Smart Strategies for Securing Meetings and Business Growth

Smart Strategies for Securing Meetings and Business Growth

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 129 of the business development podcast. And today we're talking all about the path to the meeting. How can we get more efficient? How can we do more with less time? Stay tuned. I'm going to tell you all about it.

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 129 of the business development podcast. It's an absolute honor to be on with you guys today. Man, 129 episodes. There's actually a cool milestone that we are hitting today.

Well, not today. I guess I should say on Sunday, but I'm getting a little out of myself, but it's still really cool. Sunday's guest episode is our 60th guest episode. Absolutely bonkers. We'll have 130 episodes as of Sunday. We are recording episode 129 at the moment, but as of that 130th episode, we will be sitting at 70 educational business development episodes and 60 Expert guest interviews.

Totally bonkers. Totally cool. Super grateful. Super thankful that I get to do that. And just a really cool milestone for both me personally and the show. Show update. We are just under 15 months. We'll be at 15 months next week. We're sitting at 154, 000 loads. We have 1, 915 followers on Apple podcasts and Spotify.

And my gosh, do we appreciate you guys? If you guys haven't done so yet, please do give us a follow on Apple podcasts and Spotify and never miss an episode again. We'll be right there in front of you. And yeah, just super, super amazing. Super growth for this show. Could not do it without you. Could not do it without our amazing expert guests.

And of course our amazing, amazing sponsors. We appreciate them immensely. We have planes, equipment, rentals, hypervac technologies, and foresight for it, and they have been absolutely amazing and looking after us and making sure that we have what we need to keep this show going for you. So if you have not had a chance yet, please do check them out.

Also, for those of you who may or may not know, I Kelly Kennedy, I'm now doing expert business development coaching. So if you're struggling with implementing some of the things that we talk about on this show, if you want, you know, somebody to come give you an accountability partner and to work with you and help you meet your growth goals, let's say that you've set some crazy ambitious growth goals this year.

Let's actually work together on how we are going to accomplish them. We're going to figure out what it takes. We're going to improve the areas that need improvement, and we are going to make you. into even more of a rock star than you are today. And guys, it's affordable. A three month program is $3, 150 Canadian dollars and we will get you where you need to go in that time and there will be more when that's done if you, if you want it and if you need it.

My gosh, it's so cool. I just want to thank each and every one of you who have supported me on this journey. We could not have done it without you. We could not continue to do it without you. And it really is our expert guests, our listeners, and of course our amazing sponsors that keep this show going. So thank you all.

Thank you for all you do. And I'm very much looking forward to the next 130 episodes. Today I wanted to chat all about the path to the meeting. I get it guys. The whole, the whole journey, the whole business development journey is about getting to that meeting and it can be incredibly, incredibly challenging.

I totally, totally understand, but I am here for you. We are going to work through it today and we're going to chat about some of the things that might be getting in your way. About some of the things that might make it a little bit harder than you hoped to get to that all too important meeting. Let's chat all about it.

The path to the meeting is not always linear, but consistency and determination will get you there every time. Even the largest of organizations are available to you. It may take 30 tries, but if you want it, you can get it. And takeaway from today's episode. I want to inspire you guys. I want to let you know nobody is out of reach.

Don't let anybody tell you that you can't get somewhere because guess what? You can, I've had plenty of self doubt and self limiting beliefs in my past that frankly held me back in situations like this. I remember looking at the beginning of my BD career and having a boss come up to me and say, Kelly, you know, we want to get into CNRL.

We want to get into Suncor for my worldwide people. These are like, The largest oil and gas companies in Canada. Okay. So they're a big deal. They're a big deal for a lot of organizations, especially in Alberta. It's, it's really big bread and butter, but I remember them putting these, these things out there and saying like, these are the ones we want to get, like figure out how to get them and feeling so defeated feeling like, how the heck am I ever going to get meetings with Suncor?

