How to Learn Business Development

Episode 1003: How to Learn Business Development, with Jeff Nischwitz

How to Learn Business Development — Unlock the secrets of business development with effective strategies and tips on how to learn business development.

How to learn business development: Jeff Nischwitz is known as a Snow Globe Shaker who’s on a mission to help people shift how they lead and thereby shift their leadership impact. He’s an international speaker and personal transformation coach and the Founder of The Nischwitz Group, a speaking, consulting and coaching company that transforms people and organizations—one truth at a time! He’s the co-founder of Cardivera.com and co-host of the Leadership Junkies podcast (www.leadershipjunkies.com). Jeff has published four books, including his most recent – Just One Step: Walking Backwards to the Present on the Camino Trail.

What you’ll learn in this episode is about how to learn business development: 

• How Jeff started his career working for a big law firm, and how he realized the importance of learning business development once he struck out on his own after a decade
• Jeff discussed how to learn business development to attract the right-fit clients
• How Jeff learned that becoming a “rainmaker” was more about relationship-building through consistent and reliable behavior
• Why it is impossible to have a team of all rainmakers but it is crucial to have a “rainmaker mindset” that empowers everyone to collectively succeed
• Why teaching your team members business development skills isn’t necessarily the best use of your time as a business leader, and why creating the mindset is more effective
• How Jeff learned that a service mindset was powerful for learning business development, and how he builds a “toolbox” by cultivating relationships within his network
• Why stories serve as powerful connective tissue that builds relationships, and why it is important to tell your story in business development
• Why business development needs a rhythm that can create ongoing momentum to avoid the “peaks and valleys”
• Why there is always a “next action” that needs to be followed up on beyond just reaching out to someone
• Why it is important to avoid being lazy and giving people “homework”, and why you should never have others own the follow up action but should instead follow up yourself
• Jeff shares tips and strategies for building stronger relationships and learning business development skills

Resources:

• Learn more about how to learn business development by tuning in to our “ROI of Community” Framework
• Want to further your skills and learn how to learn business development? Visit Jeff’s website for more great resources
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/jeffnischwitz
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffnischwitz/
• Twitter: @jeffnischwitz
• Books: www.nischwitzgroup.com/books-products/
• Call Jeff: (216) 956-6587

Additional Resources: 

• Free Executive Leadership Summary report from Predictive ROI: https://predictiveroi.com/research
• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/

 

 

How to Learn Business Development: Full Episode Transcript

 

Get ready to find your recipe for success from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner.

 

Good morning. I’m Stephen Westner, CEO of Predictive ROI and your host for Onward Nation, where I interviewed today’s top business owners. So we can learn their recipe for success, how they built and how they scale their business. If you’ve been watching our free Saturday video training series, you know that we’ve been focusing on three key strategic areas, how to grow your audience, how to nurture leads and how to increase sales or grow and nurture and sell for short, with all three of them playing very critical roles to helping you move onward to that next level. So in today’s episode, we’re going to drill down into a topic that stretches candidly, stretches across all three, grow, nurture, Sell, because we’re going to dissect what needs to happen in order to make it rain inside your agency, inside your coaching business or inside your strategic consultancy. 

 

And not literally, of course, I’m not talking about rain literally, of course, but what are the things that you could be doing to make it rain in the form of new business development? Because here’s the deal this often happens when I ask the owner of an agency, a coaching practice, or a consultancy to identify the one thing that they wished they could be doing better one of the most frequently given answers is Stephen. We need more people doing biz dev better and more consistently. Unfortunately we’re consistent at being inconsistent in what I really wish we had was a Rainmaker. That one person who is super focused and really great at BizDev, would be a big win for our business and Onward Nation. 

 

Typically, every business owner wants the Rainmaker, but here’s the reality. Very few have One. Well, why is that? Well, this is partly because many of us are Michael Gerber described in his book. The E-Myth that accidental business owners, are really good at doing the thing or are doing the task. And then somebody said, Hey, you ought to turn that thing into a side hustle. And then we did. And the next thing we knew, that side hustle turned into a full-time job. And now you want to build and scale that business. You don’t want it to be a job. You want it to be a business. And so now you’re thrown 

 

Into the role of being the Rainmaker when maybe you don’t want to be, or maybe you’ve never been trained on how to be. So oftentimes the already super stretched-thin business owner is stretched even further, knowing they need to make the rain or they feel guilty because they don’t actually wanna do the work. And they start telling themselves excuses like I’m too busy. I don’t know what to do. I’m uncomfortable with business development. I hate selling. I haven’t been trained, all of which are super common. So let’s contrast that for a moment. The owners who do have a Rainmaker inside their business, have one thing in common. 

