Podcasts Archive

A/E/C Executive Update: New Tax Incentives and Changes Explained

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was recently signed into law and provides new tax incentive opportunities for architects, engineers, contractors, and commercial property owners. The IRA was put into law to fight inflation, invest in domestic energy production and manufacturing, and reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030. The IRA increased the 179D Tax Deduction for commercial buildings placed in service in 2023 and beyond. Also, up for discussion is The R&D tax credit which has some new IRS regulations starting in 2022 on amended returns and Amortization of qualified research expenses for 2022.

A/E/C Inflation Adjustment Playbook: How to Safeguard Profits with Payroll, Workload, and Fee Adjustments

According to PSMJ research, 63% of A/E/C firms have implemented pay increases in the past six months. Of course, labor is your firm’s largest expense but skyrocketing inflation has the potential to drive up all sorts of expenses in your firm…and wreak havoc on your firm’s profit margins. Knee-jerk reactions aren’t a viable strategy. Top-performing A/E/C firms are making data-driven forward-thinking strategic moves now to ensure they are positioned for long-term sustainable growth and sustained margins…in any economic cycle.

Everything You Need to Know About the R&D Tax Credit

Join PSMJ's Gregory Hart as he interviews BRAYN Consulting's Founder & CEO, Brady Bryan. They will be discussing the Research & Development (R&D) Tax Credit and how it helps businesses capture design dollars earned and leverage them back into your business. Learn the variety of ways architecture and engineering firms utilize these credits and the positive impact the credit is having on their overall business.

What Profitable A/E/C Firms Need to Know About Overtime

Spend some time looking at the effect of paying professionals for their time and still producing a profit on the work you produce. Join Brian Flynn as he examines various utilization scenarios and how they affect Return on Net. In this Podcast, Flynn will offer insight on the basics of A/E firm workforce structure.

Anything but “Normal”: 4 Ways Smart Public and Private Agencies are Pivoting NOW to Thrive in the Future

From the global pandemic to civil unrest and growing calls for increased diversity, equity, and inclusion, 2020 was a year of rapid and disruptive change. As you strive to help your agency adapt and thrive, you need to answer important questions about project delivery, budgeting, and staffing. Join your peers for this engaging, live discussion with two seasoned public works project management experts.

Selling Your A/E/C Firm? Don’t Make A Million-Dollar Mistake

Join us for this fast-paced 30-minute executive update from PSMJ Senior Consultant Karl Wohler - one of the A/E/C industry’s leading M&A advisors – where you get hard data, eye-opening case studies, and proven advice to negotiate from a well-informed position and avoid leaving the equity you’ve earned on the table.

Market Shift: The Latest Trends Impacting A/E/C Valuations

A conversation with an A/E/C valuation expert on COVID, politics, and your firm’s value. As we near the end of a topsy-turvy 2020, it is almost time to produce those year-end financial statements and start the wheels turning on your firm’s valuation.

Exploring Federal Government Contracting Opportunities – A/E Contracts

Spend some time covering how the federal government procures construction, architecture, and engineering services. Join Jennifer Schaus as she talks about the processes government agencies use to select firms to contract with to complete necessary work.

Selecting Your Firm’s Next CEO—Leaders Who Made It Through the Transition

Selecting and transitioning to a new chief executive officer is one of the most important decisions a leadership team will ever make. Join Brian Burnett as he talks with leaders from two firms about their experiences with transitioning this top position.

Stress Test Your Firm to Assure Financial Sustainability in Uncertain Times

The current economic downturn brought about by the Coronavirus pandemic has firms facing unprecedented financial uncertainty. While many weathered the initial lockdown, there’s a great deal of doubt about future project prospects. Will there be a fast V shaped recovery? Or will the recovery be drawn out over many years in the future?

Update Your Strategic Plan NOW to Better Navigate Business Uncertainty

When the economy eventually fully reopens—A/E/C firms must be ready to hit the ground running. Those who prepare well will be able to experience a business reawakening. But what will separate those firms that are ready for business to take off on day one from those firms that may never see a full return of business? Post-COVID business will most likely not be business as usual. You will not be able to just pick up where you left off.

The Million-Dollar M&A Question: Buy, Sell, Hold, or Fold?

A candid discussion on the impact of COVID-19 on A/E/C Mergers & Acquisitions. Are your ownership transition plans on hold? Are you questioning the viability of your acquisition strategy? Are you wondering how COVID-19 could impact your discussions with potential buyers? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you cannot afford to miss this FREE podcast with PSMJ Senior M&A Consultant Karl Wohler.

