Create, Choreograph, Contract: A Business Development Framework

Is your BD process disorganized? Disjointed? Nonexistent? 

Consider using this 3-part framework to get your sales back on track. 

In this episode, Mark introduces his three-part business development framework, "Create, Choreograph, Contract", aimed to help doer-sellers and dedicated business developers create a cyclical process for winning new business. In this conversation, you'll learn:

• An overview of "Create, Choreograph, Contract"
• Why firms should consider creating their own new business
• The elements of a choreographed sales process
• The pitfalls to watch out for during contracting

Stay tuned for bonus episodes that go deeper into Create, Choreograph, and Contract.

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhwainwright/
Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johntyreman/

www.breakingbizdev.com

Transcript

John Tyreman: 0:19

Welcome business developers to another episode of breaking biz dev. And if you want to learn how to win new business for your practice or professional services firm, you are in the right place. My name is John Tyerman. And as always, I'm joined by Mark Wainwright, where we have a special series of episodes for you this week. but before we get into the main content. Please, if you enjoy our podcast, leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts. It really helps grow the show. And we like reading those reviews on the show as well. So leave a rating and a review and we'll read it for you.

Mark Wainwright: 0:55

just to hit on that, those reviews for our podcast, those are fun to read. sure. The ratings are great. People see the reviews. We get the five stars. that's wonderful. But I just love to read them. I, I, I think it's a, I mean, as all of us do, we love to have others, provide completely unsolicited, comments on, on the work we do and, so far so good. Yeah. we've got, we've got people out there who, enjoy what we've done so far. I'm kind of proud of, of, of the work we've done so far. John, not the, the credits, obviously, is due to your work. Podcast expertise, all the stuff you do behind the scenes. So I think that's, that's been really fun to establish kind of, or experience first person. So that's, that's been a ton of fun. So thanks for that. This is, this is a, this is a fun gig. So. Yes, onto our three part framework. And you know, the reality is, to call any of this something that I completely invented is, maybe a misnomer, but I think that, a lot of practitioners, a lot of consultants out there, are, are come across. wisdom, and rethink and repackage it and maybe refresh it, so that, they can help, help others sort of make sense of it all. And I've had the opportunity in the, the years that I've been doing what I do in the years that I have been a fractional sales manager for professional services firms, I've had an opportunity to reflect on the work I've done with various firms, all of the different. puzzle pieces that I help firms assemble when they're trying to, to build a, a high functioning sales engine inside their organization. And recently I started to rethink and reframe some of the work that I've done. And there's a three part sort of framework that I like to refer to. And I've started to realign, my work and my practice around this three part framework and the three part framework is create, choreograph, and contract. Oh, I like the

John Tyreman: 2:59

alliteration.

Mark Wainwright: 3:00

Yeah, yeah, the alliteration's intentional. It's probably mostly because I just need something that I can remember. So, it's a great mnemonic device. Yeah, So yeah, I would love to, touch on each of these areas and kind of give a little, little background, and talk through why I think this maybe repackaging and reframing is, is, helpful and, Why enjoy it so much. All right.

John Tyreman: 3:27

Well, yeah, that sounds great, Mark. Let's, let's dig into this. I love the way that you've organized this. And I think our listeners will, will too, because, we've been touching on a lot of different business development topics, but I think the way that you've organized this, can help, folks who maybe they want to start from the beginning and they want to understand everything in totality. so let's start with your, your create. create part of the framework. Can you give us a 30, 000 foot view of that?

Mark Wainwright: 3:55

Yeah. The, the use of these terms is in, is intentional. I want to emphasize that I just didn't kind of come across them. the term or the notion of, of creating things is familiar. To many professional services firms out there, whether it's marketing agencies or engineering firms or, architectural firms, you know, we can all kind of envision these things that they create these wonderful work products, that flow from their expertise. but a lot of this creation generally happens after they've won the business, after they've signed the contract. And I thought, well, wouldn't it be interesting if these firms kind of. reframed the work they do to take that, that ability to, to create and be creative, then shifted that to the stuff that happens before the contract, right into this whole marketing and sales. world. I think some can picture being creative in marketing, but you know, my spin is that I think you can be Cree, you can, you can create inside the world of, of sales as well. So, I think firms can bring the same type of energy, to when they're trying to sort of create these new business opportunities. It's a powerful term. Because creation is a self made thing. It is. It is. I'm going to make something from nothing, right? And it's also, gives you the ability to kind of create your own future. That's one of the powerful senses I get of this word create. It lets us create our own tomorrows. It lets us start to determine where we're headed, right? To identify this big goal we have and start taking the steps in a very intentional, planful way.

