sales – Bottom Line Top Line

016 Business Development Diagnostic—Part 2

Welcome to the Bottom Line Top Line Podcast with Carol Bartlett, Jol Hunter, and Chris Spurvey.

Our episode this week is the second part of a series in which we talk about business development tactics and assessing your business development processes.

We walk you through some tips that business owners and leaders should keep in mind and questions to ponder as you assess your business development processes. We also talk about building brand and reputation, how to protect your reputation, how to nurture client relationships, and how to organize your business development efforts.

Last week, we talked about the mind-set and principles to apply in assessing your business development efforts. This week’s episode isn’t the end of our discussion of business development diagnostics. Stay tuned for a question and answer forum in February!

To download the document, scroll to the bottom of these show notes and fill in the form.

Avoiding a Salesy Culture

What we’re trying to get away from is a salesy culture. Who wants to be sold to? No one.

But if you’re offering a service, you shouldn’t hold back your solutions from a client who has a problem you can solve. Of course, you should lend a hand and say, “This is something I can do.”

Building Reputation and Creating a Brand

You’re creating both a personal brand and a business brand—whether intentionally or not—so why not be intentional?

Visualize what you want your brand and reputation to be and then create them deliberately by sharing in emails and conversations the right level of expertise at the right time. Be authentic and genuine. Intention and deliberateness are the two most important qualities to have in these interactions.

Committing to Proactive Business Development

Based on my own experience, I recommend that you put business development activities on your calendar and prioritize them. Be proactive.

Schedule an hour or so each week—maybe at the start of the week—to plan your business development activities. Then follow through by meeting new people, attending meetings, and so on. Otherwise, business development can get postponed or even pushed aside when seemingly more important things come up.

How committed are you to scheduling time for business development on a regular basis?

To learn more about these topics, please listen to the episode.

Mentions

Connect with Carol, Jol and Chris on LinkedIn.

008 Customer Intimacy

Welcome to the Bottom Line Top Line Podcast with Carol Bartlett, Jol Hunter, and Chris Spurvey.

This week on the podcast, we take a deep dive into one of the three competitive strategies for market leadership, as mentioned in the book The Discipline of Market Leaders: customer intimacy.

Chris, Jol, and Carol talk about the types of conversations you can have with your customers to enable you to learn their pain points, the opportunities that come from having an intimate relationship with your customers, and the importance of having an attitude of service.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

To download the document, scroll to the bottom of these show notes and fill in the form.

Getting into the Lives of Your Customers

Working at a Fortune 500 company, I learned how they get into the lives of their customers. For the business to be successful, we had to do that.

Scale is important. How much do you know about your customer? How many touch points do you have? How well do you know the customer’s business? What are its pain points? Businesses thrive on knowing as much as possible about their customers.

Customer Intimacy for Small Organizations

The organizations that I’ve worked with have many, many customers. In retail, you can’t contact all of your customers.

But you should have touch points for the customers who buy your products on a regular basis. You can automate some of that contact. Regardless, touch points can give you an understanding of where your sales are coming from and how you can increase them. Where is your market share coming from? What industry is giving you most of your customers? Do you know that industry extremely well, or do you need to learn more about its pain points?

A Structure for Diagnostic Conversations with Your Customers

As the relationship between you and your customer develops, a broader range of issues are introduced into the conversation. In this way, your opportunities to serve that customer grow. And so do your sales opportunities.

But how can you cultivate such a relationship? Talk about the aspirations of the person and the aspirations of the person’s business so that you can gather information and better understand the situation. Help him or her to articulate goals and then think through strategies and tactics for reaching those goals. Clearly articulate what is going well and what is not going so well. Out of a conversation like that, issues pop. The issues may be strictly business ones or may be related to personal matters. When the issues have been identified, the opportunities will flow.

To learn more about these topics, please listen to the episode.

Mentions

Connect with Carol, Jol and Chris on LinkedIn.

The Discipline of Market Leaders (book) by Michael Treacy & Fred Wiersema