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Mo explores the key business development mindset shifts that you need to make to become great at business development. Find out why business development skills are both learned and earned, how anyone can become great at business development, and how to stay motivated and driven to keep doing the work of building relationships the right way.   Business Development Mindset Is A Learnable Skill Dr. Kay Anders Ericsson spent over 30 years studying high-end expertise and discovered that every complex skill is both learned and earned. You can look at any expert and you would find decades of deliberate practice that got them to that level. No one is born with all the skills they need to be great at business development. Business development is a learnable skill that anyone can build on. If you take each individual lesson and apply them to your life, you will be successful. If someone tries to tell you that business development skills are not learnable or only for natural born conversationalists, they’re wrong. They just haven’t seen the research. If you want to be great at business development, break things down into bite- sized pieces. Break complex tasks down into individual pieces and practice each one as it comes.   Business Development Mindset Rule - You Don't Have To Be An Extrovert To Succeed Adam Grant did a study on salespeople and put them on a spectrum of introversion to extroversion. For most people they land right in the middle and end up being a mix of both introvert and extrovert, and most successful salespeople were exactly the same way. Ambiverts were the most successful at making sales, not extroverts like people assumed was the case. Full-on extroverts might actually have some disadvantages when it comes to making a sale. Their desire to be around people all the time may prevent them from following up effectively or being direct with someone when they need to challenge them. Extreme introverts likely just aren’t putting themselves around other people most of the time, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get energy from interacting with them or can’t be effective salespeople. The magic in sales and business development happens at the middle of the curve, where you can connect with people in the moment and follow up thoughtfully later. Luckily for most people, that’s where they fall. You don’t have to be extroverted to be successful at sales. Great business developers have a wonderful mix of being around people, getting energy from the interactions, asking great questions, and giving great ideas. They can also go back to their quiet surroundings and find ways to follow up thoughtfully.   Becoming Great At Anything By Creating a Business Development Mindset Every expertise, no matter the field, is both learned and earned. You can become great at anything if you break it down into little pieces and practice each piece. You may not become world-class or be able to play in the NBA, but you can certainly become very good at that particular skill, and the key is deliberate practice. By breaking down the big skill into smaller micro-skills and deliberately practicing those individually, you build your overall skill set. The second component of deliberate practice is having a mentor guide you along the path towards expertise. When it comes to business development, what kinds of attractive content can you create to get your name out there? What valuable thing do you have to offer the world that you can get out there and expose others to your way of thinking? Once you’ve got a system for generating content and attracting leads, it becomes a matter of turning those connections into one-to-one conversations. This is where the Give to Get comes in. Start solving client problems in a small, bite-sized way, and it can open the door to bigger opportunities. If you think you can’t do what someone else is doing, toss that out of your mind. Narrow what they do down to a specific skill that you can improve on and get to work. Don't worry about how you stack up with others. It doesn't matter. Focus on your own skills, always getting a little bit better all the time.   Having a Business Development Mindset Means Knowing What Motivates a Buyer When you’re being sold to, you almost want to run away. You can tell the salesperson has only their best interests in mind, not yours. We are happy to buy when the reverse is true. When we’re learning and we feel like the other person is helping us discover the option that’s right for us, the experience is wonderful. When we buy something, we’re important. We are being catered to and we’re learning in the process. It’s like having a birthday experience where you feel like the people you’re interacting with really care. If you don’t like selling, you need to reframe your perspective. Instead of selling, think that you’re someone that creates wonderful buying experiences that make people feel good. Flush the idea of selling and focus on the idea of creating a wonderful buying experience. That one mindset shift will change everything. You are 100% in control of the buying experience. You’re helping people succeed, remember that. The more you do that, the more you will win and the more that people will talk about how great you are to their colleagues.   Start Crafting Your Business Development Mindset By Understanding Your Why Business development can be hard. You’ve got to figure out a reason to persevere and keep adding value to your relationships, even when it feels like you’re not making much progress. To discover your why, ask yourself the Five Whys? Go deeper into the core reasons you do what you do until you discover the truth. Start with the question: “Why is getting great at Business Development important to me?” When you’ve got your answer, add a why to the beginning and ask why that thing is important. Your fifth answer is where the rubber meets the road, and you discover what’s really driving you. Once you have it, write it down and put it somewhere that will remind you daily why you put in the work. Avoid staying too superficial with your motivation and realize that your why might change over time, so it’s a good practice to repeat the exercise every few years or when you feel like you’re not as motivated as you used to be.     Mentioned in this Episode: freakonomics.com/podcast/peak faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Grant_PsychScience2013.pdf bdhabits.com The Snowball System by Mo Bunnell - amazon.com/Snowball-System-Business-Clients-Raving/dp/1610399609

