Growth Dynamics Get Down

Symptoms:

Cody knew that the firm he represented was considered the best in class by the other major players in the market. As far as technical competency, customer service and the ability to deliver more than clients expected, Cody's firm always scored extremely high. With that ace to play whenever he needed to, he was sure that this new position as a Business Development Specialist would soon prove to be the road to riches. After his first 90 days Cody and his manager met to review his progress, and the picture was not pretty.

Symptoms:

Amanda was working through her list of live opportunities after putting her pipeline through a “kill it or close it” exercise. She set up appointments to move her sales process along with several of the live opportunities. She was steadfast in naming her meetings, sending homework, and even let some her more notorious feet draggers know these were decision meetings. She was ready to do what she had to do to start meeting her sales goals for the quarter.

2024… I can't believe we're already here. We're back, we're ready to work, and we hope you are too! Without further ado, here we go.

Symptoms:
Janie really wanted to nail this tele selling thing, she had all tabs loaded on her screen, put on a clean shirt and armed herself with all of the background info she researched on the prospects website. As she got ready to start a conference call.

Symptoms:
Carl was feeling frustrated and hurt. One of his best accounts was showing a definite decline in volume that was way beyond what could be explained by the market or the economy, and he could not imagine that he had done anything to create the change.

Symptoms:

Bill and Pat were returning from their monthly poker game and while riding back in the car they both agreed they had witnessed a situation that they could apply as a "lesson learned" to their business careers.

Hey, welcome back. Here's another Friday Fast Tip from Growth Dynamics. I'm Charlie Hauck, President, CEO, and founder of the business. I love the opportunity to share my thoughts and ideas with all the people out there in the world trying to make a living in the greatest profession of all, business development.

Situation: 

Jackson felt that lump in his throat and just wanted to scream. Big Shot Bob of ABC Engineering did it again; he promised Jackson he would keep his appointment this time after three cancellations or no shows, but his admin was apologizing for Bob not being available once again. Because ABC was one of the biggest firms in the metropolitan area, Jackson just could not bring himself to share his anger at being stood up once again.

Situation: 

Dewey is a prolific prospector. Like the sun rising in the east, you can count on Dewey making more sales calls than anyone on his employer’s sales team. No matter where he goes, Dewey will find someone to talk to about his products and services.

I want to talk about a little sales strategy here and it's something that over the 30 plus years that I've been in this business, is one of the things that sort of annoys me more than anything else that I hear business development people doing out there. They do what I call "drive-by disqualify". They decide that it's not worth it to make that call, to pull into that driveway, to knock on the door, to go ask someone to have a business conversation.