The Achieve Podcast - Nathan Sweat (Royal Engineering)
In this episode of the Achieve Podcast, host Jesse Warner interviews Nathan Sweat, president of Royal Engineering, a 35‑year‑old mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) design firm. Nathan recounts how he and his family purchased the business from its founder a decade ago after a career in mechanical engineering and an MBA. He describes the firm’s evolution from a rapidly growing, loosely structured operation to a more disciplined organization with mid‑level managers, regular strategic cadences, and defined processes. Sales and marketing are portrayed as heavily relationship‑driven, relying on repeat business from architects, referrals, and a nascent outbound outreach program that includes cold calls, an offshore appointment setter, LinkedIn activity, and limited email campaigns. Nathan notes that AI is currently used only for low‑level tasks such as polishing emails and contract language, while design‑related AI tools are still being explored. The biggest constraint to growth has been an inconsistent sales pipeline, prompting the recent focus on outreach and relationship‑nurturing processes. He highlights a strong emphasis on people development—offering life‑coaching, personal‑skill funding, and a culture of co‑creation. Looking ahead, Royal Engineering is licensed in 40 states and aims to expand its MEP services into new markets, leveraging its established processes and talent. Nathan shares leadership lessons about delegating hiring decisions, managing change after acquiring an established firm, and involving teams in co‑creating the company’s vision. He concludes with advice for leaders to balance vision‑setting with inclusive execution.
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Welcome to the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight the leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs who are building meaningful businesses and shaping their industries. My name is Jesse Warner and I'll be your host today, and we're excited to have Nathan Sweat, president of Royal Engineering, with us today. Nathan, pleasure to have you on the show today.
Yeah, it's good to be here. Thanks, Jesse.
So our audience can get to know you, can you give us a quick backstory of your business? What do you do and how did it all get started?
Yeah, so, uh, Royal Engineering, we've been around for coming up on 35 years, and, um, but I was not the owner originally. It was founded by Steve Griffiths, and about 10 years ago I purchased it from him, myself, my brother, and our spouses. So before that, you know, some of my backgrounds, I'm a mechanical engineer and was working at a manufacturing facility close by in Provo. I went back, got my MBA, decided I wanted to own my own business. And so when the time came, the opportunity came up with Royal, you know, I jumped on that. So that's, I guess, a little bit about how I got started with it. So purchased business. I'm doing that for 10 years. As far as Royal goes, we, we're an engineering company that does the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing design for commercial buildings. So primarily we work with architects and they do the plans, we do the engineering portion, and then that all goes to the cities for permits and then gets built from there. So that's our part in that process. But a lot of fun. I've enjoyed just what we do and just being part of the business side of it.
So you've been doing it for about 10 years. So, yeah, you've been engineering longer than that.
Yeah.
What did the company look like when you first purchased it and what does it look like now? How has it evolved as it's grown?
Yeah, I mean, Royal had grown pretty quickly, you know, at the time that we purchased it. We had about 30 employees then when we purchased. There are lots of good things that previous owner had set up and done, but because it had grown quickly, there was just some structure that needed to be put in place. So, you know, as far as that goes, you know, we put in kind of some, some teams, some mid-level managers to, to just help offset that rather than having you know, just all funneled up to one department head. So that helped. We've kind of been, over the last 10 years, we've kind of grown and gone back. So we're about the same size as we were, you know, 10 years ago. But, you know, through it we've established, I would say, just different processes that have helped us, you know, as far as strategy goes. So we've done a lot of work with strategy, figuring out what we want to do. Establishing cadences of meetings and other things that just kind of keep us on track. So, you know, we've used those as we've come up on challenges. We, you know, have a cadence where we meet and we strategize how are we going to deal with that. And so we're still doing the same type of design and work, but, you know, we've got, I guess, more of a structure to what we do and and making sure that, you know, we're able to sustain that going forward.
When you look at sales, marketing, and outreach, where are you seeing the most traction? What, what's working for you?
