Nature does not hurry and yet everything is accomplished.
~Lao Tzu

Today we continue with part four of our six-part series, 30 Powerful Ways to Spring Clean Your Business. If you missed the first four episodes, you can find them herehere, here and here

This series is inspired by my CEO Fast Track guide, which you can find here, where I lay out the 6 core CEO disciplines required to move beyond the busywork, and find time to work ON not just IN your business.

In this episode, we’re going to be talking about the fifth discipline – Business Development.

Enjoy

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Today we continue with part four of our six-part series, 30 Powerful Ways to Spring Clean Your Business. If you missed the first, second and third installment, you can find them herehere and here

This series is inspired by my CEO Fast Track guide, which you can find here, where I lay out the 6 core CEO disciplines required to move beyond the busywork, and find time to work ON not just IN your business.

In this episode, we’re going to be talking about the fifth discipline – Business Development.

So let’s identify five key activities you could do with this fifth CEO Discipline, to spring clean your business. This list is not exhaustive but will get you headed in the right direction.

Important note: As I said in the last episode, If you’re listening to this in a different season, don’t discount these ideas. While we’re maximizing the energy of spring, these can be accomplished any time of the year.

Tired of living in feast or famine land? Wondering where the next client will come from?

Then business development needs to be a priority area of focus.

Business development is about prospecting, nurturing and converting possible customers and clients. Many business owners find themselves on the cash-flow roller coaster because they’ve been so busy servicing their clients, they’ve made no time to fill the pipeline of prospects ready to step in when the existing clients complete.

That invariably happens when you’ve been spending too much time IN the business and not enough time ON the business — only to look up and say, “Yikes, I don’t have any client work lined up next month. What am I going to do?” If you want a sustainable, profitable business – business development is critical.

And spring is a perfect time to put some attention to business development, as things start to slow, the weather warms and people are able to get out and connect more regularly.

Audit your sales conversation process and results

Whatever your process is for moving prospects to clients, take some time this spring to review for resonance and effectiveness.

Do you get people on the phone for a 30-minute discovery call, only to find yourself over-delivering for an additional 30 minutes, leaving your prospect so full up they no longer feel pulled to work with you?

Do you meet people for coffee chats and get-to-know-you Skype dates but struggle to move from conversational chit-chat to a sales conversation that could convert them into customers?

Are you awesome at sales ONCE you get them on the phone, but struggle to get the calls in the first place?

When it comes to business development and sales, we need to spend time refining and optimizing our sales conversations. Whether it’s finding new ways to get in front of people to invite them to a conversation, or refining your pitch at the end – this is an important area to fine tune.

Following up on older leads to see if they’re ready to work with you

I’ve got a folder in my email labeled “Prospects and Follow Ups,” and I’d encourage you to have one too (or something similar).

Chances are good you’ve had people reach out to you over the past year who are interested in what you do or even working with you but weren’t ready to take the next step when you last spoke.

Use this month to follow up with those leads before they go from warm to cool to cold. Find out how they’re doing and ask if they’d like to connect to chat about how you could work together.

Developing a referral program and sending that out to existing and previous clients

Does a lot of your work come from word of mouth? Then creating a referral program for the people that spread the word about your business just makes sense.

There are many ways to approach it and what you offer, but at bare bones, you could look to create a short PDF that outlines exactly what you do and who you do it for, that equips your referral partners with the right language to sing your praises. And then you could explore referral incentives from gift cards to free services to discounts.

Scrub and update your customer and prospect lists

I’m betting that if your contact list looks anything like mine, it could use a good spring clean. Go through your contacts and delete irrelevant names (e.g from that job you had 15 years ago). Make sure relevant contacts are up to date. Put important birthdays into your calendar so you remember them.

If your business is largely reliant on a high volume of customers or clients, consider using a contact-specific software to help you manage all the details.

Flush out a complete sales funnel

Sales funnels are all the rage right now, but essentially what we’re talking about is a pathway to lead someone from being a prospect all the way through to becoming a customer or client.

If you do this well, you can create a more relevant and powerful user experience for people because all of their touch points with your business are highly customized to their specific interests.

To do this, identify one particular end product, service or program you’d like to draw more customers or clients into. Then work backward to identify the various touch points you could create for them, both in terms of messaging and smaller offers that build to this final one.

***

These are my five strategies to spring clean in the CEO Discipline of Business Development. Stay tuned next week when we complete our 6-part series on the 30 Powerful Ways to Spring Clean Your Business. We’ll be talking about the sixth CEO Discipline – Systems and Processes.

Recommended Resources:

The Leadership League Mastermind

CEO Fast Track Guide

Leadership League Coffeehouse

30 Powerful Ways to Spring Clean Your Business (Part #1)

30 Powerful Way to Spring Clean Your Business (Part #2)

30 Powerful Ways to Spring Clean Your Business (Part #3)

30 Powerful Ways to Spring Clean Your Business (Part #4)

We Love Referrals – Fetching Finn

Leadership Letters

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30 Powerful Ways to Spring Clean Your Business (Part 5)

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