Three Winning Business Development Strategies to Act on Now!
Recently I participated in a small group session to talk about business development trends and what’s working now during the pandemic. It was a great exercise for me to think back over the past four months to what’s changed, what’s working and what’s not. A lot has changed as we all know and are experiencing. One of the biggest changes regarding business development is the disappearance of face-to-face networking and trade shows. I’ve spoken to many organizations that host these events and it’s going to be a while before they come back. However, there are still a lot of strategies and tactics that you can implement right now that are relevant and effective.
When it comes to advising and coaching my clients and peers, I use a myriad of things in my business development toolbox. However, in the past 4 months, there are three things that I’ve been using for clients that have stood out and they are; strategic alliances, content strategy and center of influence referral marketing.
When I define a strategic alliance, it’s when I have a client building a relationship with an organization or association for mutually beneficial outcomes. One example of a strategic alliance happened early on in the pandemic and I had a client that wanted to do an educational webinar. We turned that into a panel discussion and invited a local association to come aboard as a partner. Due to the relationship I had with the organization, they partnered with us and because of that partnership, we were able to get over 100 attendees to our virtual panel discussion. We provided value to their membership and they provided value to my client. My client was able to add those attendees as top-of-the-funnel prospects and the organization received lots of exposure and great content for their membership. We will continue to collaborate and see where we can help each other in the future.
So, with that in mind, think about your business, your audience and your prospects and then begin to develop a strategic alliance with an organization or association that can benefit from your content and exposure but also add value to your bottom line. Building those relationships can take time but, in the end, you’ll see the rewards.
Having spent many years in the news business, I got to understand just how important and impactful good content can be when it comes to business development. My definition of content strategy is anything that you produce (or share) that will provide educational benefit to your audience and help you grow your brand as a thought leader in that space as well as help drive leads to your pipeline. When I talk to clients about their strategy, one thing I recommend is putting together a monthly editorial calendar. This is an important step because it can help you map out your content and create themes for each month so you’re not always scrambling around about what to talk or write about.
There are a lot of ways to produce content and a lot of different mediums, such as social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, FB, Alignable), newsletters, blogs, podcasts, videos, speaking engagements, panel discussion and educational webinars. Choosing the right one for you takes some thought. It can depend on your time, your comfort level with certain technology and so on. I suggest that you start with what you have and build on that before adding another medium. Taking the time to invest in content strategy can be challenging and there are ways to help minimize your time but ultimately developing a good content strategy will produce leads and help build your brand as a thought leader.
Lastly, I’d like to touch on center of influence (COI) referral marketing which I describe as building a relationship with a highly networked individual where both parties understand who they are trying to reach, they’re top-of-mind when it comes to that industry and they are helping each other mutually. Like most things worth your while, building those relationships can take time but this strategy is critical to growing your business. I would first start out with COI’s that you know. When’s the last time you met with them or reached out and gave them an introduction to someone or some valuable information that they could use? When you’ve done that, start to think about new people that can help you get in front of your audience and that you feel you can help them get in front of theirs. This may take some trial and error, and you’ll soon learn which COI’s are serious about a mutual relationship and which ones are not.
You should strive to meet with your COI’s on a consistent basis so that you get to know their business and they get to know yours. In some cases, I meet monthly with my COI’s, others its quarterly. Also, I always try to start those meeting with giving them value. Do some research on them, try to learn more about their business so you can ask good questions when you meet. If you haven’t read the book The Go-Giver by Bob Burg you should pick it up. I highly recommend it. It’s a great read about the give-to-get mentality. Having the mindset of helping your COI’s will build trust and show them that you’re serious about developing a mutual relationship.
Right now, we’re all still learning how the pandemic is impacting the way we develop new business and what we can do to help our clients prosper. The one thing that hasn’t changed is the importance of building relationships and if you practice building your strategic alliances, developing a content strategy and nurturing your COI network you’ll be on your way to gaining new clients and deeper connections.
Update: For some interesting research regarding small business loans in 2021 I would encourage you to check out this article from Money Magazine: https://money.com/best-small-business-loans/