Leading the Virtual Team: New Challenges for Managers

Leadership of virtual teams is not the same as leadership of face-to-face, co-located teams, explains harassment, discrimination, and bullying consultant, Dr. Susan Strauss. Leading a virtual team is more difficult; it requires a dynamic interaction between technological systems and human systems that the virtual leader has to address and balance for work to be accomplished.

Be a Change Consultant for Public Agencies – Forging Relationships with State and Municipal Agencies

Winning work in the private sector follows a relatively simple process. But public sector business success is more complex. Mary Prescott shares ideas and strategies from creating potential opportunities with public agencies to the role of the public project manager.

A/E/C Gets Serious about CX—Client Savvy’s Ryan Suydam Takes Your Client Experience Questions

Design firms understand that success depends on strong client relationships. A 2019 study commissioned by SMPS shows that 54 percent of A/E/C leaders believe they will be competing primarily on the basis of Client Experience (CX) by 2022. And yet, only 18 percent of firms have started exploring a CX initiative in their firm. The smartest firms are using CX to empower their strategic plans. Not sure how? Have other questions? Spend a half hour with Client Savvy’s Ryan Suydam, Chief Experience Officer and start to get some straightforward answer to your toughest CX questions.

ESOP—Reward Employees, Build Competitive Advantage

Amid one of the most competitive job markets in history, A/E/C firm leadership are ready to consider any tool that may give them an advantage when it comes to recruitment, retention, and alignment of individual performance with firm performance. Author of Increasing Firm Competitive Advantage Through Use of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), Bob Jack offers insight on how design firms can gain employee commitment, a takeover defense strategy, a plan for succession strategy, and a foundation for a good corporate culture.

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: Beyond 2020 – A Look at the Political, Economic, and Tech Trends… And the Actions You Should Take Now

The most successful design firm leaders have one thing in common—they always look ahead. While they execute their plans for the current year, they look forward to the years to come. Gene Marks, CPA and business owner, helps business leaders envision the future. He knows design firm leaders have people who rely on them—staff, clients, subcontractors, vendors, and partners—and expect them to grow and thrive in good markets and in more difficult times.

PSMJ’s Ask the Experts: Navigate the Mergers & Acquisitions Hurdles—PSMJ’s Karl Wohler Takes Your M&A Questions

Join Karl Wohler as he invites all your questions. What are the industry norms for valuation and deal structure? What are the critical milestones in the M&A process? Can a sale process facilitate retirement exits while allowing some shareholders to remain in the ownership group and maintaining a path to ownership for key employees? Spend a half hour with PSMJ’s Karl Wohler and start to get some answer to your M&A questions.

PSMJ’s Podcasts Presents: A/E/C Gets Serious about CX

Design firms understand that their success depends on strong client relationships. But how many A/E/C firms use their resources to focus on their client experience (CX) strategy? And how well are firms implementing and measuring their CX initiatives and aligning these efforts with their strategic plans?

PSMJ’s Podcasts Presents: Metrics and Strategic Excellence—What A/E PMs Can Achieve When Schooled in Shingo and Lean Six Sigma

Business metrics and strategic planning are areas that most A/E Project Managers dread, possibly avoid, and may even ignore. Yet, the creation and use of effective metrics to influence business strategy is one of the most important ways PMs can help firms bring about crucial strategic success.

PSMJ’s Ask the Experts: Recognize and Engage in A/E—Dr. Bob Nelson Takes Your Questions about Retaining Your Best Employees

This is great opportunity to learn how A/E’s top firms engage employees, use recognition to impact performance, and how career development helps retain star performers.

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: Contract Administration Pitfalls and Solutions

Effectively executed A/E contracts ensure overall business success and continuity of the firm. The management of these contracts, therefore, is very important and helps determine the degree of success or failure of the enterprise. Yet most firms do not have a dedicated person to the business process called contract administration. Should they?

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: Manage Profits—P = (1-1/SUM)

Join PSMJ performance improvement guru Brian Flynn, P.E., BCEE, author of Maximizing Engineering Firm Profits—Profit Fundamentals for this 60-minute podcast and learn how SUM does not replace the P&L statement, but instead provides managers a powerful, three-pronged tool for operating a profitable firm in 2019.

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: 2019 is Going Strong. How Positive are you about the A/E Optimism?

U.S. and Canadian GDP has been growing steadily since The Great Recession. And 2019 continues the trend as the economy is going strong.

PSMJ Ask The Experts: Peter Atherton Takes Your Questions about Engaging Top Talent and Preventing Burnout in You and Your Organization

Peter C. Atherton, P.E., author of "Reversing Burnout, How to Immediately Engage Top Talent and Grow! A Blueprint for Professionals and Business Owners". Join Peter C. Atherton, P.E., as he invites all your questions.

