Successful Business Development: How to find and retain your customers

By John Miller

You are about to create your business, you have recently created it or you are already running your small business: this guide to getting started and to last is made for you.
Filled with practical advice, expert advice and testimonials from entrepreneurs, this book will guide you and provide you with concrete solutions to build your success in the long term.

• · What are the ways to convince new prospects?
• · How to master and perfect the customer relationship?
• · Which marketing strategy to adopt?
• · How to retain customers and better meet their expectations?

These are the questions answered in this book that will help you pass the 3-year mark and successfully grow your business.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miller
• Release date: Apr 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215236369

Book preview

1

Ask yourself the right questions... and decide on the right answers!

What is happiness if not the true accord between a being and the existence he leads?

A LBERT C AMUS

Goals

Help you make decisions faster.

Develop your charisma and your strength of conviction.

Allow you to take pleasure in the commercial action.

Why did you decide to start your business?

■ ■ ■ This question may make you smile. However, your answers will help you every day for the important decisions to be made regarding the development of your business. And above all: your answers will allow you to build the daily life that suits you. Because the essential is there: to create your company, it is to create the professional universe which corresponds to you best. To never say " chic, it's Friday!" »

Practical advice

Take the time to write the synthesis of this reflection:

My strong points.

What I want.

What I don't want.

My core values.

A document to treasure.

What is your personal base made of? More specifically, what are your core values? What are your strong points ? Similarly, what do you hate the most and don't want? What are the situations in which you have been successful or, conversely, which you no longer want? What are your motivations for starting a business?

This preparation work also aims to protect you from yourself, from the frenetic frenzy generated by the creation and development of your own business. Your personal base is there to remind you that you have specific objectives for running a business. Your business must be at the service of your life project.

Testimony

Laure Wagner, director of 1 km à Pied (innovative solution for data-analysis and optimization of home-work journeys).

"I had immersed myself in the various reports on the climate. Reading them convinced me of the urgency to act. It is with this conviction that I created my company, with the aim of solving a problem: the impact of car travel on the climate, and more specifically home-work journeys. They are on average in France 15 km: we cannot offer employees to cover such a distance by bike twice a day! I was convinced that the solution lay with employers, helping them to reduce this distance. In addition, the home-to-work journey is a forced journey for employees. So I created an innovative solution, which helps companies to reduce this distance. And the natural target of my commercial prospecting is made up of large companies. Aligning my values and my desire for impact with my daily activity is a great source of fulfillment. It is also a powerful lever to overcome all the difficulties of entrepreneurship. »

The path is not always easy

Lost markets, customers calling into question an agreement, banks refusing to follow a project, a Kafkaesque administration, a global health crisis... As you know, the daily life of an entrepreneur is not always easy. Doubts, fears, anger await you along the way. In these difficult times, your personal base is also intended to constitute the armor which will protect you. Here are some suggestions for strengthening it:

Self-confidence. It is arguably an entrepreneur's most valuable asset.

A positive image of oneself and of what one undertakes.

The certainty that, whatever happens, we will not go back. We decided to become an entrepreneur and stay that way!

A precise vision of the ideal future that we want to achieve.

Confidence in its product or its services, and in the team that surrounds us.

Passion, even love for his business. This last advice is given by Idriss Aberkane ¹ . According to this neuroscience expert, only love allows total commitment. And more importantly: in these conditions, the efforts are never heavy, even less painful. This aspect is essential: your approach as an entrepreneur should never be painful. If you are in pain, this is not your way. To illuminate this essential piece of advice, here is a quote attributed to Monica Vitti ² : " They say the world belongs to those who get up early. It's not true. The world belongs to those who are happy to stand up. »

And you will be even more solid in your entrepreneurial approach if your close entourage supports you, understands you and above all is aligned with your own objectives.

We don't all have the same values...

It is obvious: we do not all have the same moral sense. What will seem normal to some will shock others. It is essential that you take the time necessary to step back and write your own rules and values. Your life as an entrepreneur will be made up of decisions: whether or not to accept a contract, work with one client rather than another, recruit one employee rather than another, join forces or not, choose a partner... To make these decisions serenely, you need a solid foundation of values. Let us be clear: this base of values, you already have it. You didn't wait to read this book to make decisions and build your life. You know the five values that are essential to you. Simply, I invite you to write them and translate them. Concretely, how to do it?

Integrity, professionalism, freedom, family, wealth, power, fidelity, tolerance... The essential values that guide an individual are known. If necessary, do some research on the Internet: many sites will offer you lists of values.

Select the ones that suit you the most.

Give each value a score of importance, from 0 to 10 (10 corresponding to I do not accept that this value is not respected).

Validate that the five values to which you gave the highest score correspond well to you.

In a few lines, make explicit the meaning you give to each of your values.

What is your ideal future?

■ ■ ■ In five years, what will your business look like? Who will be your customers? What will they say about you? What geographical area will you cover? What turnover will you achieve? What resources will you have?

Take the time to dream, imagine, describe and write down this ideal future. Your entrepreneurial vision is one of your most valuable assets for success.

Building and running a business is a solitary exercise. A no-brainer if you are a solo entrepreneur. Even if you have collaborators or associates, you must take alone a a number of decisions. Difficult to share the moments of doubt or fear. For yourself and for those around you, you need to be a good leader. By answering questions about your ideal future, you will, at the same time, enroll yourself in the action for a long time.

If you have to break rocks...

An anecdote that you may know. " What are you doing? we ask two stonemasons. " I'm breaking rocks, dirty work!" » replies the first. As for the second, he exclaims with pride: " I am building a cathedral! »

In the same way, two sales managers in the middle of prospecting will not have the same answer.

