Mastering Control: Achieve Success by Focusing on What You Can Change

Mastering Control: Achieve Success by Focusing on What You Can Change

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 147 of the business development podcast. And today we're chatting about focusing on things that we can actually control. If we base more of our long term success on things that we can control, we are going to have much better long term outcomes. Stick with us. You're not going to want to miss this episode.

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: Welcome to episode 147 of the business development podcast. My gosh, 147 episodes blows my mind guys. I, I never saw this show going as far as it has, and it's honestly an honor to be able to show up here week over week, month over month, and soon year over year to be able to chat business development with you.

And share amazing entrepreneurial journeys and lessons along the way. Man, yeah, it's crazy. And we are at 17 months of the business development podcast on Saturday. We're at 147 episodes, 178, 981 downloads. We have 2, 252 followers on Apple podcasts. And Spotify. We have a following of 1,915 on LinkedIn and we have 68 expert guest episodes and 79 BD topics for your enjoyment.

My gosh, it still just blows my mind. It blows my mind that we've come this far and we could not have done it without. You guys are amazing, rockstar listenership are amazing, rockstar guests, so thank you. Thank you for showing up so that I can continue to do this show. And I sure hope that we are benefiting each and every one of you along the way on the journey that is the business development podcast.

Just a reminder for you guys, if you want to help the show, honestly, telling your friends, family, coworkers, the best way to do it. Leave us a rating on Spotify and Apple podcast definitely helps us to trigger the algorithm and get promoted to other like minded individuals like yourselves. But guys, word of mouth.

It really is. We have a, we have a huge audience on the business development podcast. The funny thing is the followers that we just gave you is a fraction. I think I worked it out last year's Spotify numbers. Our followers was about a whopping 3 percent of the listenership of the show. So I know there are an absolute ton of you out there and guys, you know, just leaving us a rating.

Leaving us a follow on your podcast platform of choice really does elevate this thing to the next level. So if you haven't done so yet, I would deeply and greatly appreciate it. And I deeply and greatly appreciate you. Thank you for showing up week over week and hanging out with us on the business development podcast.

Today, I wanted to spend some time just chatting about Something that is near and dear to my heart. This is a bit of a tough one because I have struggled with this in business development. You guys know, I tell you all the time, the hardest topics on the business development podcasts are some of the ones that I have personally struggled to follow.

Honestly. It really does come down to lessons learned along the way. So much of what I teach you guys, guys, I've been through it. I've done it. I've been on your side. I'm still on your side. I still do active business development on behalf of clients. And it's like, I am in it with you. So understand that when I'm speaking to you, I am speaking to you from a place of experience.

I'm speaking to you from a place of, I had to learn this the hard way. And I'm hoping that my lessons will help you overcome your own challenging scenarios. Okay. I know so much of us in business development at times can really feel like the world is against us. Like, what the heck are we doing? You know, I've spoken with so many business owners.

business development specialists who feel like the entire process is completely out of their control and it just happens. You know, they get lucky some days and you know what? I'm not saying that that doesn't happen. There are days where it really feels like the world is on your side, but understand it is not just luck.

And if we can focus on the things that we can control, we're We are going to have an infinitely better experience in business development than if we are measuring everything based on things that other people control. And so today, today is about empowering you, my business owners, my business development specialists.

I want you to take some power back. And I'm hoping that by the time that we are done this episode today, that you are feeling empowered, that you are feeling motivated, that you are feeling more in control of the process and of the journey that you are embarking on. It does not have to feel impossible.

It does not have to feel like everything is out of your control. So much is actually in your control. If we focus on what we can control and measure success by that. So we're going to chat all about it today. And I really, really hope you love this episode and it motivates you and inspires you. All right.

So. Remember, business development does not and cannot guarantee a sale. Okay. Business development does not and cannot guarantee a sale for your organization. I want you to remember that. I want you to remember that because that is the reality and it is completely okay. That's not what business development is about, right?

I get it. We all want more sales. We all want more revenue and the long term goal does end up there, but it is not in your control. It is in your customer's control. There are a lot of things you do control in that process. And we are going to chat about that today. But remember, no matter how great you do, no matter how good your pitch is, how many times you reach out.

