Latest / What is Business Development? / Episode 130: "The Business Development Shift" with Doug Ott

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Episode 130: "The Business Development Shift" with Doug Ott · What is Business Development?

0:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Business Development Podcast, brought to you by
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Speaker 1: the Global Business Development Association, delivering the strategies and tactics
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Speaker 1: to boost your career and corporate growth.
0:20
Speaker 2: Hello BD pros, and welcome to the Global Business Development
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Speaker 2: Association podcast called What is Business Development? And today we
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Speaker 2: have a very special guest, Doug Aught. And Doug is
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Speaker 2: the author of this book called The Business Development Shift,
0:39
Speaker 2: How to Win clients through intellectual curiosity and Consistency. And
0:45
Speaker 2: let me ask you, folks, and you know, as business developers,
0:49
Speaker 2: life can be tough, and most professionals struggle with business
0:53
Speaker 2: development because they mistakenly believe it's solely about selling. It's not.
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Speaker 2: It's about discovery. And on top of that, most professionals
1:03
Speaker 2: are never taught how to develop business, let alone how
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Speaker 2: to do it in a way that feels natural, repeatable,
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Speaker 2: and authentic. And having that business development training is so critical.
1:19
Speaker 2: And that's the reason why I wrote the Business Development
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Speaker 2: Body of Knowledge. It's available on Amazon and when you
1:27
Speaker 2: read that book, you are then able to take the
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Speaker 2: Business Development Professional certification and you can get more information
1:35
Speaker 2: about that by going to the GBDA website at GBD
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Speaker 2: Association dot org. Now let's jump into Doug's book, and
1:46
Speaker 2: let me start off by telling you a little bit
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Speaker 2: about Doug. He has twenty five plus years coaching thousands
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Speaker 2: of professionals across professional services sectors like lawyers, consultants, accountants,
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Speaker 2: bdprofessionals and leaders to transform how they approach business development.
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Speaker 2: And in this book, Doug shares the mindset shifts and
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Speaker 2: real world strategies that transform business development from an intimidating
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Speaker 2: chore into a relationship driven habit. From overcoming fear and
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Speaker 2: building confidence to asking better questions to staying top of
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Speaker 2: mind with the right people, the business development Shift offers
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Speaker 2: a clear, practical path to long term growth without the
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Speaker 2: awkward pitch. Well, let me pitch this to you. Doug.
2:37
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show, and tell us a little bit
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Speaker 2: about how did you get into business development and why
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Speaker 2: did you write the book.
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Speaker 3: Thank you Toan it's a privilege to be on your show. Yeah,
2:48
Speaker 3: it's jeez. I got into business development over thirty years ago,
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Speaker 3: and I've always been intrigued by people in general and
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Speaker 3: what makes them tick in the behavioral habits and how
2:59
Speaker 3: to connect with that because it's difficult, I mean, sales,
3:02
Speaker 3: business development is always a challenging feat and I got
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Speaker 3: involved early on out of college in the tech world.
3:09
Speaker 3: I'm from California, Silicon Valley, selling technology products. And then
3:14
Speaker 3: I slowly shifted into the professional services world when I
3:18
Speaker 3: joined Deloitte and some other big firms, and I realized, Wow,
3:22
Speaker 3: building relationships with people who might not need your help
3:26
Speaker 3: today but eventually down the road, that's a difficult sell.
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Speaker 3: That is challenging. It's very nuanced, but I was very
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Speaker 3: intrigued by it. And I realized that you can't just
3:38
Speaker 3: go into these relationships trying to hard sell somebody or
3:41
Speaker 3: to pitch them a product like you're selling a car
3:44
Speaker 3: or a house. You're trying to build a relationship. So
3:47
Speaker 3: how do you do that? And I learned over the years,
3:49
Speaker 3: and believe me, I've learned from my mistakes. And when
3:53
Speaker 3: I started my own consulting and coaching practice about ten
3:56
Speaker 3: years ago, I studied a lot of the successful solopreneurs,
4:01
Speaker 3: the coaches and the consultants, and I realized that they
4:04
Speaker 3: all had published books and they're all well read. And
4:08
Speaker 3: I thought, you know what, I need to write a book.
