The Effective Client
The Effective Client
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • More
    • Home
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Being a good client is smart business. let me show you how.

Being a good client is smart business. let me show you how.Being a good client is smart business. let me show you how.Being a good client is smart business. let me show you how.
Order Your Copy of The Effective Client

Being a good client is smart business. let me show you how.

Being a good client is smart business. let me show you how.Being a good client is smart business. let me show you how.Being a good client is smart business. let me show you how.
Order Your Copy of The Effective Client

The Effective Client - An Introduction

The Effective Client:  Why Being a Good Client is Smart Business in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Industries. 

Have you ever wondered what designers and builders really think about their clients, or why it matters?

 

I’m David Skuodas, and I’ve spent half of my 20 year career as a design consultant, and the other half as an owner on civil construction projects. For the past few years I’ve been asking vendors in the construction industry “Why does it matter to be a good client?”


I interviewed dozens of consultants, contractors, and client project managers, and I asked them what 

differentiates a good client from a bad client, and how does the client affect the cost, schedule, or quality of a project. I asked vendors what conditions allow them to do their best work, and on the flip side, what might owners do that makes it difficult for vendors to do their jobs? 


My research culminated in this book - The Effective Client:  Why Being a Good Client is Smart Business in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Industries. 


This book allows you to peek behind the curtain and find out how designers and builders really differentiate between good and bad clients. 


You’ll learn how client behavior affects the price and quality of the work – and even how designers and builders choose their clients. That’s right, just because you have a project to bid doesn’t mean anybody has to bid it. Given the scarcity of labor in the construction industry, this topic is both timely and relevant. 


This book offers practical advice on how you can improve your standing with designers and builders so you can become a client of choice. 


Make no mistake: Owners are in competition with each other for a very limited pool of capable designers and builders. 


Being a desirable customer is smart business, let me show you how. 

About

Our Services

Available for keynote presentations or on site group training.

Our Philosophy

Effective clients attract more talented project teams, get more for their money, and build better projects.  Being a bad client is bad business. 

Our Mission

To equip owners in the construction industry with the skills and knowledge to become clients of choice.

See David's Blog Article, "Highways and Floodways"

highways & floodways

building professional trust

This anecdote comes from Section I of my book. If you want to be seen as a desirable customer in the A/E/C industry, then it starts with Building Professional Trust (the title of Section I). In this story the banter between two people in a meeting (who were both on the ownership team) had a chilling effect on the rest of the design team’s willingness to speak freely. Construction professionals are knowledge workers, so the last thing we want to do is stifle the free sharing of ideas!   

why it matters to pay fairly & punctually

This anecdote comes from Section II of my book. If you want to be seen as a desirable customer in the A/E/C industry, then you need to pay fairly and punctually (the title of Section II).   In this story I talk about a pair of consultants who went above and beyond to make a project great, working easily 50 hours each free of charge. 

seeing the forest and the trees

Are we creating infrastructure now that will be enormously expensive later when it needs to be repaired or replaced? Although land use decisions are generally intended to make our communities better, they can actually make our communities worse off if we haven’t considered long term impacts. This TED style presentation introduces the audience to the idea of unintended consequences and how to be a better systems thinker.

a moving picture show

A visual journey into what makes working along our urban waterways and in our watersheds so important, beautiful, funny, and inspiring.  

like a bomb went off

A TED style talk that looks at how an urban stream disintegrated as the watershed around it developed, why it disintegrated, and how to avoid similar outcomes in the future.

Wonderland Creek Project Showcase

Check out this great video that showcases a challenging project I was a part of, that's featured prominently in my book.

Steve the Trash Hunter

Check out this Public Service Announcement I helped produce about keeping trash out of our waterways.

Failed Hydraulic Structure

Check out this great video about failed infrastructure along a creek, and what we have to do to fix it.

Subscribe

Connect With Us

Copyright © 2022 The Effective Client - All Rights Reserved.

Powered by GoDaddy Website Builder

This website uses cookies.

We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.

Accept