Community Questions: August 2023

Community Questions: August 2023

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 53 of the business development podcast. And today it's community questions, August, 2023. Stay tuned.

Intro: The great Mark Cuban once said business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners. CEOs and business development reps, you'll get actionable advice on how to grow business. Brought to you by capital business development, capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast, and now your expert host. Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 53. And today we are doing another community questions episode. Today's community questions episode is going to be August 2023. But before we get there today, I wanted to chat a little bit about a dumb thing I did today. And I'm really hoping that some people in my listenership some of my lovely business development people can relate to forgetting items.

So, I was at a really awesome meeting. I didn't forget anything to go there. We did the full, like, walkthrough tour, kind of pitched the product, left, I got back to my truck, and I was talking with the rest of my team, kind of just chatting about it, and what we have to do next. And, Silly Kelly, Puts my, my lovely capital business development padfolio, the thing that I say that you should bring to every meeting, I set it on the back of my truck and like a big dummy, I drove away and so went back this afternoon thinking like, crap, I sure hope I can find it.

No dice. No dice. It must have hit the road, but you know what? I think somebody stopped and picked it up. So, fingers crossed, I still have my fingers crossed that somebody might actually call me, because it was like full of my business cards obviously, so hopefully someone might call me. Really, I could replace my padfolio in a heartbeat.

I have a bunch of capital business development ones, but this one I had made up kind of my first year of giving away capital business development padfolios. And even though it's not the more expensive, fancy one, it's the one I loved. And now it is missing in action. So makes me feel a little sad inside, really hoping that my padfolio finds its way home to me.

And I want to hear it. If you guys have done something silly like that, I want to know about it. I want to know if you guys can relate because I'm feeling like a bit of an idiot today. Anyways, getting into it. Wanted to give a gigantic thank you to Ross huartt, Ross Huartt was our guest for episode number 52.

How Your Path Becomes Your Foundation with Ross Huartt. He's the president CEO of MBC Group and EcoClaim. He came on and gave us just an awesome, awesome show. Told us his story came all the way from the UK to New Zealand and eventually to Canada, overcome a bunch of different hardships and a kicks ass.

It was an awesome, awesome episode. And Ross, if you're listening to this. It was amazing chatting with you. It was amazing to meet you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Just before we kick today's show off as well, I wanted to give just a little update about capital business development. If you are in Canada and you run or own a business and you are looking for growth I am the owner of capital business development.

We are currently taking new clients. So if you're looking for someone to. Completely take over your business development program, market you right to successful meetings and RFPs. I'm your guy. Feel free to give us a shout at Capital Business Development, or you can always get me through the podcast or at info@capitalbd.ca.

 Also, since this is a community questions episode, I want to just give a shout out. Yes, we did end up getting quite a few questions. If you were listening to this show and you have business development related questions, or just. questions related to business. I will do my best to answer them for you.

I love doing these shows. I have some really, really challenging questions today that even right now, I'm still thinking about how to how to answer, but I'm hoping that when the time comes, I give excellent answers. But if you have a business development related question, or just questions related to your business specifically, I would love to answer them for you.

So we do this we do this segment at least once a month. This one's August. The next one will be September or, you know, potentially if I get questions sooner, maybe end of August. But I'm hoping to do one a month, maybe two moving forward. Shoot any questions you have to podcast@capitalbd.ca subject line community questions.

Once again, that's podcast@capitalbd.ca subject line community questions. All right, let's get into it. So our very first question from for the day is from Marc at the Ivory Coast. So all I got is Marc from the Ivory Coast. Mark asked, I am planning on using my personal LinkedIn account for a junior BD position, but also my side hustle.

I, I have a side hustle, which is a car rental business platform. And he said, the industries don't compete. Is it okay if I use the same LinkedIn profile for both? My answer is absolutely. I guess the only question that I have for you is, as long as your day job you know, what, you didn't tell me what your junior BD position was.