 

They relentlessly execute the business development habit. Here’s the reality, high-performing companies who are committed to scaling have a business development culture. And that includes effective training action action-oriented, personal development, business plans, and consistent accountability to assure the quality of biz-dev activities in ongoing coaching and support to assure the quality of the activity. Okay. So how do we solve that? What oftentimes feels like a very complicated calculus. Well, I’ve invited an expert to join us today to help us do just that. 

 

Learn more about how to learn business development by tuning in to our “ROI of Community” Framework

 

How to Learn Business Development: Jeff’s Introduction

 

His name is Jeff Nischwitz and he’s an expert at helping business owners, just like you and me shake things up in particular has a depth of expertise in helping companies develop. Rainmakers using a proven business development formula. Jeff is the founder and chief story debunker at the Nischwitz group, a speaking consulting and coaching company that helps businesses, accelerate revenue, develop effective leaders, nurture high-performing teams, and execute their objectives. So without further ado, welcome to Onward Nation, Jeff. 

 

Stephen, I am thrilled to be here. I love what you talked about, man. We’re right in our wheelhouse. 

 

Well, I am thrilled to have you here, my friend. And thank you for saying yes. And thank you, Drew McClellan. 

 

If you happened to be listening, thank you very much for the introduction so that Jeff and I could get together to have this great conversation. And thank you again, Jeff, for saying yes. I know that you have a very busy schedule in and compressed. So before we dive in, actually take us behind the curtain and give us some additional context into you, your path, and your journey. and then we’ll dive in with the questions. 

 

Well, yeah. And it is a somewhat unique journey, which allows me to, I think, bring a much more holistic look at this. So I’m a recovered, fully recovered lawyer. I say, fully recovered because I think I’ve got most of the bad stuff out of me and kept the good stuff. And I also have hit a crossover point because I practiced law for 17 years and now I have done something else for 19. So I’m more than half of my career out of it. But why that’s important is the first 10 years of my career, I worked for a very large law firm and I really didn’t have to do this stuff. It was mildly encouraged at that time in the economy, but it wasn’t essential. 

 

How to learn business development from scratch? I decided to leave and start my own shop. I became that accidental entrepreneur and I started by myself and to build a team. So I’d build a firm. So the reality is I’ve been in that seat, a different industry, but I’d been in the seat. I’ve been the guy who started it, who did all the work. He was trying to run things, try to hire people, try to build the team I had to bring in the Business and deliver, and also figuring out how to have a life. So whatever industry you’re in, I’ve been in your seat is the key. And I’ve tried to wear all the hats and learned a lot from failure, frankly. And some things we can avoid. But the key for me was my ability to start to learn how to build those relationships. 

 

Learn more about how to learn business development by tuning in to our “ROI of Community” Framework

 

How to Learn Business Development: Lessons in Business Development and Consistency

 

And I love what you said. You know, I heard you say, how do you do it consistently use the word relentless. You talk about the habit and the culture, all the things we can talk about. But it was cool when I left that. So I did it in the seat, but then for the next six or seven years, I worked doing business development for others. So that’s all I was responsible for. So my experience is not just selling myself, but selling the product or service. And for me, it was all services. So I’d been in some way, shape, or form. Now I have had my own coaching and consulting business for 12 years. So you can look at my career in  37 years. 

 

How to learn business development? I’ve been selling the invisible, which is what you’re all doing too. Right? That’s the mad that’s the magic and the challenge we’re selling the invisible. We’re not showing them the product say, Hey, look at this cool product. It’s, we’re selling you a result and outcome, a feeling which is all part of it. So this has been my stick for 27 years, whether it’s in my own business for someone else, I feel like I have learned a few things, especially trial and error and some things we’re going to talk about today. Frankly, I think you’re going to hear your unique. 