John Tyreman: 5:49

you've mentioned this before, I think we were talking about succession planning, a few episodes ago. And, Mark, you touched on the point that entrepreneurs don't really hire entrepreneurs. Right within their organizations, but, a key part of entrepreneurialism is having that creative mindset and being able to create something you're creating a business. so I think that there's, there's probably a connection there that, maybe we don't need to dive too deep into, but, I think that you bring up a really great point about how you can create the business that you want. and you've, you've laid out a few, a number of different steps and we'll go, we'll go into a deep dive on creation, and how to create your. that you want on the next episode. but this, again, this is just a 30, 000 foot view.

Mark Wainwright: 6:39

Yeah. Yeah. Firms should have some agency in, kind of creating their own future, right. They should have some level of control over it. They should, they should be able to, not just sort of leave it up to, up to fate. and I've witnessed this firsthand, On on both ends, firms just seemingly doing the work that comes to them that kind of ends up in their lap. And sometimes they're happy with it, but sometimes not. But I know there's this need or this desire to be working on things that they care about and they want to focus on and things that they've sort of envisioned in their future. They can focus on those things. And, but I think all too often they cede control of that. And firms just, and individuals just sort of end up working on, on whatever sort of, is on the stack of stuff on their desk. Right. So that's, that's not what we want. we want firms to be, and individuals to be self determinant and that's what, that's the power of this whole sort of create,

John Tyreman: 7:44

Excellent. let's move on to the next. Part of your framework that you have mark choreograph, and I'm just I'm imagining this this dance That's going on. Tell me a little bit more about

Mark Wainwright: 7:57

you you just did it right there You've you stumbled through it. I I did a bad job with this word because it can be a little Mouthful, choreograph choreography, you know that one it's it's tricky, but I love the notion of it And, and one of the reasons I think I love it is because I, I, I spent a lot of time, watching my, my daughter, she grew up in her, in her ballet performances. and that was, so that's, that's a little sort of heartwarming, part of my past that, that I look at this, this concepts of, of choreograph and it brings a lot of, a lot of good memories, but the, so the dance connection is almost cliche here, right? So. It's easy to see how someone would connect this whole idea of dancing with sales, right? Sometimes sales kind of feels like a bit of a dance, right? There's there's two parties. We're kind of moving together Maybe we're a little bit out of sync. Maybe we're in sync. Maybe there's leading there's you know, there's this you could see it Right, you can kind of picture how that how that would work and I think a really successful process of leading someone, from a maybe to a contract does often feel a little bit like a dance sometimes in a good way, but sometimes not. But either way, you can kind of apply that. The other, the other part of this whole idea of choreograph that, I actually have a little bit more, more, more fun kind of playing with is the fact that, when we see something like a dance, when we see a dance that is highly choreographed, you never see the, the hours and hours of planning and preparation and practice that go into that, right? You have to know that these people who are professionals. at this have spent endless amounts of time just getting it right. We never see that. All we see is this, final sort of show, right? And it looks amazing, right? It is flawless. It is seamless. It is artistic. It flows. And we never see any of the mistakes and the improvement and everything else. It's, kind of the stuff that's going on behind the scenes. So. This whole choreographed thing, whenever we see something that's tightly choreographed, it is, planned down to, each second of the performance, but it looks like it's done With a powerful sense of ease and grace. Right? So I thought, Oh, wouldn't that be cool? If we looked at something as difficult and complex as sales, all that pre contract work as something that just flowed something that was, had a sense of ease and calmness and, something that was actually enjoyable. Wouldn't it be cool if we could actually, not just build a process, but also sort of embrace this sort of, approach that says, this is something that's hard. It takes a lot of practice, but hopefully if I get it right, the people that I do this with, walk through a sales process with find it enjoyable, find that it flows, find that it, that it moves with its own sense of ease and grace, right? Wouldn't that be great. And I think it's entirely possible. So that's the, that's this whole sort of notion of choreograph, the obvious sort of cliche almost thing of the dance, but also this. This thing that moves with this ease and grace, but there's so much going on behind the scenes. Sometimes people, that are in the process don't even see. So that was, that's a cool aspect of it.

