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business development

Professional Service Firm Leadership + Business Development

September 18, 2020 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: Business Development is the lifeblood of any organization. If nothing happens in business until you sell something, then no sale is made until you develop some business! But at a professional service firm, what role does leadership play in Business Development? In this post, we’ll explore professional service firm leadership and their role in Business Development… Enjoy!

Why are You in Business?

“We’re in business to make money” a Professional Service Firm Leader exclaimed during our initial acquisition interview. The question that prompted this answer was a nice, slow, softball right down the middle of the plate for him, namely “Tell us about your business?” A simple question… An even simpler answer!

Most businesses, especially professional service firms are in business to make money. While there may be those nonprofits that are in business to assist customers to “Never Stop Exploring” or some other tagline, the vast majority are in the business of business to make money and return/create value for their owners. Along those lines, the topic of Business Development should be considered the “lifeblood” of any professional services firm (or any organization that sells anything for that matter!)

During the acquisition due diligence phase, we’ve seen the effect of poor Business Development during the most recent pandemic. Businesses that we looked at acquiring at my Private Equity firm shared financial information reflecting decreases in revenue of 20% to 50%, and we’ve heard horror stories of those that have fallen significantly worse! A business’ health and sustainability can be directly measured by the revenue they produce. If revenues drop faster than expenses or are off-pace, this poor health indicator could eventually lead to the death of the organization (i.e., a road to bankruptcy or sale – Cutting expenses can only go so far and typically are not a way to grow a business).

So, the simple question that started off our acquisition interview has a complex underpinning to it, especially when you consider the role of the professional service firm’s leadership!

Leadership’s Role in Business Development

Leadership’s role in driving Business Development at a professional services firm (Accounting, Architecture, Law, etc.) can be seen as a fairly simple initiative — Creating a Sales Strategic Plan, implementing a Business Development Model, and proper Prospect Identification are key aspects that we look to identify in those acquisition interviews. These topics will form the basis of this four (4) part series.

It’s important to keep in mind that Business Development starts with leadership at the professional services firm (Firm leaders, practice leaders, and niche leaders). In conducting acquisition interviews, I’ve seen it play out at far too many firms where leadership rejects the premise and therefore communicates the boomerang-expectation that business development is something that only “rainmakers” can be successful doing. In other words, someone other than themselves. These firm leaders accept the idea that most partners are not capable of Business Development and should therefore focus their efforts/energies on their subject matter expertise (SME) – Accounting, architecture, law, etc. However, in following their SME path of getting the work out the door and letting the rainmakers drive new clients and organic growth, there is a dichotomy that presents itself. Viewing the firms’ revenue in this way results in a sort of bilateral view — rainmakers bring in new clients and the rest of the partners’ service clients. Carrying this further, since firm leadership has no expectation of Business Development from most partners, there is no training or coaching and especially no need for accountability. So, Is there any wonder that so many professional service firms struggle with achieving significant growth year over year?

We Have a Plan…

 “Yes, of course we have a Business Development plan… It’s just different from the one you may have been told exists” a Professional Service Firm Leader shared with us during our acquisition interview. Upon further review, I found that the plan that existed on paper was rarely, if ever, followed. This inconsistency led to poor results in Business Development, and overall firm financial figures being reported. I’m often puzzled why leaders believe that we will not “see” something as being off or different when they give us this contrarian perspective. Afterall, it’s not that these firms are large enough to hide these individuals or their erratic performance.

Sales Strategic Planning

If the adage, “Nothing happens until you sell something” holds true (and why shouldn’t it, even at a professional services firm?), then what are the major actions leadership needs to take in order to drive significant growth year over year and build a successful business development structure? From a high-level perspective, the following three (3) actions should be incorporated in a Sales Strategic Planning document annually:

Expectations

Professional Service Firm leaders need to clearly communicate that it is every partner’s responsibility to be successful at Business Development and drive top-line revenue for growth. Business Development goals need to be established for every partner — goals that are stretch goals and that take into account each partner’s strengths and weaknesses. The issue here is not to give every partner the same revenue goal, but to give every partner a revenue goal for them to hit individually. These individual goals should roll-up into the stated goal for the overall firm.

