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Focus, Focus, Focus

Posted by

Ian Brodie on January 12th, 2010.

Focus Your Business Development One of the big weak spots in my own business development is focus. I'm a great starter, not a great finisher.

As soon as I hear of a new, promising approach I love to check it out, research it, try it out for myself.

It makes me a great resource for deep up-to-date knowledge on a broad range of business development topics. But I have to really force myself to follow through and keep going with certain approaches rather than move on to new things once I've got good at them.

In fact, persistence and focus are under-recognised hallmarks of great rainmakers.

Often when I look at the business development activities of some of my clients, the best advice I can give them is “do less stuff – but do more of it”.

Rather than joining 5 networking groups but only going occasionally – join 2 and go to every meeting. Rather than trying to run seminars, speak at conferences, write an article a month, a weekly blog and a podcast – pick one or two and do them really well.

You're on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and OnRamp? Think about focusing your activities on one or two.

Focus and persistence help you in two ways:

Focusing means you do a better job at each of the business development activities you perform. You learn the skills of the trade through repetition and feedback: be it networking, public speaking, writing or tweeting.
Your potential clients hear your message consistently. It takes multiple interactions with you before clients feel comfortable buying from you. If you focus on a smaller number of channels, the clients who use those channels will hear from you or interact with you on multiple occasions. If you alternate between many channels you'll hit more people – but you won't get the depth of interaction necessary for them to feel they know you well enough to hire you.

One of the most obvious areas where lack of focus and persistence shows is with blogs. I can't tell you the number of professional service firm websites I've seen (including a number of marketing consultants who should know better) where there are a dozen or less blog entries over the last couple of years, or it started in a blaze of activity, but the last post was 5 months ago.

How do you think this looks to clients? There are really only two interpretations they can make. Either you have nothing to say, or you can't be bothered saying it. Neither of those is a good message to be putting out into the marketplace.

If you are in this situation, a quick piece of advice: turn your longer blog posts into articles and replace the blog with an (undated) articles section on your site. If you haven't got any blog posts meaty enough to turn into articles, then just kill the blog – it's a liability. And seriously consider why on earth you were persuaded into starting one in the first place.

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Guru12: The Top 12 Gurus of Professional Services

Posted by

Ian Brodie on December 31st, 2009.

OK – there's a huge risk here that I'm going to put quite a few noses out of joint – including a number of people I know personally.

But I'm going to give it a go anyway. The following is my personal list of the most influential writers, advisors and consultants to the professions – particularly when it comes to strategy, marketing and business development.

I've gone for a global list rather than people who have had an influence in specific countries or specific circumstances.

And please, please, please – if you expected your name to be on the list and it isn't – I can promise you, it'll be an oversight rather than a deliberate slur. My memory just isn't so good nowadays.

The list is in no particular order.

1. Well, I said the list was in no particular order, but who better to start with than David Maister. Since the publication of Managing the Professional Service Firm in 1993, he's been responsible for pioneering or popularising countless ideas and principles which we now take for granted. Now retired, his body of work (including First Amongst Equals, The Trusted Advisor, Practice What You Preach, True Professionalism and Strategy and the Fat Smoker) and the impact of his personal influence mark him out as the most influential contributor to the professions over the past two decades.

2. Ford Harding literally wrote the book on Rainmaking (as well as Cross Selling and Creating Rainmakers). Harding's work is characterised by deep, insightful thinking. You won't find simple “one size fits all” remedies in his books. What you will get is experience, research and critical thinking combined to allow professional firms to develop the unique strategies and approaches that will work for them.

3. After co-authoring The Trusted Advisor with David Maister and Rob Galford, Charlie Green has gone on to make the “trust niche” his own. He's broadened his scope by publishing Trust Based Selling, and has become the leading commentator on the importance of trust in business relationships.

4. Alan Weiss is perhaps best known as a prolific author and advisor to the independent consultant sector. But his contributions to the professions go way beyond that. He's published on management, recruitment, work-life balance – and he led the field in driving for value-based fees. He's often controversial – but always worth paying attention to.

5. Bruce Marcus was writing a blog way before any of us knew what a blog actually was. As the author of 15 books from Competing for Clients back in 1986 through to Client at the Core in 2005, and as a Marketing and Public Relations consultant to some of the leading accounting, law, consulting and financial firms, he's been at the forefront of both defining and implementing leading techniques in Professional Services Marketing. He was one of the early pioneers who highlighted the real differences between services marketing and product marketing and has continued to bring new insights and ideas to bear to this day.

