Cold Market Face-to-Face Business Development Tips.
How well prepared will your company, your firm, your practice be to gain the competitive edge in your commoditized marketplace when the economy takes off?
Face the fact that competition for business will be fiercer than ever once the economy begins to turn around and starts to grow. What are you going to do to stand out?
In the meantime, selling into the present cold market is a very tough sell even for well-trained, skilled sales professionals. It is a daunting task for service professionals like attorneys, accountants, bankers, financial advisors, etc. who have little or no sales/business development training and skills. Even before the current economic crisis, service professionals were handed a duel responsibility – practice your professional skills and additionally bring in new business. New business became the new incentive driver often equally important as billable hours where applicable.
Half-day seminars, one-day workshops, and a rare 2 day retreat for “sales/business development” training ruled the day for service professionals until the economy turned sour. On-time trainings/workshops are a waste of time and dollars. You don’t change linear thinking and habit energy in a day, in a week, in a month, in months. Contrast this to the years of sales training and continual refresher programs that skilled salespeople participate in throughout their careers.
Today, few if any professional service companies are spending resources for business development training at a time when new or additional business is hyper-critical. Unwisely, the historic knee-jerk reaction in a down market is to cut training dollars. On the other hand a down market provides the available time when service professionals can focus on improving their face-to-face business development skills in addition to their practice area.
As a coach, trainer and consultant, Larry Blumsack partners with people and organizations on the move and those already there to accelerate their communication, presentation and speaking skills to be on par with their ambition. Through one-on-one coaching and group training Larry helps leaders and aspiring leaders elevate their presence and communication skills to influence more people, sell more products-services-ideas and inspire others more successfully than they ever imagined.
Larry is the bestselling author of Face-to-Face is The Ultimate Social Media and founder of Zoka Institute and Zoka Training®. Zoka Training® — Mind/Voice/Body/Mindfulness in sync — is the result of Larry’s 45 years as a coach, acting teacher, actor, voice-over artist, theater and TV director/producer, radio & TV commentator and show host, speaker, trainer, serial entrepreneur, and syndicated columnist. Larry was a founding member of the theater department at Northeastern University.
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