In Episode 173 of The Business Development Podcast, Kelly Kennedy delves into the critical mindset shift that business development is a long-term commitment, comparing it to a marathon rather than a sprint. He emphasizes that success in business development comes from consistent effort over time, much like planting seeds and nurturing them before seeing results. Kennedy reminds listeners that business opportunities often materialize months or even years after initial outreach, making it essential to maintain steady business development practices even during periods of success.
Kelly also addresses common mistakes made by businesses, such as pulling back on business development during good times, only to find themselves scrambling when opportunities dry up. He stresses the importance of keeping a full pipeline of leads and never letting up on the gas. In this episode, he provides real-life examples of long-term wins and highlights the power of human-to-human connections. Listeners are encouraged to stay consistent, track their efforts, and always work toward setting meetings, as it is through these meetings that real opportunities emerge over time.
Key Takeaways:
1. Business development is a marathon, requiring consistent effort over time for long-term success.
2. Success in business development comes from planting seeds and nurturing relationships, which pay off months or years later.
3. Never stop business development efforts, even during times of success, to avoid a dry pipeline.
4. Active marketing and direct outreach are essential to building trust and human-to-human connections.
5. The best time to do business development is before you need sales, not when you’re desperate for new opportunities.
6. Passive advertising is helpful for brand recognition but shouldn’t replace active business development efforts.
7. Measure success by meetings and opportunities, not just calls or emails, as meetings lead to tangible results.
8. Consistency is key—stick with your process, even when immediate results aren’t visible.
9. Track and analyze business development activities to improve processes and predict success trends over time.
10. Business development ebbs and flows, so maintaining momentum is crucial for long-term opportunities.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
The Business Development Marathon: Why Consistency Wins
Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 173 of the business development podcast. And today is all about how business development is not a race. It is a marathon. And if you work consistently week over week, month over month, year over year, you will reap results. Years into the future stick with us. This is a powerful 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: Hello. Welcome to episode 173 of the business development podcast. My gosh, 173 episodes, guys. It's such still feels just like yesterday that we started this show. It blows my mind guys, just how far we've come in such a short, short period of time, especially as we're approaching, you know, our second year coming up here in February.
It is absolutely unbelievable. So much has happened. It's been totally incredible. And I just absolutely love doing this show guys and I appreciate it. And we could not do it without the support of our amazing rockstar community. You guys, you're incredible. Thank you for your support. Thank you for telling your friends and family, and thank you for coming back week over week, month over month, and year over year, could not, could not do this without you.
A show update. We're sitting at 2, 735 followers between Apple podcasts and Spotify. If you are looking for a free and easy way to support the show guys, if you are not yet following us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or whatever player you guys listen on, easy way to do it. Click that follow. If you have some time, give us a rating.
We appreciate it immensely. And it really does help us to grow this show organically, which is ideally what we would like to do. So if you have a chance today and you haven't gotten around to it yet, please do you give us a light, give us a rating, give us a follow on your platforms of choice. And if you really feeling ambitious, heck, you can even leave us a review.
We appreciate it immensely. We're sitting at 216, 200 downloads. And my gosh, guys, huge update this week. We have hit the highest rating we have ever hit in Canada. Peaking out at number 32 guys, number 32 in Canadian Entrepreneurship Category with Apple Podcast Charts. Incredible. Incredible. And it's because of you.
It's because of our rockstar listeners. I appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for helping us to continue to climb the charts. You know, one day we sure hope to be in that top 10. Heck, maybe even number one, that would be pretty darn incredible. But you know what? It goes up, you know, a little bit up that ladder each time.
And every time that we hit a new high or a new top, it it really is incredible. So I just wanted to thank each and every one of you that helped us get there this week. Could not have hit number 32 in Canada without you. So thank you for your support. Reminder guys, it is now October 1st. We are in the spookiest month of the year.
One of my favorite months, guys, if you know anything about me, you know that I like a good spooky podcast and I'm going to give you guys some recommendations because I know some really great ones, if you have not had a chance yet to check out Jim Harold's campfire, it is an absolutely incredible, incredible, podcast for the spooky season or for just you spooky lovers like me.