So as long as your day job doesn't compete, like if they're in completely different industries, I don't see any issue with it. Just list them both as projects under your LinkedIn. And I say, go for it. The only kind of caveat to that might be is if, you know, if your day job. is in some way not cool with it, then you have some tough decisions to make.

But yeah, in the modern world, I see lots of people operating two businesses from their LinkedIn accounts. Heck, I'm one of them. You know, I show up as an employee at the various contracts that I work, as well as the owner of Capital Business Development and the host of this podcast. I got three on the go, four on the go at any given time.

So I see no issue with it, Marc, but Once again, you know, as long as it's okay with with your day job, or if you don't care as long as you're, it's worth the risk to you, okay? Thank you so much for the question. Alright, my next question is from somebody I know personally, Esther Hall. She's been on the show, and of course she hammered me with a bunch of personal questions, which I knew she was going to.

Esther. Thank you so much for writing these in. And yes, because you sent them, I will answer them. All right. So Esther's first question is. Kelly, what routines do you follow every day? Oh, goodness. Okay. Okay. Routines in my house. Well, first off, I'll talk about my morning routine, and then I'll talk about routines that I follow in my day to day business.

I think that's a good way to, to knock it out. So we have three boys. So I have a fiance and three boys. We also have three big dogs. Our mornings are, they start at seven o'clock and it's either the kids are coming into our room or the dogs are barking cause they're hungry or one outside every day is.

Basically 7 a. m. every single day sometimes earlier, rarely later. So most of my days start there. I typically, first thing I do in the morning is me and my fiance, we have coffee together and we eat breakfast with the boys, or we just hang out with the boys for a minute and then typically she's running off to her busy job or I'm running off to mine and From there, essentially when I get to work, regardless of where I'm working, so whether or not I drive to, you know, a client's site, or whether or not I'm working from home, I always start my day with the top things I want to do today.

So, I talk about this on my episode quite a bit with regards to, like, note taking. I always have a notebook by my desk, and... On my desk, depending on what client I'm working for, so if I'm working for my business, Capital Business Development, or whether I'm working for one of my clients, I always write the client name at the top of my page.

And then I write things to do today. And I'll list out, you know, roughly 10 things that I need to do every day. And I list them typically in order of importance and typically from the things I don't want to do. To the things that are a little easier to do. The reason being is that if you can crush out those harder to do things in the morning, whether that be your digital introductions, whether that be your cold calls or proposal writing, or God knows what you got to do that day.

If you get those harder things off the books quicker, one, you're going to be more successful because those harder things are typically the things you need to do to bring more revenue into your business. And two, it kind of feels like your day gets, it starts off a little more challenging and it gets.

Easier and easier and easier as the day goes on. So yeah, I try, I try to coordinate my days that way, but I definitely do write out the things I need to do that day and I track everything on my notepad and that is how I start my day. All right. And then Esther asks, how does your business look now versus when you first started?

Oh, goodness. It's a lot more streamlined. What I'll be honest, when I started capital business development, I wasn't exactly sure what it would look like or what my day to day would be. What I knew was I was really great at business development. I knew that process was important. I was still refining the process at that time.

But I kind of had some companies to trial run it on and learn new things and You know, when I started working with one of the larger businesses I work with, I had to then refine my process even more because I was now dealing with clients across the country. It was no longer, you're just dealing with clients locally or in Alberta.

Now we were dealing with clients in Ontario, Northwest Territories, British Columbia. Completely across Canada, in some cases United States. And so, I had to refine my process even more. So, what I would say, Esther, is that, you know, while my process started out pretty okay, the things that's changed the most over time is the process, and then just the smoothness of everything as it goes.

My operation today is considerably more smooth, more streamlined than it was, and I think that's just the nature of any business, but I would say that Now my business looks like a hot rod and before it looked like you know, a Mac Truck, but we're getting there. We're getting a little better every day.

