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3 Compelling Reasons to Start Practicing Business Development Now

By Tom on November 3, 2023

Business Development (BD) is a crucial aspect of any organization’s growth and success. It involves identifying new opportunities, building strategic partnerships, and fostering relationships that drive business growth. While many professionals associate BD primarily with senior roles, the truth is that regardless of your career stage, embracing business development early on can offer significant advantages. In this post, I explore three compelling reasons why you should start practicing business development now, whether you are a junior, senior, or principal professional.

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Expanding your skill set

Regardless of your current position, acquiring business development skills can be immensely valuable for your career progression. BD skills encompass a wide range of competencies, including networking, negotiation, market research, and relationship building. By actively engaging in BD practices, you can broaden your skill set, becoming a more well-rounded professional.

As a junior professional, learning BD early on can help you stand out from your peers and position yourself as a versatile asset within your organization. You will gain the ability to identify potential business opportunities, nurture client relationships, and contribute to revenue growth. These skills can significantly accelerate your career advancement.

For senior and principal professionals, business development skills become even more critical. By honing your ability to identify emerging trends, forge partnerships, and create new business models, you can spearhead your organization’s expansion efforts. Embracing BD at this stage allows you to transition from solely executing tasks to taking a more strategic and leadership-oriented role.

Building a robust professional network

Networking is a key component of effective business development. Starting early in your career gives you a head start in cultivating a diverse and extensive professional network, which can open doors to numerous opportunities.

When you are new to the workforce, networking can help you connect with experienced mentors and industry influencers who can provide guidance and support. By attending conferences, industry events, and joining relevant professional communities, you can establish valuable connections that may lead to job opportunities or collaborative projects.

Later in your career, a well-established network becomes an invaluable asset. This enables you to tap into various industry sectors, collaborate with influential stakeholders, and access a wide range of resources. Through strategic relationship-building efforts, you can identify potential business partners, secure funding, and generate referrals, all of which are crucial for sustained business growth.

Use business development to drive innovation

Driving innovation and business growth

Business development is not only about maintaining existing relationships but also about driving innovation and fueling business growth. By practicing BD, you can actively seek out new opportunities, identify emerging markets, and develop creative strategies that propel your organization forward.

Early on, your fresh perspective and enthusiasm can contribute to identifying untapped markets, emerging trends, or innovative solutions. Embracing business development early in your career allows you to make a direct impact on your organization’s growth trajectory and distinguish yourself as a valuable asset.

Once you reach senior and principal level, business development serves as a catalyst for innovation and expansion. By leveraging your experience and market insights, you can lead your organization’s efforts in exploring new markets, expanding product/service offerings, and entering strategic partnerships. Practicing BD empowers you to think strategically, envision growth opportunities, and guide your organization towards sustainable success.

Final thoughts

Regardless of your career stage, starting to practice business development early on offers tangible benefits. From expanding your skill set and building a robust professional network to driving innovation and business growth, the advantages are numerous. By proactively embracing business development practices, you position yourself for long-term success and become a versatile professional capable of creating and seizing opportunities. So, start practicing business development now and unlock your full potential in the dynamic world of business.

Start practicing business development now

For more help with starting your business development journey download my quick start guide. This gives a series of simple activities to quickly get you on the right path.

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

If you are getting value out of my weekly free content I’d ask that you consider buying my book. It’s a simple yet comprehensive framework to base your business development activity around. Full of practical advice to get you started now. It is available to order on Amazon now.

Business development and farming

Do you want a more proactive and personal approach to improving your business development skills? I help businesses and individuals learn and practice the fundamentals of work winning while keeping you accountable to future activity. To learn more click the button below.

Business Development Coaching

My Battle Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

By Tom on October 13, 2023

In celebration of my 100th post on www.tomwatkin.com I wanted to share a bit of a personal story. In particular about my experience with imposter syndrome and how I overcame it. All this in an area where I should have been brimming with confidence: business development for my book on business development. Yes, the irony isn’t lost on me.

I work in business development every day and am confident meeting new customers. But when it came to promoting and selling my book, I was filled with fear and self-doubt. I kept asking myself, “Who am I to write a book? What if people don’t like it? How can I add value around my book content?” It seemed a daunting task, and I felt overwhelmed by it.

While I recognized it as an issue I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it.

Business Development with Purpose

That is until I brought it up with my friend and executive coach Steffi. We talked it through and I was brutally honest about the situation. Talking it through like this put everything into perspective. I started working through a simple plan to get things going. For me it boiled down to taking small actions to get me moving on the right track.

Taking Small Action

The fear of failure and rejection had me in a work-winning block. I now knew I needed to take action, so I began by assessing my market. I looked at who my book could help and who would benefit from reading it. This helped me gain a better understanding of my audience and how I could add value around my book’s content.

Once I had assessed my market, I built a tactical action plan. I set goals for myself, around coaching clients and book distributorship, and outlined the steps I needed to take to achieve my objectives. This plan gave me a clear direction and helped me stay focused on my goals.

The next step was to reach out to potential customers. I started by sending emails to my existing network asking them to read and review my book. Their feedback was invaluable, and it gave me the confidence to reach out to a broader audience. Before I knew it I had coaching clients on board and was presenting workshops.

Taking small purposeful action can help overcome imposter syndrome

At ease with imposter syndrome

As I started reaching out to more people, I realized that the process wasn’t as scary as I had initially thought. The more I did it, the more comfortable I became. The fear of rejection slowly dissipated, and I found myself feeling more confident than ever.

Today, I can proudly say that I have overcome my imposter syndrome. I now feel comfortable promoting and selling my book, and I have even started to enjoy the process. I have learned that imposter syndrome is a common feeling and that it’s okay to have self-doubt. The key is to take small action at first, before pushing through the fear.

Final thoughts

If you’re struggling with imposter syndrome or a hitting a work-winning block, I encourage you to take action. Assess your market, build a tactical action plan, and start reaching out to potential customers. Talk it through with a trusted confidant. Start small and build from there. The process may be scary at first, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Don’t let fear and uncertainty hold you back from achieving your goals.

Overcoming imposter syndrome

For more help with starting your business development journey download my quick start guide. This gives a series of simple activities to quickly get you on the right path.

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

Business development and farming

Do want a more proactive and personal approach to improving your business development skills? I help businesses and individuals learn and practice the fundamentals of work winning while keeping you accountable to future activity. To learn more click the button below.

Business Development Coaching

Three Secrets Why Introverts Excel in Business Development

By Tom on October 6, 2023

In the world of business development, many assume that extroverts have the upper hand due to their outgoing nature and ability to effortlessly connect with people. However, introverts possess unique qualities that can make them even more successful in this field. Contrary to popular belief, introversion can be a tremendous asset when it comes to business development. In this post, we explore three compelling reasons why you don’t have to be an extrovert to excel in business development.

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Deep listening and empathy

Introverts are known for their exceptional listening skills and ability to empathize with others. These qualities are invaluable in business development. By truly listening to clients and understanding their needs, introverts can identify real pain points and tailor their solutions accordingly. The ability to empathize allows them to establish genuine connections. Ultimately, helping build trust and foster long-term relationships with clients. By focusing on the client’s perspective and offering personalized solutions, introverts can easily outshine the extroverts in this discipline.

Thoughtful preparation and research

Introverts often excel in introspection and spend considerable time reflecting on ideas and strategies. This introspective nature translates well into business development, as it enables introverts to thoroughly research and prepare before approaching potential clients. By conducting comprehensive market research and understanding the nuances of the industry, introverts can demonstrate expertise and offer valuable insights to clients. This level of preparation enhances their credibility and positions them as trusted advisors, allowing them to thrive.

Thoughtful preparation, a hallmark of introverts

Effective networking strategies

Networking is a crucial aspect of business development, which is often seen to be a strength of the extroverts. However, introverts can employ strategies that play to their strengths. While extroverts may excel at large-scale events and social gatherings, introverts thrive in more intimate settings. They prefer meaningful one-on-one interactions, which allows them to forge deeper connections and have more focused conversations. By leveraging their listening skills and genuine interest in others, introverts can make a lasting impression on key individuals. They can also utilize digital platforms and social media to connect with industry professionals, leveraging their thoughtful communication style to make meaningful online connections.

Conclusion

While extroversion is often associated with success in business development, introverts possess unique qualities that help them excel in this field. Deep listening skills, empathetic nature, thoughtful preparation, and effective networking strategies enable them to connect with clients on a deeper level and provide tailored solutions. The business world needs a diverse range of personalities, and introverts bring an extremely valuable perspective to the table. So, if you’re an introvert with a passion for business development, embrace your strengths, and don’t let any misconceptions hold you back. You have what it takes to thrive in this dynamic field!

introvert in business

For more help with starting your business development journey download my quick start guide. This gives a series of simple activities to quickly get you on the right path.

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

If you are getting value out of my weekly free content I’d ask that you consider buying my book. It’s a simple yet comprehensive framework to base your business development activity around and full of practical application to get you started now. It is available to order on Amazon now.

Business development and farming

If you want a more proactive and personal approach to improving your business development skills then I am here to help. I help businesses and individuals learn and practice the fundamentals of work winning while keeping you accountable to future activity. To learn more click the button below.

Business Development Coaching

Warning: When Customers Cross The Line

By Tom on September 15, 2023

In business development, the focus is often on customer retention, acquiring new customers, expanding market reach, and maximizing profits. However, in certain cases, businesses encounter customers who repeatedly take advantage of their services, products, or resources. These customers drain valuable time, energy, and profitability. Effectively hampering growth and hindering overall success. In such circumstances, divesting customers becomes a crucial step towards sustainable business development.

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Recognizing Customer Exploitation

Customer exploitation occurs when certain customers consistently push boundaries, exploit discounts, demand excessive resources, or create undue operational complexities. While it’s natural to encounter occasional challenging customers, identifying a pattern of exploitation is vital for making informed decisions. Here are some signs that suggest a customer may be crossing the line:

Unreasonable Demands: Customers who persistently demand additional services, support, or concessions beyond what was initially agreed upon.
Unprofitable Relationships: Customers who consistently negotiate steep discounts, eroding profitability without offering commensurate value.
Resource Drain: Customers who monopolize significant amounts of your company’s time, energy, and resources, impacting other business relationships.
Ethical Misalignment: Customers whose values and behaviors conflict with your company’s ethical standards, causing reputational risks.

Reasons to Consider Divesting Customers

If you recognize customer exploitation consider the following before making the decision to divest.

