What’s On My Mind
Here’s the most important process to scale across an organization.
I’m having a blast working with one of my favorite clients on something.
It’s the most important process to scale across an organization.
- It creates immediate traction.
- It solves the riddle of cross-selling.
- It’s the shortest time to commercial success.
- And, clients love it!
What in the world could this magical BD wonder be?
Client planning.
Most of our clients do it all wrong.
Either…
There is not enough client planning.
Or…
They are focusing on the past.
You’ve been in the past-focused meetings.
Everyone gets together. They are all excited.
We should do some client planning! There’s so much potential at ____! Let’s set it up!
Then, when everyone gets together…
All involved “go around the room” and tell each other what they know. It quickly turns into “how much I know” and “I went to law school with Phil” and “they’ll call us when they need us.”
Past.
Rearview mirror.
No action.
Good news.
There’s a better way.
I’ll show you a proven process in a second.
But for now…
What We Just Created
Oh man, did I have a blast taping some podcasts recently with Mike Duffy.
Mike’s led 100s of client planning sessions for King & Spalding, one of the fastest-growing law firms in the world. He’s a big part of their success.
Let’s say I plotted ALL of our nearly 200 podcast episodes on an X-Y axis.
X = Insightful.
Y = Fun.
Mike would be upper right!
He’s seriously one of the best business developers I’ve ever worked with.
He makes everyone around him better.
And here is exactly how he does it…
HERE’s Mike and I talking about when he first realized growth is great.
HERE’s Mike sharing his personal definition of BD.
HERE’s Mike sharing his favorite GrowBIG/Snowball technique.
HERE’s me PUSHING Mike to share a BD story he’s really proud of.
HERE’s Mike sharing what he would tell his younger self.
These are all home run episodes.
And they’re FUN too!
What’s Worth Lingering On
Back to client planning.
This client project we’re working on is awesome. Smart people. Amazing culture. Hard workers.
We’ve chosen some of their largest global clients and are not only training their client teams GrowBIG, but we’re integrating our client planning process into it.
It’s providing two HUGE benefits:
- Each team gets the same common playbook for growth—GrowBIG!
- They leave the training with a rock-solid action plan to implement it across their client team.
Insights! Enthusiasm! Action!
It’s so fun.
Want to do something similar?
Here’s what you need to succeed:
- Move the historical recap to pre-work.
Use the client planning worksheet in your Snowball System toolkit or GrowBIG Training and fill out the Current State Assessment ahead of time.
Circulate it the team before your first live session. Only allow 10 minutes to talk about it in the live session.
Pro tip: Set a timer on your phone to let it be the bad guy when it’s time to move on.
- Focus on the future.
Use the rest of your time in the session to define 4 more things: The team’s Future Vision for the client relationship, three Strategies to get there, practical To Dos for each strategy and To Don’ts to automate, eliminate or delegate anything that isn’t as important as your To Dos.
Pro tip: Push the team past anchoring on what’s happened. You’re in control of your future.
- Agree on team dynamics.
Agree on how the team will operate.
Metrics: What will you measure? Cover both leading indicators (what you can control) and lagging (results).Process: How often will you meet, choosing your next sprint of to dos? Streamline your process.
Team Dynamics: How can you focus on and reward incremental progress, creating a winning team mentality? Focus on progress, not perfection/results.
Agile: How will you flexibly adjust and stay future focused? Agree on how you’ll modify and adapt as you learn.
Pro Tip: Leave time to cover this; it’s important
Here’s the science.
(You knew it was coming, right?)
There are major headwinds against client growth.
Status Quo Bias keeps our clients thinking of us only in ways they have before, not how we can help them going forward.
Earned Dogmastism pushes us to become closed minded the longer we work with a client.
Self Enhancement Bias fools us into thinking our client relationships are better than they are.
We need methods to yank us out of these and to yank our clients out of them too.
It takes a disciplined approach.
A proven process.
It’s all in the Snowball System and in GrowBIG Training. See the back half of Snowball Chapter 9 or GrowBIG Module 11.
Man, do those processes work.
Want to blow the doors off in 2022?
Helping your existing clients in new ways is your fastest and easiest path to success.
What is the fastest and easiest way to do that?
Client planning.
Do it the right way.
Get less rearview mirror and more windshield.
Use the approach above.
Now’s the time.
Mo
ps. We love talking about this stuff. If you want to learn how to scale these approaches the right way, just hit reply and we’ll set up a call.
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