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聮d love to have more? Or are you still struggling to barely reach your key business goals? If any of these situations describe you Zach Gentry Jersey , and you are serious about making some changes, I have an idea for you. First, a few more questions.
Be honest Benny Snell Jr. Jersey , 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 Justin Layne Jersey , after you have finished all of the urgent things you are doing that keep you so busy. How聮s that working for you?
It won聮t happen unless YOU make it happen. The key is to plan it and do it consistently. You聮ve probably heard this quote from Einstein before and it is worth repeating here - 聯Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.?br > 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聮t set aside an entire day Diontae Johnson Jersey , 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聮t been doing enough business development, and you know you never will, consider outsourcing. If you have employees Devin Bush Jersey , 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 James Conner Jersey , 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 ting clients are hopefully happy with your productsservices otherwise they wouldn聮t be clients. Because of this, they are likely to want to help you if they can. It聮s your move to ask.
- Check in with previous you are on good terms with inactive clients you can ask them if they may be interested in your productsservices again or you can offer them something new. You can also ask if they know other people who may be interested in your productsservices.
- Contact potential strategic alliance e are companies who sell different productsservices than you do and whose clients fit with your ideal client profile.
- Develop a new productservice and promote it.A new productservice may be attractive to new clients as well as to existing and inactive clients.
- Contact groupsclubsassociations about speaking for 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 JuJu Smith-Schuster Jersey , gain credibility, and build your status as an expert.
- Place an advertisement in a publication that your ideal clients 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 聭on?your business not just 聭in?it which is required to create a long-term T. J. Watt Jersey , sustainable business. Are you up for the challenge? Sure hope so, your business depends on it. It聮s time to get cracking and make it happen.
(c) 2005 Stephanie Ward
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