Our best biz dev strategy, with Stephen Woessner

Episode 822

Good Morning — I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI and your host for Onward Nation. I’m excited to share the lessons and the insights of today’s episode with you — but before I do that — I wanted to take you behind the curtain to share some additional context with you around why I have been focusing my last several solocasts as well as my weekly videos on YouTube around the Trojan Horse of Sales Strategy.

My decision to do this has been based on several recent conversations with business owners who are also avid Onward Nation listeners. Each of them took the time to walk me through why they thought it would be helpful if I broke down the Trojan Horse strategy into granular steps…into more detail…and…why it would be helpful if I connected it back to the actual Trojan Horse story so the strategic metaphor that I am making when I say “Your Trojan Horse of Sales” could be better established.

To say that I was grateful for their feedback is a major understatement. I say often how much I value your feedback because it helps us get better each and every day…and here is a perfect example where Onward Nation listeners reached out to me — said hey — could we talk about this — and then they showed me how my team and I could get better. So thank you, Nancy — thank you, Bill — if you’re listening — I appreciate you so very much.

With that said…we are going to take a deep dive into what has been the best biz dev strategy for Predictive ROI — and as you might have guessed based on what I just shared with you — it is the Trojan Horse of Sales. And I am going to walk you through the strategy in two different ways.

First — I am going to share the highlights of the Trojan Horse story so we can get a solid foundation around why the story is, in my opinion, an excellent metaphor to the ideal sales strategy.

Second — I’m going to insert into this solocast the interview where I was a guest on Take the Lead Radio, hosted by Dr. Diane Hamilton. And you may remember Diane from Episode 505 of Onward Nation. After being my guest — Diane invited me to be her guest — and we talked through a number of topics including how the Trojan Horse of Sales Strategy can be helpful to business owners. More specifically, Diane asked me to share…

• How I made that $2 million dollar mistake in 2014 and why it was a powerful lesson
• Why my Predictive ROI team and I decided to start Onward Nation back in June 2015
• How we initially began to “monetize” the podcast — but we didn’t do it by attempting to monetize you…our audience
• How Onward Nation quickly became our best biz dev strategy to grow Predictive ROI
• And how your podcast, your video series, your blog — whatever channel that serves as your hub for cornerstone content — how it, too, can play the role of your Trojan Horse of Sales

Okay — so before we cut to the interview with Diane — let me first walk you through the highlights of the Trojan Horse story…

The legend of the Trojan Horse comes from the story of the Trojan War between the Greeks and Troy chronicled in the Odyssey written by Homer near the end of the 8th century BC. The story – which could be fact or fiction – is a great illustration of strategy and subterfuge.

According to the legend, the Trojan War ended in a stalemate because Greece was unable to devise a strategy to circumvent the city walls of Troy. The 10-year battle ended and the Greek army made what looked to be a retreat to their homeland.

The Trojan army investigated and found the beach abandoned. The Greek armada was gone and a large wooden horse was all that remained on the desolate shore.

The Trojans believed the Greeks had left the horse as a peace offering.

They gleefully accepted the offering and pulled the horse from the beach, past their impenetrable city gates, into the city square, and began to celebrate their victory over the Greeks.

However, a little due diligence by the Trojans would have been prudent. Perhaps they would have found the Greek strike force tucked quietly inside the horse.

The Greeks seized their opportunity late that night when they snuck quietly out of the horse and opened the city gates so the balance of their army could enter unencumbered.

The Greeks proceeded to sack the city. The story gave birth to the expression “Beware a Greek bearing gifts.”

The business development strategy for your company, if executed properly Onward Nation, will work in a similar way.

For example, a typical salesperson may have their access to a decision maker within a dream prospect’s company — blocked by a “gatekeeper.” Any sort of sales opportunity is thwarted and the salesperson may be forced to move on to her next prospect.

But, what if — in addition to being a rock solid awesome business owner — you happen to be the host of a top-rated podcast — or a YouTube channel — or a popular blog with a lot of subscribers — and you’re getting in touch with one of your Dream Prospects — because you would like to interview her about her journey, her secrets to success, and the wisdom she could share with others in her industry or the broader business community?

Well now, you just changed the entire game, didn’t you?

Your podcast — video interview — or article for your blog — just increased the probability of a one-on-one, private, 60-minute conversation with your ideal prospect.

But how did your podcast give you this “All Access Pass?”

Your podcast changed the game because you are no longer perceived as a business owner looking for a new account, and as an added bonus you’re monetizing your content along the way.

You are now perceived as a journalist and your show is a media channel – a conduit – to an audience the guests on your show want to reach and influence.

It’s as simple as letting the decision maker at your dream prospect wheel the horse past the company’s gatekeeper – and park it right in the center of the C-suite.

You now have an opportunity to dazzle your dream prospect with your brilliance and intimate industry and company knowledge during the interview.

Your podcast has done its job. Now it’s time for you to do yours. Impress your dream prospect and the stage will be set for biz dev.

So after your interviews with your Dream prospects, you share the insights and wisdom collected from your guests through research guides, eBooks, webinars, and tag your guests in social media so they can feel the love — and — the appreciation you have for their contribution to your community.

This level of content creation plays a vital role in the long term success of your Trojan Horse of Sales strategy.

So whether you’re comfortable writing articles, recording audio, or being in front of a camera — you should…without a doubt…interview each of your Dream 50 prospects with the result outcome being that you can share your content to build your audience — AND — relationships you can build, nurture, and cultivate over time so your Dream 50 prospects truly KNOW you…they truly LIKE you…and most importantly…they TRUST you.

And all the while…you are also sharing your message publicly through your platform…and then an interesting thing begins to happen.

You — yes, YOU as the business owner become known — you begin receiving invitations to be a guest on podcasts, you get quoted in the media, perhaps an agent or publisher approaches you to write a book, you are asked to speak at an industry conference, and on and on.

All of this content forms the foundation of your thought leadership — and it is thought leadership — true thought leadership in today’s world of biz dev that separates the progressive market leading companies from the wannabes.

Okay — was walking through the story helpful — and then tying it back into your content strategy? All good there? If not — please drop me a line and I’m happy to help you sort through it.

Again, I wanted to get you thinking about that conceptually because cutting to the interview with Diane. Okay…I’m excited for you to hear this episode…so here we go…Dr. Diane Hamilton, the host of Take the Lead Radio…interviewing me.

I look forward to your feedback, Onward Nation.

Okay, Onward Nation — welcome back. My hope is you found some helpful insights into the Trojan Horse of Sales strategy, whether that was your first time walking through it — or maybe your 10th. But if something is still fuzzy or doesn’t make sense because I didn’t break it down — or if you think I missed something — please drop me a line and I’m happy to talk it through with you so I can be as helpful as possible.

So with that said…I again want to say thank you, Onward Nation.

Thank you for taking the time to be here and thank you for your ongoing support of what we do here at Onward Nation — you taking time to share our posts, episodes, and emails with fellow business owners and friends is now helping us impact owners in 105 countries around the world — that is so awesome — THANK YOU!

And you sharing a portion of your 86,400 seconds you have today…means a lot to me. We appreciate all of the reviews on iTunes — and if you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel — please do — a link will be in the show notes.

Thank you so very much, Onward Nation. Until next time — onward with gusto!