Читать книгу Never Say Sell - Tom McMakin - Страница 24

Cold business development outreach costs money. Chasing leads from one end of the planet to the other burns jet fuel and exhausts our best people, often with very little to show for it. Writing thought leadership, going to conferences, or buying advertising is even less effective, because it is terribly expensive. It is far better to look closer to home. If you had $25,000 to spend on business development and had the choice between advertising in CEO Magazine for three months or having 50 dinners with clients, you would choose the salmon and Sauvignon Blanc every day of the week. That's because the chances of inking work are much greater when we talk to people who already respect our capabilities and trust us with their businesses.

Dr. Christopher Stevens, a professor at Gonzaga's Graduate School of Business Administration, says,

It's at least six, maybe eight times as expensive to get a new client as it is to keep an existing one … This is especially true if you're doing engagement-based consulting where you go out and learn the client's business. You're building up all of this knowledge base about who they are and what they do. The absolute last thing you'd want to do is squander that by not capitalizing on that intimacy to find other value options for them.