John Tyreman 0:19

Welcome back business developers to another episode of Breaking Biz Dev. If you want to learn how to win new business for your practice or professional services firm, you are in the right place. I'm John, he's Mark, and you're listening to a deep dive into part one of Mark's framework for business development. We're going to dive deep into creation. Mark, how are you doing today? I'm well, this is,

Mark Wainwright 0:47

this is a good part one of a three part series. We're going to dig into this whole idea of why individuals, why experts in professional services from should embrace this whole concept of creating new opportunities, which then leads to this big bigger picture, John, which is creating the firm and creating the future. that, that they want and they love. So, this is a fun one.

John Tyreman 1:15

before we get started. I just want to remind our listeners that if you are enjoying the podcast content that Mark and I are putting out, please leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts. It really helps. Mark, I, I, before we hopped on this recording, I was scrolling my Twitter feed and I saw this quote and I thought that this was a really, a really great one to kind of kick this episode off with. and this quote is from Peter Drucker and this says, the best way to predict the future is to create it. I love

Mark Wainwright 1:46

that. I, I can't believe you, came up with that. I think it's, it's, it's powerful. And it's, it's exactly the sentiment that we want to share, and impress upon people in this episode. I think all too often, it's easy to kind of default to, ah, we're just going to do the work that we get and we're just going to, you know, we're Work on what, what's, what's handed to us, but yeah, that's such a powerful thing. And that, you know, that's the big picture, right? Is that, you know, if we want to be who we want to be in the future, you know, even as an individual practitioner or, you know, your firm in general, you know, you have to start actually making it, you know, you have to start creating it. Yeah.

John Tyreman 2:25

Well, so instead of reacting to or responding to requests for proposals, which is how many professional services firms win new business. How do you suppose that firms should create their own opportunities? Well,

Mark Wainwright 2:42

there's a how and there's a why to this. And, Cause you know, we're, we're big fans of Simon Sinek. We like to start with why. so, so the big why part here is that, it, it empowers us to control and direct our own future work, right? There's this whole empowerment thing, right? If we create opportunities with potential clients early enough, it lets us start from the very beginning. Beginning from nothing, from zero, right? Where we start developing relationships with them. We start understanding their very sort of baseline needs, and we build this whole thing together. We don't, you know, come alongside some organization who, you know, has self diagnosed some really complex problem and believe that they just need a vendor to come in and not help them with it. We started from nothing and we helped them develop the need, the potential solutions, the process, that they need to go through in order to achieve what they want to achieve, you know, from a, from a practical business standpoint, Creating our new, our own new opportunities helps us develop a more predictable flow of new business and revenue. Right? So we're more proactive to it. We are not immune to the big sort of macroeconomic sort of ups and downs, but we're able to recognize those and, minimize and mitigate those big up and ups and downs because we're being more, more proactive. And one of the ones I love to highlight is, Individuals that create their new, their own new opportunities often find that more fulfilling, right? And motivating, right? If they started from zero with a particular client and lo and behold, they've won that work and they're, they're working on it together. That is such a, fulfilling, feeling to know that we started from nothing. We've been along this journey together, and now we're delivering on this vision of success that we have of the future. And it's, and I did this, you know, I helped create it. So that's super powerful.

John Tyreman 4:37

another benefit of creating your own opportunities. Is that it can be more profitable too, right? So if you're, if it's not a competitive situation or maybe it's less of a competitive situation, you know, there's, there's less pressure to drive down your price and you can, you can be more profitable on these engagements. Agreed. You

Mark Wainwright 4:58

know, what's happening there on the financial end of things is, as you are. designing and creating this whole thing. Hopefully you're, doing in a way that, that aligns really well with your experience and your expertise. So it's something that you can deliver, with a sense of, confidence, helping the client meet their needs, but also. You know, not, operating outside of your comfort zone or outside of your area of expertise where you're having to throw endless hours at a problem that you're not really clear about. So hopefully the design part, this whole creation thing is happening in a way that lets you bring your very best self. To the work so that everybody's excited. You can be profitable and you help them help clients achieve what they want to achieve.

