Have you recently changed a habit? We all have them – good and bad ones. To encourage people to improve their business development outcomes, I’m often asking people to self-assess the good and the bad habits they currently have. Take a piece of paper out now and take two minutes to list them, if you are that way inclined.
If you really, honestly, clearly reviewed what habits you have that either help or hinder your success when it comes to keeping your pipeline flowing, what would they be? Some people don’t ask for the business (bad), others keep a pipeline on the whiteboard in their office (good); still others have a tendency, when they think about it, to talk mostly about themselves in their meetings (bad), or you might be in the habit of sending emails instead of making phone calls (usually bad).
So now, I want to ask you - what is the ‘one thing’ you could do that would transform your business development outcomes? If you thought which one habit, if you either stopped it, adopted it, or focused on cementing it, would make a difference, which would it be?
You could focus on what I think can be the single most transformative habit you could adopt or strengthen - ensure that you plan for your meetings.
This is, in my opinion, the small win, the ripple effect, the snowball effect, (and any other cliché) that can start to transform all those good and bad habits into a coherent, and better, whole. It is the visualisation of the meeting coming up, and being self-aware enough to know you shouldn’t be ‘winging it’ because the client deserves better, and you know you can do better. Visualisation is the sort of thing you hear about when world-class athletes are getting ready to do world-class things, and I think it is used way too infrequently in business. Whenever we present at a conference, we visualise how the presentation will pan out. It’ll have a good strong start giving direction about what’s coming up. It will have an informative and engaging middle section and an ending with a message and a call to action, won’t it? So why not adopt this same habit for your coffee meetings and your luncheons?
Today's BD tip:
Create the habit of planning for your meetings. Use a simple checklist about the agenda, the questions you might want to ask and be ready to respond to, and a considered thought about what action might be taken to progress the opportunity at the end of the meeting. I believe, this is the ‘one thing’ most people could adopt to improve their business development. I’ll share more on this next week.
[First published on LinkedIn Nov 15 under the title 'What is your worst habit?']