John Tyreman 0:00

When times are good, Winning new deals feels like it just comes naturally. But what about when times are hard? What's the difference? How should you adjust your sales and marketing process? Let's talk about it on the podcast

Mark Wainwright 0:30

Hello everyone, and welcome to Breaking Biz Dev. Thanks for joining us for another episode. I'm Mark, and that is John. John, how are you today?

John Tyreman 0:40

I am doing well, I know that we record these episodes a few months in advance, but we are just entering summertime. You just experienced the magic of the World Cup in Seattle, and we're just riding a couple highs, right?

Mark Wainwright 0:54

Yeah. Sure are. Yeah, for sure. And, and anybody that's familiar with the Pacific Northwest knows that summer isn't quite here yet until the 4th of July. Actually, technically the 5th, right? We've talked about that. But, but yeah, summer kind of feels like it's here early with, all the activity and the excitement going on. So yeah, it's, it's a fun time. And honestly, it's an interesting thing to talk about, related to when times are tough and when times are good, right? Because, we've got some, some unpredictable economic sort of winds, sort of swirling around right now. And it's been in place for a little while now. w-what-- it's, it's, the result of any number of different things. But, just, on the surface, John, feels pretty darn good today, as we're recording. 'Cause the whole international flavor that, that comes to, comes to a town when, when you're, when you're participating in an international tournament is super cool.

John Tyreman 1:42

personally, I just love seeing all the accounts of international travelers and FIFA World Cup fanatics coming to the States and seeing the heartland of the country and just it makes it a unique sports moment in a lull in the typical American sports calendar, which is, But yeah, but what, what's the economic impact of all of this tourism to the United States? I mean, we probably won't feel that for a few months from now, but I

Mark Wainwright 2:04

For sure.

John Tyreman 2:05

that's a great segue

Mark Wainwright 2:07

And there's probably some, predictions that have or have not, come to pass on all of this. All right. So, so yeah, but let's, let's talk, let's get back to this, the, the, the topic du jour, which is, uh, about creating new business when times are tough, and times are good, and you introduced that. and we'll define it a little bit. And, I think we've also got a little, a little bit in here about what's happening in the buyer's mind as well, what's going on in their world. So I love that little slice of empathy that we've kind of thrown in here to say, yeah, what are we doing with marketing and selling when times are good versus when times are not? But also what's happening on the buyer's end of thing too. So let's, um, let's get into that. We can set the stage, a little bit. I'll let you, I'll let you tee that up.

John Tyreman 2:58

like you mentioned just in that opening segment, like things feel good. We're seeing signs of, the economy starting to pick up and whatnot. So like those are signs of good times. But, there are signs that the economy or macroeconomic environment, are not. Like layoffs, clients talking about thin revenues. Maybe you're, maybe the clients you're working with have budget constraints or they're cutting back in other areas. like so these are like different signs if you've got your ear to the ground to listen for, and that might influence, are we in a bull market? Are we in a bear market? so that's kind of what we're talking about here is, when those times are hard, when they're good, how do buyers behave, and how should you behave as someone who's in business development trying to sell services?

Mark Wainwright 3:46

Yeah. let's dig a little deeper into the what's going on in the, in the buyer's mind right now, particularly when, when times are tough. you had a couple, couple thoughts on that

John Tyreman 3:58

working with clients and during when times are hard, you, you inevitably hear about, "Oh, we had to scale back in this area," or, "We needed to re- reallocate budget here," or, "We had to let someone go for, budget reasons." And so, that's really an indicator of, hard times for that client. Doesn't have to necessarily fit within the whole macroeconomic narrative, but, you know, within your client mix, the people that you are working with, these are some things to listen for. So constrained budgets being one. I think another thing w- that I've noticed is, clients pushing the edges of existing contracts, so like scope creep, right? And if that's something that's new or maybe uncharacteristic of a s- particular client, that could be a canary in the coal mine, so to speak,

Mark Wainwright 4:48

Yeah, no, for sure. I, I can totally see that. And, you know, on the consultant end of things, the seller end of things, is that you're maybe a little bit more likely to say yes in those situations or, concede, right? It's, you know, not draw a hard line and say, "Look, this is, this is stuff that's clearly, clearly outside of our original agreement, and we need to, work through that." So yeah, and it's like you said, it's sort of they'll chip away at it, they're not asking you to double or triple things, but it's just these little, these little nibbles for sure. For sure. That's good. What about, in good times, what are the, what, what other things? What's going on in a buyer's head in good times?