And, you know, like my business had no podcast in the beginning. Now we have the podcast, you know, we're growing. I have employees, we're, we're trucking along. So, you know, it's changing all the time. And I think the key to any business is to be able to adapt. You need to be. You need to recognize that what the business was yesterday, or what it was three weeks ago, three months ago, three years ago, is probably not what it is today, and that's okay.

You just have to make sure that you're rolling with the punches, you're finding the new opportunities where they come. The service offering that I offer is very much the same, Esther, as it was from the very beginning. What has changed is a better understanding of the service offering, which I think, you know, you learn over time with any new product or service, the better understanding of the benefits and what it will do for my customers.

I would say that that is the big change, really just the streamlining of it all and a better understanding of the effects of the service. All right. How do you set capital business development apart from others in the industry? You know what? I don't compare myself to others. I think that that's, that's really the secret.

Who cares? Like, and I get it. You're going to say, well, yeah, you got to care. And yes, you do got to compare, or you got to care what your competition is doing. But if you're just constantly chasing your competition, you're always behind, right? So I'm always looking, I'm not really too focused on the competition, Esther.

What I'm focused on is how can I do better? How can I serve my customers better? What are things that capital business development can do today that brings benefit? You know, like we do all sorts of things, but like one of the things that I kind of committed to from the beginning was I didn't want to charge commissions.

Why? Cause I looked at it as they're already paying me to do the service. Why would I charge the commissions too? So one of the things we did from the beginning is that, but you know, there's lots of other things that we do as well. However, once again, that was just a choice that I made. I did not make that because the competition was doing that.

I made that because I decided that that wasn't, that was the way I wanted to run capital. That was one of the ways that I wanted to do it. And I don't spend too much time looking at the competition. What I spend time on is marketing my business to people and finding ways to benefit and exponentially grow their businesses.

Because to me, the way that I see it is, if I want to be ahead. All I have to do is constantly make my customers happy. And if I'm always focused on customer satisfaction, doing a great job, doing what I say I'm going to do, which is the problem with like 99% of sales companies is they don't actually deliver the service they say they're going to do.

What we do at Capital is we actually deliver the service we say, right? We don't, we don't promise anything we can't do. And if we can't help a customer, we will tell them. And if we can. We will tell them. However, I think as long as you're following those practices in your business, you're doing what you're saying, you're going to do.

And you're kicking us at it. You don't have to worry because your customers are going to recommend you to other people and your company is going to grow either way. All right. How do you navigate? The changing technological landscape. So this is another question from Esther and she was asking because she's like, look, you know, now there's like chat GPT, there's AI, you know, do you dive in early or do you wait and then risk being too late?

I don't know, Esther, you know, like, I, I think that we try to stay ahead of it. I think the problem is, is that You learn about things when you learn about things. Like I'll be, I'll be honest. I was really late to the chat GPT party. Okay. Like really late. I remember people telling me about it, asking me about it.

I hadn't even played with it yet. And so AI, I feel like I was a bit late to the party with AI. However. Even being late to the party with AI, I've now utilized it, learned how to use it, and we use it quite regularly in the business to great effect. And so maybe it doesn't matter. Like, I genuinely think that that's, that could actually be the case, is that whether you're early, whether you're late, doesn't matter as long as at some point you figure out how to utilize it, or you figure out how to make your business more efficient.

I would say that, you know, a directive that I've given to Cole, for instance, was I want to know about anything that you hear about that looks like it can help our business, and I would not be beyond trying and test running new technologies if I think that they might help. However, you know, it's changing on a weekly basis, right?

Like, some of the things that I've found, or, or, like, some of the... Some of the technologies that I want to implement like for instance there was one because I wanted to do some audiograms for the show and so you know I found one program that did amazing audiograms but then I realized that Descript does great audiograms and I was already paying for it and so okay so I might as well just use the one that I was already paying for and that has multiple other features that benefit this podcast.

