Will Kintish |
I qualified as a chartered accountant in 1971, aged 23 and stayed in
practice for the next 30 years.
I ended my accountancy career as the senior partner on merger with a
national firm on May 31 2000. The next day I set up Kintish to show
people in the professional, financial and service-based communities how
to attract more business and clients. |
Will Kintish
has written 1 articles for SB Informer. |
View all articles by Will Kintish... |
Business Development Training: Follow Up Business OpportunitiesWill Kintish
September 20, 2006
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Consider the scenario of a business networking event. These
are superb sources of leads and referrals that can be the life blood of
your business. The business skills you develop in this arena can easily
be applied in any business scenario. Assume you have engaged in
conversation with a good potential contact. Once you have
created a positive first impression start the interesting chat about
various areas of common ground. By careful listening, you may identify
an opportunity to do some business to your mutual benefit at some later
date. You are looking for the moment when someone says something to you
to make you think, "Ahaa, there's a potential business opportunity
here." Suppose you are a business development consultant who
specialises in the food industry and who has a good track record in
helping companies to increase their margins. If you were asking all the
right questions such as "So how you finding things at the moment?",
and you hear the answer "We're doing reasonably well but we don't seem
to be getting the efficiencies in the factory." That is an Ahaa moment.
Can
I mention again, that networking using business development skills
isn't selling; it's building business relationships, and gathering
business information?
This should be the start of the follow up business development process which is as follows:
1. Ask for their business card and read it carefully. 2.
Always find something to comment on; maybe the spelling of their name
or perhaps they have their business in a particular part of town which
you know intimately. It doesn't matter as long as you show them that
you are interested in them, their business and their circumstances. 3.
Now this is a key moment. Ask if you can phone them next Wednesday or
Thursday to discuss the problem they have with their margins. You can
say something like "Now isn't the time or place, but maybe your problem
is a simple issue which I can give you some help on". The chances are
if you have made the right impression, the answer will be "yes". 4.
Bear in mind all the time that if you don't ask the question then you
don't give the other person, with the business opportunity, a chance to
say yes.. You will be at your most popular at this juncture. If you
have done it all right, are you really going to waste a great
opportunity? Not every business event and not every person you meet is
going to turn into a business opportunity but if you are awake alive
and alert, listening attentively and with empathy... you just never
know. 5. Write down on their business card the day you have
agreed to call and let them see you do this. This shows that you are
serious and the chances are you're likely to do it. At this point,
there is no reason whatsoever not to excuse yourself in one of several
ways which we will show you another time. 6. As part of the
bridging process ensure that when you get back home or to your office
or even before you leave the business networking event write down where
and when you met the person a quick description of them and any salient
facts which you may use at a future date to show them that you are
truly listening to what they had to say.
7. When you make the
follow up call as agreed, review the business card or refer to your
business development software if you use it and confirm that they were
happy for you to follow up. If you had picked up that the person was
going away for weekend then make sure that one of the questions you ask
is "How did the weekend go?" I'm not asking you to remember these
details. What I am doing is asking you to write down some small talk
facts that you gathered on their business card. It helps break down
their barriers to talking about business.
When I ask my
audiences "what is the most important thing with regard to business
cards?" the normal answer I get is "make sure you carry plenty of them
with you". Of course you know now that the most important thing is to
ask for theirs. Offer your business card by all means, but don't be too
quick to do this. I think it's a little pushy and it's another form of
saying "aha you want to know all about me don't you. Here's my business
card". It just may be that they don't want to know all about you … not
at that moment anyway. There's a lot more to say about business
development training and in particular working the room but you can
find out about that on my other articles.
Take note that
business development and networking is about giving first and receiving
second. If you go into it thinking "What's in it for me and what am I
going to get out of this tonight" then the chances are you won't
succeed. If you ask questions such as
· "How can I help you?" · "Who would you like me to introduce you to?" · "How will I know if someone I'm talking to will be a good introduction for you?"
You will be showing them you are a proficient and skilled business networker.
Dr
Albert Scweizer once said "Give without remembering and receive without
forgetting". That should stand you in good stead when you're out there
looking to create new business opportunities. Kintish specialises
in helping professional individuals, companies and corporations with business development
training via seminars, in house work groups and major events. Kintish has
provided learning to some of the biggest names in UK finance as is in great
demand as a trainer to help business people via business coaching.
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