So if you guys are looking for a good new spooky show, check out Jim Harold's campfire, the guy's been at it for like 20 years. Guys, he's incredible. He's like the king of spooky podcasting was in it before podcasting was cool. And Jim Harold's got some pretty good ones. He's got the paranormal podcast and he's got Jim Harold's campfire.
And I think you guys will. Absolutely love it. Especially if like me, you were a Coast to Coast AM fan. Once upon a time, they had a really great Halloween season thing where they would let people call in and basically campfire is that all year round. So shout out to Jim. Harold would not be a podcaster without listening to him many, many years ago.
And I hope you guys check him out this the spooky season. If you were looking for one other podcast, I would highly, highly recommend scared to death podcast. It is also incredible. And we'll give you the spooks that you might be looking for this Halloween season. So figured I'd give a little shout out just since it is October 1st of 2024.
And guys, I need community questions. So if you have not had a chance to do so yet, and you have a question for me, that's regarding entrepreneurship, business development, podcasting, I am happy guys, happy to chat, happy to answer questions for our amazing Rockstar Community. And you can send any questions to me to podcast@capitalbd.ca, or you can send me a direct message over LinkedIn. If you guys message me on LinkedIn, say, Kelly, I got a question for the upcoming community questions episode. I will make sure that two things, if it seems urgent and you need help immediately, I will do my best potentially to answer it for you quicker.
But I will also answer that question for you and the amazing rockstar community during our community questions episodes. Thanks. And I like to get like a good amount of questions guys. So don't be afraid if you have a question or you have anything you might want to ask, shoot it over podcast at capital bd.
And so if you want to know what incredible rockstar guests we have coming up this month. Head on over, follow the business development podcast and Kelly Kennedy on LinkedIn at the beginning of each month, I post the guest list for everybody that we have coming up that month. So you can see what shows you might have to look forward to.
So feel free, give us a follow on LinkedIn under the business development podcast, and feel free to give Kelly Kennedy a follow as well. And you will be able to stay up to date with what is coming down the pipe on the business development podcast for the upcoming months, guys. And I will do that for you as long as we are able to.
So. If you guys are wondering what is next, easy place to find it. Come hang out with us on LinkedIn, join the conversations, and I look forward to seeing you there. All right, let's just get into it. Today is all about the time and place. it takes. I can't tell you how many times people reach out and kind of ask, like, how long does this process take?
What can I expect? What should I be expecting? It is really critical, guys, that we level set what business development is for us. And for our organizations, I have said it from the very beginning of the show. Business development is not a quick hit, quick fix. Business development is a long game.
Relationships produced today can produce opportunities months and years into the future. You never, ever, ever know when the fruits of your labor may pay off. And guys, I have some shining examples to give you today. I have some incredibly long wins and I, you know, I've been in this long enough to say that I have quite a few of them, but most of the time, if not all the time in business, things take longer than we wish they would.
I know I've been horrible at making plans and being like, yep, we're going to accomplish this by this date. And it like rarely, if ever happens exactly when I want it to happen. The cool thing is the wins happen, but they don't tend to happen on your schedule. That's kind of the funny thing about business, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't continue to work week over week, month over month, year over year in a consistent basis, because what actually happens is that over time, if we do this, We start to produce consistent results week over week, month over month, year over year, but it's like a catch up, right?
You have to plant the crops in the spring and harvest them in the fall, right? There's a long period of time between planting the crops and reaping the harvest in farming and in business. It is very much the same principles, okay? And we have to get out of that. I did this today and I should have a result tomorrow mindset.
That mindset is going to hurt you, not help you. Okay, the time to do business development is not when you need opportunity. But many, many, many, many months ahead, guys. The problem that I see it's so many organizations is they don't start to like heavyset the business development effort until they're like, Oh crap, we need sales, right?