How am I ever going to get these big oil and gas meetings and get this company to the next step? And frankly, feeling like it was impossible. It wasn't until much later in my business development career that what I realized is that your ability to close meetings is absolutely limitless. And so the key, the step one key to being able to close meetings and be able to get the meetings of your dreams, get in front of the companies of your dreams, is to stop telling yourself you can't and really start to work away those self limiting beliefs.

For me, it took some big wins. It took me chasing some big fish and then seeing like, Holy crap, I could actually get those. I can get those meetings. They're not impossible. Not only are they not impossible, they're actually very possible. It took a little bit of time for me to really narrow that down and get to a point where I believed.

I believed in myself. Okay, what made me a great business development person was when I started believing in myself, and I know for each and every one of you, whether you're a business owner, whether you're a president, CEO, whether you're a business development rep, whether you're just getting started, you've been in it for 20 years, half your battle.

Really is with yourself. It's to remove those self limiting beliefs. It's to remove that imposter syndrome and I get it guys. I know it takes time. I know it's not easy. I've been there done that. I now believe that I can get a meeting at any company on earth if given enough time and I can do it. That's the thing.

It's just, it's just a matter of time. If you're determined to get there, you're going to use your detective skills to get there. And so number one, the first thing that we really need to focus on here is how can we remove these self limiting beliefs? How can we give ourselves the self talk? And the belief that we can actually do it because when you do get there, the next steps become very, very easy.

If you get the pre work right, the rest comes easy. Pre work is absolutely critical. I've talked to a lot of people. I actually had I had a meeting earlier this week with a potential coaching client. We were having an initial session and we were talking together about some of the challenges that they were facing.

And when we were working out what their closure rate was, the closure rate worked out to be really, really low. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of like 20%, 25%. I know that like some of you are like, Kelly, that's fine. Well, it's fine if you have all year, five days a week to commit to that, but not all of us have that time.

And so we really need to improve those closure rates, right? But when I was talking, we were kind of going back and forth and chatting about it. And the number that the number that they needed to hit was 76 meetings. That was how many meetings it was going to take to potentially hit their growth goal this year.

And I remember just saying like, my gosh, like 76 meetings was what it was going to take just to hit, like, it was like maybe I think a million dollars in revenue. And I was like, Oh, that's, that's a lot of work. Like that worked out to be way too many meetings per month. And so when we were talking about it, what we started to really talk about was what about the pre work?

What pre work can we do to improve that closure rate so that instead of needing 76 meetings, maybe we only need 46, 46 is still high, but we can still hit it. Right. If we can, if we can raise that closure rate to say somewhere in the neighborhood of 50, 50, It makes it a lot easier. And so some of the work that we might need to do.

Is working on our value proposition. It really is doing that pre work ahead to make sure that we are getting to the best opportunities so that it is not so hard to book those meetings so that we don't need so many meetings to be successful, right? There's things that we can do to make ourselves more effective.

I know for many, many years you've heard somebody tell you if you want more meetings, you need to make more calls. I'm gonna flip that on. I'm gonna flip that on its head. I'm gonna tell you something right now that is going to save you potentially years of your life. That's not true. That is straight up crap.

You know what you need to do is improve your value proposition, improve your ability to create interest so that you don't need to make that many calls. Because let's get real. When you sit down on a Monday and you see that you have 150 calls to make this week. That's soul crushing. Right? We both know this.

We both know this. If you sit down and you know that the only way to get to what you need to do this week is to make 150 calls, maybe you got it in you this week, maybe next week, but there's going to come a week where you're like, I'm burnt out. I can't do this. I can't make 150 calls this week. It happens.

Right? The secret is not to make more calls. It is to make each call more effective so that you simply don't need to kill yourself trying to make this endless amount of calls to hit the meetings you need. And I hope that this is the one major takeaway you take from this today. I hope that when you're thinking about the path to the meeting, you realize that Just slogging it out and making hundreds and thousands of calls.