John Tyreman 5:30

Yeah, I think in, in good times there's a little bit more, forward thinking. There's a longer term horizon that clients are looking at. I think that's kind of like the main, the, the biggest kind of point that I have on here is, is that they're looking out further ahead and what outcomes to expect down the road as opposed to being reactive and in the moment and chasing revenue or, or chasing new business. So I think that's kind of like the big, the big thing there.

Mark Wainwright 5:55

Yeah, yeah. Value, right? That comes in is that maybe they're a little more value-minded, and, not, not, not staring at the, the dollars and cents, but looking at the, the bigger picture. I think that's, that's for sure. maybe things are more competitive, and maybe, maybe buyers that would otherwise, be just working with whatever consultants are available, because when times are good, everybody's really, really busy. So buyers, have to, find a consultant that they can work with, and sometimes it's a little har- little hard when times are good and, there's a, a, a ton of work to be had out there. When times are tough, maybe they're using more formal prescriptive buying processes like an RFP, so they're making people compete. competition inevitably chews away at, price, and, kind of, kind of puts everyone on their heels a little bit. So yeah, so that's, that's a, that's another one that kind of comes to mind as well.

John Tyreman 6:54

Good. So those are, yeah, so those are the kind of the two ends of the spectrum there

Mark Wainwright 6:57

That's what's going on in the buyer's head, right? So let's, let's turn this back around to our, friends, the doer-sellers, principals, marketers, everyone in professional services. When times are good, and folks, if you've been around long enough, you've experienced some of this for sure. I know that in my, gosh, I don't know, John, a while, some decades in profe- in the world of professional services, as I've seen, I've seen the rollercoaster, I've experienced it. I've been an, a willing and unwilling participant in the ups and downs of, of a cyclical economic whirlwind that can often be the professional services world. So let's talk about in business development, those individuals, what's... When the economy's booming, work's, work's flowing in, what can and should our friends in sales, marketing, business development, what do they need to, what are some of the things that they need to keep top of mind?

John Tyreman 7:54

I was chatting with, a client of mine the other day. He's a good friend, and, um, he was telling me about how his firm won a bunch of business recently, and that's going to translate to, okay, we can, we can expand our scope of work together. part of that I was like, "Well, pump the brakes. Pump the brakes real quick." I know just based on the firm culture that you're gonna be inundated with billable work because you s- all this new business running. And mind you, this is a, a marketing director that I'm working with. and so he's responsible for both doing and marketing the business. so protecting his time is gonna be challenging, but he's thinking he'll be able to kind of open that up and be able to spend a lot more time on the unbillable stuff, but I, I, I just don't foresee that happening. So I think, the thing here is the utilization trap. when times are good, there's a lot of work, and people that are in a seller-doer or, a doer and have marketing responsibilities, those unbillable hours start to, dwindle down to, 10, 5% of their time. And the result of that is that's constraining your pipeline months down the road.

Mark Wainwright 9:10

fantastic point. man, you could almost take this whole utilization disaster thing, John, we've ranted about this almost endlessly. You could take this and put this in both, right? Almost. But, but yeah, when times are good and when times are not good. But yeah, when times are good for sure, maybe pipelines are looking pretty good, billable work is up and, folks are just head down doing the work and they sacrifice everything else, right? And there's just this, this, and, it's one thing I remember somebody I-- some- a, a wise, respectable individual I worked with forever, right? And this was in the, in, in, in a different subject matter, but it was, success breeds complacency, and complacency is the root of, sort of the status quo,

John Tyreman 10:03

Yeah, stagnation

Mark Wainwright 10:04

yeah. So, so that's, that's kind of what we're talking about here is that, you get things kind of locked down and working hard and then all of a sudden tomorrow arrives and you're like, "Oh, shoot. Right. I wasn't paying enough attention to this." And there you go. So good one. Good one. Yeah. what other behaviors, do we wanna make sure that our friends are, being mindful of?

