Johnny Cash’s advice for BD-focused Partners
Balancing business development and client service delivery
“I keep my eyes wide open all the time” Johnny Cash tells us through his legendary lyrics from the song “I Walk the Line”. Albeit Johnny was singing to June Carter Cash the line has relevance for all of us working in the professional services space when it comes to how you balance business development and service delivery. Do you purposefully ‘walk the line’ when it comes to this balancing act. Do you think about how and where you spend your time and the impact of these decisions on your career or practice area?
Defining success differently
What defines a great day at work for you? Is It sitting at your now work-from-home desk getting lots of client delivery work done? Let’s look at this differently. What if a great day at work included connecting and engaging with a number of new and existing contacts on zoom to proactively help them respond to their most pressing business challenges? With the huge change in working from home practices over the past number of months, 88% of sellers report it difficult to develop relationships virtually. This has significant relevance for the investment we all need to make in continuing to add value to our clients every day.
‘Eat the frog’ every day
How important is business development in the context of your career ambitions? Do you have a personal business development plan? How many calls and client touchpoints do you have every day and week? How many of these to you need to convert to achieve and exceed your business development targets. What does that mean for what you need to do tomorrow? Mark Twain famously said that if the first thing you do in the morning is eat a live frog you can go through the rest of the day knowing the worst is behind you!! So if you’re starting from scratch, ‘eat that frog’ first thing in the morning; put in that long overdue call. Before you know it, you’ll be picking up that phone without even thinking.
Measuring success
Some of the most successful professional service partners have spent years developing and building their networks. Developing business virtually is different. The dynamics have changed but with 70-80% of B2B buyers preferring remote human interactions, virtual business development and service delivery is here to stay. Breaking your business development pipeline and plan into tangible milestones, will ensure you can track and consistently make progress.
Ensure you proactively ‘walk the line’ that consistently builds your network, career and business development success over time. To discuss growing your portfolio or practice area, contact us at hello@thecustomer.ie
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References:
*https://www.rainsalestraining.com/sales-research/virtual-selling **https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/these-eight-charts-show-how-covid-19-has-changed-b2b-sales-forever?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck&hdpid=736cbf33-e0b2-4206-bd04-5a9115f6b398&hctky=9892091&hlkid=f0ee23529b22415f970ba28f28a4f252
Photo credit: Matt Botsford, Unsplash