6. Sadly the only female in the Guru12, Suzanne Lowe focuses on the gnarly issue of Marketing Integration: how to get marketing and sales, and professionals and staff aligned and working together on business development challenges – rather than taking refuge in their comfortable silos. While many of us focus on the perhaps more straightforward issues of helping individual professionals and practice areas improve the way they market and sell; Suzanne tackles the sort of problems of cross team and cross discipline integration that bedevil large firms.

7. Like Charlie Green, Andrew Sobel is an ex Gemini Consulting VP and expert (or Deep Generalist as he would put it) on Client Relationships. Sobel's work has focused on how professionals can build trusted advisory relationships with their clients. Latterly, he's explored how relationships can be deepened beyond individuals to allw teams and entire firms to build long-term partnerships with their clients.

8. Mike Schultz & John Doerr are perhaps the “New Kids on the Block”. As the authors of this year's best selling Professional Services Marketing, they're at the forefront of today's knowledge of “what works”: from social media, to the web, to good old fashioned seminars and networking. And as publishers of Raintoday.com, they bring the leading thinking from global experts right into the reach of practising professionals.

9. Robert Middleton was the first “online guru” of professional services. Focusing on independent professionals, Middleton pioneered information marketing approaches (email marketing, teleseminars, etc.) long before the current wave of “experts” jumped on the bandwagon. And his material remains the best and most versatile resource for the sole practitioner and small practice.

10. Another “New Kid on the Block” who's actually been around quite a while is Michael McLaughlin. Mike wrote Guerilla Marketing for Consultants, one of the most accessible sources which professionals can simply pick up and use. This year he turned his focus to selling with Winning the Professional Services Sale and set about converting professionals from pressing and pushing sales to helping clients buy in a way that works for them. It's a fun read too!

11. Richard Chaplin is a name that many won't have heard of. He's not a famous author or speaker. But over the last two decades as founder and chairman of the Managing Partner's Forum and the PM Forum (for Professional Services Marketing and Business Development) he's done as much as anyone to promote effective management and marketing in the professions. Richard's Linkedin connections list reads like a Who's Who of Professional Services. What Richard doesn't know about networking (and especially about Linkedin) probably isn't worth knowing.

Who will be the 12th guru? 12. The identity of the 12th Guru is up to you. Drop your nominations into the comments box for who you think should join the other 11 on the Guru12 list and I'll create a poll to select the final Guru. Or if you're too shy to comment, drop me an email at ian@ianbrodie.com.

PS Thanks to Mary Flaherty of the Raintoday Rainmaker Blog for inspiring this post with her recent excellent posts on the “Best of the Decade” in Professional Services Marketing & Sales.

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Selling

What David Maister can teach us about Twitter

Posted by

Ian Brodie on December 27th, 2009.

Twitter is a bit of an enigma for most professionals. Can it be used successfully for business development? Is it an effective use of time, or a huge white elephant?

And while many commentators are pointing to the tailing off of Twitter’s previously phenomenal growth rates and the low usage amongst client decision-makers; some professionals are quietly going about their business using Twitter to win new clients.

One of the most common criticisms of Twitter is that “it’s just inane chatter”. People tweeting about what they had for breakfast, how much they enjoyed the latest episode of their favourite soap, or a joke they’ve just heard. And in all honesty, that was my initial reaction to Twitter when I was first encouraged to use it a couple of years ago.

The most common riposte to this criticism is to point out that many people don’t just tweet inanities. They tweet useful commentary or links to resources, articles and blog posts. “People are tweeting sensible stuff” they say, you just need to follow the right people.

But both sides are missing the point to some degree.

The fact is that most adult conversation is “just inane chatter” too. When we’re with our friends down the pub, talking to clients over coffee or colleagues by the water cooler we’re rarely sharing valuable business insights. Most of the time we’re talking about what we saw on TV, our plans for the weekend, what Bill in accounts is doing with Jane in HR.

We don’t build relationships with clients and colleagues by “talking shop” all the time. We do it in the gaps between business conversations. We open up a little and talk about what interests us, our views on the news, what annoys us and what makes us laugh. We talk about our family, our football team, and the funny thing we saw while on the way in to work.

