Businesses are often complacent about securing new and better quality clients, so that their development activities are minimal, or are not targeted to specific clients. Business development strategies are a key area to get right if you are striving to grow your client base or wish to discover ways to attract better quality clients.
Business development involves taking action so that it is better able to meet the needs of clients. This implies that your business:
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has assessed the general and specific needs of clients
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uses targeted business development strategies linked to specific needs
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has ways of working that make clients feel comfortable and that address their specific needs
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is open to regular feedback
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is committed to continuous improvement.
Why use business development strategies?
Most businesses would agree that they primarily undertake business development strategies to grow their client lists and their revenue (= quantitative growth) and/or to get better at what they do (= qualitative growth). The most effective way to achieve both forms of growth is by focusing on meeting the needs of your clients. In a business development sense, meeting client needs is good for business because happy clients will return to your business time and time again. This builds repeat revenue. They will also usually refer people they know to the business, which in turn fuels word-of-mouth marketing and builds revenue further. In addition, feedback from clients continues to raise the bar in terms of quality.
So how do you undertake business development?
To ensure that you get the right clients for your practice the following four-step process is useful to consider.
Step 1: understand client needs
Generally speaking all clients have four basic needs: to (a) be understood; (b) feel welcome; (c) feel important and (d) feel comfortable. However, there are a multitude of specific needs for people of different ages, sex, ethnicity, etc. Each of these needs must be catered for. The best way to determine your client needs is to ask them via client detail forms, one-on-one discussion and client surveys.
Step 2: Align services with client needs
Once you fully understand client needs you need to link them to your business products or services using communication strategies, so that in the client's mind their needs have been addressed. For example, if you run a medical practice a portion of your clients may regularly travel overseas so you could offer a travel vaccine service or a medical assessment service to address this need. The key business development function here is to let clients know about this service that aligns with their need.
Some strategies to deliver information to clients include the following:
Step 3: Provide services and an experience that meet or exceed client expectations
Team members need to be involved, empowered and trained to understand client needs and respond accordingly. Business owners and managers play a vital role in ensuring the team has clear guidance of what to do and why. Standardise the way you work so that you perform at a consistently high level. Make use of an office manual and use this as a resource for facilitating shared understanding. Always work on trying to exceed client expectations as part of your continuous improvement strategy.
Step 4: Determine whether client needs have been met
Ways to determine if client needs have been met include face-to-face meetings, follow-up phone calls or client satisfaction surveys.
Client satisfaction surveys allow for the collection and analysis of a large number of responses. Your survey should have specific questions about their needs, whether these needs are met, areas for improvement, etc. If you run a business which receives referrals, it is essential to survey clients and referrers as it is important understand the needs of both parties and to foster both relationships.
Once you have analysed your results share these with the team for their thoughts and feedback. Clients and staff may come up with a number of areas for action which affect business development, such as introducing new or improved services, changing staff attitudes to be more client focused, or using more effective written and verbal language to communicate with clients.
In conclusion
It is essential that business development focuses on meeting the needs of clients. Business development binds together all aspects of your workplace and is part of everyone's role within the team. It is something we should all aspire to do on a day-to-day basis.
If you would like to take your business to the next level or you'd like some perspective about what's really taking place in your organisation, pick up the phone and contact us now to take advantage of our FREE initial consultation.