Training and Coaching

Just like any sports team, there is a range of ability from the superstar to the team members who just make-up the team. To carry-on with the sports analogy, the coaches must understand the span of abilities that exist amongst the individual team members and as well as the responsibility to ensure that every member of the team improves their abilities each day (This is what practice is for!) It’s no different with a Professional Service Firm. Firm leadership must ensure that there is a strong training and coaching model in place to provide continuous improvement to the entire partner group as it relates to their Business Development abilities.

Accountability

For the above two steps (Expectations + Training and Coaching) to achieve the overall goal of driving revenue and successful Business Development, there needs to be an effective accountability model in place. Every partner has to be held accountable for their individual performance against the goals established for them. Accountability needs to be focused on helping each partner achieve greater levels of performance, versus laying blame for not achieving their goals. Accountability needs to be established with a carrot and stick methodology… There is motivation and training tools that act as the carrot, not as a Billy club acting as the stick in the event goals are not achieved. Accountability is a key ingredient necessary to drive every partner’s success in Business Development. Lastly, Professional Service Firm leadership should be held accountable for creating and implementing a successful Business Development model throughout the firm.

Leave the Networking to Leadership

“It’s the expectation that every leader in our Professional Services Firm network to increase our client base” I was told during an acquisition interview by our prospective organization’s Managing Director. If it was clear to him, it apparently wasn’t too clear to everyone else at the leadership level or beyond (Sales year over year were down a whopping 50%!)

A Business Development Model

Let’s look at the three major stages of an effective Business Development model:

Building a Network

Business Development starts with each Professional Service Firm Leader building their own network of contacts that are in a position to create an opportunity for the firm. This is the single most challenging piece of the Business Development strategy, and one that generates the most fear and concern for most partners. The bottom line is that most partners are just not comfortable going into an industry conference or local business association meeting and making contacts that matter. Professional Service Firm Leaders need to understand this and build training and coaching programs that will help each partner learn and become comfortable with building their network. There is no one approach to successful networking, and each partner needs to develop a process that works for them.

Creating Opportunities

The value of a personal network is in the potential opportunities for new clients. A major mistake that many partners make is thinking any contact is a good contact. This strategy is based on “hopes” and “wishes,” not on strategic decisions. Unless the contact is a decision maker at a potential client, or the contact is a key influencer with access to target clients, the contact has limited value in terms of the potential for opportunities to be created. Turning a contact into a valuable contact is a critical process that includes training, mentoring and a defined plan of action. Most critical in this process is the contact must be able to build trust in the partner.

Closing the Sale

All the best networking and opportunity creating activities results in little/nothing if the sales closed percentage is low or not where it should be according to the goals established for the partner/firm. So, what percentage will you set? Too low and you can modify higher. These adjustments are important because you have to start with something stated. It’s only based on the autopsy of either business won or lost that you can identify not only the proper percentage to target, but what activities you should train/monitor for successful Business Development.

Of Course We’re Driven to Acquire New Clients

“Of course we’re driven to acquire new clients. At this Professional Services Firm each of the partners take growth very seriously!” a leader at the firm shared with us during our acquisition interview. But where exactly were the firm’s leaders focused on acquiring new clients? After a few additional questions, it became obvious that they were looking at very low-hanging fruit clientele (i.e., those that were extremely easy to acquire!)

Who are Your Prospects?

There are three types of prospective clients to be taken into consideration for your Sales Strategic Plan as part of your Business Development efforts for the Professional Service Firm, Price-driven, Relationship-driven, and Value-driven. Let’s review each in more detail.

