Welcome to episode 199 of the Business Development Podcast.

And today we're kicking off 2025 with a bang.

By going back to go forward today we're chatting.

What is Business Development Redux 2025?

Stick with us.

This is an episode you are not gonna want to miss.

The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

And we couldn't agree more.

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You'll get expert business development advice, tips and experiences and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs and business development reps.

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Let's do it.

Welcome to the Business Development Podcast.

And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Hello.

Welcome to episode 199 of the Business Development Podcast.

First off, it is January 1st, so happy New Year 2025 everybody.

I hope you all had an absolutely incredible Christmas season.

I know it crazy and wild at our house.

I'm sure it is that way for many of you.

I know lots of us love Christmas and lots of us struggle with Christmas.

I think it's a, it's a win, win, lose, lose situation, isn't it?

But we all get through it every single year and so congratulations.

Pat yourselves on the back if you got some happy kids, happy spouses.

You guys are doing excellent.

So happy New Year and let's kick off 2025 with a bang.

My gosh, this episode feels loaded, guys.

It feels like there's a bit of like an expectation for episode 199 and for it to also fall on New Year's Day.

It's like double expectation.

You have to start your 200 episodes off with a bang and you have to start the year off with a bang.

So I hope that we are able to do both for you today.

I will be doing my best.

I think we have an absolutely incredible episode ahead for you.

Either way, guys, I think you are all going to make significant progress in your endeavors that you take on this year.

And remember that whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right.

You know, it is really cool hitting such a significant milestone for the podcast at the beginning of a new year.

It really is a fresh start, a clean slate and I love the opportunity in that.

Many of you may not know this, but you only have a 2% chance of ever making it to 200 episodes.

Guys, out of 4 million podcasts and growing, only about 80,000 of them ever hit 200 episodes.

Guys, we are in the top 2% of podcasts worldwide simply by hitting 200 episodes.

According to a report that I saw from podmatch.com you have a 45% chance of making it to 8 episodes, a 10.23% chance of making it to 50, a 6.52% chance of making 100, and a 2.09% chance of making 200, and a slightly higher 3.06% chance of making it to 300.

I kind of think because simply, if you have made it to 200, you're probably doing all right enough to make it to three.

So it gives you a slightly higher chance of making it to 300 than it does to 200, but it's still pretty low.

And I hope we make it, guys.

I really do.

I love doing this show.

I'm not sure what I would be doing if I wasn't doing this show at this point.

It really is, like, incredibly, incredibly hard to believe that we are approaching our 200th episode of the business development podcast.

It is truly an honor and a pleasure.

And I never saw this journey taking me here.

I never saw 200 episodes, nor does any podcaster.

Guys, don't let any of them fool you.

Not one of them sat down at episode one and was like, yeah, we're going to make it, like, hundreds of episodes.

It's just.

It's not something that you could even imagine at the time.

It seems so far away.

I remember listening to my favorite podcast hitting 100 episodes.

150.

Just thinking, wow, these guys are absolutely incredible.

And now to be part of that club, of that 200 Club, it's.

It's incredible, guys.

It's.

It's been a labor of love.

I'm not gonna say it came easy.

It hasn't come easy.

It's been a lot of work, a lot of effort and a lot of commitment.

And I told you guys from the very beginning when I started this show that I was gonna show up, that I was gonna be there, and that I was going to do what it takes to help you grow your businesses, and that I was going to be authentic and that I was going to be Kelly.

And I really hope that I have been able to show you guys who I am and what I truly want to do here in these 200 episodes.

And I just.

I really do care about each and every one of you.

And I want you all to be successful and I want you to learn the things that I had to learn the hard way, the easy way, so that you can set your businesses off right the first time around or you can grow your client's business right the first time around.

Guys, like I said, it's been an honor, it's been a privilege, and it's been incredible to have you guys reach out to me on such a consistent basis.

We've built such an incredible Rockstar community here on the business development podcast.

And I'm so grateful.

I'm so grateful for each and every one of you.

Thank you for making it what it is.

It takes a community to build a show, guys.

And I am not responsible for the success of the show as much as I am the face of this show.

I am definitely not responsible for the total success of this show.

It has been a labor of love, guys.

It has been challenging.

I have had plenty eroding blocks along the way.

I've banged my head and face against the wall many times along the way.

I've questioned what the heck I'm doing this for.

Because, guys, it is not financially lucrative.

