Evening everyone, hope you’ve all had a good day, this is Robert Haylor with another edition to my flipping the script blog series. Tonight I’m going to share with you probably one of the most important things that dawned me whilst out on this evenings 10km run. It was the single component that was missing in my first business back in 2009 and has also been a task that I frequently put off or avoid.
I’ve already touched on the topic of consistency, the whole purpose of this blog series is to prove to myself that momentum and consistency overtime will change the course of both my personal and business life.
Business Development
When it comes to generating business, whether its new business from new clients or new business from existing clients – I certainly wouldn’t make the cut of being the business owner that maximises these opportunities.
In fact, most of the books I’ve read talk about new business development but very few of them talked about when to do this, or perhaps they did and I just didn’t want to take notice. That was until I read Dan Meredith’s book, How to be f*cking awesome, within it advises to put 1 hour aside every day for new business development.
If I looked at my own time log these past 3 or 4 days, there certainly hasn’t been much in the way business development.
I’m procrastinating, and I know it, I’m putting it off, kicking the can down the road.
The most important thing
The most important thing for any business is a steady stream of leads, without leads a business cannot grow beyond its current number of clients.
It took me over 6 years to finally take the plunge and invest in a CRM system, until June this year I literally had a box of business cards and remembered people from their business name. I thought this would be enough, it isn’t.
A CRM system like Capsule, enables you to do so much more, you can track interactions, create a sales pipeline and give yourself a Birds Eye view of your business. The only thing is, it requires you to login and use it.
Procrastination needs to be eliminated and I intend to do that by spending at least 1 hour a day on new business development.
I touched briefly on setting up a PPC campaign, I’ll start there, alongside going through the CRM system, re-engaging with current clients and also reaching out to quotes that didn’t go ahead.
What have been some of your biggest challenges in business development and do you have any tips for overcoming procrastination?