 

Okay. Do you take us tickets back when you said you were in the seat and you have to start to make that transition to Rainmaker? How does somebody go about making that transition? Maybe that’s too for the question. Maybe there are other things we have to discuss before somebody is even ready to make the transition, but how did you do that? 

 

Yeah, but there is something I want to talk about before we get into that. Okay. I love this. I get to start off in and mildly disagree with. I think the parts of the challenges were we were looking for the Holy Grail of finding that Rainmaker for us. But it’s really about the culture of real consistent, reliable activities that build the relationships that drive those sales and those new clients and the ongoing clients. Because if you look at most organizations, especially in price and services, people think I’m like going into their financials because I’ll walk into someone and I’ll say, OK, how big is your organization? 

 

Learn more about how to learn business development by tuning in to our “ROI of Community” Framework

 

How to Learn Business Development: Cultivating Business Development in Your Team

 

How to learn business development? They’ll tell me, especially people that have the doers who are also responsible for delivery. And that’s a key piece because that’s usually the case here. People aren’t just doers. They are also responsible for business development. I don’t think that’s a bad model. It’s a challenging model because where’s my time going. But what happened? I couldn’t walk into a group and I’ll say, okay, you got 30 professionals here. Okay. That tells me you probably have one or two rainmakers that everybody will go there. There are the rainmakers that are usually 10 to 15%, okay. You’re going to have 20 to 25% that aren’t doing anything on it. There are just pure delivery people and everybody else is in the middle. 

 

How to learn business development and where do I start? So the reality is we’re never going to have all rainmakers, but what we want to have is a rainmaker mindset. And if you think about taking a group of people, so imagine that you’ve got a team of, I don’t care if it’s three, six, eight, 10, 12, and we’re going to take each one of them. And the part of this is we’ve got to get really get clear on who the right people, our, because there is some people that this would be so uncomfortable in so hard for them. They’re never going to get it. Don’t spend your time on them. Don’t make that investment. But the real, what we really want to move is that middle group, okay. We wanna move them. Coz if you imagine that a whole group, let’s say that over a short period of time, they improved by 20 to twenty-five percent. 

 

What is the multiplier effect of that? Because the people who typically become rainmakers have the habits have the skills, they get some training, but they’ve got some natural gifts and they separate themselves, but it’s not about creating rainmakers it’s creating a culture of, in a group of people who collectively are doing more consistently higher quantity, higher quality, getting it, right. It raises, you know what they say about high tide raises all the boats. Yep. So don’t go looking for a savior. There are very few of them. There are very few of them. They will rise out of this process. The goal is to create, and give everybody these foundations that they can rise from. 

 

Learn more about how to learn business development by tuning in to our “ROI of Community” Framework

 

How to Learn Business Development: Building a Culture of Business Development Excellence

 

How to learn business development to improve yourself and then though the cream rises to the top. So that’s the starting to say, let’s get away from, we got to find the one rain maker and one other quick thing on that. Typically the top Rainmaker is the founder because they started, they had to do it. Yeah. The problem is the people who did it and are really good at it. Often don’t know how they do it. That means they can’t teach it because you can’t teach it if you can’t break it into a learnable moment in and skills. And they also don’t, it’s not the best use of their time, frankly. None of the business making the rain and says, come in and they teach us how to be, to make rain and you stop. 

 

That’s the unconscious competence, right? Yeah, exactly. Are there? 

 

Yeah. And I’ve heard other owners say that before, when, when you ask them to be like, well, how did, how did she do that? How, how did you do that? And then, the answer is, I don’t know; it is just like magic and brilliance just come out of her. But to be able to like break it down to articulate it into or document it into a strategy is nearly impossible because that’s like her area of genius. 

 

Right. It is because what usually happens when they try this, it comes out or something like this. Well go to events. I have coffee with people who have breakfast and lunch with them. Yeah. Just do that. Do that five times a week. Yeah. Good. And we go, wow. Okay, great. 

 

Okay. So that this is, this is pretty counterintuitive because you know, I’m, I’m, I’m in lots of business owner groups and peer groups and that kind of stuff in and constantly the pain point is I got to find that one person, I got to find that biz-dev person, I’ve got to find that right. Or they can take in what you’re saying is no, it’s really raising the skillset of all. 

