All right, everybody. Charlie Hauck. Good morning, good afternoon. Whenever you're listening to it, it's fine by me, it's Fast Tip Friday time again.
Hey, let's talk a little more tactical approach to what you're doing out there. This is one of the things that we always find out is people are afraid to, in a way, set some rules and regulations about what's about to happen. We're so programmed that the customer is always right, and whatever process the customer wants to implement to kind of get us from hello to a decision, we should always be willing to follow their dance steps and not disagree. Lord knows, you don't want to tick somebody off and have them be upset that you weren't the most accepting and pliable, and sometimes I hate to say it, you're the biggest sucker that they see that day.
So what you've got to do is decide, look, what's the purpose for every meeting. If you don't have a purpose, you probably shouldn't be there. What's the outcome that you want to achieve for every meeting? If you don't have an outcome, you're probably going to leave more times than not, wondering what the hell happened? What happens next, and when is it going to happen? And that leads to an over implementation of my least favorite phrase in business development, which is follow up. And so I reiterate over and over again that every meetings got to have a purpose, and every purpose has to have a decision that defines the success of the interaction.
Did you decide to do business? Did you decide to continue the conversation? Did you decide that it's just not a good fit and we should stop trying to beat each other over the head? Did you decide something other than "Well, I guess I can call them back in two weeks and see what we're going to do". If you aren't the most committed person to the outcome and that decision, you're probably going to be hoping that the other person feels the same way about it as you did. I never want to leave that to chance. So, get into the discipline of, what are we here for? What's the successful outcome that we're looking for, and how do we get it done as efficiently and effectively as possible? Go back to the basics.
Business Development is not some gift that lot of people have and other people don't. It's just a structured, managed conversation that has a beginning, a middle and an end that both of you should agree on. Don't hope you're going to get where you want to go unless you're willing to lay the bricks on the road that you want to walk on. That's my rule. Stick to it and see if it can be successful for you as well.
Thanks again for watching and listening. Have a bad ass weekend and be ready to go Monday morning. Kick butt and take names. You can do it. We're out.