The Purpose Companies invest in the growth of their pipeline and revenue by creating large budgets for marketing initiatives and events, with a large portion of that spend oftentimes allocated towards trade shows – whether exhibiting or attending. Trade shows are widely considered one of the most useful channels to meet new business partners and clients, regardless of industry. These post-pandemic times have seen trade shows make a dramatic return, with companies increasing their budgets for such events to ensure the brand makes a memorable impression on their target audience. The Problem With ..read more

Strategic decision-making is not a talent or inherent skill. It’s a process that requires practice, expertise, and the participation of stakeholders. But how do we begin to address strategy when the world we do business in is chaotic and unpredictable? It’s critical that our decision-making accounts for these outside forces as well as the diverse expertise of subject matter experts. The SWOT analysis is one tool that addresses all these moving parts. It allows us to brainstorm the internal and external forces affecting our business and points us towards a relevant strategy for success. In shor ..read more

There is an art to making the sale and closing deals. It’s part psychology, part problem-solving, and a ton of active listening skills. There are a few key things you can master that will help you close more deals and have more effective meetings. Establishing a good meeting process Understanding your prospect’s pain points (and how your offering solves them) Listening for buying signals and being able to react Appropriate follow-up We could write an essay on each point and how exactly to execute, but let’s cover the basics for now. Establishing a Good Meeting Process Having a good meeting f ..read more

It’s a problem plaguing companies all around the world: how to write a compelling brand story. There are articles upon articles about it, giving the same tips on how to make a story better, but they don’t really go into why they are making the suggestions they are. That’s where we come in. Let’s explore in Part 2 in our Deconstructing Storytelling series. Why do so many stories feel empty and bland? Have you ever read a story and felt like it was going nowhere? Have you ever finished a book and thought, “Wow, that was so boring, what a waste of my time”? Have you ever wondered w ..read more

Storytelling is one of the hottest business topics today, next to “data-driven decision making” and “machine learning.” The advice you find is pretty standard and there’s nothing wrong with “make it personal” and “make it emotionally compelling” – in fact, those are key aspects of effective storytelling. But as you look around blogs and LinkedIn, reading emotionally compelling brand story after emotionally compelling brand story, it starts to get a bit stale. There’s a formula being used, and you can tell. It feels as if everyone went to some sort of story generator online, popp ..read more

How Do You Get the Most Out of Trade Shows? It’s a question we get asked quite frequently – why go to trade shows? Some of the companies we work with find a lot of success, but many of them struggle. So how do you get the most out of trade shows? Create a plan that incorporates what you will do before the trade show, during the trade show, and after the trade show. Many people jump in unprepared, and it costs them money and time, leaving them thinking trade shows are a waste of time. Here is a pretty straightforward formula that we follow that yields results every time. 1) Pick the Right Trade ..read more

It’s one day closer to spring and we are ready for the warmer weather! So let’s wrap up February and look forward to what’s coming. The Past We’ve sent 17 eblasts – 4 for us, 13 for our clients. We’ve accompanied a client to a tradeshow and worked the floor to gather prospects for us to follow up on – we gathered 30 solid, qualified leads in 1.5 days for our client – 100% of which will be logged in a CRM, tracked, and followed-up on regularly. We’ve posted 2 blogs, both on cracking the code to business development. We’ve announced our Q1 webinar – Crack the Code on Business Development – and ..read more

In the last blog we did, we talked about the importance of programming your business development and how process and collaboration between teams is key. If you don’t want to read the entire blog again, here’s a quick recap. A Review of the Past We’re going into this with our basic premise being that when we’re coding our business development program, there are three basic parts that make it run. Part One: Operations Operations makes up the base code of this program. Our base code tells the program what to do and when to do it. It provides the basic tools needed for peak performance. Part Two ..read more

Cracking the Code Have you figured out how to crack the code on business development? Have you aligned your sales, marketing, and operations to work with each other seamlessly? Is your process scalable? Easier said than done, right? What we’ve learned at BDPros through over a decade of experience in process-based sales, marketing, and operations is that you can’t separate the three when it comes to B2B business development. We’ve tried the siloed approach, and it does okay – until it doesn’t. Getting the entire team – marketing, sales, and operations – to come together can be like herding cats ..read more

So you’ve put together your sales plan in December or January – time to get selling, right? Gotta hit those KPIs! But how often do you consult that sales plan? When do you reflect and review? When do you make edits? We set our goals and do our best, and hopefully – if we’re good at what we do and we’re lucky – we hit those targets easily and don’t look back. We put that sales plan in a drawer and never think about it again. But you should be thinking about it again. You should have it out and open in front of you, and you should review your progress against it regularly. Your sales plan should ..read more