 

Right. It is not a skill set at all. And you’re rainmakers were rise out of that. Now, if you’ve decided to pursue a business model that says, I want that salesperson, I will say this most, the time when I see that try and it fails. Most of the stories I hear from people in this industry and others related are I thought I found the person. Okay. And they weren’t in it because what a lot of times they’ll do is they’ll go find people from a different industry that know a lot of people. And I always say that means nothing because this is not about networking. That’s the problem. And someone can be networked, but it means that they can really do this, especially outside what they’ve done before. 

 

Learn more about how to learn business development by tuning in to our “ROI of Community” Framework

 

How to Learn Business Development: From Selling to Serving in Business Development

 

How to learn business development? You know, I’ll tell you something there are so many defaults. I work in professional services, lawyers and accountants are famous. They loved to hire former bankers. Why? Because bankers tend to network a lot. So they’ve seen them in a lot of things. There are used to being very active, but the reality is most bankers, aren’t good at developing business. They’re not that they’re actually terrible at it. The thing is though, they got enough things, feeding them that they end up bringing in enough business, but they’re not really that good at that. And my bank or friends are going to call and kill me. Now don’t, Darlene do not call me. You are an exception. There was a friend of mine, Darlene Gold. Back when I met her at a mixer between our two companies, I immediately said, Oh my God, this is not your normal banker because what was she? 

 

How to learn business development — And she was a business adviser with a big issue with the banking business card. So it wasn’t a bank or if she knew how to help businesses. And you know that this actually goes to your original question, where do you start? And how did I start? Well, first of all, it was a lost survival. You know, I got no clients, I got no business. I gotta get after it. But I realized that, and it took me a long time to find the habits. But the mindset was really important to me and what I started with. And it served me well since 1994. So I remember the years, which is 27 years. I decided I wanted to be on the phone call. 

 

What do you mean? I want it to be the person that everybody knew who to call if they needed somebody or something or not. So I was never, I was never just selling what I had. In fact, I was rarely selling. I was in service all the time. Nice. And the cool part about that was first of all, it was enriching to me, all of these people that say, I don’t like selling, it makes me nervous. If it will stop selling a celly, that’s your problem. If you’re doing it wrong, it’s not that you can’t do it. You’re doing it wrong. So I went into service mode and what that allowed me to do was to be of service, to be the phone call, which meant they call me when they had a need. I could fax, but I’m the person that stayed top of mind because I was always helping them. 

 

How to learn business development and then teach it to your clients? I was the guy who was helping them, not trying to get something from them. But the cool part was it changed my whole experience of so-called networking. So that if I met you somewhere, Stephen, I wasn’t thinking, can he be a client? Which is what most people do. I qualify them. No, I would meet you and say, Oh wow. Tell me more about that because I’m really curious. Tell me what you do, who do you do it for? And what I’m thinking about is my toolbox. People need to think of their toolbox, which is all of the things that people need that you don’t do. So I can say, Oh, you know what? I need one of those. Or I need someone who is like this. And even when I met, as my toolbox got pretty full by pulling to a bus going to fall, I would still go to people like, let’s see, I met you, Stephen. 

 

Learn more about how to learn business development by tuning in to our “ROI of Community” Framework

 

How to Learn Business Development: The Power of Serving Over Selling

 

And let’s say I had four other agencies in my toolbox. I will tell you that. First of all, is it important that we’re not planning a game? I would see, you know what, and actually, this is a case where I used to say this. Exactly. It was about lawyers, divorce lawyers. I would meet the divorce lawyer. And I would say, look, you seem really great, but I have three divorce lawyers in my toolbox and they’re all good friends. It’s going to be pretty rare that I could refer something to you. Unless there is something you do that’s unique. And one time a guy who had a great answer, he said, well, it’s kind of unique. I almost work exclusively with veterans. Okay. So I might have sent the people to my other friends earlier, but none of them did that. 

 

How to learn business development? And I know there’s some differences. So he or she never goes into my toolbox as a veteran divorce lawyer. One of my cool little fun goals was never to have someone ask me for something that I couldn’t help with. And it’s an impossible goal, by the way. Cause I got some weird stuff, but what would happen when I did go to the toolbox? I inevitably found it through someone in my toolbox. So now they are in my toolbox, and the dynamic has totally changed. So it allowed me to feel good. There was more fun everywhere when I was looking to serve, not to sell.

