We were lucky to catch up with Aurom Mahobian recently and have shared our conversation below.

Aurom, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry? Any stories or anecdotes that illustrate why this matters?

I believe there’s a misconception that “growth” is equivalent to “success” in Corporate America. It seems like large firms have only one choice these days…get larger. And when they grow, they are considered to be “more successful”. But what I have noticed in my career is that growth does not always lead to success. Sometimes, it leads to the opposite. The companies that are most focused on growth seem to inevitably lose sight of what’s most important: CLIENT SATISFACTION! Why? Because it’s hard to keep your clients satisfied and continue producing high quality work when you’re spread too thin by doing too many things for too many people in too many places…all at once. It’s not possible for all of those things to be going exceptionally well. So, we settle for mediocrity in the name of growth, and we call it success because we’re bringing in more money. More money must mean “success”, right?

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

After 14+ years at a large engineering firm, I was finally convinced by my parents to join the family business (SK Design Group) and open an office in CO in January, 2022. I loved the firm I worked for and it was an amazing place. But this is different, and it is more amazing than I could have ever expected.

SK Design Group is a local, small family-owned civil engineering business dedicated to quality and client service. The company was founded in 1989 in Overland Park, KS, by Sassan and Katereh Mahobian (my parents). Our mission is to design infrastructure that builds and connects the communities in which we live, by providing world class civil-engineering services with the utmost focus on client satisfaction. Because we are small, we are focused and nimble, and the quality of our plans/designs has led to over 34 years of repeat business from loyal customers. 98% of our work comes from repeat business. Our goal is to develop a long-term partnership by providing responsive, high-quality, and cost-effective solutions. Our success depends on our clients’ success. Our philosophy on each project is to find the right design solution that balances our client’s needs with cost, environmental stewardship, community impact, constructability, maintainability, aesthetics, safety, and schedule. Our expertise covers a variety of civil engineering and construction administration services, including but not limited to master planning, site/land development, design of highways/roads, pavement rehab, drainage studies, utilities, and construction phase services.

Our clients include higher educational institutions, K-12 Schools, Zoos, Private Developers, Cities, Counties, Airports, etc. We love what we do and we work on some of the most amazing projects in KS, MO, and CO.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

We all know that some clients can be difficult. Very difficult. Some can even get hostile or angry. I had one client that in every meeting (with 10-20 people in the room) if he found a mistake or learned that something was wrong with the project…would immediately try to find the person to blame and call them out in front of everyone in the room. This was a very uncomfortable and tense situation every time we met. However, he didn’t really recognize that this was an unproductive behavior, and outside of these meetings, he was an awesome guy (and my friend!). I knew that I had to try to change the vibe of the meetings to keep morale high and keep the project moving (this was a huge $200M project). So, I had a crazy idea. One of my sons had a toy school bus sitting around the house – I decided to bring it to our next meeting. At the beginning of the meeting, I made an announcement – “Attention team…we all know that when we make mistakes, we’re going to get thrown under the bus by you know who ;) (he was in the room)…so, every time someone gets thrown under the bus…you have to put this school bus in front of you, until someone else screws up, then it’s theirs!” Everyone busted out laughing…including the Project Manager. I had talked to him before the meeting telling him I was going to insert some humor. From that moment on, the entire mood of the team and the meetings changed for the remainder of the project. We brought the infamous school bus to every meeting and it was AWESOME. Anytime someone got busted, the room would yell out “Give him the bus!!” It took a stressful and difficult situation and turned it into a fun and collaborative environment. Simply by thinking outside the box and inserting humor into the room.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I thought focusing on project profitability was important. When a project is going bad, we should go all hands on deck to see how we can improve the finances, right?? But it hardly ever works! One thing my dad taught me right away was “some projects make money…some projects lose money. At the end of the year…for 34 years, we’ve always made money. Why would we expend all this energy now to try to fix something that isn’t fixable? let’s just focus that energy on doing our jobs well.” This has blown my mind, and I know it’s a bit unconventional, and possibly dangerous…but what if we trusted that finances will work out for those who continue to focus on doing good work and taking care of customers?

Contact Info:

• Website: www.skdg.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sk-design-group/