Oh crap. We need sales is not the best time to start doing your business development. It's way ahead. Heck it might even be when you're absolutely killing it. The big takeaway today that I want to leave everybody off with is that business development should never stop. And so many organizations make this mistake.
Things are great. Things are killing it. The money's coming in hands over fist. They have more opportunity than they need. And what do they do? They go to their BD team and they say, Hey, Let up. We have way too much and we need to like slow down. Okay, this is a massive, massive mistake and I've seen it happen over and over and over again and I've seen what the results of this is because inevitably, if you do not keep the opportunities coming in.
The opportunities you have will eventually dry up. Remember, customers can leave at any time for any reason. We forget this all the time. But customers can leave at any time for any reason, and they do. And it doesn't matter how great of a customer they are. Things happen. Things happen in their business that you have no control over.
And so you always, always, always have to keep Your leads funnel full, and that means that business development can never ever stop. You need to be always out there chasing opportunity, building relationships, because relationships and opportunities, they don't pay off immediately. They can sometimes pay off immediately, and that's incredible.
But that is the exception and not the rule. Opportunities tend to pay off months and years into the future. And so that's what business development really is. It's, it's like that farmer out there planting the seeds in the springtime, right? Watering them, making sure that they're growing. And one day, Way into the spring, way into the future, you're going to be able to harvest that crop.
That's exactly what happens in business development, guys. It's exactly what happens in business development. Many companies start the business development efforts way too late. They're already in trouble. And that's when they're like, oh crap, double down on the advertising, double down on the business development.
We need opportunity yesterday. If you need opportunity yesterday, Business development will help, but it's still not going to fix your problem tomorrow. It's not going to be an immediate fix for you and your organization. It's, you know, if you get lucky, maybe, but most of the time you're probably going to have a gap between the start of your business development and opportunities rolling in of at least six months.
It just, that tends to be how it works. It is not an immediate quick fix. For your organization, many companies underestimate the time it takes to actually acquire a customer, right? Like when things are like this and we're freaking out, we're like, Oh no, we need opportunity guys. That doesn't mean that opportunity is going to come any faster.
We have to remember that and we have to level set ourselves and say, okay, how do we budget this out? How do we fix this situation and buy ourselves some time? Because business development works. It's incredible. It works amazing. But remember, if we have put it on pause, if we didn't continue doing it, even through the good times, we now have to basically take a machine, start the gas up, get it running and start to build momentum where there was none.
And you guys know, no matter what in business, momentum is fairly easy to keep. It is really, really, really hard to get. This doesn't matter whether you're a business development specialist, a business owner, whatever it is, momentum is hard to get. It is fairly easy to keep, but it is really hard to get a machine rolling from a dead stop.
Okay. Business development is the same way. You need to focus on keeping business development rolling all the time, because if you take your foot off that gas and everything crashes down and you got to build it up from square nothing. It takes time guys, but if you're consistent with your business development, you keep at it week over week, month over month, year over year, great, bad, whatever, whatever the economic conditions, whatever the business conditions, we don't let up the business development gas pedal, you're going to have opportunities potentially from seeds that you planted a year, two years ago, paying off, coming to fruition, and you don't know when it's going to happen.
That's the funny thing. You never know. There's no way to predict. When all this work is going to pay off. What I can say is it does pay off. It takes time, but it does pay off for you. Business development must never, ever, ever stop guys. You can't let up on the gas. You guys got to stop doing this. I know there's so many organizations who when things are good, you pull the, you pull the plug and you say, you know what?
Nope, we're taking a step back. Don't make those calls. Don't go to those meetings. Don't work on those relationships. It is the wrong move guys. It is the wrong move. You cannot do this. This will eventually bite you in the ass and I've seen it bite so many companies in the butt and then suddenly they're in trouble and now they got to start a full machine from a dead stop and it's going to take even more time than it should have.
It's going to take longer. You got to hope to God. You got a great business development person who actually knows what they're doing. Who's actually going to generate the relationships you need to get this machine rolling again. It's too much guys. It's too much to gamble on. You have to keep it going all the times.
