Business non-development

By Linda Julian

Many professionals open sales-targeted conversations with prospective clients using material unlikely to establish meaningful dialogue.  In some cases, well-meaning professionals deliver monologues comprising information best classified as “business non-development.”

When a sales call or proposal prominently features “turn off” information, the inept professional succeeds in erecting a barrier to developing a business relationship and winning work.  Mostly, worthwhile clients are neither bored nor impressed into selecting professional expertise.

In most professional service settings, business non-development strategies include initiating conversations (rather than true dialogues) around:

• history of your firm from the year dot
• your beautiful offices
• glowing academic qualifications of your professionals
• social connections of your folk
• recent achievements of your alumni
• your prestigious client base
• vastness of your range of services  -  your “full service” one-stop-shop offer.

Usually, prospective clients have little interest in all this.

You’ll make much better progress towards creating business development dialogue if you centre your conversation on how what you do will make a meaningful difference to your prospective client.

So, talk  -  and get your prospective client talking  -  about:

• business impacts you’ve had with clients confronting similar challenges
• useful ways for you to invest time with your prospective client to discover the areas where you can make a big impact
• situations they confront and how what you do will overcome a problem, reduce a significant risk, or help with a new opportunity
• insights, ideas, information, and network connections you can offer now, of real value to them, and as a foretaste of what they’ll plug into as your client.

These strands are likely to yield focused business development conversations.

Hard sells simply don’t work in professional services.  Building brand is only the backdrop to real business development conversations and interactions.

And, it is dangerously inept for a professional to start selling before s/he knows what the client wants and needs to buy.

Don’t fall into the trap of business non-development by alternately boring, impressing, or manipulating a client into a decision in your favour.  Get into high-yield business development dialogues.