Learning and adapting is usually a good idea, particularly if your results weren’t as you expected. But what are the best ways to learn from your mistakes, plan, and adapt to a new market condition?

This post explores how some of the smartest small companies in the Baltimore, Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia markets are planning their 2010 business development strategies.

The tried and true. There are certain business development strategies that just plain work and I’ll go over some of them below. These are things that have been working since the beginning of (business) time and they will very likely continue to be effective until the end of (business) time.

If you are not currently using these strategies in a consistent and meaningful way, I very strongly recommend that you start.

Find your ideal customers. With the gigantic number of sales prospects available to almost any company, it doesn’t make sense to target any that are less-than-ideal for you. If you haven’t already, take the time to define your perfect customer in very specific terms.

• What industry are they in?
• What customers do they serve?
• How many people do they employ?
• How much revenue do they generate?
• Where are they located physically?

To get started, take a look at some of your existing customers that you consider to be a really good fit for your company. What are some of their characteristics?

Don’t overlook existing clients. When people think of business development strategy, a lot of the focus tends to be placed on new accounts and new clients. The truth is that it is many times easier to develop deeper relationships with existing clients than it is to start new accounts from scratch. Particularly if you’re target market is a larger company, there are almost always opportunities to sell up, down, or sideways within organizations.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions like, “Are there any other departments/people here that you think would like this?” or “Who else do you know that can benefit from this type of service?”

Don’t overlook new business either. Unless you have an extremely hungry base of existing customers, you’ll probably have to look outside of your existing customers to meet your 2010 revenue goals. There are so many ways to find and target new opportunities and in all likelihood, you are not doing as effective of a job as you could be. The key is to keep an open mind and think outside-the-box. Most organizations become very comfortable with their existing methods of developing new business, when in reality, they could be doing better with other strategies.

• Referrals
• Paid lead services
• Email campaigns
• Blogging
• Exhibitions
• Networking events
• Sales contests
• Direct mail
• Webinars

How many of those are you using? Which do you think would be best to integrate into YOUR 2010 business development plan?

Take a step back. Being a CEO or managing partner in a business can often cause you to look at your business in a way that’s much different from how others may see it. By removing personal biases and ideas from the equation, you can gain some real insight into important areas of your business.

Often, CEOs are so close to their companies that even when they try to do this, they are not able to. If that’s the case, get another set of eyeballs. Either bring in a trusted colleague to help you with this, or consider hiring a professional business consultant with a strong track record of success.

Plan it out. CEOs, executives, and leaders throughout organizations sometimes have a tendency to discount the importance of the strategic planning process, which is a big mistake. Smart companies take the time to plan their business development strategies very thoroughly, including areas like sales and marketing, human resources, and general corporate growth. When planning is conducted properly, it always proves to be time very well-spent.

A SWOT analysis is a good way to do this (SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats in case you’re not familiar). Have a look at an example SWOT analysis here.

Use all available human capital. Human beings never cease to amaze me. We really are incredible creatures, particularly when we’re in an environment that allows us to perform near our potential. You might be surprised to find that if you build a team of good people around you and then incentivize them to do what you want them to do, they will do a splendid job – often better than you could do yourself.

The two keys here are to 1) properly incentivize (Note: incentives don’t always need to be monetary – a lot of employees feel very strongly about things like fun, learning new things, and feeling as though they’re part of a larger goal) and 2) communicate clearly what you want them to do (leaders have a strong tendency to assume that the other person knows exactly what they’re talking about even though they used a minimal amount of explanation to get the point across – don’t make this mistake. Communicate clearly and then confirm that the other person has an understanding by saying, “Okay, let’s go over the goals” and then being quiet and inviting them to do the talking.)

Set S.M.A.R.T.E.R. Goals.

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Timed
• Exciting
• Recorded

If you need a business development strategy consultant and you’re in the Greater Baltimore Washington area, JACOBY may be able to help you personally. Our CEO-experienced Partners have decades of combined experience and a success rate of over 90%. Contact us by filling out this form to learn more.