Preserving Profitability and Growth: Continually catering to exploitative customers can compromise your company’s financial health. By divesting from these customers, you can reallocate resources towards more profitable endeavors and nurture relationships with clients who genuinely value your products or services.
Enhancing Operational Efficiency: Exploitative customers often require a disproportionate amount of attention and resources, impeding the smooth functioning of your business. By divesting from them, you can streamline operations and better serve customers who contribute positively to your bottom line.
Protecting Employee Morale: Constantly dealing with demanding and exploitative customers can take a toll on employee morale and motivation. Divesting from such customers sends a powerful message that you prioritize a healthy work environment and respect your employees’ efforts.
Maintaining Ethical Standards: Upholding ethical standards is crucial for any business. Divesting from customers who engage in unethical behavior helps protect your company’s reputation and ensures that your values align with those of your customers and partners.
Fostering Long-Term Customer Relationships: By divesting from customers who exploit your business, you create space for new customers who align with your goals and values. This strategic decision allows you to focus on cultivating long-term relationships with customers who appreciate and support your products or services.

Is one customer causing unreasonable frustration? Consider divesting!

Navigating the Divestment Process

As with all things business development you need to have a process. When considering customer divestment, it is essential you follow a systematic approach:

Assess the Situation: Thoroughly evaluate the impact of the customer’s behavior on your business, considering financial, operational, and ethical aspects.
Communicate Openly: Engage in transparent conversations with the customer, expressing your concerns and setting clear expectations for a more mutually beneficial relationship.
Explore Alternatives: Consider alternative solutions, such as adjusting pricing, renegotiating contracts, or implementing stricter policies, before resorting to complete divestment.
Gradual Transition: When divesting, ensure a smooth transition for both parties. Provide reasonable notice periods, recommend alternative solutions if applicable, and minimize any negative impact on the customer’s operations.
Strengthen Market Positioning: Use the newfound resources and energy to refine your market positioning, target ideal customers, and enhance the value proposition of your products or services.

Final thoughts

Divesting customers may seem counterintuitive, however it is sometimes necessary to protect the long-term sustainability and growth of your business. Identifying and divesting from customers who repeatedly exploit your resources, undermine profitability, or clash with your values is a strategic move. Effectively allowing you to redirect your efforts towards nurturing relationships with customers who are mutually beneficial. By fostering a culture of respect and setting clear boundaries, businesses can focus on sustainable business development and establish a solid foundation for long-term success.

Divesting customers

For more help with starting your business development journey download my quick start guide. This gives a series of simple activities to quickly set you on the right path in only 10 days.

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

If you are getting value out of my weekly free content I’d ask that you consider buying my new book. It’s a simple yet comprehensive framework to base your business development activity around and full of practical application to get you started now. It is available to order on Amazon now.

Business development and farming

If you want a more proactive and personal approach to your business development I am available to help. Through face to face video discussions I’ll set you on the right path and keep you accountable to future activity. I currently have space on my 1on1 personalized coaching program, or you can sign up to my flagship course. To learn more click the button below.

Business Development Coaching

Why Farming and Business Development Share the Same Unique Perspective

By Tom on September 8, 2023

“You reap what you sow!” This age-old adage holds significant truth in various aspects of life, including the practice of business development. While it may seem unlikely, there are remarkable parallels between the world of farming and the realm of business development. In this post, we explore these similarities. Shedding light on how farming principles can provide valuable insights for successful long term work winning. From the importance of relationships to developing trust, let’s uncover why these two seemingly distinct domains share a unique perspective.

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You Reap What You Sow

Just as farmers carefully select and sow seeds, business developers must strategically plant the seeds of their ideas and efforts. The success of a harvest depends on several factors, including the quality of seeds, the care given to the crops, and external circumstances like weather conditions. Additionally, you don’t see the results of these efforts for many months.

Similarly, in business development, the results you achieve are a direct consequence of the time, effort, and thoughtfulness invested in nurturing relationships, identifying opportunities, and delivering value. Again, you often don’t see the benefits from this effort for months, or in some cases years.

Relationships are Everything

Both farming and business development thrive on relationships. Farmers build relationships with suppliers, buyers, and fellow farmers to share knowledge, resources, and support. Likewise, business developers establish connections with clients, partners, and stakeholders to foster collaboration, generate leads, and drive growth. By recognizing the significance of relationships, both farmers and business developers can create mutually beneficial networks that contribute to long-term success.

Developing Meaningful Relationships Takes Time

Just as crops require time to grow and mature, cultivating meaningful relationships in business development is a patient and continuous process. Farmers understand that crops cannot be rushed or forced to yield results prematurely. Similarly, building trust, rapport, and understanding with potential clients or partners cannot be expedited. Authentic connections take time to develop, and investing the necessary effort in nurturing relationships pays off in the long run.

Work winning, like farming, takes long term effort

Trust is Easily Broken

In farming, the harvest can be ruined by external factors such as unfavorable weather conditions, pests, or disease. Similarly, in business development, trust can be fragile and easily broken. A single misstep, a breach of confidentiality, or a failure to meet expectations can erode trust with clients or partners. Just as farmers work tirelessly to protect their crops from threats, business developers must take proactive steps in safeguarding trust through transparency, consistent communication, and ethical practices.

Final Thoughts

Farming and business development may seem worlds apart, but upon closer examination, they share fundamental principles contributing to success. Just as farmers understand the importance of sowing quality seeds, nurturing crops, and building relationships, business developers can gain valuable insights from these practices. Embracing the parallels between farming and business development can lead to a more holistic approach, emphasizing the significance of long term relationships and trust. So, whether you’re tending to crops or cultivating business opportunities, remember that you reap what you sow.

Farming and business development

For more help with starting your business development journey download my quick start guide. This gives a series of simple activities to quickly set you on the right path in only 10 days.

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

Business development and farming

If you want a more proactive and personal approach to your business development I am available to help. Through face to face video calls I’ll set you on the right path and keep you accountable to future activity. I currently have space on my 1on1 personalized coaching program, or you can sign up to my flagship course. To learn more click the button below.

Business Development Coaching

New to Business Development?

By Tom on September 1, 2023

Being new to business development can be both exciting and daunting. Successfully establishing and growing your business requires careful planning and execution. In this post, we will discuss three essential steps to set you on the path to success: defining your ideal customer, developing a simple tactical action plan, and nurturing relationships with existing customers.

Begin purposeful business development: Grab Your Guide

Define your ideal customer

Understanding your target audience is fundamental to effective business development. Identifying and defining your ideal customer will enable you to tailor your strategies and focus your efforts more effectively. Here are some key steps to help you in this process:

a) Market Research: Conduct thorough market research to gain insights into the needs, preferences, and pain points of your potential customers. Analyze competitors, industry trends, and consumer behavior to identify gaps and opportunities.

b) Create an Ideal Customer Profile: Develop detailed ideal customer profiles that represent your target customers. Consider factors such as demographics, locations, company size, type of business and pain points. This will allow you to craft targeted messaging and tailor your offerings to meet their specific needs.

c) Refine Your Value Proposition: Align your products or services with the identified needs of your ideal customers. Clearly articulate the unique value you bring to the table and how it solves their challenges or enhances their lives.

Develop a simple tactical action plan

Once you have a clear understanding of your ideal customer, it’s time to create a practical and executable tactical action plan. I discuss the development of this plan in more detail in a previous post. This plan serves as your practical roadmap, guiding your daily business development efforts. Here are some key components to consider during the planning phase:

a) Set Clear Goals: Establish measurable and time-bound goals that align with your overall business objectives. These goals can include acquiring a certain number of new customers, increasing revenue by a specific percentage, or expanding into new markets. Clear goals provide direction and keep you focused.

b) Identify Key Strategies: Break down your goals into actionable strategies. For instance, if your goal is to acquire new customers, strategies might include content marketing, social media advertising, or attending industry conferences. Select strategies that align with your target audience and resources.

c) Define Actionable Steps: Transform your strategies into specific, actionable steps. Create a timeline, assign responsibilities, and set milestones. This will help you stay organized and accountable. Remember to regularly evaluate and adjust your plan based on feedback and results.

Meeting your existing customers is a crucial step to getting started.

Meet your existing customers

Acquiring new customers is crucial. However, don’t overlook the importance of nurturing relationships with your existing customer base. Satisfied customers become brand advocates and a valuable source of referrals. Here are a few ways you can engage and build stronger connections with them:

a) Communication: Regularly reach out to your existing customers through personalized emails, newsletters, or social media updates. Share relevant information, product updates, and exclusive offers to demonstrate your commitment to their success. LinkedIn is perfect for this in the B2B setting.

b) Gather Feedback: Actively seek feedback from your customers to understand their experience with your product or service. This feedback will help you identify areas for improvement and provide insights into their evolving needs. Consider reaching out to your existing customers for a meeting focused on getting feedback on your services.

c) Look for Solutions: Enter discussions with your existing customers with a curious mindset. Ask plenty of questions and really listen to the answers. Doing so will help you understand their issues, allowing you to suggest solutions that can really help. An great way to uncover new opportunities.

Final thoughts on being new to business development

Entering the world of business development can be overwhelming, but with a systematic approach and a focus on understanding your customers, you can navigate the challenges and achieve sustainable growth. By defining your ideal customer, developing a simple tactical action plan, and nurturing relationships with existing customers, you’ll be well on your way to successfully growing your business. Remember, adaptability, continuous learning, and perseverance are key to your long-term success in this dynamic field. Good luck!

New to business development

For more help with starting your business development journey download my quick start guide. This gives a series of simple activities to quickly set you on the right path in only 10 days.

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

Removing Cusotmers

Business Development Coaching

Five Reasons Why a Bad Salesperson Creates Regret

By Tom on July 7, 2023

I was chatting to my friend Ben the other day, a very accomplished sales manager in the retail sector. I asked the question “How can you identify a bad salesperson?” His response was simple yet fascinating.

Without hesitating he said “A bad salesperson creates regret”.

What a great answer! While the conversation moved on, Ben’s statement continued to buzz around my head. I had to explore this more. So I did.

Bad salespeople create regret in many ways, which leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the buyer. In turn, this reduces the likelihood of a return buyer. As a business developer the aim is to develop long term relationships that yield fruit over years. Not chasing the immediate sale.

So there is value in understanding how bad salespeople create regret so we can learn from this behavior and avoid it ourselves.

Grab Your Free Guide to Business Development Here

High pressure sales tactics

Use high-pressure tactics to force consumers into making a purchase feels like a practice from the 1980’s. Aggressive language, making false promises, and using scare tactics make you feel like you’re running out of time to make a decision. This type of bad salesperson behavior pushes you into making a purchase that you later regret.

Instead, good business developers should be winning work through service. Helping their customers find solutions through honesty and ethical behavior. This in turn fosters trust which yields long term revenue.

Misrepresentation of products

Making false claims about the product’s quality, capabilities, or performance is inexcusable and definitely in the realm of the bad salesperson. This creates regret for consumers who were led to believe they were buying a high-quality product, only to find out that it does not perform as expected.