 

This is fascinating because, in some way, when you and I dialed in for this interview as soon as or connected on Zoom, we started having that banter back and forth in the green room, in the pre-chat and you, and you started it off by saying, Hey, you had on your QA today. Somebody from my old stomping grounds and Cleveland, we had a Jackie Beeb and Ross and I’m like, Oh my gosh, how do you know Jacky? And then we started talking about Cleveland and that lead to Canton youth lived in Cleveland for 35 years. And I grew up in Canton. And then, and then all of a sudden we’re talking about John Rakus and like, ah, I know John, and in this connecting point of Drew McLellan. So now all of a sudden it’s like the world then becomes really small. 

 

Right? And, because you have all of these relationships, and that’s a beautiful thing when that house.

 

Learn more about how to learn business development by tuning in to our “ROI of Community” Framework

 

How to Learn Business Development: Connecting Through Stories in Business Development 

 

Well, it only becomes smaller, that becomes a richer experience. ’cause part of it is about, yeah, I know that person and all that, but I always tell people, you got to go deeper into your conversations. So here is a perfect example of some people who may or may not have heard of the lunch club. I love it to death. It’s enriched my life. In the last six months, I met a woman in London through a lunch club. She’s a coach. I found that in our conversation, she’s originally from Romania. Hmm. So she taught me a lot about Romania. We spent 20 minutes talking about Romanian. Romania is where Dracula, a vampire comes from. And she is actually from the towel where that story originated. 

 

It really is where you think. Well, that’s cool. That’s cool. But last night, I was getting a glass of wine with a friend and the woman who was serving us as a younger woman, I always asked their names, and I said, what’s your name? And she said, Catarina. I asked if that sounds like a lot of Russian spelling. And he said, no, it’s actually a Spanish. And I said, Oh really? She said, yeah, it’s from Galicia in Spain. And I say, Oh, you know what? I went to Spain a few years ago to walk the Camino. So I’ve been to Malaysia, what’s your last name? She said, Lopez. I said, no, this is an interesting role. My dad’s from Cuba. And then she talks about Glacia, and then all of a sudden, she said, but I’ve got part of my family from Romania. 

 

And I said, wow, I actually know something about Romania. And she was really, how do you know about that? So all of a sudden we’re like friends, right? Because people are always trying to acquire knowledge, but knowledge is less relevant than stories. The stories of people’s lives or what connect us. And so often a business development, we’re not telling our story and we’re not drawing out their story. We’re trying to get information, to get something out of it, and to decide if I can sell to them. Right. And it just doesn’t work. 

 

Learn more about how to learn business development by tuning in to our “ROI of Community” Framework

 

How to Learn Business Development: Building a Culture of Consistency in Business Development

 

Well, it feels yucky. Right? That’s that’s a nice word. Yeah. Will go with it. 

 

So, let’s go back to when you mentioned the culture of consistency and so how, how does, how does somebody start too? And you also mentioned habits too. So with that, if they want to build a culture of consistency, as it relates to biz dev and build the habits to support that culture, how does a business owner start to do that? Jeff? 

 

How to learn business development? So first of all, we just need to establish some ground foundations. The word I like, just as it resonates with me. And I’ve used habits in the past and culture, I talk a lot about rhythm. Okay. And if you think about the reason that hits me, I’m not necessarily a musician, but anybody who’s played an instrument or particularly a drum in some form for us to a gym, big drum, there is a rhythm to it. It makes sense. I like the rhythm; it almost calls no matter what the speed is. Yep. But if you’re just being in the thing like crazy, it’s just chaotic. We want. And so a lot of people do biz dev in a chaotic way, with peaks and valleys. 

 

How to learn business development? We want to find a rhythm. We want to find the flow because when we are in a rhythm we are more likely to do it. We will do it more consistently. We develop our muscles right or wrong because we need new muscles. And all of a sudden we’re in this rhythm. And not only does it help us do better quantity, better quality of those efforts. And here’s the other thing. When we have a momentum bill, it’s a lot harder to stop us. This is why in my training and coaching, they’ll say, well, can you come in and do a training with us? I said, yes, but it probably won’t work. Well, why not? Is it because I’m going to give them a lot of new ideas that they’re all going to, you’re going to think our grey, but you don’t have, if you don’t have the rhythm, you’re not in the mode of doing it. 