John Tyreman 10:27

Yeah. In that same vein of you- your times are good, you've got a full roster of clients, you're kind of struggling to find, or prioritize marketing and sales activities, you're less likely to ask for referrals. having a, a more proactive referral process is something that i- is important in good times because when times are good, clients are, will be more likely to say, "Yeah, I, I do know. Yeah, I sh- I'm happy to make an introduction." And so I think that you're playing on the emotional high of good times when you're asking for proactive referrals in a time where you don't necessarily need it per se right now. But, we both know that, in professional services, the average time in your pipeline can be like 120, 180 days. So

Mark Wainwright 11:21

Yeah, do it now. Ask, ask now. And, one of the biggest barriers that comes to mind for me, why people don't do this, habitually, regularly, is particularly when times are good, they say, "Look, I can't, I can't go have a conversation with a new prospective client right now. What if they want me to do something and we're full, right? We're just, we, we have no more, we have no more room. We can't, we can't take any more clients." and you think, oh yeah, that's a completely reasonable, excuse for not going and doing this as well. it's like you said, right? We're, if, if we look at the arc of the relationship, right? If there's an introduction and an initial conversation, honestly, it's not going to, you know, you're not gonna have a contract, ready to go for a while. I mean, these, these sales cycles are long. You have to build, build familiarity, build trust, and, eventually that, that may happen. So yeah, build that, build that muscle. And along that same lines, John, that, that you, you had an- a- another bullet point here about, exercising, the, the, the, the, the power of the word no,

John Tyreman 12:29

each of these bullets, Mark, I will point out are standalone episodes in our-- that we've talked about in the past. So if folks want to expand on any of these topics, in the show notes, we'll have links to where you can kind of dive into. but yeah, the power of saying no and being highly selective in your qualification process. When you, when times are good, you have that luxury, right? And so you, you don't want to take on bad revenue. You want to take on clients that represent the direction in which you want to grow the firm. So yeah, I think that that's another good practice of when times are good is being, highly selective with the prospects and the clients that you take on. To your point about, what if, what if a, a prospect, we have a conversation and we want, they want us to do work right now? We'll be transparent with them, say, "Yeah, well, yeah, I'd love to work with you, but we, we won't be able to start work until, two, three months down the road." And, "Okay, that's awesome. Yeah, I can, I can wait, wait till then." So you, you never know what kind of, what kind of conversations are happening or will happen. But again, being proactive and looking out into the future, I think that's kind of the big takeaway here.

Mark Wainwright 13:42

For sure, for sure. So those last two, right? So the whole sort of, proactive versus reactive referrals and this, being able to build the confidence and comfort that you need in order to, to say no or at least defer things. That's-- These are habits that we-- These are-- This is kind of muscle memory stuff that we need to build, and when times are good is a fantastic time to do that, for sure. there's, there's one last one here that you had a, you had a note on and, and, and that th- this is, this is one that speaks, kind of directly and specifically to some of the work that you do around sort of, building the content flywheel, right?

John Tyreman 14:19

When, when t- okay, so let's use that scenario that you just painted, Mark. When times are good and What if that prospect wants me to do work right now? Well, maybe when times are good, invest in developing content so that when times are bad, you have something to share and something to promote and something to put out, and advertise for your services. So, times are good, you've got a full roster of clients. that's a great time to invest in long-term brand awareness, building the content for demand generation, like a podcast or a newsletter or, speaking at events, doing webinars. These are the kinds of, content activities, to start building a library that you can use when eventually the economy turns and things go, go south

Mark Wainwright 15:12

For sure, for sure. And, and, and you, you've got an article, we've talked about this in, in, in the past about this, the concept of the content flywheel, and it should come as no surprise that you and I see, podcasting as a, as a critical component of that, that, that drives that flywheel and that drives the creation of, of other supporting content for sure. So that's a good one. You're listening to breaking biz dev

John Tyreman 15:35

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 15:50

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

John Tyreman 15:59

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

Mark Wainwright 16:05

and now back to the show. All right, let's, let's flip the coin over, right? Flip the script, right? When times are tough, and, arguably you could say now, and, we do a lot of content that is kind of timeless on our podcast, John, so who knows? In, it's five years' time, we could find ourselves back in this exact same situation where things are a little bit unsure, right? it cycles for sure. But all right, so our friends in business development, when times are tough for them, what are some other activities, behaviors, and things that they need to keep top of mind?

