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In this opening session, we’ll begin with introductions and then share the context and purpose of our learning and why it’s being offered now. We’ll describe the results that others have achieved with this learning and how they “flipped” their orientation from selling to serving clients. We’ll also walk-through the 14 “flips” participants will be learning and the two formats of learning we’ll be using: group and in 1:1 coaching sessions. We’ll cover how to assess the impact of this learning for you and of course, to your clients and prospects. We’ll go over timing and what to do if you must miss a group session. And we’ll welcome your questions. We’ll also teach one skill to get into the learning: Flipping your “elevator speech” to a client and results-centric introduction.
Un-learning Common Sales Skills and Learning Client-Centric BD Skills: Unlearning is a skill just as learning is a skill. The unlearning here is to unlearn conventional selling approaches, techniques, and language. That’s because using conventional approaches, even so-called best practices, do not differentiate you from a prospect’s other choices. Why, because prospects say the companies they meet with appear so similar – the way they look, sound, and use materials. Unlearning makes room for new learning.
With so many people using virtual platforms in addition to in-person meetings, poor communication practices compound. In this segment, you’ll learn top performance skills you can use in any meeting, to set yourself and your colleagues apart from the prospect’s average meetings. Your differentiation will come shining through.
You’ll learn how to co-design a credible sales promise with your leader, fulfill your promise as promised, and recover your promise when your business development efforts go off track. This is a skill that differentiates you with your leadership team and with clients and prospects.
A Whole New Understanding of Client Satisfaction: You’ll learn an advanced definition of client satisfaction that has four levels – the top two of which only 15% of sales people ever achieve with their clients. Producing and sustaining the highest levels of client satisfaction increases retention, warm introductions to like-minded prospects, client growth opportunities and profitability.
By looking at your best fit clients, you’ll identify ten criteria that make them your best fit clients. The idea here is to find more clients like them. You’ll create a scoring system where each criterion is worth 0-3 points and a perfect score is a 30. When you meet a prospect, you’ll assess them from 0-30. Prospects that score a 24 or better are a) worth pursuing, and b) likely to be a very good client for years to come. If you pursue prospects with lower scores, they’ll waste your time and will not make as good a client relationship as those who score 24 or better.
This skill is the mathematical path to reach your annual revenue goal. By looking at your historical math, you’ll determine how many outreaches you’ve been doing to earn one new client: outreaches, first conversations, and co-designs (co-design is an alternative to proposing – see below). The rigor of this skill significantly increases the odds of you fulfilling your annual revenue promise.
Advanced Skills to Have Prospects Tell You What to Offer: From client research, we’ve learned that most business development people are self-and firm-centric “tellers” vs. being prospect-centric listeners. The latter is about putting your agenda fully aside and being there 100% to learn three things about the prospect: 1) the annual to multi-year results that they have committed to achieve; 2) the thing they care about most in achieving their result; 3) and their Conditions of Satisfaction (COS) for outside help (you) that if met, will drive their satisfaction.
When prospects decline our offers what they’re really saying is that what we’re offering is not relevant to their commitments, what they care about most in pursuing them, and their Conditions of Satisfaction. Conversely, if your offers do match, the odds of the prospect saying yes go way up. Why? Because you’ll be assessed as the rare business developer who has the skill to understand them before making an offer. This skill happens first in the listening and second in the speaking. On the latter, the key is having the discipline to not say things that are irrelevant based on what you heard.
Proposing asks clients to evaluate and judge your company, you, and your proposal. In contrast, co-designing a solution including how we want to work together, is an invitation to co-create the future together. This works because prospects support what they help create. You’ll learn to co-design with prospects, so they and you will be mutually satisfied. And you’ll get there together.
All business developers impose four kinds of cost on their prospects. They take the prospect’s money, time, energy, and attention. Without telling you, prospects are monitoring how costly you are or might be if they hire you and they’re doing so on all four dimensions. Your value must exceed your cost as an individual and as a firm or prospects will choose another firm. You’ll learn how high cost your competitors are and how to be low cost to everyone you work with on all four dimensions.
Writing Results and Client-centric Outreach Emails: Your prospect email in-boxes are full of clutter so the last thing we want to do is to contribute to the clutter. You’ll learn to write subject lines and body copy for emails that prospects will want to read. Your writing will mirror your new client-centric listening and speaking skills.
Since the beginning of time, business has run on promises, yet the skill of Promise Management isn’t taught anywhere. The basic skills are entering into a complete, credible promises at the beginning; fulfilling as promised; and recovering when things go south. Harvard claimed 20 years ago that the average skill among businesspeople to fulfill a promise as promised is a 5 out of 10. In this segment, you’ll learn how to differentiate yourself from other firms by bringing your Promise Management skill to a 9/10 as you co-design promises with prospects that work for them and you.
This will absolutely be noticed by your prospects and clients because without saying so, they’d prefer to do business with people with whom they can enter a solid promise and have high confidence it will be fulfilled as promised.
Client School Learning Summary: Pulling All of Your Client-Centric Learning Together and using it in your daily practice of business development.
