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?
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.
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!
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.
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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.
