As a Business Development professional, your schedule is tight. You’re always putting out fires and making sure your business is set up for success. The best use of your time is when you’re delivering high-level, actionable strategy. The worst use of your time is when you get bogged down with a laundry list of administrative tasks.

But how can you reduce the time you spend on admin and focus more on the consulting process?

Know Your Flaws

Do you get distracted with your inbox or your social media? Are you constantly switching between your project management tools, your accounting tools, and your email accounts? If so, you’re killing a lot of time.

Little tasks are sneaky and deadly. In isolation, none of them seem to take up too much time. But when compounded, it’s difficult to recover from the loss.

A report by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), says small business owners are spending more than 33 hours a month handling internal admin tasks. 55% say this is causing a lag in business growth. As you might expect, accounting tops the list of major time wasters with up to 14 of the 33 hours. Business banking takes 9 hours, taxes 6 hours, and HR and employee care take 5 hours.

Here’s how you can cut down on that wasted time: [Read more…]

Starting a business is easy. Getting the clients is hard. No matter what business you’re in, there’s always a challenge in convincing prospective clients to jump on board. They need to believe your business is right for them (rather than vice versa).

That’s why a business script can help. Having a pre-programmed monologue (or dialogue) about the merits of your business makes the sales process much, much easier. Of course, reeling in a prospect requires more than just saying the right words, but a proper script can give you a strong foundation and the confidence you need to make a sale.

Let’s take a closer look.

What scripts can do for you

Each business prospect is unique in how they respond to the product you’re selling. The only thing that remains consistent is your ability to connect your business with the potential client.

When you have a script put into place, this becomes a lot easier for you and your employees. When you’re just winging a response on the spot, you may stray away from the message you want your business to send. This, in turn, decreases the strength of your brand.

Here are a couple of ways business scripts can help you further develop your business.

• Not everyone’s a natural salesperson. Having a guide to follow will help the process go a lot smoother. By feeling more prepared for any given situation, you can gather the confidence needed to successfully pull in those prospects.
• Some individuals need more convincing than others. Instead of losing these potential clients, take on the extra challenge with statements ready to change their minds.
• With a script, you’re ensuring that everyone is reflecting the vision you have for your business. Business prospects see that vision, no matter which of your employees is in front of them.

When business scripts are put into use, they allow you to have complete control over your business prospects. In a scripted setting, you’re guiding the outcome of the situation because you’re prepared for every potential scenario.

What you can try

Now that you’re well-versed on the benefits, you can try putting some of them to use. Test out one of the following scripts (or all!) to see how it impacts the way you connect your business with a variety of business prospects.  

Get a good review

One of the ways to draw in more business is through referrals. Here are the first steps in reaching out:

• Get a reference from an existing member of your business. People rely heavily on the reviews of previous clients. LinkedIn is a great way to find who knows who in (or out) of business.
• Reach out to those existing members and ask if they’re satisfied with your business. Once they say “yes”, you can see if they know of anyone else who may be in need of your services.
• From there, you can reach out to those individuals and lead with someone they personally know who can attest to the quality of your services. You’ve already created a sense of trust and familiarity through mutual connections.

Just think about all those times you were hesitant to try a new restaurant and pulled your phone out to check the customer reviews. Reviews play a crucial role in dictating to consumers whether a business is worth their time, with 90% of consumers reading reviews before even visiting a business. Getting a reference from a trusted source of a business prospect can boost your chances of expanding your business.

Go straight for the big guns

It’s definitely the most intimidating of approaches, but it generally has the best outcome. Head straight to the highest level of a company (CEO, CIO, CFO, COO) and appeal to their interests. This requires a change in language and mindset. You don’t want to be casual and you need to think big picture. Here are some things to keep in mind when talking to executives.

• Remember that C-suite executives place a higher level of importance on how exactly your business can increase revenue, decrease costs, and increase profits. Essentially, the numbers are what matter.
• Lead off your conversation with facts. An example of how this conversation can go is “Hi, Mr. President, this is (name) with the (company). We haven’t spoken before but my organization has helped companies very similar to yours save over $300 million in the last year alone. I wanted to reach out and share some ways we can do the same for you if you’re interested.”

Make sure they know exactly how they can benefit from your services. Here are some additional tips for conquering this approach.

Testing it Out

The best way to see what approach works for you is through trial and error. Once you find a script that works for you and your business, you’ll see how much more efficiently your business operates and communicates with business prospects.

So if you’re looking for a way to further expand your business, try testing out a couple of scripts to see how well prospects respond to you and what you’re offering. You’re bound to see some progress.

In the category of software I can’t live without, PitchBook is near the top.

The company was acquired by Morningstar a couple of years ago and they’ve continued to invest heavily in the platform.  The user interface is very straightforward.  I only have 2 complaints – they limit the amount of data you can download on a daily basis (usually your account rep will help you out on a one-off basis) and the price.  It’s not cheap . . . but nothing good should be!

They recently interviewed my team to highlight how we use the software.

I thought sharing it with others would be helpful for those considering becoming a PitchBook customer.

Click the link to read more – Saratoga Pitchbook Case Study

A few months ago, an old college roommate that I don’t see often came to visit me.  My friend builds very high-end systems that help the world’s largest retailer predict which deals they should present you based on the multi-variable behavioral traits they have accumulated about you.  These systems use incredible natural-language capable “bots” which evolve into better workers the more human interaction they have.

It was a fascinating conversation and got me thinking about AIs future influence on the world of private equity.  Obviously hedge funds have used very sophisticated AI algorithms to parse through terabytes of data enabling them to make better investment decisions.  Could our back office, deal execution, and business development teams all be replaced by (gulp) an artificially intelligent computer?

Today the answer is no.  However, Bloomberg recently ran an article about how “AI is laying a claim to the future of investing after many false dawns going back decades.”  It’s now becoming understood that they make clever work partners when coupled with the situational perception that human can readily add.

Chris Mims of the WSJ wrote an apt titled piece called Without Humans, Artificial Intelligence Is Still Pretty Stupid. In it he argues that AI will work together with humans but that our role will be to help AI work better.  “Whether it’s winning at games like Go or keeping watch for Russian influence operations, the best AI-powered systems require humans to play an active role in their creation, tending and operation. Far from displacing workers, this combination is spawning new nonengineer jobs every day, and the preponderance of evidence suggests the boom will continue for the foreseeable future.”

So what are some of the best AI enabled tools business development professionals can use to generate more deal flow?  Some of them are probably well-known names. [Read more…]

Legendary investor Ray Dalio’s new book Principles is a great read and recommend it anyone seeking to understand how to build more process in life. In it, Dalio says that he believes the single most powerful process in the universe is evolution.  This follows a major theme in his book — that we learn the most about ourselves through our failures, not our successes.  It is the same with evolution, which is shaped more by lessons of failure than status quo success.

When you look at nature you’ll see that our world is actually a patchwork collection of ecosystems, linked together for a surprising mix of versatility and durability.  My oldest child is studying biomes in science class which perfectly illustrates this “networking of nature.”  This topic is studied extensively in Mark Buchanan’s book Nexus – Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks.  Buchanan does a fantastic job illustrating how small network theory is demonstrated throughout our world.

So as humans, who have made it through our own evolutionary gauntlet, we now find ourselves working in today’s private equity ecosystem.  As a business development professional, my thriving or failing largely results from the strength of the relationships within my network.  Small network theory has some interesting implications for all of us. In fact, it can provide a template for effective networking, strengthen your existing network, and help you identify the most efficient prospects to target. [Read more…]