John Tyreman 5:43

So it seems like these are all kind of really great benefits of creating your own opportunities. Why don't folks do this more often?

Mark Wainwright 5:50

Oh, that's the golden question. it's such so infuriating, but you know, it's, some of these are, are understandable. I, you know, I could see how, how folks would, would look at a situation. Like this and you know what I'm talking about is it's so easy to focus on, what's what's sitting in front of us today are sort of realities of today without thinking about tomorrow. Right? So we just got caught up in, you know, everything that's going on in our world. The work we have to deliver today, particularly for people who are those doer sellers, Engineers, consultants, architects inside of their professional services, firms who have a responsibility to deliver on these contracts that they've got in place. They think, Oh, that's job one. You know, we have to, we have to focus on that work we've got in a contract you do, but you also need to have, one eye on the future. The other thing about creation is that it can sometimes be kind of speculative and there's a lot of question marks. And you know, we'll touch on this whole iceberg analogy, you know, that we've referenced in the, in the past, but you know, a lot of that stuff, a lot of that, that sort of, a lot of organizations who are not in an active buying situation that sit below the water line or. You know, that's speculative, right? And it requires sort of some proactivity. It requires some additional energy. Speaking of energy, having new conversations with new people, when you're trying to create opportunities, it can be hard, it can be uncomfortable, you know, and that it requires that we, you know, kind of get that, get that energy and that motivation that we need in order to have those, have those conversations. I think being, being proactive and creating new opportunities requires a narrow focus, requires a narrow sort of sense of expertise, because we just can't be everything to everybody. And, and that might sound a little bit counterintuitive, but if we are seeking to create new opportunities with specific clients and we'd go to them and say, Hey, This is us. We can do everything. And they say, Oh, okay, great. Get in line. There's 10 other firms that knocked on our door yesterday that said they can do everything for us. Cause they're a full service firm or, you know, whatever that means. conversely if you're creating new opportunities with, these great prospective clients and you come in and you say, Hey, I know you've got a lot of stuff that you need to do. We think we can help you with this one specific thing because we are, experts. In this area. That's the one thing, you know, we do this one thing and we do it really well. And frankly, I think we do it better than anybody else. And they say, Ooh, you know what? That this feels like maybe a not now, but I think pretty soon we're going to need that one thing. So you are at the top of the list. Of all the firms that we're going to call because yeah, you guys are the experts on that, right? So that's the difference there everything to everybody or a focused expert and John you and I have talked about specialization and focus in the past as have many others and I think the one other part of this whole creation thing is that That it asks us to lean On, individuals, organizations, contacts, people we know, and, you know, we're talking about things like referrals and other stuff like that. So it asks us to lean on our professional network to leverage our professional network and ask people for their help, right? And some people are just uncomfortable with that. everybody is willing to help other people. Generally speaking. the only thing that's missing is that they're never asked, right? I think we often fail to ask other people for their assistance. And, part of this whole creation thing is that if you have a good network, you need to leverage it and leveraging your network means turning to people, and. presenting them an opportunity to help you. So there's a bunch of reasons often why we don't do it. It's uncomfortable. We're focused on today. it can be kind of speculative. so there's some very reasonable reasons why we don't do this, but I'll tell you, I think the, the reasons that we should do it far outweigh them.

John Tyreman 9:47

So you, you mentioned the iceberg, which is, something that we've referenced recently on an episode, how revenue projections can enable great marketing. and so let's, uh, just kind of like lay out the iceberg and what, what do you mean by the iceberg?

