As you know, your role as a business developer, is to grow your business.
And of course the only way to grow your business, is to increase revenue and profits every year.
Yet, most business developers do not take advantage of the most effective method to grow revenues.
There are only four ways to grow revenues/sales.
1. Increase your number of clients.
2. Increase your fees.
3. Sell more to existing clients.
4. Buy other companies.
In my training and coaching, I focus with new clients on #3 initially, because until you completely understand why and how your current clients buy, it is more difficult to sell to prospects.
Plus, it is much easier to sell more to your existing clients, because you have already established a certain degree of trust with them. And nobody buys anything until their certain level of trust is established.
The reason that most business developers DO NOT focus on cross-selling and up-selling to their current clients is because as a business developer, you are not taught and coached on how to do this.
You’ll be surprised what you can sell your clients, regardless of the number of products or services you have.
The Aberdeen Group, a business research firm, stated that if a company only provides initial one-time training to their sales people and marketers, without ongoing coaching, these people are less likely to improve the “share of wallet” with their current clients.
This obviously holds true for business developers also.
These companies become laggards in their industry, and lose to competitors too often without really knowing why.
All business developers need ongoing coaching, despite whatever sales training you have had in the past.
We all forget most of the things we were taught in school.
The same holds true for selling.
Reinforcement is the only way to ensure you keep doing the right things, the right way, day in and day out.
No matter what position a person has in a company, they need ongoing coaching, to not only excel at that position, but in many cases just keep up.
And this is completely true with B2B sales and marketing. These two professions have had more upheaval over the past ten years than any other profession, because of the way technology has changed the way people and companies buy.
Also, very few business developers, in particular, have had any real formal sales training at all.
If you want to compete in today’s ultra-competitive business environment, it is imperative that you not only have training, but also follow-on coaching.
Like all great athletes and sports teams, ongoing coaching is the key to their success.
And Aberdeen also states that Best in Class B2B companies turn to external trainers and coaches 61% more often than laggard companies do.
Also, all business developers need to understand all of the elements of successful and unsuccessful deals and client exchanges.
As an example, does your company hold win/loss analyses on all closed deals, whether won or lost.
If you want to grow, especially faster than you have been, let’s have a chat about how to improve your growth through better interactions with your clients.
Turn your company into a “Best in Class’ company.
Please contact me through my email or phone number in my signature below.
You can also download my eBook Why Can’t My Sales People Sell here.
Kind regards,
Ian Dainty
Ian Dainty’s Email
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