If you are outside the Maryland, DC, Virginia area and want our assistance with your strategic planning efforts, JACOBY can help you remotely with phone and/or skype conference calls. There are a variety of other useful posts on our blog, along with some business analysis tools we have developed, and our famous 2-minute business lessons that can help you. If you would like strategic planning help specific to your business, call us at 410-744-3900 and we can set-up a time for a free consultation.

Until next time,

Art Jacoby

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The Tough Questions

If you’ve ever asked a “business development guru” for advice on your business plan, it probably started with some really tough questions…

What’s the purpose of your business?

How much money do you want to earn?

When do you want to have this money by?

What products and services will you offer in exchange?

Who is your target market?

The list goes on…

While these are all very important questions, they don’t necessarily hit on the main point.

The main point is that you want to grow your sales. You want to grow your earnings. You want to make more money.

How can you do it?

The obvious answer is…TO MAKE MORE SALES!

Right?

Sales are the lifeblood of your business. No sample business development plan is going to be worth anything to you if it doesn’t stress the importance of learning how to make more sales.

So here’s what you do…

Make A Sales Plan

For the time being, skip the usual questions and ask yourself these ones instead (take out a pad and paper and write these down with your answers).

1. How do you make sales (do sales happen for you over the phone or in-person)?

2. What happens before you make a sale (a phone conversation, in-person meeting)?

3. How many times does the activity identified in question #2 have to happen before you get a new sale (in other words, how many appointments do you need to get a new sale)?

4. What’s the average size of your sales in revenue?

5. What are your revenue goals (if you don’t have revenue goals, you should set those – we’ll write on setting sales goals soon)?

Once you’ve answered those questions, it’s a simple math problem, right?

You take your goals, the average size of sale, the average number of customer touches it takes to make a sale, and you simply deduce the number of customer touches you’ll need to hit that mark.

Let’s Take An Example

Suppose you want to earn $1,000,000 in revenue over the year. Let’s say your average sale size is $10,000.

$1,000,000 = $10,000x

x = 100

So you know you have to close 100 deals to make $1,000,000.

Let’s say it takes you 5 appointments on average to close a deal. To close 100 deals, you would need to go on 500 appointments.

That means that in an average 50 week year, you would need 10 appointments/week.

So there you have it, the best sample business development plan you could ask for. You don’t have too much to think about – just go on 10 appointments/week and you hit your goals, right?

This is an overly-simplified version of what we do with clients.

1. Determine how much you want to make

2. Figure out how you make money

3. Do the math to see what level of activity is required

There are some other things you can do to help with this process. For instance, sometimes we have clients tell us that they need to go on 25 appointments before they close a deal. In that case, we explore ways that they can shorten the sales cycle.

Or sometimes clients earn a small amount of revenue per sale. In this case, we look into ways that they can change their offerings to earn more.

In conclusion, there are a lot of things that go into the ideal sample business development plan – lots of things that are specific to your business.

But the #1 thing that you need to focus on is getting more sales. Look at your sales process, determine your goals, do some math and MAKE IT HAPPEN!

Would you like some 1-to-1 advice to help grow your small business? Contact Jacoby today and start a new growth cycle.

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• Is your business slowly dropping sales and losing profit?
• Are you looking for a long-term strategic plan that will help your business earn higher profits?
• Are you a young company looking for a stable foundation?
• Or maybe you’re an established business looking to take your business to the next level.

Profit growth and projections are clearly important to the growth of a company. If your business is not “lighting up the boards” – that is, making a bunch of sales, then hiring a sales growth consultant might be one of the best decisions you can make for your business.

Especially in a recession.

But can we afford it?

The bottom line is that any sales consultant worth their salt will not cost you money. They may be an expense in the short-run, but the beauty of sales growth consultants is that they quickly produce returns on the money you invest with them.

Not only will a good sales consultant reinvigorate you and your sales force, but they will give you actionable, proven ways to increase your sales NOW! Not to mention help with training new sales people.

There are many different strategies and techniques a growth consultant could use to help your business, which ones will work for your company?