It takes a lot of listeners to get a really financially lucrative show.

So a lot of this is a labor of love, a passion project and just a great way for me to be able to express my learnings with the world and a little bit of who I am with the world.

But guys, you know, I attribute our success to the following.

Number one, the support of my incredible family without my being behind me on this, supporting me on this, giving me the evenings to do, you know, show processing and social media stuff that I need to do and just being supportive and understanding.

I absolutely could not have made it this far.

So huge shout out to Shelby and my boys for being so supportive along this journey to obviously the support of our Rockstar listeners.

You, you are incredible, incredible listenership of the business development podcast.

It's been your messages, it's been your kind comments, it's been your emails.

It's just been everything, guys, you've done so much to support this show.

Let me know that what I'm doing is appreciated and that really has just contributed to me being able to show up week over week, month over month, and now year over year with this show, guys.

So thank you so much.

It's been obviously the financial support of our sponsors.

I have to give a massive shout out to, you know, Hyper V Technologies at work.

Office furniture, Planes, equipment rentals, Business solutions, Foresight for it, Maverick, ndt And inspection.

And now fabled solutions.

We have had so many incredible sponsors hop on board, put their money where their mouth is and say, you know what, we get it.

This isn't cheap.

This is an easy to grow a show and we're here to help you guys.

I can't even tell you, I can't tell you how incredible that that has been.

And let me tell you, any podcast, any podcast, if you want to be successful long term, you need financial support, you're going to need the support of people who believe in your mission, who believe in helping your podcast grow, and who really believe in you.

And I have to say that all of our sponsors that we've had so far all share those qualities.

They believe in me, they believe in this podcast, and they believe in educating and inspiring the world.

That is why they chose to support this show.

And I have to say, guys, we could not do it without that sponsor support.

It really does help us with the advertising of this show, help us pay the bills.

And the bills for a show now are not cheap.

They're getting more expensive all the time as more technology is required to produce great shows and more time along with it.

So thank you so much to the incredible sponsors of the business development podcast.

I could not, could not, could not have done this without you.

It's been, of course, the expert guests we've had along the way, guys, we've had some pretty incredible rockstar experts on this show and we could not do it without them, without them being willing to put themselves out there to give us their time.

Time of which for some of these people, guys, is incredibly valuable.

Thousands and thousands of dollars an hour is what their time is worth.

And they're willing to come on this show and have that conversation with me for an hour, hour and a half.

And cannot tell you how much I appreciate the expert guests we met and the friends that I've been able to make along the way.

A big part of the success of the show has been planning ahead.

You cannot produce a show on the fly.

I'm going to tell you that right now.

You might be able to get an episode out on the fly, but you will not be able to keep a long term show going without long term planning.

We have guests booked on the business development podcast, guys, a full year in advanced.

I have actually recorded every single guest episode for the year 2025 already.

It's already done.

We've had all the guest interviews.

Yeah, it took a lot of work.

I was doing on some cases, two to three interviews every single week to create a backlog that I could fall back on to make sure that we always had great, consistent content for you guys.

The weekly shows, I still do, I still plan them out, typically record them on a Monday or Tuesday ahead of the Wednesday release.

But it's been that backlog of expert guest episodes that has really allowed us to kind of continue this train and keep it rolling forward without getting anxiety about where our Sunday shows are coming from.

So, planning ahead, making sure that at the beginning of a year, you're writing out all your show topics that you guys want to cover for the year, making sure that you are thinking about, how do I get ahead?

Don't go with the status quo.

Figure out how to get ahead.

That has helped tremendously with me being able to continue the business development podcast now for this long and obviously, guys, a personal commitment.

You have to make a personal commitment to whatever you're doing, whether it's a YouTube channel, a podcast, a business, a job, whatever you guys are going to do, make sure that you are going to say, you know what?

I'm going to show up come hell or high water, come, you know, rain or shine, I am going to show up and do the thing that I have committed to you.

And that is something that I committed to you at the beginning of the show, guys.

And I've been through some shit.

I've been through some real shit along this path.

But you know what?

I've showed up every single week, twice a week, making sure that I get this show out there for you.

So commit to something, stick with it, hold yourself accountable, and you will be amazed at what you can achieve.

I know this has been long winded.

This has been the longest intro I've had in a very long time.

It is episode 199.

You won't have another one like this for a while.

So thank you for sticking with us thus far.

