Business Management Assessment tool will quickly give you the answers you need, and in the most cost-effective way.

The Find the Lost Dollars Business Management Assessment is a completely automated survey tool that probes the minds and opinions of your staff to instantly understand where bottlenecks, redundant systems, and time-wasting business practices are slowing down their work and keeping them from delivering profitable and successful projects.

It evaluates your employee’s answers to about 160 questions in 9 critical areas of your business.

 

AEC Business Management

 

For each of these areas you get scores and recommendations that break down the data by People, Process and Technology, giving you clear data of where your firm is strong, average, or possibly struggling. The data can be analyzed by groups to provide further insight into where there may be issues with offices, teams, business units or by role.

Click here to learn more about our Business Management Assessment.

 

STEP 2: EDUCATE

Progressive A&E Firm Leaders Invest in their Teams to be the Best in the Industry!

Your employees are your greatest asset and investing in them strategically can give your firm a competitive and recruiting advantage in the marketplace. Progressive A&E leaders that develop the best teams deliver better, faster and more profitable projects, and consistently retain and get more work from great clients.

Your employees did not learn how to be business leaders in college, and as a result, often “give away” your profits because they don’t know how to bring in business, ask clients for money or control project costs. By giving them business skills and empowering them to help your firm succeed, they will feel happier and want to stay with your firm longer.

Two-day bootcamps are a waste of time and traditional training does not change your employees’ mindset or behavior. What your employees do every day is what makes the difference between success and failure on projects. Most of their activities are driven by long-held habits that take ten weeks to change!

After working with thousands of A&E firms over 30 years, we have developed the leading educational program for growing progressive A&E firms to ensure their employees can excel in the business of design, engineering and environmental consulting.

The Find the Lost Dollars training program offers 10 online and group facilitated modules that get your employees to follow business best practices and have them searching and finding lost dollars in just ten weeks! We dive into the following subjects to ensure employees are prepared for the Design and Construction industry of the future!

 

Course List:

Culture Traps that Steal Your Profits

Nine Areas Where Firms Lose Money

Effective A&E Firm Financial Management

Marketing, Business Development and Sales Effectiveness

Contract Types, Project Costs and Estimating

Project Budgeting, Monitoring and Resource Management

Scope Creep and Extra Services

Time is Money

Cash is King

Managing Client Relationships

Give your employees the edge they need to deliver top industry financial results and feel empowered to help your firm succeed.

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Want to learn more about our specific courses?
You can access the course descriptions here.
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Our training courses are eligible for continuing education units / PDHs for AIA, RCEP (PE license) and SMPS.

PDH Hours Continuing Education Credits

 

STEP 3: CREATE

You Don’t Have to Reinvent the Wheel – Better Processes Can be Easier to Implement!

Business best practices should be designed to help employees perform at their best with as little manual processes and time-wasting effort as possible.

Unfortunately, many firms have inconsistent or non-existing processes that actually impede employee performance and quality project delivery. We believe it should be easy for employees to do a great job and perform at their highest potential!

We help you develop streamlined business best practices that ensure employee success and make their jobs easier so they will be more productive and happy in their jobs.

We help you evaluate and develop better ways of running your business to maximize employee efficiency and high profits in the following areas:

 

INCREASE PROFITS NOW!

DID YOU KNOW…

According to firms surveyed in the 44th Annual Deltek Clarity Architecture & Engineering Study:

%

Don't have a formal business development process

%

Are faced with the challenge of Increasing Profitability

%

See project management as a key area of investment in the next 12 months

%

Acknowledge need to increase Project Manager Financial Knowledge

DOES THIS SOUND LIKE YOUR FIRM?

GET STARTED

AFTER COMPLETING OUR TRAINING PROGRAM, YOUR FIRM WILL REALIZE THE FOLLOWING BENEFITS:

  • Increase your Win Rate, Utilization and Project Profit Margins
  • Hold Your Staff Accountable for Measurable Results
  • Set Goals and track Progress
  • 10 Hour Self-Paced, Engaging, Fun Format with NO Time Out of the Office
  • Earn Continuing Education Credits that produce return on investment
  • Pair the training with our Business Management Assessment to really understand where to focus your attention

“FAE completed the Find The Lost Dollars Business Management program and found it to be an effective program to enhance our business and client relationship skills. The format of the program encouraged interactive conversations and collaboration that played a part in significantly enhancing staff engagement, client sensitivities and service levels. The program’s focus and guidance immediately resulted in a more stable profitability level and extended client reach and sectors for new opportunities. We would highly encourage professional services firms to participate in this program.”

 

-Steve Rollin, VP of Operations/Director of Electrical Engineering, FAE

“The Find the Lost Dollars™ business management training program was exactly the type of program we needed to get our entire management team focused on profitability. It enabled us to train a core group of employees, all with different levels of experience, in a convenient and flexible format without loss of billable revenue and time out of the office. The Find the Lost Dollars™ Training Program has helped reinforce a culture of sound business practices among our management staff. We had some great discussions about our business during the group meetings and we all learned a lot. I believe the program will have a positive long-term impact on our firm’s profitability. We have implemented many business improvements as a result of the course including development of a Go / No-Go process that has already helped us make crucial decisions on several projects. We have changed the way we prepare and discuss proposals with clients, as well as enhanced our proposal language to ensure project success. Our project managers (PMs) are more diligent about approving time charges on their projects, and are more focused on controlling scope creep. Our profits so far this year are up from last year and the program has contributed. The Find the Lost Dollars™ program was a great investment for Sain, and has the right tools and approach to help progressive A&E firms to reach higher levels of financial success."

-Jim Meads, President/CEO, Sain Associates, Inc.

"In early 2016 our firm identified key strategic initiatives that included creating efficiencies in our accounting/project management system and the need to reduce scope creep in our projects. We were thrilled to find the Find the Lost Dollars™ Training as it met our goal of finding a business training program we could offer to our entire staff in a convenient and effective format, and have been extremely pleased with the results. We made the decision to put our entire firm through the Find the Lost Dollars™ Training in order to implement a company-wide culture of profitability. The training has helped us to instill in everyone a focus on finding lost dollars in their daily work! We also see better compliance with policies because our staff now understand why policies are necessary. Our employees refer back to the concepts learned in the training at regular monthly meetings. Everyone has a better understanding of how the firm makes money. I highly recommend the Find the Lost Dollars™ program for any firm that wants to improve their firm’s profitability by introducing their people to practices and behaviors that immediately add to the company’s bottom line. "

 – Sig Hauck, Principal/ Operations, Jaffe Holden

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Want to get in touch?

You can email us directly at info@aecbusiness.com,

or click below to schedule a brief phone call so we can assess your needs..

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