What can you learn from cell phone carriers?
Pop quiz: why are you a customer of your cell phone carrier? Take a second to answer. Got it? You likely gave one of these reasons: Your carrier is the cheapest (price) You’ve been with the same carrier forever with no reason to change (inertia) Your carrier offers an advantage that others don’t (distinction) […]
A question to begin the month
The beginning of the month is always a good time to do a spot-check on your business development efforts. I have only one question for you today:
Planting seeds for biz dev growth
Six years ago, I reviewed The Go-Giver and The Referral of a Lifetime, two must-read books for learning to build strong relationships that yield business. In the last three weeks, I’ve recommended The Go-Giver to at least 50% of my private clients, and last week I had the unexpected opportunity to attend a workshop co-hosted by Go-Giver co-author Bob Burg. This week seems […]
Motivation and action
Have you ever caught yourself thinking about a task you need to complete and wishing you could just get yourself motivated to do it? That happens especially with tasks that don’t have a specific deadline, and even more so if the task isn’t one that feels like it comes naturally. Business development tasks are one […]
Make ’em look good!
If there’s one single activity that should be at the center of your business development focus, it’s building relationships. How? Through personal meetings, telephone calls, emails, social media contacts, sending useful articles, sharing new resources, and more. There’s no single right way to establish, build, or maintain relationships, and the best growth strategies (which feel […]
Don’t be a stranger
Last fall, I hired Summit Pools to close my pool for the season. My contact Pete (I didn’t know it at the time, but he’s also the owner) was terrific: he set the appointment, let me know exactly what to expect, told me what the cost would be and what could change that cost, and […]
Learn to love networking!
You already know that networking is important, right? In case you need a refresher, consider this data from the Harvard Business Review article Learn to Love Networking: When we studied 165 lawyers at a large North American law firm, for example, we found that their success depended on their ability to network effectively both internally […]