What Business Development REALLY Means, According to Maria Kelly

Mo asks Maria Kelly: What is your personal definition of business development?

• Business development is about creating opportunities and value for other people. Doing that together is what makes business development fun.
• Often, people don’t see their own value and this is reflected in the general disdain for sales. You need to understand what value you bring to the table as a specialist and use that confidence in your skill to bring value to the other person.
• A lot comes to your presentation and how you approach the client. When you are genuine in your intent to help and you believe in your offering, it comes through in how you communicate.
• Email can be easily misconstrued and is a good example of how something can be taken differently depending on your language and other factors. Your client is a human being as well, and showing your human side builds connection.
• Listen to your client before talking. Empathy is important in understanding where they are coming from and how they want to communicate with you.
• To be able to communicate in all four ways of thinking, you first need to be aware of what your primary style is. From there you can be cognizant of how you communicate and be thoughtful of the other styles so you’re always speaking the client’s language.
• Maria works with already successful CEOs and helps them grow further, and how that happens is deeply connected to each individual and the obstacles they face. Maria spends a lot of time getting to know the entire business as a whole so that she can help take the blinders off of the client.

Mentioned in this Episode:

GrowBIGPlaybook.com

askmariakelly.com

Maria Kelly on LinkedIn