Aspiring rainmakers struggle to find time for business development. It is by far the most frequently mentioned barrier to success. I have suggested several ways to deal with it in earlier posts. Here is another.

Most people agree that if something is important enough to them, they will usually find the time for it. And they always find time for the truly urgent. It follows, then, that business development, at least the long-term relationship building and lead generation part of it, doesn’t seem sufficiently urgent and important to make it into their schedules.

In one sense they are right. If you don’t call any old clients or other network contacts today, disaster won’t strike. Your life will go on just as usual, with you working diligently on your clients’ urgent matters. The same will be true, if you make no calls tomorrow.

But if this lapse persists, month after month, the cumulative impact is huge. You won’t develop a referral network and without the network, you get no leads. Without leads, you have no sales opportunities of your own.

At this juncture, you must ask yourself, so what? More specifically, five years from today (or three or two—select your own horizon), if you have no lead flow and aren’t generating any work of your own, what are the consequences and do those consequences mean enough to you to get you to find time for business development now? If so, you need to keep those consequences in front of you now. Every day. Where they can compete with the other urgent demands that cry for your attention.

Joshua is an executive recruiter, a self-effacing, quiet man with a strong sense of service. His clients love him. And he worked so doggedly for them, he had no time for client development. When asked so what, he said that if he didn’t generate business, he wouldn’t have the financial resources he will need to pay for his four children’s education and other needs. We took the picture of his children down from the shelf behind his desk and put it next to his phone. He is making his calls and has the largest number of leads he has ever had.

Patrick is a healthcare consultant with abundant charm. He can make an exchange on the weather feel valuable. People like talking with him and he with them. As certainly as chickens produce eggs, if he talks with people, he will generate leads. But he wasn’t making his calls. He has no children and so no looming tuition expenses. So, why should he make calls? Patrick answered that he is sick of doing projects for other people in the firm. As much as he likes these people, he wants control of his own destiny. He wants to answer directly to his own clients. He has printed out the following message: Lead flow means control of my own destiny. He has pasted it above the monitor of his computer where he will see it often. We will now see if his call volume goes up.

To make time for business development, you must be clear about its importance and its urgency. If you don’t make your calls, so what?

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 8:13 am and is filed under Business Development, Leads, Making Time, Rain making, Time Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.