Business Growth Indianapolis

By their nature, whale-sized accounts are complex. Invariably, delivering your products and services requires the coordination of many people in your company with many more people in the whale company. You have an opportunity to greatly improve your internal processes and controls each time you serve a new whale.

The most important thing for members of your team to remember is that their counterparts on the whale side are accustomed to a very high level of formal communication, which is the norm in a large, most likely bureaucratic, organization. In contrast, communication at your company is likely to be much more informal and delivered in meetings or emails rather than formal memos or documents.

Even if you do a good job of managing the account, failing to manage the formal communication of your control processes can do you in. Here’s how to plan:

·         Determine the key people on the whale team who need to be informed of progress on the account

·         Establish a regular reporting schedule, weekly or bi-weekly, with an internal “owner” on your team.

·         Ensure that each team leader on your side reports key progress, issues, or hold-ups to the internal owner on a clear deadline.

·         Develop a simple template for the “controls” report or project update.

·         Distribute to your team and to the whale team on a predictable, regular basis.

This discipline will accomplish two very important things. First, it will keep your team on track with the deliverables and on the same page regarding the entire deal. Second, it will communicate to everyone on the whale team that you are a professionally managed company that understands and accommodates their need for information. 

When problems are called out in a regular, routine report, they become routine—not cause for alarm but simply for action.  It's one more example of how the sale will not result in business development unless you deliver at the highest level.  Your business growth requires a balance between the sales cycle and the delivery.

 

• you can beat the field on unique past experience (and don't kid yourself!)
• you can beat the field on a unique plan of work (which will save money)
• you know what the current provider is being paid (and you can beat it)
• you are the incumbent (and you can leverage the relationship)

• Explore your bidding history.  What are the proposals in which you have lost out on price?  Do you have detailed feedback on pricing and other elements of your proposal?  If so, use them going forward.
   
• Find and use data.  Be certain that you understand standard pricing for sales in your industry, especially pricing among your large competitors.
   
• Hire a consultant.  Use a pricing expert to help you consider options and to understand the competition.
   
• Take more training.  For government contracts especially, many training programs are available for your team to learn more about costs and pricing for government business at the local, state, and federal levels.
   
• Match your deliverables to the requirements.  When you must compete on price, don't add any frills or "nice to haves."  Stick with the minimum requirements and price aggressively.

• First thing you need to know is how the government defines "small business."  In most industries, the category includes businesses with as many as 500 employees.  So if you are much smaller, and much newer, than the competition, the odds are heavily stacked against you unless you have a product or service that the government wants and no one else offers yet.
   
• The idea of presenting yourself as a subcontractor rather than prime is especially relevant.  Prime contractors need to demonstrate their inclusion of small businesses including women-owned and minority-owned firms.  Companies in those categories that are professional, reliable, and knowledgeable about government contracting are at a premium.  Rather than working directly for a local, state, or federal government, you work for the contractor.
   
• If the subcontractor route interests you, build a sales process that targets prime contractors, not government agencies.  You will need a completely different approach and message.
   
• If you have not done business deals with public agencies, understand that there is a great deal to learn.  Everything from how to respond to the RFP to how to invoice and track expenses will be new and foreign.  If you are not ready, the requirements can  undermine your company seriously.  Even as a subcontractor, you will need to contribute meaningfully to the proposal.

• "Creative Class" cities with lots of entrepreneurial activity, well-networked, open to new ideas and hungry for economic development, business growth, and community engagement.
   
• Local representatives/Chapter Chairs.  Key people with good community connections, strong sales and business development experience, entrepreneurial spirit, to assist in convening the Whale Hunters Launch in your region and to populate and lead one or more local chapters of 12-15 members.  You may be an independent consultant, a coach, a trainer, an entrepreneur? 
   
• Members of local chapters and prospective attendees at local workshops.  You don't want to lead but would like to see Whale Hunters services delivered close to you at prices you can afford. 
   
• Sponsors.  National and local business owners, executives, and marketers who want to be in front of The Whale Hunters target audience of small to mid-size business owners, sales executives, and development officers.  We are grateful to Bose McKinney & Evans for sponsoring the Indianapolis summit  and delighted to announce the National Bank of Arizona as our lead sponsor for the Phoenix launch.
   