John Tyreman 16:41

I can always tell when people in my network are starving for business simply by the language that they use when they reach out to me. And it's, it-- You... Josh Braun calls it commission breath, and I love that term. And, like, you can smell the commission breath, whether they're operating on a commission for sales or they just are a doer-seller or a small business owner. so I think, like, avoiding that spray and pray mentality of, "I'm gonna reach out to as many people as I can as fast as I can and see what happens," right? It's quantity over quality, and I think that's a mistake. and it smells desperate, and people are turned off by that, honestly.

Mark Wainwright 17:28

Yeah, for sure. I get it. I, I, I get it. you and I live in that, in that world, we are, where we are charged with, getting, getting contracts closed, all the way from the marketing end to the sales end, all that stuff. So I understand this mindset. It's a, it's kind of a power- powerful gravitational pull, right? It just, when times are tough, you start reaching for, for everything. But yeah, again and again, John, we have always favored quality over quantity another one that, we talked about here in our prep was, avoiding the blame game, right? So, and, and this is related to, right, w- you know, winning and losing business, right? It's just like, you have to look in the mirror kind of a thing, right? So, I think that's a good one. Yeah.

John Tyreman 18:13

Y- well, I think you coined the term blame-seeking missiles, right?

Mark Wainwright 18:18

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. yeah. S- s- some of those get fired around my household. I don't know how often I use that in the workplace. but I probably do, yeah, yeah, for sure. It's, it's, it's tough to, sort of turn, turn the situation back towards yourself and say, "Oh, so what could I, should I have done differently,"

John Tyreman 18:36

and I think it's even more than that. It's, it's looking in the mirror and saying, "Okay, I lost this deal. Why?" But then understand-- Af- after you understand the why, it's like, "What am I going to do to make sure that that doesn't happen again?" And that's the step that's like the en- engaging with the problem. Understanding the problem is the first step, but going out and actually, like, changing your behavior and changing things, your process, tweaking it so that you can avoid that mistake again, I think that's true accountability in my view.

Mark Wainwright 19:08

this is related to that first one, right? So there's a little spray and pray thing going on in that you're pur- pursuing a, a broader and broader, and a greater and greater number of, of pursuits out there. A lot of the times there's no connections, relationships, maybe thready ones, whatever else. And, and, since you've got so much potential business sort of, at, at play right now, it's super easy to just start, assigning the blame game. It's, "Oh, this one was that one. Oh, they, they picked the incumbent. Oh, that's the..." You know, whatever else. And, and, and the reality, a lot of that, this one ties to the first one, right? That says, the reality is it was your fault in the first place 'cause you did a terrible job of actually qualifying this opportunity initially, and you should have never done it in the first place, right? So, so sure, yeah. Great point, right? Avoiding the blame game, looking at the mirror and saying, "Okay, I was responsible and accountable for that. What should I, what should I do differently next time?" this is another one we've talked about. Third, bullet point number three. We talked about this, John. Avoiding the horrible lost leader, the temptation.

John Tyreman 20:09

Yeah, this like irresistible urge when times are hard to slash your prices and be more competitive in order to win deals, right? I'm, I'm guilty of this. I've done this in the past, when I was first starting out, and I learned the hard way that that's not a good way to, to operate. instead of doing that and just winning the work just to get the revenue, we've talked of ad nauseam about three option tables, and I think this is a great, way to put a range of prices in front of your prospects so that they are in the decision-making seat and you can help guide them to the right decision. And maybe that is the lower cost option, right? But at least you've defined what better and best look like

Mark Wainwright 20:59

it holds true that loss leaders do nothing but, position you well to be a continued, low-cost provider in the, in the future, right? When this, when this particular bit of work wraps up and the client comes back and say, "Hey, all right, I'm expecting a really, really good price for this additional stuff or this next project," whatever it may be, you're in a bind, right? You've kind of painted yourself in a little bit of a, a corner. So yeah, the three-option proposals are fantastic for this. and, I will say that when times are tough, you of course need to be sharper probably with your, with your pricing. I don't think that you can ignore kind of what's happening in the marketplace or ignore what's happening in the, in the buyer's mind we're not kind of trying to, trying to operate in a, in a sort of pretend world, la la land where, we're completely ignorant of what's happening in the world around us. But, keep in mind the notion that, this cut-rate loss leader that you just threw out on the table is not going to, suddenly turn into a, high dollar, high margin, client down the road. Loss leaders tend to attract buyers who are, focused on price and not on value. So, use your loss leaders, at your own risk, folks. Just like a warning decal that's stuck on the side of it, right? It says, "All right, go for it." all right. Last, last one we had here, and then we can kind of tie things up here is, is this is related to self-orientation, and this is, this is part of that, part of the trust equation, right? One of my favorite topics of conversation.