So you know Yeah, absolutely. Figure out what you're going to do, but then, you know, what's going to happen, obviously, is over time, technologies are going to offer more and more services, you're going to get all in one bundles, it's going to become more cost effective, and maybe then you have to, you have to switch over, it just doesn't make sense to use the one that you were using before, I think that that can very much happen, but I think the secret is just to be open to trying it, and, and, you know, whether you're late to the party, whether you're early to the party, I don't think it really matters that much.

Because if you're open to utilizing new technologies, you're going to come across it at the right time for your business. And when you do and implement it and it works, you get the same benefit. You really do. All right. I just want to give a big shout out once again, Esther, thank you so much. That is the end of her questions.

It was absolutely amazing. Much appreciated. Not very often to get the personal one, so much appreciated Esther. All right, this next set of questions is from Monica Jaime. Monica actually submitted questions for our last Community Questions episode, so she's had some more, so really appreciate it, Monica.

These are really beneficial, and I think that they do tend to help a lot of people, so thanks for asking. So she starts out by saying what secrets can you share in rapport building? In this case, I think what she was kind of implying was how do you make a connection quickly with somebody you're meeting with?

You know, she had asked about mirroring. That was kind of one of the things that she'd asked about. It's so funny, Monica. I don't even think about it anymore. I really don't. I had to think really hard because. These things are very automatic for me now. But yes, mirroring, mirroring has always been something that, you know, if you read any, any book on sales, it's going to tell you, you know, you should mirror the person you're talking with because it relates better.

I would say that when you're building rapport, be genuinely curious, right? Be genuinely curious. I think that that is, that is the thing missing from a lot of interactions is that people get so focused on the business. Instead of the person behind, you know, the person you're trying to interact with, right?

If you show genuine interest, you ask them questions about themselves, about their life, about how did they get there? I always love that. I always ask, I love asking people, how did you get here? And I think you guys know that because it's one of the things that I like to ask every one of the people that I interview, because I always love to hear the story.

Like, how did you end up here? Most of them didn't and didn't start out as CEOs or. Executives, right? You know, they all started at the bottom, like we all do. And it's always great to hear their stories. And, you know, some of them are like Faheem, where he was literally a goat herder, right? He's from a family of goat herders.

Now he's, now he's a computer scientist building, you know, building microchips and robots. Like. It's crazy to hear people's stories. And if you can genuinely show interest, Monica, just show interest, just ask questions, show interest, you know, yeah, absolutely. You can mirror and these are all techniques and stuff you can do.

But the real secret is just to show interest, just to really genuinely care and make sure that you're asking, you know, ask about things that you would ask to talk to your friends about. Like, I always think that whenever I'm at a client meeting, right. If, if you can get to a point where you're talking about their dirt bike trip.

Or their fishing trip last week or their family vacation and what that was like. And you know, did their kids enjoy it or what was there to do there? You're building a better connection than you ever could over any business talk. So finding ways to connect on a human level is always going to build a better rapport for you.

And then, you know, this trails into your second question. So your second question in this case was, what is the secret in initiating small talk leading to a good conversation? And once again, It's really about keeping that conversation personal, right? Find ways to take it personal. Instead of it being small talk, you know, ask, ask a tough question, right?

Like, heck, you know, like if if they rode up on a motorcycle, you know, you just ask, look, like I saw you ride up on a bike, like. How long you been riding for? What kind of bike is that? Have you gone on any trips lately? Ask long leading questions and then genuinely show interest, but also genuinely be quiet, right?

One of the secrets to building a really great connection with somebody is to just ask them questions, sit back and listen and listen attentively. I'm not saying just like passively listen. Okay. I see a lot of people. Who do a passive listen. And essentially what they're doing is they don't really give a shit what you're saying.

All they care about is, okay, am I leading this to the direction that I want to go? While obviously we're in business development, we're in sales, we're dealing with a customer. Yeah. At some point, sure. That's what we want, but what I've found in my life, and I've been in hundreds, if not thousands of meetings and.

