Society of Professional Consultants’ Monthly Dinner Meeting

Monday, January 26, 2009, 5:30pm – 9:00pm • Hilton Garden Inn • Waltham, MA

http://www.spconsultants.org/notices/DinnerMeeting/2009/dinner-JAN-2009.html

Carl Harvey www.successandself-esteem.com

class=”style1″>About 20 people made for an excellent networking event, find out a little about each attendee, conduct personalized exercise, get feedback.

Carl spoke about cold calling as the way to be proactive and take control of your business development. Can’t just sit around waiting for referrals and speaking engagements!

Here are some highlights:

Have to figure out ways to make calls warmer
Call ppl who’ve attended your speaking engagements
Are there any issues that you’re seeing in the topics I presented?
Can you talk about them or tell them someone who could talk to me?

Associations or Chambers
Get the member list, ID the company’s you might want to target
Call them up!

Call Linked-In people

When you get them on the phone, your goal is to get a meeting. Don’t dip into your spiel, ask questions.

For the prospect to meet with me, prospect has:
1.    Problem that I can solve
2.    Urgency to fix the prob
3.    Current solution hasn’t been working
4.    Clients don’t know what they don’t know

Determine those above criteria by asking questions.

Look for urgency
What happens if don’t fix it?
How make you feel?
How long going on?
If been living w it for long time? Why fix it now?
When money comes up, ask if it’s a lot of money, don’t presume
If money isn’t the issue, what’s changed?
Asking questions, will lead to the real problem.

A compelling presentation and an extremely congenial group to network with.

Tonight’s event: Google Adwords Best Practices, Newton

http://www.semne.org/meetings/google-adwords-best-practices/

Highlights from last night’s IMCNE dinner meeting and panel in rough note form.
Disclaimer: This isn’t an indication of FINAL copy!

IMCNE is the premier association for professional management consultants.

http://imcne.org/events/2009/jan2209.html

Hollis Chase is President of Boston based Chase & Associates (www.hollischaseassociates.com)
Rob Siegrist is Senior Vice President, Marketing Director at Cambridge Trust Company (www.cambridgetrust.com)
Alice Sloan of Grant Thornton (www.grantthornton.com)
Mara Stefan is President of Emerge Public Relations (www.emergepr.com)

What does biz dev mean to you?
Where can we tweak and reinvent?

Siegrist Honor your brand, make tweaks not overhauls.
Sloan Uses cold calls to develop business, over time
Stefan All about relationships

Are you relevant, listening to what they say, what truly drives the customer

Small group mtgs: 10 ppl bfast, engage in and appreciate relationship

Have to show what your skillset is as a company

Consider self a thought leader: take that and customize, bring in ppl, bring along your colleagues and sell their contributions

Have specialists write white papers, be timely and ahead of the curve.

Have to help clients, anything else is just noise

Relationship brokering: Help people meet people, even if you don’t get the biz

Let people know they can share your ideas, even if don’t get the job

Find what you’re best at; find where people are talking about that

Technorati: read top blog, them comment on it

Don’t try to do anything you don’t know anything about

Pick between and choose who you can bring value to

Know where your profitability and how you structure it.

Ppl don’t want products and svs, they want a relationship and what’s in your head

Focus on ppl who need your svs the most. Be someone who ppl want to work with

Awareness that you exist, where are ppl having conversations about topics in which I can contribute; how can I reach them in a cost-effective manner.

Take-away: start building and sharing knowledge base via blog

Archives for January 2009

What’s Stopping You? How to Find and Close Business in a Troubled Economy with Carl Harvey

Society of Professional Consultants’ Monthly Dinner Meeting

Grow Your Client Base …Professional Services Firm Executives Share Their Insights event

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