Greg's Right FIT #561–This week: Follow-Up, Stuck deals,

Quick notes to help you find new business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week.

In this issue: 

• Thoughts about Follow Up
• Being Human
• Random Stuff
• Back In The Day

Thoughts about Follow Up

• Excellent customer service isn't so much about removing obstacles as much as it is about simply not adding to them. Don't make more work for your customers.
• Follow-up is the key to success. It’s hard. You know how frazzled you are after a trade show? Attendees feel the same. Give them a grace period but press on. Time isn’t on your side. People go back to their normal daily grind fast. 
• Structuring meetings lets you focus on your client. Try this: share a loose meeting outline with your client at the start of the meeting. I think you'll find it keeps both parties on track, allowing you to listen carefully, and follow up on tangents. 
• We spend a lot of our marketing budgets on producing leads, and a little on follow-up. Related, buyer research consistently shows most qualified buyers say they will make a purchasing decision, "eventually." Switch some of your investment in producing leads into following up on past leads. It works.

Being Human – Deals in molasses

My psychiatrist told me I was crazy and I said I want a second opinion. He said okay, you're ugly too." Rodney Dangerfield

Most big deals start as small deals and grow over time. Occasionally, your business development person drags a new big deal up to the door and it's a very exciting time around the office. Everyone pokes and prods and sometimes, before it closes, it gets stuck. Why? Lots of reasons but generally they fall into one of these buckets. 

• It's a big deal to your firm, but not to the prospective client. 
• Many stakeholders are identified, but we only talk to the ones that will win, and not enough of the ones who may lose.
• It's a new kind of deal for your firm, requiring new capabilities which aren't in place yet. 
• It's a new kind of deal for the prospective client, requiring new decision approvals which aren't in place yet. 
• Everyone agrees the business case is strong, but it's a low priority for the prospective client. 

How do you get these kinds of deals unstuck? Start by taking an honest assessment of which bucket the deal may be stuck in.

Next, bring in a 3rd party. They can be internal, they can be external, but they should not be emotionally invested in getting the deal done. Their job is to go through everything with you and dig in with the client, asking all the same questions again. 

It works for the same reasons my wife can find my keys in a fraction of the time I can. No assumptions. She doesn't tell herself, "I've already looked there," and skim the surface.

Get a new set of eyes in there. Get un-stuck.

Random Stuff

It's football season. It's tailgating season. It's meeting random people season.

We were just in Green Bay to watch the Packers play poorly on national television. I mean, we were there to visit my lovely bride's sister and husband, but the excuse for the long drive was the Packer game. At the tailgate my bride brought up her favorite tailgate story, which goes like this:

For years, my father-in-law asked me to go to Green Bay to make use his Packer's tickets. It took a few years but I eventually caught on. 1993 or so. Since then I've been up there an average of once a year. Most of those trips were taken with friends willing to make a road trip because at the time we had kids and my lovely bride stayed back to take care of them.

Fast forward 2018. We're empty nesters. There's no reason for her to stay back while I visit her childhood home, so we head up to a game. At this point, I have the trip down. Stop here, go there, do this, don't do that etc. We're heading to the stadium and stop at a tailgate along the way. All my Packer friends are there, lots of hugs, high fives and loud greetings. It's fun.

My bride meets up with an old high-school acquaintance and they're catching up on lost time. When my bride says she lives in Omaha, her classmate turns to her and says, "Omaha? No way! Do you know Greg?" pointing my direction.

People meeting people at a tailgate. It happens.

Back in the Day

What I was thinking about last year, five years ago, and ten years ago.

• Last Year: Right FIT #509 – I was cleaning out the garage last year and remembering how much money I made on ebay taking semi-interesting items and adding elaborate stories to them. Looking back I wonder, when did I find the time? The last bike stuff when straight to the Goodwill. Maybe they can write a story about it.
• Five Years Ago: Right FIT #300 – Another story that makes me wonder what I'm doing with my time. Fishing! I took a few days to go fishing five years ago. It was great. I still have pics. I need to go again.
• Ten Years Ago: Right FIT #38 – A story about telling stories led me to clicking through, listening, and laughing. The Questlove/Jimmy Fallon/Prince thing. Oh man. Funny.