Ten Benefits Of External Business Development Help And Support

by Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan

In this age of increased globalisation, corporate restructuring and employee mobilisation, it is not surprising to see significant shifts in the nature of the worker/employer relationship.

More and more technology companies realise that the best and brightest professionals are not the jobseekers who work for one company forever, but the ones who sell their talents to a variety of companies and develop a broad range of complementary skills. They learn "Leading practices" in several industries and make this knowledge available to their clients.

This is the reason why more and more technology companies leverage their performance, productivity and profitability on independent professionals hired either for specific projects or on ongoing retainer basis. Here are some of the ways employers benefit from independent professionals.

Yes, everything can be figured out, but it may take a long time. If there is someone in your industry who does what you do in an easier and more profitable way, then the limitation is within you.

So, how can you overcome this limitation? One way can be working with people who work in the questionable area on a daily basis.

You see, the best way to fit into any industry is to be average, and most companies, including many of your competitors, smugly and snugly fit into this category. If you want to move beyond average, you no longer fit into the prevailing orthodoxy of the decaying stench of the status quo.

Niceness must be replaced by objectivity. Objective behaviour is courteous, but objective people tell you what you need to hear, not what you want or prefer to hear.

Sadly what you hear from most of your people is what you want to hear because, understandably, they are protecting their positions and don't want to upset the Mahatma.

And real competent outsiders are objective, even if their objectivity gets them into trouble. Total objectivity is the ability to work and act in the best interest of the client, even if the advisor risks of being fired. You can never get this from your own internal people.

Any and every business owner thriving for excellence needs the independent, constructive insights of an unbiased, professional outsider that include external frame of reference and a new perspective. Without that you can end up getting better at what you do, and what you are already doing may well be the very root of your existing problems.

Using Albert Einstein's words, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

Business development is basically the synergistic operation of marketing and selling. Treating them separately as sales and marketing would be a costly disaster. Sadly, in most businesses sales and marketing are genetically antagonistic.

Marketing lives on the first floor and Sales lives on the fourth floor. Marketing people are paid salaries, while salespeople are alienated from the company like mercenaries by being paid commissions. There is no incentive to cooperate.

Marketing people create nice logos, slogans and fuzzy, feel-good PowerPoint presentations and stick a vacuum cleaner in the company's wallet. All they talk about is branding, image and other esoteric mumbo-jumbo, not about getting and keeping paying clients and customers, that actually keep the business alive.

And at the end of the month management beats up the sales people for not fulfilling their quotas.

And for those who fulfil or exceeds their quotas, the company increases it in the next year to make sure that the salespeople can't earn too much and desperate enough to hang on to their crappy jobs and certifiable lunatic managers.

But do these same managers actually help salespeople to sell more? Almost never. None. Not a sausage. And what is the result? Average annual turnover of 43%. How can you run a business this way? Yes, you can. Running it to the ground. Running it to a grinding, screeching halt.

Here are ten reasons why more and more technology companies use external business development support and help.

1. You gain leverage by not employing a full-time business development department (or person), but have unbiased expertise at your fingertips. External people bring you "best practices" from a broad range of other businesses.

2. You save money by not paying vacation pay, sick leave, insurance, pension and other fiendish expenses. You hire some external help one, put together your systems and then you are set for life (at least for a log long time).

3. You gain access to expertise from outside your own industry that in turn will better differentiate you from your competition and help you to avoid business incest, that is, the "My industry works that way" trap. As a result of past success, you repeat the actions which have caused your past successes. In turn, repeating these actions, you become more proficient and efficient as your technology improves. This leads you to an endless cycle of limited success, increased competency and exploitation. But there is no exploration, new ideas are not tried, and even if tried, do not do as well as the existing technology because of the disparity in competence between the two.

4. You gain new perspectives and insights because, unlike you, an unbiased outsider is not emotionally involved in your business, so s/he has the uncanny ability to see what you need even before you need it. You will hear what you need to hear - even if it is painful, not only what you want to hear and your employees dare to tell you.

5. You gain better clarity and focus, so you can better deploy your business development resources. You may have lots of paying clients, but if you don't have prospects waiting for conversion, then there is an imbalance, and you had better address it.