David Maister (who as far as I'm aware isn't on Twitter himself) sums this up brilliantly when he says “The key to being a good communicator is talking when there's nothing to talk about”. Whether it's in your personal or business life, if the only time you talk is when there's an issue to talk about, then you're not going to build a relationship. You can see David on video expanding on this and on how to be a good listener here. (By the way, for any readers not familiar with Maister's work, bookmark this page, head on over to davidmaister.com, and take in the wealth of articles, video and podcasts. I'll see you back here when you're done – perhaps in a month or so…)

And it's exactly the same on Twitter.

Yes, it's great to post useful tips. You'll build your credibility no end by sending out links to great articles and blog posts in your niche, including some of your own.

But you won't build relationships.

Relationships are built by engaging at a human level with the other party. That means two-way communication, not just one-way broadcasting – no matter how great the material you're broadcasting is.

And two-way communication will inevitably include idle chit-chat. if you're genuinely interested in the other person then you'll be interested in their views on the news, what they're planning for the weekend, and perhaps even what they had for breakfast.

Case in point: a few weeks ago I engaged in a short twitter exchange with a professional I know reasonably well about karaoke tunes. A couple of other folks he knew joined in. We made fun of each other's selections, and suggested putting a karaoke band together. Nothing of any “value” was tweeted. No great insights or anything business related. But we all got to know each other a little better. We now have a shared experience: something to make a little joke about next time we meet online or in the real world. We know a little more about each other's personalities (and our taste in music). Pretty much the same as if we'd been introduced at a party or other casual encounter.

In fact, in some ways, Twitter can provide a real shortcut to building relationships. In the face to face world, it often takes some time to get beyond the “what do you do?” stage of conversation when you first meet someone. But on Twitter, most people seem quite willing to share their thoughts and ideas on a whole range of more personal topics. It's often possible to get a real insight into someone's personality, likes and dislikes quite quickly on Twitter – something that would take many meetings, often over months with face-to-face networking.

And because Twitter is still a fairly new channel, many users share a sense of being part of an “early adopter community”. They're much more willing to interact and respond to messages than they would be on other more established media.

So next time you hear someone complain about how all people tweet is nonsense, just smile and agree. And take note of David Maister's wisdom: it's that nonsense which actually builds relationships.

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Mindset

The Business Development Drumbeat

Posted by

Ian Brodie on December 9th, 2009.

The Business Development Drumbeat Back in the days when I was managing major business transformation projects, almost the first thing I did on every engagement was to instil a regular project management “drumbeat”.

Not that I particularly viewed myself as a Roman galley slave master. But the metaphor was clear. By establishing a regular cycle of project management reviews we ensured that the whole programme progressed forward in-sync.

Now of course, most consultants hate “bureaucracy”. They like to be self-managing and independent. But in practice, the regular drumbeat reviews always picked up things each team wasn't doing, or areas where they could integrate or work better with other teams. And they simply kept the pace moving. Knowing the reviews were coming up, each team leader managed the progress of their area better.

Not surprisingly, the same process works incredibly well for business development too.

Now whether you do them as part of a big team or you do them just for yourself, you need to take time out on a regular basis to look at your pipeline and identify actions you can take to improve its position.

A typical agenda for a business development drumbeat review might be:

Review progress executing your Lead Generation tactics:
- Reviewing progress vs your marketing action plans – i.e. are you successfully carrying out the activities
- Reviewing the outcome of the tactics – e.g. how many short term leads (usually sales meetings) did you generate? How many long term leads (contacts passed into lead nurturing) did you generate?
- Reviewing the progress of your Lead Nurturing activities – e.g. How many contacts did you make with your A/B/C clients and prospects vs plan?. How many prospects do you have in each phase of your nurture funnel (if you use one) and how is this progressing? What was the feedback from the contacts with A priority prospects and clients? How many nurtured leads converted into sales opportunities (i.e. a sales focused meeting for a live piece of work)?
Reviewing the progress of your sales activities
- What does each stage of your sales process/pipeline look like vs target and how is this progressing over time?
- What was the outcome of your key sales meetings this period: lost sale, “treading water”, progress or sale?
- What business did you close this period?
Agreeing the critical activities your business needs to focus on in the
next period
- Are there shortfalls in the early stage pipeline?
- Do you need to focus on Lead Generation?
- Are some potential sales “stuck” and need senior effort to help progress?
- What support is needed for each professional or business developer to help them progress and close their key opportunities in the upcoming period?
- Are there any consistently weak areas in the process that need addressing?
- Are any individuals consistently under-performing? Do they need coaching, support or reassignment?
- Do we need more or different resources focused on lead generation or sales?