4:10
Speaker 3: But it took me ten years to write it. I
4:12
Speaker 3: just didn't have the guts. I didn't think I was
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Speaker 3: a good writer. I started writing articles, and eventually I
4:17
Speaker 3: got good feedback from people reading my oracles saying you
4:20
Speaker 3: should write a book. Well, I've got two young kids,
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Speaker 3: and I just didn't have a lot of time or bandwidth.
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Speaker 3: But about a year or so ago, I finally put
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Speaker 3: pen to papers, so to speak, and put in the
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Speaker 3: time to write the book. And I'm so excited to
4:33
Speaker 3: have it out in the market. Just launched back in
4:35
Speaker 3: early March, and it's been great. I've been getting some
4:39
Speaker 3: excellent feedback from it, and I just really wanted to
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Speaker 3: reach the market, broader market, to show them what I've
4:44
Speaker 3: learned over my career and to passit information forward.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great. And folks, again we're talking about Doug's
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Speaker 2: new book called The Business Development Shift, How to Win
4:57
Speaker 2: clients through intellectual curiosity and Consistency, And I find it,
5:02
Speaker 2: you know, very curious your pathway. You took ten ten
5:06
Speaker 2: years to write the book, you know, I took at
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Speaker 2: least three years to write The Business Development Body of Knowledge.
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Speaker 2: You know. This podcast is partly for business developers who
5:16
Speaker 2: want to learn the latest and greatest tactics like from
5:19
Speaker 2: experts like you, Doug. I also consider it a cathartic
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Speaker 2: opportunity for authors who put so much effort into writing something,
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Speaker 2: and I feel your pain. I've been through it. I
5:34
Speaker 2: know how difficult it can be. And it's just such
5:37
Speaker 2: a wonderful celebration to bring authors like you, top minds
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Speaker 2: together and just share in the in the joy of
5:45
Speaker 2: what you've brought to the market. So thank you for
5:48
Speaker 2: everything that you've done, the whole ten years you put
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Speaker 2: into writing this. It's a masterful work of art. So
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Speaker 2: let's dive right into the key takeaways and tactics that
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Speaker 2: you would like to share with everybody today from the book.
6:02
Speaker 2: What would be tactic number one you would like to share?
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Speaker 3: Great question. Tactic number one is you don't need to
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Speaker 3: pitch people, all right. This is not about pitching your services,
6:13
Speaker 3: your practice, your firm. This is about leading the relationship
6:18
Speaker 3: with intellectual curiosity. And I always tell a lot of
6:22
Speaker 3: my clients who are introverts, you have a distinct advantage
6:25
Speaker 3: being an introvert because you don't have to talk about yourself.
6:27
Speaker 3: You'd rather have the spotlight be on the other person.
6:31
Speaker 3: That's a huge advantage. And so when you can lead
6:34
Speaker 3: with questions to really learn about what makes this person tick,
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Speaker 3: both professionally and personally, and make that connection and understand
6:42
Speaker 3: where their challenges lie and how they're running their business
6:45
Speaker 3: and how they're trying to solve their challenges of needs.
6:49
Speaker 3: Now you're starting to get some traction because I tell people,
6:53
Speaker 3: look at you could either position yourself as a salesperson
6:56
Speaker 3: on behalf of your business or a problem solver. Choose
7:00
Speaker 3: and if you want to choose a ladder, like any
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Speaker 3: good doctor, you have to ask good diagnostic questions first
7:07
Speaker 3: to be able to understand what their need is and
7:10
Speaker 3: how you could prescribe a treatment. And a lot of
7:15
Speaker 3: professionals they put the cart before the horse, they flip it.
