2220 - The Untold Story of Engineering and Construction Collaboration with Pro Engineering Consulting's Ryan Labus

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1:05With us right now, it's Ryan Labus. Ryan, you are the Director of Business Development for Pro Engineering Consulting, Inc. You are found on the web at proengc.com. Ryan, it's great to have you. Yeah, thank you so much, Josh. I appreciate it. Well, before we kind of get going and talking about what you do at Pro Engineering, and again, I'm really eager to find out the work that you do. Ryan, in terms of you personally, what have you been into lately? What have you been geeking out on? I don't know if it's any hobbies or anything. I just like staying active. You know, I work primarily a desk job.

1:44I'm able to get out to the job site and walk around and check out the different projects we're working on at Pro Engineering. But that's work. That's what we're going to get into. I spend most of my time. When when work is done, what are you doing for fun? I'm spending most of my time outside. I love the golf. I live pretty close to the beach. I love to surf, play some pickup basketball every once in a while, go on hikes. When I'm doing stuff that's more mellow, I love to just hang out at home, find a good Netflix show. I'm actually watching Breaking Bad for the first time right now. Really? I didn't watch it when it first came out.

2:20How far are you into it right now? Season three. I was too far behind to catch up before, but now I got more time to... Yeah. Yeah, boy, my brother, you are in for a journey. And then... As crazy as it has been up to now, you haven't seen anything yet. You haven't watched, and I don't mean to say, you haven't watched Better Call Saul yet, have you? No. Okay, so then, of course, once you get... Yeah, so once you get in with Breaking Bad, then you can go back to Better Call Saul, which I absolutely adore that show. So, man, I know you have a surgery coming up. Hopefully you got some downtime. You're probably going to clock in some great episodes ahead.

3:04All right. So, Ryan, let's talk about who Pro Engineering Consulting is, what you do. Yeah. So, Pro Engineering is an engineering firm, obviously, hence the name Pro Engineering. We provide a couple different services. MEP, which stands for Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing. So HVAC, like power and lighting, plumbing. And we also do structural engineering as well. So all different types of construction projects, whether it's housing, single family or apartments or townhomes, retail stores, restaurants. We get into a lot of cool projects, some schools, some car dealerships. So really, we just collaborate alongside the architect and the other engineers involved to essentially put the plans together, which the construction companies will eventually reference when they're building these buildings.

3:59So just so I understand who the entities are. So, you know, we see a shopping center, right? And we think about who was involved in getting that put together. um so your architects uh how do where does engineering fit in alongside the architect like what is the architect what is the architect doing and what is the engineering team doing got it so the architect kind of like quarterbacks if you will each project they'll come in they'll look at a site whether it's just a dirt lot or it's already an existing like shopping center for example that they're going to remodel um they'll take a look come up with a general concept um you know there's a lot that there's a lot that the architect goes into it's not just picking out um colors and finishes for the inside and outside of the building they'll look they'll do their research based on you know local demographics what type of business is going to be successful in here um there's a lot of uh liability on them and i guess work they work to mitigate liability to the owner making sure that things are up to code i mean we're home state for me is California.

5:08There's lots of regulations, things like ADA, you have to have accessible buildings. So they'll come in, they'll determine the overall kind of scope of the project and plan that space out. Where the engineers come in is kind of supporting that architect's vision and then making sure that it is code compliant, which is most important just for obtaining a building permit and getting a certificate of occupancy for these businesses or homes, whatever it might be. And then there's a role that we play that's kind of behind the scenes. It's almost like you were just talking about music right before we jumped on this call, or you're just talking about bass.

5:57Bass is kind of like the supporting role to the guitar. You know, we need to do that. You know, architect can plan the space, but we're making sure everything works as far as where there's power, you know, proper lighting for the space with the HVAC system, making sure that it's, you know, comfortable for the tenants or employees of a business. so there's a i could go on and on but yeah there's a lot of like we have a large supporting role in uh what makes a space come together yeah um you know so uh selfishly too i'll i'll i want to ask you this um so my i've got two sons who are each in college my middle child my oldest son he's in his senior year of mechanical engineering my youngest is finishing up his first year mechanical engineering, both doing exceptionally well.

6:57My middle son's had a couple of internships with Honda. But what would you say about the world of mechanical engineering? I guess where we're headed, how vital that is for someone that doesn't really know that world. I'm just trying to be a supportive dad. All I know is they do a lot of math. Yeah. It's such a broad statement. And it's such an umbrella term for a lot of things like mechanical engineering. If, you know, I had some friends in college that were trying to become mechanical engineers. You know, the first thing that comes to mind, I'm sure for most people is the automotive industry.

7:36And I think that's probably because of it's mechanical engineer and maybe it's association with the word mechanic. but there's an entire world of, you know, the construction and building industry side related to mechanical and all these different components that go into a building. I would say, you know, there is, there's, construction is interesting. It is ever growing and there's a lot of innovation, but it is one of those industries that's a little bit slower to, you know, to change and innovation. I'd say for your son's example, yeah, I mean, if the automotive industry is something that he's passionate about, that's definitely something he can pursue.

8:21But there's a lot of universal rules, I guess, if you will, and like the physics and math side of it where he can transition to. And I'm sure if you're honestly, if you're looking at something as complex as, you know, a car engine, you can probably dissect the, you know, the systems that work within a building too. You're in charge of business development with pro engineering. What does that look like for you? Like, how are you attracting business? Is it pretty much just you got relationships with architects and keeping them happy and hopefully you're building more relationships with more architects?