Mark Wainwright 10:03

this is something that again and again, when I've spoken to individuals and organizations about, they say, Ooh, tell me more about that because it's completely off most people's radar. this is, this is, not a new concept, but this is new to many people. and so the iceberg is, there's, there's three parts that I break it up into. I think others will break it up into three parts as well. the analogy of the iceberg is that a small percentage of the iceberg is, is seen above the waterline and the rest of it, the vast majority of it, you know, upwards of 90 percent or more is below the waterline. waterline, right? So that's the visual on this whole thing. and the, the, the small bit of the iceberg that's above the waterline, in a sort of sales situation, buying selling situation are the, the prospective clients who are actively buying, they are out there looking for help, right? They've identified something either they've identified it or diagnosed it internally, or they've had some extra internal assistance, to, to help diagnose that. They're in an active buying process. They're out there. They've got that sort of request for proposals and other things like that. So, all right, this is very typical to that sort of, you know, RFP solicitation process. The challenge with this whole situation, the challenge with these types of buyers is that they've, like I said, they've diagnosed or self diagnosed either right or wrong, what their problem is and what it's going to take to help them. Fix it. And so they know what they want. You're

John Tyreman 11:28

late to the

Mark Wainwright 11:28

party. You've got to play catch up. Yeah. You're late to the party. not to stack analogies here, but the, the, the other analogy I use with that whole situation is, if you're coming into a buying selling situation, late, where there's already been a diagnosis and there's a solicitation out there and, you know, the train is already flying down the tracks and you're just trying to run to catch up with it. And I guarantee you, there are other. Consultants out there who are your competitors who are either already on the train, or who, you know, have been able to anticipate it a lot more than you have. so the, the, the challenge is, like I said, is, you know, they've self diagnosed, so they know what they need. That's a problem because they can be looking at you as a vendor. And others as a, as a vendor, right? They just need, they need, they need a car mechanic to come in and kind of fix the thing that's broken. So they are highly cost and scope sensitive, right? And your ability to create. Is, you know, dramatically less, you know, the whole creation process would be an exploration and understanding a discovery, you know, kind of really digging into the root causes of, you know, what ails them. and they don't want to do any of that. They're like, Nope, no, no. Here we've written all down on these 20 pages here. You just have to read through and tell us how much it's going to cost to fix it.

John Tyreman 12:41

So that's the actively buying. So that's the tip of the iceberg that you can see the tip of the

Mark Wainwright 12:46

iceberg. Yeah. 3%, 5%, whatever else, something like that. So. In reference to this whole creation concept, let's, let's look below the waterline, right? Let's look at that 90 percent or so below the waterline. There's two groups that, that are below the waterline. There are people who are passively buying. Maybe they don't have that That active solicitation in place, but they know that there's a, there's a problem, or a need inside their organization. It's just not fully developed yet, right? They don't, they don't understand the, the, the bound, the bounds of it. They don't know how big or small it is. They don't know how much it would cost to, to, to address it. all those things. So there there's, that stage is called passively buying. Right. So they're not actively, but they're, they, they, they have a need. So the advantage of that is, is, of that scenario is that they have undefined problems and needs. So you can help them further define them. They are exploring options out there. They're. They're, doing their research, but they haven't really prioritized anything they've come across. They haven't figured out which, which things are most important to them, which things are least important to them. So a huge opportunity for you to create and develop all that with them. And I would say that that the size of that group is, you know, roughly half of the, the iceberg that's under, under the water, maybe a little bit less, but it's, you know, in that kind of ballpark of maybe it's half of that. And then the third group that we put underneath the, the waterline is the status quo group and the status quo group are not actively buying, they maybe haven't recognized any issues internally in their organization, maybe they haven't started developing a need at all. They're, they're thinking, yeah, we're good. We're fine. issues may exist in their organization, but they, but they haven't recognized them. and they're not really expecting to have any conversations. About, the needs about how they might be resolved, whatever else. So you would think that that group is the most resistant to, hiring you as a consultant or an expert. but this is, this is the group. This is a scenario where you're able to plant the seed. Right. So it's, it's less about developing a need that they've sort of recognized and it's more about just planting the seed and having them recognize there's a, there's a problem or a need in the first place. So both that passive buying group and the status quo group, are opportunities to create. Right. And remember when we're talking about the numbers here, that's probably 90 percent of the potential your potential clients out there. 90%, right? It's this massive, massive marketplace out, out there who may or may not be viable candidates by viable potential clients. But, it's a huge opportunity to

John Tyreman 15:34

create. There are two things just dawned on me as we're walking through this mark. number one, if you're always going after buyers that are actively in the market, your sales cycles may be a bit shorter. Then if you were to go after some of these passive and passive buyers and status quo, buyers, however, you know, another thing that dawned on me was, the importance of marketing for these passive buyers and the status quo buyers, because like you said, you know, if there's someone who is satisfied with their status quo. You know, that's where marketing needs to support you and staying top of mind with those buyers for when they become dissatisfied with their status quo. And there is that trigger moment. You, you own part of their mind share of the types of firms that they want to reach out to.