Price-driven

This type of prospect is only interested in the price, and from their perspective the lowest price. If that is the type of prospect you want to pursue, your win percent will in all likelihood be low (probably below 30%). Professional Service Firm Leadership caught in identifying Price-driven prospects typically believe that they can secure clients from other Professional Service Firms on price alone (“If we lower the price of our services, we’ll increase our client base). These same leaders tend to believe that once secured, they will be able to sell future services at a significantly higher rate so the overall profit on the client will be acceptable. This rarely happens, as these clients tend to find other low-price firms to do business with.

Relationship-driven

The Relationship-driven prospect is one who has a direct relationship with a part of your network or was referred by someone who has a good and trusted relationship with the prospect (i.e., they have a relationship with someone/somewhere which is why they’re doing business with your Professional Service Firm). Price may still be a driver for them, but the relationship often trumps price as long as the price is within a reasonable range.

Value-driven

The Value-driven prospect is one where the client agrees to do business with your firm due to the value they derive. Typically referred to as the “gold” standard, they never use price as a factor in selecting the Professional Service Firm, as long as they can see the connection between what your price is and the value that you deliver.

The best client-prospect is the one that is both relationship-driven and value-driven. As the firm or practice leader, you have to create a winning Business Development model that will drive growth every year, with each partner improving their Business Development success every year. For your firm to achieve significant annual growth, the best path is to implement a Business Development model that capitalizes on every partner’s strengths (and limits their weaknesses), sets clear expectations, and holds each partner accountable for results — the results being the actual new clients acquired.

SUMMARY

Professional Service Firms struggle to achieve significant growth year over year. Business development in its simplest structure consists of (a) building your network; (b) creating opportunities: and (c) closing the sale. So why is it so difficult for so many professional service firms to consistently drive substantial annual growth? Serving the firm in a role that’s larger than compliance and client service to one where all partners have a responsibility to sell is the purpose of this four (4) part series.

Sam Palazzolo

#Leadership #BloodSweatSpears

#acquisitions #acquisitionentrepreneurship #businessgrowthstrategy #businessmergersacquisitions #buyabusiness #buyingabusiness #buyside #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #entrepreneurshipthroughacquisition #exitstrategies #mergers #mergerandacquisition #mergersacquisitionsdivestitures #privateequity #growingbusinesses #growthstrategies #mergers #mergersandacquisitions #newbusinessopportunities #searchfund #sellabusiness #CapitalAssetManagement #sellyourbusiness #smallbusiness #InvestmentBanking #PrivateEquity #PE

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: business development, leadership, professional service firm, sam palazzolo

Can Business Development Efforts Lead to Less Sales? 3 Tips!

February 13, 2018 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: The common Sales Leader thought goes something like “Increased business development efforts lead to more sales.” But what if you, as a Sales Leader, increase your business development efforts and achieve less sales? We’ve run into this a few times here at Tip of the Spear when conducting some Sales/Business Development advisory services. So what is Sales Leadership to do when faced with decreasing sales as a result of increased business development efforts? In this post we’ll explore the topic can business development efforts lead to less sales and provide 3 tips… Enjoy!

Definitions of Sales Leadership

One of the most effective definitions of leadership, as applied to sales, comes from former president Dwight D. Eisenhower. President Eisenhower defined leadership as “the art of obtaining some other person to try and do one thing you wish done as a result of HE needs to try and do it.” Another nice definition comes from Peter Drucker, the dean of contemporary management. Drucker was quoted in a speech as saying “Effective leadership isn’t concerning creating speeches or being liked; leadership is outlined by results, not attributes.”

Leaders today face the distinct challenges of managing their stakeholders (Typically comprised of their superiors, subordinates and peers). I took these factors into account and adopted a “new” thorough faculty sales leader approach to sales leadership. What will that mean in practice?

