Don’t Write A BD Email This Way

What’s On My Mind Fun conversation this week! He stopped me mid-sentence and said… ​Wait. ​Did you just say, “don’t give them a reason not to respond?” ​I guess I did. ​That’s brilliant! ​You’re probably wondering–what were we talking about? ​First, let me give you some background; then, we can dive into the learning. ​I […]

What To Do Next (2 of 2)

What’s On My Mind The sciency fun from last week continues! ​We talked about Limiting Factors last week. ​Check it out HERE in case you missed it. ​Short summary: all complicated processes have Limiting Factors, and if you solve for that one thing, your entire process will speed up. ​For us, think of Limiting Factors as BD bottlenecks. […]

What To Do Next (1 of 2)

What’s On My Mind Getting sciency again! ​I’ve been thinking a lot about Limiting Factors lately. ​Here’s the broader definition on Wikipedia. ​Limiting factors pop up in all kinds of science from engineering to ecology, business processes to biomechanics. ​The basic idea: ​There’s usually one “by far” slowest thing in a complicated process. ​That one thing becomes the bottleneck. […]

What To Do When You’re Stuck

What’s On My Mind Listicle alert! ​We all get stuck. Maybe it’s a bad night’s sleep. Things don’t seem to be going well. Or you got fired, your dog is sick, and your truck broke down. ​Sorry, that sounded like a country music song. ​Seriously though, stuff happens. To all of us. We can get in […]

What To Do When You’re Really Busy

What’s On My Mind Super practical this week! (This article ties nicely with the piece I wrote a few weeks ago called Should You Be Busy Or Available? Check it out HERE.) ​It’s too easy to say you can’t invest in relationships when you’re busy. ​Here’s what I’m hearing in the market right now: I’ve been slammed with […]

Designing Great In Person Events, Post COVID Style

What’s On My Mind I’ve just experienced perfect execution. ​I’ve been at a client conference all week, the first one this important client has had in 2+ years. ​It was FANTASTIC. ​Our team had high expectations. Their team had high expectations. And we blew them all away. ​We had 300+ top business developers and all-star […]

How To Know…How Bad You Want It

What’s On My Mind A simple test of desire. ​Was I the last person on earth to watch Free Solo? It’s the documentary of famous rock climber Alex Honnold and his pursuit of climbing Yosemite’s El Capitan … without any safety equipment. ​I’ve been to Yosemite. ​I’ve stared up at El Capitan, almost falling over with vertigo. […]

What To Do When You’re Stuck

What’s On My Mind Today’s content applies to just about everything in life! ​I can get stuck. ​Stuck about how to be helpful to someone. Stuck about how to approach a problem. ​Stuck about what I should write about in today’s newsletter. ​Getting stuck happens a lot to all of us. ​With the biggest priorities. ​And […]

Advanced Technique: A Simple Calendar Hack To Thrive In COVID Times

What’s On My Mind Taking things up a notch from last week. Got a lot of good feedback on last week’s MDD article! ​The bottom line: in this back-to-back Zoom world, we need to schedule “get work done” time in our calendars. ​I’ve learned this isn’t random. There’s a process that works, and I outlined […]

A Simple Calendar Hack To Thrive In COVID Times

What’s On My Mind A little planning goes a long way. ​The other day, I had a major a-ha moment talking to my friend and fellow author/trainer Cyril Peupion.​ I had always been hung up on the idea of a Perfect Week. Some people call it an Ideal Week. ​Roughly, it’s a plan for every hour […]

How Hard Should You Try?

What’s On My Mind I get this question a lot. Mo, how hard should I try? ​The question comes up in many contexts. Big things like… RFP responses. Or formal pitches. ​Smaller things like… Writing an email. Or preparing for a short BD meeting. ​And maybe most importantly, the hardest things in business development and […]

How BD Tasks Can Make You Happy

What’s On My Mind I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness lately. ​I’ve gotten dozens of notes the last few weeks about how GrowBIG Training has changed people‘s lives. ​Notes from people that took the training a decade ago. ​Notes from people we worked with the day before. ​Here’s one I got today: ​That was probably one […]