How To Avoid Sabotaging Your Business Development
As an independent consultant who doesn’t live by a fully baked plan, advancement of the calendar shouldn’t affect me, right?
Wrong!
I’ve lived in the hustle and bustle of highly driven business environments too long and regularly fight off the urge to run that aggressive race.
Corporate America has engrained in us to be critically evaluative, if only to measure our performance against what we did last year and in comparison of our competition. However, no time does the mirror shine in more reflective judgment than at the start of the fourth quarter each year.
Questions such as “What have you done?”; “How far have you progressed?”; “What else are you planning?”; and “How will you make that up?” are superimposed on us. Unfortunately, the result is often counterintuitive and counterproductive to what the overbearing watch of management is attempting to achieve.
In fact, this cross-examination approach adds a layer of stress that compounds anxiety to inflict the antithesis of what is needed to achieve. It stifles creativity and clouds thinking, making clarity difficult to grasp. It also blurs decision-making and may lead to desperation and risk taking with minimal room for strategic thinking and visioning.
For example, acting from a place of worry and despair hinders the ability to achieve authenticity and depth in relationships, especially as it relates to business development. It also limits the ability to garner trust and credibility in your client relationships. Clients will feel the anxiety and question any selection decision.
4 Steps to the Solution
Get some clarity.
If you can, take some time off to walk away. By taking a step back, you will clear your head to devise more strategic, customized paths to resolution. It also enables you to think about what hasn’t connected in your most recent pursuit of projects. Why haven’t all of your efforts worked? Have you gotten a debrief and directly asked the clients?
Rally the troops.
In times like these, you need every rank and position to pull his/her weight. Rally your team so that they know that “we are all in it together”. Ask them who within their network they might connect with to advance and even double down on relationships.
Circle the wagons.
Leverage and maximize your past client and ally relationships. This is not the time to be bashful. Every company has peaks and valleys. Your best client and ally relationships want the best for your business. When you are truthful and transparent about your situation, you open up an opportunity for them to help you and that deepens your relationship with them even further. Don’t forget that: “You have not,
because you ask not.”
Don’t throw in the towel too soon.
Businesses have cycles; so do markets. It’s the tough times that prove up and evolve companies’ strengths, if you are willing to put in the time and effort to make the necessary changes. Think of it as “Survival of the Fittest” for business. Where can you retool, realign and rebrand your organization to capture additional revenue or market share?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if each year, we grow steadily to the levels that our performance exceeds the needs of our goals? Sure it would, but this is an unreasonable utopian outlook, not a business plan. Instead, keeping a realistic mindset that some years will be better than others and that you are in it for the long haul is a far better and healthier approach.
Remember, business development is a team sport. We win and lose together. Avoid sabotaging your business development success by developing realistic, achievable goals AND offering the necessary support and resources to triumph. I’d welcome an opportunity to discuss and learn from you. Please contact me at
dlandry@authentizity.com.