• Communication Partners.  National and local organizations that can help us market Whale Hunters events and related opportunities.  Chambers of Commerce, TV and radio, digital broadcast programs, business journals, for sure.  Also local/regional businesses willing to co-sponsor and share their digital database in a mutually beneficial fashion.

My home town, Indianapolis, features a beautiful city center, all deliberately laid out before the city was developed.  The city center is a perfect square mile, circumscribed by the streets named North, South, East, and West, and in the middle of that square mile is a circle, in the center of which stands a monument to Indiana's soldier and sailors who fought in the Civil War [and also in the Spanish American war, but that is another story].  We call this landmark "the monument" and the center of our city "Monument Circle."  At this spring-time of year, it is lush with flowers and its fountains are splashing into the pools that surround it.

The figure at the very top of the monument is "Miss Liberty."  It is said that she faces south in order to welcome home the surviving troops.  At the lower levels of the monument, east and west depict friezes of "war" and "peace," and each of the four lower level squares is dedicated to one of the armed forces.

Today America honors our fallen heroes and our veterans--all of the men and women who serve and who have served to protect the liberties that we enjoy.  I add my voice to that praise and thanksgiving, and I do so from the heart of a city that knows well how to remember and how to honor.

Business owners and executives have struggled through recent downturns in our economy, and it is easy to feel discouraged and disappointed with sales and business development or opportunities or growth, or simply a temporary downturn in expectations.   Can we find the grace to honor?  Do we have the spirit to celebrate?

I'd say yes, and that grace and spirit is more important today than ever.  The fundamental freedoms still live that encourage entrepreneurship in the United States, that nurture business development and business growth, and that allow women and men to found and grow business enterprises.

For those privileges I am profoundly grateful to the women and men who have fought for them since our founding as a nation.  I think especially today of my dad Ray Tag, WWII fighter pilot stationed in England and flying missions over Germany, who was a German POW when I was born, and who survived and thrived as an entrepreneur and salesman after that war and who [with our Mom of course!] raised seven daughters to think like he did about American business!  My dad passed away almost 40 years ago but his love for enterprise and American ingenuity is alive and--I hope--well.  Let's give thanks, celebrate, and build our businesses with renewed energy tomorrow.





 

• very good leadership and management, "best places to work"
• strong roots and relationships in the home community even as they reach out to the world
• well-developed products/services and constant attention to the customer
• a culture of mentoring and trusting wonderfully capable young people
• cultivating a loyal customer following and learning from customers

1. Reinvent -- consider how your products and/or services can realign with a changing market
2. Customer focus -- learn what your customers want and need today, not what they wanted last year or ast month
3. Broaden your targets (BtoB)-- whales are hunkering down and cutting costs; look for companies that are opportunistic and trying to increase their market share
4. Conversely, narrow your targets (BtoC?) -- identify or create a new niche
5. Widen your audience -- can you expalnd your niche geographically? are there potential new customers because of the economy?
6. Watch for and create "new trends" -- e.g. what do families need when both parents are working? convenience? child care? pet care? co-op services? home delivery?
7. Cut costs, focus on revenue --  horde cash, invest prudently to acquire new revenue but not to cover operating shortfalls
8. Be aggressive--appear to be a company that is thriving and the odds are good that it will be true.
9. Maintain visibility -- time to shine when others are hiding out.
10. Stay positive -- negativity is no longer news.  Be a spokesperson for the entrepreneurs of the world!

Whales are on winter vacation in warm oceans.  They are playing, breeding, frolicking and entertaining tourists for a couple of months.  But before long, they’ll head back north, and you can hunt them again.

This is the season for looking ahead, for making big plans, for resolving to improve.  Have you put whale hunting on your list of resolutions?  Try these for greater growth in 2009.

Resolution #1:   Say No

Entrepreneurs and harpooners despise saying no.  We convince each other that every opportunity could be a big deal “if only.”  Or we’ll know it’s not a good deal but it’s prestigious, or it will get us in the door, or we can raise prices later.  Quit kidding yourself.

Here’s a strategy.  What was your conversion rate least year on deals that you chased?  30%?  45%?    Resolve this year to raise that conversion rate by x% by pursuing x% fewer deals, all with higher probabilities of success.  Note that this exercise assumes you know your conversion rate.  If someone is not maintaining good data on your sales process activities, see Resolution #2 below.

Resolution #2:   Keep Score

If you don’t know what you’ve done, there’s no way to improve it.  And if you’re not tracking in real time, you can’t account for what you’ve done.  If you and all the members of your team know how you are keeping score, collectively and transparently, everyone will focus on completing those activities that yield high marks on the score card.

