Gardening Your Way to Sales Growth

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Gardening Your Way to Sales Growth

By Desiree Grace

I love raspberries. I love them so much that I’ve planted, nurtured, and harvested them at three different homes. But raspberries aren’t easy. They demand time, patience, commitment, and an understanding of what they need to thrive.

Growing raspberries reminds me a lot of business development. That connection came to me recently as I picked my second massive basket of berries in just two weeks.

Lesson One: Understand the Needs

We won’t dive into targeting today. That’s a topic for another post, but once your target is clear, the real work begins. My target was raspberries. Yours might be local contractors, the transportation sector, or power utilities.

Business development, like gardening, takes research, homework, and a lot of questions.

  • Know your target. What do they like? What helps them grow? Raspberries need sunlight and room to spread. Your contractor might thrive on good pricing, fast delivery, and reliable emergency service, along with a user-friendly app.
  • Do your research. Follow your targets and their companies on LinkedIn. Set Google alerts. Visit their website. Go old-school by conducting an interview. Ask questions and listen carefully. Take notes to show that you value their answers.
  • Build expertise. Learn your industry’s common challenges. Not every raspberry bush bears fruit twice a season, and not every machine builder runs the same model. One account may have a purchasing gatekeeper, another an engineering manager who calls the shots.

Lesson Two: Stay Committed

When you start a new raspberry patch or a new customer relationship, you have to commit. The first year or two may yield only a handful of fruit. Early business development might offer just a few small chances to prove yourself or none at all.

Stick with it. Keep showing up. Weed, water, nurture. Your consistency will be noticed. Sometimes, prospects will test your dedication. Pass the test.

Lesson Three: Be Patient

Time and patience are the unsung heroes of business growth. Building a new account from scratch in two to four years isn’t unrealistic. It took until my third year before my raspberry patch produced enough for a sundae or a small batch of muffins.

During that time, build your database and educate yourself:

  • Get to know everyone at your target account, gatekeepers, influencers, decision-makers, and even A/P or receiving staff.
  • Learn their fiscal year, decision cycles, and investment priorities.
  • Ask about other initiatives like R&D, sustainability, or mentoring programs.
  • Keep refining your target customer profile. This is your soil prep for growth.

Eventually, you’ll get that small chance to prove yourself. Be ready. Perform well when the opportunity comes, even if it’s just a minor order or an emergency fill-in. If your target sees that you deliver under pressure, they’ll remember you when bigger opportunities ripen.

Lesson Four: Embrace the Work

Gardening, like business development, is messy. Dirt under your nails. Bug bites. Sore muscles. Rejection and frustration will happen. But if you stick with it, stay the course, and keep learning, you’ll enjoy a glorious harvest of contacts, referrals, and opportunities beyond your expectations.

And just like those extra raspberries for the freezer, those hard-earned skills will serve you well in your next patch of business.

Need help plowing new ground? 
River Heights Consulting knows how to turn seeds into sales. Let’s cultivate your next big opportunity together, no weeds, no guesswork, just growth.



About the Author

Desiree Grace is a sales and leadership professional with a passion for helping teams grow,
whether it’s customers, talent, or raspberries. She shares practical insights rooted in real-world experience, humor, and a touch of Midwest grit.




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Great business development takes more than quick wins; it takes patience, persistence, and a little dirt under your fingernails. In her latest article, Desiree Grace compares growing raspberries to cultivating new customers, and the lessons are sweet.

https://thedistributorchannel.blogspot.com/2025/11/gardening-your-way-to-sales-growth.html

#SalesStrategy #BusinessDevelopment #Leadership #GrowthMindset #CustomerRelationships

X.com:
Sales growth is a lot like gardening. It’s dirty, slow, and oh-so-worth-it.

https://tinyurl.com/bdek36rf


#SalesTips #GrowthMindset #BusinessDevelopment #Leadership

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