Mark Wainwright 16:22

Right. I would, I would totally agree that it's such a fantastic point when someone's in an active buying process, you are not, you're not marketing to them anymore. Right. That's not happening. You're like, wait, okay, time out on the solicitation. Can I just send you the last three months of our podcast that we just did? Can I, right. I need to send you, 12 links to the, to our newsletter or blog posts and everything else that catches you up to speed on our expertise. Nope. Can't, can't do that, right? You're, we're no longer marketing to those folks, right? We are in a selling situation. the timer is running. they don't have the time or the ability to recognize your expertise, right? They just, they just, if they haven't come across it in the past, they're sure as heck not going to be able to kind of develop that, that, that level of regard for your, your focused expertise just doesn't happen. The other two. Everything below the waterline, passive buying and status quo, huge opportunity to market to them because that, you know, it's the, the, the timelines are, are undefined or, you know, there's no, there's no deadlines or anything else. It just gives you a great opportunity to, to warm them up, to increase their familiarity, all that stuff. So you're absolutely right on this. Is that waterline, no marketing. The other two powerful opportunity to have marketing and sales work together. so you're a hundred percent right.

John Tyreman 17:45

And it's worth the extended time in your sales pipeline. Yep.

Mark Wainwright 17:51

You're listening to breaking biz dev

John Tyreman 17:53

the podcast that beats up, breaks down, and redefines business development for the professional services firms of tomorrow. Your hosts are John Tyerman, founder of Red Cedar Marketing, the podcast marketing company for experts and professional services firms,

Mark Wainwright 18:07

And Mark Wainwright, principal consultant and founder of Wainwright Insight, the fractional sales manager and sales consultant to professional services firms.

John Tyreman 18:17

If you find this podcast helpful, please help us by following the show and leaving a review on Apple podcasts

Mark Wainwright 18:23

and now back to the show.

John Tyreman 18:26

So who needs to create, right? where do we start? How do we get started with this?

Mark Wainwright 18:32

Well, the, the, um, the question is, is valid about, Hey, we've got, we've got plenty and plenty of leads already. Why do we need to be creating, organizations need to be leveraging and using all different ways, all different techniques, all different channels to develop. Leads the cold solicitations, the RFPs, et cetera, that are kind of coming in. That is a lead, right? It's not really a lead you created. It's just, you know, you were out fishing with a big net and you snagged them, you know, so it's not necessarily something that you created from the start and it's got all the, you know, it's got all the, the, the negative aspects of, of that, but there's so many other ways that you can generate leads that help you employ this whole concept of creation, More, right? There's, there's content, there's digital content, social channels, websites, there's existing clients, existing relationships out there, you know, there's, there's proactive outreach that you can undertake, so there's all different types of leads, and I know that, you know, John, we, we could slice and dice this a thousand different ways. There's so many different ways that firms can kind of lead the way, lead the charge in creating new leads. Yeah.

John Tyreman 19:51

Yeah. And we've talked about many of those, those different lead sources, on past episodes and I like that you brought up the fishing analogy because it is an analogy that is really great for when it comes to attracting new business. And I, I like to say that there are three different ways you can fish. You can fish with a net. and that's, that's really broad. You know, a broad lead generation strategy, you can fish with a pole, right? And so you've got bait on the pole that attracts leads to you and then you can reel it in. Or you could fish with a spear. And you could go out and you can find very specific accounts to go after with that spear. So I think that that's just, I know we're, we're throwing a lot of analogies. There's a couple of seafaring analogies that we're, we're using here, but that's it. They're

