Most engineering firms have a projects page. It names the clients, lists the schemes and shows a good photo of each finished job. A buyer can read every entry and still have no real sense of how you work, which is usually what they came to find out.
In Summary
- A project page with a client name, a location and a photo shows what you built, not how you got there
- Buyers read project pages to see whether you’ve handled a problem like theirs
- Each project should cover the context, the constraints, the decisions your team made and the result
- Four projects told properly will do more for you than forty thin entries
What most project pages actually say
A typical entry reads like a set of credits. Client, sector, location, perhaps a contract value, then a line listing the services you provided. Underneath sits a photo of the finished building, bridge or plant room.
It’s all accurate. It just tells the reader very little. The photo shows the outcome. The engineering that got you there is mostly invisible. Nobody looking at it can see the poor ground you designed around, or the late change that squeezed the programme. Those are the parts that show what your team can do, and they’re the parts most project pages leave out.
So a firm with years of difficult, well run jobs can end up looking much like a firm that has done a handful of easy ones.
What a buyer is looking for
Someone reading your project pages is usually trying to answer a simple question. Have these people dealt with a problem like mine, and what did they do when it got difficult?
A list of sectors doesn’t answer that. A story about one job often does. If a prospect is planning work in a building that has to stay open, a page explaining how you replaced the plant while staff carried on working around you will tell them far more than “Commercial” in a filter menu.
We’ve written before about how prospects research you before the first call. Project pages are where a lot of that research ends up, because they’re the closest a buyer can get to watching you work.
Here’s a useful test. Would someone outside your firm, reading the page cold, know what was hard about the job?
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Four things every project page should cover
A good project page doesn’t need to be long. It needs to tell the story in order.
Start with the context. Who was the client, what did they need and why did it matter to them at that point? Two or three sentences is plenty.
Then the constraints. This is the part most often skipped. It also does more work than anything else on the page. A tight site, a live operation that couldn’t stop, a fixed budget, planning conditions, an existing structure nobody had drawings for. Leave them out and every job reads as if it went to plan.
Next come the decisions. What did your team choose to do, and why? If you weighed up two approaches, say which one you picked and what tipped it. This is where a reader starts to hear how your engineers think.
Finally, the result. If you have figures the client is happy for you to share, use them. If you don’t, describe the outcome plainly. “The station stayed open throughout” is a result. So is “the client asked us back for the next phase”. Don’t stretch a claim you can’t stand behind, because engineering buyers tend to notice.
If you want a quick way in, take your best project and write one sentence for each of those four parts. Wherever you get stuck is usually where the page is thin.
Fewer projects, told properly
It’s tempting to list everything, because every job feels like proof. A long gallery of thin entries trains people to skim, though, and skimmers rarely reach your best work.
Pick three or four projects and write them up properly. Choose them for the work you want more of, not for the biggest client name. If you’d like more water sector work, lead with your best water job, even if your largest contract was somewhere else.
The rest can sit in a simple list further down the page. The breadth is still there for anyone who wants it.
How many of your current project pages would you be happy to send a prospect as a link on its own?
Where the material comes from
The material usually exists already. Tender submissions and close out reports are full of context, constraints and decisions. They just need turning into plain English for someone who wasn’t on the job.
The quickest route is often a short conversation with the engineer who ran it. Ask what nearly went wrong and what the client cared about most. Twenty minutes of that usually gives you better material than an afternoon in the shared drive.
Two things to check before you publish. Get the client’s agreement before you name them or use any figures. And if a job is confidential, you can still describe it without naming anyone. “A regional water company” tells the reader enough to judge whether the work is relevant to them.
If your project pages read more like a list than a set of stories, we’re happy to take a look with you. Give us a call on 0800 690 6250 or drop us a message.
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