Over the Christmas holidays, 321 Biz Dev gave some deep thought on summarizing the three essentials to a business owner asking what it takes to succeed in finding new clients.
In 2022, small business owners are wondering more so than anytime in my consulting firms years in business. Any challenge existing before the current pandemic has now amplified to levels not seen since the 1980's.
Small business owners also like simplicity in looking at new concepts. I learned this lesson the hard way when starting my corporate career. Fresh out of the military and college, I had a new boss after working in a middle level management position for two years.
My new boss asked me to document my department's responsibilities. Instead of summarizing, I wrote a multi-page document. She immediately sent me to a one-week corporate writing school at U.C. Berkeley.
Here are the three essentials.
Effort is an action taken to achieve a desired result. There are three action levels.
Starting a garden is action based, but planting seeds, fertilizing the soil and managing weeds are only part of the duties to having a successful garden. Mother nature and time play equally important roles. The person starts the garden but other factors contribute to a flourishing garden.
Joining a gym to get in shape requires the person pay the membership fee. This is an action step but there are other action steps. The next important step is going to the gym at regular intervals. But the most important action steps are working out and getting proper nutrition.
Finding new clients is a major effort component. Many small business owners see social media as an action step. Social media used in finding more clients is similar to actions taken by the gardener in planting seeds and managing weeds. The most powerful action step a small business owner can take is putting himself or herself in direct contact with potential clients with as few middlemen in between business owners and potential clients.
Mindset is an equal partner to effort and system essentials.
Here are a few bullet points for having a powerful mindset about your business.
Believing you can succeed in your business is critical.
Understanding you have the capacity (the license, training) to act.
Understanding you have the ability (the experience) to act.
Knowing your products or services will put consumers in a better position.
Knowing your product or service will do what it should without fail.
Looking at the future in a positive light is so important.
The system is the final, essential component.
People are already familiar with systems like turning on the car, airline take offs and landings, and going to bed at night and expecting to wake up in the morning.
Who would go to bed expecting not to wake up? No one would fly if they suspected take offs and and landings would not go well.
There must be a systematic approach to finding new clients. The five components of finding new clients are:
Becoming proficient at contacting.
Becoming proficient at prospecting.
Effective appointment setting.
Closing appointments with high ratios.
Getting zero-cost referrals.
The system must have predictability in all five components. In other words, if the business owner does "X" work, then a good "Y" result should be the expectation.
From 2012 to 2015, 321 Biz Dev invested 5,000 hours developing the SWAS (Selling Without Appearing to Sell) system to help small business owners selling big-ticket, high-priced items.
In 2018, 321 Biz Dev added business development services because we discovered many business owners needed help moving through the SWAS learning curve. Meaning, although our training sessions were thorough and helpful, small business owners needed 321 Biz Dev to demonstrate the five sales system components in live, prospect situations.
321 Biz Dev uses our own sales system to find clients for our company.
If your business needs to master Effort, Mindset and System to get control of finding more clients, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Rick Nappier