It’s already the second quarter; is it too late to discuss business development mistakes to avoid in 2017? Or lessons learned in 2016? It doesn't matter what month or year it is, for some business development lessons are timeless, and furthermore, we need to revisit them on a regular basis.
Here are four universal business development lessons that are often forgotten:
1. No more Think-It-Over’s
It's better to get a NO than a THINK-IT-OVER. Declare a “sixty-day war on TIO’s.”
Here’s a sample of my journal entries when I find myself accepting THINK-IT-OVERS:
“Day 22 of my sixty-day war on Decision Deficit Disorder (DDD) – Yesterday, there was collateral damage. A small business owner called me and said that she wanted to get together to see if I could help her business development process. Her biggest problem – handing out lots of design plans and quotes to homeowners who then tell her they need to think–it-over. So, I suggested that she be prepared to make a yes/no decision at our meeting. She said she just wanted information so that she could think-it-over. I told her if she could not make a buying decision at our meeting, then we could never fix her problem with prospects. She canceled our meeting.”
As I journaled through the war, I got better and better at recognizing all the clever ways people DELAY in the sales process. I also realized (again) that when people are afraid to make a decision, it doesn’t help matters for me to allow them to TIO.
Lesson relearned: When you give your best presentation, and all you get is a TIO, be gutsy enough to CLOSE THE FILE and tell your prospect, politely, “It’s over.”
2. Stay out of the buyers’s system.
Buyers have a well-defined system for shopping. They MISLEAD, gather as much free information and consulting as possible, DELAY with some form of TIO, and then go into hiding. As soon as I give away my valuable product/company/service information without a firm commitment as to what I’ll get in return, I’m in the prospect’s system. Once I do that, I’ve lost control, and my chance of getting a profitable sale is close to zero.
Lesson relearned: Stay in control. Business development should be an honest, mature, adult-to-adult interaction. For it to be that, I must stay in MY system, not the prospect’s.
3. Sales success is all about behaviors and activities.
Most people responsible for business development tend to get lazy on our prospecting activities as soon as we make a few good sales. Once we stop prospecting, the pipeline empties quickly.. Do you have a COOKBOOK of required daily/weekly business development activities? Do you do what you need to do to be successful? Or do you endlessly check your e-mail and rearrange things on your desk?
Lesson relearned: Business development success is greatly dependent on executing the right behaviors every day.
4. Confront Your Fears.
The one thing that holds most professionals back, more than anything else, is FEAR. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of not making money, fear of hearing “No,” fear of not being liked; the list goes on and on. If you don’t face your fears head on, and deal with them, they’ll paralyze you! It helps to remember that the best lessons come from your biggest failures, that’s a valuable consolation prize.
Lesson relearned: It’s OK to be scared; it’s not OK to let that paralyze you.
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How you interact with your prospects the first time you meet them—before you ever make a presentation—can have a greater impact on your likelihood of closing a sale than the actual aspects of the product or service you have to offer. |
Having personally tested and proved the Sandler Method to be effective, Tina is passionate about assisting clients in reaching their full potential through the Sandler sales methodology.
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