Business development can be hard. You’ve got to figure out a reason to persevere and keep adding value to your relationships, even when it feels like you’re not making much progress. To discover your why, ask yourself the Five Whys? Go deeper into the core reasons you do what you do until you discover the truth. Start with the question: “Why is getting great at Business Development important to me?” When you’ve got your answer, add a why to the beginning and ask why that thing is important. Your fifth answer is where the rubber meets the road, and you discover what’s really driving you. Once you have it, write it down and put it somewhere that will remind you daily why you put in the work. Avoid staying too superficial with your motivation and realize that your why might change over time, so it’s a good practice to repeat the exercise every few years or when you feel like you’re not as motivated as you used to be.     Mentioned in this Episode: The Snowball System by Mo Bunnell - amazon.com/Snowball-System-Business-Clients-Raving/dp/1610399609

When you’re being sold to, you almost want to run away. You can tell the salesperson has only their best interests in mind, not yours. We are happy to buy when the reverse is true. When we’re learning and we feel like the other person is helping us discover the option that’s right for us, the experience is wonderful. When we buy something, we’re important. We are being catered to and we’re learning in the process. It’s like having a birthday experience where you feel like the people you’re interacting with really care. If you don’t like selling, you need to reframe your perspective. Instead of selling, think that you’re someone that creates wonderful buying experiences that make people feel good. Flush the idea of selling and focus on the idea of creating a wonderful buying experience. That one mindset shift will change everything. You are 100% in control of the buying experience. You’re helping people succeed, remember that. The more you do that, the more you will win and the more that people will talk about how great you are to their colleagues.     Mentioned in this Episode: The Snowball System by Mo Bunnell - amazon.com/Snowball-System-Business-Clients-Raving/dp/1610399609

Every expertise, no matter the field, is both learned and earned. You can become great at anything if you break it down into little pieces and practice each piece. You may not become world-class or be able to play in the NBA, but you can certainly become very good at that particular skill, and the key is deliberate practice. By breaking down the big skill into smaller micro-skills and deliberately practicing those individually, you build your overall skill set. The second component of deliberate practice is having a mentor guide you along the path towards expertise. When it comes to business development, what kinds of attractive content can you create to get your name out there? What valuable thing do you have to offer the world that you can get out there and expose others to your way of thinking? Once you’ve got a system for generating content and attracting leads, it becomes a matter of turning those connections into one-to-one conversations. This is where the Give to Get comes in. Start solving client problems in a small, bite-sized way, and it can open the door to bigger opportunities. If you think you can’t do what someone else is doing, toss that out of your mind. Narrow what they do down to a specific skill that you can improve on and get to work. Don't worry about how you stack up with others. It doesn't matter. Focus on your own skills, always getting a little bit better all the time.     Mentioned in this Episode: bdhabits.com