John Tyreman: 11:30

Yeah. I like this because especially in professional services, business development is, is naturally just, Decentralized across the organization, right? So you've got doers sellers who it's their responsibility to fulfill on the work, but it's also part of their responsibility to sell the work, right? And so, this choreograph, you brought up a point a few times, Mark, that, because you're in sales. You have a responsibility to lead the prospects through this process. You've had more reps at the process. You're more familiar with it. but I think choreographed kind of takes it a step further to your point of not only just understanding the process and moving through it, but. Having the confidence to be able to lead and then leaning on things like cognitive biases, which we've talked about in the past and understanding that to help give you that confidence to, to move, because, a dancing in choreography, it's sure there's a lot of practice and there's a lot of movement that goes into it, but there's still an art form to it. And they're still like, that has to come naturally. And like you say, effortlessly. So I like that section as well.

Mark Wainwright: 12:43

Yeah, that's a, that's a good point. I, I think that, and I, I think I've seen it in people that I, that I work with and people that I coach, initially when we engage, there's probably no process. So it looks very, whatever they're doing has some flow to it, likely very disorganized, but it's not in some sort of one, two, three ABC sort of, sort of process. Then when they first start to learn it, they start to perceive that as something rigid and restrictive. and, Oh, that's a process. I don't, I, I, I need this. I need my interactions with these, these, potential clients to be, more fluid, more, more easygoing, but I'm the guy saying, yeah, okay, that comes later. That comes later once we've learned the process. So we first start in its, lacking process, lacking structure, probably an easy conversation, but they're not really not making, they're not getting the results they want. Then we bring a, a, a kind of a more formal, structure to it. People get a little uncomfortable until they start to learn it and understand it. And then at the other end of it, right, the final product hopefully is something that has all that structure and that framework and that process, but looks You know, conversational and easy and not pushy and not salesy. So there's a, there's clearly a kind of a three part transition where people love the easygoing. beginning, but there's no structure and there's no results. Then they work through it and they come out the other end. hopefully having it be a process they're comfortable with and confident with, like you said, so. Yeah. The dance analogy

John Tyreman: 14:18

is great. I, I'm a musician, a part time musician myself. And so I, I see a lot of similarities between like learning songs with your, with, you know, your bandmates and it sounds clunky at first, but then you practice it a few times and then, you know, it gets better and better. And then you stop thinking about time signatures and melodies and you just go out and you, you deliver on it So,

Mark Wainwright: 14:38

yeah, great. You're listening to breaking biz dev

John Tyreman: 14:42

the podcast that beats up, breaks down, and redefines business development for the professional services firms of tomorrow. Your hosts are John Tyerman, founder of Red Cedar Marketing, the podcast marketing company for experts and professional services firms,

Mark Wainwright: 14:56

And Mark Wainwright, principal consultant and founder of Wainwright Insight, the fractional sales manager and sales consultant to professional services firms.

John Tyreman: 15:06

If you find this podcast helpful, please help us by following the show and leaving a review on Apple podcasts

Mark Wainwright: 15:12

and now back to the show.

John Tyreman: 15:15

So let's, let's talk about your, uh, the third part of this three part framework. Contract.

Mark Wainwright: 15:22

Contract. I, it could also be called close, but you know, we, we, we steer clear of those sort of salesy terms. I'm not, I'm not wedded to.

John Tyreman: 15:31

You don't want to withhold coffee from anyone, right? Cause coffee's for closers.

