Angela Meyer on Building Relationships – Time To Get Great At Business Development

Mo asks Angela Meyer: When was the time that you realized that business development was worth focusing on?

• Angela’s background is in mechanical engineering and it was during her graduate education while working with her professor where she learned the communication skills to be a great consultant. After beginning her career, Angela got a lot of hands-on experience in the business side of things while working with the CEO of a forensic engineering company. That’s where she learned that in order to be a great consultant, she couldn’t just be running calculations, she had to become good at developing relationships.
• Angela always thought that she was a good speaker and communicator, but after giving a presentation on a case study that she had worked on and not being able to answer the questions from the audience, she knew she had some room to improve.
• After seeing a recording of herself during a presentation, Angela knew that if she was going to be good at business development, she was going to have to improve her communication skills.
• Soft skills turn into hard results.
• Angela improves incrementally by watching people do great work and trying to learn from them. The other aspect is putting it into practice. You have to try and fail.
• If you don’t try, you don’t learn. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
• From Angela’s perspective, she has multiple failures, but she uses those failures to learn and get better.
• You can’t rely on your company to train you to become a better, more well-rounded consultant. The presentation training class that Angela attended was the best $150 she spent.
• If you’re not willing to put yourself out there and try to build a relationship, you might as well stay in the back office.
• Start with your network that you know or see everyday. Create a list of all the people you’ve worked with over the past six months and see when the last time you connected with them without talking about the project. It’s about getting the next small win and developing the relationship and building your network.

Mentioned in this Episode:

GrowBIGPlaybook.com

MeyerVorst.com

Angela Meyer, PhD, PE on LinkedIn