Choosing the ideal sales consultant

When looking for a sales growth consultant you should consider the background of the specialist and their past credentials.

• Have they helped companies like yours before?
• Do they have references you can talk to?
• What was their career before they started consulting?
• Do they have a good reputation in the area?
• Have their techniques had demonstrated success in improving company revenues and profitability?

Where can I find a consultant like that?

Jacoby is a Business Growth Consulting firm specializing in sales growth that’s located physically near Baltimore, Maryland. But we have clients are from all over the country, from California to Texas to Boston.

In addition to decades of combined experience, the reason that our clients excel is because of our passion for helping clients, and seeing them succeed.

Aside from sales growth consulting, we have the expertise and know-how to solve complex business problems that can help your company prosper.

Call 410-744-3900 or fill in this contact form to get started.

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By changing their perspective and strategy planning to have a long term perspective instead of realizing only the production of a short term positive uptick to the profit statement, it is possible to grow a business even during tough economic times. A foundation to success in this area, however is that the management in charge are true leaders and are prepared to look beyond the short term  prospects and work toward positive change for the future. It goes without saying that if the company is in a strong position before the downturn begins, combined with good leadership during the period of recession, that venture has a better chance of surviving the challenges with not only streamlined processes, but with a greater market customer base, due mainly to it stepping into the space left by companies who go out of business in the meantime.

The attitude toward a long-term business growth strategy needs to be a part of managerial mindset  in times of plenty as well as times of hardship and needs to result in the implementation of changes which will be advantageous over a period of economic cycles and not only from the short-term stance. The ability to handle recession in this way is the mark of true leadership abilities and the trademark of success.

The use of redundancy is an obvious example of knee-jerk reaction to company failures in a declining market. While it’s immediate effect is to release cash flow into the company which may be sorely needed, the long term result is that once the recession passes, the company then needs to re-establish the knowledge and experience base that it has just discarded. Across-the-board axing of staff positions may seem like the obvious thing to do, however it will be undesirable in the long term vision.

Realise that the wider social implications of major redundancies such as those that we are seeing in the international economy currently, actually makes a recession last longer, as it affects the entire status of a country’s economic infrastructure.

It is far more beneficial to reduce your cash flow by optimising processes than getting rid of people, particularly if you want to grow during or immediately after a recession. This way you retain the human resource necessary to quickly and effectively respond to opportunities in the market.

The techniques  brought in by consultants can usually help you identify quick wins in this area, and the money thus made available can be used to fund growth related activities such as buying your competitors stock or developing new market offerings.

The old proverb of buying when the market is depressed is most applicable in this situation, and businesses should be preparing for this situation when the going is good.

IBM’s Willy Chiu, VP for IBM’s Cloud Labs described how the company is working to be able to string them all together through virtualisation and cloud-based provisioning so as to be able to dynamically manage business services. “Ultimately, it’s all about changing the economics of enterprise computing. It’s all about boosting efficiency. And it’s about doing more with less.”

Before Twitter, before Google, before Microsoft there was IBM. The gold standard of corporate excellence was a proud organization and the “men of IBM” wore blue suits with white ties. IBM stood for reliability and innovation. It was the “go to” equipment choice – don’t bother considering the alternatives.

But dominance led to complacency and IBM lost its way. This loss of prestige and power was personified by its inability to understand young Bill Gates who clearly outmaneuvered IBM in Microsoft’s early days. Since then, the proudest of U.S. corporations has been quiet for a long time. Its biggest news was its 2004 $1.75B sale of its PC business to the Lenovo Group. IBM once dominated this business but failed to keep pace with Dell and Hewlett Packard.

Can IBM rise once more and be king? Stay tuned.

–Art Jacoby

Beneath that great feeling is a level of unease. You know that what is keeping your business going is all about you – and the stresses and strains of that are starting to show.

It’s a feeling of exhilaration tinged with fear and disillusion. You know that you cannot keep up this pace forever. What happened to the success and what it was supposed to give you?

What’s more, you want a vacation.

Want Sustainable Business Growth? Then Think Again…

It is time to think again. It is a problem that is solvable – and that solution may not be as far away as you might think.