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: Recognize, Engage and Retain Employees in A/E

The Gallup Organization reports that the percentage of engaged employees nationwide is just 32 percent. The rest are uninvolved, unenthused, and uncommitted to their jobs, their managers, and the organizations they work for. Join Bob Nelson, PhD, the world’s leading authority on recognizing, engaging & retaining employees today for this 60-minute podcast.

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better—Baby Boomer, Gen Xer, and Millennial Myths

It seems all Boomer executives and Gen Xer managers are trying to successfully work with Millennials and other, even younger A/E professionals. But how best to breakdown generational stereotypes and counter-productive myths to create more productive work environments?

PSMJ Ask the Experts: Maximizing A/E Firms Profits—Brian Flynn Takes Your Questions about the Secrets of Superior Profitability

This is great opportunity to learn how A/E’s top firms earn profits of more than 40 percent. The author of "Maximizing Engineering Firm Profits—Profit Fundamentals" takes audience questions about 2019’s secrets to achieving profitability that is better than 90 percent of firms.

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: Professional Burnout and Disengagement in the A/E Industry: What If They’re Right?

Over the past three decades A/E firms have faced tremendous changes in the make-up of their workforces, the structure of their workplaces, the markets they serve, and the technology they use. And the tempo for change is accelerating.

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: 2018 was Robust. Will the A/E Industry Face a Market Slowdown?

U.S. and Canadian GDP has been growing steadily since the recession. But is the recovery running out of steam. What will that mean for North American A/E firms?

PSMJ’s Ask the Experts: IMPACT 2030—Frank Takes Your Questions about the Coming Decade of Disruption

Join Frank Stasiowski, FAIA, as he invites all your questions—LIVE. This is unique opportunity to learn more about what the future holds for A/E and ask the author of IMPACT 2030—Disruptions in The Design Industry for The Next 10 Years what he thinks is in store for design firms over the next decade. Frank invite you to ask about how demographics, globalization, government expansion, and unhampered technology can benefit firms that plan or seriously hamper those that do not map out their futures. Join us as Frank talks boldly and stretches your mind to grasp the inevitable A/E future.

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: Looking Beyond the Mega-Firms to Find Your Firm’s Buyer: Non-Traditional M&A Strategies for A/E/C Principals

Size doesn’t matter. And for many A/E/C firms, there are much better options than the Big Dogs. When laying the foundation for an external firm sale, it’s tempting to focus only on the biggest fish, or the firms with the deepest pockets. But that’s a mistake. In this candid discussion with a seasoned M&A consultant serving both buyers and sellers in A/E/C firm transactions, you’ll learn how to discard common myths that limit your options and unnecessarily extend the search process. And how to make more confident decisions about when and with whom you’ll walk down the aisle.

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: Build a Culture of Business Development Success—Start with Marketing Data

How do you grow your firm beyond repeat business and referrals? Today you need smart, effective marketing and a culture of business development success to attract a steady stream of clients and grow in an increasingly competitive world.

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: Maximize A/E Firm Profits—The Practical Road to Better Returns

Last year’s top Circle of Excellence firms enjoyed profits of more than 40 percent. The worse performers stumble by with less than five. So, what separates the stellar from the cellar?

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: IMPACT 2030—Winners and Losers in the Coming Decade of Disruption

In a world where the POTUS and Mega Millions jackpots are larger than life and equally unpredictable, being able to forecast the immediate future seems outrageous. So, sitting down to predict how an entire industry and the professionals in it will grow and change over the next decade? Nearly impossible. As a leading industry voice, PSMJ Founder and CEO Frank A. Stasiowski, FAIA, author of IMPACT 2030—Disruptions in The Design Industry for The Next 10 Years, examines our industry today and details changes coming to the professional design industry.

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: Pregame Your Firm’s Future-Manage Quality and Risk

No matter how much success a firm has achieved there is always some process that it can improve, deliverables people can make better, and enhance services to clients to make them more in line with their needs and desires.

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: Hey Young Professionals—the Best Advice for Engineers is Not on YouTube

Larry Cahill, author of “Can I Borrow Your Watch? A Beginner’s Guide to Succeeding in a Professional Consulting Organization, offers young millennial engineers and scientists practical, how-tos covering how our business works and ways to navigate typical on-the-job challenges.

PSMJ Podcasts Presents: One Goal, Two Perspectives to Find, Keep, and Engage Millennial Design Firm Professionals

The task facing architectural and engineering firms is to first find the best and brightest young professionals from the Millennial Generation and then convince them that joining their architectural or engineering firms is a good bet for the future.