Rather, be honest in your dealings. Be clear and truthful about how your offering solves your customers problems. If you really can’t help your customer, let them know. They will be more likely to seek your help in future.

Upselling

Upselling is where a salesperson tries to sell more products or upgrades than you initially intended to purchase. This can create regret for consumers who feel like they were pushed into spending more money than they wanted or could afford.

In some cases the upselling is warranted, in order for the customer to get the most value out of their product. However, the unthinking “would you like fries with that?” mentality doesn’t add any value and likely fosters regret.

A good rule of thumb is to only upsell when you are adding real value by doing so.

The classic regret filled upsell: *do you want fries with that?*

Inadequate product knowledge

Bad salespeople often brag about being able to “sell anything”. However, such a claim often means they don’t have a good understanding of the products or services they are selling. This results in giving incorrect information or making false claims about the products. In turn this creates regret for consumers who find out later that the product or service is not what they thought it would be.

Alternatively, make sure you understand your company offering. Arm yourself with knowledge. This is where, as a technical consultant your experience really shines. If you don’t know the product or industry, learn. Immerse yourself in not only the product or service but the context around it. Use the technical team for support. There can be real benefit in getting them in front of your customer when discussions get technical.

Lack of customer service

Customer service can make or break a business. Unfortunately some salespeople don’t provide adequate service after a purchase has been made. This includes, follow up, feedback, assistance and generally boils down to continued communication. Taking an order before immediately moving on to the next without a thought for the customer can create a feeling of regret. Preventing them from becoming a return customer.

Spending time with your customer, building rapport and helping them solve a solution sets the foundation for continued communication. Make the most of it. Checking in with your customer to make sure they are happy goes a long way to solving issues before they get too big.

Let your customers know that they are important to you and that they care.

Final thoughts

Bad salespeople create regret in many ways, and as a business developer it’s important to be aware of these tactics so as not to emulate them. It really comes down to service. Treating your customers with respect, understanding your product and industry while avoiding unnecessary upselling and bully tactics helps you avoid this. As such you can raise the probability of a customer coming back to you again and again.

Remember, a business developer is not a salesperson. Business development should be built on strong relationships and even stronger customer service.

Can you answer the question: How do you provide good service to your customers?

Bad salesperson

If you want a proactive approach to upskill your work winning check out my flagship course Business Development Academy. Set over 4 modules and 10 videos this course leads you through the business development process step by step. Giving you the skills, system and processes to be more purposeful in the market place. To learn more click the button below.

Business Development Academy

Business Development such a Challenge

Are looking to begin your Business Development journey but are not quite sure where to start? Download my guide to scaling your revenues in 10 days. This gives you 10 days of achievable action to set you on the right path.

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

For a simple yet comprehensive framework to base your business development activity around I recommend checking out my new book Business Development Begins Here. It is available to order on Amazon. Visit the link to grab your copy now.

Five Reasons You Should Start Networking Now

By Tom on June 16, 2023

At its core business development is all about relationships. Building these relationships and connecting with others in your industry is an essential part of any successful work winning strategy. To do this properly takes purposeful networking. As an entrepreneur, business developer, technical professional or a business owner, networking helps you reach new customers, find new business opportunities, and gain valuable insights into your market.

Below I explore five key reasons why you should start networking now.

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Building relationships

Networking is all about building relationships. Connecting with others in your industry, you build valuable relationships that help you achieve your business goals. These can lead to referrals, partnerships, and other business opportunities that you may not have been able to otherwise access. How else will you get to know the movers and shakers in your industry?

Expanding your network

Networking allows you to expand your ecosystem of relationships beyond your current circle of contacts. By attending events and conferences, joining professional organizations, and reaching out to new contacts, you expand your reach and connect with a wider range of people. This is especially valuable if you’re looking to enter a new market or expand your business into new areas.

Get those light bulb moments by networking both inside and outside your industry

Gaining insights and knowledge

Regularly connecting with others helps you gain valuable insights into your market and industry. By meeting those who have more experience or knowledge in your field, you can learn about trends, best practices, and other key information that can help you make better business decisions. These insights often come from perspectives that are not present within your own organisation, giving the information additional depth.

It can also be valuable to network outside of your normal industry. For example, leadership and management groups can give amazing insights into multiple industries. Finding insights from other perspectives can yield real gold.

Uncovering new opportunities

Networking opens up new doors and opportunities for your business. Linking with others, often provides information about new business ventures, partnerships, or other opportunities that you may not have been aware of otherwise. These opportunities can help you grow your business faster and give you an edge on the competition who are not seeking these out.

Building your personal brand

Purposeful networking also helps build your brand and reputation within your industry. Proactively connecting with others and building relationships, lets you establish yourself as a thought leader and expert in your field. This helps you gain credibility, attracting new customers and clients. It also allows you to access influencers and other high level stakeholders in your industry sector.

Final thoughts

Having go this far it should be obvious that networking is an essential part of business development. By building relationships, expanding your network, gaining insights and knowledge, finding new opportunities, and building your personal brand, you can achieve your business goals more effectively. Why not make networking a priority in your business development strategy and watch it help you grow and succeed.

What are you waiting for? Start networking now!

Start networking now

Are looking to begin your Business Development journey but are not quite sure where to start? Download my quick start guide to business development. This gives a series of simple activities to quickly set you on the right path.

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

If you want a more proactive and personal approach to your business development I am available to help. My personalized coaching program is designed to give you the skills to achieve work winning success. I’ll help you be purposeful in your customer interactions and hold you accountable to taking action. To learn more click the button below.

Business Development Coaching

Why Removing Customers is Great for Business

By Tom on May 26, 2023

Focusing on retaining and searching for existing and new customers is an essential part of business development. But what about removing customers? Does that make good business sense?

I would argue that yes, it does.

Divesting customers may seem counterintuitive at first glance. After all, the goal of any business is to acquire and retain as many customers as possible, right? Not exactly. In some cases, divesting certain customers can actually be a smart business move that can benefit a company in numerous ways. Below I discuss three reasons why divesting some customers is a good thing before giving some tips on how to work out who to divest and how to divest them.

Get started with business development: Grab Your Guide here

Improving Profitability

One of the primary benefits of divesting certain customers is improved profitability. Not all customers are created equal, and some are more expensive to serve than others. For example, customers with high maintenance requirements, low lifetime value, or difficult payment histories can all consume significant resources, significantly eroding profitability.

By divesting these types of customers, a company can free up resources to focus on more profitable customers, increase efficiency, and boosting overall profitability.

Increasing Focus

Another benefit of divesting customers is that it can help a company to focus more closely on its core market. When a company has too many customers, its resources become spread thin, struggling to meet the needs of each individual customer. By divesting less profitable or less desirable customers, a company can focus on building stronger relationships with its core target market. Resulting in increased customer loyalty, and improved customer satisfaction.

Better Alignment with Company Goals

Finally, divesting less desirable customers helps a company to better align its business with its core goals and values. Not all customers are a good fit for a company, and retaining customers that are not aligned with a company’s values or goals can create conflicts, erode morale, and negatively impact company culture. By divesting these customers, a company can remain true to its core values and goals, while maintaining a positive, productive work environment.

How to Divest

By now I hope you should see the benefits of divesting part of your customer base. But how do you determine who should go?

Your first point of call should be your customer matrix. Ideally you will have set up a matrix benchmarking your customers against the attributes of your “Ideal Customer”. This visual representation of your customer base will highlight those closest to the ideal and those furthest away. Looking at the latter group really think about why you would want to continue working for them. If you cant think of a good reason: divest.

Cutting out customers can be good for business

Additionally, develop a list of three traits that make working with you and your business untenable. These could include:

Never pay on time
Expect you to drop everything for them
Rude
Always trying to push down price

Then divest.

This can be as simple as no longer tendering on projects for that particular customer. But if you have a long history with that particular client a short phone call explaining their behaviour and its impact on your decision to no longer work with them may be appropriate.

Final thoughts

Divesting certain customers can be a smart business move that improves profitability, increases focus, and better aligns a company with its core goals and values. Seemingly counterintuitive at first, divesting some customers can help a company to be more successful in the long run. It also allows the business developers to focus on those customers where you can add the most value and get the best returns.

Feedback

Are you looking to begin your Business Development journey but are not quite sure where to start? Download my quick start guide to business development. This gives a series of simple activities to quickly set you on the right path in only 10 days.

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

Removing Cusotmers

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Why the Best Graduates Practice Business Development

By Tom on April 7, 2023

As a graduate, practicing business development is an excellent way to jumpstart your career and set yourself apart from your peers. Whether an account, auditor, engineer or environmental scientist, learning to interact with your market and customers at the beginning of your career is gold.

First and foremost, business development is an essential aspect of any company’s success. It involves identifying new business opportunities and developing strategies to acquire new clients and expand existing relationships. As a graduate consultant with a business development focus, you make opportunities to work closely with senior leaders and customers whilst having a direct impact on the growth and success of the organization.

Additionally, business development is a versatile skill that applies to many different industries and roles. Whether you’re interested in consulting, finance, technology, or healthcare, being able to identify and pursue new business opportunities will be valuable in any field.

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Why would a graduate want to practice business development?

Practicing business development as a graduate consultant allows you to gain a wide range of skills and experience. You will learn to identify new business opportunities, develop sales and marketing strategies, and negotiate deals. These skills are not only valuable in a business development role, but also in future leadership and management positions.

Furthermore, focusing on business development, gives you the opportunity to network with a wide range of people and organizations. This can open doors to new job opportunities and help establish yourself early as a thought leader in your industry.

Overall, practicing business development as a graduate consultant can be a smart career move. Not only will you have a direct impact on the success of the organization, but you’ll also gain valuable skills and experience that can be applied to many different roles and industries. It also provides a great opportunity to network and open doors to new job opportunities.

An example from my career

As a graduate hydrogeologist in London I never really practiced business development but kept in touch with my Masters cohort from university. I was at the pub one evening with one of these fellow graduates who had brought some friends. One of these worked for a large oil company and we inevitably started talking shop.

It turned out that they were looking for a company to assist them in remediation. It sounded exciting. we exchanged details and the conversation drifted to other topics.

Next morning I went to see my boss, explained the situation and we followed up with the company. This short chat with a fellow graduate turned into a multi million dollar remediation job.

Imagine what else I could have uncovered if I had been more purposeful in my approach.

Networking with other graduates can really boost your business development skills

How does a graduate practice business development

I recognize that as a graduate with limited work experience practicing business development can be tough. However, there a number of things you can do to build your skill and network that will set you up well for the future.

Find other graduates to network with

One of the easiest ways to begin your business development journey is to begin networking with other graduates. Find graduates in your company, customer organizations and wider industry. Reach out and grab a quick coffee with the aim of comparing notes on the industry.

These meetings should be relationship building in nature. Be curious, have a learning mindset and share knowledge. You are creating the foundations of a network that will add real value to your career, treat it with care.