The first will answer: " I do phoning, dirty job! » The second (who has read this book!) will be enthusiastic: « I am developing the network of the European leader in accessories for mobile phones! »

We will say of this effective person: " She has faith! Faith cannot be decreed, it is built, it is written. Your vision will make you an enthusiastic, charismatic, efficient entrepreneur ready to convert the whole world! But, just before setting out to conquer the world, consider these three recommendations:

A first important point: your vision does not need to correspond to an excessive ambition to be relevant. The dream of living serenely from a job that you love, savoring the freedom of independence, being recognized by your customers, is a vision just as respectable as that of wanting to save humanity by conquering the planet Mars. ³ .

A second point: your vision will be an important driver if it is meaningful to you. It is in your interest to reflect both for yourself (what is my ambition, what life do I aspire to) and for the world around you (what is the grand design to which I wish to contribute at my height). In the book "New Generation Entrepreneurs ⁴ ", Robert Dilts recommends aligning the ego and the soul to lead a healthy and successful existence. Indeed, you will reach your highest level of performance if you feel that you are serving both your personal ambitions and the world around you.

Finally, do not confuse this work of personal reflection with a rewriting of the history of certain companies, whose success would be due to the motivations of their brilliant founder, to their why. The results of the very personal reflection that I invite you to carry out or continue are not intended to be displayed in your communication. This work is only intended to consolidate your entrepreneurial mindset.

Don't throw this book away!

Your vision is written, it's time to move on to a closer and more operational projection. What is your turnover objective to be achieved over the next twelve months?

This question can make you gasp, make you want to throw this book away, this point seems so obvious to you! Already, two thousand years ago, Seneca said: " There is no favorable wind for him who does not know where he is going "; so true is it that setting a goal seems obvious.

This is the only way to size the necessary means.

It's a great way to motivate yourself and get moving.

It is even a source of happiness, so gratifying is it to do your best every day to achieve a specific goal.

With this evidence, let us ask the two essential questions:

Why do some entrepreneurs not set a real goal?

If the exercise is made compulsory by a third party, inevitably, they have produced a business plan. Yet they don't believe for a moment in the numbers they quickly threw out.

Experience shows that many entrepreneurs are allergic to the very idea of setting goals. Having often worked on this subject with several contractor clients, I have noted the reasons for this rejection:

The objective is felt as a constraint, a straitjacket; hence the need to set realistic goals that you will enjoy reaching and even exceeding. Especially if you communicate them. And nothing prevents you, during the year, from modifying them. If the goal you set for yourself in December turns out to be unachievable in May, question it. Be a good boss with yourself too.

The objective causes a certain stress, for fear of not achieving the set goal. If good stress turns out to be a driving force, bad stress becomes paralyzing, hence the good and bad goals. At the risk of repeating yourself, your goals must be accessible, within your reach. They must spur you on, make you want to surpass yourself but not discourage you.

expert advice

Freddy Foray, motorcycle racer, triple world endurance champion (2010, 2011 and 2018).

How to manage the pressure of the result?

It's not how I handle it, it's how I prepare! Already, I will share my goals with only two people: my coach and my wife. By limiting communication to my very close, intimate entourage, I put less pressure on myself. Then, a 24-hour race is prepared for three months and gives rise to preliminary test sessions. These sessions allow me to realize my real level of performance and what will be possible during the race. This moment is decisive. It allows me to set a realistic goal for the race that I can achieve without undue pressure. When I get on the bike, I will do just what I know how to do. This way of thinking is essential to remove any pressure: you should only do what you are capable of doing. So, of course, you can feel the pressure from the team, the sponsors, the spectators. But if I am sure of my base, of what I can do, I will remain calm and focused on the obligation to give myself 100%. Finally, success is a mix between motivation and endurance. We all have new goals that motivate us for a fairly short time, but those that make a difference, maintain that motivation for years...

How to set your sales target?

Four solutions are available to you:

In relation to your compensation objective. You know the amount of income you want. Add your payroll taxes and all of your company's operating expenses and you will get your turnover target.

Compared to the performances you have already achieved. If your business already exists, you can build on the progress you've made to decide on your goal. If you have increased your turnover by 20% per year over the last three years, it may be safe to maintain the same rate of growth for the following year.

About your vision. It is a question of translating your ambition into turnover. Become number one in your market? Own a highly valuable business that you can resell? Whatever its nature, your ambition can translate into turnover for the next twelve months. This step is even more important if you have raised funds to finance the growth of your business.

relative to the pace of your market. In a fast-growing market, you can decide your progress based on this pace. In steep declines, you can decide to preserve your business with zero growth, or even a 10% decline, which is a good relative performance, in a market at -40%.

In this type of situation, you can also adopt a turnover objective that corresponds to your breakeven point, ie the minimum turnover to cover all of your expenses.

What image do you have of the commercial action?

■ ■ ■ You're ready to go, but there's one final point to cover. What image do you have of the commercial action? What does selling mean to you?

Let me tell you a story. Annie is a young female entrepreneur whom I accompany in her commercial approach. To help him better, we decided to make prospecting calls together. As we have just started a work session, I feel a very strong tension in her. I decide to interrogate him. Here is our exchange:

- Annie: what's going on?

" Do you really want me to answer you?"

- Yes, of course!

- I'm ashamed to do what I'm doing!

— ?!?

I confess to you that at the time I was unsettled by his answer, so inconceivable was it that an entrepreneur would be ashamed to prospect in order to sell his