How valuable your product is. You don't get to make that buying decision, Mr. And Mrs. Business owner, Mr. And Mrs. Business development specialist. Okay. You can only do as much as you can do, but no matter what you do, you cannot force your customer to buy your product and service, and so I need you to take that off the plate of measuring.

Your personal success. Okay, we will get there in time. We've introduced products and services and over time people will buy them. But remember, you cannot force somebody to buy your product and service. And so we have to stop completely measuring our success based on. Sales based on the customer actually buying your product.

Yes, it probably will happen in time and we can improve our closure rates and we can do all sorts of things to get better at it. But you will never, ever, ever in a million years be able to guarantee that that customer will buy your product and service. OK, and so I really need you guys to take some of your power back today and stop measuring your success based on the customer actually buying your product.

And I know I know there's a bunch of you like, but Kelly, that's what matters. Yes, but actually what you can control is opportunity, not direct sales, which is why business development is not direct sales, right? So we're just going to chat about all of that today. And hopefully, like I said, we're going to set you up for success and we're going to start measuring things.

that can actually be controlled by you. Remember, direct revenue sales cannot be the only success metric that you follow. It is not a direct indicator of great business development. Although business development plays a big role, you will never, ever, ever be able to control your customer. Okay? So just remember customers.

Cannot be controlled no matter how good your business development is. It cannot and will not guarantee you a sale ever. So just remember that business development is a process of introduction of interest building, of getting you to an opportunity to make an RFP, an RFQ, a proposal. But even with all those things, great business development gets you to that proposal stage where you can Your customer has many, many, many options.

Okay, they have choices. You have competitors. There's alternatives in the market. You don't know what your customer has available to them at any given time. You don't know how many proposals they're looking at. Right? And if They're not all equal. They're not all created equal. And sometimes no matter how great the business development, it does not lead to a closed sale.

And that is not a failure. That is not a failure. In my mind, if you got to a stage where a proposal was made, your business development was on point. Your business development was doing exactly what it needed to do. It generated enough interest to give you an opportunity. To put a bid out there, to give you an opportunity to close a deal.

But that's what business development really is. It's about bringing you a whole bunch of new opportunities. And some you're going to win and some you're going to lose. And that's just life. That is just life. And we can't be measuring ourselves on just, Oh, you know, we've got 10 opportunities and only four of them closed.

That is not a failure of you. Mr. Business owner, Mrs. Business owner, you've done what you needed to do. You got it to that opportunity. And so we're going to chat about it today. What should you measure? We're going to chat about that. How should you measure success? We're going to chat about that, but understand that if you are measuring all of your success based on revenue, closed deals, You're setting yourself up for failure because you're measuring your success based on a metric you have zero control over.

And we need to measure success based on things we can control, because the more things in our environment that we have control over, the outcome of success starts to become inevitable because we are controlling the things we can control and making sure we're giving 150 percent in those areas. Okay? So just remember, you cannot and do not control your customer.

They will make the best decision for them based on the available information. Okay, based on information from you, based on information from the internet, based on information from their brother in law, right? Like, we don't know where our customers are getting the information from, and you cannot and will not control that.

And so we have to just, We have to take a step back and stop measuring our complete success based on revenue deals. Although, yeah, like if you're not closing deal after deal after deal after deal, but you're getting there, absolutely. There's a time for you to sit back and reflect. How are my proposals?

How, what is my value proposition making sense? Is our closure rates up? Like what do we need to do to increase the value proposition so that we close more deals? 100%. These are conversations we have to have. Do you have business development is to get you to that opportunity, right? Proposals and bids and things like that.

They are kind of the next step, right? Business development is about getting us to that new opportunity, giving us the opportunity, helping to establish that new relationship, right? But we can only control what is available for us to control. And so many of us, including myself, have measured success based on metrics that we had zero control over.

And then, I don't know, I've been on the emotional roller coaster, right? I've been on the roller coaster where it's like, Oh, you know, we've had like 15 meetings and we sent out 15 bids and it just, it didn't pan out. But that wasn't a failure of business development. Remember that. That wasn't a failure of business development.