Adam Grant did a study on salespeople and put them on a spectrum of introversion to extroversion. For most people they land right in the middle and end up being a mix of both introvert and extrovert, and most successful salespeople were exactly the same way. Ambiverts were the most successful at making sales, not extroverts like people assumed was the case. Full-on extroverts might actually have some disadvantages when it comes to making a sale. Their desire to be around people all the time may prevent them from following up effectively or being direct with someone when they need to challenge them. Extreme introverts likely just aren’t putting themselves around other people most of the time, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get energy from interacting with them or can’t be effective salespeople. The magic in sales and business development happens at the middle of the curve, where you can connect with people in the moment and follow up thoughtfully later. Luckily for most people, that’s where they fall. You don’t have to be extroverted to be successful at sales. Great business developers have a wonderful mix of being around people, getting energy from the interactions, asking great questions, and giving great ideas. They can also go back to their quiet surroundings and find ways to follow up thoughtfully.     Mentioned in this Episode: faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Grant_PsychScience2013.pdf

Dr. K. Anders Ericsson spent over 30 years studying high-end expertise and discovered that every complex skill is both learned and earned. You can look at any expert and you would find decades of deliberate practice that got them to that level. No one is born with all the skills they need to be great at business development. Business development is a learnable skill that anyone can build on. If you take each individual lesson and apply them to your life, you will be successful. If someone tries to tell you that business development skills are not learnable or only for natural born conversationalists, they’re wrong. They just haven’t seen the research. If you want to be great at business development, break things down into bite- sized pieces. Break complex tasks down into individual pieces and practice each one as it comes.     Mentioned in this Episode: freakonomics.com/podcast/peak

Mo asks Marty Fagan: If you could record a video about growth or Business Development, and send it back to your younger self, what would you say? First thing is to be authentic. If you truly are authentic, people can pick up on that. And if you're not authentic, they can pick up on that as well. If you’re talking to someone and you don’t think your solution is a good fit, don’t sell it to them. Closing the sale no matter what may work in the short-term, but it’s a terrible strategy in the long-term. The second thing is to have a passion for the solution you are offering to your customers. People pick up on your passion, which contributes to that feeling of authenticity. Having passion and authenticity establishes trust, and that trust needs to be in place to have a conversation result in a closed deal. If you’ve developed a deep expertise, it’s okay to be excited about it and convey that energy to people.   Mo asks Sandy Lutton: If you could record a message around growth and business development and send it to your younger self, what would it say? Early in her career, Sandy was intimidated by business development and felt that she had to win them over while being perfect, but it doesn’t have to be an intimidating process. Business development is simply about building relationships. Sandy would want to help her younger self take the fear out of the process. It can be fun and engaging, and you will learn a lot along the way. Practice for perfection, but play for progress. You start to see how brilliant your team is when you plan ahead, and even if you don’t win the business, you improve for the next one. When you’re in a meeting, look for the little wins and what the next step along the way is. Make sure you tackle all the issues and break things down into small steps. Moving anything forward during a meeting is a win, so keep that in mind. Instead of trying to wow the prospect, just give them what they are looking for.   Mo asks Andrew Robertson: If you could wave a magic wand and record a video around business development and send it back to your younger self, what would it say? There is very little in business that is as satisfying as business and relationship development. Landing a client and then getting them big wins is fulfilling and it’s a wonderful thing to be good at. Define victory as a series of steps, instead of an end result. This makes the journey rewarding and not just about the destination. If you can take the first step, which is the hardest, everything else gets easier. Start with the end goal in mind, and then break it down into the fundamental steps you need to make each day to achieve that goal, then celebrate when you take those steps. It doesn’t guarantee success, but it makes it much more likely. You can’t control whether a client will say yes, but you can control whether or not you ask them in the first place.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com linkedin.com/in/martyfagan sandy@designinginfluencers.com Her Journey Told Podcast andrew.robertson@bbdo.com

