Think Like A Professional Surveyor or Engineer

So many Professional Surveyors or Professional Engineers are undercharging for their services, “and I think it mainly comes from a lack of confidence and a place of fear.”

The sentence above came in an email to me this week about “marketers” but it occurred to me that the same could be said about us surveyors and engineers, so I changed it up a little. I’m going to write this similar article using that one as a template.

Lack of Confidence & Place of Fear

Surveyors and Engineers are not confident they can repeat their prior success with a new client. Or they’re afraid the client is going to say “NO” if the rates are too high.

“There may be even more reasons. Whatever the case is, undercharging is a dangerous practice, and for more reasons than most people think.

The biggest issue when you’re undercharging is attracting price-minded clients. You know the types I’m talking about -- they open a conversation with “how much do you charge?” or “what are your rates?”.

Relationships with these clients can be difficult, in most cases, and it’s usually impossible to keep them happy because they’re so worried about the bottom dollar.

Before you realize it, you have multiple clients like this, and you’re a prisoner in your own business.

You can’t grow and scale because you can’t afford to outsource or hire any help. You can’t figure out what to do next because you’re wrapped up in the day-to-day of dealing with low-paying clients.

In the end, you end up working paycheck to paycheck again -- or, project to project.

You’re forced to take on more than you should because you “have to make money”, which doubles down on this vicious cycle and you end up burned out.”

This hit me between the eyes. I thought I was pricing my services right – and I do mostly. But, I still have a hard time keeping some clients happy because of the prices I’ve given them. I also sometimes have a hard time hiring help because it will take too much out of what I’m making on the job. So, I try to do all the work myself – drafting, billing, collecting – things that would be better left to others.

This overwork leads to a constant state of turmoil with too much work to do in the small amount of time I have to do it. And, lots of time, I feel “burned out.” And, I work at least 6 days a week and usually some on Sunday, something my Grandfather refused to do unless the “Ox was in the ditch.” I also haven’t had a vacation in years. And if I decide to take off on Saturday I feel guilty that I’m not working. A very vicious cycle.

Lack of Experience in Estimating

“This doesn’t just happen by underpricing your services -- many [engineers] and [surveyors] are priced right, but they lack the necessary experience to prevent undercharging still.

Let me give you an example…

John lands a new client and feels on top of the world because the client OK’d his invoice for $100 per hour -- that’s more than John has ever made in his life. He billed the client for 40 hours, $4,000, and the client paid the invoice. Things are going great, right?

Well, no. John didn’t have the experience needed to accurately judge the project and what he thought was going to take 40 hours actually took him 160 hours -- 4x as much, so he earned 4x less.

Instead of getting that $100 an hour, he earned $25 an hour, and stayed stressed out the entire time, consuming hours that he could have spent helping other clients.

Underestimating the scope of a project is a real problem for inexperienced [surveyors and engineers.]”

The problem of undercharging really stems from a lack of confidence, which happens because these surveyors and engineers don’t have the past results they can fall back on.

Insecure business owners, desperate to close a deal, are ready to accept any offer that the client throws their way, even if they know it’s outrageous -- they just need to eat, at this point.

This situation is played out time, and time again. It’s all over – desperate surveyors and engineers trying to compete their way to the bottom of the barrel.

Surveyors and Engineers who undercharge are carrying themselves in a completely different way than those who don’t. Those who continue undercharging look stressed out, desperate, and ready to quit.

Confident Surveyors Look Ahead

Confident Surveyors and Engineers are planning on scaling, figuring out how to handle more clients, and refusing to look back. There’s nowhere for them to go but up, and I can guarantee you that undercharging has never, and will never be a problem for them.

They’re confident because they’re getting clients results and know (for a fact) that when they tell a client they’re going to deliver [a good project], they deliver...

They don’t get nervous when they’re asking for “crazy rates” (often double the industry standard) because the results they can show make it a no-brainer for the client to invest.

They know their client is going to get a huge ROI [return on investment] every single time.

It means talking about money isn’t a problem for them. They don’t see it creating problems, they see it creating opportunities. Opportunities for them to help someone grow, for themselves to grow, and for them to make more money while they’re doing it.

[You should be] able to go into a call with a potential client, tell them exactly what you’re going to deliver, what the results will be, and charge more than what you believe is possible.

So, How Do You Get This Confidence?

We believe that one way to do this is to practice it. Maybe you could call it “fake it till you make it.”

I was at that point during the Great Recession, as I’m sure many of you were. I got out of that by having the phone keep ringing for folks looking for surveyors. I got these calls from the dozen, and later more, websites that I created for marketing land surveying online. The more calls you get, the more confident you can be in pricing the projects higher.

Marketing land surveying with websites has continued till today. I have much more work come in than I can hire done. But, we also build websites for other surveyors and engineers. Most all of them have been with us for years. This means that their phones are ringing. I tell them that if they’re getting too much work to do – go up on their prices. Something I’ve done with my business as well.

The lack of confidence and the fear is easily remedied once the surveyors start getting sales – the insecurity disappears and gets replaced with unshakable confidence.

We can figure out what’s working, what isn’t, and show you exactly why our partners are more worried about how to grow and scale as quickly as possible and spend zero time thinking about a client telling them “no” or having to take low-paying gigs to put some food on the table.

Book a call with us today to discuss scaling your business the RIGHT WAY.

J. Keith Maxwell is a Professional Engineer and Land Surveyor in Alabama. He’s recovering from a lack of confidence and fear of rejection by clients and is starting to turn his business around. He is willing to share this knowledge with others.