What, like, the common denominator in good conversation is listening and letting the other person tell the whole story. Don't cut them off, don't interrupt, just sit back. If you have questions, bank them, right? But wait until they conclude. the subject they're talking about, you know, nod your head, you know, show you're listening, right?

Obviously we do the things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nod. Right. But genuinely show interest, genuinely listen. And if you have something to ask, wait for them to conclude. Don't cut them off. Wait for them to conclude. And you're going to find that when they're done, They're going to really like you because people love to talk, right?

People love to tell their story. And if you give them an opportunity to tell their story, you're going to find most people are going to tell it. And one of the cool things, one of the really cool outcomes of all this, Monica, that you're going to find is that by the end. If they're feeling good about that conversation they had with you, it's very, very, very likely that they're actually going to take it to business and then ask you what you can do for them and give you that whole lead in that you've been waiting for the whole time.

And you didn't even have to work for it. All you had to do was listen. Ask a leading question, wait for an answer. Ask a follow up question, wait for an answer. Keep asking questions, show genuine interest, laugh. You know, smile when they tell their joke or smile when, when, you know, when you've, when you're genuinely like, wow, because most of these people's stories are awesome, right?

Like we all have great stories. And I think if we can connect with people that way, especially through a lunch meeting or that first interaction and build that really great rapport. It leads into better conversations. The next time better conversations, the next time more openness, more openness means more opportunity and a relationship and a rapport being built.

And next thing you know, you're on speed dial, you know, when they need your product or service, you're the person they remember because you made them laugh. You made them smile. You know, you gave them, you showed them a good time. You showed them a genuine interest in who they are as a person. And I think.

In business, in all cases of business, not just in, not just in sales or business development, in all cases of business where we can really connect with people and show them that we care about them as people, that we respect them as people, that we care what they have to say, that we find them interesting or find them funny.

Those are always going to benefit. I, you know, I can't see a whole lot of negatives ever coming from that. Okay. All right. This was, this was a good one. And I'll be honest, Monica, I didn't have a good answer for this. I've been in plenty of situations and I'll kind of get into it. The question she asked was, what do you say when someone asks where you got their number?

And if you got it from a purchase database, this one's tough because I'll be honest, Monica, I've never actually done this. However, I have had plenty of people give me. other people's numbers or emails and then say, you didn't get it from me. And you know what? I would say that most of the time when that has happened, I'll be honest, I didn't necessarily keep going that route.

What I typically did in that case was, especially considering most of these situations were local business. I would just go there. I would literally go there because I have the guy's contact information. I would just ask for him, say, Hey, and I would introduce myself, give a brochure, let him know who I'm with, let him know I like found him on LinkedIn or something and kind of just went around it, you know, because the hard part isn't necessarily the number.

You have to make the connection, right? And so if someone gives you the number, really, them giving you the name in 2023 is just as valuable. And so if you can find ways to connect with them without going that way, you know, it saves the person who's, who's given you their number, and it saves you too, because that's a tough situation.

However, In your case, there's a lot of people doing this. There's a lot of database information out there. I know you're not alone. This is, this happens in North America. This happens around the world. So what would I do? I think the best information that I can give you is this. I would say, yes, our company, our company utilizes a very large database.

of high level people and your name and number was in it. Just tell them the truth, but just, but just say, and then, and then just, you know, turn it around and say, I get this, you know, you can even just take it this way. You know what? I get this question all the time. And absolutely. You know, we have a very high level database in our system.

Your name and email was a part of it. And I'm reaching out to you today because I think we have a product or service that might fit you really well, I would just hit it head on. I think that you would be better off hitting it head on than you would lying about it because lying about it, you're going to get tied up.

