Operating on a Higher Level
‘Over and over at seminars and trade shows, watershapers ask me three distinct but interrelated questions: “How do you get into the high-end market?” and “How do you deal with wealthy customers?” and “How do you handle those kinds of jobs?”
‘The short answer to all of them,’ began Brian Van Bower in his Aqua Culture column in the April 2004 issue of WaterShapes, ‘ is that I’ve set myself up for it and am prepared to tackle these projects and clients as they come. . . . The deeper answer,’ he continued, ‘has to do with my understanding that working with upper echelon clients means accommodating an entire range of issues that cut to the very core of how I do business.’
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‘[M]y approach all flows from attitude. . . . I don’t look up or down at anyone. I’ve learned through the years that the people who seem the happiest and most successful appreciate people who toil in the fields as much as they do the local neurosurgeon. They appreciate the hard work other people do because they don’t want to do it themselves. They also appreciate the craftsmanship they witness in those who have it.’
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‘[P]eople I know in the watershaping trades have no trouble at all relating to working-class people, [but] they tend to freeze when they encounter people of wealth or fame or power. Avoiding that freeze is why, through the years, I’ve worked hard at learning to relate to people who lead lifestyles that are beyond the comprehension of some of us mere mortals.’
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‘I didn’t start out with an innate understanding of these relationships: I first came to realize that I was a victim of a sort of “accept the difference” mentality in the early days of running my service firm.’
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‘As I’ve moved deliberately toward these clients in my career as a designer and consultant, I’ve worked hard to place myself in their mindset and give myself the tools required to step into their shoes when I work with them on projects. . . . I don’t want to get trapped in my own thought patterns and operate based solely on my own standards, values and experiences.’
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‘Instead, I work with the fact that even the rich and famous and powerful are human beings like anyone else and seek out people who are similar to them in certain respects, whether it’s economic status, level of education or a simple understanding of their realm of experience.’
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‘[T]he ability to relate to very high-end clients also involves frames of reference that are outside the watershaping industry and the services we typically perform. On some level, that means knowing a thing or two about the fine arts, for example, or about automobiles, architecture, interior furnishings and the like. Yes, excellence speaks volumes, but to me, forming good relationships with high-end clients is also about reaching beyond our own paradigms and moving things up a couple of notches.’
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‘All of the knowledge in the world is wasted, however, if you’re unable to perform at the promised level of excellence. It cuts back to the initial idea that you should always strive to exceed expectations, and nowhere is this truer than with wealthy clients. For myself, I work to under-promise and over-deliver and, more important, work to exceed my own expectations for quality.’
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‘When you approach each and every project you do with the idea that you will exceed expectations with quality performance and excellent results,’ Brian concluded, ‘you’ll find positives in every project you pursue, even the modest ones.’
Does Brian’s line of reasoning in this ten-year-old column have relevance in today’s marketplace? Is working with high-end clients still based to such an extent on breaking through social barriers and developing rapport, or has that dynamic changed in the years since the start of the Great Recession? Please share your own insights by commenting below.
Brian Van Bower runs Aquatic Consultants, a design firm based in Miami, Fla., and is a co-founder of the Genesis 3 Design Group; dedicated to top-of-the-line performance in aquatic design and construction, this organization conducts schools for like-minded pool designers and builders. He can be reached at [email protected].