Services
AEC Strategic Growth Consultant
Working with your leadership to develop vision, strategy, and research for your teams to push initiatives forward.
Bringing you the expertise you need to see growth in your firm.
You’re a leader in your established firm who wants the expertise, bandwidth and tools of a seasoned AEC leader with decades of experience, to help you push your initiatives forward.
The Flamingo Project offers all of that along with insights based on Market Research and experience to inform short-and long-term ongoing strategy. Together, we’ll craft your growth strategy using the teams you already have in place.
We adapt to your needs—high touch or for quarterly accountability—depending on what you need to be successful.
What is a Strategic Growth Consultant?
You get the experience and talent of a senior strategic leader at a fraction of full time. How much time? It depends on where you are going and the talents on your team.
What this service includes:
Strategy
Expertise specific to your industry, without the cost of an experienced full-time employee. Sarah uses research and data to accomplish goals, making recommendations that work.
implementation & Accountability
Sarah pairs her expertise and experience to help your firm gain clarity about what steps should be taken next, and by whom, to stand out from the flock, win work, and GROW!
AEC Strategic Growth Consultant FAQs
What does an AEC growth consultant do?
An AEC growth consultant helps architecture, engineering, and construction firms make better strategic growth decisions — where to compete, which markets to enter or exit, and how to build a growth plan that is grounded in current market intelligence. The work typically combines proprietary market research, competitive analysis, and direct engagement with firm leadership to develop and pressure-test growth strategy. This is different from a marketing consultant (who focuses on brand and communications) or a business coach (who focuses on leadership development).
When should an AEC firm hire a growth consultant?
The right time to hire a growth consultant is typically when a firm is facing a significant strategic decision — a new market entry, a potential acquisition, a leadership transition, or a growth plan that is not producing results — and needs research-backed analysis and outside perspective to make the decision well. Firms that bring in a growth consultant early, before the problem becomes urgent, consistently get more value from the engagement than firms that wait until they are already in trouble.
How is a growth consultant different from a business coach or a marketing consultant?
A business coach focuses on leadership development and personal performance. A marketing consultant focuses on brand, communications, and business development strategy. A growth consultant focuses on the intersection of market intelligence and strategic direction — specifically on where your firm should be competing and what it should be pursuing. These functions sometimes overlap, but they are not interchangeable. A growth consultant is not the right resource if your primary need is proposal support or brand refresh. They are the right resource if your primary need is strategic clarity about where your firm is going and why.
What should I expect from working with a growth consultant
A good growth consulting engagement starts with research — current market conditions, competitive positioning, sector and geographic opportunity. It then moves into working sessions with your leadership team to build or refine a growth plan that reflects that research. The output is not a slide deck that lives in a folder. It is a set of decisions your team is actively making and a plan that travels through your organization. Expect to be challenged on assumptions that have not been validated and to leave with a clearer picture of the markets you should be in and the ones you should not.
How do I know if our firm is ready for a growth consultant?
Your firm is ready if your leadership team is willing to look honestly at where the current strategy is and is not working, and is prepared to act on what the research surfaces. Readiness is less about firm size or revenue and more about whether the principals are aligned enough to have a real strategic conversation. Firms that get the most out of a growth consulting engagement are the ones that come in with a genuine question, where should we be going, and why, not just a desire to validate a direction they have already decided on.
Relevant Blog Posts
THE EVOLUTION OF AEC MARKETING STRATEGY: AND THE QUIET SHIFTS THAT CHANGED GROWTH
Over the past 25 years, the AEC industry hasn’t changed overnight. It has shifted gradually—through signals many of us didn’t recognize until they became impossible to ignore. As a strategic growth consultant working with architecture, engineering, and construction...
BEFORE YOU KICK OFF YOUR NEXT INITIATIVE, ASK THIS ONE QUESTION
It’s the question we ask first when a firm brings us in to lead a growth initiative, a rebrand, a new market entry, or a post-merger alignment. And it’s the question that, honestly, most executive teams can’t answer cleanly. Initiatives in AEC tend to get set up the...
Q1 IS OVER. IS YOUR AEC GROWTH PLAN STILL WORKING?
A lot has changed since October. Here’s how to tell if your AEC Growth Plan is still pointing at the right target —and what to do when it isn’t.April is the moment of truth for most AEC growth plans. Q1 is behind you, Q2 is just getting started, and somewhere between...