And, guys, thank you so much for obviously sticking with us, following us, sponsoring us, telling your friends, family, colleagues.

Thank you so much for being part of the rockstar community that is the business development podcast.

I truly would not be at episode 200 without your support.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Okay, let's get into it, guys.

For episode 199 and the very first episode of 2025, we are going back.

We're going back to the beginning and we are exploring again.

One of your favorite topics.

What is business development?

Two years from the very first time that I put out that episode.

And yeah, some things might be A little different.

Many things are the same.

And today we're going to give you an absolutely incredible, incredible definition for those of you looking for something for your businesses.

In episode one, we discussed how so many former definitions of business development were broad and loaded.

And I think that it's really because nobody truly understood what it was.

I think for the longest time, people got business development confused with account management and sales, and it is still happening to this day.

It is a very different position than account management and sales.

And we're going to get into that today.

It's really not people's fault, guys.

Nobody has really taken a solid effort, a truly definitely defining business development.

I've spoken with so many companies, with so many experts, and almost every single one of them defines business development differently depending on how they've used it or classified it within their business.

And let me say, many companies are doing business development wrong and it is negatively affecting their business and they don't even realize it.

So I'm hoping that by the end of today's show, if you're a company and you have business development, that you'll have a really good understanding of what is business development and you'll be able to sit down with your team and hopefully get them pointed in the right direction so that we're not having a whole bunch of role overlap, which is what I am seeing over and over again.

Guys, just to give you like, an idea, in my entire business development career, guys, I have never heard two business development definitions that were similar or even the same.

They are all very different because there is a misunderstanding within the business community, okay?

It is critically important for your sales teams, your business development teams, your marketing teams, that they understand what you expect from them.

Which is why defining a role is so absolutely critical.

Because if they don't know what they're being measured on, what success looks like, what a win looks like, you end up on a really crappy hamster wheel.

Trust me, I know.

You end up on a hamster wheel not knowing whether you're succeeding, whether you're doing what you need to be doing, whether you are, you know, smashing goals.

Subpar.

It's really hard to know how you were doing if you don't know what your role is at a company.

And so defining this properly is absolutely critical.

As we start 2025 in episode one, I actually went back and I listened to episode one again and I had to just like, re clarify what I was talking about back then.

Two years ago is a long time.

And while a lot has changed, a lot has stayed the same.

In episode one I was chatting about what is business development.

And you know what?

My definition today isn't so different.

We're going to get into it later on.

But in episode one I chatted about a few things.

I talked about how creating a target list of ideal companies industries is absolutely part of a business development's role.

I still believe that.

I talked about how researching ideal customers and positions is part of the business development role.

This is absolutely still required.

I talked about how marketing material review and assistance in development is absolutely part of the business development role.

And I may have a slight change to this in today's because I think more than ever business development people are not just assisting in the creation, they are actually participating directly in some of that marketing material creation.

The marketing of digital and physical materials to build interest in your business still a critical task of business development.

I talked about cold calls and follow up calls for lead and meeting generations on a weekly basis.

Still required.

I talked about even back then social media marketing and digital marketing for education, not just sales and roi.

This is absolutely still relevant today.

And I talked about connections and strategic partnerships is also a role of business development because it is very similar to the role of marketing to customers.

It's actually almost exactly the same.

So it can fall under business development.

And I still believe that today.

Although in the last 200 episodes I have actually defined or redefined business development for a lot of people.

And I redefined it in length in an episode called community questions September 2024 where I actually got a very direct question asking if I would define in my words what business development is.

And I think I did a pretty decent job.

Feel free to let me know in the comments.

Feel free to message me if you think it might be off or it might need some revamping and I will consider it for sure.

But right now I would define business development as this.

Business development is the strategic process of identifying and pursuing opportunities that drive new business growth by building relationships, generating interest and creating partnerships.

It involves researching and targeting the right customers, reviewing marketing materials to ensure that they are effective, and engaging in proactive outreach through cold calls and emails to generate leads.

Known as active marketing.

Business development must be focused on new opportunities for an organization.

If you stop focusing on new opportunities, your funnels inevitably dry up.

Instead, business development specialists act as champions of the company, driving interest and connecting the business to potential clients and strategic partners to secure new business.

I hope you guys like that.

That took me a while to come up with.

You know I did It a little while ago now, but I had to think really hard about how I would truly define business development.

And so I think I am happy with that definition.

