In my time in business, I have seen thousands of residential clients. Last year, I think I completed almost 50 custom design build protects with my team - and our company finished over 120 jobs. When I meet with a prospective customer, I know that I have to be very careful about how I am approaching my developing relationship. Because, as you know - it's a potential minefield. Part of the nuance of the work is to try to suss out how the client personally is experiencing our developing relationship, how the couple's power dynamic works, how they of course make budget decisions and needless to say - what the nature of the work is that they want to have done. A typical spouse relationship might have one spouse expressing visual ideas and desires and the other one - more concerned about the budget and contract. It's not uncommon to find that one of the parties recedes into the background - or never shows up at all - until later. The danger here is that the formerly quiet spouse comes out of the woodwork at a later date - and start to pay attention after certain decisions have been made.
This can result in all kinds of problems and points to the necessity of having a really good contract and a good record of approvals for substitutions and extra work. In thinking about this, I was drawn to an article that I read a number of months ago that I thought was very to the point and enlightening. The article - by Blair Enns , is in his "Win Without Pitching" manifesto - and is called "The Polite Battle for Control". I think this is a good way to put it.
I'm not particularly a big fan of business books or sales pitch techniques, but occasionally I see a well articulated way of thinking that resonates with my thinking. I had never really thought about the initial part of the sales cycle this way, but it encapsulates a good way to think about the approach. You are trying to assert your expertise and ability to make creative and conscientious on - budget decisions for the client - and in some cases, certainly you are talking them off the ledge about constructing an unbuildable idea or making a bad decision about an off budget alignment of items to be chosen.
In some cases it has to do with reaffirming the proper use plant materials, despite the fact that the client wants a Maidenhair fern planted out in the full sun in August - or in other cases it has to do with size or positioning an element in the landscape - or spending excess amounts of the budget on an unnecessary item.
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