6. You start using new techniques instead of wasting your time, money and resources on "trial and error" methods and concepts your whole industry, including your closest competitors, is using.

7. You start filling your gaps with innovative, less known and even less used business development tactics. That means further differentiation from your competition, so you can better dictate your own terms.

8. You make better sense of the business development chaos as your advisor constantly offers you new ideas, concepts and program in attracting and retaining great clients.

9. You will be able to better develop innovative business development systems. With systems, your effort becomes duplicable, so you can create measurable predictable outcomes any time you want to.

10. You have worked hard, so now have some fun... With a system in place, you can step back, recharge your batteries and focus on issues of higher calling. Your business development system is humming in the background, bringing you qualified prospects on a pretty predictable basis, thus you can avoid businesses' greatest fear: The dreaded feast and famine cycle.

And Maybe 10 More...

1. Unlike employees, who wait for free training by their employers, independent professionals put themselves through the best skill building programmes available at their own cost.

2. Unlike employees, independent professionals pay their own CPP, Healthcare, EI, WCB and vacation pay. Also, compensating employees is complex and entangled, but paying independent professionals is simple and easy: Agreed compensation plus the appropriate tax.

3. Unlike employees, independent professionals don't need equipment and location. They can work both at your location or their own offices, depending on the nature of the work.

4. Unlike employees, independent professionals pay their own taxes and handle their own insurance. You don't have to worry about complex tax and insurance issues.

5. Unlike employees, independent professionals are more objective, unbiased and more productive because they are not affected and held back by corporate or office politics or the common employee disease, "Not in my job description".

6. Unlike employees who build dependence on them to protect their jobs, independent professionals' interest is to get the project done and either move on or start the next project if there is one.

7. Unlike employees, independent professionals, as a result of having worked with a broad range of businesses, often in several countries, can offer you new perspectives and insights, thus helping you to gain an advantage in your marketplace.

8. Unlike employees, who only tell you what you want to hear because they are protecting their jobs, independent professionals are honest and candid to tell what you need to hear. They tell you the good the bad and the ugly.

9. Unlike with employees with whom you have lengthy hiring processes maybe even recruiter fees and other expenses, independent professionals can just come and go as you need them.

10. Unlike employees, who expect their paycheques in return for their 40 hours a week of "face time" regardless of their contribution to achieving business goals, independent professionals know their work stands or falls on helping their clients to make money.

On Summary

So, why do so many employers still insist on having employees instead of independent professionals? Because they mistakenly believe they have control over employees but not over independents. But is there such a thing as control?

"Control is an illusion, you infantile egomaniac. Nobody controls anything."

…said Nicole Kidman to Tom Cruise in the movie Days of Thunder. I tend to agree.

The typical employee mindset is pretty much around this concept: What are my entitlements, and how can I maximise my entitlements in return for the minimum amount of work, so I can get what I want?

And here is one more big difference...

Employees are reactive: "My job is to respond to my employer's needs and requests, doing what they tell me to do in a manner they tell me to do."

Independent professionals are proactive: "My job is to improve my client's business in any ethical, moral and legal way I see fit."

An independent professional's mindset: How can I add value to your business, so we both can be successful? Employees focus on putting in "face time", that is, being there for 40 hours a week. Independent professionals focus on helping to achieve specific organisational objectives.

Employees's mantra: "What can I get out of this job?"

Independent professionals' mantra: "What can the client get out of my engagement?"

A good business development system is one of your greatest aids in any business. With the help of your advisor, you can design and develop a comprehensive client attraction system, which provides you with a steady stream of qualified prospects who are ready, willing and able to do business with you the sinking feeling of without being sold to.

Once or twice a year you may re-hire your advisor, so together you can tweak your system a bit, but that is all. Your client business development is quietly humming in the background, bringing you the kind of "ideal" business you want for the rest of your business life.

According to the Gartner Group, doing a non-core activity in-house, instead of outsourcing, can cost you as much as 60% more than it would cost you through outsourcing. This also correlates with HR figures that indicate that the total cost of an employee is about 160% of the person's gross salary. So, you save money by outsourcing a function and gain a brand new perspective from a person who is not involved in your company's politics and daily affairs.

And remember! Don't sell harder. Market smarter. Both you, your employees, your clients and prospects will find it more enjoyable, profitable and attractive.

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