Resolution #3:   Fire 10%

Resolve this New Year’s to replace the bottom 10% of your business.  That means you’d have to carefully analyze what is the least fruitful business that you are doing—margins are too low, customers are too difficult, it drains staff time from more productive work, it is not strategic work, you want to move your products or services in a different direction—whatever criteria make sense for you.  Once you have a list of work you should discontinue doing,  decide when you can quit doing it and empower your team to fire those customers as soon as possible.  Then work your whale hunting process to replace that business with new, more suitable deals and customers.

Resolution #4:   Power Your Boat

It’s easy to give lip service to the idea of collaboration, to the team sale, to “the boat” of subject matter experts who are required in order to land a truly large sale to a whale.  But have you made measurable progress in training your SME’s, involving them deliberately in the sale, retooling your organization to make their time available? 

You will never understand the power of your boat, or achieve the extraordinary results that a powerful boat can deliver, until you invest in training, rehearsal, and live practice.

Resolution #5:   Confront the Culture

Whale Hunting means change.  Business growth demands change.  If people in your company resist the changes that you are trying to implement, make 2009 the year that you deal with it.  The company or team culture that got you to your current position of readiness to grow to the next level is not the same culture that will get you to the next level.  You can retain core values and core belief systems.  But behaviors will have to change!

You can change culture deliberately if you are not afraid to try.  You need straight talk, good tools, some teaching, some learning, some modeling, some help.  But investments in the fast-growth culture will pay off handsomely for your village.

At the dawn of a New Year, I think of the Inuit whale hunters.  How did they decide that this spring they would not wait for a whale to beach itself?  Instead, they would go out and hunt it?   Sounds to me like a resolution.

With all best wishes for a wonderful holiday season and an outstanding new year!

Today bloggers around the world are writing about poverty. We are glad to be part of this global awareness initiative.

I am thinking about how the topics of this blog--business development, women entrepreneurs, small business growth, and big deals--relate to the poverty topic.

And I think the biggest story is the growth of entrepreneurship around the developing world, made possible by micro-lending and/or deliberate philanthropy, to equip people to start and grow a new business.  These people are often women who build a business using a modest capital investment, some good advice, and their innovation and determination to succeed.  From cell phones to raising crops to animal husbandry to arts and crafts, women are starting new business around the world to lift their families out of poverty.

The term "social entrepreneur" refers to a successful business person applying business growth principles to social purpose. If you want to learn more about social entrepreneurship, here are some good resources and fantastic examples:

Skoll Foundation
PBS:  The New Heroes
Change.org
Social Edge

If you want to take your business savvy and use it to alleviate poverty in your own community or anyplace in the world, think about social entrepreneurship!

I hosted an event for friends and colleagues to attend an Indiana Fever WNBA game a couple of days ago.  It was Olympics Night, and Fever Olympians Tamika Catchings (winner of Gold medal for US) and Tully Bevilaqua (winner of Silver medal for Australia) were recognized as well as playing the regular season game against Connecticut.

A local sportscaster opined that the Fever undermined their business growth by allowing key players to go to Beijing, play fiercely on behalf of the USA, and return home tired.  (First night on the home court, they lost their game).

I can see the point.  But is there a bigger point?  The American women's basketball team is defining dominance on the international stage.  Australia's team improves continually in the drive to defeat us.  The women who represent us in this sport and many others are breaking barriers that require no subsidies, no legal intervention, no special cases, no special pleading.  They take their place on the world's athletic stage and bring home medals.

For women in business, I think the lessons are clear.  Train for dominance.  Excel in competition.  Delight your clientele.

And by the way, would the lessons be any different for men?

Last week I went to Mickey's Camp with about 140 women.  I am a proud alum--my name badge sported a number "2" certifying that I was attending my second of two annual events.  Here's my camp picture from last year!

Mickey's Camp is sort of like a bucket list for grownups.  We have world-class instructors for a bunch of activities ranging from--well, ranging from jewelry making and decorative painting to rifle shooting, tower climbing, and self defense.  I shudder to report that this year's highlight was pole dancing.  [I abstained]  So you may wonder what this has to do with sales or business development?