You may notice that the emphasis is on new opportunity and here is why.

Repeat business is account management and not bd.

Let me repeat that.

Repeat customers is no longer business development.

It is now account management and needs to be handled appropriately by an account manager or inside sales team.

Customers can leave and do leave for any reason, at any time, completely out of your control.

No matter how great you are, no matter how amazing your products and services are, you do not control your customers.

Which is why you need to account manage them the best way that you can.

You need to make sure they're happy, they're looked after, but never, ever, ever depend on them fully for the success of your business.

You need to find new business and that is a business development specialist role.

Customers can leave at any time for any reason.

You need to focus account management and inside sales on them and let business development consistently find you new business.

Your sales and account management divides BDS time and business development gets neglected.

I see this everywhere, guys.

Anywhere that you have business development doing more than new business development, whether they're doing account management, whether they're doing quotes, whether they're doing inside sales on top of business development, every time, every single time new business development gets neglected.

Why?

Because it is the harder job.

It is the harder job.

It takes consistency, it takes dedication, it takes weekly effort, and it inevitably gets kicked to the back burner in favor of account management and inside sales.

Every time.

Every single time.

So if right now you have your business development people doing inside sales, doing quotes, doing all that work, doing client management, doing, you know, account management every single time, guys, I can guarantee you the new business development is falling to the wayside because it is not as easy or sometimes not even as fun of a job.

So keep that in mind.

Business development absolutely needs to be focused on new business.

New business.

That is my definition of business development.

Okay, so if that is the definition, what are some of the critical responsibilities for success in business development in this year of 2025?

Okay, a lot of this is the same.

We're going to go down the details that I kind of chatted about in episode Episode one.

A lot is the same.

The thing is business development is about people and people respond to human to human interaction.

So a lot of this is the same.

There's a couple things I am going to add on which really I wasn't talking about in the beginning and 2024 was really the year of personal branding, which kind of threw a monkey wrench into things a little bit, but it's still very much the same.

There's just some additional stuff we have to look at as well.

So let us roll down it.

Critical responsibilities for success in business development in the year 2025.

Number one, you have to know the growth target and meeting requirements for success.

Okay, I talked about this briefly in the beginning.

If you do not know what it takes to achieve the growth you have put as a goal for 2025, we have to figure this out.

Okay?

Just shooting for the stars and thinking, I've set a growth number and I don't know what it's going to take to get.

It ain't gonna get you there.

It never gets you there.

Why?

Because you don't know what it takes.

The fun thing is it's actually not that hard to figure out if you just think about it critically.

Okay?

Whenever I start with a new client, whenever I do coaching, this is the place we start.

Because if you do not know where you are going or how to get there or what it's going to take, how the heck can you measure success?

Okay, we have to know the growth target and meeting requirements for success.

So we have to know the revenue growth number.

What is the growth number you want to achieve in this year?

If it's 2025, do you want to achieve 3 million in growth?

Do you want to achieve 500,000 in growth?

Or do you want to achieve 20 million in growth?

Whatever it is, write that number down.

What is the growth number for the year?

The next thing is, we have to know what is an average customer worth?

Okay, you need to dive deeper.

Maybe you need to go into your records and figure out, out of all the customers you had in 2024, how much did they spend and how many were there?

Divide how much they spent by how many there were and you get an average customer value.

Okay?

So we need to know that number.

We need to know our closure rate percentage.

How often after you have a meeting with a client, do they turn into a customer in that year?

Okay, we need to.

We need to figure out what this number is.

This number might be a little harder to get.

You might have to dive deeper.

You might have to guess a little bit.

I think for most companies, this is probably somewhere around 50, 50.

It could be higher, it could be lower, but figure out what that percentage is.

Is it 50%?

Is it 30%?

Is it 70%?

What is your odds of closing a meeting into a new customer in that year.

Once we have all of these numbers, you can take the revenue growth goal, you can divide it by the average customer value to get in a perfect world, how many new customers you need, then we can divide that number by the decimal point of closure.

So point 50.3 0.70 and we can get our required meetings for the year.

Guys, this is going to rock your world, okay?

This right here is going to change all of your business development efforts and all of your companies in 2025.

If you know the meeting requirement now you have a measure.

Now you know if you are achieving it or not, if you are generating success or not, if you were talking to enough people or not, this will change your business for the better.

Number two, we have to review our marketing materials, okay?

We have to review these on an annual basis.

