The objection we hear most often when approaching companies about helping them do better new business development is: “we’re already busy with work; we don’t need any more”. Ironically, THIS is the perfect scenario to do some effective new biz. If you wait until you NEED new clients, you’ll be operating under stress, rushing a process that needs space to accommodate the inherently long leads times.

This objection also ignores the fact that running a new business campaign brings more benefits than the obvious. Because people like lists, I shall stop writing in paragraphs and instead switch to a four-point list. Enjoy.

WHY IS NEW BUSINESS IMPORTANT?

1) Growth. The obvious point of New Biz is to boost your revenue and client base. Reaching out to new companies and partners moves you away from relying on the phone ringing and email pinging with incoming enquiries. It also means you’ll create new opportunities to increase your referrals from these new contacts.

2) Image. New Biz can be incredibly beneficial to your company’s image. Even in instances where you don’t necessarily succeed in securing work, your ‘Rolodex’ grows as more companies who had never heard of you previously, now know who you are and what you do.

3) Opportunities. This could be where you talk to someone new to find that there is some business to be done… just not the business you were expecting. You may have contacted a prospect about “service X” only to find them asking if you can provide “service Y” instead.

4) Relationships. We’ve had relationships that have grown over years. From a pitch that didn’t close… to a keeping in touch… to a friendly regular ‘checking in’… many of our strongest relationships started simply by being smart, reliable and consistent in outreach. By the time you close that long-lead new business you’re already ahead of the game on a personal level.

There are even more great reasons to be doing better new business development, but we’ll save those for when we talk inperson. Until then, happy hunting.