Mark Wainwright 20:41

appropriate. Yeah. That's a, that's a good one. And I, and I love that sort of three part sort of lead thing. I think absolutely, absolutely. This whole create thing lends itself to the, to that latter one, right. That where you are being hyper targeted and you are, are fishing with A spear. Absolutely. So, so, so where do we start? Right. if there's nothing, how do we create something? Right. There's a, there's, there's a four part, model or maybe framework that you can kind of, kind of think of. I often use sort of in a concentric circle. model when I'm kind of talking things through, right? So you've got that sort of bullseye target out in front of you. and there's, there's four I like to speak to. I think the center of the bullseye is let's start with people. We know, let's start there. People who are close to us, people with whom we've developed trust, you know, maybe working good, professional working relationships, people who know us, let's start there. With them. And we'll, we'll talk about how that's, how that's done. Or some people are probably even imagining, you know, Oh, how would I create business with people that I know the next circle out, in my perspective is organizations that we know these are, you know, clients or client accounts that you've worked with previously. they could be organizations maybe that, that you've, you partnered with or, or whatever else, co consultants, you know, whoever they are. So organizations that we know, Oh, okay. So we can, we can, you know, start to list and prioritize the different organizations that we know when we can start, start creating. Third is industries and markets. That we know we've done some work. We've got some experience. We have a portfolio. We have a, a history of, doing good work in this particular, market industry. I often call those segments, it could be a geography. It could be any number of, of, of sort of the ways that we break down the world into smaller, reasonable chunks. but we can create new opportunities and industries and markets. We know. That's the third. And in my, in my sort of concentric circle model, that's the third one out. And then the fourth one out is a huge one. The fourth circle out, is massive. And then it's, and then how do we consider the unknown? How do we, how do we create out of nothing with organizations and people that we don't know? Right? So we've got our three little tight, tight concentric circles. And then this massive fourth one that says, And then there's the unknown.

John Tyreman 23:15

It's like the inner planets and then the outer planets. Jupiter is just way so far away.

Mark Wainwright 23:20

Right, right. That's right. The solar system connection is there, for sure.

John Tyreman 23:27

So, let's dig into each one of these concentric circles. So starting at the very center of the bullseye, with people, you know, maybe they're not ideal clients, but perhaps they could be referral sources. Is that what you're getting? Sure.

Mark Wainwright 23:44

Absolutely. And I think, and these are just examples. I think there's a number of different ways that, that we can create from nothing, with, with people. people that we know, referrals is, is an easy and obvious one, right? So, so referrals are those direct professional introductions from someone that knows and trust us to someone that they are connected to. We've talked through a referral process in the past. I don't think that we'll dig too deeply into that. The benefits of referrals are huge. It accelerates this whole speed to trust thing where, someone's spending a little sort of relationship capital. On us. And, we're, we're, we're benefiting from their relationship that exists there. They're, they're wonderful new leads because they tend to close more quickly with a higher level of success. and so there's an overall lower cost, cost to sale. so, and, and, you know, referrals are one of those things that, we've mentioned. That, you know, and I think we mentioned sort of in, in the, the, the introduction to this is that, you know, asking our. Our close connections to help us is really powerful. I think people out there in general are really willing to help. they don't sometimes know how to help us or they're not, they're not afforded an opportunity to be able to help. So this is a very clear way that we can, we can have people that we know and trust, help us. So, you know, and, and I like to give people an example, of, of how I often ask for referrals So, you know, and it's, and it can be as simple as this. I'd like to speak with you about referrals. This is an introduction to someone, you know, and trust that we could help. we found our best clients often come from our current best clients. an introduction from you would mean, mean a lot to us, you know, would you be willing to have a conversation? With me about people you might know we might be able to work with, you know, that's a that's a quick little blurb right there Anybody and everybody out there is able to kind of use a similar similar approach, you know, just asking gaining permission You know making the connection that we're not we're not desperate here I'm not trying to ask you to do something that you're uncomfortable with. Are you okay with it? And Lo and behold, we found that, you know, we get great clients from our existing great clients. So, you know, that's, that's wonderful. Who could say, who could say no to that, right?