Not every five years, not every 10 years.

Do this at least once per year, okay?

Sit down with your marketing team, with your business development team, with your management team.

Review the website.

Make sure that it's accurate, up to date, visually appealing.

A 20 story skyscraper, because that's what it is in 2025.

Review your brochures, assuming you have them.

If you don't have them, make them.

You absolutely need brochures to do your marketing, both digital and physical, in 2025.

Once again, make sure that they are visually appealing, that they represent you fairly, that people are actually going to want to read the content.

Visual appeal is absolutely critical in 2025 and beyond.

Guys, you are marketing to millennials.

We have short attention spans.

Make them bold, make them beautiful and make them engaging.

Don't be afraid to comment if these are not stacking up.

Guys, it is your responsibility as business development specialists, as leaders in your organizations, as marketing experts, as sales experts, to step up when.

When the marketing materials are not up to par, okay?

Don't be afraid to call them out.

Don't be afraid to pipe up and say, hey, this probably isn't going to work for us.

We need to make changes, okay?

It takes bold action to get real change.

But bold action and real change can be the difference between success and failure with our marketing material.

So be brave, stand up and voice your opinion.

Number three, we have to create target lists, okay?

We have to.

Every year, guys, every year.

I want you to sit down.

It's a fun exercise.

It does not have to be challenging.

Write down the top 50 customers you would love to get in 2025.

And guys, this can be as big and as bold as you like, okay?

I want you to understand, I've been in business development long enough now to know that no company is off limits, okay?

Every single company is achievable.

Given enough effort, given enough time, and given the right marketing materials, you can do just about anything, okay?

So don't be afraid to be brave with this, to be bold with this, to aim for the stars and at least maybe you'll hit the moon.

Trust me on this.

Build a target list of the top 50 companies you would like to achieve in 2025 and make sure that at least once per week you're targeting between five and ten of these, okay?

It's a really great habit to get into.

And heck, even if you only close one or two a year, it's still huge wins.

Number four, create your ideal customer profile.

Okay?

One of the biggest things about business development is making sure that we are targeting the right people.

Because targeting the wrong people is a gigantic, gigantic waste of time and money.

Remember, you pay for every single reach out, even if it's the wrong person.

And this applies to both your active marketing with physical calls and emails and it applies to your digital marketing.

If your digital marketer is not targeting the right groups of people for you, okay, you're paying for all of them.

So you have to make sure that if you are paying for all of them, you were talking to the right people.

The best business development people, they don't make 200 calls a week.

They don't.

They make like 30 really targeted ones to the right people and they almost always book meetings, okay?

That is the difference.

It's about doing the homework up front.

Identifying the right position that buys your product and service, identifying the right industry that needs your product and service, and identifying locations you can actually be competitive in which nine times out of 10 is where you are based first and move out from there.

But if you can make sure that you are competitive, that you are talking to the right people and you have a product and service that they need, you are going to close more business.

Mark my words.

Okay?

Do the legwork upfront.

Figure out what are the buying positions at these companies.

There might be multiple.

Actually, they're guaranteed as multiple.

So make sure that you are identifying.

Is it the project manager?

Is it the plant manager?

Is it procurement?

Is it supply chain?

Is it the HSE director?

Is it the quality director?

Is it the director of operations?

Figure out who it is.

What are all the positions that buy your products and services and target the people in those positions at the industries you want to serve.

And you will book more meetings you just will.

Okay, number five, LinkedIn and personal branding.

Okay, you need LinkedIn Premium in 2025 and beyond.

Is no longer an option, is no longer not on the table.

Not only do you need LinkedIn Premium, you need to be active on your social media guys.

It's no longer enough to just have a social media profile and not be doing stuff on it.

LinkedIn has become the greatest weapon, the greatest tool a business developer has ever had.

But you have to use it and you have to use it effectively.

And part one is simply making sure that you have all the tools at your disposal.

And LinkedIn Premium gives you those tools.

You don't need Sales Navigator, you need, like the basic business account.

That's all you need to be able to get the search functions.

You need to target the right people on LinkedIn.

Okay?

It is absolutely critical that we are building our pages, that we are completely filling out every detail on our pages.

That we are getting bold, beautiful cover photos, that we are getting bold, beautiful banner images, hopefully ones that match and speak to what we are doing and how we are helping the world.

