5 Steps to Spending Less Time on Business Development

Oct 27, 2016

As a small business owner or developer, the most valuable asset you can contribute to your company’s growth and development is your time. Unfortunately, your time is also required for all the other things you need to do in your business. Fortunately, if you systematize how you work, you can be much more successful while drastically reducing the amount of time you need to invest into your development efforts.

Here’s a short quiz to see what you know about effective business development. True or false:

  1. I need to go to every networking event so that potential clients can find out about my company.
  2. Once I meet someone, they’re going to remember about me when they or someone they know needs my services.
  3. I always remember what contacts have said and when I’m supposed to follow up with them.

False. All three. So why is it that so many business developers end up working as if the statements were true? Most likely, it’s due to lack of clarity about what their business development efforts should be, so they do what they know.

Here’s a 5 step plan to systematizing your efforts so you can spend less time to be more successful:

1. Set up a CRM. It usually doesn’t make much of a difference which one you choose – you just want to have something in place that you can use to record information. Who you met, who you want to meet, who’s a potential client, and any interactions and follow ups you have with them.
 
2. Identify your targets. Once you’re set up to capture information, you can begin to use that information. Who are the people you want to reach? In your CRM, make a list of categories. Use LinkedIn and your contacts to search for the people within your target market that you want to meet. The first step to meeting them is to know who you want to meet.
 
3. Plan your search. Are you going to be using LinkedIn to find people? Are you going to be asking your current network for introductions? Are you volunteering for any organizations that target your ideal market?
 
Going to networking events will introduce you to a lot of people, but are they the ones you want to meet? If not (which is the case for most business owners and most networking events), then that’s not where you should be spending your time. Find quality people to meet and set up one-on-one meetings with them.
 
4. Spread your brand. Remind people that you exist. Unfortunately, you are not at the forefront of your contacts’ minds. Maybe you spouse or your mother is always thinking of you, but your business contacts are not. When they have a need for your services, you need to make sure that they’re going to remember about you. This is where your CRM comes in handy – send messages, write newsletters (you can outsource this if you want), post relevant updates on social media. Make sure they don’t forget you!
 
5. Analyze your results. Check where most of your leads are coming from. Are they from a certain group of referral sources? Or a specific organization? Have any of your marketing campaigns been unusually successful? When you have these answers, you’ll know where you should be spending your time. As time goes on, keep checking your results – your CRM will help you. Make sure that the efforts that you spend on your business development follow in the path of your previous successes.

Good luck! Please share this post if you find it helpful.