Mo asks Bill Ruprecht: If you could record a video around business development for your younger self, what would it say? You learn a lot more from failure than you do from success. Early on in Bill’s career, he had developed a relationship with an art collector, but after the collector passed away the business went to other people because Bill didn’t consider what would happen after that point or lay the foundation to make sure the family would work with him. It’s important to not rely on a single individual for your relationship with an organization. You need to create a team of advocates to work with a team of counterparts within the organization. Remove your ego from the equation and focus on building a team to team relationship. We tend to focus on our expertise and believe that’s how decisions get made, but that’s not the way it works. What should drive those decisions is that your company has a collection of skills to help clients solve their problems.   Mo asks Mike Duffy: If you could record a message to your younger self about how they should think about business development, what would it be? Mike’s message would be to essentially to cold call for a couple months right at the beginning to get used to hearing no. He would also tell himself to feed his brain. Read books and consume information that keeps you moving. Treat your profession like a profession. If you treat your profession the same way that a doctor does and invest in continuing education every year to be a better leader and sales person, you will be successful. Mike invests in programs that he’s heard about on podcasts and consumes books referenced in other books that have made an impact on him. You have to invest in yourself if you want to get better. Mike also builds relationships with people that are learning themselves and is curious enough to find out more about them. He’s always thinking about how he can add value to a conversation or relationship, and thinking about the questions that allow him to dig deeper. When you ask questions, you learn. When you learn, you connect dots, and when you do that, everyone gets better and the effect can snowball. Asking the right questions is instrumental to Mike’s ability to grow.   Mo asks Debby Moorman: If you could record a business development tip and send it to your younger self, what would it be? The bottomline is the idea of sales can be scary because we usually think of our worst sales experience and extrapolate that to everything. Debby’s advice to her younger self would be to take a breath, and realize that it’s all about meeting people and getting to know them, then helping them solve their problems. Changing the label from “sales” to “helping people and solving their needs” is a powerful mindset shift. People usually don’t realize that they are selling everyday, they just don’t label it that way. If you substitute “solve problems” for “sales”, you’re probably doing it all the time. Debby tells the story of an earlier experience where her job was traditional sales, literally going door to door, and how by simply asking questions and identifying the needs of the company, she turned a no into one of the biggest sales of the hotel she was working for. Everybody already sells, they just don’t call it that. When you substitute solving problems, you realize that you’re already great at what you do, and if you plug in a process like the Snowball System, you can keep getting better at it.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com Mike Duffy on LinkedIn debby.moorman@willistowerswatson.com Debby Moorman on LinkedIn

Mo asks Jonathan Reckford: You get to magically record a video and send it back to your younger self with some advice. What do you say? Jonathan spent most of his youth thinking about what he wanted to do instead of who he wanted to be. He would tell his younger self to focus on the ‘who’ before the ‘what’ first. If you never fail, it's likely you're not going big enough. Hope is built in the community. Volunteering gives you a sense of the community and how you can bring the virtues of kindness and love into the world. Following your passion is incomplete. You need to search for the intersection between what you’re passionate about and where your skills, ability, and talent lie. Jonathan tells the story of Doris, and how he grew up in a poor neighborhood in North Carolina and how his life completely changed after his mom qualified to buy a Habitat house in Optimist Park. Doris is the first person to grow up in a Habitat for Humanity house and to serve on the board as well. The story perfectly encapsulates the mission and purpose of Habitat for Humanity and how giving people a platform and foundation for a stable, healthy life can impact their community and society as a whole.   Mo asks Brent Atkins: If you could record a video on business development and send it to your younger self, what would you say? In the early days of Brent’s business development career, he did things very differently. The first thing he would say is to listen. Brent hears more things now during the course of a conversation with active listening, which is the opposite from how his younger self operated. There is an impulse when you’re young and fresh to tell everyone what you know, but listening and asking questions are how you really learn how to sell. Every product or service has multiple ways you can position it to win. If you listen, you can be much more effective in that effort. Brent is a student of business development even now. The first 21 days of a relationship are extremely important to solidify a bond. Reaching out to continue the conversation and creating that bond allows you to come back months or years later and pick up that conversation in the same way you would with an old friend. The final tip would be to build your brand. People are taught sales skills and usually want to apply them the exact way they are taught. Take what you’re doing and make it yours. Whatever sales skills you are working on, you need to make them authentically yours for them to be effective. The great business development rainmakers never stop learning. Brent is always looking to improve and work on his skills, especially in leverage tools like MIT’s and the Protemoi list.   Mo asks Monty Hamilton: If you could record a video and send it back to your former self, something around business development or growth mindset, what would it say? Monty would tell himself to not settle. Looking back, he can see that he didn’t always have the abundance mindset he needed to grow past barriers. He would also say to take more risks and that it’s okay to fail. The third thing would be to enjoy the journey more and be less fixated on the end destination. The pandemic has made celebrating the journey more difficult, but also more precious at the same time. You have to be more intentional in creating those moments.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com habitat.org linkedin.com/in/jonathanreckford Our Better Angels: Seven Simple Virtues That Will Change Your Life and the World by Jonathan Reckford brent.atkins@progyny.com Brent Atkins on LinkedIn #MinuteWithMonty on YouTube linkedin.com/in/montyhamilton

