Growth. Scale. Exit.
Our coaching services are built for CEOs and founders of $1M–$20M Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry business companies who want clarity, confidence, and measurable outcomes.
Meet Your Coach
Franne McNeal has helped 886+ business owners create $11B in revenue and 15,000 jobs. With degrees from Princeton, Eastern, and Temple University, plus recognition as Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses faculty, she combines expertise with empathy.
As a cancer and stroke survivor, Franne knows resilience. She’s not just a coach; she’s a partner who helps you grow, scale, and sell on your terms.
How We Do it
Franne partners with business owners who want to grow with intention, increase business value, and reduce reliance on themselves in day-to-day operations. Through a range of advisory and coaching services, she helps leaders gain clarity, strengthen decision-making, and build businesses that scale efficiently and sustainably.
Whether you’re looking for focused support, accelerated momentum, or long-term strategic guidance, there’s a pathway designed to meet you where you are and help you move forward with confidence.
Who We Serve
We specialize in helping owners of Architecture, Engineering and Construction businesses who are growing, but finding that profit, leadership capacity, and firm value are not keeping pace. This is for owners who want a business that performs well today and is less dependent on them over time.

Architecture Firms
From Design Reputation to Transferable Practice:
Architecture businesses often have strong design reputations but uneven margins and principals deeply involved in daily decisions. The work focuses on protecting design quality while introducing clearer studio leadership, better fee discipline, and decision rhythms that reduce dependency on any one principal.
Principals reviewing every major decision
Great projects with thin margins
Reputation tied to one or two names
Clear studio leadership and decision rights
Stronger fee discipline and utilization
A more transferable practice with future leaders
Explore what leverage could look like for your architecture business

Engineering Firms
From Principal Firefighting to Leverage:
Engineering businesses often struggle with utilization, WIP visibility, and heavy principal involvement in technical oversight. Engagements focus on improving margin visibility, resetting role expectations, and helping senior engineers shift from constant firefighting into mentoring and firm-building work.
Principals billing most of their time
Inconsistent utilization and margins
Key-person risk across disciplines
Better leverage through role clarity and peer review
Clear targets by level and discipline
A stronger second line of technical leaders
Explore what leverage could look like for your engineering business

Construction Firms
From Volatile Jobs to Predictable Margin:
Construction businesses face job-level risk, labor pressure, and margin erosion that often pulls owners into daily firefighting. The work focuses on tightening project selection, strengthening change-order discipline, and building leadership systems so performance is more predictable.
Margins erode after the job starts
Owner is the default escalation point
Unstable backlog and job mix
Stronger estimating and change management
Clear PM and superintendent authority
More predictable, better-qualified work
Explore what leverage could look like for your construction business
pick your path

Foundation = Clarity
Value & Growth Diagnostic
Gain a clear, objective view of where profit, owner time, and firm value are leaking today. This diagnostic prioritizes the few moves that matter most, so you’re not guessing where to focus first.
Emphasis: clarity, focus, and a practical roadmap

Growth = Scaling
Operational & Leadership Expansion
Strengthen margins, utilization, and leadership capacity so growth becomes more predictable. This work shifts decisions out of the owner’s hands and installs simple systems the firm can sustain.
Emphasis: profitability, leverage, and execution

Enterprise = Exit Ready
Value Acceleration & Succession
Prepare the firm for internal transition, PE, or strategic sale by reducing owner dependency and key-person risk. The focus is on valuation, leadership depth, and buyer-ready operations—well before a transaction is on the table.
Emphasis: firm value, transition options, and control
Client Success Stories
“She helped me to understand my important business metrics and has pushed me to acquire new business in the federal marketplace.”
“Franne’s coaching helped me move beyond the emotions I was feeling. She introduced me to logical processes to help me “hear what was said and not said and see what was visible and invisible”
“Franne’s support, guidance and insight was invaluable for me in helping me to grow my business and take it to the next level. She is quick to understand complex situations and has an uncanny ability for strategic “outside of the box” thinking."
Proof in the Numbers
For more than three decades, Significant Business Results has helped over 886 business owners create more than 15,000 jobs, generate approximately
$11 billion in revenue impact, and increase business valuation by as much as 71% using the Value Builder methodology. These measurable outcomes
reflect the firm's focus on sustainable growth, stronger leadership teams, and reduced owner dependency.
Why Coaching With SBR Works
Maximize Company Value
Increase your company’s worth before you sell.
Gain Freedom
Build a business that runs with or without you.
Exit Proud, Not Panicked
Leave a legacy and walk away on your terms.

Questions Business Owners Ask
Owners and principals of architecture, engineering, and construction firms generating $1M to $20M in revenue who are carrying too much of the firm themselves.
Most coaches give advice. I run a measurement system. You start with a Value Builder Score, we work the drivers underneath it, and we re-score, so the change is a number rather than an impression. Companies that improve their score have sold for up to 71 percent more than the average business, using the Value Builder System. I am an Accredited Value Guide, and I have coached more than 886 business owners (architects, engineers, builders and contractors included) who created more than 15,000 jobs and $11 billion in revenue.
Schedule a 30 minute discovery call. Before it, take the free Value Builder Assessment so we are looking at real numbers rather than impressions. On the call you get a read on where your firm stands and the one driver worth fixing first. There is no proposal on that call.
It depends how far in you want to go. The assessments are free. From there, two doors. If you want your Value Builder Score read and ranked, the Business Efficiency Assessment is $495: a 60 minute debrief and a written report. If you want your leaks priced and a plan to fix them, the Firm Health Snapshot is $1,500: a 60 minute working session that gives you a gap map, your two biggest leaks priced in dollars, and a ninety day plan, fully credited toward coaching booked within thirty days. The Scalability Finder Session is $875 and the Business Growth Mastermind runs ten weeks at $1,485. Foundation, Growth, and Enterprise programs are scoped and priced on the Discovery Call, because the cost depends on the size of your firm and where the value is leaking.
Delivered one to one with Franne, in a peer group, or a combination, depending on the tier.
Three steps in a fixed order. Score the firm. Name the dependency. Build what removes it. The Value Builder Score sits inside step one. The Firm Health Snapshot is where the dependency gets named and priced. The Foundation, Growth, and Enterprise tiers are how step three gets delivered, depending on how far you want to go.
A 60 minute working session. You leave with a gap map, your two biggest leaks priced in dollars, and a ninety day plan. It is $1,500, fully credited toward coaching booked within thirty days. It is the first step of every coaching program, so you never pay for it twice. If the firm cannot afford the owner spending one hour on it, that is the diagnosis.
The score does, not the mood. Every program starts with the Firm Health Snapshot, and the Snapshot picks the program: The Margin Shield for a contractor, The Delivery Engine for an engineering firm, The Fee and Flow Program for an architecture practice, each with a six month option when the leak is succession rather than margin. I will not sell a growth plan to a firm where the owner is the only person who can price a job or sign off on a drawing. Growth on top of dependency just makes the collapse bigger.
Before we change anything, I trace who holds each client relationship, each decision, and each piece of pricing authority, and what happens to each one if you disappear for a month. It is unglamorous, and it is where most of the value sits.
Not ready to transform your business yet?
1:1 coaching, 10-week FastTrack, 12-month Mastermind