Engage industry mentors

Completing a quick assessment of the main players in your industry will uncover a number of professionals who may be a good fit as a mentor. Experienced professionals are often pleased to be able to pass on their knowledge to keen up and comers.

Again, entering these conversations with a learning mindset will set you in good stead. Using these opportunities to learn about the industry, customers and how things really work will yield gold.

Network at Industry functions

Attending industry functions and networking is an opportunity that surprisingly few people take. Getting into this habit early gives a significant step ahead of your peer group. Meeting the movers and shakers of your industry on a regular basis gets you known. Providing opportunities to both win business and open up future career paths.

Finding mentors and engaging with industry events will begin gaining you a reputation outside of your immediate workplace

Be purposeful and plan

While there is lots of opportunity for the graduate business developer, it’s easy to get carried away. Chasing every shiny thing results in fatigue and potential disillusionment. Be purposeful and plan accordingly.

Making sure that the people you are contacting are a good fit and relevant to your current and future work aspirations.

Going into meetings with a mindset of “what can I get” is a recipe for disaster. Instead try to learn as much as you can, build rapport and explore ways that you might be able to help the other person. Remember, you are setting up a business development network for the long term, not for immediate results.

Finally, as you learn interesting information or uncover opportunities make sure to pass them on to your leadership. You never know, you might be instrumental in winning the next big job!

Graduate Business Development

As we know, you are not born with business development skills. They must be learned. What better place to start than by downloading my fast business development guide below. This gives a list of actions and activities to set you on the right path right now.

If you’re asking what is business development? My definition can be found here.

If you are enjoying my free conent and want to get more in depth I would ask you to consider buying a copy of my new book Business Development Begins Here. It is available to order on Amazon. Visit the link to reserve your copy now.

Coaching

If you want a more proactive and personal approach to your work winning I am available to help. Through one on on discussions I’ll set you on the right path and keep you accountable to future activity. I currently have space available on my 1on1 personalized coaching program. To learn more click the button below.

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What KPIs are Best for Business Development

By Tom on March 24, 2023

What are KPIs for business development

KPIs are metrics used to track performance of a business against their annual goals. Choosing KPIs that are most relevant to your industry and business purpose is essential. Focusing on the wrong ones can be catastrophic for your company.

In this post I explain what a KPI is and which ones to use for tracking your business development. I like to keep things simple. So I’ll be recommending KPIs that are relevant and easy to measure.

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What is a KPI in simple terms?

What is a KPI? KPI stands for key performance indicator, a quantifiable measure of performance over time for a specific business objective. They provide targets for teams to aim towards, milestones to monitor progress, and insights that help leaders across the organization make better decisions.

KPIs used to form a dashboard to get a snapshot of progress

Which KPI is most relevant for business development

As discussed in my previous post you need to measure both leading and lagging indicators. The leading indicators are those that predict future performance. Whilst the lagging indicators show your past performance.

Really you should be measuring both.

Leading indicators include volume of quotes/proposals, number of meetings, number of prospecting emails etc. While lagging indicators might include, revenue, profitability or number of units sold.

How to use your KPIs

At the beginning of my business development journey I had the bright idea of developing a score card for our business unit. I got the operations manager on board and was asked to develop it with the financial controller. What I was hoping for was an easy to view dashboard to give a snapshot of our performance. However, the controller persuaded me to have a dashboard with at least 12 graphs.

What we created was a huge print out that was difficult to interpret, a hassle to update every month and of absolutely no value to anyone.

We learn from our mistakes, right.

An example of easy to use and interpret KPIs

Your KPIs need to be easy to use. Period. Updating progress should take no more than 10 minutes. Easily interpretable trends are essential. Granularity of data is not needed. Trends that tell whether you are succeeding or not are all you need.

Take 1 or 2 leading and lagging indicators and start plotting them on a monthly basis. I personally focus on monthly revenue and monthly quoting volumes to let my team know that I’m keeping my sales funnel full and that opportunities are converting into dollars.

Start measuring your success

If you are not measuring your success I challenge you to start doing it right now. Keep it simple. If you are already tracking progress, that’s great news. Doing a double check to make sure it is useful would be a worthwhile exercise.

Remember, how do you know you’re winning if you’re not measuring your progress.

What are KPIs for Business Development

As we know business development skills are not necessarily innate to the individual and can be learned. What better place to start than by downloading my fast business development guide below. This gives a list of actions and activities to set you on the right path right now.

If you are enjoying my free content and want to get more in depth I would ask you to consider buying a copy of my new book Business Development Begins Here. It is available to order on Amazon. Visit the link to grab your copy now.

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The Secrets of Immediate Action Work Winning

By Tom on March 10, 2023

One of the hardest parts of practicing purposeful business development is starting. So how can you start? I was asked to present on this topic at my local toastmasters group and thought it would be worth sharing my presentation here. Exploring the secrets to getting started with your business development, you’ll find it isn’t as difficult as you might think.

Using the Triple A Framework

I write about the Triple A Framework extensively in my book Business Development Begins Here. In summary it comprises Assessing your company, sales ecosystem and your place within it. Aiming your future effort in line with your company purpose. Taking daily Action to further your company purpose.

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Immediate Action Work Winning

Importantly, in getting started speed is of the essence and we will be looking at the Assess and Action phases only.

Assessing Your Customer

In an effort to hit the ground running I recommend assessing your customers first. Why? Arguably a business doesn’t exist if it has no customers. Therefore, I suggest they are the most important part of any business and should be treated as such.

Firstly, determine a profile of your ideal customer. I go through this process in more detail in this related post. Writing down the top 8-10 attributes of your ideal customer helps with this definition.

Plotting your attributes and your ideal customer profile into a matrix like the one below lets you begin benchmarking your customer base.

Input your top 10-20 existing, prospective and strategic customers and benchmark them against your ideal customer. Finally, using a simple red/green color code shows you which customers to prioritize.

Meeting Your Existing Customers

The second action is deceivingly simple. Go out and meet your existing customers in order of priority. There are a few reasons for this:

They know you already and are more likely to meet
Great source of feedback on your service (both good and bad)
Potential to get some great product/service stories to use in future conversations
Opportunity to get some early wins

Setting the meeting agenda around getting feedback and keeping a curious mindset keeps the meeting out of sales territory, making it more relaxed for both parties.

The Challenge

If you are serious about getting your business development started I have the challenge for you.

Over the next two weeks commit to meeting one existing customer every day. Ask them for feedback and learn how they do business. No sales. Make each meeting a learning conversation.

Do this and I can guarantee you will get a fantastic wealth of information about your product/service and will open up new sources of opportunities.

Immediate Action Work Winning

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

If you want a more proactive and personal approach to your business development I am available to help. Through face to face video calls I’ll set you on the right path and keep you accountable to future activity. I currently have space on my 1on1 personalized coaching program and my flagship course. I’m also available to coach your team in the practice of purposeful business development. To learn more click the button below.

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Do Not Make this Work Winning Mistake

By Tom on March 3, 2023

What is the most common mistake made by business developers? It’s simply not spending enough time undertaking work winning activity.

At best the professional concentrates on activity that doesn’t bring in revenue. At worst they sit at their desks twiddling their thumbs waiting for the phone to ring or emails to appear. The concept of the sales funnel is forgotten. Conducting daily action to uncover opportunity and keep customers engaged is a foreign concept.

How can this be?

Live Business Development Workshop: 9 March!!

A Real Example of this Work Winning Mistake

A few years ago I had a colleague who was a gun at selling. Work winning activity was a real joy. As such, he was proactive, did deep dives into his product offering and had boundless enthusiasm when it came to solving his customer problems. Catching up with him shortly after joining a new company it was really surprising to hear that he was disappointed with his new role.

Asking him what had gone wrong, he explained that the work winning process involved waiting for the phone to ring. The sales team of six simply sat a their desks and waited. No one had laid out an objective, there was no sales plan and absolutely no systematic process for reaching customers.

Waiting for the phone to ring will lead to under performance and frustration!

Instead, each salesperson hoped that their phone would ring enough times for them to meet their targets that year. Can you imagine leaving your end of year performance bonus to chance alone?

Adding insult to injury, my colleague tried to implement customer meetings, systematic sales calls, and market stakeholder discussions, meeting derision from co-workers and leadership alike.

Of course he soon left.

Why work for a company that doesn’t appreciate or promote proactivity.

Imagine what that company could do if the sales team of six people were proactively pursuing customers and opportunity. Seeing a doubling or tripling of their sales revenue is not a stretch.

Understanding the Sales Funnel

One way to avoid this inactivity is to keep the concept of the Sales Funnel front of mind. As we all know an organism can only survive if it is fed regularly. A business is no different, requiring a steady input of cash to maintain viability. It is the role of the business developer to keep a steady stream of opportunities, leads, quotes and sales flowing into the company. Of course, the best way visualize this is the concept of a Sales Funnel.

Fundamentally, the funnel comprises the stages of effort required to get a sale. Imagine this funnel with your marketing leads (digital advertising, face-to-face meetings and social media activity) pouring into the top. Only some leads will be genuinely interested in your company offering, becoming opportunities for a sale. In turn, a few of these opportunities will develop into sales bringing much needed revenue through the door.

Consequently the opportunity for revenue reduces from the top to the bottom of the funnel. See the figure below for a model of the simple Sales Funnel model.

Obviously, if the volume of leads entering the top of the funnel reduces even a little, the knock-on effect to revenue generation will be catastrophic.

Avoid the Mistake: Take Daily Activity

How to avoid this common work winning mistake? Simple. Take daily action. If business development is your core role this should be straightforward. Set aside time every day to contact your existing and prospective customers. Make sure to meet with them face to face if possible building rapport with as many as possible. This is crucial, and I explore ways to become more customer centric it in my previous blog post here.

What if business development is only part of your role? Many consultants are tasked with both winning and doing the work. Unfortunately most of their billable time is spent on the latter. More often consulting companies make it difficult for their staff to place enough focus on the business development effort. If you find yourself in this situation don’t despair. Instead, setting aside half an hour a day to contact and meet your customers really pays dividends. Keeping your hand in the market daily in this way keeps you amongst the cusotmers, receiving feedback and uncovering opportunities.

What is the Alternative to Daily Action?

No sales!!

Without taking daily action in the market the top of your sales funnel will dwindle and revenue opportunities dry up.

In addition to uncovering opportunities daily action allows you to form a strong industry wide reputation for your particular skillset. Getting out into the market reminds people what you and your company do, reinforcing your recognition. Over time customers will start seeking you out.

But never fall into the trap of waiting for the phone to ring.

Work Winning Mistake

My first live workshop lands on 9th March. If you want to kickstart your business development, I lead you through a series of activities to get you Assessing your customers, Aiming your effort by creating a Tactical Action Plan and then taking daily Action with your existing customers. Would love to see you there!

