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Specialty design consultants work as sub-consultants to architects and engineers, and their business problems follow from the role. Rodney McNabb has led an A&E firm since 2005. Next Phase A&E helps owner-led specialty firms with a core team of 3 to 20 full-time equivalents fix how they price, bill and staff their work.
Specialty firms tend to lose margin in the same places:
Fees set as a share of the prime's fee, not from your own hours
Payment held until the prime gets paid
Schedules set and moved by other firms
Extra coordination meetings and redesign rounds with no change order
Many small projects, each too small to track on its own
Request a meeting. In one free call, we'll show you which of these costs your firm the most.
Fee method: Price from your own hours by project type, then compare the result with what primes offer, so you know which work to turn down.
Scope and change control: Written limits on meetings and redesign rounds in every sub-consultant agreement, with a change request step your staff run.
Payment and schedule terms: Payment terms written into each agreement before work starts, and a clause opening a fee review when a prime moves your schedule. Your attorney reviews the final wording.
Billing and capacity: One monthly view of billing, aging and staff hours across dozens of small projects.
Group last year's projects by the prime firm who hired you. For each prime, add up fees, hours and days to payment.
A few primes will pay well and on time. Others will bring steady work at a loss. Price the second group higher, tighten the scope, or let some of them go. Your effective rate rises without one new client.
Pre-Design is a free call of up to 45 minutes. Then you get a fixed-fee Schematic Design proposal.
The Schematic Design diagnostic reviews your fees, agreements, billing and staffing, then gives you options for the first system to build. Design Development builds the one you pick. Construction Documents writes the procedure and trains the process owner.
See every phase on our A&E consulting services page. Not ready to talk? Take the 7-Minute Firm Health Check.
Planning to sell the firm or hand it to partners? See A&E firm succession planning to get your books and procedures ready before the valuation.
Most of your clients are architects and engineers. See how we help them on our architecture firm and engineering firm pages.
Which specialty design consultants do you work with?
Owner-led lighting design, acoustical, AV, IT and security, foodservice, environmental graphic design and wayfinding, specification writing, and code and accessibility firms with 3 to 20 full-time equivalents.
How should a sub-consultant set its fees?
Estimate your hours by task, price from those hours, then compare the result with the prime's offer. If the offer falls short, cut scope in writing or decline.
How do we get paid faster as a sub-consultant?
Bill monthly on a set date, track aging by prime, and write payment terms into each agreement before work starts.
Do you provide design or consulting services in these disciplines?
No. Next Phase A&E provides business advisory only. We offer no design, engineering, accounting, legal or tax services.