Mark Wainwright: 15:36

Right. Yeah. Always be closing all those, all those terrible sort of salesy analogies. They're just, they're, they're lousy. So let's, let's call it, let's call it contract really because, with professional services firms, this whole, this whole. this whole dance ends up at a, at a point where there's, where there's some kind of an agreement, some sort of a contract. so again, at this point, firms, firms, Approach this, these, these final critical moments in this whole, this whole dance, the final contracting points where we're, presenting pricing, negotiating, and then finalizing contracts, they approach it way too casually or, way too systematically. Right. They're not, they're not reacting to the situation well enough. They're not pricing, they're pricing the work and not the client, which is something that, we've, we've talked about in the past. Others have talked about, and they, they, they find themselves in this same sort of hamster wheel again and again of, working their fingers to the bone, trying to come up with the magic price right on their spreadsheet or whatever else, throwing it at the prospective client. The client says, Oh, that's too much. Sharpen your pencil. And then they go back and they're like, all right, so we have to give this, give this whole thing a 15 percent haircut and they come back with a lower price, but basically the same work. so you know, margin takes a hit and they do that again and again. Yeah. And again, so this final act, in this whole process, is critical. Pricing needs to change in most professional services firms. They need to adopt more contemporary, more progressive pricing, approaches. Negotiation needs to change. Negotiation is not always, it's too much. Go sharpen your pencil. Right? Negotiation needs to be a win win situation. Contracts need to change. There's, there's so much conceded inside your standard agreements, like payment terms and, use of technology or, indemnification and, all these different little clauses that hide inside these big legalese agreements that concede so much. And when I talk about conceding things, it's usually associated with just like with risk, and it's not risk from a liability standpoint, but it's just risk from, both parties in any situation have some level of risk to tolerate consultants, take on some risk when they take on a new client. They're like, wow, we don't know if we're going to get paid or if this client's going to be good to work with, perspective clients, they take on risk cause they're thinking, Oh, we're going to pay all this money and we You know, better get what we're paid for, or, whatever else, or it's going to be late or the costs are going to balloon or whatever else. So both parties take on some risks. So there's a, there's a wonderful opportunity inside of this whole sort of contract thing to address risk, to create win win situations, and, for both parties to kind of really be happy about it. I don't think that most folks. Look at contracting as sort of a win win. Everybody's happy situation. Most folks look at it as sort of a zero sum where somebody's got to lose in order for somebody else to win.

John Tyreman: 18:47

yeah, these these agreements are mutually beneficial and they're mutually valuable. So it makes sense to call attention to that and to structure these contracts in a way and highlight the fact that We're we're contracting for a reason. There is a mutual exchange of value. It doesn't need to be a zero sum game. So what are some of the, you've got some details that you want to, that you want to tease at for some of these different, sections of your framework that we're going to dive into in depth in the next few episodes. so what will, what will folks that are listening right now, what will they, what can they expect to learn from a deep dive into each one of these sections?

Mark Wainwright: 19:26

Well, the first one is Right. And we emphasize that, that whole point of, making something from nothing, right. Being the, being the, the, the self determinant person inside of a professional services firms, that's doing the work you want to do, building the relationships you want to build, et cetera. We used an analogy previously when we talked about, prospecting or I don't know. I know we'll dig into our, to our, our little library of episodes, John, and we'll come up with, but the analogy was around the iceberg analogy. So we'll talk about that in the, in the, in the world of, of create. And the iceberg analogy is, simply that, there's only a small Portion or percentage of the iceberg that's floating in the Arctic Ocean. That's visible to the eye, right? It's above the waterline. The vast majority of the iceberg is under the waterline. And when we talk about creating new opportunities. We're typically talking about the stuff that's underneath the waterline because the stuff that's above the waterline are Organizations or potential clients that are you know in an active buying situation? So they're looking for Someone to help them with their problem or fulfill a need or heck, you know go, you know hire a vendor which is a pretty lousy term in the professional services world. And you don't want to be a vendor. No, you don't want to be a vendor. You don't want to, no, you don't want to, no, be a check the checkbox vendor. So creation, I would say for the most part, we're going to really focus on that 90 percent or more sometimes of all those potential clients that are below the waterline. So it takes a little bit of work. Right. So it's not someone coming to your front door knocking, it's you going and creating. So that's the analogy that we'll use to kind of, kind of help us through this whole create, idea.

