Every sale occurs inside a conversation; all the time I spend outside of a conversation is wasted time (unless I’m setting up a conversation). Steve Chandler No one has ever crawled through my computer and tried to hire me. No one has ever replied to a social post by saying, “Send me an invoice!” 100%…
Thanks for your replies to Tuesday’s email about making business development easy. If I could summarize the replies, they’d (collectively) say, Once I’m “in the room” with a buyer, I’m golden – but how do I get “in the room”? How do I find more people who could hire me? 1. Who are the “people…
It’s hard for a creative agency to serve more than 10 – 20 clients at a time. It splits your brain in too many ways. For most creative agencies, growth is getting bigger clients, not more clients. Successful new business efforts might mean closing 5 – 10 new clients every year. That would be a…
“The reason most people don’t recognize an opportunity when they meet it is because it usually goes around wearing overalls and looking like Hard Work.” Carlos had a small training and consulting firm that was doing all right. He had 6 consultants on staff and another 4–5 that were part-timers, but he hadn’t seen growth…
As our economy starts to emerge from its pandemic slumber, I’ve been encouraging my clients to get more systematic and take more action to build their business development pipeline. I worked with a cohort to get started with outreach, and they saw success; that’s why I built the Online Lead Generation and Engagement course. But…
Now I know I’m not usually in your inbox on a Wednesday! But yesterday, I talked about the importance of daily action and I had to come back today, so you knew that I was practicing what I preach! You see, it’s a huge mistake to make business development this “thing” that you do. Like…
On Saturday, I told you the story about going to 27 new business meetings in a row without closing a single client. That was a painful process, it was a lot of rejection, and the reason those appointments didn’t close was primarily that I wasn’t executing well. It sucked. But during that same time, other…
“You can have anything you want if you are willing to ask 1,000 people for it.” ~ Byron Katie When I first started my business, I worked with a sales trainer. He told me, “Get 30 appointments in your first 90 days, and you’ll have a thriving consulting business.” I didn’t know any better, so…
You know that feeling when you look at your calendar for the day; you see a client and can’t wait to meet with them? Every time you meet with them, you’ve made progress together. They are invested in the work and open to collaborating with you. They appreciate what you create and implement it right…
Creative service businesses tend to have a small number of clients (8 – 12) that make up the bulk of their revenue each year. So keeping those clients happy is crucial to your success. What does it mean to “delight” clients of a creative services firm? What will separate you from the other agencies competing…