high-end market Archives

Meeting Minds

'What if you were so bad at your job that a person in a related field decided, for the good of his own business, he had to learn your business and replace you rather than cope with your incompetence?' That's how Brian Van Bower eased his way into his Aqua Culture column in the May/June 2011 issue of WaterShapes. 'Most people,' he continued, 'would say that this would be a justified response to the fact that you

The Big Picture

Anyone who runs a good business knows that day-to-day operations are so all-consuming that it's difficult to step back and scope out where you fit within your corner of the industry let alone within the context of national and international business conditions and trends. We can't give those daily details short shrift or step away from balancing the needs of our clients, our projects and our employees and/or subcontractors. We invest in the here and now and in our futures with blood, sweat and tears. Still, it occurs to me that, like all major investments, our daily endeavors need to be protected by an understanding of the entire range of factors that influence

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 is that I've set myself up for it and am prepared to tackle these projects and clients as they come. To me, it's as natural as breathing. The deeper answer is much more complicated, obviously, and has to do with my understanding that working with upper echelon clients means accommodating an entire range of issues that