Don't ever let up on your business development. Okay. Remember guys, passive advertising methods are not a replacement for active marketing. They go hand in hand. So many companies will be like, well, we don't need direct business development. We don't need to hire John Smith to do that for us because we're spending X, Y, and Z amounts through advertising platforms, through digital ads, you know, through billboards, through radio, whatever you're doing it.
Remember guys, it's hand in hand. Passive advertising works much better for brand recognition. It does not always translate well into long term repeat business for your organization. Okay. We've all spent countless amounts of money on ads. I spend countless amounts of money on ads all the time, promoting this show, bringing brand awareness to what we're doing here.
But guys, that's what it is. It's brand awareness. Rarely, rarely, rarely do my advertising dollars that go to digital ads, spend brand awareness, campaigns social media strategy. Rarely do those convert into real dollars and cents. What they do is they build brand recognition. More people hear about the business development podcast.
More people hear about Capital Business Development and Kelly Kennedy and what we are doing here. And at the end of the day, will that long term translate into business? Sure, but you have to build brand recognition with the understanding of, I still have to pick up the phone and make real connections. I still have to book real discovery calls with people, introduce myself, understand their challenge, build trust.
Build confidence, right? We still have to have that human to human connection and guys, active marketing is the secret. It's what takes you to those relationship building meetings. It's what will get you that opportunity over time. Guys, we cannot miss that. Stop doing our active marketing, our real human to human trust building business development.
You can do it hand in hand and guys, I always say it with B2B, you really need to be doing about 80 percent active marketing to about 20 percent passive strategies, your digital ad campaigns, your social media strategies, your billboards, your radio ads, your TV, whatever you're doing. That needs to be about 20 percent in B2B and the other 80 percent really needs to be a great human, a great business development team, a great business development expert to really help you solidify those real meetings, which lead to real opportunities for your organizations over time.
Okay, I want to chat to my BD people right now as well. And I just want to chat about the pressure to perform, right? A lot of times BD people are also feeling this pressure. They get hired by an organization, usually in that point where they're like, Oh crap, we need a win. That is a lot of undue pressure on that business development specialist, because now they're expected to close something in the first like couple of months.
And that is really, really hard because guys, that's not really how BD works. And so I did want to just like level set today and spend some time just like, Letting you guys know about the long game because that's what BD really is. Many BD people are hired with the expectation of near immediate financial return or growth of sales.
And guys, it's just not realistic to expect your BD people to start and start bringing in opportunity in the next couple of months. Like, It is just not realistic and they're feeling that pressure. And so I think it's really important for organizations to remember this and understand that it is going to take time.
Let your business development person know that you understand that it takes time and that what you really want to see is consistency over time. You want to see them making the same amount of effort day over day, week over week, year over year. And inevitably, if they're doing the right things, if they're following a great process.
It will pay off in your favor. What you need to see is consistency over time. That is the secret to long term success. Okay. Remember that business development ebbs and flows, right? In the beginning of this episode, I was really chatting with you guys about how you never know when the opportunity is going to pay off.
Guys, that happens to me too, right? Like some of you may or may not know, I still do active business development. I still have clients that I work active business development for. We sometimes have weeks where meetings don't happen and then I'll have the next week where I'll book four meetings with four phone calls.
No, it wasn't from the four phone calls, it was from the 20 phone calls I made to those same people weeks and weeks and weeks in a row before that, that just happened to be the day that it paid off in my favor. You don't know when those days are going to be, which is exactly why consistency is key. It's king.
It is everything you never know when the effort you are making is going to pay off. And so you have to just keep at it consistently until you either disqualify or get the meeting guys. But if you guys stick to it, if you stick to it week over week, month over month, year over year, yeah, you're going to have weeks where you don't book anything.
And you have weeks where you can't not book something. It's inevitable. You can't really have one without the other. And so it's really important to understand that business development ebbs and flows. We don't know when it's going to pay off. What we do know is if we're consistent with it, consistency over time breeds success.