A little history.  Mickey Maurer [prominent Indianapolis business leader] has been hosting Mickey's Camp (for men) for eight years.  And a lot of women leaders have leaned on him to open it to women because it's not just fun it's also networking etc. etc.  Eventually Mickey capitulated and--great decision--opened a comparable camp for women.  I mean I for one do NOT anticipate a camp in which some of my 20+ cabin mates, sharing 2 showers and 2 toilets, are men.  Not to mention how many fuses they will blow with their electric shavers.

No, it doesn't have to be co-ed.  Mickey's Camp is a great illustration of business growth strategies that are simply the outcomes of building new relationships.  It's exactly what business women have claimed for many years--being with "business people" in informal settings does in fact grow business!  Here's how:

Information.  Even around a campfire, you learn a lot about who does what and what's going on.  It's a barometer of upcoming opportunities.

Recognition.  I did not personally interact with all 140 women.  But we all have the list of names, and whenever we encounter one another in the future, we will recognize one another "by face" to match with a name.

Permission.  By virtue of the shared experience, we grant one another the right to add us to email blast lists for keeping in touch.

Pulse.  What are business women thinking?  What are they doing?  What's on our minds and in our hearts?  Camp conversations reveal core issues.

Friendship. I made a few new friends at camp--women who will become important in my life and I in theirs.  Relaxed time and exposure to new people in a stimulating environment is a recipe for some people to connect with others at a truly sigificant level.

So that's how I spent my summer vacation. What kind of "time out" experiences have also been helpful to your business growth?

I posted a new podcast today about finding "ambergris" -- that priceless, elusive substance inside a whale that equates to new, better, and more rewarding business with an existing key account.

Business growth multiplies when you mine current customers for new opportunities while also developing new sales to new customers.

Here's how to start:  bring together all of your key people who interact with this whale--those who sell, those who deliver, those who service.  Systematically discover your shared knowledge about the customer.

I call it Seeing Through the FOG--fact, opinion, gossip--to learn what knowledge you share.  It's a humbling yet powerful experience to discover how much you know together that you don't share in any formal setting.

If you are a small to midsize company doing business with a whals, chances are good the whale has you positioned in a small niche--and it's hard to break out of that llittle room.  How good is your team at growing your business with current accounts?  Would love to hear a case!

Another question that people ask me--"I am a very small business.  I don't have a big staff to assign as members of the boat.  How can I hunt whales without a boat?"

The answer is--you shouldn't.  Business growth by doing bigger deals with bigger customers is a team strategy, so maybe you are just not ready.  But many entrepreneurs start their business by leaving a whale company and providing their service back into that company as an independent contractor--so if your first client is a whale, you need a team to serve that whale, and you can probably serve another one.

Who might be on your boat?

Remember Dialing for Dollars?  I've been Writing for Dollars my whole career. People often ask me how I went from English professor to entrepreneur.  Who knows?  It just sort of happened.

The better question is: what did you learn as an English professor that made you successful in business?  That answer continues to surprise even me!  The most important skills I learned from formal education and teaching have to do with framing and presenting ideas systematically to attract clients, to serve clients, to attract investors and to understand your own business.

• Business Proposals.  Entrepreneurs need plans, proposals, contracts, product and service descriptions, and scores of other written materials.  If you don't write them yourself, you need to know when they're good enough to represent you at your best.  Great proposals = more dollars!
• Sales Development.  My specialty was the study and teaching of rhetoric, which happens to be the original formulation of a sales process--the art of persuasion to influence other people's decisions.  More successful sales = more dollars!
• Business Growth.  Entrepreneurs need language-based activities and documents for strategic planning, public speaking, networking,  newsletters, team building and more.  More thoughtful and better researched business development documents = more dollars!

Do you have Writing for Dollars under control?  And what skills have you transported from another career into your business?

• enter a new market with your current products/services
• bring a new product or service to the market
• acquire another firm
• sell current products/services into a well-defined current market of much bigger clients

Whale Hunting happens in the fourth option above.  The other three strategies are expensive, speculative, and culturally problematic.

So how do you adopt the fourth option?  

1. Build a rational sales process around a targeted list of new "whales"
2. Use a "6 degrees of separation" strategy to get in the door
3. Build a cross-functional team who know how to particpate appropriately in the sales process

There's more "how to" in our book Whale Hunting--if you haven't read it you mght reconsider--link is in the right sidebar of the blog!

If your business has grown rapidly, will you share with this group a few key strategies?  THANKS  [In advance !]