This seminar is a companion to my books Business Development Turbo-Charged: Advisory Boards as Business Development Engines and Business Development: The Right Way: Make BD Live Up to Its Name. Enrollment is limited to five C-Suite level executives per seminar.
Seminar Details: One-and-a-half-hour seminar, involving an initial presentation and a Q&A Session. Followed by a private one-hour one-on-one consultation.
- Platform: Zoom
- Cost: $650, includes copies of both books
I’ve never met a CEO who was happy with the way business development was working. They all end up saying about the same thing.
- “Traditional solutions fail to produce expected results while regularly generating unexpected costs. There needs to be a better way.”
- “Why can’t we get this right? It’s not rocket science and we’re supposed to be good at what we do.”
- “How did we lose that business? We are way better than our competitor.”
- “Why can’t somebody come up with something that works? There has to be a better way!”
Here’s some good news. There is a better way, and this seminar and books will show you how to turn all those nagging questions into fading memories.
In the first part of the presentation, I will address the following questions,
- Why does business development never seem to fully live up to its name?
- Why is it so difficult to get business development working effectively for your company?
- Why does your BD team look like a series of revolving doors – with one person after another being hired amid great fanfare only to be let go within a year for ‘non-performance’?
Then I will turn to the mechanics of designing, populating, and managing an Advisory Board focused on driving revenue. I lay out a timeline for the process. Then, drawing on actual experiences, I will describe successes and failures. Provide assessments of boards that did not perform and of those that did. I will delve into the lessons from each. My objective will be to give you a clear idea of what will be involved, what the risks and costs will be, and what it could mean for your company it you succeed.
I will finish by discussing how to determine if this approach is right for you and your company. My focus will be on what will be required to undertake it, how to set expectations, the challenges to the senior management and the BD teams, and the risks and rewards of building a business development board to drive revenue.
The Backstory: A CEO sat across the table and said, “Why can’t we get this damn thing right?” I had started three companies by then and knew exactly what she was talking about. Business development is a major challenge for every CEO and senior team. Being in business means getting business. Get BD right and you can win big. Get it wrong and nothing else matters. For all my experience, I had little to suggest to my frustrated companion – it was very humbling. After we parted, my walk home became the first steps on a quest for a solution.
During my tours as CEO, I had repeatedly encountered the same challenges. My frustration grew until there was no way out but to find an alternative approach that really worked. Finding a way to make business development work became a crusade. I got very lucky. My fourth company showed me the way. Six months after my dismal performance in the bar I had the beginnings of a solution. Those first insights formed the core of an innovative, potent, and cost-effective approach to business development.
The better part of two decades were spent developing, then refining, a solution to what I see as the principal point of pain for most CEOs. During that time, I was guided by three goals.
- First, the solution had to be head-and-shoulders better than competing strategies.
- Second, it had to be highly cost effective – minimizing the drain on critical resources while generating maximum benefits in the form of turbo-charged business development.
- And third, it had to work! It couldn’t be rocket science.
I am not peddling the same tired old solutions to a problem that never seems to go away. Nor am I offering an alternative that will replace your business development team. Advisory Boards can supercharge the BD process. They can increase the efficiency of your business development team, professionalize the BD process, reduce uncertainties and risk, open doors to new business areas, raise the profile of your company, and let your clients know that you have significantly upped your game.
If you are interested in registering for a seminar, send an email to Chief@Dr-Smith.info and I will provide you with the necessary details
