Is Being Good At Your Job Good Enough?

Mike Ames is one of the leading relationship selling consultants in the country. Since the 1990s, his companies have generated over a third of a billion dollars of revenue all by building and monetising B2B business relationships. 

Is being good your job good enough?

The truth is, if you’re a lawyer or accountant then probably not.

These days, professional services providers are expected to be good at their “day jobs” but also be able to win and nurture external clients. The more you can do this the more you’ll get on.

This is called “relationship selling” and means the building and monetisation of business relationships. But how do you do this?

Few professional services providers don’t offer decent training in this area that’s for damn sure. What there is tends to be overly simplistic (it might have worked in the 1990s) or more suitable for selling used cars.

So, let me see if I can help you by giving you three pieces of advice.

1. Relationships and Persuasion 

Replace the words “sales” and “marketing” with “relationships” and “persuasion”. Much better.

For a start, we can all form relationships because we’ve been doing it since we were kids. We also know how to persuade people how to do things: book that holiday; spend the afternoon watching Star Trek episodes instead of cutting the law and so on.

So we already have 90% of the skills we need. All we need to do is adjust these inherent skills so that they work better in a business setting and we’re done.

So the bottom line is you’re pretty much equipped with everything you need.
 

2. Know what a good client looks like

Seriously folks, this is the biggest bear-trap most rookie business developers’ fall into. I’ve seen it countless times, hell, I’ve fallen into it myself.

Just because somebody takes your calls, meets you for a coffee and attends your seminars does not make them a good prospective client. They might just enjoy the freebies!

Learn to spot a good prospect a mile off. It might be the size of their company; their location or sector; the buying procedure they use; what they do or even their ownership.

Look at the characteristics of your existing clients and by trial and error you should be able to work out what to look for.

You may hear this called an ICP or Ideal Client Profile. All successful business developers have this one nailed!  

3. Get Organised and show a little self-discipline 

Organisation and discipline will always triumph over natural talent. In business development this is especially true.

So here are 5 things you can do that will make a big difference when you’re out there in the trenches.

• Become dependent upon a CRM system. When used properly they will be for you what an accounts system is to the finance department. You’ll achieve more results in less time.

• Categorise your network. Invest most of your efforts into relationships where there’s mutual benefit and a desire to engage with you.

• Learn to use social media properly. Take it from me, it’s the most powerful relationship building tool around today!

• Be able to sum up what you do in three sentences. What you do, who you typically trade with and the outcome of using you.

• Add more value to the right people. Learn to find out what people value and figure out a way of delivering it to them. This is how might business empires are built. 

So there you have it. Learn to build and monetise business relationships and the world is your lobster.

By the way, if you’d like to learn more about relationships selling we have a free 6 module online course that will do just that. Click here to learn more and enrol.

The course will give you a complete handle on relationship selling and quite probably a new found confidence in doing it.

Good luck and good hunting!