Our, in our business is really relationship-driven, so people stay with engineers that are doing a good job. And so a lot of our sales, you know, particularly historically has been more with existing accounts, just maintaining good relationships, doing good work, doing good projects. Then those architects then hire us to do the next project. So that's been great, you know, within those firms. Then it's, you know, the referrals, you know, of other project managers that are doing work, you know, they get told about the work that we've done. And so So that's been really good. In the last year and a half or so, we've focused more on sales outreach, so reaching out to new firms, which is something that's been new to us. And so it's been a learning process just to figure out how to do that. But, you know, what it looks like is just, you know, cold calls or emails to just to see if there's any interest. We talk to them, do a short discovery. Meeting with them to see if we're a good fit. And if we are a good fit, then it's just that ongoing— now we have touch points to, you know, to see when a good opportunity makes sense for us to work together on, and we do that and just slowly build that relationship. So that's— it's been going well. We've, um, moved to— we hired an appointment setter here in the last few months. Well, I guess end of last year, and that's been a shift for us. And it was, you know, an offshore person that's making those cold outreach calls to firms, and then she sets up the appointment, and then myself or one of our business development folks, they jump on that discovery call. So that's, that's been Primary focus as far as the marketing goes, our LinkedIn has been a, you know, we've been consistent at that and just making sure that we have regular posts from the company and then also myself. We've done some marketing, email marketing campaigns as well, that, but kind of very limited on that. We've tried paid ads in the past, but didn't really see much traction on that. Just for our business, it just was, it's not, I mean, people that hire us are architects, and so they're not necessarily searching for that. They're working with engineers already, typically. There's still some of that where they reach out and they find us on Google or whatnot, but mostly I mean, a lot of word of mouth, you know, someone knows someone, they mention our name. Um, that's typically how we've developed those new contacts, those new leads.
Well, it sounds like you mentioned it's a very relationship-based kind of sales and marketing program, right? So, well, are there anything you're doing specifically to help nurture those relationships so that you continue to get business from them?
Yeah, one of the things, you know, we've done in the last, I could say, year and a half that we've focused on is just establishing more of a process so that we follow it each time. So that looks like, you know, a cadence of just follow-ups or check-ins, touch calls, just making sure that we're developing that relationship because it's relationship-based. They don't know us yet. And so The more that we can, we can just be a resource there, we can have them get to know us, then that's, that's been helpful. So I mean, that's been our biggest thing is just establishing that process. And our process really for us is just making sure that we're, we're available when they need us, reaching out, providing whether it's some technical help or, you know, a blog or different topics that we've done. You know, those are some of the things that we've shared, um, just on different topics. Um, that, that's been our way, I guess, just to, to add value to our clients.
There's a lot of buzz around AI and automation right now. Nathan, what— how are you using AI and automation in your business? Have you found ways to use it?
I'd say, I mean, some of it is probably just the, the type of things that most people are using, you know, using AI to help polish an email or review an email or, or, you know, something of that sort, using it to, um, I don't know, help with the contract language or make changes that way. So that I would say is happening. Different people, I guess, throughout organization do that better than others. Um, but as far as it's capturing on the design side, we are still exploring options. We've got a team right now that's looking at different tools and ways to make that better, but for us it's still exploring what's out there. So we haven't We haven't implemented anything major, um, just because we're still in the exploration part of what we're doing.
So you've been at this for about 10 years, tried to scale, gone through probably some ups and downs along the way. What are some of the constraints that you keep bumping into?
For us, the biggest constraint has been the sales. Like, each time we've we've started to grow, it's been the sales. So initially, you know, the first couple years was a boom time in, in our industry. So there's work available. We hired a bunch of people, but we didn't have the processes in place to, to just keep the sales. And so for us, you know, that's— we bumped up against that then. Things, you know. So that was kind of the— kind of going back in what we were doing. We saw downturn there for us and then slowly picked up steam. And then when the market shifted a couple years ago for us, we saw the same thing. And so for us, it's been sales on the sales side. And so, you know, we're really you know, our push to do outreach was just to help, help get past that. So we're not just dependent on existing clients because the way, you know, the way our model has been is for clients, like, if they see a downturn, then we also see that same downturn because we're not adding new people, new relationships. And so that's primarily been been the thing that's gotten in the way or kept us where we're at.
Let's look forward for a minute. What are you most excited about in the next stage of growth?
Well, I think we've done a lot of work foundationally with our company. You know, a couple years ago, we had a goal, you know, a 3-year mission to to become a leader in our industry for personal and professional development. So we really focus a lot of resources on our own people helping provide, you know, whether it was life coaching opportunities where we, we pay for that, plus giving them incentive to do that. We've also, we give money or we, we provide money if they want to do something to personally develop. So, you know, if it's violin lessons or welding or some other skill that they want to do, we, we provide funding at least for part of that for them to do that. So that's, that's kind of, I guess, back to the base, kind of building that base. We've invested in our people and we've kept those, those same things that we're doing. So as far as what I'm excited about in the future is because we have that base, we've got these rhythms established. We've been spending time on, on the sales piece. I feel like we're in a place for growth, you know, these next few years is, is one that I, I want to be a resource, not just here in Utah, but, you know, we're licensed in 40 states, and so there's a lot of opportunity we can be a resource in other places, other regions. And so, you know, for me, the, the exciting part is that there's a lot of markets there then to look at and see how we can support those markets, see if they're not getting the support that they need from their MEP. That's our part of engineering, is MEP, the acronym. Um, if they're not getting the MEP engineers that they need, we want to be that that resource. And so that's exciting to me, just the idea that we can, we can partner with more people, help out more people, and just provide opportunities too for not, not just those who are working with us, but also for those that are not just our employees, but those that we're working for our clients.
