building relationships
There are those in this business who are extremely adept at selling, and I'm definitely not one of them. I get by, but it's never been my long suit by any means. I've always admired the good salespeople I've met, and I fully accept the hard reality that to build a watershape at any level, one must sell it first. But I came up on the design/construction side of the watershaping business, and I've never found a clear way past the fact that, for me, sales has always been an area where I consistently have plenty of room for personal growth and improvement. I know that selling is important not only because it brings business through the door, but also because it sets the stage for everything that follows as a project progresses. As practiced by real professionals, I've observed that it's much more about