The aforementioned suggests that adapting several of the core leadership practices that have been championed for years and trade them to suit today’s various sales department. What follows are 3 tips to help sales leadership when confronted with business development efforts that lead to less sales:

Tip #3 – Set Realistic/Measurable Milestones

A play off of setting SMART (Specific/Measureable/Attainable/Relative/Time Specific) goals. Sales involves driving towards goals. However, the sales team will not solely reach those goals if they’re realistic (They might be too easily attained, not enough STRETCH!) Sales leadership has to be compelled to work with their team to align milestones that are simultaneously difficult and achievable.

Tip #2 – Align Sales Goals with Business Strategy

Sales Goals ought to be grounded in business strategy and be measured over time. Doing this keeps the sales team on-time/on-target, provides perceptive information to guide new methods, and keeps workers engaged. Once the team witnesses the results of their efforts and recognizes their efforts, they’re driven to further engage to push forward and improve. In fact, a survey conducted by Globoforce found 70% of workers say that they need a bigger emotional association to their job once they’re recognized for his or her work.

Tip #1 – Share Holistic Feedback

Traditionally, sales leadership has stressed performance feedback. However, this feedback tends to be targeted on individual goals and outcomes. They’re observing every employee’s numbers and figures. Whereas scrutinizing concrete outcomes remains necessary, only specializing in this monetary information isn’t the foremost effective way to motivate sales performance. The sales leader understands that feedback must address discussing facts because the job competencies that builds a robust sales performance are present.

SUMMARY

Effective sales leadership is often the distinction between a sales organization that thrives and a mediocre one that hardly stays afloat. Yet, several of the most effective sales managers still mistake the outline in their job title for one thing that’s not even crucial to sales success. Leadership is not a lot of unchecked personal magnetism, rah-rah speeches and a charming demeanour. Instead, in order to offset increased business development efforts that lead to less sales by assigning quotas and reviewing performance reports.

Sam Palazzolo

Leading at the Tip of the Spear Lunch Offer

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: business development, sales leadership, Sales Results, sam palazzolo

What Are Your 2018 Sales Business Development Resolutions? – 6 Tips!

January 9, 2018 By Tip of the Spear

The Point: Nothing happens in business until you sell something! If that’s the truth, as we start-off another year here at Tip of the Spear Ventures we asked ourselves “What are we going to see in terms of Sales + Business Development activity that is going to make our goals become reality?” So in this post, we’ll explore 6 tips that we believe will make the difference in your 2018 sales business development resolutions… Enjoy!

What Are Your 2018 Sales Business Development Resolutions 6 Tips

“And they’re off!” the horse track announcer calls across the public address (pa) system. Just like the horse race, so begins another year with all the hoopla/excitement that a new calendar deserves. “This year is going to be different” a leader tells me as we kick-off a new engagement. “How so?” I ask. “We’re going to do things different. Last year, especially as the year drew to a close, I found us as an organization in a ‘rut’ that we couldn’t get out of. We have goals of lead generation, sales acceleration, and next-level business development. So this year we’re going to avoid the ‘rut’ and drive towards accomplishing our sales business development goals.” What follows are the 6 Tips (or goals) that this leader sees as the success tasks for the New Year…

Tip #6 – Two Brains are Better!

You must have heard that two brains are better than one, and this can be a huge asset in Lead Generation. This is the theory that two leaders will provide enough perspective to align towards a better alternative than would have been achieved in/of their own. When a leader goes out in search of a business partner to have stronger and better plans for their small business, sharing information and deciding which way to go often works out for the better. Not only do the brains need to be compatible, but there is a lot more to it. I’m not advocating that leaders with similar brains should align, but often times leaders with differing thoughts can for even greater alignment/future direction. Out of everything else the two partners should be able to drive the business in the best manner together forward.

Tip #5 – Leveraging Technology (Artificial Intelligence – AI)

Can you ever have enough technology when it comes to lead generation, sales acceleration, and next-level business development? Another opportunity to consider in the coming year is adding Alexa (or a virtual assistant) to your workspace. Not only will your schedules be organized/optimized, but you can incorporate Alexa into almost everything you do. From scheduling meetings, managing clients and to-do lists and all those little tasks which you would rather not do because they take a little longer in doing. This type of technology is beneficial in uncountable ways for your sales and business development efforts.