John Tyreman 26:15

You're asking for permission and you're asking for permission to have a synchronous conversation. I'm starting to see some of the choreography come into place here.

Mark Wainwright 26:24

Yeah, that, that, that ties in there. So, right. So that inner circle, the people that we know referrals are a great way to do it. There are other ways. This is, this is a good way to do it.

John Tyreman 26:34

Excellent. So let's go out. A little bit. We're expanding out from that middle circle of the, the target. I like that, that visual, to that next ring outside. And that is. Organizations we know. So what's an example of something that firms can do to help create new business within organizations that they know?

Mark Wainwright 26:59

I refer to these as account development plans, and that sounds kind of formal and, detail y, but, an account development plan is, is all about getting to know existing. Or, you know, kind of recent client accounts, in a very deep way, so that we can understand their, their business, their challenges, their goals, their priorities, their preferences, all those things. So we can then develop ideas. Concepts, and we can create some ways that we can help them achieve these, these big goals, these, these, big strategy, the plans, whatever they have in place, we can help them with that, and we can, we can do so in a way that, that, you know, we can bring our, our true expertise to the table. Two, right? We're just this is not a and everything to everyone situation. This is, you know, we have existing client accounts. If we understand them deeply enough, we can together understand what areas we can bring our best expertise to and focus on that and create some new. New ways to help them. So that's a super brief explanation of what account development plans are. I think we'll talk more about this at some point down the road. but the whole idea with organizations we know is just getting to know them deeply, not sort of, yeah, we're, we know, you know, we've got five or 10 professional contacts there that we see at networking events, but we don't Great. Well, I'm talking about really kind of understanding. It's like, Hey, the last time that you guys, you know, from, from what we understand last time you updated any kind of strategic plan that you have for your organization was three years ago. Are you working on a new one? What is that? What's most pressing with your organization now? What are the challenges you're running into? And just gaining a deep understanding of that. I don't think people, organizations should do this. I don't think consultants should do this with every single client they work with. But again, they find the best ones and we say, look, we want to create opportunities with our very best clients. Let's get to know them deeply and find out other ways that we can help.

John Tyreman 29:06

And this doesn't have to be just client accounts either, right? This could be like, maybe there, maybe you've identified a client account that is, it represents a really great, you know, type of client to work with. And then you go out and you identify other organizations. that are similar to that, that client. And then you can create new business by going after those specific accounts.

Mark Wainwright 29:27

Yeah. This is when you first said that I thought, well, this could be a partner, you know, some, maybe there's a longterm partner that you can do a plant, create a plan around what you may have been hinting at is actually what we want to talk about next is sort of how do we develop business with Similar organizations that are in the same industry as some of our close, close client contacts. So you were forced, forgive me for getting ahead of foreshadowing there. So, so it was a sec. Yeah, no perfect segue. So, so that's that, that next circle out is that those accounts, those, those important client accounts that we've, that we've gotten to know that we want to get to know more deeply so we can. You know, kind of co create, new ways to help them that next circle out beyond that one. I call these segment development plans, you know, and a segment is a funny term. It can be a market. It can be an industry. It could be a geography. It could be any number of, of, of things where you can group similar items together. So to your point, you know, maybe you've had success with a particular client in the healthcare industry. You think, Oh, we've developed some expertise. We've got kind of a portfolio. We've got individuals in our firm who have some focused expertise in this particular area. You know, regardless of what you're doing for them, if you're doing marketing for them, if you're doing architectural design work or engineering for these types of clients, you've developed an internal expertise So the next step is, okay, so how do we engage with other similar organizations in that marketplace to grow that way to create new opportunities? Right? So, so that's, that's what sort of segment development plans are All about, they lean heavily on existing relationships at organizations that, you know, inside there or collaborators or partners or whoever else they are. they allow you to bring a focused expertise to new perspective clients. You know, if, you know, like I said, if there's a, if you're dealing in the healthcare industry and you have a particular expertise around some specific need healthcare organizations have, When you go to introduce yourself to those new clients inside the healthcare industry you say we've done this type of work for Organizations just like yours and we've done this very specific thing and from what we can see You know, we are a focused expert a recognized focused expert in this particular area and they say oh Interesting. Rather than, you know, this is the, you go to them and you say, Hey, we're, we can be everything you ever want us to be. And they say, okay, get in line. Right. There's another 20 firms out there who are, you know, kind of unfocused generalists. so yeah, there's our bias, John. There's our, there's our bias on being a focused, focused expert. So. getting back to the segment development plans, you know, they are similar in nature where you have to gain a deep understanding of, of the types of organizations that are in that particular segment, the work you've done, a lot of times you can go through sort of a SWOT analysis to understand what your, what your strengths and weaknesses are, what the external sort of opportunities and threats are in that world. and, then you can start up, you can get introductions. You know, from one healthcare organization to another, you can, just approach those organizations in a, maybe a prospecting way, and start to introduce yourselves Leveraging your deep focused expertise and start to kind of create some new opportunities there. So that I think is, is how we can create new business inside of industries that we know. And, you know, if, if, if the opportunity presents itself for us to dig a little bit deeper into that one in the future, we can, we can totally do that.