When you look at your journey, some of the wins, the mistakes, what lessons stand out?
Yeah, there's, there's a lot of those. I think, um, I think early on, you know, I had, I had done work as a manager. So 10 years prior to buying the business, I was, you know, as a manager, I'd finished my MBA schooling, um, and then was a manager for 10 years and felt like I had done what I could do to, to understand how to run a business, you know, as much as I could from, uh, textbook classes and even some management experience. It wasn't until actually owning a business that, that the real lessons could start. I think And so some of the mistakes I know early on for me was, you know, just being too much involved in what my managers were doing. So, you know, I have direct reports and they have teams that report to them. And so for example, hiring, I would, you know, initially I was involved maybe even more heavily than the hiring manager was. And so making that decision and, and talking to the people and still including, you know, the person who's hiring them, but by no means did they— were they leading it. So just looking at that, okay, that was one area that I wish I would have allowed those leaders to own that. And so I feel like that's changed, you know, where I am able to let them own what's theirs, like it's their choice on who they hire because we're asking them to perform and we have set criteria that we want from them. And so they need to be able to have the ability to change their team as they need it. So that was, that was a key Key thing, I mentioned the sales, like just not having that established, you know, to where that has kept being a roadblock. Um, and those are the couple of things that stand out right away. I think maybe the other part is, you know, me coming into a new— for me it was new, you know, I was the new person coming into an organization that had been around for 25 years, there was a lot of changes and some of those had to happen just because of what was going on that like anyone who was in that position would've had to make some decisions. But I, I think better change management would've, would've helped. Meaning looking at, okay, what can we take on? So trying to take on too many changes like early on that just left I mean, already, you know, those employees that were there, you know, the founder just sold the business. So that's a big change. They're worried, you know, what's this new owner going to do? Is it going to— do I still have a job? Do I, you know, all these concerns that might come up. And so I think it's taking a step back and going, okay, understanding a little bit more of what might some of the fears that are there. And then, you know, just managing that change in a different way, maybe slowing it down a bit, just taking on what we could handle, making, making, still making changes because I think that's important to make improvements, but also considering that, you know, this just disrupted the business that's been kind of had its own rhythm of things. And so that was, I think, a big thing early on. We had people that left and ultimately came back too, you know, so that was good to see. A lot that left came back and, you know, but we were able to get through it and learn some of those lessons the hard way. But, you know, It's kind of how it is with business. I think you, you don't always have it figured out. That's what I've come to know. And nothing stays the same. So just when you think you have it in a nice, smooth operating place, then things change and now you get to, to do it again. But that also makes it fun.
Well, last question for you. Any final thoughts or advice that you would give to other leaders or entrepreneurs who are on a similar journey to you?
And I think the more that we can involve our teams in co-creating where we're going, the better. And, you know, there's part of it that the leader has to still have that vision because production, their goal is to deliver great quality goods, services. They're not necessarily looking at Okay, where are we headed? And so the leader has to do that. They have to take on that role of looking to the vision of where they want to go, but then also bringing in their leaders who bring in their teams then to say, okay, how do we co-create this? And it may be, you know, it may not just be, hey, what do you want to accomplish in the next 3 years? Because they may be like, I just want to do great projects, right? I want to produce great things. More of a, hey, this is where I want to take our company, and how, from your role, what do you think, you know, is needed on your end? What, what support do you need? What do you see some of the things that maybe we're missing? And so, you know, just bringing in the team to help with that, I think, goes a long way. I mean, they get buy-in, they're part of it, plus you're going to get a better outcome because you have people that are excited, they're participating, and there's a fun energy when you have a team that's trying to accomplish the same thing together. So I, I think that that would be my key thing for leaders is to, to do that.
Well, Nathan, thank you so much for sharing your story and your insights with us. For those listening, if you want to learn more about Royal Engineering, you can visit royaleng.com, royaleng.com. And that'll wrap up today's episode of the Achieve Podcast. A big thank you to our sponsor Achieve Fractional, which provides fractional executives for growing businesses. And if you enjoyed today's conversation, invite you to follow the show, share with another entrepreneur who'd also find value in it. And again, thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next episode of the Achieve Podcast.
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