A simple review like this typically takes between 90 minutes to 2 hours and it's best done weekly (certainly for the first few iterations) or fortnightly.

At first it'll feel uncomfortable and bureaucratic. But persevere – the results will be well worth it.

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Selling

Get More Clients Podcast: Interview with Tom Searcy of Hunt Big Sales

Posted by

Ian Brodie on November 27th, 2009.

If you've been reading my blog for a while you'll know I'm a big fan of Tom Searcy's new book RFPs Suck! It's the first real coverage of how to win business by effectively responding to Requests for Proposals and Tenders.

As all professionals know: RFPs and tenders are becoming increasingly common. It's no longer possible to ignore or avoid them and focus on relationship approaches to developing business. More and more large companies and government organisations are mandating the use of formalised RFP processes. If you want to win big projects, you have to know how to win tenders and RFPs. And Tom's book is by far the best guide I've seen to doing so.

I caught up with Tom via teleconference recently and asked him a few questions on how professionals can improve the way they deal with RFPs. Tom gave some great insights into RFP-winning strategies we can all learn from. A couple of the areas covered include:

How to decide which RFPs to respond to and which to avoid
How to overcome barriers to accessing key personnel
How to differentiate your response from your competitors
How to overcome large companies fears of dealing with small professional firms

The line is a bit crackly – but the content is sparkling!

You can get a copy of the book in the UK here: RFPs Suck!

Or in the US here: RFPs Suck!

Tom's site Hunt Big Sales contains a load of great articles, blog posts and free e-books. It's well worth a look.

PS Tom's just emailed to say that the book is now available in paperback in the US: RFPs Suck! in paperback

* Disclosure: The links are amazon affiliate links. If you buy through those links I get a few pennies.

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News

Linkedin News and Leadership Poll

Posted by

Ian Brodie on November 18th, 2009.

Regular readers will know I'm a big fan of Linkedin as a business development tool for professionals (see 10 Linkedin Tips for Professionals for my guide to the best ways to use it).

I'll be doing quite a few more Linkedin posts in the upcoming weeks. Some of them will be further ideas on using Linkedin for business development. But some will be more news oriented.

The reason for that is I've been asked to blog about and comment on the upcoming Linkedin European Business Awards 2010.

As you may have seen in the press, Linkedin and Cisco WebEx are sponsoring these awards and are running a large poll over at www.linkedinbusinessawards.com to get votes for the Start Up, Leader, Business Innovation and Rising Star of the Year.

The judges for the Grand Prize are Pierre-Yves Gerbeau (of Millenium Dome rescue fame), Reid Hoffman (Executive Chairman of Linkedin) and James Campanini (Director of Cisco WebEx for EMEA and LATAM).

During the run-up to the awards, they'll be holding a variety of discussion events and polls. As a blogging partner for the event I'll be getting exclusive access to these and will also be able to pose questions to the judges. I'll be posting the results up here.

The first thing I've got a sneak preview of is a poll they've been running on leadership.

I don't claim to be a great expert on leadership, but I've run and analysed quite a few surveys in my time.

The basic question they asked was What do you think is the most important factor in Leadership?

The possible answers were:

Character
Knowledge
Communication
Vision
Drive

Very surprisingly, despite the dominant stress on Vision, Drive and Character in the literature on Leadership, the overwhelming choice of the 608 respondents (so far) was Communication:

What do you think is the most important factor in Leadership?
Overall Results

Does this really mean that communication is the most important factor in leadership?

Not really – after all, a poll is only telling you the opinion of people – it's not measuring which factor has the most impact in practice. But it does highlight something I believe is rather important.

In my experience, what polls like this actually measure is the most pressing related issue at the top of the minds of the participants right now. If you ask us what the most important factor in leadership is, or teamwork, or business development excellence; we never really give our objective, dispassionate view of the absolute importance of the factors. What we give is our view on what we are most missing out on right now.

In this case, the poll is highlighting that most participants see a problem with the level and quality of communication of their leaders (or they see it as their main challenge if they're a leader themselves). It's impossible for anyone to know for sure, objectively whether communication is more important than vision. But they answer with their gut feeling. And if currently they feel they're not being communicated well enough with, then that's what they'll answer.