Tip #4 – Cross-Functional Teams

No matter how much technology you have, it still comes down to people in business executing sales acceleration initiatives drafted. So why not adopt cross-functional teams to achieve your goals with less consumption of human energy and having more productive outcomes for your business. The cross-functional teams can prove to be a good support for the business plan when they are competent and collaborate and cooperating at the same time. These teams can handle a big part of your sales acceleration and lead generation.

Tip #3 – Communicate the Sales + Business Development Plan!

So far this year, I’ve had a few disturbing moments when it comes to business leaders and their sales business development plans. The disturbing sales and business development moments come primarily in the form of not wrapping up 2017 aggressively and not having a sales acceleration plan in place for 2018. Now you and I both know that business can be unpredictable, and that best laid plans can become unraveled in a matter of what appears to be moments (especially in sales business development for those leadership members!) But to not finish strong (it’s not a matter of wanting to finish stronger!), often times comes down to not communicating the sales + business development plan to those expected to execute (and don’t get me started on the topic of accountability – a topic for a future post!) Communicating your idea in the best way possible is the key to manage a leading business. Communication serves the longest and healthiest life of a business (As business communications are largely dependent upon the presentations that are delivered to the potential partners or clients). It is very important to have some highly interactive and well explained and professionally created and creative presentations, but the content isn’t enough. You should definitely know the depths of what you want to deliver to the senior partners or clients of your business.

Tip #2 – Learn How to Negotiate

Learning to negotiate in a more effective way for this year is a key to the lifelong learning that I often see as a key to success (Especially when it comes to success in lead generation, sales acceleration, and next-level business development!) There are several tactics that make negotiations easier and more interesting. Being persuasive and being able to deliver your idea more effectively shows the best of a businessman.

Tip #1 – Communicate Up

Keep your senior management team in a constant supply of information and reviews about your business lead generation, sales acceleration, and next-level business development. You should be able to communicate the progress and the hurdles of your business to them. The senior management is able to look and help better when your reviews are honest and accurate. While they might be able to see the details from a metrics perspective, provide the “reasons” why initiatives are on/off-track so that they get the full picture.

SUMMARY

Keep your lead generation, sales acceleration, and next-level business development mission statement in line with your business strategy. Try to incorporate new ideas and keep yourself open to new avenues of technology and management. Just like Alexa, there are so many more technology (Artificial Intelligence – AI) that can make business handling far more easily and manageable. Look into all those options available for you and choose those best according to your needs and requirements.

 

Sam Palazzolo

Leading at the Tip of the Spear Lunch Offer

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: business development, lead generation, Sales Acceleration, sam palazzolo, tip of the spear

Sales Leadership: 7 Lies Your Sales Staff Tells That Will Get You Fired!

August 14, 2017 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: Oh the joys of Sales Leadership… Typically, successful salesperson today becomes sales leader tomorrow. But are those successful salespeople the best candidates for sales leadership? And if they become sales leaders, are successful salespeople going to be able to work successfully with previous coworkers and new hires? In this post, we examine the ugly side of sales leadership: Lying! We’ll explore 7 lies your sales staff tells that will get you fired… Enjoy!

Sales Leadership: 7 Lies Your Sales Staff Tells That Will Get You Fired!

This is Nothing More Than Glorified Babysitting!

Meet Jane, Chief Sales Officer at an INC 5000 company. Jane’s been around since the organization formed and helped shape not only the many offerings that have been brought to market, but also the sales process/methodology currently in place (The company recently cracked the $100M Annual Sales level!) All should be good in Jane’s world, but it’s not… You see when the sales / business development department numbered 10 or less, Jane was able to effectively lead the team forward. However, now that the team borders on 25, she is finding her daily/weekly/monthly tasks of leader the team forward not as productive. “This is nothing more than glorified babysitting” Jane shared on a recent visit. At the heart of this glorified babysitting was the sales staff’s inability to NOT act like sales professionals and to act like little kids. “I understand not being able to achieve stretch goals… We establish them to drive the organization to stretch. But what I don’t understand is the lying that the sales staff members retort to when they can’t achieve stretch goals!” Sad to report that a brief 4-months after this conversation Jane was let go… let go by the organization that she helped found!