Yeah, it may be necessary sometimes. But the reality is, is that if you can improve your value proposition, if you can improve your pitch, if you can pre qualify people better, you are going to be more effective. So how the heck can we improve this path? How can we make this better? One, we need to work on our fundamentals and so let's chat about value proposition, right?

Marketing materials are high quality. They're, they effectively communicate both your service and the value that you provide, right? How many of you are using outdated marketing materials? When you look at these things, you're like, these don't even reflect our company anymore, but we're still using them.

Okay. That's a great indicator. It's time to do better. It's time to improve these marketing materials. It's time to review them. It's time to maybe shorten them, get all the words out of there and make sure that everything in there drives value, drives interest in your company. It's visually appealing. The content is great.

It actually explains what it is you do. It represents you and your company. Well, these are things we have to have. What about our website? Is our website outdated, right? I talked about this not that long ago. We're working on website design here at Capital Business Development because our website no longer accurately describes our company and what we do.

It was great when I made it when we weren't defined. Now we're defined. We know what we do. And so we need to make sure that it accurately represents us, that it's visually appealing, that it's doing everything I say it needs to do in this show. And my gosh, it does. It's amazing. I can't wait to launch it.

I'm hoping that we can get it out here in the next little bit, but it's it's close, but it's not there yet, but my gosh, it's going to be awesome. And that's the thing. We need to make sure that our websites are awesome. They accurately represent us, our company. They're visually appealing. They're not too wordy.

They just do what they need to do. What do they need to do? Generate leads. Create interest. If they, if they do those two things, and they describe your company, well, they are doing a great, great job. Okay, so we need to look at it from a standpoint of what are our marketing materials saying about us? Are they accurate?

Do they reflect us? Are they modern? Are they visually appealing? Are they going to engage people? Are people going to want to read them? These are things we have to get right. It's really the number one thing that we need to start working on. Okay? If we can do that, it's going to make meetings a lot, a lot easier.

Okay. Okay, value proposition. It's about creating interest. It's about creating interest in what we do. Okay, we need to make sure that all of our posts and copy are also good. Okay, not just cut and paste, but actually drive home. Values. They drive home who we are as a company, what we do not inaccurately describe us, but they need to actually create interest.

So we need to look at it from a standpoint of everything that we create for our company must create interest in our company. We need to be thinking about this with every post, with every piece of copy we put out with every advertising material, it has to generate interest. Number two, we have to make sure that our target industry and area are correct.

Okay. I talked about this all the time. Where are you most effective? You're most effective where you are. Always start where you are and work out from there because you are most competitive where you are. If you start to play in two cities down the road, now you have a competitor who is effective where they are and you are coming in trying to steal that cheese.

And it is not going to be easy. Okay. It is just much harder to service an area away from your home base. Then it is to service your home base. So we need to make sure that we are starting where we are and we work out from there. Okay. We need to make sure that we are targeting the right industry. Like we need to do some groundwork.

We need to make sure that the industries that we are targeting actually have a real need and not just a perceived need, but they really need your product and service. Okay. It's going to be really hard to convince somebody. They need your product and service if they don't really need your product and service.

Okay. Mark my words. You do not want to be doing this. You want people who understand your value proposition, not only understand it, they need your product and service. It's something that they cannot do that they need in their industry to be effective. Okay. It is absolutely critical that we are making sure that our customers, our target clients, actually need what we do.

And yes, this is going to require some work from you to identify what are the industries, what are the companies within those industries, and then what are the sub industries that also have a need for my product and service. That way you can create an accurate target list that will actually be effective for you.

When you call them, they're going to be interested. What do you think? Who's going to book a meeting quicker? Somebody who is interested and knows what you do or somebody you have to convince needs what you're selling. Right? You know it, you know it, find the people who actually know what it is you're selling and have a need for it.

Number three, we've identified the companies, we've identified the industry, we're working local or close to it, or, you know, in an area that you have a competitive advantage, okay? Now we need to make sure that we have the correct buyer in the organization. If you're selling, let's say. Human resources and you're, you're headhunting.

