First Word

I recently hit a lag in projects and work. I believe that when faced with business decline you don't spend any time focused on the "deficit" but on the "reboot". Business works that way -- it ebbs and flows. You have flush times and then you have dry times. The overall goal is to get it evened out, but it never seems to work quite that smoothly. When I worked in corporate one of the ideas I was taught is "outflow gets inflow" -- and I have found that to be true. If you're not marketing (outflow) and reaching out toward new projects you're not going to attract what you need to grow your business. Tip 1: change your business strategies . Reinvent or think outside of the proverbial box and be open to stretch into new areas. We tend to fall into routines or ways we attract business. That channel is likely to dry up over time, and that is natural. If a channel dries up then you have to look to new revenue streams and that may require some crea...

When doing business development, I've noticed some sales executives just don't know when to give up the chase. I actually think you shouldn't spend too much time pursuing a prospective client. Why? Because at some point the time you've invested in what I call fence-sitters ends up wasted. And fence-sitters can also make very difficult clients. Indecision doesn't bode well for how the relationship will go in the future. All the time you spend in hot pursuit could be channeled to a more productive client who is ready and steps up. Or that same amount of time could be spent on perhaps 4-5 prospective clients all ready to move ahead. Time and attention plowed into fence-sitters runs the risk of never paying off at all when in the meantime you could have had maybe four times the payoff just by shifting your attention. What I recommend is you put in a policy that you will take no more than two meetings (coffee meetings for prospective clients ... free meals doesn't li...