7:18
Speaker 3: They go in talking about themselves and how smart they
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Speaker 3: are and all the problems that they know they can
7:24
Speaker 3: solve for the client. But the client's like, well what
7:27
Speaker 3: about me. You're not even ask any questions about what's
7:29
Speaker 3: really going on in my world. So if you can
7:33
Speaker 3: lead through that intellectual curiosity, then you can start to
7:37
Speaker 3: establish one understand the need, and then you start establishing
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Speaker 3: the trust.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that, and I like how you emphasize
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Speaker 2: for introverts that this can be a very successful profession
7:51
Speaker 2: for folks, and it may seem awkward at first. And
7:54
Speaker 2: the funny thing is the fellow author that spoken the
8:00
Speaker 2: previous podcast also emphasized that the you know, introverts can
8:08
Speaker 2: actually shine and outperform the extroverts in this field because
8:12
Speaker 2: their natural tendency is to not talk about themselves. I'm
8:16
Speaker 2: guilty of that. I'm an introvert despite my online podcast
8:19
Speaker 2: persona you know, one to one, I'm much more comfortable
8:24
Speaker 2: asking questions of somebody else and learning about them. So
8:29
Speaker 2: I really like how you emphasize that it's about asking
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Speaker 2: those thoughtful, empathetic questions to really understand their challenges and
8:38
Speaker 2: using the analogy of a physician. And we've also had
8:42
Speaker 2: previous podcast guest authors who have talked about the analogy
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Speaker 2: as well of like being a psychologist and or any
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Speaker 2: other physician, It's okay, well tell me what's the problem,
8:54
Speaker 2: and let's start diagnosing. Let's start walking through this and
8:58
Speaker 2: talking through the problems set And I think if anything
9:02
Speaker 2: like you said, it starts to establish that credibility and
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Speaker 2: that trust. And as a lot of the listeners know,
9:11
Speaker 2: I've repeated this many times, it's proven by neuroscience that
9:14
Speaker 2: trust consists of purpose, empathy, and truth, And so when
9:18
Speaker 2: you're having those kind of thoughtful engagements, you're really evoking
9:24
Speaker 2: the empathy and really trying to get to the truth
9:27
Speaker 2: and showing that you're aligned with their purpose. Hey, you're
9:29
Speaker 2: trying to get from point A to point B. Let
9:31
Speaker 2: me help you do that. Okay, let's figure out a
9:33
Speaker 2: plan when you're engaging like that, Doug, any special way
9:40
Speaker 2: that you like to ask questions or that you coach
9:42
Speaker 2: your clients on how they should engage and ask questions.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, you got to find the right balance. I work
9:50
Speaker 3: with a lot of people who, you know, they like
9:52
Speaker 3: to start talking about anything but business. At first, establish
9:56
Speaker 3: that report and that's fine, but you need to eventually
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Speaker 3: bridge it over to business because you're having a conversation
10:02
Speaker 3: with this perspective client with the goal to be able
10:05
Speaker 3: to help them either in the short term or long term.
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Speaker 3: So you've got to learn a little bit more about
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Speaker 3: their business and where there might be a potential fit.
10:14
Speaker 3: And so you could even just say, hey, tell me
10:16
Speaker 3: I don't like to use the word what keeps you
10:18
Speaker 3: up at night? I think that's overused, but just tell
10:20
Speaker 3: me what are some of the challenges see in the
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Speaker 3: marketplace right now, especially with the administration, everything that's going
10:26
Speaker 3: on around the world right now. What are some of
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Speaker 3: your specific challenges. How are you trying to address those challenges?
10:33
Speaker 3: When you work with a consulting firm or a law firm,
10:36
Speaker 3: what do you look for? What's important to you when
10:39
Speaker 3: working with a lawyer or consultant and asking just you
10:43
Speaker 3: ask open into questions because you never know what that's
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Speaker 3: going to open up in the conversation versus a closing
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Speaker 3: new questions, or do you work with this type of
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Speaker 3: firm or do you see this is a challenge that
10:54
Speaker 3: you know, if you have someone on the other side
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Speaker 3: who's also maybe an introvert, it doesn't talk much, you're
10:59
Speaker 3: not going to much of a conversation. So yeah, I
11:03
Speaker 3: just and I put together a list of questions that
11:05
Speaker 3: people can ask and also eventually some people just like
11:09
Speaker 3: to talk shop well, eventually got to know what makes
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Speaker 3: the tick on a person level. So my favorite question
11:14
Speaker 3: asks is what did you enjoy doing outside of work?
