Selling in the Consulting World –
Building a business development culture is easier than you think |
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11
What if we realised
that it is not a quantum
leap but something that
many of us are pretty
good at? It is just that
we have not formed the
right habits around
doing the little things
that most successful
business developers do
naturally. These are:
● Maintaining contact
with people they used to
work with at past
employers
● Maintaining contact
with clients they used
to work with
● Maintaining contact
with clients you are now
at other companies
● Being interested in
what is happening to
others
● Attend association
meetings / conferences
● At networking
events arrive a bit
early and stay a little
later so you can talk
with others
● Have lunch with
people and be interested
in them instead of your
blackberry / iPhone
● Always follow-up
with people
● Listen for
opportunities wherever
you go – they are all
around you if you are
willing to hear them.
None of these is hard
to do once they become a
habit. The hard part is
to make them a habit in
the first place. I can | |
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| | cite numerous examples
over just the past 12
months where directors
and senior managers we
work with have made very
slight changes to their
habits, such as eating
lunch a couple of times
a week with a colleague,
client or someone they
do not know well but
work closely to;
rReconnecting by phone
(not email) with a
couple of old contacts
each week; attending
one association meeting
or conference a month.
The results have been
staggering. One client
moving from public to
private sector has won
programmes in three of
the major banks; another
in the marketing
consulting arena has
opened up four global
names not previously
worked with; and another
has won new initiatives
in the telco space – the
list goes on.
We are not seeing
huge quantum leap style
changes, but what we are
seeing is real
commitment to business
development activities
that add up to something
significant. Five
directors each
communicating with one
to two of their past
contacts each week (this
can be done sitting in
your car using your
hands-free in a traffic
jam), equates to 25-50 a
month, 300-600
connections a year. If | |
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| | 10% of those lead to
possible opportunities
and based on the 1:5
ratio seen above, you
would have 12 new
clients.
We call this “the
slight edge philosophy”.
Change that lasts rarely
happens in one big bang;
it is normally the
result of lots of small
things linked to each
other that create
momentum. Jeff Olsen
wrote about a good
example of this in 2005
in his book, “The Slight
Edge”: it showed that a
0.003% improvement in
something every day for
a one year period leads
to a 100% improvement,
in two years to a 200%
improvement, in three
years to a 400%
improvement, in four
years to an 800%
improvement.
So creating a
business development
culture is closer than
you think. The firms
that realise successful
business development is
often about 100%
commitment to and
execution of small but
significant changes in
behaviour at a senior
level, will see the
growth in revenue they
deserve. As Aristotle
said: “We are what we
repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not
an act, but a habit.” | |
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