Let's say, let's say you're a headhunting company and you sell executives. Do you think that reaching out maybe to the director of HR will work? Maybe it will, but keep in mind the director of HR, you're telling them you can do their job better than they can trust me. That's not going to go well. Okay.

It's just like, if I'm in business development. And I reach out to a marketing team and I say, hire me because I can help you. They're going to be like, but that's my job, right? There's going to be better people to reach out to. And so you need to think about this. You need to identify who is it at the organization, and it may not be who you think it may not be, you know, supply chain.

It may not be director of HR. Maybe it's the president. Maybe you need to go right to the top. Maybe it's the director of operations for the whole company, right? Figure out who it is who can actually buy your product and service. And not only can actually buy it will want to actually buy it will want to entertain you.

Remember, once again, qualifying the people who are interested is going to make you so much more effective over time than trying to convince people they need what you're selling. Right? Think about it from that standpoint, the less you have to convince the better off you are going to be. Okay, so we've identified the location, we've made sure our marketing materials are great, we've identified the right company, the right industry, the right sub industry, we now identified the right person, we are really killing it, we're getting all the right places, right?

What's next? Okay. All right, guys, this one, this one might be a little hard to hear. Okay. You're not, you're not working hard enough. You're not working hard enough. And I mean that in the best possible way, business development is tough. Okay. I've been there. I've been on the other line. I've been the person making 15, 20 calls, a hundred calls.

Like I've been there. I know it's hard to hear. No, it's hard to like, I've To hear that over and over again. It's hard to have a meeting go south. It's really hard to deal with people. So don't don't think for a second that I don't see it. Don't think for a second that I don't see you because I was you. I had days where I'm like, screw this.

I ain't making calls today. I ain't doing it. But I'll tell you what, I didn't book no meetings that day either. Okay, and it really is important that we are driven and motivated to succeed. And guys, this might be intrinsic. This really might be intrinsic. You might have to dig deep and say, you know what?

I'm working hard on behalf of my company. Like if it isn't your company, that can be really hard. I totally understand when it's your company and your neck on the line, you have that much more motivation to make those calls that day. I totally understand if you are working for an organization, you're in business development, you're in marketing, you're in sales, and you're like Kelly, you know.

It's not the I don't reap all the benefit from my work here. I don't reap all the benefit of closing all these deals. So why? But then I must ask you, is this the right, is this the right career choice for you? Okay. Because you do need some intrinsic drive. You do need. To want to succeed. The reason that I've done very well in business development is I really hate losing.

I just hate losing. Losing sucks. I don't care how many times I get told I need to fail more and be okay with it. I hate failing. I hate losing. And I know that a lot of you out there are like, Kelly, I totally get it. I hate failing and I hate losing to you. And I am with you people, but I tell you like, There is a part of you that has to have that level of drive.

That's like, you know what, I'm not going to lose this. I'm going to book three meetings this week. I'm going to do what it takes. I'm going to make those five extra calls. I'm going to send those six extra emails. I'm going to add those 20 more people on LinkedIn this week because I am going to succeed.

Okay, we need that intrinsic drive. We need to. Be driven internally to succeed and it will just drive us to do better and better and better week over week. But remember, I'm not telling you guys to slog it out. I'm not telling you to do 150 calls this week. What I'm telling you to do is if we can qualify the right people, if we can identify the right industry, if we can make sure that our value propositions speak Speaks to them.

Our marketing materials speak to them. When you do make those calls, you're going to book more meetings in the first 20 calls than you ever did at 50, 75 or 100, right? If we can make sure that everything is done right on the pre work, we are going to be infinitely more effective. It is not about.

Endlessly slogging phone calls for success. Okay. It's about making sure that you're setting yourself up for success. It's doing the legwork. It's doing the hard thing to make you more effective over time. And trust me, this pre workup front will just make you more effective, more effective, more effective.

