Today’s guest blogger is the inimitable Gini Dietrich, queen of Chicago, CEO of Arment Dietrich, and author of the wildly popular Spin Sucks blog. I’m a big believer in integration. Not integration from the perspective that you’re saying the same thing through every communication channel, but from a “breaking down the silos” point-of-view. You see, marketing, […]
When you combine expert facilitation with visual representations of the outcomes that were achieved in a collaborative manner, you have a living reminder of the work you accomplished together. And most important, you have a map that you can use to help the rest of your employees understand why it is important to change the way the company is doing something.
Isn’t thought leader just old biz jargon? After all, the term’s been knocking around for years, like “headhunter” and “game changer” and “team player.”
But no, for a B2B company today, being known as a thought leader demands your attention. And fortunately, through social media, becoming a thought leader gets easier for small and midsize companies than ever before.
We are all working at a frenetic pace and when we aren’t reaching sales goals, we panic and work from a place of fear, rather than from a place of power. Instead of focusing on the “target” we tend to toss darts all over the board hoping we land anything, anywhere. The result is a lot of tossing and not a lot of points. In reality we are staying in the same place (or losing ground) and not shifting our business forward. In either case, we are expending a lot of energy for little results. This is especially true in going after bigger deals because of the complexities of the sale and the nuances of the buying decision.
Many managers (whether in small, mid-sized or large businesses) who survived the very difficult last few years are working hard to come back strong. You may currently be: restructuring, hiring new talent, revitalizing your marketing plan, becoming more creative with staff resources and how best to maximize them, all while making the best of technology from the Internet to mobile to social media and various data analytics tools.
My advice if you would like to transcend the competitive landscape is to think about Intentional Growth™ and create a plan to establish, highlight, and promote how you are unique as you grow into the future. The critical word here is “grow” and the focus of this post is how your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) will support and fuel that growth.
As this economy brings changing market conditions, the process of scouting, or honing in on the preferred customer, becomes essential. It is the dedication to a focused, strategic business development process for targeting that ideal customer that may mean the difference between accelerated growth versus business as usual.
Recently all of you out in the blogosphere have been finding us via the search term “business development tactics.” Curiosity hasn’t killed this cat yet, so I did my own search to see how we stack up against the competition.
I'm happy to report, you have a lot of good options out there. Surprisingly relevant information.
Many people don’t understand the distinctions between strategy, process and tactics.
A strategy is an overall plan to achieve specific, generally long-term, goals. It’s an approach, a broad, general roadmap, a way to go about doing business. A strategy defines how an organization intends to get from where it is now to where it wants to be in the future, perhaps three to five years out. Pursuing Whales to grow revenue is a strategy. Going global is a strategy. Penetrating a specific industry is a strategy. Increasing visibility to raise awareness about a product or service is a strategy. A strategy may include time frames but typically they are ‘end point’ dates.
I’ve always loved this quote by Jim Collins, "If you have more than 3 priorities then you don't have any."
For today’s small business owners, it’s more important than ever. How many hats do you wear? Too often the day-to-day of small business gets in the way of big strategic moves. I bet you could use a little more simplicity. The Whale Hunters Process™ is all about defined goals, roles, and outcomes. We teach companies how to create a clear plan for business development. Why is clarity so important?
Isn’t thought leader just old biz jargon? After all, the term’s been knocking around for years, like “headhunter” and “game changer” and “team player.”
But no, for a B2B company today, being known as a thought leader demands your attention. And fortunately, through social media, becoming a thought leader gets easier for small and midsize companies than ever before.
If you’ve been in a room with me for more than an hour or so, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ve heard me say the title to this blog post. If you’ve been in a sales meeting or a goal setting session with me it is certain that you’ve heard it. The words lead right to an important thought – in order to be truly successful you have to have some big goals. You’ve got to Think Big, Act Big, and Own It.
Today’s Guest Blogger is Joseph Olewitz . Joseph has been there & done that in the area of new business development. In addition to being CEO and Principal Consultant at 22nd Story Strategies, Inc., Joseph currently shares experiences deriving from years of pitching large professional services deals on his Intentional Growth blog. As I […]