For many, the chase is simply easier than the work associated with building and nurturing lasting relationships. The chase offers variety, an adrenaline rush, and – win or lose – it’s off to the next pursuit. No working through misunderstandings and unrealized expectations.<\/p>\n
No \u2013 this isn\u2019t a post about personal relationships — parallels notwithstanding. This is about business development. And for some reason, many professional service organizations and B-to-B endeavors invest disproportionate amounts of time and energy chasing irresistible “opportunities.”<\/p>\n
In almost every instance, the shortest path to revenue growth lies in meaningful dialogue (the stuff of lasting relationships) with existing clients.<\/p>\n
This would seem to be of particular interest in today’s marketplace — where the slightest growth is challenging, and leveraging every investment is a must.<\/p>\n
The math is simple. Deepening an existing client relationship is almost always a better investment than the costs — hard and soft — associated with the pursuit of a new target. Deepen an existing relationship, and not only are you on the road to increased revenue; you’ve changed your profitability arithmetic.<\/p>\n
Just in case I have to say it — here goes: this is not a suggestion that we should not engage in the pursuit of new clients. It is a reminder to all of us leading business development efforts: when we invest more in the pursuit of new opportunities than in the care and nurture of existing relationships, we may have fallen victim to the thrill of the chase.<\/p>\n
Relationships that endure and grow are the result of a calculated investment in the proactive art (and, yes – often drudgery) of dialogue. <\/p>\n
Eric Fletcher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For many, the chase is simply easier than the work associated with building and nurturing lasting relationships. The chase offers variety, an adrenaline rush, and – win or lose – it’s off to the next pursuit. No working through misunderstandings and unrealized expectations. No \u2013 this isn\u2019t a post about personal relationships — parallels notwithstanding. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,8],"tags":[256,257,259,260,261,262,258],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-ericfletcher","tag-business-development","tag-chase","tag-dialogue","tag-drudgery","tag-investment","tag-proactive","tag-thrill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":412,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions\/412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}