Business Development Methodology

I frequently work with clients on their biz dev – as a means of growing a business it is without compare IMHO.

I know my methods and there is a reasonably straightforward base template of activities and actions which then get customised for each situation (depending on experience, cash, skills and time available).

Two of my clients, Wave Creative Communications and Gabrielle Shaw Communications have kick-started their biz dev in the past couple of months.  And, despite knowing that the base methodology is sound, it is still really gratifying when it WORKS – and when it works fast.

Wave chose to use external resource for appointment setting and after three weeks have two live opportunities and eight future opportunities logged for the next 6-8 months.

GSC are doing it all internally and in the month of July have WON four new pieces of business – three in one week.  What was particularly encouraging was that we worked hard at pricing the work accruately and sending the right team to pitch and for one client we sent a more junior team to reflect the value of the opportunity and they won it without senior help.  That bodes really well for creating a culture of new business through the whole organisation.

I am so proud of them.

Here’s the base methodology

1. Identify your target sectors and named organisations and research
2. Add to your database
3. Decide how you will go after them and set up the process
4. Have support documentation / literature / credentials / website / direct mail ready
5. Contact by mail / email / voice and record your conversation
6. Do what you promise to do (send stuff, email, call again)
7. Flag future contact dates and have a process to ensure this happens

It isn’t hard to understand.  But what Creative Agencies frequently find is that it is very hard to do consistently when client pressures rise.  What I do is to help set up the underlying process to ensure it happens regardless of other things….. Sometimes it works brilliantly and sometimes I am less successful.

If you want a “healthcheck” for your own processes – call.