Our businesses are collectively facing challenges and are being impacted worldwide, however what measures can we put in place to help protect and keep business moving forward? By adopting certain business development approaches and playing to your strengths you can still keep business momentum up and be proactive for the future.
Use our FAST-5 approach:-
1.Keep communications open:
Business must adhere to government advice right now and although normal business operations are being affected, avoiding face to face contact is a necessity. However, don’t see this as a communication barrier, act on the resources that you do have and adapt. Setting up video calls and Zoom meetings will help maintain the flow of communication between clients and colleagues, adding a chatbot to your website can maintain external dialogue and increasing social media activity portrays business as usual.
2. Review – Renew:
Be proactive on your approach and look into opportunities that you previously may not have taken, and that you had temporally shelved. Offer to look more closely at previous briefs where lucrative opportunities may lie. Consequently, business can more thoroughly assess what you can do in a real situation, in turn resulting in any follow up calls being much more productive. This also means that you are front -of-mind when the brief is live.
Also, don’t assume that you won’t be able to get through to people to pursue prospective business opportunities. Picking up the phone to clients or potential clients, is still relevant right now as they could still be interested in talking with you. In fact, a Senior decision maker could possibly have more freedom to speak right now and they too will be reflecting on their own business needs for the future – outbound calls are still working in this climate.
3. A call can mean so much more:
A further benefit and positive impact of our changing work dynamics and climate is that in fact we’re managing to get through to more senior people, that would ordinarily be impossible – due to access to mobile numbers. However, this also means that when contacting personal numbers the common courtesy is to make sure they are happy to have this conversation at home. The length of conversations are more substantial than you would on average expect, due to fewer distractions at home (albeit there may be kids bickering in the background or pets demanding attention!). However this does allow you to delve deeper into discussions, and you can gain a better understanding of the challenges that they are facing, to in turn help support them. In fact this could improve your future working dynamic, building a bond with prospects and creating more fluid levels of communication going forward.
4. Be mindful of the current situation:
There is very much a deeper level of goodwill amongst key decision makers in businesses right now and an “in this together” supportive mentality, everyone is backing each other, consequently this can help build the groundings for future successful client relationships. Businesses could be more open to listen to what you have to offer, but alternatively request a meeting in calmer waters ahead.
5. Fresh approach to success:
There is a still a demand among key marketing decisions makers to re-evaluate their current relationships, business model and the way they work going forward.
Prospects will be desiring a fresh approach and to adopt smarter, cost effective business strategies that deliver quicker ROI.
Now is the time to look to build a solid pipeline to be in a prime position as plans and projects may be on pause currently, but they will be keen to move quickly on with new work when they are in a better position to do so. All businesses are trying to go the extra mile right now, but if you need help shaping your brand proposition, realigning a targeting strategy and maintaining your customer engagement, get in touch today.