That was maybe a failure of value proposition. Maybe a failure on marketing and the way that we conveyed the value of our proposal. Maybe it was a pricing problem. Who knows? Those are not business development problems. Business development problem would be if you could never get the meeting. Then we need to establish why are we not getting the meetings, right?

Why are we not able to build enough interest? But if we're actually getting the meetings, we're having the conversations, we're sending the proposals, we're doing what we need to be doing. And those are things we have control over and we can measure. And so, We just have to start to take back our power as business development people, as business owners, and understand, yes, opportunities matter.

Opportunities are the things we need to start measuring, because if you get enough opportunities, it's only a matter of time until you start to close more deals, because you're going to learn with each deal you send a proposal to. You're going to learn what works, what didn't work. What could you have done better?

These are all learning experiences that I'm learning, that I have learned, that I literally did a series on here called proposal playbook, because I had to get better proposals. I was great at business development. My proposal sucked and I had to learn and get better at providing. And showing a great value to the services that we provide.

And this is something that I'm still working on that. I'm still getting better at that. We're still refining all the time and you should too, but remember, those are the next steps in the game. The game one that we have to win is get in the room, book the meeting. Build value, build interest in our product and service and get the meeting, which will lead to opportunities over time.

And if we can get better at getting more meetings, you will inevitably get better at closing more deals because the more meetings you have, the more proposals you are going to send mark my words. And you can control how many meetings you get, believe it or not. You can, because there are metrics that show you.

If I make X amount of calls, I will book X amount of meetings. And if you start to track it over time, you will start to know what those metrics are, and then it's just an effort measure. It's just, am I doing my due diligence? Right? Remember customers make their own decisions that are completely out of your control.

They can come and go. For any reason, at any time, we always have to be doing new business development to get us to those new opportunities because we can never ever entirely bank that a customer will stay with us for the long haul. So I want you to remember this. Today we're going to chat about things you can control, things you have control over.

And if we can start measuring more and more of these things and putting more effort in the things we can control, the things we can't control are going to inevitably start to lean more towards wins than losses anyway, because the things we can control lead to more opportunities, which over time inevitably lead to more revenue, more closed deals, and more new opportunities that we couldn't have necessarily seen coming.

Okay. You have zero control over your customer's choice to close the deal. And I know that that maybe hurts a little bit. That's a little hard to hear. But what do you control? Yes, here's the moment. I am going to give you your power back because you have so much power. As a business development specialist, as a business owner, you can make the choice at any moment to change the way you're doing things, to change the success metrics that you measure, to put more effort in, to build a business development process that actually leads to more opportunities.

And remember, the better your business development process is, the more opportunities you're going to have, which means the more revenue you are inevitably going to close because. Over time, yeah, you might send out 15 bids and maybe you only win five, but maybe those five are absolutely amazing. And if you can win five, you can win 10.

And if you can win 10, you can win 20. And your process is only going to get better and better and better. And these are things you can control. This process that we're about to chat about are things you can control. Your effort, your consistency, your marketing materials, the quality of your proposals, your attitude, and you.

You control all these things. And these are the only things you need to control to have business development success. Okay, so much is in your control. And you know, I remember being in business development before I had process and honest to God, just, just hoping that I would close the deal. Like literally just hoping, like I sure hope I close a meeting this week so that we can close a deal.

Like, There was no process once upon a time for Kelly, right? Like I learned all these things the hard way. And if you can implement strong process, if you can hold yourself accountable to X amount of calls, X amount of digital introductions, X amount of asks for meetings in a week, you are inevitably going to book meetings that are inevitably going to lead to opportunities over time for you.

Okay? So first thing we can chat about here. What do you control? Number one, you control your effort. and the process that you follow. Okay. Effort. What do I mean by this? You control how many calls you're going to make in a day. You control how many digital introductions you're going to make. You control how many invites you're going to send on LinkedIn.

You control the quality of the people you send those invites to. You control your target lists. There's so much in your control to guarantee you higher success. If you just take that power back and you recognize, I control this. I can make sure that we're reaching out to the best possible opportunities for our organization.