Live Business Development Workshop: 9 March!!

Business Development

Are looking to begin your Business Development journey but are not quite sure where to start? First you can learn more about how I define business development here. Then download my quick start guide to business development. This gives the go-to list of actions and activities to set you on the right path straight away.

If you are enjoying the free content I provide on this blog why not consider buying a copy of my latest book. It contains a simple yet comprehensive framework to base your business development activity around and is available to order on Amazon.

If you want a more proactive and personal approach to your business development I am available to help. Through in person meetings or face to face video calls I’ll set you on the right path and keep you accountable to future activity. I currently have space for two more participants on my 1on1 personalized coaching program. To learn more click the button below.

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Five Ways to Quickly Improve Your Business Development

By Tom on February 24, 2023

Entering a role where you must quickly improve your business development needs a particular approach. If the time you would usually spend assessing your market and planning your approach isn’t available don’t despair. You can still quickly improve your business development and implement a long term system at the same time. First, try negotiating some time with the leadership to allow for a proper assessment of the situation. If this is not possible, here are a few suggested actions to help you hit the ground running.

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Improve your business development

Undertaking the following five activities as a priority, while working through the triple A framework in parallel let’s you make ground fast. Implementing an adaptive feedback loop is crucial here. Information gleaned from customer discussions must be fed back into the assessing and planning loop. Future actions can then be adapted accordingly.

Think of it as a repeatable cycle. Talk to customers-learn-feedback-adjust. Repeat.

1. Develop the profile of your ideal customer

Before you do anything create a profile for your ideal customer. What are the attributes that are most important to you. Asking a series of questions like the following will help create your profile:

Which industry does the company operate within?
What size staff and annual turnover do they have?
What work do they focus on?
Are there specific products or services they need to be successful?
What sort of people work there?
Where are they located?
How much will they spend on your product or service?
Who are the decision makers around implementing your products or services?
Who controls their budgets?

Generating this profile gives you a good indication of which customers to pursue first. Taking the opportunity to adjust this following customer and stakeholder discussions is a good way to keep the profile on point.

If you are not sure where to start: “Mine the Gold you Have” and begin by profiling your current number one customer.

Generating a customer matrix lets you weigh up (prioritize) your customers

2. Create a Customer Matrix

Following the creation of your ideal customer profile sketch out a rough customer matrix. Include your top current customers and a handful of priority targets, all with a burning need for your company offering. Rate each customer against the attributes of the ideal customer profile to generate a matrix. Viewing the matrix gives clear priorities for contact and pursuit.

For more information on the creation of a customer matrix visit my post on the subject here.

3. Implement a preliminary tactical action plan

Now you have a clear understanding of your initial priorities it’s time to convert to immediate action. Identify key personnel within each priority customer, and feed them into a simple tactical action plan. Assigning each entry a due date, action and contact person to start with.

Then start making contact, email, phone, meet up. Get out into the market.

4. Meet existing customers to ask for feedback on past performance

Using the actions from your preliminary tactical action plan is a great way to quickly improve your business development. However, your number one priority is to meet your top existing customers. Email them straight away asking if you can meet and get some feedback. Getting honest feedback on why they buy from you, what works, and what doesn’t should be an immediate priority. Of course, make sure to loop this information back into the assess phase of the triple A framework and to the relevant internal stakeholders within your business.

Maintain discipline around the systematic sales path

5. Implement the systematic sales path

Start as you mean to continue and align your activity to the “Systematic Sales Path”. Discipline around this now will make things much easier as you become busier. It allows each lead and opportunity to have the best chance of success and prevents any being missed. In addition be disciplined in keeping the tactical action plan updated and live.

My Live Revenue Growth Workshop Goes Live: 9th March

Constantly Adapt to Win

Finally accept the fact that you are going to have to continually adapt and refine your tactical action plan, at least in the beginning. As you work through the triple A framework (in parallel with your immediate actions), keep your findings and output from both the framework and your meetings feeding into your assessment, planning and future action.

While the above actions let you hit the ground running, make sure to spend time on the assessing your company and sales ecosystem and aiming your future effort in line with the triple A framework stages to keep up with long-term direction and focus. Combining the short term immediate actions with the longer term work will really set you up for future success.

If you do find yourself dropped into a position where immediate business development success is crucial consider using the above to really start making impact.

Business Development Success

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

If you want a more proactive and personal approach to your business development I am available to help. Through face to face video calls I’ll set you on the right path and keep you accountable to future activity. I currently have space on my 1on1 personalized coaching and advisory program. To learn more click the button below.

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Masterful Tracking of Strategic Opportunities

By Tom on February 3, 2023

During the business development cycle, opportunities will present themselves that are particularly large or strategic in nature. Perhaps there is potential for a significant recurring order or a first project with a key customer target. Tracking these strategic opportunities separately is critical. Their importance merits additional effort.

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strategic opportunities

I refer to these as must-win opportunities. Highlighting their significance to the objectives and purpose of your organization. Each company defines must-win in a different way, but the classification could include:

High revenue potential
Long-term revenue potential
New strategic customer onboarding
Industry reputation enhancement
New service/product showcase opportunity

I’m a very visual person and find it useful to be able to see how these larger opportunities are progressing. Below I show you how to set up a tool that can keep you tracking your strategic opportunities quickly and easily.

Setting Up Your Matrix

To start, create the following matrix (see below). Drawing it on a large whiteboard makes this easy to update. However, creating it digitally can also work, especially if you’re sharing it with remote teams.

This simple matrix comprises timeframe on the horizontal. Representing the time in which the opportunity will be awarded by the client, the length of your sales cycle will determine the timeframes used. Though typically your must-wins are those with a longer sales cycle than your regular opportunities.

The likelihood of winning the opportunity makes up the vertical axis and is divided into three stages of probability. As a guide, I use:

Hi

Engaged; strong customer relationship;
Detailed project discussions completed;
Aligned proposal submitted;
Strong probability of a win.

Med

Good customer relationship;
Limited project discussions;
Proposal likely to be requested;
More work to do.

Low

Little to no customer relationship;
No discussions to date;
Proposal unlikely to be requested at this time;
Relationship building and positioning required.

Regularly talking to your team about Must-Win Opportunities keeps them on your radar.

Populating With Strategic Opportunities

Populating the matrix with your strategic opportunities (must-wins) means making sure it is large enough to house them. Mine sits on my office wall on a one-meter board. While it is nothing fancy, it allows me to easily move the must-wins between squares as new information comes to light.

Using Post-It notes to represent the opportunities makes for an easy system to use. Having just enough information so that the user can quickly discern what they are key. As an example, my must-wins contain the following:

Project Name
Customer Name
Product/Service Required
Likely Date of Award

This is enough information to cross-reference with your tactical action plan, where specific actions with key personnel and stakeholders should be captured. Next, it’s time to place it the opportunity on the matrix.

Check the timeframe and likelihood of winning to place the opportunity appropriately. The matrix needs to be user-friendly. Therefore, don’t overpopulate or create a huge sea of notes. Only include those of most significance.

Using the Must-Win Matrix

A successful business developer needs to be strategic. Having long-term visibility of strategic opportunities really supports this. To really work, the visibility needs to be convert to action. The goal of the matrix is to be able to move must-wins from a low to a high likelihood of success. A quick look at the matrix highlights which companies to talk to about which projects, and these actions should be placed into the tactical action plan under high priority and with appropriate due dates.

Much like the tactical action plan, the matrix must be living, which means it needs to be regularly and accurately updated to reflect the real-world situation. Opportunities should be moved as soon as information gleaned from customers and stakeholders is heard.

Good practice involves taking ten minutes a week to survey the matrix with your team to discuss any new information, make changes, and allocate actions to the tactical action plan.

I challenge you to set up a Must-Win Matrix and see the difference it makes to your strategic opportunities.

Strategic opportunities

If you need want to start scaling your revenue through purposeful business development download my free guide. With ten days of action my guide will get you up and running right now.

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Strategic opportunities

For a deeper dive into business development and advice on setting up a purposeful and consistent system I recommend checking out my new book Business Development Begins Here. It is available to order on Amazon. It describes the triple A framework and will get you assessing your purpose, company, customers, competitors and place in the market. Aiming your effort in line with your purpose. Before taking daily action in engaging your customers and pursuing opportunities.

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How to Measure Business Development Success

By Tom on January 6, 2023

First off, Happy New Year! I hope 2023 is a year filled with success for you all.

Before you start planning your work winning goals defining how you will measure your business development success is crucial. Monitoring the opportunities entering the top of your sales funnel and the revenue falling out the bottom allows you to understand the impacts of your activity. Understanding the story behind these trends is key. For example falling quoting numbers will have a serious impact on your revenue, must be identified immediately for mitigation action to be emplaced.

If you are not measuring and tracking your progress how can you know what is going well and what is not?

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business development success

In this post I look at both leading and lagging indicators and show their importance when measuring your performance. I’ll also give a quick and dirty method for setting up your own business development targets.

Use leading indicators to look into the future.

Look to the Future with Leading Indicators

A leading indicator is one that forecasts the future-expected revenue. It really represents the effort being placed into filling the sales funnel. There are many different metrics that can be measured. Number of meetings, calls, quotes, created leads/opportunities, new accounts, and won opportunities are all viable options. However, tracking and reporting the numbers on all of these produces too much work.

I have found that the simplest leading indicator to track is the dollar value of the opportunities issued that month. This wraps all the activity into an easily translatable number. If the business developer is implementing the plan successfully, the opportunity value should be high. On the other hand if it’s low, questions need to be asked to understand why. Has activity dropped? Or are we seeing changes in the market?

Measuring anything requires a benchmark to compare it against. Consequently what should the opportunity value be compared against? Of course, each industry is different. But a useful rule of thumb that has treated me well over the years is 3X your monthly sales budget. Knowing the market and having an offering that is appealing, a three-times quoting value should yield the results you need. Alternatively, looking at past opportunities and revenue will provide a good indication of the required target opportunity value.

Revenue is a good example of a lagging indicator

Analyze the Past with Lagging Indicators

Lagging indicators show past performance. These include won and lost opportunities and won and lost revenue. Again, monitoring all of these is really impractical.

For a simple trend that shows how the business development is performing, tracking revenue month by month is all you need. Splitting the revenue for finer detail can be beneficial. It is my opinion, however, that this has the tendency to devour time that could be better spent developing relationships and pursuing opportunities.

How Do You Measure Business Development

The business development metrics you must track are:

Sales Revenue—Monthly Sales—revenue made that month, the primary lagging indicator.
Quote volume—total dollar value of opportunities this month, leading indicator giving a signal of future revenue success.
YTD Sales—cumulative monthly revenue allowing progress against the year’s sales budget.
YTD Budget—cumulative month-by-month sales targets by which your revenue is measured.

