How can I get help with business development

On Tuesday, we talked about how you are most likely the best salesperson your business will have. But that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone!

Here are some ways I’ve seen agency owners get help to keep business flowing.

Use a VA for outreach

If you are doing some form of consistent outreach to your ideal customer, you can get a VA to help with that.

• Do you need to build a list? Give a VA some criteria, and she can identify ideal prospects.
• Do you have an initial email cadence that helps to identify prospects that need your services? Your VA can customize and send those emails.
• Do you have regular follow up that’s needed for past clients or for prospects who weren’t ready? Perfect work for a VA.
  If you are hiring a VA to do outreach for you, I recommend paying up for a US-based VA who’s language and cultural skills will be a better fit for your prospects.

Use automation for qualification

When you’ve got someone who’s responded to your outreach, you aren’t yet sure that they will be an ideal client. Do they have a problem that’s in your wheelhouse? Can they afford the solution that you might propose?

Sometimes you can “see” by looking at their LinkedIn page or their website that they’re worth your time to pursue, but other times you need more information.

This is where a quick qualification form can be helpful.

• If someone fills out a “contact us” form, you can send them to a thank you page with your qualification questions right there.
• If someone wants time on your calendar, you can add qualification questions to the appointment tool.
• If you use an assistant for scheduling, they can ask the qualification questions too.

This helps you to weed out discovery calls with prospects that are never going to close.

Use an Account Manager for followup

You are most valuable in the discovery phase, where we listen to the prospect’s challenges and problems and help diagnose potential solutions. This stage of the sales process requires an expert, and it’s usually the last stage that gets delegated. When your prospect is at the point where they are considering potential solutions, you want to be there!

All the follow-up comes out of the discovery conversation; if you are writing a proposal or pricing a solution that you created with the prospect, that’s perfect work for your account team. If they are going to manage the process with the client once they close it’s great to get them involved right from the start.

A good AM can even deliver the proposal and only bring you in for the final closing conversation.

How are you getting “help” to share the business development burden? Hit reply and let me know what’s working for you.