I'm going to reach out to them X amount of times per week, and I'm going to send X amount of digital introductions to make sure that I'm constantly getting in touch with the right people. These are things that are completely in your control. The other things that you control. Your process. I'm going to follow an active marketing process that leads to real meetings, which lead to real opportunities over time.

I'm not going to just rely on digital ads. I'm not going to just rely on passive strategies. I'm going to take power back. I'm going to take my power back and I'm going to actually do this myself because I know I can do it. Like, you would be surprised how much power you actually have that you completely relinquish to other companies.

Mark my words, there is a ton of power that you have a ton of money that you are spending right now on passive ad strategies, that if you would just take that power back to yourself and say, you know what, I'm done spending X amount on Facebook ads. I'm done radio advertising, television advertising. And instead I'm going to sit down and I'm going to make Facebook 50 direct calls a week to business owners.

I'm going to make 50 direct calls a week to procurement. I'm going to send a hundred LinkedIn invites a week and then send them all digital introductions to who I am and why they might care about what I'm doing. Like if you start doing this, you will inevitably be more successful. And I really, really mean that in a time of AI and robots.

What I want you guys to do is be human. What I want you guys to do is take your power back. And yeah, can it be hard? Can it cause anxiety? Absolutely. Do I struggle with it still to this day? Yeah, absolutely. But I still make my calls. I still make my digital introductions. I still make an effort to actively connect with people as a human.

And I make an effort to ask for the meetings. And you know what? I get them. And do I get them every week exactly what I want? No. I'll tell you what I was working on behalf of a client literally like three weeks ago, and we were making a whole bunch of calls. Like we were making like 40 calls a week, and we weren't booking anything.

And it was just the way it was, but I was consistently making those 40 calls, right? Made 40 calls, booked a meeting, made 40 calls, booked a meeting. And then last week, Made 40 calls, booked six meetings because that was the fruitful time. That was the moment that people picked up the phone and I could have that conversation and you never know when that's coming.

It was consistency and following my process that led to that. Could I have made 40 calls, book one meeting? You just been like, Oh my gosh, like what am I doing? Yeah, sure. But I know. The consistency over time breeds success. There's no two ways about it. You can not be consistently doing something and failing endlessly.

If you are, you probably need to reevaluate, but it's not very likely. Okay. My point is, is that consistency over time is the superpower of business development. Active marketing is the superpower of business development. You need about 80 percent active marketing to every 20 percent of passive marketing you're doing.

To still have great success. Do you need both? Absolutely. In 2024, we absolutely need a passive marketing strategy. We need a social media presence. We need to show that we're leaders in what we are doing, but it takes time and it takes real connection to build real opportunity, right? There's no digital ad that is going to be a replacement for a face to face meeting.

It's just in a B2B scenario, it's just not the case. We have to be able to build trust and we build trust as people. And so if you have great consistency, if you have a great process, it will inevitably lead to more success for you. And so stick with that, you know, commit to something, commit to a certain level of effort, commit to an active marketing process, set it up however you want, whether you do it the way we do it on the show, or whether you make your own process, that's fine.

Just commit to something and follow it and you will find more success than you could have ever imagined. And if you put the effort in, if you're consistent about it and you take control and put it back on yourself and say, you know, what am I going to do today to turn things around? What am I going to do?

How can I do this? I think you are going to find that you are going to be more successful than you ever have been because taking that responsibility, taking that power back, it's, there's something magical about it. There's something magical about it, and you can't know until you do it yourself, okay? So, effort, process, consistency are key.

They're absolutely key. What else do we control? We control our marketing materials, right? We control our website. We control the materials that we're actually sending out to people. Are they subpar? Are they on point? Are they next level in 2023, 2024 and beyond your website? 20 story skyscraper guys. It's your eighties, 20 story skyscraper.

How does it compare against your competitors? How does it compare against other amazing websites out there on the internet? Because guess what? They're getting pretty damn good. They're getting pretty damn good. Those websites are getting absolutely next level. Okay. They're, they have great videos, they're graphically appealing, they're visually appealing because you're marketing to millennials, everybody.