You're going to get caught, you know, and then when you do get caught, then you're really screwed. If you just tell the truth, you're going to be in a much better place. Yeah. Maybe they still blow you off, but I think that if you can word it the right way, say the truth, but word it in a way that kind of makes it look high level.

Right. You know, our company has a really large database of executives. You know, your name and number was in it. It's the best name and numbers to contact these people. And we're only reaching out because we think we have a product or service that you might like. Do you mind if I tell you a little bit more about it?

Or do you mind if I send you some information? I think you will get a lot more people disarmed by hitting it head on than doing it a different way. That would be my, my, my piece of advice to you would be to hit it head on. If that's the case and that's the, what the route you have to work from, hit it head on, tell them the truth.

And I think you're going to find that if you can word it right, You're going to be able to disarm them before it before it goes too far or goes the other way on you. Okay. All right. How do you persuade a prospect to migrate from a competitor? Oh boy. You could have given me some much easier ones, Monica.

These are not easy questions. This is a question that I get no matter where I end up. No matter where I'm working, this question inevitably comes up. How do we get them to look at our company over a competitor? That's a really tough one. I don't think that you can. And, and you know what? Maybe there's BD people here that would tell me, Kelly, you're wrong, there's ways.

Yes, sure, there are ways. However, people are going to make their own choices. How do you persuade somebody to leave a competitor? In my experience, in my personal experience of doing this for years and years and years and years and years, you do not persuade them. Your competitor has to muck up. They have to make a mistake and you have to be right there when it happens.

However, that is easy to do. Okay, so you know, there's always situations basically, no matter where you go that you're taking on new business, you are typically taking it over from an incumbent. There was almost always somebody before you doing that service or providing that product. Okay, what happened was For whatever reason, they weren't able to deliver that same level of service or product, or the client has now become dissatisfied with your competitor and they're looking for other options.

This is why active marketing is so critical. You need to be proactive in order to be there when that happens, right? So, you know, I, I don't care whether you're a big company selling 100 million worth of products or services, or you're a tiny, tiny company selling 2 dollars worth of products or services. Okay, this, this hurts everybody equally, this hurts everybody equally, almost always it's impossible for a, for a customer, for like a service provider to provide the same level of service.

Always it, it inevitably, typically something goes wrong and it could, it could be that the service and product is fine, but they weren't able to deliver it on time, right? In my case, I had kind of a story about when I moved and we switched service providers from an internet company in Canada to another internet company in Canada.

Okay. We switched, but the issue wasn't necessarily the product. It was that I couldn't get it on. I was told that it was going to show up on one time. That was impossible. I, I basically got angry because it was not going to work and I need internet for my life. And so I switched to a competitor and that was that.

And yeah, was there anything wrong with the number one service? No, actually it worked just fine when it worked. The problem was they weren't able to deliver it all the time I needed. I went to a competitor who could get it to me on time. This happens in business. All the time, which is why you need to situate yourself.

It doesn't, it doesn't hurt to be number two because number two eventually becomes number one. It really does. Or number three eventually becomes number two, which becomes number one. Like, the key is you need to get your foot in the door. Don't worry so much about displacing your competitor. They need to worry about you, not the other way around, okay?

The person in the slot has to worry about the competition. You're just the competition knocking on the door saying, Hey, Mr. Customer, I have an alternative. It's just as good, maybe better. And when you're ready, we're gonna be here. And so, just be proactive with it, Monica. You know, don't worry about displacing them.

Offer a great option. And eventually, that great option is gonna come to fruition. They're gonna come knocking on your door, right? You can't... Don't, you know, don't bad mouth your competitors. That's just bad business. Don't do that. You know, if they say they are happy with the, with the competitor, they say that they're using a competitor and just say, you know what?

Yeah, absolutely. They're great. If they're ever not great, we would love an option or we would love to be considered as an option. And if you take it down that path, you're going to have a lot of success, you will, because it is inevitable that at some point they're going to be shopping around, whether it be they need to check pricing, whether it be the service is no longer the same level that it was before, or they aren't able to deliver in an area that maybe you were able to, you know, And eventually you're going to get your shot.