Make sure that your profile is filled out correctly, that you have a great info page that speaks to what you're doing on there, what your products and services are, how you want to help the world, and maybe who you are as a person.

We want to know the people behind the businesses now, okay?

It is no longer enough to hide behind your organizations.

We want to know who you are as a person.

And that is a major, major change from business five years ago, okay?

Not that we didn't want to know then, but it has been highlighted as a piece of critically important material in 2024 and beyond.

Guys, I have interviewed so many people on the show now about personal branding, the importance of personal branding, and how to build a personal brand in 2024.

It really changed the whole game.

So there's lots of things that we have to do.

But guess what?

Being more active on our social media, being willing to share who we are, not just what we do, being willing to be personal, being willing to share both our successes and our failures, it is going to make all the difference for you in 2025 as you start to build your personal brands, we have to make sure that we are utilizing LinkedIn effectively, guys.

So LinkedIn offers you so many tools, okay?

One of the tools it offers you is the ability to connect with 100 new people a week.

And I want you to think about this.

100 people doesn't seem like a lot, and it probably isn't but 100 people over, what, 52 weeks in a year.

That is a lot of new potential clients seeing your posts, learning about your company, building trust with you and your personal brand throughout the year.

Okay?

Do not underestimate the power of your hundred invites every single week.

Use them or lose them.

You do not get 200 the next week.

You do not get 300 the week after that.

You get 100 per week.

And if you do not use them, you lose them.

Make sure that we are sending our 100 invites a week to potential clients of our organizations or people who can support our organizations.

Okay?

We need to make sure we're connecting with the right people every single week, and we are dedicated to doing that on a weekly basis.

I'm going to take one more moment, guys, and just chat with you guys again about personal branding.

Okay?

This is.

This is a big change from the first.

First time that I did this particular episode.

Personal branding was not as important back then.

It is absolutely critical now.

If you do not have a personal brand, if you do not have a social media strategy, if you do not have a social media history, right, that people are going to see, I don't care who you are.

If you are reaching out to an organization on behalf of another company, they are checking you out, not just the company.

You.

It is no longer enough to hide behind your organizations.

You need to make sure that you are coming across as someone who is trustworthy, has a history, is sharing their information, is being honest, is displaying integrity.

Okay?

It is absolutely critical that as we move forward into 2025 and beyond that, we are not just focusing on our companies, but we are also focusing on our personal brands.

Let me be the first to say this is not easy.

I struggle with this.

Many people are struggling with this.

But you know what?

I'm not going to let it slow me down.

I'm showing up, I'm doing videos, I'm doing weekly posts, significant weekly posts.

Okay?

I am getting out there in the world and I am pushing my boundaries because that is what it takes to build a personal brand.

You have to push your own boundaries.

Ironically, it's not about all the other people.

It's about you.

It's about facing your fears.

It's about believing in yourself and sharing yourself with the world.

So let me just take a minute here and let you guys know.

Building a personal brand is absolutely critical in 2025.

You can do it a week at a time, a day at a time, a month at a time.

Whatever you want to do.

Just start committing to it today.

Start committing to building your personal brand today because it will follow you wherever you go from this point forward.

Number six, we have to talk about active marketing.

We cannot hide behind our computers, we cannot hide behind our social medias, we cannot hide alone behind our digital marketing strategies.

Okay?

We have to embrace active marketing and it has never been more critical.

Guys, in a day of AI and robots, you have to be human.

I've been talking about this from the very beginning, but my gosh, did it happen, didn't it?

Right?

I took off and so now if you want to stand out, you have to go back.

You have to go back to the beginning.

You got to pick up your phone, you got to make real human to human connections.

You got to build trust, right?

We have to build relationship.

We have to build trust and that takes human to human interactions.

Do not be afraid to pick up your phone and make calls.

Do not be afraid to find people's direct email and send them a personal email.

Do not be afraid to ask for face to face meetings.

Guys, this is what it is all about.

This is what business development is about.

It's about human to human interaction.

And guess what?

2025 is going to be a massively human centric year.

Why?

Because we went so far in the wrong direction with AI.

We got so disconnected that we are absolutely craving human to human interaction.

The business development specialists, the business owners, the executives who are willing to embrace human to human interaction go out of their way to have face to face interactions to build real relationship.

They're the ones who are going to win 2025 and beyond.

And a lot of people are giving up way too soon.

So let me just start there.

I think the statistic is, is that most business development specialists give up after the second or third phone call with no response.