It's compounding. It's compounding over time because yeah, you maybe had to do that legwork up front, but now that you've done that legwork, Every week, you're going to be booking more meetings every week. You're going to be connecting with more qualified buyers. You're going to be putting yourself in a much, much better position for long term success, and ultimately that is what I want you to do.

I want you to work smarter. Not harder and really doing that pre work is going to set you up in that path to the meeting. It's going to make you more effective. It's going to give you the best route possible. Okay. And you know, when I talked about to about working a little bit harder, the other thing is, is You might be giving up too soon.

Okay. I was doing some math the other day and I was trying to figure out on some of the biggest clients that I've ever went after. How many calls on average did it take me? Okay, guys, I'm going to give you a number. I'm going to give you a magic number. You want to chase the sun cores of the world. You want to chase CNRL.

You want to chase, you know, some of the biggest companies, Walmart, Loblaws. You know how many it takes? It takes up to 30, 30 calls. For me on average, those big companies, it took 30 reach outs. Yeah. This isn't your mom and pop shop, you know, like smaller ones can take six, eight, 10, maybe up to 15. But if you want the big ones, you are going to be in it for the long haul.

But trust me, that long haul ain't that long 30. That's the number guys. That is the number from Capital Business Development. That is typically what it has taken us to secure some of the biggest meetings we've ever secured. It took 30 calls on average. So I'm leaving you a little bomb. That's the number.

Bust your ass. You want the big meetings? It's going to take 30 calls. Get to it. Oh, goodness. Yeah. It's a, it's crazy. It's crazy. Like most of us are giving up at like two. That's the truth. The truth. The statistic is most business development. People don't make more than two calls. Guys, we got to do better.

We can do better than this. We can do better than this big clients take 30 on average. It can take anywhere between like eight and 15, usually to get that meeting with some of the medium sized companies. So I'm giving you guys the numbers. This is what it's going to take. Stop giving up after one or two calls.

You want to be the best. The best are going to make 15 to 30 calls and they're going to get that meeting and they're not going to give up. Think about it from that standpoint and then weigh it out. Is it worth it? You got to, you got to ask yourself, is that client worth it? Is it worth it to chase Walmart?

Is it worth it to chase the oil and gas company? Could you maybe sub in a better company that you could close in eight to ten? These are decisions that you are going to have to make and are very capable of making. You need to decide what is best for your company. What is the best size of organization for your company to chase?

Are those big contracts really what you want? Or is it better to maybe have a whole bunch of medium or small size contracts, right? These are things we need to get very clear with as business development people. How can we best grow the companies we work with, right? It's all about The quality. It's all about that pre work.

If we can do the pre work right, we are going to succeed. We are going to be more driven because the more wins you get, the more motivated you are to get more wins. It's like this weird cycle and I get it when you were sucking when you were like, Why even make calls? Because I'm not booking any meetings.

It's very demotivating. There's something about booking a meeting that makes you book another one real quick. I can't tell you how many back to back meeting bookings I've had where I've had like an early success in the day. I booked something super early and it motivated me to just crush out that extra five and then I booked another one.

It's like, okay, five more, book another one. I think my record for a day's worth of meeting bookings was six. I think I booked six meetings in one day because I was just on a roll and there is something to it. It's like that cold call cadence that I talk about all the time on the show. There's something about succeeding that makes you want to succeed more.

That makes you want to have more opportunity and just take this to the next level. So go for it. Get that early win. You guys want like the best way to start off a day. Crush out those calls. First thing, get on that phone. 9 a. m. bust out like 20 calls. Make sure that you're pre qualified, that you got the right people and get that early win and mark my words.

It will, it will just change your whole day. It'll make the whole day better. And I don't doubt that you book like another two or three meetings that day. There's something about an early win that just really motivates you to keep crushing it. But trust me, get the early win, find the wins in your day, find the way to make those calls, find the motivation, get But trust me, if you can pre qualify these people, you are going to get more meetings.