The 7 Lies Your Sales Staff Tells That Will Get You Fired!

Word to the wise Chief Sales Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Rain Maker, etc… If your sales staff is not producing so as to achieve stretch goals, you are probably in career double jeopardy! So herein are the 7 lies your sales staff tells that will get you fired:

Lie #7 – “Budget is NOT an Issue with This Customer”

Budget is always an issue… with each and every customer you strategically sell with! Salespeople that use this lie are not only lying to you, they’re lying to themselves!

Lie #6 – “I Don’t Need to Write My Goals Down… I Have Them Memorized”

If it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist… and if it doesn’t exist, then you’re probably going to have a hard time achieving it! I know that every dog has it’s day, and that a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile, but even those that claim to be “that good” still can’t remember in sales.

Lie #5 – “I made 100 Cold Calls Today”

Sales funnels work best (i.e., result in sales) when there are prospective customers dropped into the top. Now a salesperson whose sales funnel is examined and identified that there are no prospective customers close to the bottom of the sales funnel have a difficult time explaining how their actions have resulted in such little progress. Bottom Line: I know Sales Cold Calls suck (I still do them!), but if you want a full funnel there’s no way around it!

Lie #4 – “We Lost the Deal Because We Don’t Have _____ (blank)”

Be it a competitor’s _____ (blank), lack of marketing department’s production of _____ (blank), or just anybody other than the salesperson… this is a blame game. In the level-playing field of sales, if someone else is selling your product/service you’d better figure out how they are (and how you aren’t!)

Lie #3 – “I’m a 2nd Half of the Month Salesperson”

Most sales occur at disproportionate times of the month. Typically, most sales are made at the end of the month. However, NEVER pulling sales forward (not even for repeat customers) is problematic in that relationships are not being built, pipelines are running empty, and don’t get me started again on sales funnels not being full!

Lie #2 – “We Lost the Sales Because of Our Price”

Selling on price is a losing proposition. While benefits that don’t resonate rarely lead to sales, price point selling is a losing game all the way around (Unless you are the industry volume leader!)

Lie #1 – “I’m Too Busy Doing Everyone Else’s Job!”

Sales is an all-in moment… As a sales professional you have all of your skin in the game (Hats off to those 100% commissioned sales professionals out there!) Stop whining… Start selling!

SUMMARY

There used to be an adage that goes something like “If a salesperson’s lips are moving… They’re lying!” While not all sales professionals are lyers, in this post we’ve explored a sales leadership dilemma of 7 Lies Your Sales Staff Tells That Will Get You Fired!

Sam Palazzolo

PS – If you or your organization is challenged as a result of Sales / Business Development activity, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line and request future post titles! Here are a few other titles that are currently in the works:

  • Improving Business Development Leadership Skills – 3 Tips!
  • Is the Art of Business Development Prospecting Overrated? 3 Tips!
  • Rеѕроndіng tо Emergencies
  • Identifying thе Strеngthѕ and Weaknesses in Representatives
  • Dеvеlоріng Strаtеgіеѕ fоr Rеvеnuе Grоwth
  • Developing Effесtіvе Cоmреnѕаtіоn Pans
  • Hоldіng Sales Rерrеѕеntаtіvеѕ Accountable fоr Pооr Pеrfоrmаnсе
  • Learning tо Motivate and Inѕріrе Sales Representatives

 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Achieve Stretch Goals, business development, INC 5000, sales leadership, Sales Strategy, sam palazzolo

Is the Art of Business Development Prospecting Overrated? 3 Tips!

