James Barclay's, Kevin Clem's, and Dennis Baltz's Favorite Business Development Strategy

Jul 12, 2022

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Mo asks James Barclay: What is your favorite science, step, or story from the GrowBIG Training or the Snowball System?

For James, the number one strategy is the Protemoi List. These are the people in your circle that are your partners, prospects, and the key people that could be your raving fans.
Having a focused relationship list is an unbeatable edge.
When you invest in a relationship, people will move with you. James has had people buy from his company multiple times over multiple jobs.
Your Protemoi List is a list of five to ten people that have outsized returns on the amount of time and energy you invest in the relationship.
The first strategy is to simply be useful to them. Offer to take them to events with you that you believe would be helpful to them. Find content and then pass it on to people you think would find it useful.
Celebrate them at every opportunity. Accelerate them and give them a platform where you highlight them and what they are doing.
A personal newsletter can be incredibly powerful. You don’t need thousands of people on your list for it to be worth it.
Build something that is extremely accessible to them, extremely useful to them, and don’t waste their time.
It can take some time to build momentum, but you have to start somewhere. If you can write something useful for one person you can build it over time and create something really valuable.
Consistency matters. Find a cadence that works for you and your schedule and stick with it.

Mo asks Kevin Clem: What’s your favorite science, step, or story from the GrowBIG Training or the Snowball System?

Kevin discovered the Snowball System from the podcast after being referred to it by the CEO of HBR Consulting.
The Most Important Things is one of the key principles that Kevin has embraced. He and his team have made the idea of the top three things as a guiding framework for how they operate.
Raving fans and assessing the level of the relationship with each client is another big strategy.
There is power in language. Just by entering the GrowBIG world and embracing the terminology, Kevin and his team have changed the way they think about business development and growth.
Take a page out of your creative marketing playbook and come out with a theme for your internal program to get your team to buy in.
Kevin’s team has tried a number of different incentives to get the team excited. They found that recognition and reward among high achievers is a good base to start with, combined with accountability. Create and celebrate short-term wins to spotlight things that are going well and to build momentum.
Celebrating the small wins is an important piece of creating progress. Doing what you can do today is what leads to the championship.

Mo asks Dennis Baltz: What is your favorite science, step, or story from the GrowBIG Training or Snowball System?

Dennis loved so much of the GrowBIG Training, but the one that stands out the most is the idea of the Most Important Thing. When working with clients, Dennis uses an MIT one-sheet to communicate all the work streams that they can work on during the engagement as well as including some potentially new approaches they can take advantage of.
They are using that very effectively to land new clients because it allows them to understand the exact value WTW brings to the table.
This approach creates strategic conversations and helps build the trust that client’s have in Dennis and his team’s ability to think around corners.
Structurally, the slide includes important dates for upcoming content or events, the essential work streams for the client, and disruptive ideas.
Pre-MIT, the client updates were boring and uninspiring. Refining it down to the Most Important Things and communicating them in a single place that’s easy to understand has made it very valuable.

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