A Niche Could Make You Rich
Someone once said that you can't be all things to all people. What is true in our personal life is equally true in business. While it may seem counterintuitive to specialize and consciously limit the scope of your target market, it actually could be a very wise marketing strategy specializing in a certain area or “niche”, and possibly a path to increased income. The more specific your niche, the more the potential. Someone who specializes in working in a particular area of engineering could well have more clients, recognize greater efficiencies and make more money than one who works with everyone. Similar to how a plastic surgeon makes more money than a family physician and yet both are doctors.

Attracting New Business
Credibility; if you have enough of this, you'll have to turn away business. Your reputation is your credibility. The ideal situation is having new clients who will purchase your services for life. One easy way to build credibility is to ask for testimonies or comments from clients and satisfied customers. Other ways to establish credibility may include writing books and articles, acquiring endorsements and word-of-mouth marketing. Of course if you are a good speaker, your platform presence is a huge credibility-builder.

Promising Something to the Client with Absolute Certainty
You can certify facts you know to be true but if you can’t promise them with absolute certainty then you shouldn’t. You can qualify your statement with terms like “in my professional opinion”, “to the best of my knowledge” or some other term. Some clients or public agencies may indicate that their requirement to certify is not negotiable. However, most will listen to a reasonable explanation of why you can’t certify and the implication on your insurance coverage. Lastly, at the outset, you can also define the term certification in your contract to mean exactly what you want it to mean.

Do Some of Your Clients Call You a Contractor?
That’s wrong of course. You may not think of it as a big deal but caught up in litigation some people not familiar with the industry may equate contractor with someone responsible for “means, methods etc” and lawyers thrive on confusion. Specifically ask your client to refer to you by your firm name or as the engineer. If they insist on referring to you as the contractor then insist on having something in the definitions of your contract that indicates that the contractor referred to is the design professional and they are not responsible for means methods etc.

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