How to make time for business development even if you don’t have time
What to do when you can see a hole in your revenue, but don’t have time to deal with it.
Welcome to a free edition of Start Up To Grown Up: Your source for ideas, insights and tactics to take back control of your business and scale it sustainably and profitably by Heather Townsend, award-winning author of The Accountants’ Millionaires’ Club and Founder of The Accountants’ Growth Club.
My strength since the day I started my business has been business development. Let’s be frank, I was a pretty naive and ignorant business developer when I started the business. But I fairly quickly found a love for writing and social media. My personal brand soared and the business grew.
Then I became too busy. Over time the marketing responsibilities were delegated down to others. Then I became reliant on a marketing specialist to run our marketing operation.
As it happened, too reliant. I trusted too much so had no idea that the basic marketing tasks that always used to happen had stopped happening. Our socials looked good, but were covering up for a large growing problem with our marketing effectiveness… Which was fine for a bit but then led to 12 months of hard, hard work signing up new clients.
In an ideal world I wouldn’t have needed to do this. But in June I stepped back into the marketing director role and a certain amount of ‘doing’ as well as leading on it. This meant the leads started to appear again. But not the sort that easily converted into clients.
I then needed to take even more of a step back in to both marketing and sales. Over the last few weeks, business development and doing something each day has become my reality. However, that’s on top of a massive load of client work that is needing to be done.
I really don’t have the time right now to be hustling to get a pipeline of decent leads. But that’s exactly what I have been doing. In this article I share what I have done to get the client work done AND the new business development done.
Why does Business Development get over looked?
I’ve spent the last 15 years in the world of professional services. It’s a sector that values qualifications and expertise. Selling is a dirty word. In fact, I’ve never known a sector like it for finding other names for selling. Such as ‘business development’, BD, ‘writing business’. You get the picture.
There are many reasons that business development falls to the bottom of the list. For example:
The obvious one - client work takes priority. It may not be client work it may be writing the next article or focusing on getting your book finally written. Naturally when client work pays the bills and you have a small team it makes sense to get the paid work done first. That’s all well and good. However, neglect to keep the business development going and your business enters into that painful feast and famine phase.
At least when my own business’s pipeline struggled I knew what to do to drag it out of the doldrums. But that’s because - to use the American phrase - it’s my wheelhouse. Over the last few months the marketing playbook has been dusted off, rebuilt and started again. But I am often in the minority. So many people in professional services - whether a coach, creator, accountant, lawyer, creative, consultant or whoever, don’t know what to do to get the work rolling in. With so many options available - from attending networking events to writing articles - it can be difficult to know which activities will have the most impact. Spend any time on social media and you’ll quickly find many people will promise you huge number of qualified leads if you only book a short call with them. If only it was that simple!
No one wants to be seen as pushy or salesy. I hear this time and time again. I’m a [insert name of professional] I don’t want to be seen as salesy. As a result we retreat back into our shell and hope that we are doing enough that people will proactively contact us and we don’t need to have to do that dreaded thing called selling. As a result, business development often doesn’t happen or happens so timidly it may well have not happened. But business development isn’t about being a stereotypical salesperson. Instead, think of it as helping clients solve their problems. Or as I like to think of it - helping a client buy. I know you may think that this is just semantics, but changing the mindset to helping a client buy rather than selling to them can sometimes be the penny that needs to drop.
The importance of daily habits
In an ideal world you would just do a little bit of business development each day. But if it was that easy, you would already be doing this. To make matters worse, we often think that Business Development is a massive, daunting task. The equivalent of cold calling 100 people to see if someone is interested. Instead of treating it as a massive, daunting task, break it down into small, manageable actions that you can do regularly. A common misconception is that you need to spend hours each day on business development, but that’s not necessary. Start small and focus on doing just a bit every day. For example, I have committed to a once a week article that goes out via substack. I may have to work on the being present on other people’s substacks, but no one is perfect!
The more habitual, i.e. you just do it, business development becomes, the easier it becomes to do a little every day. Many of my team have wondered why I could always pick up work without trying. Well, I’ve got a number of books, 1000s of articles and a daily presence on social media. Every little helps!
To make business development a sustainable part of your routine, i.e. something that you just do, you need to build habits around it. This process involves:
Replacing old habits: If your current routine starts with emails, try replacing that with 10 minutes of business development instead. For example, instead of reviewing your emails as your first task of the day, take out your business development to-do list.
