Real Relationships Real Revenue - Video Edition | Invest in Relationships to Build Your Business and Your Career

Business development can be hard. You've got to figure out a reason to persevere and keep adding value to your relationships, even when it feels like you're not making much progress. To discover your why, ask yourself the Five Whys? Go deeper into the core reasons you do what you do until you discover the truth. Start with the question: "Why is getting great at Business Development important to me...

When you're being sold to, you almost want to run away. You can tell the salesperson has only their best interests in mind, not yours. We are happy to buy when the reverse is true. When we're learning and we feel like the other person is helping us discover the option that's right for us, the experience is wonderful. When we buy something, we're important. We are being catered to and we're learnin...

Every expertise, no matter the field, is both learned and earned. You can become great at anything if you break it down into little pieces and practice each piece. You may not become world-class or be able to play in the NBA, but you can certainly become very good at that particular skill, and the key is deliberate practice. By breaking down the big skill into smaller micro-skills and deliberately...

Adam Grant did a study on salespeople and put them on a spectrum of introversion to extroversion. For most people they land right in the middle and end up being a mix of both introvert and extrovert, and most successful salespeople were exactly the same way. Ambiverts were the most successful at making sales, not extroverts like people assumed was the case. Full-on extroverts might actually have s...

Dr. K. Anders Ericsson spent over 30 years studying high-end expertise and discovered that every complex skill is both learned and earned. You can look at any expert and you would find decades of deliberate practice that got them to that level. No one is born with all the skills they need to be great at business development. Business development is a learnable skill that anyone can build on. If yo...

Mo asks Marty Fagan: If you could record a video about growth or Business Development, and send it back to your younger self, what would you say? First thing is to be authentic. If you truly are authentic, people can pick up on that. And if you're not authentic, they can pick up on that as well. If you're talking to someone and you don't think your solution is a good fit, don't sell it to them. Cl...

Mo asks Bill Ruprecht: If you could record a video around business development for your younger self, what would it say? You learn a lot more from failure than you do from success. Early on in Bill's career, he had developed a relationship with an art collector, but after the collector passed away the business went to other people because Bill didn't consider what would happen after that point or...

Mo asks Jonathan Reckford: You get to magically record a video and send it back to your younger self with some advice. What do you say? Jonathan spent most of his youth thinking about what he wanted to do instead of who he wanted to be. He would tell his younger self to focus on the 'who' before the 'what' first. If you never fail, it's likely you're not going big enough. Hope is built in the comm...

Mo asks Katrina Johnson: If you could tape a message to your younger self about business development, what would it say? It would simply be one thing: Learn to walk the dog. When someone walks a dog, we assume that the person is in control, but that's not always the case. Our brains work in a similar way. The dogwalker is the prefrontal cortex, and the dog is the limbic system that responds and de...

Mo asks Linda Klein: If you could record a video around business development and send it back to your younger self, what would it say? Business development is about passion. Life is about passion. Don't lose your passion for getting involved. Helping others is the most satisfying thing you can do. In so many ways it's easier to make a dollar than it is to make a difference, but you can do both at...

Mo asks Andrew Cogar: Tell us a business development story that you are particularly proud of. There was one project that stands out for Andrew, where he and the founder of his firm, Jim Strickland, had the chance to not only create an awesome property but also restore and support the local ecology as well. During the meeting, Jim and the client discovered they shared a mutual friendship and inste...

Mo asks Jane Allen: Tell us a business development story that you are really proud of. Jane tells the story from the early 2000's during a time when the people they were serving in corporate America were being overwhelmed by the explosion of data. One fateful dinner and "what if" scenario later, Jane started collaborating with a firm to solve real world problems with a solution that was unheard of...

Mo asks Sandy Lutton: What is a business development story that you are really proud of? One moment in particular stands out from Sandy's career in regards to business development. Part of her role at the Speaker's Bureau was to secure talent, and Sandy was working on securing a famous world leader. The twist in the story was that the first in-person meeting with the CEO didn't go well which made...

Mo asks Linda Klein: Tell us a business development story that you are particularly proud of. Many years ago Linda did a favor for an accountant without sending him a bill. Five years later, the accountant called mainly to thank her and ask if she could help a friend of his. The new client was entering a mature market with lots of competition, but after Linda helped him start and grow his business...

Mo asks Andrew Robertson: Tell me a business development story that you're particularly proud of. Andrew tells the story of a client in London that BBDO had been working with for 20 years and how they lost most of that client's work after delivering a terrible piece starring John Cleese. Instead of bailing on the client completely, Andrew and the team decided to stick with the unglamorous work tha...

Mo asks Bill Ruprecht: What is your favorite science, step, or strategy from the GrowBIG Training or the Snowball System? Bill began working with Mo because he believed a more disciplined approach to building relationships was critical to the continued growth of his organization. When you have 90 offices over 40 countries is an enormous task. Bill recalls a meeting with a number of executives at S...

Mo asks Angela Meyer: What is your favorite science, step, or story that you learned from GrowBIG Training or The Snowball System? Angela's favorite strategy is the Give to Get. Giving somebody value or knowledge they didn't have before is a great way to start off a relationship. If you continue to show interest in someone personally, and not just professionally, and provide them value that can he...

Mo asks John Tigh: What is your favorite science, step, or strategy from the GrowBIG Training or the Snowball System? John has been involved in the Snowball System for a long time and the Gravitas Model is a strategy that he uses every single day. It's the perfect framework for taking any conversation where you want to go. It has an incredible level of flexibility and imparts a character to your c...

Mo asks James Barclay: What is your favorite science, step, or story from the GrowBIG Training or the Snowball System? For James, the number one strategy is the Protemoi List. These are the people in your circle that are your partners, prospects, and the key people that could be your raving fans. Having a focused relationship list is an unbeatable edge. When you invest in a relationship, people wi...

Mo asks Maria Kelly: What is your favorite science, step, or story from the GrowBIG training or Snowball System? One of the most useful things Maria learned from the GrowBIG training was the seven pricing principles. Living in Switzerland, she grew up in a culture that didn't talk about money and she learned early on in her career that if she didn't talk about money, she didn't get the money. Many...

Mo asks Cannon Carr: What is your personal definition of business development? If you have a craft that you know and love and want to grow, you are naturally going to step into business development so you might as well do it right. For Cannon, business development is about connecting people and ideas. He thinks of it as purposeful engagement that connects those two things. Connecting people with i...

Mo asks Andrew Robertson: What is your personal definition of business development? Business development at its best is win/win/win. Your business wins, the client wins, and thirdly, the client is winning so much that they become your best business development ambassador. Raving fans turn into your own personal sales force. Focusing on the win for the client secures the win for the business. If yo...

Mo asks Mike Duffy: What is your personal definition of business development? Simply put, business development is helping others, connecting dots, and developing healthy and long lasting relationships. When you understand who your client is, whoever that happens to be in the moment, and add value for them, that's how you get stuff done. Where is the value chain and how are you adding value? It doe...

Mo asks Jane Allen: What is your personal definition of business development? Jane's definition is simply proactive problem solving. If you are trying to sell something, it should be something they need and may not know they need it. It's about showing them a problem they have as well as the solution. People don't like to be sold to, but they do like to buy. If you're struggling with being proacti...

Mo asks Jonathan Reckford: What's your personal definition of growth? Ultimately, it's all about impact, but in order to make an impact you need fuel. Creating complex partnerships is very aligned with good development practices, which is valuable for Jonathan because growth at Habitat for Humanity means having conversations around fundraising. When he made the mindset switch to solving someone's...