 

You need to build some momentum, which rhythm also does. And then people get doing it on their own. Because the other thing I know is, especially people who are doers at any level, I was like to say this, I don’t care. What you’re business is. I know we are online a lot. I’m an old guy. So I used to have papers. I know we don’t have paper anymore. But if you look at your desk or your computer in terms of the doing the stack is always like this huge stack. Yup. But the business development stuff is usually about, like, this is a sheet of paper are the metaphor is the equivalent of on our computer a call list or something like that. 

 

Learn more about how to learn business development by tuning in to our “ROI of Community” Framework

 

How to Learn Business Development: Shifting Mindsets for Consistent Business Development

 

But if we don’t have a rhythm and we don’t create space for it, we all default to the doer. I’m most comfortable. There I’m most confident there. This is uncomfortable to me. We gotta get the rhythms. So it’s more comfortable. So part of this is not only to get the skills, but you understand the mindsets of how our mind has to shift so that we’ll do the stuff that’s uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable, but doers or always going to default. And here’s the other reason I just use a simple example, have a to-do list. OK. So you got to do list here, and you do want it to do things. 

 

When you do the doing thing, you get to cross it off, right? And your list gets shorter, right? Until you add something different. That’s not true with business development though. And this was a psychology to this with business development, because it’s about relationships and touches. So let’s say I have Stephen and I’m going to call Stephen today. I go, okay. That’s a to-do list. That felt awesome. Except they always have to be the next action. That’s a tip right there in business development. There’s always a next, let’s say I called you and didn’t reach you. I’m not waiting for you to call me back. 

 

So I have to add to my list at the bottom and follow up with Stephen, that doesn’t feel good. I don’t know. I got a dopamine hit to take you off, but I had to add something and this is a big one. There should always be a next action. When I’m coaching people that they’ll say like will talk through it. So tell me about what you did. Well, I talked to Drew today. 

 

Great. Tell me, how it went. What’s the next action? We don’t really know. There has to be. And there are only three choices usually to one. Is there something specifically that was identified that’s next? Which is normally how we think of next action. But I’m talking about the other two, which is there needs to be a next meeting. 

 

Learn more about how to learn business development by tuning in to our “ROI of Community” Framework

 

How to Learn Business Development: Establishing Rhythms for Relationship Building

 

Scheduled are a follow-up schedule or calendar somehow, or I’m never gonna talk to Drew again, in which case we’re going to remove him from my list. That’s an action, but everybody else, is there something else that you need to think about? So, okay. You’re going to follow up with Drew. Well, how often? I don’t know. Well, how often do you wanna talk to him? I don’t know. A couple of times a year. Does that feel good? No, that’s probably not enough. Probably. I need to; I need to see him four times a year. He’s a good source. Okay. So, today is March. We’re recording this on March 17. So that means In three months. So that would be What? June? June. Middle of June. 

 

Yeah. So when are you following up with them to do that, but like the middle of June. And I said, no. If you call it caught in the middle of June you’re not gonna see it until the middle of July. He’s a busy person, right? Oh, I got to see, I got to reach out to him probably. And the third week of May, that’s what I’m calendaring. That’s part of the rhythm. So there’s always the next thing. That’s the reason we struggle with it. And you always ask yourself, what’s the next thing? And have a system in place that will assure that you do that thing. 

 

Well, and I’m curious to get your point of view on this, that maybe the next thing, isn’t just a phone call using your toolbox analogy before that you want to be of service. Maybe the next thing is to look for a unique and different way that you can be of service to that person. And then, and then put that into a rhythm. And am I tracking with your philosophy here? 

 

Absolutely. And if I’ve got something in mind, that could be that, maybe, that was one that I did yesterday. I had a call with someone that I didn’t know. I don’t know how I met her. I just met her on LinkedIn. We got connected. I read her profile and reached out and said, I’m really fascinated by what you’re doing. We’re going to have a phone call. She said yes. It turns out we heard that. Some people in common: I really liked her story and invited her on my podcast. That’s one. But when we were done, I said, her name is Lori. I said, Lori, I am going to follow up with you on three things. What’s that? I’m going to send you a link to sign up for a podcast. I’m going to send you a link to a prior podcast effort episode from someone she knows. 

