9
OPINION
Embracing relationship building
By leaning into our self-awareness to understand diverse personalities, we can transform challenges into opportunities for growth and success.
D o you ever get pushback from your team members when you ask them to help with business development, client account management, or networking connection responsibilities? Or maybe it’s you who feels like you don’t want to sell, didn’t go to school for marketing or communications, and a myriad of other objections.
Dawn Landry
As an AEC industry executive, I have heard the rumblings of my colleagues and their peers regarding business development. However, I have also witnessed that when these technical experts discovered and owned their relationship-building styles, they engineered the foundation for a future that impacted their career trajectory and beyond. For nearly a decade, I have worked in my consulting and training practice helping architects, engineers, and construction professionals at all levels identify, hone, and articulate their value to their clients, organizations, and, most of all, themselves. The first step in this process, and the concept that can be the most challenging, is realizing that sales is all about relationship building. We build relationships in various ways. Our connection capabilities depend
upon not only who we are but also on who the client is on the other side of the table. But so many of us (myself included earlier in my career) believe that everyone communicates the same way that we do. Only when we throttle back do we realize that when our messages aren’t “landing,” the recipient may be different from us. By leaning into our self-awareness to understand diverse personalities, we can transform challenges into opportunities for growth and success. To do this, though, requires mindfulness, empathy, and a willingness to change. This becomes easier when we can visualize our audience.
See DAWN LANDRY, page 10
THE ZWEIG LETTER JULY 8, 2024, ISSUE 1544
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