That is absolutely. How we have to look at it. Remember to measure your BD wins in meetings and opportunities, guys. It's meetings and opportunities. Everything we do is to get to meetings that lead to RFPs, RFQs, vendor list applications, and eventually sales over time. But that's what we need to be measuring, right?
None of it really matters until we get to those meetings. We have to, have to, have to get to the meetings. To get on that vendor list to get the relationship that will lead to opportunities for you and your organizations over time. Okay. We can't forget what the goal is. It's not to make X amount of calls.
It's not to send X amount of emails. It's to get into a room and build a real human to human relationship that leads to opportunity for your organizations and your business over time. That is the point. While it's obviously important to make the calls and I always say track them and I'm going to get into this later on.
We have to track what we're doing, but remember the measure of success is how many meetings did we get? How many meetings did we get that then led to opportunities? Whether that be an RFP, a bid of any type, a request for quote, whatever, whatever, whatever it is, that is the point. The meetings lead to opportunities, which is why I always say, Measure yourself in meetings.
We have to measure what matters and what matters is how many meetings did we get? Because that is where the opportunities happen. And guys, we have to do weekly efforts and reporting. Okay. We have to be tracking what we're doing. And I know I'm talking to a lot of BD people right now who are like, Kelly, I don't want to do that.
And that's fair. I totally understand. What I can say is if you want to get better, if you want to be consistent, if you want to hold yourself to a standard, part of that standard is going to be. Doing a weekly report for yourself, for your superiors, for your team, whatever, whoever you want to send it to, it doesn't really matter.
What matters is, is that you're consistently tracking the data. How many calls did you make? How many digital introductions did you add your CRM? How many meetings did you book? How many opportunities came with those meetings? Guys, this is all data that matters. It doesn't even have to necessarily be given to anyone.
Like I said, it could be just for you, but over time you can take all of this data. You can feed it into an analytics system, even like chat GPT, and you can start to ask it what the trends are. And you can start to learn the statistical data to how successful you are, how to get better, where maybe are the challenges happening for your organization.
This is all data that matters. We have to be tracking what we are doing. I do a weekly report every single week for all of my clients, and it is just as much for me as it is for them. I also want to know how successful we're being. I also want to know where I'm improving week over week, or where I might be falling short.
Okay, It's about becoming better, and you can't become better if you don't know where you're coming from or what better looks like, okay? So, start tracking your weekly efforts and your reporting, and make sure that we are accurately updating our data in our CRM. Remember, CRM data is absolutely critical. I update my CRM data almost every day in a certain level.
And we have to keep it up to date and we have to keep it written in a way that we can understand if we come back to it six months later, because we need to know what happened. We need to know where we're at with every single client in order to know how to close that opportunity over time. You want to make sure that if you come back to it six months later, That you will be able to understand what you were thinking at that time.
All right, I want to share a couple of stories with you because I've had some pretty incredible wins literally just last week. And so I just wanted to chat to them today. And I want you guys to understand that the best opportunities, the biggest companies, those things, they don't happen immediately. They happen over time.
It's consistency over time that breeds success. And while I'm not going to name the companies, I am going to tell you the stories, okay? I had a huge win come through just this Monday and got a reach out, got a call, booked a meeting with one of Canada's largest oil and gas firms. Guys, I've been working with one of my clients for over two years, coming up on three years.
And we finally landed a meeting that I've been working on, frankly, the entire time. And I probably went through four to five different people in order to finally land this meeting. And it is absolutely incredible. It took me. Over two years to close the meeting guys. This is two years of reaching out to different people, sending email introductions, doing follow up calls, being bounced from place to place to place, and eventually locking down that meeting.
And it is incredible. But what it shows is that things like this, the biggest companies, the biggest clients. They are not they are not an immediate win. It's going to take you time. It's gonna take you effort, but guys, it's so worth it Consistency over time breeds success this meeting that just booked this Monday Perfect example perfect example there was no scenario where I would have landed that meeting without putting in the level of effort that it took for me to get It and while two years is excessive absolutely In this particular case, that's what it took.