What you have right now is unsustainable, so you need to switch that into something that enables sustainable business growth. This is making sure your business prospers and grows, without the backbreaking work on your part. Giving you the time to enjoy some of the fruits of your labors too.

To give sustainable business growth, there is one ingredient in the recipe that needs to be taken out of the equation, at least as far as the grunt work – the everyday operation of your business – is concerned. YOU.

Yes, it is now time to ensure that you are as little a part of the sustainable business growth package as possible, by creating a bunch of people around you that are able to do your work; to take the weight off your shoulders, by being as good, if not better at running your business as you are – or think you are.

In fact, by turning over running your business, not only will you achieve sustainable business growth that doesn’t kill you, but you will also build a business that thrives on others doing the work you help so close to your chest for so long – understandably, because it was your baby.

And when others are a part of your ‘master’ team, it will become beyond sustainable business growth, it will elevate into a far better business proposition than you might have dreamt.

Sustainable Business Growth Is About Letting Go (Yes, You!)

By developing a group of people in your team who are capable; enthusiastic; motivated and focused, you will be able to loosen your reins of control. You will be able to take a back seat in the running of the business. To quote a well-known phrase, you will be able to work ‘on’ the business, rather than ‘in’ the business. And that’s a big step.

Five rules of ‘letting go’:-

1) Rigorously consider everything you do and decide just how little you could do if you had the right person in place.

2) Decide on a timescale of letting that go to someone else, even if you don’t know who that might be right no (hint – be challenging with timescale – 6 months should do it).

3) Consider who you have in your team now who could step up what they do to the next level.

4) Create a quick and dirty 6 month program of developing (supporting, challenging, delegating and above all trusting) each of the people you have already, to step up. If you haven’t got the people you think can do it, plan to recruit inside 3 months (note – you probably have the potential inside the people you already have, so check that out first).

5) Start tomorrow

One thing you need to know. It will take a big shift in attitudes from excuses and reasons for it not being possible, to ‘can do’. And the biggest hurdle that you will find in creating this sustainable business growth model of shifting total accountability to others, will be you. Your people will love it; love you and take it in their stride.

The capability will most often be there. It’s up to your to let go, support and take a vacation, safe in the knowledge that your business is thriving.

Psst – most often it will do even better when you are not there!

–Martin Haworth

The entrepreneur is charged with the task of turning a business idea into reality, either by starting a new business or injecting new life into an old one. At every point along the line – from having the idea to planning and implementing it – the entrepreneur learns the lessons from others who have charted the same territory previously. He can follow their example and the wisdom of their clear practices and precepts. In fact, many entrepreneurs have done exactly this and built their wealth upon the past experiences of others.

But every firm is faced with a key question sooner or later: do you try and grow the business, or are you quite content with what you’ve got? If the latter is true for you – a view which perhaps represents the traditional image of the smaller firm – then you are in the minority and behind the times.

Most firms these days are committed to growth. However, you can’t expect to grow without entrepreneurship and innovation when the climate is one of intense competition. And intense competition is not only the current climate, but a permanent feature of the new economy.

Many are averse to the inherent risk of innovation, however – including those who are actively seeking to grow their business. This is especially the case with proprietors. A survey showed that 30% are ‘unwilling to pursue any risky growth strategies’. That figure goes down to 18% among non-proprietor managers, though – obviously a more dynamic bunch altogether.

But only a fifth of the managerial types concur that ‘Growth is everything: we can’t survive in this business unless there is growth. Success comes only from taking big chances, and I would risk a great deal for a strategy which promised to deliver strong long-term growth.’ Those quite intimidating words could help to explain why as many as three-fifths of the businesses came out in favour of relative safety, preferring a ‘medium-risk strategy – as long as growth prospects are reasonably good.’

But anyway, growth doesn’t appear to be the number one objective. Most firms rated profit as ‘very important’, with growth just underneath it on a list of priorities, then market share, steady employment and value for sale.

But success comes with profitability and growth in business (together) – you need both, along with innovation and entrepreneurship.