We are millennials, the leaders of companies at this point, for the most part, millennials, okay? We have short attention spans. I hate to say it, I'm 35, but I, I got a short attention span, okay? I'm getting spammed by a thousand ads a day. You need to catch me, which means your website had better be visually appealing.

There better be a reason that I want to stick there and read it out. And so think about this when you're designing your marketing materials, right? Visual appeal first, because it doesn't matter if nobody reads it. It doesn't matter if nobody's engaged. Okay. Same thing with all of your social posts and with anything that you're putting on the internet.

Is it visually appealing? Is it visually engaging? Am I going to want to stop to look at it? Because I'm bombarded with a thousand ads a day. Why am I going to want to look at your company? Think about that. Think about that when you're making your marketing materials. Think about that when you're building your next website.

Think about that when you're putting out a social post. Why, why do I care? Who cares? Ask yourself this. Who cares? Who's going to care about this? And then make sure that you're answering that question. Yeah, I'm going to care about this because this is awesome. That needs to be the answer to anything that you're putting out there, whether it be your websites, whether it be your marketing materials, because our job guys is to build interest.

A business development person's main job is to build interest, enough interest to lead us to an opportunity, to a meeting that leads to an RFQ, a bid list opportunity, vendor list opportunity, or, you know, an opportunity for proposal. But these things don't happen if you can't build interest. These things are not going to happen if you can't even get to the doorstep.

The visual appeal game is real. And I know you're seeing it. I know you're seeing it because your competitors websites are getting better. The social media posts you guys are seeing are getting better. They're getting more visually appealing. They're wrapping you in. There's personality to them. There's personalness to them because we don't just want to be marketed to by a corporation.

We want to feel connected. The world is changing all around us faster than ever, okay? But the tools are also available to us faster than ever. You can use tools like AI to help you create better posts. You can take great photos. You can figure out what your hook is going to be. You can figure out what your format is going to be, but these are all choices that you have to make, you have to take control, but you do control your marketing materials.

You do control the quality of the material you're putting out into the world. And so I want you to take that control back. I want you to start thinking about who am I marketing to? Why are they going to care about my ads? Is my website visually appealing? Are my posts visually appealing as a company? Am I appealing?

Okay. It really is critical. It really is critical to everybody's business success in 2023, 2024 and beyond. Visual appeal is only going to get more and more critical because guess what? If my attention span as a millennial is low, imagine what a Gen Z is going to be like, or you know, whatever's next. Okay.

The point is, is that. It's only going to get harder and harder and harder to keep people's attention. And so, we have to start getting good at this. We have to get better and better and better at creating materials that people are going to care about. That people are going to engage with. That people are going to want to stop and read.

Okay? So, think about this. When you're creating your marketing materials, is it visually appealing? Is anybody going to care? Can you keep people's attention for enough time to make a compelling value proposition? Okay. Okay. What else do we control? We control the quality of the proposals that we send guys and proposals.

My gosh, it is a challenging one, right? It is a very challenging subject, and we're all going to do them a little different. But what I want you to remember, there's something about your proposal that you must do. You must either show a company how you are going to make them money. or save them money. Okay.

There's two situations where a company will just buy whatever you're selling. And it's, if you can prove to them that the value is there, that they can either make money from your service or product, or that they can save money from your service and product, right? One way or another. And it doesn't really matter.

What it has to do with or how it affects the organization. Just how does it make the money? How does it save the money over time? If you can convey this information very, very well, and the cost to do so makes sense. You will very, very likely close the opportunity with a customer. But if you are not very good at being able to show them how do you make the money, how do you save the money, what is the true value proposition and is it tangible?

Is it understandable? Is it quantifiable? That's where it starts to hit wish washy territory and it gets a lot harder to close your opportunities. But remember, This is something once again, that you can work on. And what I would highly, highly recommend you guys do is that with every single proposal you send out, ask for feedback.

If they buy, ask them why they bought. If they don't buy, ask them what, you know, what was it about the proposal that didn't make sense and take notes and improve because nobody's rev one of a proposal is an instant winner. Okay. It takes many, many, many revisions. We're still doing revisions at capital.

