The biggest concern I have heard raised by people over the years is ‘I struggle to ask for the business.’ Most people seem to have enough going on, seem to have enough meetings, but really struggle to get down to the underlying purpose of the interaction, i.e., meeting an identified need with a valuable service. They talk about feelings of embarrassment, of sensitivity, when reaching the point of the commercial end of the conversation.
In my coaching, I always ask if people value the advice they give, and on almost 100% of the occasions professionals do indeed see value in what they deliver. In fact, they’re proud of their work. So why be embarrassed .....
How much do you charge per hour? $300? $500? $800 or more? Now look at your calendar for the last 10 weeks and identify the number of meetings you had that would be called 'business development' meetings. You know the ones - a coffee catch-up, a lunch with an existing client, a networking breakfast or maybe a lunch with a referrer. I encourage people to have at least 1 meeting per week that could legitimately be referred to as a BD meeting. Now if we add up the time invested in each of these interactions over the 10 weeks, including preparation time and time getting there and back, let's assume you've spent, conservatively, 20 hours on BD.
