Cyril Peupion, Debby Moorman, and Mike Duffy Discuss Why It's Time To Get Great At Business Development

Mo asks Cyril Peupion: When was the moment you realized that growth was great?

• Cyril started his own business with a partner after completing his MBA so he had an interest in business development right from the beginning.
• With time, he realized how much he had to learn about sales and relationship building.
• Impact is a keyword in how Cyril views the world. If he had only one principle piece of advice to give to people, it would be to prioritize your calendar according to impact.
• Cyril tells the story of a client he was working with and the impact on their life the work had. As great as getting to inbox zero and having an organized and neat work environment, being able to sleep at night and actually turn off her mind was completely life-changing.
• When you have something as powerful and impactful on people’s lives, business development becomes easy and natural. Cyril considers his business to be in service to his clients.
• When you change your way of working it changes your life, which is why Cyril doesn’t view his work as business development. Instead, he sees it as bringing his service to the people that need it.
• When it comes to prioritizing for impact, you have to start with a mind shift. High performers don’t look at when things are due, they look at the impact of the things they need to do first.
• Think quarterly, plan weekly, and act daily. Thinking quarterly is one of the most effective time frames to think about work while incorporating your long-term vision. Planning each week is an important tempo for progressing your top two or three priorities. A crisis will arrive eventually, but you need to run your tasks through the four-word framework of What Impact Long-Term.

Mo asks Debby Moorman: Tell me the moment when you decided that business development is something that you wanted to focus on.

• Debby fell into business development almost by accident when she was in college after taking a sales job one summer. The key realization was when she figured out that she liked helping people solve their problems, and that was when she decided to shift her focus to professional sales.
• Debby went on to a professional sales role out of college where most of the training was technical in focus. It wasn’t until Debby moved into a national leadership role did she realize that business development skills are just as important as technical skills. That was when she became connected with Mo and the GrowBIG system.
• Now that Debby is consulting, the focus on business development is even more important.
• As a service provider, the reality is that you are helping your clients solve their problems, and that is the essence of business development.
• Companies tend to focus on technical training because there is often so much information to learn and such a large need for that information, businesses are incentivized to pay attention to it. An organization that wants to grow has to invest in its people beyond the technical side.
• Companies often throw structure at an issue in an attempt to solve a problem.
• Take the word sales out of your mind if you’re just getting started with business development. Retool your brain to frame the conversation as a way of figuring out what the other person needs and how you can help. If you can do that, the conversation becomes less intimidating.

Mo asks Mike Duffy: When was the moment that you decided that business development was important and you needed to get great at it?

• Mike’s dad started in sales so he had a front row seat on making sales from the very beginning. He started his sales career by  selling ad space in a travel magazine, and once he got out of college, Mike started selling ladies clothes in California.
• He took a $500,000 territory and in 18 months turned it into $2.5 million. He won salesman of the year at the age of 24 and ended up having a beer with his sales manager which led to a conversation that changed everything for him.
• Mike took a deep dive into discovering what really makes a good sales program and he became a student of sales for the rest of his career.
• Mike teaches lawyers business development now under the assumption that he has to sell the idea to his students. The goal is to help them understand that adding value to a relationship or closing a deal is sales by another name.
• If we want to live the life we want, we have to get great at growth.
• Start with the people you are going to call and how you can have a conversation that creates curiosity. That allows you to learn about what they need. Business development is about helping people.
• Business development habits set you apart when it comes to employment as well. It’s hard to ascertain someone’s technical expertise in a 30-minute interview, but it’s obvious when you care, listen intently, and make the conversation about the other person.
• You always have to be thinking about the long game. Some prospects may not turn into clients for years, so you need to focus on just moving the ball a little bit further each day.
• Be transparent, have humility, and be honest. Tell people when they are your #1 target and allow them to shape the relationship in a way that’s valuable for them.

Mentioned in this Episode:

GrowBIGPlaybook.com

wslb.com

debby.moorman@willistowerswatson.com

Debby Moorman on LinkedIn

Mike Duffy on LinkedIn