We're still figuring out what works. What do our customers really need? Is it just business development or do they need advertising services? Is it just advertising services or do they need coaching? Like there's a whole bunch of services that you probably offer and you need to better understand what is it specifically that that your customers are after.

And guess what's the best way of figuring that out? It's straight up to ask them. And I know so many of you are sending out proposals and you're not asking the reasons why they bought, and you're not asking the reasons why they didn't buy. And so I want you to start asking these things and start incorporating these things into your next proposals.

And over time, Your proposals are going to get much, much, much better because you're going to better understand your value proposition. You're going to better understand the needs of the customer and what it is about your product and service that is going to be that key decision maker, that key value proposition, that key money maker for your customer where they're like, yeah, this is a no brainer I'm in.

And the more, yeah, this is a no brainer I'm in, the better, right? That's when we can really start to feel the reward for the hard work that we've put in. But the proposal only comes after the great business development got you to that opportunity. And that effort that you put in to get that opportunity for a proposal was in your control.

Was the thing that you could do more of measure what you can actually control what you can actually control is your effort. You will never be able to control the buying decision of your customer. I've seen many, many, many amazing proposals go out proposals that by all means should have won. But you don't know why the customer didn't buy.

You don't know their situation. You don't know where their money is coming from. You don't know if they even have the money most of the time, right? And you don't know what you're competing against. And so it's really important that we're not just measuring 100 percent of our success based on the deal we closed because that's not the only metric for success.

And ironically, that's the one we measure the most and the one that we have the absolute least control over. And so I want you to take back your control today. And I want you to Start to measure the things you can control. Start to take wins and celebrate wins based on how many meetings you've booked.

Because that is a business development success that is in your control. And so let's start measuring success based on things we can control. And the more meetings we can book, the more opportunity you are inevitably going to close long term anyway, okay? So the next thing that we can control is our attitude, guys.

Our attitudes, right? We can. Make calls and get a no and take it horribly and not make another call for the rest of the day or we can take that no as a win and say, you know what? I got my first no of the day. Let's go for a second. Okay, it's all about how we look at success. It's all about how we look at the job.

And if you are constantly looking at a no as a life changing soul crushing experience, you're never going to want to pick up that phone and make that next critical phone call that will lead to more success for both you and your organization, right? What I always say is hunt for the no'sv what I want you to do is get as many no's as possible.

Why don't you aim for 10 no's today? The goal here is to get 10 no's. Let's just go for that and celebrate it. If you get 10 no's, have a little celebration because guess what? You probably got five yeses. You probably got five yeses for those 10 no's and you would have never got to the five yeses if you couldn't get through the 10 no's.

And so we have to change the way that we, we look at things. We have to frame shift our minds a little bit and start to understand that our attitude controls success. Our attitude controls our effort. And if we can just take that attitude that I got this, I'm going to succeed here. I'm going to book enough meetings that lead to opportunities anyway.

I'm not going to start. Measuring my success based on factors I can't control. What I'm going to do is start measuring my success on factors I can control. And it is 100 percent going to change your life. It is going to change your ability as a business development person, as a business owner, to change your own life.

But you have to measure the things and control the things you can control. And stop basing your success on things you cannot control. Because basing our success on things we cannot control is a total recipe for failure. Right? We 100 percent are winning. We 100 percent have a ton of things we can control.

And so I want you to remember this. You have control over more things than you could imagine. And if you just take your power back and start measuring your success based on the things you can control, it will 100 percent change your business and change your life. If you consistently tie your success to outcomes that you have little control over, you will be on a rollercoaster of emotion.

Measure your digital introductions, your phone calls, your emails, your meetings, and measure success by things you can control. Take your power back. Shout outs this week. Carmen Leibel, Lasse Joergensen, Rish Khullar, Nat Berman, Tanzeel Ansari, Colin Harms, Rodney Lover, Shawn Neels, Aaron Haberman, David Delvin, Vijayan Swaminathan, Mike Mack, Lauren Graff, Susan Poseika, Bryan Hayes, Jory Evans, Randy Lennon, and Tatsiana Zametalina.

Until next time, this has been the business development podcast, and 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.