August 1, 2017 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

Many sales guru’s think that the Art of Business Development Prospecting is overrated, but this aspect of business can never be sidelined. Many make blunders because they mistake the art for “something else” by committing one or more of the under listed blunders:

  1. Not listening. No salesperson has ever heard of a sale. However, when asked a simple question, many sellers take it as a license to deliver a monologue. Here are three tips for better listening.
  2. Using sales of snapshots. People often start to lose interest when they feel they are being sold. Usually they begin to feel this way when they hear phrases like “This is a great question” or “What is needed to get your business today?” People need to feel like individuals, not like parts on an assembly line.
  3. Failure to adapt to the situation. The problem with using a rigid sales script is that it assumes buying motivations, prospects pain points, and supposed similar situations in life.
  4. Distinguish features from benefits. Often focus on sellers telling someone what a product or service to the detriment of this problem solves or what pain takes away. Once I observed a commercial leasing agent from the prospective client’s office. When he met in the hall of the building, he commented on the large outdoor car park. It was a declaration of characteristics. A benefit statement would have focused on how customers would never find a parking lot or that people could always park near the building in bad weather. Was it a necessary conversation point to make? Probably not!

Below are three tips that can assist in the art of business development prospecting, taking you from overrated to actual sales/business development activity:

Tip #3 – Prospecting is Not Networking.

Prospecting requires thoughtful analysis. Networking is improvisational and immediate. Prospecting requires equal measure of looking out into the marketplace assessing the need or demand, and introspection to look within yourself and determine, with clarity and confidence, what opportunities you are well positioned to pursue that will elevate your scene to ever-higher levels.

Prospecting requires discernment. It’s not a numbers game all the time. Whatever your business, you will not be good for all potential prospects. There should be a mutually perceived adjustment between you and your prospective client – where the best to serve them well is in a way that is highly valued by them (NOT you the salesperson!) Believe me, this dilutes the pile of pressed mud. Once you are able to define what a “good fit” is for the prospect, and why they should care, you are able to focus all your energy and resources on the opportunities that feed the most promising of prospects. When you are highly specialized, prospecting is often though of as “easy.” If you are a specialized expert, known in the market to solve specialized types of problems you may be thinking that you do not need to prospect for customers (or those customers who need this kind of problem solved). It is much easier to determine which prospects place a high value on your solution. Chances are good that these prospective clients will be looking for you too, and you will be much easier to find as a result.

Tip #2 – What Defines a Perspective?

A prospect is a known buyer at an early stage in search of a solution to a major problem that cannot be solved now or in the near future. All the others are suspect. Converting suspects into prospects is a tough job and takes time. In my consulting firm, it takes three months or more of careful “in-touch” strategies to transform a prospect from a suspect.

Tip #1 – Always Be Prospecting (ABP)!

Prospecting is not an activity you do when you need business. If you need business next week, the prospecting of evil cannot correct. Always be prospecting (ABP), no matter how busy you are. It is the only way to create a sustainable sales pipeline to grow your business. Whatever your current business book, plant and tend a garden for abundant future prospects ripening every day.

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve set out to identify is the art of business development prospecting overrated, along with three tips to assist you in implementing the prospecting pipeline-fill needed to be successful in sales.

 

Sam Palazzolo

PS – If you or your organization is challenged as a result of Sales / Business Development activity, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line and request future post titles! Here are a few other titles that are currently in the works:

  • Rеѕроndіng tо Emergencies
  • Identifying thе Strеngthѕ and Weaknesses in Representatives
  • Dеvеlоріng Strаtеgіеѕ fоr Rеvеnuе Grоwth
  • Developing Effесtіvе Cоmреnѕаtіоn Pans
  • Hоldіng Sales Rерrеѕеntаtіvеѕ Accountable fоr Pооr Pеrfоrmаnсе
  • Learning tо Motivate and Inѕріrе Sales Representatives

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: always be prospecting, business development, sales guru's, sam palazzolo

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