Another one actually just closed for me not that long ago with one of Canada's largest mining companies. Same client and we closed a meeting that I've been working on for over a year guys. I've talked about it briefly on the show before and I think it took me anywhere between 32 and 40 direct reach outs to eventually lock down this meeting guys.
We just had it today, it was incredible. And yeah, it took a really, really long time to close. And if you're working with the biggest companies, it's going to take time. You're most people are giving up after the second call. Guys, if you're giving up after the second call, you're probably booking very little meetings because what we found is that most of the time, even for small to medium sized companies, it can take anywhere between 8 and 15 direct reach outs to actually secure That meeting, and so if you're giving up at two, you're giving up too soon.
We have to stop quitting soon. I had another incredible, incredible story literally just come up today. And you know what? It just felt like synchronicity, guys. This episode just felt like synchronicity because so many of these long time Opportunities, these, these companies that we've been pushing for months and years started to pay off.
And so I was like, okay, we have to do this show today. Cause I think it's really critical, but I had a client reach out to me. It was a past client and it was somebody that we had, we had gone to we've gone to a meeting with this really gigantic engineering company, the opportunity looked amazing, but they didn't have anything at that time.
And they said, Hey, you know what? We know who you are now. We like you. And you know what? When the time comes, we're going to give you the opportunity. Guys. Two years later, my old client got a call today, got an order for over 30 people for three years, 30 people for three years. We're talking millions of dollars of revenue and it took two years to come to fruition from a meeting we had two years ago.
Think about that. You never know when that opportunity is coming or what it's going to be or will it pay off. But guys. This could happen to you. You too could get a multi million dollar order from a meeting you had two to three years ago. It happens all the time. It happens all the time. But you have to plant those seeds.
You have to get out there. You have to get out there. I say it a lot, guys. I say it a lot on the show because the longer I end up in business development and running my own company and podcasting, the more I realize you likely will not see the best opportunities coming. I can tell you right now, I know for a fact, I cannot see the most incredible opportunity that will knock my door sometime in the next few years.
I can't see it yet. I can't see it yet. I can't even imagine it. Just like I couldn't have imagined this podcast literally three years ago. Could not have imagined this podcast. And yet it's been absolutely incredible. You will never see the best opportunities coming. You just have to be ready to say yes when they do.
Remember preparedness meets opportunity is what real success is. It's being prepared to say yes. When opportunity knocks your door and says, Hey, are you ready for this? That's all you have to do. You just have to be in a position to say yes. And I'm talking to my companies, maybe that are struggling right now.
Who you're saying, you know what? Like, man, it's been really hard. It's been really hard to stay in business. I get it. I totally get it. But the fact that you have stayed in business, the fact that you are still sitting there waiting for that door to knock means that that door knock is coming. That doorknock is coming for you, and when it does, you just have to be ready to open the door and say, yes, yes, because the best opportunities, guys, you will never see them coming.
Remember, you have to be open to alternative opportunities, right? The opportunity you think you need might not even be the best opportunity coming to you. That's the funny thing, right? Podcasting. Never saw this as something that could be what it has become for me. Never. Not once. And yet, it's been absolutely incredible.
It's taken me on a path that I could have never, ever seen coming. And you, too, have that opportunity. You, too, will have an opportunity knock your door that will take you on a path that you never saw coming. You just have to be ready to say yes. Meetings will lead to opportunities, both short and long term for you.
You have to stop putting them off and you have to prioritize them. Meetings are the secret sauce to your future success. If you are afraid to have meetings, it's okay, but we have to get over that. We have to work on that inside of ourselves and we have to start doing active marketing. We have to start doing active marketing consistently, booking meetings, building real human to human relationships.
That will lead you to trust building and opportunities that you could not imagine. But we have to get back to prioritizing human to human interaction. This is the secret for your long term success. You have to go back to prioritizing real human to human interactions. These are the things that are going to present the opportunities for you over time.
