[trees]

Jeff, I like the idea of a sales class. I never took one and that never crossed my mind (guess the BS just comes naturally to me). I'll look around and get her into one.

The reason behind getting her in front of the hort crowd is that is one avenue that has netted me, personally speaking, a large number of supporters. Our area has a very active master gardener group. Seems that almost everyone knows someone with that (worthless) title and ask their advice when looking to hire a pro. That group has come through with a lot of quality leads. I've become somewhat of a small-time celeb within that community here and it sure doesn't hurt the credibility much. Maybe I'm misguided in thrusting her into that circle... I don't know.

I take all the sales leads and distribute them. Seeing how we work out of a garden center, they are sure not all red hot, but I make sure she gets her share of good ones, though I do keep the handful that seem really involved for myself. I hear what you're saying about putting her in front of 50 year old men. If that segment made up 30% of our leads, I'd certainly do that. Unfortunately since the overwhelming majority is middle-aged women, there's absolutely no way for her to avoid calling on them.

As far as what I've seen in her presentations... like I said, there's no major issues (she NEVER uses the typical 20 year old catch phrases... "oh my GOD"... "like,"... don't think I would have hired her if that was part of her dialogue). She just gets a little wishy-washy at times when there are parts of her design that she was a little unsure of or when the estimate came in above what was expected. She does her own estimating, which I check over, of course. Also, there are times when she'll say, that it was designed this way, but here's option B... a big no no in my book. Only offer other options upon request, otherwise, you know what's best.

She has a ton of potential and I really want for her to succeed. It's important for the growth of the company, of course, but also for her own sake. And, yeah... she is cheap, especially since a large part of her salary is in comission and she's not selling anything at the moment. Finding an experienced (and competent) designer is near to impossible in this market, so we thought we'd groom one. I'm just trying to figure out the best way to do that...