Getting electrical work

[Designer69]

Not sure if this question is acceptable here but.. my buddy who's a mechanical engineer and myself, electrical, try to do various MEP work. He usually is the one getting all the work such as buildings, warehouses etc.

I'd like to contribute and what I do is cold call architects, electrical contractors etc. to offer this service but 99.9% of the time goes nowhere.

Anyone here figured out a better way to get more projects?

 

[junkhound]

An acquaintance did some volunteer design work for a multifamily set of buldings for Habitat FH, recall him saying he got some paying jobs due to that in his CV.

 

[kingpb]

Unless your a legit business; i.e. bonded/or can get bonded, insured, etc. probably not going to go anywhere. Architects have their favorites, and arn't going to make a change willy nilly.

You need to make contacts and build a resume. Contractors don't need electrical designers because they typically can do their own without an engineer.

It's all about building relationships and gaining trust.

 

[sameguy]

When you figure it out let us know, because that has been the question from the time Kronk invented the wheel.

 

[Designer69]

When you figure it out let us know, because that has been the question from the time Kronk invented the wheel.

Yeah there are plenty of MEP companies that grow huge and make lots of $ so obviously it's possible. There's one in Iowa where this young electrical engineer and his mechanical buddy grew it to a multi million $ company.

Maybe the way to do it is work for a big firm and steal their clients

 

[JoeStillman]

We've gotten our foot in the door with Architects by referring them when one of our clients needs someone. Also, real estate developers and civil engineers need help with electrical sometimes too. Finally, if you've invested in SKM or ETAP, electrical distributors need you for the SC and AF part of their bid proposals.

We started about 12 years ago with a very short list of clients in the multi-family residential sector. It has snowballed to the point where we hardly do any marketing at all now. Harder to find good help than work to do.

I'm assuming at least one of you has a PE license. It's important to have your PE in electrical. I also recommend pursuing registration with NCEES.ORG. You can get pretty quick turned around for reciprocity through them. Here in southeast PA, much of our work is in NJ, DE and MD and we have licensees in all those states and more.

 

[Designer69]

We've gotten our foot in the door with Architects by referring them when one of our clients needs someone. Also, real estate developers and civil engineers need help with electrical sometimes too. Finally, if you've invested in SKM or ETAP, electrical distributors need you for the SC and AF part of their bid proposals.

We started about 12 years ago with a very short list of clients in the multi-family residential sector. It has snowballed to the point where we hardly do any marketing at all now. Harder to find good help than work to do.

I'm assuming at least one of you has a PE license. It's important to have your PE in electrical. I also recommend pursuing registration with NCEES.ORG. You can get pretty quick turned around for reciprocity through them. Here in southeast PA, much of our work is in NJ, DE and MD and we have licensees in all those states and more.

Thanks so much Joe. Yes we both have PE licenses (electrical & mechanical) and both have NCEES records.

I am trying to get to exactly the point where you are. I have indeed invested in ETAP and can do any of the SC & AF you mention.

The problem is noone knows about it. I didn't think of this but maybe lookup electrical distributors near me and cold call them to offer this service?

That's what we have now, a handful of clients with multi-family residential and have done a few but it's not consistent. There's months without anything and can't survive without a real job. I am trying to get to that exact snowball part you are at.

You said "we hardly do any marketing at all now" so obv. you must have done some marketing before. Can you provide a brief example of how you did this marketing before?

Thanks again

 

[drktmplr12]

different states, counties, cities, etc have programs that are meant to help small businesses doing work for the counties/cities. They often have targets (some mandatory) prime consultants to meet a certain % target for the overall design fee. as an example, you might require 10% of the fee be paid to a small business, 3% to a minority owned business, and 7% to a disenfranchised owned business. its nice when they can goto one place and tick all the boxes, instead of having to find a HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, roadway engineers, etc.

The point I'm making is, you go into consulting for municipal projects (instead of private) and make a name for yourself as someone who produces quality work and makes the overall TEAM better by asking the important questions during the design... the prime consultants will easily be able to use electrical to cover the targets. you'll be the first one they call to team up during RFQ's. Electrical often accounts for 11-12% of overall design fees. this gets easier if you do instrumentation design also.

Firms to target:
Hazen and Sawyer
Brown and Caldwell
Black and Veatch
Jacobs (and C2H)
MWH (Stantec)
Parsons

to name a few

this all hinges on what muni the work is for and what their requirements are.

edit: you have to be careful advertising, you do not want to violate the code of ethics.

 

[JoeStillman]

Thanks so much Joe. Yes we both have PE licenses (electrical & mechanical) and both have NCEES records.

I am trying to get to exactly the point where you are. I have indeed invested in ETAP and can do any of the SC & AF you mention.

The problem is noone knows about it. I didn't think of this but maybe lookup electrical distributors near me and cold call them to offer this service?

That's what we have now, a handful of clients with multi-family residential and have done a few but it's not consistent. There's months without anything and can't survive without a real job. I am trying to get to that exact snowball part you are at.

You said "we hardly do any marketing at all now" so obv. you must have done some marketing before. Can you provide a brief example of how you did this marketing before?

Thanks again

I had 20 years experience when I came here, so I had a lot of contacts. I just emailed all of them and told them I was here.

LinkedIn is a good service. There's also a thing called Alignable that can get you a lot of contacts locally. Don't be shy about who you connect to on there - it doesn't have to be an 'electrical construction' related link at all. I joined IAEI for the continuing education, but I've met a lot of new people there too. There's a monthly dinner meeting where I'm slurping up CEU's right beside inspectors and contractors. They've hosted Mike Holt himself there in the past. Is there a section near you?