Business Development (BD) is a critical part of your strategy for growing your business and reaching new revenue levels. BD is all about creating and then converting opportunities.

But the question is, if you have people on your team with a BD component to their role - how do you incentivise them to perform better, and also, what’s the best way to remunerate them?

If you’re thinking about offering them an incentive based remuneration model, I want you to think through the whole process first and consider the pros & cons – before you offer this to them.

There are always upsides and downsides to every incentive based remuneration model, so finding the best model for incentivising your BD team is crucial. It can prevent issues and challenges down the track and more importantly prevent poor culture & loss of staff (worst case).

The main model that most would be familiar with is rewarding your BD person or team with a certain percentage of the new deals that they bring in. However, ther...

There is the perception that business development and finding and connecting with your ideal future clients is really hard at the moment.

Most leaders and business owners in our industry are used to the old way of doing things in this space.

You know... register for an event, get a copy of the attendees list, find the names of the potential future clients you would like to 'bump' in to, attend the event, only talk to half the people you wanted to because you got distracted talking with colleagues or friends or people you already know, hand out a bunch of business cards and come away from the event feeling kind of good about yourself but actually knowing that you didn’t really make the most of that opportunity and didn’t really make any solid progress on developing new relationships.

Sound familiar?

What if I told you there was an easier way in general to find, connect with and then build meaningful relationships with your ideal future clients?

The answer is online. The answer is u...

Today I want to talk to you about a training concept that I've just talked to all of my Boardroom clients about, which is the 3 ones.

For those of you who don't know, Boardroom is my training program where I work purely with business owners of engineering consultancies. So a real niche group of amazing clients who are making incredible things happen in their businesses.

This training concept of the 3 ones is really simple and I honestly think that leaders & business owners complicate things when it comes to building their team or business. The 3 ones is essentially this – 1 Client + 1 Connection System + 1 Problem that you solve.

So to expand on this…you only need one ideal client, not four, not five – just one. You have one client where you know their world intimately in terms of all their pain points, all of their frustration points, and you know all the things that you can do to help solve their problems.

One ideal client where you’re really clear on their goals and their aspira...

There is one word that I can't stand - HUSTLE......

It seems to have become a massive buzz word in the world of leaders, business owners and entrepreneurs.

I firmly believe that if you set your team and your business up smartly and you have the right systems and processes in place - then you don't need to hustle. Your team is performing well, your clients love you and the work you do for them and your project pipeline is full.

But today I'm going to break my rule and talk about one area that does require an amount of hustle....

...and that is in the follow up!!

Most people think that a potential client will either love them or hate them after one coffee meeting. They think they'll either get work out of them straight away or it wasn’t meant to be.

But that’s absolute nonsense.

If you're a stats person (which most engineers are!) then the latest stats are that a new client will need on average 8 touch points from you before they will make a purchasing decision with you. 

Now for...

Today I want to talk to you about a concept that will allow you to confidently win more work. 

And it’s the concept of - adding value to your client’s world. 

This concept works in all areas of winning work, business development, client relationships as well as generating significantly more revenue from your existing client relationships. 

Whether you’re looking at a new client relationship, one that you haven’t done work with before or an existing client relationship, because you’d like to generate more revenue from your current client relationship - I want you to always ask yourself this question – “How can I add value to my client’s world?” 

If you can constantly and consistently be looking at your clients through the lens of – “what do they really need help with” and “what’s the value myself, my team and my business can bring to this client relationship” then you are well on your way to securing a new client or more work from your existing clients. 

Why? 

Because no one else ...

Hey! Hope you’re well. 

I’m having a lot of conversations with leaders and business owners in the engineering and construction industry at the moment around how to create amazing client relationships. 

There are a lot of amazing tools, strategies and techniques that you can employ into your team or your business to create amazing client relationships, but there’s one thing that trumps everything else and that’s what I want to explore with you today. 

I want you to think about business for yourself right now. Who do you enjoy doing business with? Who do you like hanging out with from a business point of view? Who would you quickly, readily and easily refer work to? 

Are your answers people that you like? Are your answers people that you share values with? Are your answers people that you enjoy being around? 

I guarantee that you answered yes to all of the above. 

One of the easiest ways to develop exceptional client relationships, and to ensure that your current client base contin...

So many consultants and contractors get caught up in pricing wars and feeling like they’ve got to be cheaper than everyone else. They feel like they’re going to lose the work or not be able to build a project pipeline if they raise their prices or are more expensive than their competitors.

Today I want to flip this viewpoint and this discussion on its head. 

I’ve been doing a lot of work recently with clients in my coaching programs around pricing, the value proposition and their positioning in the marketplace. 

You see if you get your positioning wrong in the marketplace, meaning that you've positioned yourself as a generalist, that you can do everything and that you’re all things to all people AND you don’t talk about the value that you add or how you solve your clients problems or how you deeply understand your clients world, then of course you have to be the cheapest!! 

But if you completely flipped this on its head and can change your thinking around your positioning and you s...

Do you always feel like you’re competing on price? 

Do you feel like you are always losing business to someone else because they are undercutting your fees and clients are just going with the cheapest price? 

The reality is that you are always going to be competing with everyone else and fighting for work based on fees and pricing if you don’t narrow down your focus. 

In today's video I will walk you through why it is SO important to have a “Niche” in the marketplace which allows you to position you, your team and your business strongly and not be a “Generalist” (cheap and all things to all people).

If you want to learn more, follow the link below to watch the video. 

Click Here  to watch now

PS: If you’re interested, here are 4 ways I can help you right now:

1. Join the Leaders In Engineering community designed specifically for engineering leaders and business owners
   It’s our new Facebook community where engineering leaders and business owners are learning the strategies and lead
...

Do you get excited about standing out from the crowd? 

Does your energy go up when you're thinking about strategies to positioning yourself, your team and your business apart from your competitors to win work and gain market share? 

Or does the thought of standing out make you uncomfortable? 

The reality is that you need to stand out to win more work! 

In today's video I explore why it’s so important for you to be seen by your potential future clients and the value that you could be adding to their world if they worked with you.

If you want to learn more on this topic, follow the link below to watch the video. 

Click Here  to watch now.

Josh ‘Stand Out’ Stone

PS: If you’re interested, here are 4 ways I can help you right now:

1. Join the Leaders In Engineering community designed specifically for engineering leaders and business owners
   It’s our new Facebook community where engineering leaders and business owners are learning the strategies and leadership skills to step up and thr
...

Wow! What a great webinar this week! 

It was great to see so many of you on the call.

A few of the key takeaways:

• LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful tool that allows you to connect and engage with your Perfect Future Client and to generate fantastic opportunities if you leverage the platform correctly.
• The easiest way to grow your team and business is to invest heavily in your current client relationships ensuring you increase your repeat business and revenue.
• Your team and your business won't grow if you keep getting stuck in the 'doing' and the day-to-day. Look for ways to focus on the activities that actually move the needle and then delegate the rest.

If you weren’t able to make the webinar - here’s a copy of webinar recording. 

If you attended live you could even watch it again!

Click here to watch 

I’ll make this available until the end of the week. 

As I mentioned on the call, I am launching a new 10 Week Program next month which is designed to help you focus on wi...