What I learned in 2020 (from a BD perspective) - Part 1
I don’t think I’m alone in saying this, but I’m glad this year is coming to an end. It’s been a rough one for many of our friends and colleagues so I hope the new year will bring more opportunity for everyone. As for 2021, I’m cautiously optimistic, I can’t help it, optimism is in my blood. As I reflect on the past 9 months since the COVID-19 pandemic I can point to many things that I’ve learned about myself, my business and my life. It would take way too long for me to cover all of that stuff and quite frankly you’d probably be bored with most of it. I did want to share a few things that I’ve learned from a business development standpoint though and what I feel has changed and what hasn’t since March of 2020.
Over the past several months I’ve been reading a lot, talking to peers and working with clients on what has changed about developing business and building relationships. What I’ve learned is that there is one constant, those of us that want to build relationships will make it happen and that building relationships is more important than ever. Right from the beginning I learned that it doesn’t matter how we get together, it’s just important that we do. Whether it’s in person (which I prefer) or via video conference, it’s important that we continue to reach out to one another to see how we can help in building stronger businesses. I’ve seen that the “give-to-get” mentality has never been more relevant in building relationships and many of us focused on how we could help our fellow businesses. It was nice to see colleagues bending over backwards to see where they could help connect or give advice. I’ve particularly liked the small virtual roundtables that we’ve put together for clients or have partnered on with colleagues, we’ve always walked away with different ideas on how to keep our businesses growing and help each other. Yes, I miss the in-person meetings with friends and colleagues, but has it hindered me to build on those relationships and develop more? I don’t think so. As a matter of fact, because of technology I can now have more interactions, reach more people and spend more time giving value to clients.
When it comes to thinking about what I’ve changed and where I feel I can make the biggest impact moving forward, I think about referrals. As I mentioned, I’ve been reading some articles and books around the subject and talking to my colleagues and I feel that building deeper relationships is the key to true referral success. When I think back on what I was doing with referral strategy, some of that involved asking clients or friends for direct referrals. It involved looking on their social media to see where they were connected and trying to get an introduction. I’m not saying that I’ve completely abandoned that methodology or that it doesn’t work in some situations. I now realize however that this methodology makes the referral about you and not the person that needs your product or service. I’ve created my own referral plan for 2021 that mainly involves building stronger relationships with my centers of influence and referral champions, giving them value and tracking how I’m engaging them. Those people that are in a position to give me a referral when the time comes. What’s important to remember here is that you first must be referrable so you must do good work. Then you must be memorable to your centers of influence and referral champions so that when they are confronted by a colleague that needs your product or service, you are the first person that comes to mind. Build on those people and build on those relationships. It’s a long-term process but the impact can be game changing.
If you have any ideas on how your referral strategy has changed this year, I’d love to hear it! Email me at john@dinkelbd.com. I will post the second part of this blog tomorrow. Thank you for engaging and I hope it was helpful.
