We Just Told a Client Their $15,000 Project Wasn’t Worth Our Time—They Thanked Me for It
The uncomfortable truth about engineering firms: we’re taught to be technically perfect, but nobody teaches us to be strategically profitable.
We obsess over calculations. We ignore our margins. We pride ourselves on solving every problem, but we should pride ourselves on choosing the RIGHT problems.
Last week, a potential client approached us with a $15,000 project. The timeline was aggressive, the scope was unclear, and the red flags were everywhere. We said no. They thanked us for it.
Here’s why that decision matters—and what it reveals about building a sustainable engineering practice.
The Project We Turned Down
The client came to us with what seemed like a straightforward request. They had a $15,000 budget and needed work completed in two weeks. But as we dug deeper during our initial conversation, the reality became clear.
They wanted 2-week delivery when 6 weeks was realistic. They needed expertise across 3 PE disciplines we don’t specialize in. They demanded daily check-ins with multiple stakeholders. They mentioned “legal issues” with their last engineer. Most telling of all, the scope kept “evolving” during our call.
The math was brutally simple. Saying yes meant $15,000 in revenue, $25,000 in actual costs, and one burnt-out team. Saying no meant $0 revenue, $0 cost, and space for a $75,000 project the following week.
We chose to say no.
The Question That Changed Everything
For years, we asked ourselves the same question every engineering firm asks: “Can we do this project?”
That’s the wrong question.
The right question is: “Should we do this project?”
That single word shift transformed how we evaluate opportunities. It forced us to consider not just our technical capability, but our strategic fit. Should we take this project given our current workload? Should we accept work outside our core competencies? Should we partner with clients showing red flags before we even start?
The answer to all three was no. And explaining that to the client—honestly and transparently—built more trust than accepting work we couldn’t deliver well.
Why Strategic Selectivity Matters
Every engineering firm faces the same pressure: keep the pipeline full, keep everyone busy, never turn down revenue. But here’s what that thinking ignores: not all revenue is profitable revenue.
Taking on the wrong projects doesn’t just cost money. It costs opportunity, team morale, and reputation. When you’re buried in a money-losing project with an unrealistic timeline, you can’t pursue the $75,000 project that’s actually a good fit. You can’t deliver your best work to existing clients. You can’t build the firm you want to build.
Strategic profitability isn’t about working less. It’s about working smarter. It’s about understanding that the projects you decline are often more valuable than the ones you accept.
Building Partnerships, Not Transactions
At Modern Engineering Solutions, we’ve completed 265+ projects across eight states with a 94% client retention rate. That didn’t happen by accepting every project that came through the door.
It happened by being selective. By saying no to misfit work so we could say yes to the right partnerships. By valuing precision over panic and quality over quantity.
The clients we work with understand that engineering isn’t a commodity. They don’t want the cheapest option—they want the right solution. They don’t want us to work miracles in unrealistic timelines—they want us to deliver results that last.
We don’t build our firm around every project that walks in the door. We build partnerships with clients who value precision over panic.
The Hard Question Every Firm Must Answer
Look at your current workload right now. What project is sitting on your desk that you know—deep down—you should have never accepted? The one with scope creep. The one with the impossible deadline. The one with the client who questions every invoice.
And more importantly: what’s stopping you from fixing that mistake today?
The engineering firms that thrive aren’t the ones that do the most work. They’re the ones that do the best work—for the right clients, at the right price, with the right expectations. That starts with learning when to say no.