Growth Dynamics Get Down

Symptoms:

Having earned a small commission check last month from her sales job, Marta was doing her best to replace her old refrigerator and had already hit the local appliance stores, as well as a few of the Big Box outlets.

Today, I wanted to get a little more tactical, especially as I think about the things we're all trying to accomplish—how we're working to advance our careers in business development. I wanted to share something because I keep running into a particular word that drives me crazy when I hear it from clients or prospects who are looking to improve their results.

I want to talk about an issue today that I don't know if it's an issue maybe just a little bit of advice, knowing everything is the power that you need to get where you wanna go and on a certain level I will not disagree with that, but if you're in business development, a lot of times what you do know can get in the way of your success.

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.

Symptoms:

Sadie was pumped to have a meeting with the right decision makers on her new product. They quickly agreed to her lunch and learn invitation and even let her know how excited they were about her products. They used a competitor’s products, and this was her chance to get the sale. She gathered the standard slide deck, added a few slides comparing her product to the others in the marketplace and even went as far to include delivery information. She knew this was the lunch and learn to end all lunch and learns and it would be an easy close.

Symptoms:

No one told Melanie that she would be making calls on her own just two weeks after she started working at Quality Stuff, Inc. When she first began, her new manager said she would do ride-alongs for at least a month and then be slowly let off the leash to contact customers by herself. But that plan went out the window this morning when Melanie found out her mentor had called in sick and she was expected to keep an appointment and fly solo with a very important customer.

Hey, welcome back. I've got a little challenge for some of you out there that are in the business development world, that think it's your job to get your prospects or suspects so excited that they can't say no to your offer.

Symptoms:

John's territory involves working with many prospects that ask for samples, demonstrations, proposals, references and all the usual items that buyers want from a vendor. Trying to appear accommodating and professional, John finds himself spending hours of time preparing, writing, setting up or sending all this information that he believes will help "convince" his prospect. Everyone appears very impressed with what John shows them, except it seems like they don't act on all that "interest" often enough. Although his results are okay, he cannot understand why all this activity is not leading to more orders.