Business development ideas

How to prepare for a High-Impact client meeting.

How to prepare for a High-Impact client meeting.

Client meetings are your golden ticket to unlocking new revenue opportunities. Before you walk into that meeting room, run through this checklist to ensure a productive and meaningful discussion.

You can’t build a great relationship from behind your desk

Despite new technologies like Zoom, Vidyard and Shootsta to name but a few, we still need to make the effort to get out from behind our desks.

At meetings you build relationships, friendships and eventually, trust. After two years of relative inactivity, it is time to re-engage!

Before you make excuses......

I think we can agree that the economy is unstable. While some firms are flourishing, others are suffering.

Likewise some professionals are exceeding their goals and others, I would say up to 50%, are moaning about their poor or static results and blaming the economy, covid, staff retention etc

10 Questions to assess your current situation and target your future efforts

question-mark-1872665__340.jpg

Let’s start this fresh calendar year with some tricky and difficult questions.

When asking these business development questions, challenge yourself to take a frank and realistic approach to evaluating the progress, success or otherwise, of your business.

Thrashing out answers to these questions will also help you highlight achievements, identify gaps and shortfalls, and focus your efforts (time and money) for the financial year.

Use the following list to stimulate debate and (ideally) garner consensus with key players within your firm.

Agenda – 10 questions to assess your current situation and target your future efforts

1. What is our largest business development challenge?

2. How are we dealing with it?

3. How long have we had the problem?

4. What have we done to address it?

5. How is it impacting the firm?

6. What is it costing us?

7. If it continues, what will the effect on the business be?

8. What are we good at and should do more of?

9. What are we poor at and must stop doing?

10. What will we do differently tomorrow to ensure we hit our business development, financial and wider goals?

Don’t underestimate the power of work-shopping these issues as a group. These questions will help you focus, prioritise, and get back on the rails. Simple questions can be a great catalyst for clarity and change.

Business development advice and help

As ever, if you need help to run the session, do get in touch.

WHY? – The Most Powerful Question in Business development

why.jpeg

In many of my recent client reviews it has become alarmingly apparent that very basic business analysis is not being performed on a regular basis.

To get you started on this critical process, get your major decision makers together for a meeting and challenge yourselves with the following business development questions.

11 key business development questions for professional services firms

  • Why have we/have we not reached our revenue goals?

  • Why is our marketing/Business Development budget set at its current level, and is it producing results?

  • Why haven’t we been able to implement a business development culture, even though we keep saying it’s a priority?

  • Why hasn’t our marketing and business development effort worked as well as we might have liked?

  • Why aren’t we launching/specialising in specific industry sectors?

  • Why is it that only the management team or a few staff members attract new business?

  • Why haven’t we been able to win our target accounts, though we believe we can and should have?

  • Why don’t we seem able to charge more for our products/services?

  • Why is it we don’t get enough repeat business?

  • Why have we lost that big client to the competition?

  • Why are we unable to work out on our own what action to take?

Business development support & expertise

Winners make it happen, losers let it happen.

Unfortunately politics and procrastination can hold you back from finding the answers to these necessary questions. If you need some assistance or external accountability to help you do what you need to do, make sure you get in touch.