Using triggers and rewards: Identify the triggers that prompt you to dive into client tasks and replace them with business development activities. Small rewards, like a cup of coffee after completing a task, can reinforce these new habits.
The 5Ps to always find the time for Business Development
Out of all the models I use in my work, the 5Ps model is the one I come back to time and time again.
Plan
I can see your eyes rolling at me here. Of course you have a plan for your business development activities. But do you? Do you have something which you look at weekly and daily which guides and focuses you on what you are doing with your business development. Without that clear, simple business development plan, your efforts may be scattered and ineffective. You don’t need to do everything that the experts recommend!
Start by asking yourself:
What am I going to do?
How am I going to do it?
What should I focus on each day?
Your plan doesn’t need to be overly complicated, but it should be realistic and aligned with your long-term objectives.
When I had a day packed with client meetings I initially thought, I can’t do any business development today. But I took my own medicine and looked at my plan. This meant I found a few 5 min tasks that I squeezed into my jam packed day.
Prospect
Your prospect list is one of your most valuable tools in business development. Whether it’s a list of clients, subscribers, potential introducers, or referral sources, having clarity about whom you want to connect with is essential. This list allows you to concentrate your efforts on the people and opportunities most likely to lead to new business. In my experience those that get the most amount of bang for their networking buck are the ones who are strategic about who they spend time with.
I turned to my prospect list on the days I am really busy to help me identify who could use a quick ‘saw this and thought of you’ email.
Prioritise
Even with the best-laid plans, nothing will happen without effective prioritisation. There always does seem to be something more important than business development. Each day, ask yourself: "If I only have 30 minutes today, what should I focus on?" Target the tasks that will deliver the greatest results for the least effort. Often, sending a quick email to a qualified prospect or having an ad hoc call to a good client can have a greater impact than attending a large networking event.
Pace
There’s no need to overwhelm yourself by attempting to do everything at once. Pacing your business development efforts ensures you remain consistent without burning out. Spread your activities across the week or month, giving yourself time to focus on what really matters. I notice that when people are new to needing to do business development on top of their chargeable work they often start off too ambitious with what they think will get done. After all, if you are struggling to do 10 mins of business development each day, making time for 8 hours of business development a week is unlikely to happen. Little and often is much better than trying to do the big stuff and not managing it.
Push down
Lastly, delegate work where possible. If you’re handling too much technical work yourself, you won’t have time to focus on business development. Push down chargeable work to your team so you can prioritise activities that will drive your career forward. Where we are with our business is that in the spring time as the base business recovers from its current blip, my workload will need to go over to others again.
Here’s the last thing left to make sure business development really happens…
When you realise that it’s now or never, then suddenly it becomes much, much easier to do a little bit of business development each day. Therefore, I encourage you to put the numbers down on the page and see whether what is happening is going to sustain you and your business going forward. Or will you need to go back and get a proper job?
If you are anything like me the fear of needing a ‘proper’ job is enough to be focused on making sure business development happens…
Want to explore more about creating a business development habit? Then scroll down 👇🏼 for my substack and book recommendations on these topics.
Book recommendations
Heather Townsend: The Go-To Expert
Yes, that’s my book. But I still feel it’s one of the best books that helps technical experts learn to attract in the right kind of business without feeling like they need to go out and sell.
The Go-To Expert provides no-nonsense advice on managing your transition into a well-known and trusted name within your industry.
Discover:
Simple steps to build your profile
How to market and sell yourself with ease and confidence
Techniques to make your clients come to you
James Clear Atomic Habits
People think that when you want to change your life, you need to think big. But world-renowned habits expert James Clear has discovered another way. He knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions: doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early, or holding a single short phone call.
This is probably THE book to read to help you come up with small daily business development habits that will make a real difference to your business’s pipeline.
Substack recommendations
How to break bad habits is a short but succinct article from
. It gives some great guidance on some simple tricks that can help you go from ‘this is all new’ to ‘I will get this done’Stop worrying about missed habits is a great reminder by
to not get too hung up when you miss doing a habit. I’m a big fan of the ‘freezes’ that Duolingo gives me when I occasionally miss a day. I rarely do miss a day which is why I am almost there with a 2 year streak. When I lost a 3 year streak (very accidentally) with Headspace this was the trigger that caused me to break up with it.
Thanks for the mention :)
It's true that when we break ourselves from the worries of missed habits, only then do we allow ourselves to truly grow.