 

Learn more about how to learn business development by tuning in to our “ROI of Community” Framework

 

How to Learn Business Development: Effective Follow-Up Strategies for Business Success

 

And I said he didn’t have a great podcast. I’ll send you a link versus I didn’t say go find it. Right. You know, you can’t be lazy if you don’t. That’s another thing. Here’s another, another tip. You know, the tip that pays for a phrase, a page, don’t ever give people homework, make everything easy for them. Why on earth would I say, Hey, Lori, you know what? It was a great episode. Do you? If you can go find it, just search his name on an Apple, and I’ll send you the link. So it was; I’ll send you the link for that sign-up for this. And I said, and by the way, I’d love to talk to you again. I’m using Calendly for that, and it is working brilliantly. And that was in there. I said, I’d love to talk to you again; take a look at it, and here’s what I, why don’t you schedule something for us at the next two or three weeks? 

 

Now it turns out she did the schedule, something in the next two or three weeks, but I ask for what I wanted, right? I didn’t say, Hey, you got to book with me, but here is the outcome. I got a really nice thank you. And then she wrote back a second time and said, Hey, by the way, I also went online. I bought your book. How about this? I’m going to read your book, and then we’ll just get on and talk again after I’ve read it. Perfect part. Perfect. And now next action, though. She C here who owns the action here at this point. 

 

So I would think that you can still do, even though she said that she was going to read the book. Yes, that’s the homework, but you still need to check in with her. So I would think so. Yeah, 

 

Action. But a lot of people would look at that and say she owns it and we never want to have someone on the follow-up. Right. So what I will do is she scheduled in may for my podcast that I’d like to talk to her soon or frankly, cause I don’t know if she is a prospect, but she’s an awesome person. And I’m sure I know she can introduce me to some awesome people. Yeah. We had a good start in a conversation. So my next action is I have calendared to follow up with her at about three weeks just to say, Hey, I hope you’re enjoying the book. I’m looking forward to having me on the podcast. I’m also excited to talk to you again, as soon as you’re done with a bar, awesome. I’m trying to make her read the book faster, but that’s an example where I could give her homework. 

 

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How to Learn Business Development: Strategic Follow-Up Tactics for Business Growth

 

I don’t want to give up the follow-up. Never, never let someone on the follow-up because now if you follow up your actually being pushy, so you always want to take it back. So another quick tip, I know man. At the time is flying here and there was a couple of things and I want to make sure that we talk about it because they are really important. One is a thing that you use on voicemails. I never give homework on voicemails. So if I call you Stephen, it’s almost like a scrip. If I call you, it’s got to say something like this. Hey Stephen, this is Jeff. Nischwitz. I’m just following up on whatever. I’m sure you’ve got a big, his busy schedule. If you get a chance to call me, here’s my Sell. 

 

That’d be great. But either way, I know you’re busy. I’m gonna follow up with you in a couple of days. Love it. So he can call me back. Sure. But what should I tell him? In the action, you still own them. And if there’s any reason, this is where people say they are uncomfortable. If for some reason he doesn’t want to hear from me. And that happens, especially when we were in the sales mode. That’s okay. My goal was to have him tell me, I don’t want to hear from you, right? Not by being obnoxious, by being respectful, but I’m telling him you not calling me back is not going to do it. Cause I’ll be calling a couple days and it just doesn’t. 

 

It happens all the time. So I want to always keep the ball moving. That’s why the next action is so important. And it’s interesting. Like I said, it’s a new muscle when I’m coaching people, typically when I’ll say so what’s the next action they go? I don’t know, because this is not, it seems like it gets intuitive, but it’s not until you build the rhythm of it and then you just all over it. 

 

Well, and it also shows though, sort of the shallowness of the biz-dev plan. Like when you, when, when somebody can’t map out well, I’m going to send Jeff a book, you just mentioned a book. And then six weeks after that, we’re going to send some sort of gift. Or if he was a guest on our podcast, on a knit, some of his, the golden nuggets, he, he shared along with somebody else that doesn’t compete with him, we’re going to create an ebook and we’re going to feature his smarts that way. I’m going to take a framed quote and I’m going to send that to him so you can hang it on his wall is about him or not our show. Right? And so we can always be looking for those ways, like you said, next action in a solid BizDev plan. 