11:17
Speaker 3: And then you might understand that hey, they have they're
11:20
Speaker 3: like minded. They like to enjoy doing things that you
11:22
Speaker 3: enjoy doing. So the next thing you know it. Maybe
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Speaker 3: the next business development meeting you have with that person
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Speaker 3: is not in a white tablecloth restaurant that we get
11:30
Speaker 3: tired of going to, but it could be in a
11:32
Speaker 3: hike or a bike ride or a dog walk. You
11:34
Speaker 3: never know. So you want to keep it real. You
11:37
Speaker 3: want to keep it you know, you're in the people business,
11:40
Speaker 3: and you want to find ways to connect with people
11:42
Speaker 3: on a human level. And people can just wrap their
11:48
Speaker 3: arms around that. That takes the pressure off.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely does. It definitely does. And I'm sure
11:53
Speaker 2: you read a lot of those nineteen nineties books when
11:56
Speaker 2: I was starting to get into business development. It's all
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Speaker 2: about building rapport and being their buddy and being their friend.
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Speaker 2: And that's not it. You know, people don't need another buddy.
12:04
Speaker 2: What they need is a battle buddy. All right, I'm
12:07
Speaker 2: taking hits here, help me out, Okay, cover my back,
12:10
Speaker 2: and let's get through this together. And I love your
12:13
Speaker 2: approach and I love how you say you know different
12:16
Speaker 2: methods for different folks. If you're going in position you're
12:19
Speaker 2: an extrovert and you want to learn about them in
12:20
Speaker 2: their personal life, that's great. That works for you, but
12:24
Speaker 2: you also have to be aware of how they are
12:26
Speaker 2: as an individual, and how they like to operate. So
12:30
Speaker 2: great advice. I love how you say starting right out
12:32
Speaker 2: of the gate is really going in with a curiosity mindset. Okay,
12:39
Speaker 2: let's jump right into key takeaway number two from the book.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a few words that I use my program
12:46
Speaker 3: with my clients, and that is you got to be
12:48
Speaker 3: patient and you gotta be resilient. And so let's talk
12:52
Speaker 3: about the first one. Patients. He had to understand that
12:55
Speaker 3: businit development is a long term play for the most part.
12:58
Speaker 3: Excuse me, it doesn't happen over night. And for anybody
13:02
Speaker 3: with an ego, for a hard charging professional, you typically
13:07
Speaker 3: want to see results right away. Well, if you're learning
13:10
Speaker 3: a foreign language, you're not going to be fluent in
13:12
Speaker 3: two or three months unless you're just a freak with
13:15
Speaker 3: the languages. It takes time. It takes time and practice,
13:18
Speaker 3: and you need to be able to stay the course
13:21
Speaker 3: and realize that results might not come right away. But
13:24
Speaker 3: if you stick with it and don't give up on it,
13:27
Speaker 3: eventually you start to turn the corner. I tell people
13:31
Speaker 3: sometimes I've been courting clients for three or four years
13:33
Speaker 3: until they finally gave me a piece of work. You
13:36
Speaker 3: never know, but you want to be in the right
13:37
Speaker 3: place at the right time as well. And resilience is
13:40
Speaker 3: a big one that plays into the whole mindset shift,
13:44
Speaker 3: and that is, don't take it personally. If you understand
13:48
Speaker 3: the rules of business development, it's no different than let's
13:51
Speaker 3: say baseball baseball. If you're a three hundred batting average slugger,
13:55
Speaker 3: you're an all star slugger, which means you're getting out
13:57
Speaker 3: seventy percent of the time. And so baseball players understand
14:02
Speaker 3: those rules, and so they might strike out three times
14:04
Speaker 3: in a game, but they don't hesitate on that fourth
14:07
Speaker 3: a back because they might have the game winning hit.
14:10
Speaker 3: And with business development, what happens to a lot of
14:12
Speaker 3: professionals if they hit failure or they hit barriers at
14:16
Speaker 3: the beginning, that it's easy just to give up and
14:19
Speaker 3: move on to the next prospect. And if you realize, hey,
14:23
Speaker 3: time is not right, it's okay. I'm not going to
14:25
Speaker 3: let those negative thoughts get into my mind. Just keep
14:28
Speaker 3: your course with that particular relationship. Eventually they'll turn the corner.
14:33
Speaker 3: It's tough, and those mental hurdles of things I address
14:37
Speaker 3: in my clients all the time. How do you get
14:38
Speaker 3: over your own individual mental hurdles.
14:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
14:42
Speaker 3: Yeah.
14:43
Speaker 2: It is a thinking person's game and it demands persistence, resiliency,
14:51
Speaker 2: and you know, also being empathetic. I think, you know again,
14:56
Speaker 2: it goes back to this whole empathy thing if you
14:58
Speaker 2: understand that. Look, they're not in the market right now.