The results were pretty consistent across gender, and also across the different sizes of companies respondents worked for. With the exception that communication was (understandably) viewed as even more of an important factor in very large enterprises.

Results across job role were similar too – with the interesting discrepancies that engineers don't seem to care about their leaders having character, IT people not seeming to care about them having a vision, and sales people not seeming to care if they had drive.

What do you think is the most important factor in Leadership?
By Job Function

Perhaps the most interesting result was the variety in responses across age groups:

What do you think is the most important factor in Leadership?
By Age Group

There's a big difference between the scores of the different age groups here (discounting the 55+ group which is obviously a very small sample size).

It seems that as young people enter the workforce, they have a fairly balanced view of what is needed from leadership. However, those in their mid 20s to mid 30s are focused much more than anything else on the importance of communication with leadership (or the lack of it). Then those from 35 upwards are less concerned with communication and again have a more balanced perspective on leadership issues.

The results could be read 2 different ways.

On the one hand, you could interpret this as meaning that the 35+ group are more senior and closer to their firm's leadership – and so are being communicated effectively with, whereas the younger cohort of up and coming staff aren't.

On the other hand you could view it as a demographic shift. Those of us of a slightly older generation don't expect so much communication and interaction with our leaders. But 20 somethings are used to being able to connect closely with their idols through the media or directly via twitter, and follow their exploits and outpourings on blogs, comment columns and gossip sheets. It could well be that this generation needs to be communicated with more, and in different ways.

I don't have the answers to this, of course. But it's interesting food for thought.

I'll be doing another Linkedin post shortly with a quick hint on using status updates. And I may well have some news about another interesting poll that's being run.

Disclosure: I'm not being paid or given anything to support this event. I'm a big user and fan of Linkedin, but I've never used WebEx at all so can't comment on it's effectiveness as a business tool (although I might give it a whirl sometime in the next few months)

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Marketing

Meet: Lawyers – great idea

Posted by

Ian Brodie on November 13th, 2009.

Over on my (small but very friendly) Rainmaker Network Linkedin group we've been discussing using Linkedin for business development in professional services.

One idea I'd not heard before came from Julian Johnstone. He's set up a group called Meet: Lawyers where lawyers who are travelling can set up “meetings for coffee” with other lawyers in the cities they're visiting.

One of the best sources of referrals for many professionals is other professionals in the same field. This might either be in complementary or non-competing specialisms (a lawyer in a corporate practice referring to a divorce lawyer in a family law practice for example) or even from direct competitors (a divorce lawyer recommending a “competitor” as they clearly can't represent both sides in a case).

Sometimes professionals are asked to recommend people in other locations – and small firms are at a disadvantage here as they often don't have good contacts outside the town they practice in.

The Meet: Lawyers idea really helps with this. And for a lawyer alone in a different city, provides a bit of social contact too (hey, someone's got to feel sorry for lawyers).

Check out Julian's group here

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Selling

Dealing with a "Stonewall"

Posted by

Ian Brodie on November 9th, 2009.

Stonewall reaction One of the situations I've always found it difficult to handle in business development is when a potential client you meet “stonewalls” you.

In other words, they don't respond or react to what you're saying.

I rarely get this reaction nowadays – for reasons we'll come on to later. But early on in my career when I first started taking on consulting sales roles rather than just delivery roles it was something I encountered a number of times. It's worth taking a look at some of the reasons why you might get this reaction from potential clients, and what you can do about it.

The first reason you might get a stonewall reaction is if the client is not expecting a sales meeting. In particular they're not expecting to be asked about or to talk about their own business or challenges.

This can often happen if you've been referred in to the client, or if your firm already has a relationship with the client and you're brought in to cross-sell other services.

Often the way the meeting has been set up in these cases can leave something to be desired. The potential client is often just told that you'll be there to share information, or present some new ideas or techniques.

The referrer or person in your firm who holds the relationship with the client feels they're being helpful by inviting you in – but doesn't want to go as far as saying to the potential client “I think you need help in this area, and this meeting is about seeing if that's the case”.

So part of the solution here is to be very clear about when to call you in, and how best to position it with the client. You should only be brought in if your colleague or referrer thinks the potential client really could need your help – preferably with a specific problem. And it's best to agree that with the client up front. Even if it's only to say “he'll talk about some of the best practices we've seen, and ask you a few questions about your business to see if they might apply to you”.