Mo asks Katrina Johnson: If you could tape a message to your younger self about business development, what would it say? It would simply be one thing: Learn to walk the dog. When someone walks a dog, we assume that the person is in control, but that’s not always the case. Our brains work in a similar way. The dogwalker is the prefrontal cortex, and the dog is the limbic system that responds and detects threats. The big question is who is in control? The truth is that the dog is in control most of the time. Everytime we stick to known associates instead of unknown prospects, or when we expect every email to get a response, the dog is in control. The sooner you can learn to walk the dog, the sooner you get to do the work you care about on your own terms. Even with the best tools and strategies at our disposal, most of the time we are only half as effective as we could be because we are being dragged around by our limbic system. It’s not an issue of ego, as much as it is the part of your brain that has evolved to perceive threats. Threats aren’t always tigers, they can also be getting rejected, feeling embarrassed, or losing status. The first job is to get out of your own way so the tools and strategies can do the work. Katrina focuses on awareness first about her emotions and experiences. A quick, simple label can be very effective in reducing the limbic system’s response. Reframing it and considering other reasons something may or may not have happened makes it less emotional. Give your emotions context, label them, and reframe them. The more you do it, the better you will get at it. This is a foundational skill in business development.   Mo asks Cyril Peupion: If you could record a video around business development and send it back to your younger self, what would it say? Cyril describes a restaurant in Paris that is the best in the world in delivering a ribeye and has a queue lined up every single day no matter the weather conditions. Cyril would tell himself to become the master of one trade and become extraordinary at one thing. Follow your heart and become the expert in that area. Habits are what build expertise and world-class skills. There is a lot of joy in embracing the boring excellence that makes you great. Cyril does one thing and does it very well. He’s more than happy to refer work that’s not in his wheelhouse to other experts he knows can take care of it. If you can find something that you are passionate about, that the market will pay a premium rate for, and you are good at, you have found something worth pursuing. Cyril would also recommend never stopping learning. “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” -Gandhi Block time to read every day. Set aside time every quarter to attend new training. Surround yourself with great mentors and a supportive community.   Mo asks Mark Harris: If you could record a message around business development for your younger self, what would it say? The first thing Mark would say is that business development is a marathon, not a sprint. The second thing is that the role is a learned skill. People are not born great sales, it’s something you can learn and master. The third thing is to help others when you can. You’ll be happier helping others with their success than you will ever be with your own success. When people first get into sales they often sprint towards their first sale, but when they do that they forget about the long-term marathon of relationship building. When you build relationships on that level, the tiny sprints toward each sale become easier over time. Sales didn’t come naturally to Mark, but when he realized that he was getting better each day that became a big motivation and opened the door to becoming excellent at it. Helping others when you can helps you be happier, which cycles back to building trust and reinforces the first three lessons.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com katrina@kcjconsult.com wslb.com Mark_C_Harris@glic.com linkedin.com/in/mark-harris-9ba1b53