15:01
Speaker 2: They like you, they like what you offer. It's just
15:04
Speaker 2: they don't have the budget, they don't have the authority,
15:07
Speaker 2: whatever the case may be. All right, it's nothing personal.
15:10
Speaker 2: It is literally just business, okay. And you know, I
15:15
Speaker 2: always use the analogy we're like lifeguards. Okay, don't try
15:18
Speaker 2: and run around the beach. They trying to save people
15:20
Speaker 2: who are having a nice picnic, you know, in the sand.
15:23
Speaker 2: Keep your eyes out in the water and go after
15:26
Speaker 2: those people that are in distress. That is our job.
15:28
Speaker 2: We're going to go out there and provide support to
15:31
Speaker 2: those people. And I always say, look, we're lifeguards, we're
15:34
Speaker 2: not the cops. Okay, I can't force you to come
15:36
Speaker 2: with me, all right, take the buoy or don't take
15:39
Speaker 2: the buoy. You know, you can come with me. I'll
15:41
Speaker 2: take you to shore and we'll be safe. It's entirely
15:43
Speaker 2: up to you, you know, so I really like that
15:47
Speaker 2: that mindset, and that's of course what you talk about
15:49
Speaker 2: in your book too, is kind of this mindset shift too.
15:52
Speaker 2: It's it's not personal. Your job is to give, and
15:56
Speaker 2: some people are ready to take, and some people may
15:59
Speaker 2: never be ready to take, and that's okay, okay.
16:03
Speaker 3: And to remember that if you get ghosted in an email,
16:07
Speaker 3: or if someone says thanks but no thanks, that typically
16:10
Speaker 3: does not mean never. It just means not right now,
16:14
Speaker 3: and so that could change in six months. So don't
16:17
Speaker 3: give up on those people, because if you're chasing opportunities,
16:21
Speaker 3: it's one thing. If you're building long term relationships, it's
16:23
Speaker 3: another thing where if you're building a long term relationship,
16:26
Speaker 3: you might lose out on an opportunity doesn't mean you
16:28
Speaker 3: might not get the next one.
16:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I love that, Doug. You know, don't take
16:34
Speaker 2: it personally. If they don't reply right back, or if
16:37
Speaker 2: they don't reply even after the second, they're busy, probably okay,
16:42
Speaker 2: you've had good conversations with them before, don't take you know,
16:44
Speaker 2: one tactic I like is I always like to give
16:47
Speaker 2: them a trigger event. I plant the seed of a
16:49
Speaker 2: trigger event, and I tell them if you ever get
16:52
Speaker 2: to this point and you're having this pain point, call me.
16:57
Speaker 2: I use that in my practice that I had for
17:00
Speaker 2: about seven years, and I would tell them, look, when
17:04
Speaker 2: you need help to write a proposal and you don't
17:08
Speaker 2: have enough people to do it, call me. And that's
17:11
Speaker 2: exactly when they would call me. They would say, Hey, Tony,
17:14
Speaker 2: we don't have enough people. We need your help. Now
17:17
Speaker 2: can you come in? And you know, and it worked
17:19
Speaker 2: out great. So that's just a good example of what
17:23
Speaker 2: you're advising people to focus on here that be resilient,
17:28
Speaker 2: be persistent, and eventually it pays. Okay, let's jump into
17:33
Speaker 2: the final t key takeaway from the book.
17:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the tail end of my book, which is
17:40
Speaker 3: be consistent. So many times people think, Okay, I'm want
17:45
Speaker 3: to charge out, I got some time this month, I'm
17:47
Speaker 3: want to do a load up BD and they do
17:49
Speaker 3: really well for a week or two, and then they
17:52
Speaker 3: get busy and they push business development to the side,
17:55
Speaker 3: and then next thing, you know what, the pipeline drives
17:57
Speaker 3: up and they and when they come back up for
18:00
Speaker 3: they realize, Okay, now I gotta scramble do business development again.