I want to just go over some keys to success guys, before we close up today, create and follow effective process and hold yourself to it weekly. Guys, you have to follow a process. If you do not have a business development process, you have to create one and you have to create one that works for you. And I'm going to do a little bit of a shameless plug here.
If you need help creating a business development process, guys, I have a coaching program called Business Development Mastery with Kelly Kennedy. In three months, we will create a business development process. We will build your personal brand. We will build your company brand. And we will show you what it takes week over week, month over month, year over year to create something that builds exponential growth for your organization over time.
This is something we can definitely do. And if you want to learn more about it, you can check it out on my LinkedIn under amplify your impact or right on the website at www.capitalbd.ca guys, so we have to create an effective process and we have to hold ourselves to it. To create long term success for us.
We have to create and utilize a CRM. We have to keep it accurate and complete in information. This is our, like, this is our one zone tool to keep us on track, to keep everything organized in one place. CRMs are incredible guys. And if you guys do not currently operate one, highly, highly, highly recommend Pipedrive CRM.
It will do what you need. It's cost effective and it works very, very well. We have to remember to always work to get the meeting. Everything we do in business development is to take us To a meeting, a meeting is where the magic happens, guys. It's where the business happens. We have to get to a point where we can build trust, where we can build a relationship that leads to repeat opportunities for our organizations over time.
This is done by creating meetings. We have to work to set the meeting every time we need to create weekly reports that we can either share with our teams or keep internally, but we need to start tracking what we are doing and where our efforts are going. We have to understand what we are doing week over week, month over month, year over year.
We have to start measuring the data, understanding the data, and then being able to. Correlate how we can do better from that as we move forward, but you're going to find especially tracking data over, say, six months or a year, you're going to start to see trends. You're going to start to see how many calls, how many digital introductions it takes to get to a meeting, how many of those meetings turn into clients.
There's going to be a lot of data from that. That you can then correlate and either work to improve or just keep for future data. Okay, but the data is important. We have to be tracking our efforts. Weekly BD meetings, guys highly, highly, highly advocate weekly BD meetings. They don't have to be long. We need to have a good understanding of what is going on operationally, where the opportunities are, what the feedback is.
Weekly BD meetings are excellent. These are typically high level. They're typically with the executive group and they don't run more than 30 minutes guys, just a quick weekly meeting to understand the opportunities on the table, understand what meetings are coming up, who needs to be there with you and any other relevant information to the BD team.
Weekly BD meetings are amazing and I highly, highly, highly recommend that you start doing them. They don't need to be anything more than 30 minutes, and you will find them incredibly beneficial over time. Remember to always say the five magic words, guys. The five magic words to every meeting, to every interaction.
What. Are. The. Next. Steps. The meetings don't matter if nothing great happens from them. The secret to getting to the next stage is always asking. What are the next steps? Five magic words, and they're absolutely, absolutely critical. Don't fall into the trap of stopping BD in the good times. Okay, stopping your business development process.
It needs to operate all the time. Good, bad, ugly. Never slow it down. Never hold them up. Keep your BD teams always striving to find the next opportunity and you will never ever find yourself in that incredibly scary point where you don't have the business you need. And now you're having to start the machine from a dead stop.
Keep your BD teams consistently working. Keep them motivated, keep them excited and watch your business. Remember guys, business development is a long game. Plant the seeds, water regularly, and always have an abundance of opportunities. Shout outs this week. Colin Harms, Deanna Kean, Rodney Lover, Kapil Kalra, Amin Samji, Bryan Hayes, Susan Poseika, Patricia Bathory, Jenny Hembree, Scott Trowbridge, Aaron Haberman, Nate Simpson, Chloe Wu, Tatsiana Zametalina, Vijayan Swaminathan, Sheldon Hunt, Dale Schaub, Lauren Graff, Stuart Morawski, Dawn Osland, Janice Baskin, Ken Gee, Shawn Neels and Derek Nolt.
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. He 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 at www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the business development podcast.
