Checking in with Your Business Development Plan
If you’re like the vast majority of Americans, you probably created a few New Year’s Resolutions for 2019 a couple months ago. In addition to the standard exercise more, eat healthier and get organized, did your resolutions include new business development?
Whether you identified a few business-oriented resolutions or you’re just considering ways to improve your business in 2019, we offer ideas to incorporate into your daily professional practices.
Developing the Mindset. If you don’t have it already, you need to develop a “business development” mindset.
Develop a thorough understanding of how new business factors into your business’s revenue and operations goals over the short-term and long-term.
Once you have that understanding, it’s much easier to develop a plan of where to prospect for that new business.
Business Development Activities to do Now. Refer to our recent blog about business development activities you can incorporate right now as a quick and effective way to get started. 10 Business Development Activities.
Think Outside the Box. Brainstorm, create diagrams, pictographs, charts or doodles—whatever it takes to get your creativity flowing.
Come up with as many ideas as you can for where you can source new business. Then, do deep dive research into each idea and prioritize them.
Make a solid plan to follow-through on your Top 3 ideas. Keep the additional ideas in a safe place and refer to them after you’ve implemented the Top 3.
Stay Positive and Focused. Face it – you’re going to run into some negativity while prospecting for new business. For your plans to be successful, it’s imperative to keep a positive mindset in the face of negativity.
Not every business development idea you have will be successful, and that’s okay. Use the unsuccessful attempts as a learning activity to improve your efforts. Don’t give up and keep developing creative new ways to locate news business for your business.
One additional note: Remember Alliant National is a great resource to advise and educate independent agents on prospecting for new business.
Tags: business, marketing strategy