Using the KISS principal—keep it simple, stupid— makes reading your progress easy. For example I’ve included a sample graph below. As you can see, this is uncluttered and easy to interpret.

Ultimately this snapshot acts as a simple dashboard showing the health of the business development function. Simply scanning these trends prompts further interrogation. For example, a dip in quoting would require justification and redemptive action. While a spike in revenue would require an explanation on what worked well. A business developer must know how they are performing and understand the story behind the numbers they are tracking. These examples are the perfect place to start.

Use this planning hierarchy to help determine your goals

Measure Your Business Development Success

How will you measure your business development success? As Stephen Covey states: “Begin with the end in mind”. Using the planning hierarchy above begin by defining your goal. Perhaps you want to achieve $1M in revenue this year. Next you need to determine the typical project size you are likely to achieve on a regular basis. How many typical projects will you need to achieve that goal?

Taking the premise that quoting volume should be 3X your goal work out your quoting measurable. Perhaps this is a revenue number. Alternatively it could be 3X the number of typical projects. Either way it is easy to measure. Dividing the annual numbers by 12 gives your leading and lagging indicators on a monthly cadence.

Simple. What’s stopping you calculating yours?

Business development success

Are looking to begin your Business Development journey but are not quite sure where to start? Download my quick start guide to business development. This gives the go-to list of actions and activities to quickly set you on the right path.

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Three Secrets the A-Team Taught Me About Business Development Planning

By Tom on December 16, 2022

A bit of a fun post this week on the lead up to Christmas and a big nostalgia trip for me too. The hit 80’s TV show the A-Team and business development planning, how does that fit? Let me explain.

As a child of the 80’s I was a mad fan of the A-Team. The action, chases, and do-good adventures were a real thrill. I couldn’t wait to see the next crazy instalment of Hannibal, BA, Face and Murdoch’s escapades. Recently I went on a massive nostalgia trip and treated myself to a couple of boxed sets. Sitting down with my kids I was a little worried that the series may not have aged well. I needn’t have worried, this team of well intentioned mercenaries still delivered the goods. My kids and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

For those of you who don’t know the shows premise let me explain. The A-team were a crack commando squad framed for a crime they didn’t commit. They now work as guns-for-hire in the Los Angeles underground, protecting the downtrodden. The writers knmew what they were doing and the episodes generally followed a similar formula:

Bad guys bullying someone
A-Team hired in an unconventional way
Hannibal (the leader) makes a plan
The plan is ruined and the team suffer a setback
The bad guys get their butts kicked
Hannibal claims that it was his plan all along.

The A-Team racing to foil some bad guys!

How does this tie in with business development? Planning! Funnily enough the A-Team planning cycle mirrors that of my business development triple A framework: assess, aim & action.

Get Started in Business Development: Get Your Guide

“I Have a Plan”

Once the A-Team are hired they go about assessing their situation. Exploring the neighborhood and the stakeholders that live in it is a crucial part of the process. Additionally their customers problem is investigated in more detail. Finally on of the team will scope out the competition and report back.

This neatly mirrors business development. You must assess the market, stakeholders, customers and competitors before you can proceed with planning your future effort.

Once Hannibal has a handle on all these things he lights his cigar and states, “I can feel a plan coming on”.

One thing the A-Team did well was complete the assess phase quickly. Of course this is television and laboring over this could get boring fast. But there is a grain of truth here. Getting bogged down in over-planning can lead to inaction and a lot of work with limited return.

Instead you need to test your plan quickly by going out into the market, talking to stakeholders and customers and learning from them. You will get much more value out these conversations than sitting in front of the computer planning.

This is what the A-Team do next.

Importance of Feedback

Hannibal inevitably leads the team into their first foray against the enemy. Resulting in everything going wrong. The bad guys seemingly get the upper hand. With a dispirited team on hand Hannibal smiles secretively and acts as if everything is going just the way he wanted.

What has Hannibal actually done. He’s used the triple A framework by assessing his situation, aiming his effort (making a plan) and taking action (testing his plan). The feedback gleaned from taking action allows for adjustment and follow up.

This approach works well in the business development setting too. Taking action by talking to existing and prospective customers and testing your assumptions on how they operate. Asking questions and listening to the answers prepares you to pivot. Remember:

“No plan survives first contact with the enemy”.

You must listen, adapt and act on the feedback you receive.

Business development planning done right!

“I Love it When a Plan Comes Together”

Back to the A-Team. Based on the knowledge gained from their earlier encounters the team enact their final plan, usually with some crazy innovation built from left over scrap. The bad guys are soundly beaten and good prevails. Hannibal then proclaims “I Love it When a Plan Comes Together!”

Listening to the feedback gleaned from client meetings and market intelligence is good. Making meaningful change based on the information is better. Most importantly taking what you’ve learned and making small adjustments to your plan will keep you relevant and current with your customers.

Next Action

When you are thinking about your business development planning remember the A-Team. Assess your situation, aim your effort through a preliminary plan and take action. Feeding back information learned while taking action is critical. Consequently looping this back into the assess and aim phases allows you to adjust as needed. This will keep you relevant with your customer base and makes sure that you don’t get disrupted by changes in the market. Remember if you’re stuck, ask yourself:

What would the A-Team do?

Business development planning

Are looking to begin your Business Development journey but are not quite sure where to start? Download my business development guide below. This gives a list of actions and activities to set you on the right path.

For a comprehensive and practical framework to base your business development activity around I recommend checking out my new book Business Development Begins Here. It is available to order on Amazon. Visit the link to reserve your copy now.

Coaching

Three Reasons to Consider Business Development as Billable Hours?

By Tom on November 25, 2022

During my time as an environmental consultant the key business driver was billable hours. This is true in many professional services companies. Failing to meet the minimum number of billable hours results in scrutiny from the leadership team. Consequently consultants always prioritize billable hours.

Scale Revenue Without Doing Sales: Get Your Guide

Business development should be considered billable hours.

This results in business development activity being treated as a nice to have, rather than an essential part of the working day. Until companies value non-billable time on business development activities work winning will always suffer at the expense of chargeable work. This results in the classic feast and famine cycle experienced by most consultants. Everyone is too busy to do BD work until the work dries up. Panic sets in and there is a mad scramble for work. Until everyone is too busy again and the cycle repeats itself.

In this post I explore the dangers of working this way and a couple of things to consider to avoid the dangers of feast and famine in the future.

Dangers of focussing too heavily on billable hours

The Dangers of a Billable Hour Only Focus

Unwittingly working with a feast or famine model is extremely detrimental to your work winning effort. Instead of developing a consistent pipeline of work you end up scrambling for opportunities only when your current workflow is running out.

No time is allocated to developing customer relationships. Who is spending time in the market uncovering future opportunities? Identifying new customers is being left to chance. There is no system, no repeatable daily activity and no plan.

Consequently, when you are hunting for work the pressure to fill the pipeline creates an air of desperation. Nothing is more off putting to a potential customer.

Business Development Hours are Worth More Than Billable Hours

As we’ve seen above a feast or famine mindset really stifles a consultancy’s growth. The unending focus on billable hours prevents the business development activity from reaching any level of momentum. Arguably hours spent on winning work are much more valuable than billable hours.

What other activity creates a stable pipeline of projects and business? How else can you strategically identify and pursue new customers and activities? Who else is going to be developing long lasting trust based relationships with your customers? Your competitors, that’s who!

Growth and stability do not happen on their own.

Be sure to allocate enough time to your business development efforts

Allocate Enough Business Development Hours

Placing value on the business development function of your business is crucial. Not just when you need it but consistently and systematically. Either allocate enough time to staff members who show an aptitude for the discipline. Or better yet hire a strategic business developer who can create the links between the market, customers and business.

Don’t just allocate the business development responsibility to the most senior staff members. My experience has shown me that many high end engineers and scientists are not interested. Empower staff who want to be out there bringing the work in and give them the tools to succeed.

Next Action

If you want to give your team the tools they need to create consistency and repeatability in their work winning, I can help. For a simple framework to base your business development activity around I recommend checking out my new book Business Development Begins Here. You can order it from Amazon by clicking the pic below.

If you are looking to get your business development processes squared away right now, download my free BD checklist below. This gives you the actions needed to create a system around your work winning, turning it into repeatable action and results.

Business Development Coaching

9 Winning Elements of a Business Development Action Plan

By Tom on October 28, 2022

Keeping a high level of activity is one of the hardest aspects of business development. Additionally, this effort must remain aligned with the strategy and intent of the company you represent. As a business developer the responsibility for the level of activity is on you. Maintaining systematic effort is where the third plan of the three plans, the tactical action plan (or business development action plan), proves invaluable.

MORE +

Three Simple Tips for Adding Value to Customer Meetings

By Tom on September 9, 2022

I remember going to my first customer meeting as a business developer. It was terrifying. I didn’t know the prospect and the thought of meeting someone new and trying to develop a business relationship seemed an alien concept. But I reminded myself that they had agreed to meet because they were interested in the hydrogeology services that my company offered. I also had the mining experience that they desperately needed.

Once we’d sat down with a coffee I didn’t feel comfortable going on a rant about our services. I think perhaps my innate shyness got the better of me. I’m glad it did. Instead I asked about the customer about them. Their situation. Their problems. To my surprise they opened up. The conversation explored their needs and I could respond by explaining a deeper knowledge of the problem and how we could assist.

I left that meeting feeling like I had really added value. It felt great. From then on I kept adding more and more business development responsibility to my role.

Knowing how to behave and looking for ways to add value in you customer meetings and other interactions is a core part of being a business developer. In this post I’m going to describe a good and bad experience I’ve had before detailing three tips to add more value to your customer meetings.

A Bad Customer Meeting

Picture this—a business development manager from a large project tracking software company reached out to me via LinkedIn and asked to meet. The product he was selling would add benefit to the role I was in, so I was interested in learning more. He suggested meeting in a coffee shop near where I was working.

Firstly, he was ten minutes late, not a good start. Second, he didn’t offer to buy me a coffee; instead, he launched directly into his pitch. I had to stop him and go and buy my own coffee, politely offering to get him one also. I had to sit and be talked at for 20 minutes. To be honest, his product could have held the answers to all my project tracking needs, but I was no longer interested in listening to what he had to say. I drank my coffee as fast as I could before closing the meeting down.

A Good Customer Meeting

A better example was a business coach who I met through a board I was serving on. He was early. We grabbed a coffee, and he asked me about my leadership journey and any issues I was facing. After he learned about the problems I was tackling, he proceeded to explain how he could guide me through these challenges and what success might look like. I left the meeting feeling that I had learned something and, importantly, that I wanted to learn more. Needless to say, I became Greg’s customer for many years.

