I have previously spoken about the most common concern raised in my training and coaching over the years – how to ask for the business. The second most common concern I hear is ‘how do I go from being a friend to being a provider?’ I colloquially call this turning caffeine into cash. And I don’t mean that in a cynical, one-way, sense. I think it goes both ways. How do the two people at the coffee meeting make sense of their needs in order to derive a fee for the provider, and a commercial, profit generating/risk mitigating outcome for the client?
Many professionals seem to get caught in the trap of an endless series of ‘rapport building’ over coffee without getting to the real underlying reason people are at work – to provide a service to meet a need. So I will ask people how many of their clients or network contacts come home on the weekends for dinner. How many know the name of their kids, or their life partner, or their siblings? I’m just saying that, while there may be some relationships we all have like this, it’s not possible to make that the entry point to every commercial transaction we need to build a practice.
So consider who your friends really are. The best business developers I have seen have the happy knack of truly being friends with their clients – but this is a rare beast. Most of us know that the client has multiple providers, all of whom are probably nice people. So how do clients choose between providers? On friendship? Sometimes. On technical expertise? Sometimes. On gut instinct? Sometimes. Is it always the same process? Rarely.
I believe the concern expressed about transitioning from friend to provider is masking a number of other concerns – that the provider might not truly believe in the value of their advice (or at the very least, not have connected this with the true commercial value to the client), that the provider may not have thought about specifically how to make the transition to business (by thinking through the questions to ask), or that the provider hasn’t thought through the responses to questions from the client about already having a provider, about price, past experience, or expected outcomes, which can and should be expected.
Today's BD tip:
My advice is to have an honest conversation with your friend/client/prospect. Imagine how good it would feel to have a conversation about work (after the conversation about the weather). Ask them about their priority needs and how they plan to meet those needs, not 'what's on their plate'. Have a business-related idea of your own to table for discussion based on your experience. Know its worth. Be prepared with a considered response to the obvious questions, and have a method for responding to the not-so-obvious questions.
Imagine yourself first as an adviser to a business with needs, and if you do just that, you'll be guaranteed to make more friends.
[First published on LinkedIn Sep 15 under the title 'The second week of Christmas - 'How do I transition from 'friend' to 'provider'?']