But you get your shot by being proactive and making that relationship. So, don't be persuaded by someone saying, Yeah, we're already using ABC Company. Say, great, you know what, absolutely. ABC Company is awesome. If you guys ever want an alternative, We're BBC Company. We're right around the corner. We offer a very similar service, potentially better.

And I would love to talk with you about it. And potentially work with you in the future, submit the information, maybe follow up, get a meeting, build some type of relationship or rapport, and then the next time they're out for bid or they're looking, you're going to be number one in mind. So instead of focusing on how do I convince them to go somewhere else?

Just introduce your product, don't worry about them, and be there when they inevitably make a mistake or inevitably switch to another provider for a little while. Alright, and her last question, our last question of the day is, How do you secure a potential client after sending a proposal? I think she'd also ask, like, how do you secure a client after the first meeting?

You know. Yeah, it's pretty unlikely you're going to secure a client after the first meeting. However, it does happen, right? My suggestion to that would be, I think these kind of go hand in hand. Let's assume that you had a great meeting and it is moving to a proposal stage. Okay. So first off, how do you secure a client after a first meeting?

Have a great pitch, you know, have a great meeting. If they're genuinely interested, ask, say, Hey, you know what? You, you seem really interested in what we're doing. I'd love to create a proposal for you. Would you be okay with that? Yeah, absolutely. Boom. Now you have a proposal. Okay. So the secret is ask, right?

You have to ask for what you want in life. You have to, and it doesn't matter. You know, getting the meeting isn't enough. It isn't right. You have to always ask every meeting should be what's next, right? The meeting is nothing. If it goes nowhere. So we have to be making sure that we are asking about the next steps.

If you've just had an absolutely awesome meeting ask, Hey, you know what? This meeting has been really great, really insightful. You've learned a lot. I've learned a lot. What were, what's the next steps? Can we work together or what's the next steps? Can we get on the bid list? Is there potentially any RFPs, RFQs coming out that we can bid on, or would you like a proposal, right?

If you ask them, they're very likely going to tell you what is the next option. And this also comes with the proposal. You should always follow up on a proposal, probably within two to three days would be my recommendation. Give them a couple days to think it over, but you need to follow up. If you've sent the proposal, you need to follow up on it.

If they don't directly respond to you in two or three days, reach out, just say, Hey, just want to follow up on the proposal. Haven't heard anything for a couple of days. Is there any questions that I can ask for you? Or should we line up another meeting, ask for another meeting, you know, and cause there's always going to be objections, right?

I, you know, I've never sent a proposal yet that didn't have some type of objection. It just is what it is. I feel like People don't want to buy things without asking questions or without, you know, maybe seeing if they can haggle a little bit. But the reality is, is that there's always going to be objections.

If you go into it just thinking there's going to be an objection, go find it. Find it in that three days, right? Give them a couple days to read it through. You know, they've gone through it. Reach back out and just ask, Hey, you know, just following up on the proposal I sent. Is there anything that I can clarify, or can we set up another meeting to discuss?

And then, and then after that, handle the objections. And I think you'll find that if you handle the objections and you handle them well. You are going to close a deal. All right, this has been episode 53. And it is also our third Community Questions. This has been Community Questions August 2023. Want to give some shoutouts?

Chris Eklund, Monica Jaime, Esther Hall, Ross Huartt, big thanks to Cole Chorney for helping with the production over the weekend of Ross's show. I was, I was swamped. I was swamped. I was dealing with a lot of stuff on Friday and Cole really stepped in and helped us produce that show. So big thank you, Cole.

Really appreciate it, man. All right. This has been the Business Development Podcast. If you've enjoyed this show and you want to send us some questions, I would love to take some. Please send them to podcast at capital bd. ca subject line community questions. And until next time, we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization. Is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.