They have to create the expectation that you will be probing and asking questions about their business to identify a fit – not just presenting some material for their education.

If that pre-positioning hasn't been done, then it's imperative that you at least know about it. Then at the start of the meeting you can clarify what you'll be doing and that you'll be asking them questions and looking to see if there might a fit. You may want to consider not holding the meeting if it hasn't been set up correctly.

The second reason why the client might stonewall is if you don't really give them the chance to interact.

In my early days I tended to present at potential clients rather than discussing things with them. I was an engaging enough presenter, and I'm sure they learnt a lot from the presentations and it might even have worked to establish my credibility.

But the style I used didn't work to get them interacting with me.

It's something that's difficult to describe in words, but there are ways of presenting – the tone of your voice, the way you make eye contact, pauses you put into the material – that invite discussion. You can use almost the same words, but be much more likely to generate a reaction or response.

In the early days, the way I was presenting was sending out the signal “you're here to listen”. The potential client was placed into a passive mode where they sat and listened – but didn't talk about how what they were hearing might relate to their own business.

The third cause of stonewalling is the client's own reluctance or fear of engaging.

This can be for many reasons. they may fear you're going to try to “hard sell” them – and so don't want to open up. Or they don't perhaps want to admit to having problems in their business – they may be embarrassed, or not want to appear “weak”.

Getting over this fear has a lot to do with how you handle yourself in the meeting and the impression you create. You need to build rapport quickly, and to demonstrate that you're someone safe to open up to. You're not going to push product at them, and you're going to be understanding and empathise if they share their challenges with you.

Doing this isn't about using tricks and techniques. It's not about mirroring body language or using “hypnotic” words that magically make people like you.

It's about genuinely being interested in, and caring about the other person. It's about actively listening and trying to understand rather than just listening for gaps to come in with your own clever statements.

It's also about recognising when you need to challenge the other person. Today, if a potential client who has asked me in to talk to them doesn't really open up or answer questions then I now have the confidence and courage to pick them up on it.

I'll sometimes ask a very straight question: “Look, you don't really seem interested in the examples I'm giving, and you don't seem to have any problems in this area it's worth talking about. Yet you were interested enough to invite me in to talk to you today – so there must be a reason or something you want to discuss. Rather than dancing around – is there something specific we should be talking about that would be helpful for you?”

It doesn't always work – but it's a lot more likely to work than constantly talking at a stone wall.

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Mindset

Make Business Development a Habit

Posted by

Ian Brodie on October 27th, 2009.

Busy, Busy, Busy A couple of weeks ago I got a phone call from a friend which got me thinking about this particular topic.

The friend in question is David Lomas, who runs M3 Publishing – but more importantly, is the kind of guy who always has a dozen projects on the boil and has a huge network of connections.

David called me as he was driving home one Friday evening “just to keep in touch”. We spent the next 20 minutes or so just shooting the breeze, exchanging stories and brainstorming a little about a couple of projects we are working on.

Here's the point: 95% of people – when driving home on a Friday – would be listening to music, thinking about their weekend, or grumbling about the traffic.

But in David's case, the thing that came most naturally to him was to phone up his contacts to see how they were getting on.

The rest of us either wouldn't bother, or we'd be thinking “I don't want to intrude”, “I don't have a good reason to call” or “Why would he want to speak to me on a Friday afternoon?”.

We talk ourselves out of keeping in touch. Perhaps because we fear that 1 in 10 call where the person really doesn't want to hear from us. Or perhaps we just don't enjoy these part social, part business calls.

Now maybe David and others for whom business development seems to come naturally go through the same self-chatter like this. Or maybe they don't. But either way – it doesn't stand in their way. When they have a few spare moments they don't turn inward – they reach out to contacts and clients to stay in touch.

Another example: Steve Head.

Steve is one of the UK's top professional speakers. He's got that rare ability to entertain, inform and inspire.

Steve has an unusual business development approach – one I've not seen anyone else use: he keeps in touch with clients via text messages.

When I saw him at the Professional Speakers Association in Manchester, he talked about how he checked his phone after an evening away from home before a client seminar and was astounded to see that he'd sent 125 texts to clients the previous evening.