This is not enough.

This is absolutely not enough.

Okay?

It takes on average at least eight direct reach outs before you secure a human to human interaction.

Okay?

In my experience it's been 11.

So with capital business development, it is on average taking us 11 direct reach outs to book meetings on behalf of our clients.

And that's with small to medium sized companies.

With large sized companies, it has taken up to 30 plus 30 plus weeks of direct reach out to get that meeting.

Guys, it takes time.

Do not give up too soon.

Do not quit.

Understand?

The people you're reaching out to, they're very busy.

They may not have a need.

The first, second, fifth time you reach out to them, you have to get them at the right time when they're thinking about it.

But trust me, don't give up.

Unless you're at like 10, 15 reach outs, then great.

It's time to maybe reconsider and see if you have the right person, if there might be somebody better.

But guys, if you know you have the right person and it's a big company and it's on your top 50 list, don't be afraid to give them 30 weeks.

Don't be afraid to leave 30 different voicemails.

It will make all the difference down the line.

Number seven guys.

Last but not least, measure success in meetings.

Okay?

Understand that as a business development specialist, success is not how many calls you make a week.

It's not how many emails you send.

It's actually not even how much revenue you close.

Although obviously we hope to close that revenue.

You have no control over that.

You have no control over a customer buying your product and service.

Understand that they have the control.

They make that buying decision.

And even if your product is the best product and service on earth, they may choose not to buy it.

That is not your metric of success.

Your metric of success is did I achieve the number of meetings that we determined I needed to achieve to close our revenue growth goal this year?

That is the measure.

That's why starting there is so absolutely critically important for your organization.

You have to know how many meetings it's going to take to hopefully achieve your growth statistically over the year.

Okay?

Stop beating yourselves up when a deal goes south.

Stop beating yourself up when a client doesn't buy.

You do not control it.

You have no control over that.

Try not to worry so much about it.

Worry about getting the next meeting.

Because meetings lead to business over time.

Business comes from meetings.

Measure your success in the number of meetings you close in a year and it will absolutely change the way that you look at business development forever.

Let's go over now what Business development is not okay.

Business development is not day to day operations.

You are not executing the work.

Business development is not sales.

You are not an internal sales team following up with current clients, making sure current clients are okay, asking for additional business business.

Once again, this is also not account management.

You are not looking after clients, building long term relationships with them.

That is an account manager's job within the organization, typically a long term employee who you know is not going anywhere.

You want your account management team to be exceptional, to be able to build relationships and friendships over the long term.

Business development cannot do this.

It is not part of the task because they have to be focused on new business.

Okay?

Business Development is not repeat business.

Once they are a client, it is no longer business development's role to look after that customer falls now under inside sales or account management.

Business development is not current customers.

Current customers are, you guessed it, account management or inside sales.

Okay, Business development is new relationships, finding new business with new opportunities.

It is new introductions to new companies, to new partners.

It is new meetings.

It is establishing a foothold at an organization, starting the relationship right new.

It is new partners.

Maybe it's finding opportunities for you to grow with another company, to partner with another company.

Because it is very similar to business development with clients.

Business development with partners is very similar.

It's very much the same job, but they are after new partnerships for you.

And last but not least, business development is about generating additional and new revenue.

Okay, it's about hitting your growth goal for the year.

In new business, you have to focus your business development on new opportunity for you.

The focus is new.

The keyword is new.

That takes us to the end of today's show.

Guys, shout outs this week.

Charles Perez, Irina Horiacheva, Roxanne Cassianchuk, Chloe Wu, Shane Sisson, Brad Warren, Zale Moransky, Lou Kamenye, Sandeep Walia, Ruthanne Weeks, Carmen LaBelle, Vijayan Swami Nathan, Randy Lennon, Mike Mack, Colin Harms, Deanna Keane, Tatiana Zamettalina, Jesse Kerr, Ken G, Jason Chakalakal, Rodney Lover, Crystal Bowen, Sean Suli, Dan Balaban, Derek Armstrong, Tyson Hunt, Ricardo J.

Flores, Sherry Allen Amin, Samji Jim Gale, Jim Flett, Lauren Graf and Ace Qureshi.

Happy New Year everybody.

Keep focused in 2025 and watch your business thrive until next time.

This has been the Business Development Podcast and we will catch you on the flip side.

This has been the Business Development podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca.

see you next time on the business Development podcast.