9:03Yeah, we get a lot of repeat business. You know, there's architects that will use us as, you know, we're their sole provider of engineering services. You know, they'll find opportunities to give us referrals. But we do a lot of outreach. I'm constantly going to different networking events through professional organizations. that's just here locally in the San Diego area, Orange County, and LA. There's a lot of great organizations. We'll go out to trade shows. It's interesting to go out of state, maybe see what some trends are, some different regions throughout the country. We get to connect and network with people there.

9:48And then lately we've been trying to see what we can do as far as AI to help us um, you know, pull data on our prospects that we're trying to target. You know, the, um, economy is kind of a wishy-washy right now. So we have, uh, you know, I've had to sit back and, and look at which direction we want to go and which type of project construction projects that we think would be moving forward. Cause it's, uh, it's multifactorial when we send out our proposal or our bid, I would say, you know, it's not always, there's not, there's, there's a sale aspect in the sense that I have to build a relationship with our clients, but, you know, it comes down to them securing a permit and then a loan and a lot, a lot of different factors.

10:35So we're kind of, our sales strategy is, you know, specialize in a few things, but be prepared to take on any type of project. And it's kind of just a volume game, to be honest with you. yeah yeah um so what do you like what do you spend your days doing as like if you're in charge of business development like what do you do each day well i i wake up at 4 30 and i do a cold plunge and i no i'm just kidding i um generally speaking we just have a company-wide meeting every morning i i wear multiple hats um i'll get involved a little bit in the project management process and that's also just I need some of that information just to be able to check in with our clients kind of manage those relationships and then I have meetings each week with our fractional CMO we have a marketing agency we work with I'm just overseeing their work managing a few different email campaigns to different types of prospects that we're trying to reach.

11:40I do work on the physical proposals. So I do have a construction background. I'm actually getting the plans sent over to me from the architects, analyzing the plans and then putting a proposal together with our scope of work. And that actually kind of serves as like guidelines or instructions as to how our engineers should approach the job and how we want them to design things. So that's a large portion of it. And then just time in meetings, introductory meetings, going out to meet different clients, going out to the job site every once in a while, see how things are going and kind of network with the different parties that are involved out there.

12:24Great, great. So Ryan, you know, in terms of like, who may be listening to this episode, let's say that it's a you know someone that's involved in development it's it's an architect

12:45we'll edit that out someone went on the wrong pipe let me ask again let me hang on just a second so ryan uh regarding uh you know a friend that might be listening right now uh they might be in development. They might be an architect. Do you work exclusively in your region or how big is your footprint? You know, most of the work is in Southern California. We have a satellite office in Las Vegas. A lot of the work takes place there, but we're actually licensed in like 45 or 46 states now. We'll be working on becoming licensed nationwide. So if our clients do have work in different regions, we're able to take that off.

13:28Oh, yeah. I'm going through your portfolio, by the way. Really cool. If you go to your website, proengc.com, you click on all the work that you guys have done. There's some really cool renderings here. I like that Burger King in Miami. That's a cool Burger King. The unique Miami flair to the simple burger. Yeah, yeah, I'll say, I'll say. And then, you know, in terms of like a valuable connection for you, like who would that be? You know, and what would they do if they saw that there might be an opportunity to work together with you? Really any architect or developer, you know, a lot of the times developers going to hire either the architect directly.

14:18I mean, if you're experienced, you know, to go to the architect first. Most people are like, oh, I want to build something. and they just call the construction company. The construction company is going to come right back and say, well, I need some plans in order to give you a cost to build this. So, okay, well, then who's your go-to architect? Some developers will manage the team, and they'll hire out the architect and the engineers separately. That's kind of just how they like to do things contractually. But either way, yeah, if you are an architect or a developer and you have a project that's upcoming, you could reach out to me and share with me the plans.

14:57We could take a look, analyze things, and tell you what we think would be the best approach to the project based on your objectives for it. You know, we can also look at existing projects or maybe something that was designed by another engineer, give a second opinion, kind of value engineer, or troubleshoot any issues that the construction crews had while on site, if it's already a project that's, you know, taking place. All right. So the website, proengc.com, when they go to the website, what should they do? I mean, generally speaking, I'd say most of the people that go to the website somewhat know what they're looking for.

15:45You know, it's a lot of architects and stuff like that. If it's someone like a restaurant owner or a homeowner that just was told by the city or their contractor that they're going to need engineering done, then definitely go on just to the general page. Take a look at the general homepage. Take a look at the services and what we do. You can do some research on just our trade or our discipline in general. But I would say for architects who already know exactly the general scope of MEP, I would take a look through our portfolio. Obviously, just take a look that it is similar to yours. That just kind of serves as our credibility.

16:35And then we also have some case studies on there, which show some unique challenges that we've overcome and the solutions we presented to our clients on each of those. So you get kind of the groundwork for our methodology or our way of thinking about things and see how we might be able to potentially help you in the future. Ryan, thank you so much. Ryan Labus, Director of Business Development at Pro Engineering Consulting, website, ProENGC.com. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us. No worries. Thank you, Josh.

17:35every day together we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders and as i mentioned at the beginning of this program if you're looking for introductions to partners investors influencers and clients i have had private conversations with over 2 000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from i've got a free video that you can watch right now with no opt-in or email required where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies.

18:19Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. Make sure to hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes every single day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.