Some of us have developed some bad or lack of business development habits. Not naming any names. Don’t worry your secret is safe with me.
What are habits?
Habits are the small decisions you make and actions you perform every day. According to researchers, habits account for about 40-45% of our behaviors on any given day.
Your life today is essentially the sum of your habits. Your scale of how healthy or not healthy you are. A result of your habits. Your scale of how happy or unhappy you are? A result of your habits. Your scale of how successful or unsuccessful you are. A result of your habits.
Changing habits is a 3-step process –>trigger, action and benefit to make them stick.
Trigger: What is something to trigger that you need to focus on business development activities? It is as simple as putting it on your calendar, printing out your goals and putting them on your desk, account reviews with your manager, accountability pack with a teammate?
Something that triggers your need to work on your business development activities and not put it off.
Action: Then do it. Pick up the phone and call that prospect, email that referral partner, email the prospect, comment or engage with prospect on social, search LinkedIn for mutual connections, do some research on the prospect,
Benefit: Then reward yourself for it. You called or emails x# of people today from the goals that you set. You did it! Now, celebrate. Take a quick walk, step away from your desk, grab something to drink not that kind of drink, high five your coworker, text your accountability partner and let them know you did it.
As humans, we love routines. We are out of sorts when we are off our routine. Routines take the guess work out of our day. Find a way to make your business development efforts to become a habit. Don’t do random acts of business development. Figure out your numbers: how many emails/calls to land appointment, how many appointments land in proposals, how many proposals can I close and then repeat. Know your numbers.
It takes 21 days to make your new habit stick but that stat came from research done in 1960 by Maxwell Maltz. A 2009 study revealed that it is more likely 66 days to form a habit.
If you want a deeper dive into creating and breaking habits check out The Power of Habit. It is a great read on this topic and scary how programable we are.
What works best for you on making sure you are taking action on your business development activities?