18:04
Speaker 3: And my whole philosophy is stay consistent and don't try
18:09
Speaker 3: to block off big times of BD. Oh, I'll block
18:13
Speaker 3: off two hours on a Friday or an hour over
18:15
Speaker 3: the lunch hour, because those always get pushed out due
18:18
Speaker 3: to client emergencies and everything else. But if you consistently
18:22
Speaker 3: stay with it where you dedicate maybe five or ten
18:25
Speaker 3: minutes of your day, ideally every day or even every
18:29
Speaker 3: other day before you dive into the inbox, because that's
18:32
Speaker 3: a Pandora's box and next thing you know, it's four
18:34
Speaker 3: o'clock afternoon and where your day go. Right, But if
18:37
Speaker 3: you can just carve out five or ten minutes, maybe
18:40
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes, spend some time on LinkedIn, reach out to
18:43
Speaker 3: a couple of people, and you do that and you
18:45
Speaker 3: create that behavioral habit that will compound over time. Classic example,
18:50
Speaker 3: I had a person I was coaching a few years back,
18:53
Speaker 3: and he took that to heart and he dedicated ten
18:56
Speaker 3: or fifteen minutes every morning before his day really got
18:58
Speaker 3: started to business develo. And he was a litigator for
19:03
Speaker 3: a mid sized law firm in San Francisco who was
19:06
Speaker 3: a great lawyer. People loved him, but he couldn't he
19:08
Speaker 3: couldn't bring any work. When he took that to heart,
19:11
Speaker 3: over the next three years, he now only became the
19:14
Speaker 3: top revenue generator of the firm, but became the chairman
19:17
Speaker 3: of the litigation practice through that one behavioral habit change.
19:21
Speaker 3: And so that's the thing I tell people all the time.
19:24
Speaker 3: Don't make a big deal out of this. Just do
19:26
Speaker 3: little pieces at a time and it'll start paying off
19:29
Speaker 3: over over the next few years at least.
19:31
Speaker 2: So, yeah, consistency is the key to success, as they say.
19:35
Speaker 2: And it's just like working out. Yeah, if you only
19:37
Speaker 2: work out once a week or once a month, hang
19:41
Speaker 2: it up. You know, it's not going to pay. You'll
19:44
Speaker 2: probably just you'll hurt yourself probably, right. And it's the
19:48
Speaker 2: same thing here in business development, right, I mean, if
19:50
Speaker 2: you do it once a month or you might you
19:53
Speaker 2: might hurt your brand, you might hurt your reputation because
19:55
Speaker 2: you're just out of practice and you're coming across as
19:58
Speaker 2: a as a buffore, you know. But getting those reps
20:03
Speaker 2: and sets in dialing it in every day. I like
20:06
Speaker 2: how you say, you know, make it bite size. It's
20:08
Speaker 2: only fifteen minutes, particularly for these professionals, the lawyers, the
20:12
Speaker 2: accountants and whatnot. Look, this isn't your full time job.
20:15
Speaker 2: So just dialing it in fifteen minutes a day, and
20:19
Speaker 2: in those fifteen minutes, assuming five days a week, what
20:23
Speaker 2: would you say if they were going to if they
20:25
Speaker 2: only had one thing to do during those fifteen minutes
20:29
Speaker 2: every day, what would be the top priority thing? Because
20:31
Speaker 2: there's a lot they could do, right you mentioned connecting
20:34
Speaker 2: with folks on LinkedIn, probably publishing articles or a post,
20:38
Speaker 2: or you know, reaching out and doing a phone call
20:42
Speaker 2: or scheduling a lunch. What would be the top thing?
20:46
Speaker 2: That is the eighty twenty rule. You do this and
20:50
Speaker 2: it'll generate eighty percent of your results. What would it be, Doug?
20:53
Speaker 3: It would be a quick outreach to contact and it
20:56
Speaker 3: doesn't I mentioned that there's two different types of touch points.
20:59
Speaker 3: There's a touch point saying hey, I'm thinking of you,
21:01
Speaker 3: congratulations your promotion, congratulations on your move, have a wonderful
21:06
Speaker 3: breakover the holidays. Look for those organic reasons for those
21:10
Speaker 3: quick touch points. Think of you staying in the person's radar,
21:14
Speaker 3: and then you can mix it in with the more
21:15
Speaker 3: meaningful touch points like hey Tony, it's been six months,
21:18
Speaker 3: let's catch up over a coffee. So you can blend
21:21
Speaker 3: those and that's the number one that's the most important
21:24
Speaker 3: staying visible with your network because I always tell people
21:27
Speaker 3: it's not always the best lawyer who can are consulting
21:30
Speaker 3: who gets the work. It's the one who's best at
21:32
Speaker 3: staying top of mind. And that's that's how it plays out.
