031: Strategic Business Management - with Richard Higham Part 3

In the final part of this three-part series, we’re talking all things new new business and your existing book, the importance of strategic account management as well as sales management and how to do it well. Richard has extensive experience in this field and across the series he shares his 12 key strategic areas to consider in your business, as well as practical tools and hints to support your planning, process and performance.   KEY TAKEAWAYS: The first key to making new new business easier is to make it as un-random as possible. Grow your business through referral business. There is a three-step process to new business; how do I get somebody interested in what I have to say? How do I turn interest into opportunity? How do I turn this opportunity into engagement? Monitoring your key accounts is one of the best ways of generating growth… but be proactive with it! We live in a changing world and the way in which we sell should be governed by four levers explained in this podcast.   BEST MOMENTS: “I think new business is a really exciting place to be. It's not always an easy place to be, particularly for professionals. Somebody in a professional service firm put it to me the other day that if you're a consultant and you're used to being an advisor, you're used to telling people and to you expect to be taken seriously whereas the new new business person has to listen and ask more as well as has to accept rejection more.’’   ‘’We need to talk about renewals much earlier… talk early, talk wider, not just transactionally, and talk actively.’’   ‘’Why should you cross buy?... there's some compelling reasons why your clients should buy more from you, you just need to become more customer centric.’’   ‘’Complexity means that we need to move in real time and we need to be extremely flexible. We need to have ability to tell stories that change our way of working. We need to manage complexity and that's particularly true in organisations by the way that they plan.’’   RESOURCES: SalesLevers website: https://www.saleslevers.com/   ABOUT THE HOST Sarah Myerscough is the Sales and Marketing Director of Boston Tullis Group. The founder of The Insurance Brokers Podcast, she brings a wealth of marketing experience and a fresh perspective on marketing in the insurance sector. Boston Tullis works with insurance brokers to offer solutions to business development ceilings, particularly in the rapidly developing fields of video marketing and thought leadership. If you would like Sarah to help you develop an integrated marketing strategy, using state of the art concepts, then please book a free 20 min call via Calendly    Website: https://bostontullis.co.uk/ Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation   ABOUT THE GUEST Richard Higham is an Executive Director at SalesLevers; a business that enables companies to drive sales performance in a radically changing sales world. Richard has over 25 years of experience in sales performance consulting. He has won, designed and led consulting and training projects with global banks, insurers and professional services firms across five continents. He has also worked on sales performance in sectors ranging from logistics to manufacturing. Richard also teaches on the Dublin Institute of Technology’s Postgraduate Diploma in International Sales course and runs business development and leadership programmes for Cass Business School at the University of London. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richardhigham Twitter: https://twitter.com/RichardHigham