John Tyreman 22:44

Yeah. So the, your self-orientation is the big denominator at the bottom of that equation, and the higher your self-orientation, the lower your perceived trustworthiness, essentially. and I think that this is-- You, you just mentioned, pricing a service and, not factoring in the macroeconomic environment, right? Well, that would be, it would be empathetic to do that, right? And keep put- putting the buyer, buyer's per- perspective over yours. when you come across and you have that spray and pray mentality and buyers can smell your commission breath and you're thinking about yourself and your own needs in terms of the revenue that you need to close, it's a turnoff again. And, instead, focus on the buyers, focus on their problems, focus on what challenge you're solving for them and how you can make them look good. And I think that's the mindset shift that really needs to happen if you want to lower your self-orientation to increase trustworthiness.

Mark Wainwright 23:50

Yeah. This is, this is such a, such a good one. When the, desperation sets in, your curiosity and your interest in others, starts to fade, right? So this is, this is the dominant, ego that, presents itself, you give up on all that sort of curiosity and inquiry, and you're just like, "All right, I'm gonna just gonna, talk my head off and start throwing brochures around the room, and hopefully I'll catch something." So yeah, this is a, this is a perfect one because this happens, and this is so hard for people to avoid, right? It is so hard that, when you're, when you're backed against the wall, when you're, when times are tough, when you're struggling, whatever else, you wanna go do something. And the doing part a lot of times sounds like, "I'm gonna go somewhere and talk about myself." I'm not gonna ask questions and be patient and, And that, that's a, that's the difference between there's a, there's a comfort and a confidence that comes along with that sort of inquiry, right? It's, it's the opportunity to let others talk, to ask the questions, to listen, to be patient, that sort of stuff. And a lot of that completely goes away when you're looking at sort of a thin pipeline and dwindling revenues, Yeah. It's interesting what we sacrifice, likely unknowingly, right? When the economy turns, right? Just listed a bunch of stuff here

John Tyreman 25:10

Well, it's, it's like, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? And so when times are tough, you're, you're defaulting to lower and lower rungs on that hierarchy of needs. And I, I think you, you kind of rev- fall back to like primitive survival skills almost. And it's a challenge to like really have the mental fortitude to be able to just like, first of all be aware of that and then, kind of ha- just having that me- the callus enough to, to put yourself in the backseat and be able to focus on being curious and really, really listening and like being patient.

Mark Wainwright 25:50

of all of the challenges that, a business developer may face, it's, when times are tough, to be able to hide those default behaviors and just be your true self and be curious and interested in others and, have a low sense of self-orientation and all that. So yeah, times are tough, times are not tough. Y- it happens, right? It's the cycle, it's the ebbs and flows. It's all that stuff. So, and, these, like you said earlier, just to underscore and highlight that, right? A lot of these topics, maybe even, heck, maybe even all of them, we've done longer episodes on, on a number of these, and we can kind of link to that. This is, this episode was designed to kind of highlight a number of those things, a number of those tools, ideas, concepts that we've discussed in the past and apply them to good and bad markets, good and bad economies

John Tyreman 26:41

Yeah, and I-- And to tie this all together, with just I just want to highlight one more point, Mark, and that's the fact that it doesn't have to necessarily be tied to the major macroeconomic environment. And so your clients or your prospects or your own firm could be going through periods of lulls and highs and lows. So, that-- just something to keep in mind that it could be just you're having a tough time in a bull market, and that's just kind of how it shakes out. So but these same principles still apply.

Mark Wainwright 27:14

Good. Well, John, we have, come to the end of our episode around creating new business when times are tough and sometimes when they're good. thanks for chatting. until next time

John Tyreman 27:26

Until next time