21:37
Speaker 3: And then of course, if you can spend time, you know,
21:39
Speaker 3: on LinkedIn while on social media updating your I call
21:43
Speaker 3: it a relationship trackup. By staying organized, making sure that
21:46
Speaker 3: those important relationships don't slip through the cracks. That's really
21:50
Speaker 3: the combination you really want to focus on. And it
21:52
Speaker 3: doesn't need to take a lot of time because I
21:53
Speaker 3: tell people, how long does it take to reach out
21:55
Speaker 3: to somebody email? If you don't overthink the email, it
21:57
Speaker 3: should take only a few minutes.
22:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I like this. I like the consistency
22:05
Speaker 2: of the touch points. And that's kind of the Pareto principle.
22:09
Speaker 2: Do that fifteen minutes a day and that should generate
22:13
Speaker 2: eighty percent of your results. Yeah, you should do the
22:16
Speaker 2: other things, but really prioritize those touch points, those valuable
22:21
Speaker 2: touch points. Based on those top three topics that we
22:25
Speaker 2: talked about today, right, so the key takeaway Number one
22:28
Speaker 2: we talked about was having that intellectual curiosity from a
22:32
Speaker 2: position of empathy. What can we do to provide value
22:36
Speaker 2: to the relationship, help them succeed in their purpose, in
22:38
Speaker 2: their business, and help them grow. Maybe it's what you're
22:41
Speaker 2: working on, maybe it's your specialty, maybe it's not. Maybe
22:43
Speaker 2: you just give them a referral to somebody who can
22:45
Speaker 2: help them. But at the end of the day, it's
22:47
Speaker 2: all from a position and givning. And then the second
22:49
Speaker 2: key takeaway was persistence pays. Being persistent. Don't take it personally,
22:55
Speaker 2: having that resilience, just to keep going at it, keep
22:58
Speaker 2: delivering value, coming from a position of giving, just like
23:03
Speaker 2: a physician would. Okay, you're just operating from the standpoint
23:07
Speaker 2: of let's get you healed, let's get you taken care of.
23:11
Speaker 2: And the final key piece here is that consistency is
23:15
Speaker 2: the key to success, and it's each day implementing these
23:19
Speaker 2: top three things right. It's like going to the gym
23:22
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes a day, asking those questions, engaging on those
23:27
Speaker 2: touch points, being persistent every few months, every month, a month,
23:31
Speaker 2: whatever works out best for you so you don't wear
23:33
Speaker 2: them out. And then you know, just just doing it,
23:37
Speaker 2: getting those reps and sets in, as they say in
23:40
Speaker 2: the gym world. Well, Doug, it's been great talking to
23:44
Speaker 2: you about your book. Again, folks. The name of the
23:47
Speaker 2: book is The Business Development Shift, How to Win Clients
23:52
Speaker 2: through Intellectual Curiosity and Consistency by Doug Ott. It's available
23:57
Speaker 2: on Amazon. Doug. How can folks connect with you and
24:01
Speaker 2: follow you and engage with your work?
24:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have a website. It's www dot Doug Artconsulting
24:08
Speaker 3: dot com. I have a link there for the book
24:11
Speaker 3: that can order it either through that link or through
24:13
Speaker 3: Amazon dot com. Doug at Doug Dotconsulting dot com is
24:17
Speaker 3: my email. We'd love to chat with people if they
24:19
Speaker 3: have any questions, and I encourage people to get the book.
24:22
Speaker 3: It's it's it's an easy read. It's full of rich
24:26
Speaker 3: content and wonderful stories of my adventures in my career
24:31
Speaker 3: and lessons learned. So yeah, it's been fun to get
24:36
Speaker 3: that book out there, and I really appreciate you having
24:38
Speaker 3: me on Tony.
24:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, Doug, it's been fun talking to you about
24:41
Speaker 2: your great book, and thank you for everything that you
24:44
Speaker 2: do for promoting the art, science and ethics of business development.
24:48
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us on the show today.
24:50
Speaker 3: Excellent, my pleasure.
24:54
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25:03
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