The path to the meeting is going to get easier. And guys, it's not always linear. Okay. And I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that if you guys just pre qualify the right people and you call them, you're going to get the meeting. No, you might get the runaround. You might get this person and they say, you know what?

Sorry, I'm not the right person, but you might want to call Joe. Don't be afraid to say, what's Joe's number? Give me Joe's number. I'll call him right now. Thank you so much. What's the email? What's the best way to get ahold of Joe? Who is the, who is someone else that I should reach out to? Who is the right person?

Ask most of these people. When you get them on the phone, they will know. They will know who the right person is for you. And so don't be afraid, knock that door, find those people, ask, ask, ask, and make the call. If they give you the phone number, Don't just write it down and say, I'll try it later. Try it right then call them right now.

Don't procrastinate. Don't procrastinate. Get it done and book that meeting. Okay. You must ask for what you want every time when you get them on the phone guys. Okay. When you get them on the phone or you get them on the email and you've made that value pitch. Don't forget to follow up and ask for the meeting.

Everything we do in business development, you want to close more work. It's not just about closing the meetings. It's about closing more work, right guys. We have to get in front of them. We have to get in front of them and be able to have that pitch, be able to have that. Human to human interaction, build that rapport, build that trust, build that friendship and ask for the opportunity.

But we can't get to that stage if we don't simply ask for the meeting. We have to ask for what we want, okay? Nobody is going to give you anything. Nobody is going to give you anything, nor should they, okay? Fortune favours the bold. Fortune favours the bold. Ask for what you want. If you want something, if you really want that meeting, ask for it.

The moment you get the opportunity, ask for it. When you're in the meeting and you want work, ask for an opportunity. What are the next steps? How do we work together? When is an RFP, RFQ bid list coming out? When can we work together and how can we work together? Tell me. Ask. Ask, ask, ask, ask, ask. You will not get anything if you do not ask for it.

Yeah, it's uncomfortable. I get it. But it gets more comfortable when you get really, really versed in it. When you make it a part of your day to always ask for the meeting, to always ask for the next steps, to always ask for a work opportunity, you know what's going to happen to you? You're going to book more meetings.

You're going to get more opportunities. You're going to close more work. And me and you both know that's really what you want. Okay. Stop waiting for people to give you what you're looking for. You're going to be waiting a long time. Ask for what you want. Ask for the meeting every time through email, through phone call.

If you get them on the phone. Ask, ask, ask, because you are not going to take it to the next step. You are not going to close that deal. You are not going to earn more revenue if you cannot get in front of these people. Everything we do in business development is the path to the meeting, because the meeting is what we need to have.

The meeting is what is going to lead to future success for organizations. It's what's going to lead to revenue. It's what's going to lead to more opportunities, okay? But nobody is going to give it to you. You have to ask for it every time. It is not the number of calls that matter, but the quality, okay?

Please take that away from today's episode. It is not the number of calls. If people are telling you, Oh, you want to close more work, make more calls. They're kind of dumb. It's true. We probably do need to make more calls, but it's not the number of calls. It is the quality of the calls that count. The reason that we've been so effective at capital business development is not because I made endless calls.

It's because I did all the pre work. I identified the right people. I knew who to reach out to in the organizations. I had great procedures and process. That made sure that I followed up with them week over week over week. I didn't give up after one, two, three calls. Sometimes I made 30 and you know what?

Damn it. I booked Suncor. I booked CNRL. I booked some of the biggest meetings for my clients in Canada because I don't give up and I know what it takes and I know I can do it and I do not self limit and neither should you the path to the meeting. Is a path. It may double back at times. It may take a left turn, but if you keep progressing forward, you can and will.

Make it to the destination. Shout outs this week. Jesse Kerr, Jenn Bieri, Andre Laporte, Jess Schmidt, Carmen Leibel, Leaha Mattinson, Jonathan D'Souza, Mercy Folayan, Samantha Germain, Raphael Cervan, Troy Kahler, Angie Ricci, Dawn Mucci, and Aaron Haberman. 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 custom. 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.