The Small Idea That Produces Big Biz Dev Results

If you are an agency owner or strategic consultant who wants more impact and influence, where should you invest your time, talent, and treasure?

The clear-cut answer: regularly host small-scale seminars for five to ten prospects.

You can do these in person (again) and on Zoom.

In the last ten years I have interviewed hundreds of agency owners, professionals and consultants who have built their business this way.

An Indiana strategic sales consultant used seminars and publishing books to set himself apart from the competition and build a multi-million-dollar consulting firm. He finds riches in the niche of clients wanting to land the big whale accounts.

A Tennessee marketing consultant makes more than $280,000 a year as a speaker and consultant.

For over twenty years, she had wanted to give seminars and write a book, but it was more of a wish than anything until she took the time to learn how to do it.

A California hiring consulting firm used the seminar strategy to add at least $250,000 annually in additional revenue for the past decade. The firm’s seminars reveal the big blunder that causes more than half of recruited executives to fail to meet expectations in the first 18 months.

This is especially true for professional service and consulting firms in the fields of advertising and marketing, but it is also true for accounting, dental practice consulting, financial services, management consulting, executive search services, software development, technology services, and law firm management.

The biggest problem for agency owners is needing more rit-fit clients. Many feel business development is too time consuming, expensive or undignified.

However, research has proven there is a better way.? This problem can be solved in three steps.

Step one: Pick the pain. Are you into pain? If you want high-paying clients, you should be. Select a target-rich audience of prospects who need your services.

Then, determine what pain they want solved and what pain you can help with.

You can choose a title for the event. One promising approach is to offer to help them overcome common blunders in this area.

Step two: Pick a place, date, and time. In the former times before the pandemic the most choices for locations were conference rooms in large law and accounting offices, banks, chambers of commerce, country clubs, colleges and hotels (the most expensive option).

After COVID hit, Zoom was the most common location. A new word was coined: Zoominar. Moving forward, we are seeing a combination of live and virtual events.

Step three: Pick the right content. There’s too much information out there. What prospects want is analysis. Don’t bombard attendees with 1,001 ways to solve the problem; give them the seven best solutions.

Market the sessions.

Offer follow-up one-on-one strategy calls.

What topics do you offer?