 

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How to Learn Business Development: Leveraging Your Toolbox for Meaningful Connections

 

If I’m tracking with you through all this conversation has all of that mapped out in advance? It’s not you hanging up the phone and thinking, what should I be doing here? Right. 

 

And sometimes, you may map it all out. Like if you really get systematized, but the key is at the map, only at a minimum has to be to the next step. Okay. And there’s always a next thing. And part of this is also changing the nature of our conversations. So last night, as I told you, I met the woman from Romania, my friend, he’s a friend. I think you can also be a client and you certainly can be a referral source. My friend that I was with and we just started asking questions and I happened to ask you about Jon because we talked about before we get on the air and I said Jon, and he goes, no, I can go. You know what, what do you do on Sunday? He said, I don’t know. 

 

I said, do you wanna play golf because of John and I are playing, but we’re each bringing in somebody. Yeah, that’d be great. What is John? And I said, well, he’s got a digital marketing agency because, Oh, we’re actually looking for that right now. I said, are you? I said, well, what are you looking for? He tells me no, he’s in Tampa. And I said, you know what? Definitely will get you introduced to John, but you know what? A and I sat there at the table. I said, you want me to do it right now? If you don’t mind. He said, okay. I just have to sell the number. I went and found three websites for all the people in the area. And I said, here’s three people, go take a look at their website. I’ll introduce you to all of them. What am I doing? I’m just bringing in my toolbox to them. 

 

I’m not talking about him to business with me. I’m staying. I’m the guy who was going to always bring you value. And when the time’s right. Yeah. Let’s talk about doing business. And I do have to ask that’s probably the hardest thing for me is to make sure that I make the ask or Present it to him, the opportunity, which by the way, is going to happen in the next two weeks in a new program that I have. I think he’d be great for it. And I will reach out, but I’m not thinking of that at the moment. I’m thinking, how can I serve you? And my muscles have been so exercised. I don’t think about this anymore. As soon as someone says a need, the brain just starts thinking, okay, who do I know that does that? Yup. 

 

Let me get you hooked up. Super smart. Get you hooked up. 

 

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How to Learn Business Development: Last Bit of Advice and Connect with Jeff

 

Really smart has been an amazing conversation. I knew that it would be because you’re super generous and like you stepped into the conversation you are always looking to serve. And you did that in spades here. So thank you very much for that. My friend, before we go close out, and say goodbye, please tell Onward Nation business owners the best way to connect with you. 

 

Well, the good news is all you have to do is to be able to spell my name. My last name is spelled N-I-S-C-H-W-I-T-Z. And I say that because if you Google Jeff Nischwitz, I assure you will only find me there. So you put a Nischwitz Group, you’re going to find my website and I’m on LinkedIn, all of the social media channels. In fact, if you want to call me, we have these things called phones is still, I don’t know if you forget, I have a computer in my pocket, but I keep forgetting. It’s a phone, and you know, I’m making bets at the track and everything, but I can’t get a phone call. Yeah. My cell is (216) 956-6587. 

 

And I love having curious conversations, by the way. That’s where people just get together and start asking each other questions and see what they can learn. 

 

Love. And love the 216 Cleveland area code, my friend. Okay. Onward Nation, no matter how many notes you took or how often you go back and relisten to Jeff’s words of wisdom, which I sure hope that you do, the key is you have to take what he so generously shared with you. You take all of the dev advice and strategies, culture, building habits, the rhythm, all of the advice, the blueprint, really the way he gave you, take it and apply it. Put it into action inside your business and accelerate your results in Jeff. We all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day. And I’m grateful my friend, that you chose to spend some of those with us today to be our mentor and guide, to help us move our business Onward to that next level. 

 

Thank you so much it is my friend. Thank you, Stephen. And I’m impressed that you know that number of seconds in a day because I have another friend in my life who years, and a few years ago, he had a bunch of t-shirts made with that number on it. And I get so many questions and no one’s ever got it. They were all asking if that was a zip code. Where is that app? And then I’ll say it is the number of seconds. And the day that we all get, the only question is what you’ll do with it. And they all say, wow, that’s cool. I got a tee shirt that says that my friend very much. Thanks, David. 

 

This episode is complete. So head to onwardnation.com for show notes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation. 

 

Learn more about how to learn business development by tuning in to our “ROI of Community” Framework