–Robert Heller

The marketing plan document developed by the promoter will have answers to all these queries and lay the foundation of the business’ success or failure, depending on how cautiously it has been planned. A marketing strategy must be written and communicated in a very simple way so that it conveys in a nutshell what it intended to.

Professional business consultancy services come to a promoter’s rescue in this area. Such professionals help the promoters in developing a vision for the company by identifying the business’ strengths and areas of improvement. They also gaze loopholes in several business related strategies and modify them to achieve the set goals.

View Your Consultants as Marketing Partners:

Consultants can offer you relevant advice on necessary business tactics after studying the market trends. Their suggestions are based on their market analysis that views various market related facts under the microscope. Some factors that consultant consider while compiling a market report include preferences of the consumers, consumer habits and their buying power, and the competition that the new business is likely to face in the targeted area.

Thus, the consultants help you in determining the feasibility of your business, and therefore act as your marketing partners. They weigh pros and cons of business strategies and advice you accordingly. Besides, they offer a variety of services including business start-up advice, operation analysis, formulating marketing strategies, making business plans, management consulting, and much more.

How Do Consultants Help With Business Growth Strategies?

Expert consultancy services are available in the market. They can increase the productivity of your business manifold, allowing you to concentrate on management or other services related to the core business. Such services are personalized and customized for user satisfaction. Besides developing marketing strategies, consultants also undertake the work of marketing them. They do it in many ways – propagating through advertisements in public places, creating catchy television ads, or by simply offering incentives to the buyers when the buy a particular company’s products.

E-commerce marketing strategies are also gaining a lot of popularity, since they are low-cost ways to advertise. There are specialized business consultants who develop websites for companies and implement effective strategies to create traffic that generate revenues for the company.

So, go ahead hire a personal marketing partner to show you the right direction.

– Alexander Gordon

Here at Business Growth Consultant, we’ve enjoyed many successful engagements expanding client businesses. During the growth stage, we’ve helped clients articulate what they want from their business, and then match these desires with internal and marketplace conditions to capture the real opportunity.

Most importantly, those of us at Business Growth Consultant help growth stage clients select and execute strategies to ensure that the business grows rapidly.

Specifically, Jacoby helps clients:

• Refine the business plan
• Plan for profit improvement
• Strengthen the management team
• Improve marketing & sales plans
• Upgrade operations and processes
• Analyze competition
• Understand industry & market conditions
• Secure additional rounds of funding
• Acquire other companies

Please let us know if we can be of further help.

So my task is to coach the team to perform better, to survive and ultimately to thrive on their success.

What is the 80/20 rule?

I explained to the team that commonly 80% of results are produced by 20% of causes. Applied to sales revenue, this idea gives you plenty of levers with which to control and manage your situation:

Observation 1: 80% sales come from 20% customers.

Printing out the cumulative sales ledger by value enabled us to identify the important customers. We will focus our sales effort on these few, important businesses.
Interestingly they tend to buy single product types at present, so cross-selling several products to them will immediately boost sales revenues while reducing the team’s invoicing task.

Observation 2: 80% profits come from 20% products.

Tracking the actual profitability of products enables us to raise the prices on strong products and only offer discounts on the weak products.

We will bundle two or three ‘low profit’ products that complement a high profit product.

We are prioritising the production schedule, inventory investments and delivery dates to favour high-profit products and we might discontinue some low-profit products.

Observation 3: 80% costs come from 20% activities.

We plan to manage only the high-cost activities. For instance, some high cost materials will only be processed ‘just in time’ for their assembly and finishing activities.

Cross-training the staff will build flexibility into these sensitive activities.

How do you focus your best efforts?

Understanding the 80/20 rule helps to unravel the averages and aggregations in your business to expose the insights that will help you grow. How can you reduce 80% of your wastage and invest into extra sales growth?

Following this idea, my client plans to review his business annually, then his team will avoid burn-out as they grow the business.

Best of luck with your business growth strategy and strategies!

Adrian Pepper coaches people through business and personal difficulties.