remember, a list is not a pipeline.
by martin bissett
business development on a budget
so you’ve done all the work to get yourself composed and prepared to go out and generate new opportunities, find new business and new clients. now what? how will you know who to contact for the first step?
answer: your pipeline.
more: be clear about your roi proposition | keep business development going during busy season | walk the commitment walk | two steps toward mastering selling | thirteen ways to show commitment | clients can’t grow without you | seven mistakes in winning new fees | how to develop your communication abilities | five questions for measuring partner potential | five ways to rally your firm to its culture | when would-be partners aren’t candidates | make your expertise a new-client magnet | don’t think of it as selling
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many partners think they have a pipeline, but they don’t. what they actually have is just a list of prospects they’ve
- met with,
- would like to meet with or
- have worked with in the past.
but very few have a measured, monitored pipeline that is
- prioritized,
- qualified and
- lets them know which prospects have the highest potential and what needs to happen in order to win them.
do you have a pipeline or just a list?
if you just have a list, you need to follow these steps to build your pipeline, because that is the foundation on which you will build your business development activities.
the list
this is simply a list of
- all the businesses you would ideally like to work with,
- businesses you are currently talking to about working with,
- all your former clients you may possibly be open to coming back,
- former prospects who didn’t go ahead but might be open to talking again now,
- inquiries that didn’t get to the meeting stage and finally
- your existing clients to whom you believe you can bring more value than you are currently providing to them.
this is your dream wish list, top 50, call it what you will. build this in collaboration with partners and senior managers to get as much input as possible.
action: schedule specific, non-interruptible time in your diary to open your pipeline by listing all existing clients, former prospects, former clients, ultimate dream clients, ex-inquiries, current prospects and referral opportunities. make sure all partners and senior managers are doing the same exercise.
grading prospects
there are many ways of grading prospects, but one of the simplest is through a five-point checklist:
- do you believe this opportunity would bring in the right kind of work, the work you want to handle?
- do you believe it would bring in the right kind of fee?
- do you believe it would bring in the right kind of relationship, the sort of people you want to work with?
- would it be in the right catchment area and geography for you to service it effectively?
- is it the right size of business, the type you have experience in successfully handling?
if you can answer “yes” to all these questions, then you have a grade a opportunity. if you miss just one, give that a b. three misses make a c, and so on.
you may have different ideas of what is important to you and your firm and you can add those to your checklist, but this is a useful starting point.
now you have prospects who have been categorized as a, b, c, d and beyond. put these down on a spreadsheet, and assign the grades in a column.
the next thing is to estimate what size fee each one might bring you. it’s not an exact science, of course, but it will give you a ballpark figure you can start with.
now you have your prospects graded, and you know which ones you need to start working with first.
business development tasks
- assign a grade and a conservative first-year fee to each business on your list. estimate what month you believe you could get a decision from that firm to engage you, and the next action required.
- sort your list by the opportunities in the pipeline that have the highest potential fee, the highest grade score and the shortest time to decision. those are your priority prospects. schedule next actions for them in your diary.
- schedule specific, non-interruptible time in your diary to grade and estimate fees from each business on your list.