Tip 1: Listen Listen Listen

To get the most out of a customer meeting set yourself the goal of learning as much as possible about your customers situation. Stephen Covey’s Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood could not be more aligned to my message. Listen to your customer. Ask pertinent questions and understand the context around their issue. Only once you’ve understood them can you begin to start solving their problems.

Tip 2: Be the Guide, Not the Hero

In my bad example above I mention how I was talked at. The sales rep couldn’t wait to tell me about all the features and advantages of their software. They were the hero of their own story. Donald Millers’ Story Brand really encapsulates the idea that a company should act as a guide to their customers. Helping them to become the hero. By extension, the business developer should be the physical representation of that guide, leading the customer on the hero’s journey. Again, ask pertinent questions, listen, and advise. Don’t talk about yourself and how great your company is. Make the customer the centre of the conversation and react to that.

Once you understand their needs explain what their life will be like if they utilise your solution. Perhaps their productivity or their staff retention will improve. Whatever it is, don’t explain the process but describe how your customer will be the hero if they implement.

Always follow up after your customer meetings

Tip 3: Follow Up

Updating the tactical action plan after each customer meeting is essential. Adding a brief one-line summary is enough. Update the date for the next meeting in line with your predetermined priority cadence or based on the needs of the opportunity. Any immediate actions should be moved on to your daily task list.

Be sure to follow up the customer with any actions from the meeting itself as soon as you can. This shows them that you value them, while also striking while the iron is hot.

Finally, any interesting information about the state of the market or customer direction should be noted and fed back to the wider team.

Customer Meeting Action

That wraps up the three tips to add value to your customer meetings. My challenge for you is to think about incorporating Listen, Hero, & Follow up in to your future meetings.

As normal I’m ken to hear your thoughts. Drop a comment below or reach out through the normal channels.

Business development

Are looking to begin your Business Development journey but are not quite sure where to start? Download my business development checklist below. This gives a list of actions and activities to get you on the right path.

For a simple framework to base your business development activity around I recommend checking out my new book Business Development Begins Here. It has just gone on Pre-Order on Amazon. Visit the link to reserve your copy now.

If you want a more proactive and personal approach to your business development I am available to help. Through face to face video calls I’ll set you on the right path and keep you accountable to future activity. I currently have space on my 13-week 1on1 personalized coaching program. To learn more click the button below.

Business Development Coaching

How to Implement Simple Lead Qualification

By Tom on August 5, 2022

Implementing a simple yet robust lead qualification process saves you significant time and money. When done correctly it siphons out those leads that are not worth pursuing. Focus is placed on leads that are likely to yield revenue. As such it is an integral part of the Systematic Sales Path. Ideally it involves a fast assessment of leads to determine their worth as an opportunity.

Some Examples of Lead Qualification

Back in the day I worked for a large national engineering company. We had a very robust qualification process that consisted of a go/no-go meeting. The process demanded the meeting comprise at least four high-level personnel, plus the bid/project manager. Consequently, a large amount of money had been burned before a decision had been made.

In their defence they were pursuing $100,000+ opportunities. However, on smaller prospects, the profit had evaporated from the project before it had been won. Their go/no-go form, however, was exceptional and I will be using it as a basis for the checklist below.

Donald Miller’s Business Made Simple company has a whole team dedicated to qualifying leads, both digital and phone calls as they come in. Therefore, only qualified leads are passed to their sales team allowing them to focus on customers who have the strongest revenue potential.

Our Simple Lead Qualification Checklist

In our case, we are assuming that the business developer is either alone or part of a small team. A dedicated team of qualifiers is, unfortunately, not part of the picture. Therefore, the qualification process should be fast, intuitive, and easy to use. It should be simple enough to check off mentally if required.

I’ve adapted the go/no-go form from my previous job into a series of quick questions that can act as a simple checklist.

– Is this a business-as-usual request?
– Can the lead afford our offering?
– Is the lead outside of our regular deal value?
– Does the lead play to the strengths of our offering?
– Will we require additional resources to win this lead?
– Is this an existing customer?
– Is the customer a good fit?
– Does the lead come with an added level of risk?

Simple Lead Qualification Checklist

The answers to these questions should provide clear guidance as to whether you should progress the lead into the pursuit stage. I’ll be looking at the pursuit stage in more detail in an upcoming post.

Develop your lead qualification checklist

Checklist Questions

Now we have a simple checklist to work with, let’s look at each question in more detail. Each has an associated question or trigger.

Is this a business-as-usual request?

Is the lead related to our business-as-usual activities? If yes, change the lead to an opportunity and pursue. If no, can we deliver on the opportunity?

Can the lead afford our offering?

If no, disqualify the lead.

Is the lead outside our regular deal value?

A lead with larger than normal revenue may prove difficult to deliver. Proceed only after further discussions with the wider team to make sure delivery is achievable. On the other hand, leads with revenues that are too small may not be commercially viable.

Does the lead play to the strengths of our offering?

If the lead does align with the offering strengths, then change to an opportunity. Otherwise additional assessment will be required to determine alignment with the strategy.

Keep your questions relevant to your business

Will we require additional resources to win this lead?

Do we have those resources available? If no, then do not qualify. A half-baked proposal can do significant damage to the company’s reputation. It is better to send nothing at all than to send something substandard.

Is this an existing customer?

Remember the Ansoff Matrix? It’s always better to sell to existing customers who already know your offering and can be more supportive if you are trying something new.

Is the customer a good fit?

This is one of the most important questions. Does the customer fit within the preferred customer profile? Do their values align with your own? If yes, qualify. If no, do not qualify.

Does the opportunity come with an added level of risk?

Consider, for example, any reputational, financial, or safety risks associated with the opportunity. Risks take many forms and need to be carefully considered. If high risk looks likely, initiate a discussion with the leadership team. Importantly, mitigating the high level risks is e for the lead to be qualified.

Which qualifying questions will you add to your list?

Your Lead Qualification Checklist

Of course, the qualification checklist will be different for each company. Therefore, you should consider what is important for your particular circumstances and adjust accordingly. It is even possible to incorporate the company values into the qualification checklist. For example, I’ve seen this done really well with a question like: Is the opportunity based within the tobacco, whaling, or nuclear industry? If yes, do not qualify. This is a clear message that this organization does not support projects within those industries.

Are there any non-negotiables that you can incorporate into your own version?

As always I’m keen to hear how you have used lead qualification in your business. What processes have worked well for you and your team. Leave a comment below or drop me a line on LinkedIn.

If you need help with your business development, spaces are available on my personalised coaching program. This a one on one service will let us do a deep dive into your business development planning, market assessment and daily activity. I’ll personally keep you focused and accountable.

If you want to kickstart your business development journey download my free BD Checklist below. This will keep you focused on the important things letting you be more effective with your time and effort.

Simple LinkedIn Marketing in Three Easy Stages (part 3)

By Tom on July 29, 2022

Welcome to my third post discussing a simple LinkedIn marketing system. The last two posts explored Profile and Propagate, if you haven’t read them yet I suggest having a quick look before reading further. Now it’s time to look at promoting your business on the platform.

Promote: the Third P of LinkedIn Marketing

Each time someone connects with you or views your profile it can be considered a touch point for your brand. Developing your burgeoning network and providing further touch points around your brand and company offering, is an efficient way to begin sourcing leads. You can do this in two simple ways by:

engaging with accepted connections
posting value-add material.

Systematically engage with your connections

Engaging with Connections

If someone accepts your invitation to connect, it indicates that they have some interest in what you have to offer. Developing a simple conversation script that generates further touch points is a quick method to uncovering leads. A simple script, where you only move down the process following a response from the contact, might look like the following:

1. Hi, Thanks for connecting, Regards, Chris.

Customer response: No problem. My pleasure.

2. How are you finding the market at the moment, keeping busy?

Customer: Pretty busy at the moment.

3. We’re pretty steady at the moment. How do you manage your contaminated land issues?

Customer response: We manage it well at the moment, but could do with some extra field staff.

4. If you need any advice on contaminated land investigations, feel free to give me a call.

Making the messages short keeps things to the point and incites a reply. No one wants to read long boring messages on the platform. While each response is tailored to each of the Lead’s reactions, a simple script like this can maintain consistent messaging and speed up interaction times.

Regularly posting content helps generate interest in your brand

Posting Value-Add Content

Regular posting on LinkedIn for your target audience is another simple way to keep your company offering front of mind. These posts should not be sales focused but rather adding value through teaching, providing new information or looking at things from a different perspective. Use this opportunity to cement your position as a specialist within the industry or niche.

Relevant posts centred on your offering form valuable touch points that get your customer base thinking about what you do and not what you sell. This is a small but significant difference in gaining the trust of the buyer. Consistently posting two posts a week is enough to start gaining traction and leads. Don’t forget that results won’t happen overnight, consistent action is a must to achieving growth.

Donald Millers StoryBrand can really help with your messaging

Messaging

If you are not sure how to message your offering appropriately, I’d advise reading Donald Miller’s book, Building a Story Brand (Miller 2018), and following his methodology to define your customer, cementing yourself as a guide and mentor around the problem you are helping them solve.

Reading the book and completing the Story Brand Script will set you in the right direction. It recommends putting the customer at the centre of the messaging not yourself. Posts should be about how you make the customer the Hero and what their world will look like with you guiding them. Do not post about how great you are as a business, people aren’t interested in that.

Consistency

Being consistent in adding connections and posting within LinkedIn will yield leads. It is crucial that when someone shows interest in your offering, you respond quickly. Make sure to take the conversation off LinkedIn as quickly as possible. Transfer to email first and face-to-face once the lead is qualified as an opportunity. The discussion should form part of your systems and not be held within a third-party platform.

Final Thoughts

This ends the final part of my series on simple LinkedIn marketing. I think you will agree that getting your company brand recognised on this platform is actually pretty straightforward. Put some time aside this week to revisit your LinkedIn strategy and let me know how you go.

Download my business development LinkedIn Mastery Road Map, Business Development Checklist and other free resources from the link below.

Simple LinkedIn Marketing in Three Easy Stages (Part 2)

By Tom on July 15, 2022

In my last post we looked at the Three Ps of LinkedIn marketing and discussed ways to get your Profile in to shape. This week we will look at the second P: Propagate. That is developing a network of connections who are interest in the services you offer.

Three Degrees of LinkedIn

Now that your profile really highlights your offering and can act as an interesting landing page, it is time to start making relevant connections. LinkedIn has three degrees of connection shown in the figure below.

These are described as follows:

First-degree connection: Contacts that have connected to you. You either know these people directly or have something in common. Preferably industry and geography.

Second degree connection: Contacts who are connected to your first degree connections. Generally, you don’t know these people, though you will have acquaintances in common.

Third degree connection: Contacts outside of your immediate network. To connect with them you will need to broaden the reach of your second degree connections.

