The Change Dude’s Blog

En Fuego!! Sort of…

Two-thousand business cards. Going through my desk drawer today I realized just how many business cards I’ve collected over the years and saved because those people the cards represent could result in a friendship or business relationship. Some are reminders of former clients that have moved on to other jobs, started their own businesses or just retired. Of course the two-thousand are exclusive to the unknown number of electronic contacts made since the demise of the formal business card.

What this brought to mind is the change in business relationship development that’s occured. Digital marketing, intent marketing, drip campaigns, social media marketing and all the various impersonal methods of connecting have caused an interesting effect. At my own niche firm and with clients I regularly debate the merits of electronic versus in-person interactions to develop new leads for projects. What I often hear about is the huge number of cold leads that come into a prospecting pipeline. “We’ve got a great pipeline of work, look at all these leads”, bah humbug! The reality is that most real opportunities come from the extended network represented by all those business cards.

Business cards in the drawer, or wherever they’re stored, represent physical touches with humans. A name, a face, a place, a shared smile, or common connection. I submit that twenty leads generated from a physical connection outweigh one-hundred from electronic sources, don’t quote me here I don’t have the data to support my claim. However, I can reliably say that a blend of electonic volume and personal engagement is the most reliable approach to converting leads to deals.

Critical success factors in developing new business realtionships always begin with TRUST! Trust in built over time through a combination of personal relationship development with key decision makers and having a clear postion on a challenge that decision maker is dealing with TODAY! Fishing for problems to solve in today’s world is a bit lazy. With all the information available at our fingertips today hitting a sweet spot with a new relationship is pretty easy. Using electronic marketing tools can generate volume for potential interactions. People build trust, devise creative solutions and build long term synergistic relationships.

Here’s the take away. If you think the opportunity pipeline is on-fire because digitial marketing says so, beware the conversion rate. Get personal, go out and collect some business cards!!!

March 4, 2024 Posted by thechangedude | Uncategorized | Leave a comment