John Tyreman 33:06

so outside of. The organizations, you know, or maybe the markets, you know, there's this great unknown. how can you develop and create new opportunities with, people you don't know, or, groups that you don't know or don't know exist yet. The

Mark Wainwright 33:20

thing that comes to mind immediately is prospecting and prospect. That's the nature of prospecting. It's prospective, you know, it's, it's, identifying. specific targets using all the tools that you have at your disposal, all the different connection channels, phone calls, email, social media, et cetera. And then employing a technique that we've talked about in the past, which is putting all those different tools into a sequence that, so that you can build familiarity with these people that don't know you, right? You can establish Your name, your brand, et cetera. And you can kind of walk them along this path of, of interaction with you to where they've built enough familiarity that they're willing to have a conversation with you. So, so we employ prospecting and one of the things we talked about a little bit earlier, and we've covered this in another episode was, you know, I think our episode was, 10 ways to suck it at, events and conferences. Right. That was, that was a funny one. and we touched on this a little bit there. And I think at conferences, conferences and events, there are a ton of people there that you do not know. There's a ton of organizations there that you do not know. But at the same time, you all find yourself in the same place at the same time. And oftentimes you see lists of those organizations and those attendees. So a fantastic way to grow your network through prospecting. And then hopefully, you know, uncover some new prospective clients that you can You know, start create something from nothing. So, and there's a, you know, there's a way that you prospect, like I said, there's sequences, conferences are a wonderful example, you know, weeks in advance, you do your planning, then you do your outreach pre event, you show up at the, at the event with a good solid plan, and then you follow up with that, follow up with everyone you connected with at the, at the conference. So, And you do that in a period of, you know, three or four weeks or so around a conference conferences are not just this one little moment in time. There should, you should be building these big prospecting sequences that last weeks to find the people that you don't know, to connect with them at these big, crazy, huge events in whatever way you can. And then you follow up with them afterwards. So there you go. That's the, that's the great unknown. And there's a bunch of different ways to explore the great unknown. Prospecting is a fantastic way to do it with, you know, the right approach, right? The right identifying the right targets using the right tools and then using this sort of like sequence. Technique, to, to build familiarity.

John Tyreman 35:53

so creating your own, creating new business outside of just responding to the active buyers in the market is a great way to build the firm that you want in your vision and how you want to build your firm. And that can be done by starting with the people that you know. The organizations that, you know, the industries and markets, you know, and then from there expanding out into that great unknown, which there are ways where you can create new business from the great unknown. Mark, I think that this is a group. This was a great deep dive into how firms and experts and practitioners can create their own business. I agree.

Mark Wainwright 36:32

I love the concept of. Let's, let's, let's create something that was never there to begin with. Let's make something new. I love it. All right, John. Until next time.

John Tyreman 36:43

Until next time.