LinkedIn connections must be relevant — Make sure your LinkedIn connections are relevant

Not All Connections Are Equal

For your LinkedIn marketing to be relevant do not fall into the trap of connecting to everyone. This is completely counterproductive and will significantly dilute your efforts. Connections need to be hyper focused on individuals who are relevant, who may have an interest in, or a need for, your offering. To clarify, they should be potential customers or stakeholders.

Revisit the work done on your ideal customer, and look at the key customers in your operational plan. Within this group, which roles have the most interest and influence around your company offering? Once this is established, a simple LinkedIn search will yield gold. For example, principal water engineer, Washington, would generate a list of principal level water engineers in the Washington area. I have found that the more specific the search criteria is, the more useful the results will be.

Use the filters to refine you search by region, company or industry. Within minutes you will have a list of relevant contacts. Then simply click connect.

Building your network is key to leveraging the power of the LinkedIn platform. Committing to connect with thirty relevant second degree connections every day will expand your network dramatically.

What’s Next

The third post in the series will explore the third P of LinkedIn: Promote. I’m always keen to hear your thoughts. Tell me how you use LinkedIn to successfully market your company.

Download my business development LinkedIn Mastery worksheet and other free resources from the link below.

Simple LinkedIn Marketing in Three Easy Stages (Part 1)

By Tom on July 1, 2022

Looking back at the Sales Funnel, the first stage in creating a pipeline of opportunities is filling the funnel with leads. A key component of keeping it full is through systematic marketing. Where the GDBD can have real impact and complete control of their activity, is by leveraging the power of social media, and in particular, LinkedIn.

Although LinkedIn originally began as a tool for recruiters, it has firmly established itself as the social platform for business. As such it lends itself as the perfect tool to initiate business-to-business marketing. Marketing, NOT selling. I cannot emphasize this enough. The platform is there to grow and nurture a network of business connections, and the quickest way to lose these connections is to directly sell to them.

Utilizing LinkedIn systematically, day-to-day, is an excellent way to generate brand awareness, develop leads and position both the brand and the business developer as subject matter experts in their niche. Taking ten minutes a day on the platform and spending an hour crafting two posts a week, can begin to generate results relatively quickly.

There are many courses and experts pushing their LinkedIn expertise and charging a lot of money for the privilege. However, starting with the platform is not that difficult. Over the next three posts, I highlight a simple daily system that you can follow.

Your LinkedIN Mission

Before we start developing your LinkedIn system we need to consider what the aim of the campaign is going to be. In my opinion the overall objective should be:

Provide a steady source of leads to the top of the Sales Funnel.

This translates as the marketing effort adding opportunities and revenue into your sales pathway. The specific mission that supports the objective can be broken down into three tasks:

Position the Business Developer and Company as a subject matter experts within the niche surrounding their offering.
Generate regular touch points for the Company brand, building recognition over time.
Develop a network of connections who are interested in your company offering.

The Three Ps of LinkedIn Marketing

The actions required to achieve this mission tasks can be divided into 3 Ps:

Profile – create a great first impression for yourself and your company
Propagate – develop a network of connections who are interested in your offering
Promote – generate touch points and value-based content to produce interest, brand awareness and trust in your offering.

Profile is discussed further below. The second and third Ps will be examined in later posts.

Profile

If you have a quick scan through the LinkedIn profiles of your connections, it is obvious that most people have structured their profiles like an online resume. Seeing as LinkedIn was originally designed as a tool for recruiters this makes sense. However, the profile of a GDBD should focus on your offering.

Think of your profile as your customers’ first impression of your company and the opportunity to highlight the unique aspects about what your offering comprises. When redesigning your profile, use the following four points to guide you.

Stand out and be compelling. Highlight your company offering in your headline and make sure your photograph conveys professionalism.

Add detail around your company offering. In your ABOUT section make sure the reader can understand the key ways that you can help them, following a quick scan of your profile.

Use key words throughout your profile. Think of these as words that potential customers would type into Google if they were looking for your offering. For example, if your niche was flood modelling, you would include words and phrases like, flood modelling, flooding, flood specialist, flood mapping etc. Mention these a number of times throughout your profile.

Make it easy for the connection. The aim of using LinkedIn is to get a steady stream of leads entering the Sales Funnel. So, make it easy for interested connections to learn more. Put your contact details in the about section, phone number and email address and add a link to the relevant pages of your company website.

Further Action

Take time to look through your profile and adjust it to reflect what you offer your customers. Stop thinking of it as a resume. In part 2 we will look at systematic ways to use LinkedIn to assist your business development efforts.

Download my LinkedIn Mastery worksheet and other resources from the link below.

Let me know how do you set up LinkedIN to support your business development efforts?

Are you Sitting on a Gold Mine?

By Tom on January 21, 2022

Business development is often considered to be synonymous with sales. While increasing sales does form a core part of the role, the aim of a business developer is to develop the business. This involves looking for new customers, new markets, strategic partnerships, and new offerings. But there are so many opportunities, it can be difficult to know where to start focussing your efforts.

Finding the Gold

A model that can be used to frame your initial thinking is the Ansoff Matrix (Ansoff 2015). This allows you to plot your products and service lines on the matrix below, using two axes: Existing and New.

The Ansoff Matrix presented in the figure below, allows you to determine your broad strategy and gives a good indication of where to start focussing your efforts. A good rule is to begin where there is the lowest risk and extend the risk profile as you firm up your revenue foundation. The matrix can also be used to help identify the low-hanging fruit, immediate action, to focus on, when starting your business development role, and those actions to consider once a feedback loop with the market and customer base has been established. This allows the business developer to adjust the company offering built on market and customer feedback.

Based on the matrix above, business development effort should be prioritised in the following order:

Market Penetration (lowest risk)

Provide existing products to the existing customer base. These customers already know your company and use your services. Continue expanding your existing offering amongst those who understand and appreciate it.

Market Development

Provide existing products to new markets. This takes your knowledge from the existing customers and products and applies it to new customers and markets. For example, a transport engineering team may be able to push their services into the mining industry.

Product Development

Develop new products for existing customers. Using your relationships with existing customers, and the knowledge of their needs, can enable the development of new products and services that may solve additional problems for them. A good example of this is outdoor brand Patagonia, offering their customers tough-wearing climbing clothes in addition to their quality climbing hardware (Chouinard 2006).

Diversification (highest risk)

Create new products for new customers. Using the knowledge and experience of developing new products for existing customers can give insight into applying it to new customers. This should only be considered once a robust feedback loop within the market has been in place for some time, to enable diversification decisions to be based on real market data.

The Ansoff matrix highlights a key lesson for any budding business developer: start mining the gold you already have.

I heard this fantastic analogy whilst listening to an interview where Tiffani Bova, a senior executive with Salesforce, was a guest speaker on a Business Made Simple Podcast, and it really struck a chord with me. During the days of the gold rush when a prospector got lucky and struck gold, he wouldn’t just get up and walk to the next mountain. He would start mining the vein that he had already uncovered. The same is true for business development. Start with your vein of gold, your existing customers and work out from there. They already know, and like, your service, your team, and your offering—they keep coming back. There is a level of goodwill here that makes it easier to target this group first. This goodwill can also help you gain references and referrals, and circulate success stories, which, in turn, can help open doors to your new customers.

Expand your mine! Photo by Shane McLendon for Unsplash

Expanding the Mine

The second half of the matrix, which is centred on product development and diversification, can only be explored once an adaptive feedback loop has been established between the market, the customer base, the business developer and their company. Only then is enough information being absorbed to make new product development a successful undertaking.

When you do get to the product development and diversification phases, Collins and Hanson (2011) provide some excellent advice in their book, Great by Choice. They suggest that you don’t go all in with a new or diversified product, but instead conduct small trials with products, which have controlled costs. Repeating these small trials will allow you to learn which products are worth the effort. Do not bet the whole company on a new diversified product offering.

If you see a gap in the market for a new offering use this advice and consider how you can conduct a small, relatively risk-free, trial of your idea. Present this to the leadership for approval. This has a much higher chance of being accepted. If it works, the new offering can be grown from there. If it fails, document what has been learned and move on.

Call to Action

Think about how you prioritise your business development pursuit. Are you making the most of the Gold that you already have? Do you have any existing customers who might be interested in other services your company provide? If so go talk to them!

Using the Ansoff Matrix along with the Sales Ecosystem can also help you find some BD Gold. Check out my previous post a the link to learn more.

As always I’m interested in your thoughts. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

How to Avoid the Technobabble Trap

By Tom on December 17, 2021

What is Technobabble and how do you avoid it? If you’re a bit of a geek like me you will have seen those sci-fi shows where the characters spout strings of meaningless technical words to explain the “science” of what’s going on. This is known as technobabble and it is commonly used by Star Trek, Doctor Who and the Marvel universe. The important thing is that it sounds authentic, even if it doesn’t make sense. Luckily for most viewers it adds to the story. But, what if someone was trying to tell you that a iridium alloy chroniton core booster would solve your water quality issues? Huh?

The Technobabble Trap

As a technical specialist in a business development role, it is easy to forget that what you know isn’t common knowledge to most people. Time and again business developers fall into the trap of getting too technical with their customers, effectively spouting technobabble. This can leave the customers confused, overwhelmed and uncertain about how your offering can benefit them. Many sales have been lost this way. I’ve pulled together a few points to help you avoid the Technobabble Trap.

Are you confusing your customer? Photo by Markus Spiske from Unsplash

You are the Expert. Which means that you know much more about intricacies of the subject than your customer. Therefore, you should be able to explain it clearly. Take some time to think about how best to explain your concepts and solutions in layman’s terms. Are there ideas that need explaining more thoroughly?

Your customers are Not. Don’t assume that your customer knows what you know. Concepts that seem obvious to you only do so because you have been working in and around them for years. Don’t take for granted that they know what you are speaking about. Guide them through the topic clearly. Keep explanations concise and don’t dwell on the minutiae.

Avoid Jargon. Keep technical jargon and acronyms to a minimum. Where it can’t be avoided explain what it is. Be polite and ask them how much they know about the subject and adjust accordingly.

Highlight the Customer Outcome. The customer isn’t interested in the intricacies or cleverness of your solution. Rather, what they want to know is how it will benefit them. How will it solve their problem? What will their life be like if they choose you? This is the part to discuss in detail as it will place your offering to their context and situation.

When writing the above points, I was mainly thinking about this from a client conversation perspective. However, these also apply to website content, marketing messaging and social media. Don’t confuse your customer.

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Reflect on your recent client conversations. Are you overwhelming them with technical wizardry? Can you apply the above to help you get more clarity with your customers?

Do you have any tips on how to avoid the technobabble? Let know in the comments below.

Have a look at our previous posts on the sales funnel and the sales ecosystem.