What You Must Do for One Whole Day,

Every Week for Your Business

 

Do you experience periods of feast or famine in your business?

Do you only think about marketing when you realize you are

running low on clients?  Do you have some steady clients but

you’d love to have more?  Or are you still struggling to barely

reach your key business goals?  If any of these situations

describe you, and you are serious about making some changes, I

have an idea for you.  First, a few more questions.

 

Be honest, how much time do you spend on business development,

activities to sustain and grow your business?  How often do you

take action to develop your business?  Do you do it randomly

whenever it occurs to you?  If you are like many business owners

you are planning to do it later, when you have more time, after

you have finished all of the urgent things you are doing that

keep you so busy.  How’s that working for you?

 

It won’t happen unless YOU make it happen.  The key is to plan

it and do it consistently.  You’ve probably heard this quote

from Einstein before and it is worth repeating here - “Insanity:

doing the same thing over and over and expecting different

results.”

 

So what will it take?  I am asking you to spend one entire day,

each week (even better if it is the same day each week) on

business development.  This will allow you to avoid

distractions, stay focused and get into the flow of what you are

doing.  If you can’t set aside an entire day, you can break it

up.  Just make sure you are spending at least 20% of your time

on business development which means you will need to track how

much time you devote to it.

 

If you are a solopreneur it is up to you to do this.  If you

realize that you haven’t been doing enough business development,

and you know you never will, consider outsourcing.  If you have

employees, you can choose to be the one to do this or you can

delegate it someone else.  No matter what, it must be done and

done consistently.

 

Spending one whole day on business development every week will

force you to rethink how you are spending your time.  You will

need to start thinking about creating solid systems and

leveraging everything you do so that you can get more done in

less time.  You never know, you may even discover that there is

much more business than you ever realized and that it is time to

add more people to your company!

 

So what are effective business development activities?  Here is

a short list to get you started:

 

- Contact prospective clients with your offer (direct mail,

e-mail, call).

This one is rather obvious and yet we somehow always find a way

to avoid it.  Be courageous and get into action.

 

- Ask existing clients if they can refer you to new business.

Existing clients are hopefully happy with your products/services

otherwise they wouldn’t be clients.  Because of this, they are

likely to want to help you if they can.  It’s your move to ask.

 

- Check in with previous clients.

If you are on good terms with inactive clients you can ask them

if they may be interested in your products/services again or you

can offer them something new.  You can also ask if they know

other people who may be interested in your products/services.

 

- Contact potential strategic alliance partners.

These are companies who sell different products/services than

you do and whose clients fit with your ideal client profile.  (I

wrote an entire article about strategic alliances in a previous

newsletter, in case you missed it you can find it at this link:

http://www.fireflycoaching.com/Articles3.htm)

 

- Develop a new product/service and promote it.

A new product/service may be attractive to new clients as well

as to existing and inactive clients.

 

- Contact groups/clubs/associations about speaking for them.

It is critical that you select the groups carefully.  Be sure

that the members of the groups fit your ideal client profile.

Speaking is one of the best ways to let people experience you

and what you offer, gain credibility, and build your status as

an expert.

 

- Place an advertisement in a publication that your ideal

clients read.

To be effective, run the ad at least 8-11 times.  A one-time ad

will not do much for your business.

 

Here are some things that will keep you very busy and may not

help you grow your business:

- Cleaning out your files

- Talking about how busy you are

- Thinking about what you could do and not doing it

- Reading books with great ideas that never get implemented

- Buying more books with great ideas that never get implemented

 

This is about of working ‘on’ your business not just ‘in’ it

which is required to create a long-term, sustainable business.

Are you up for the challenge?  Sure hope so, your business

depends on it.  It’s time to get cracking and make it happen.

 

(c) 2005 Stephanie Ward

 

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