When I quizzed Steve about it he highlighted that every one of those 125 messages was personal and sincere. In other words, it's his way of keeping in touch with people he cares about – who also happen to be his clients. It's absolutely not a cold, calculated “what can I get in return” business development methodology. Nor is David's habit of phoning up his contacts.

Nonetheless, the habit shared by Steve and David is a healthy one from a business development perspective. By keeping in touch, they keep top of mind with clients. And because they both really care about their clients: every interaction they have deepens their relationships.

So do you have a business development habit? A way you keep in touch and deepen client relationships on “autopilot” without having to think, plan and prepare every time.

In reality – most of us don't do this naturally.

Personally, given a few moments spare, my first thought is to read a book or article – to expand my knowledge. I don't instantly think of getting in touch with current & prospective clients.

In order to get good at business development I've had to create habits which “force” me to do the right things. For example, keeping a list of my priority client and prospective client relationships and reviewing it weekly to brainstorm what I can do to help them this week.

It's not like I find keeping in touch with clients painful or difficult. It's simply that, unlike David or Steve, given a few spare moments, it's not my first thought.

And that's the thing. The world of the professional isn't filled with empty hours where we can start from scratch, plan how to keep in touch with clients, and carefully execute the plan. We're busy. Really, really busy.

We don't get hours spare at our desks. We get a few minutes here and there. Or we get an hour driving home or on the train.

If we have to think, plan and prepare our keep-in-touch activities, the reality is that they just won't happen.

So for people like me who aren't naturals at business development – we need to have already done our homework by the time our free moments arrive. If we're going to call people up (or even text them) we need to have thought through already who we're going to call and what we're going to say. Because if we leave it to our free moments, by the time we've figured out what to do the moment will be gone.

Most importantly, we need to get ourselves into the habit of staying in touch. Initially we have to force ourselves to do it with reminders and rituals. Over time, we'll come to do it automatically without having to force ourselves. We may even come to enjoy it.

And then we'll be indistinguishable from those natural business developers we all get so envious about.

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Mindset

The Importance of Authenticity

Posted by

Ian Brodie on October 21st, 2009.

Pointing to the Truth A few months ago I had a bit of a heated email argument with a fairly well-known marketing guru whose newsletter I subscribed to.

I won't mention names as the point of this post isn't about criticising others – it's about something I believe to be vital to succeed in business development: authenticity.

The argument started when I received an email from the guru sent from a hospital waiting room in a few moments he had spare waiting for his wife to give birth. His email said he had to be quick (for obvious reasons) but wanted to make an offer on one of his new products.

Nothing wrong with that, per se. In fact I believe it's good thing to share insights into your personal life with your community. It deepens your relationships – rather like the way you'd share personal information, ideas and hopes with a close business partner or one of your best clients. Your very best business relationships go beyond purely business.

The problem was that I received the same email 3 times over a 3 month period.

I emailed the guy, and he said he'd had a problem with his email system. OK, fair enough. No one has perfect grasp of their technology. I'm prepared to believe it was a genuine mistake that multiple copies were sent out.

But then I noticed that the emails were actually all a little different. They had slightly different headlines.

In other words, he'd been split testing the headlines.

Now split testing headlines is a good marketing practice in normal circumstances. But when your email is supposed to be something you rattled out quickly when in a hospital waiting room it actually leaves a rather nasty taste in the mouth.

Far from being the spur of the moment message it purported to be, this was a calculated marketing tactic. And it left me feeling manipulated.

Here's the deal: had this been a normal marketing email then, of course I'd have been perfectly cool with headlines or anything else being tested, optimised or whatever. Why shouldn't the marketer try to maximise the response they get?

But this was an email that purported to be a spur of the moment outpouring. His email personalised things – brought me into his world. It made me feel closer, as if I was sharing his experience.

For me then to discover that the email had been a calculated construction left me feeling used.

And that's the thing. The most powerful marketing & sales approaches are the ones that bring us closer to our clients, that deepen our relationships.

But they must be genuine.

Deepening a relationship can't be one-sided. You can't pretend to open up to someone, but really put a tight filter on what you say. You can't encourage a client to be frank and honest with you if you're not going to be frank and honest with them.

If you do try to manipulate, you'll be found out. It may not be as obvious as a split-test headline on a supposedly personal message: but people will discover your manipulation.

If you can't be genuine – then stick to more impersonal forms of business development: advertising, factual messages, value propositions.

But if you want to build deep. long lasting relationships with clients, you must, must be authentic.

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