John Tyreman: 21:14

Let's talk about your choreograph part. So what are, what are some things that listeners can come to expect when we do a deep dive into the choreograph?

Mark Wainwright: 21:23

So choreograph is all about bringing this, this process and organization to something that hopefully in the, in the, in the eyes of your prospective clients seems fluid, and seamless and, and effortless. I've talked for a while about an underlaying of a fairly standard approach to, a multi step sales process. And this is not, different from what others would experience the importance of initial qualification being the first step, making sure there's a good fit, the importance of extensive discovery and thorough discovery that yields a really deep understanding of your client, their needs, their challenges, all those things. Proposals, tiered proposals, three option proposals, and focusing on, on, contemporary ways to, to price. And then lastly, like we talked about negotiation, how to, how to, how to work our way through a win win situation when it gets to negotiation. So that's, that's a fairly standard sort of sales process, sort of methodology, the steps that walk through there. There's other things that I'd like to weave throughout choreography that I think are worth highlighting. Cause I, When I thought through choreography, I thought, well, okay, we've got our steps, we've got our sales process, one, two, three, four, five, whatever our sales process is. But then there's all the, there's, there's these interesting sort of threads that walk through the entire process, or you can see it through the entire process. And I've got kind of a list of them here and I'll just kind of run through them. The first is curiosity and inquiry, maintaining a good, good healthy sense of curiosity and inquiry throughout the entire process. Okay. The second one is a low level of self orientation, and this kind of references, the, the trust equation from the, from, Charlie Green and the trusted advisor. And we'll talk a little bit about that because, this, this low self-orientation goes sort of hand in glove with that curiosity inquiry thing. It's, being oriented on others. The third one I have here is focusing on results. Not focusing on deliverables or hours or any of that stuff, but focusing on results really clearly identifying where we're where we need to go together. and from a professional services firm, this is critical because everything we need to do, in the early sales process. And when we're delivering the work needs to be focused on helping the client achieve their results, right? It's not the deliverable one deliverable to milestone. Of course, those are steps in the process, but. We need to be focused on results for any number of reasons. The next one I have there is synchronous conversations. And synchronous conversations is this whole idea that look throughout this entire dance right from the beginning to the end. We need to be, we need to be in synchronous conversations, whether they're virtual conversations or in person telephone conversations, whatever it is. We need to, and we can't let off on that. We can't think, Oh, this thing that really should be a conversation. We can just take care of through email. Never works. Doesn't work. Always synchronous conversations. The next one I have is, is mirroring and reflecting and mirroring and reflecting are sort of two, very closely related terms. Mirroring is in these synchronous conversations, we're able to connect with people, we're able to mirror language, tone, tempo. body language, all those things that, that, make us more relatable and help, are a component of developing trust. And then reflecting is both in the moment and later on. We're constantly reflecting and confirming and reconfirming what we've come to understand. so you asked me a question that I hear you, right? Let me, let me, can you ask that question again? Let me clarify your response, and then afterwards when we're following up after our conversations that we're doing a really good job of reflecting back what we heard, what we understood, right? That's a critical component that happens throughout the entire process. The next one I have here is related to some others. It's seeking and building understanding from the very beginning, all the way through, we have to constantly be seeking to gain a deep understanding. And that builds over time from our very first conversation to. right as we're kind of finalizing, finalizing our proposals, and we're constantly referencing back to that understanding. Okay, so we've developed this deep understanding of your organization, and I use this constantly in everything I do in these sort of sales processes and they're just, it's so critical. The next one is seeking and gaining permission. This is another tool that you can use throughout this entire process. Hey, let's find a time for us to get together next week. Tuesday afternoon works well for me. Can I send you an invitation for a meeting that we've, got this piece of information I can share with you. Is it okay if I send that? So we're all, we're, we're always seeking and gaining permission. Move forward. We're always, we're always getting others to buy into and opt into this whole, this whole process. We're never assuming something's okay. People are all right with it. Always seeking, gaining permission. And then the last one, I've got a bunch of stuff sort of listed under this one. I probably could break it out, but this one's guiding, confirming, advancing, and connecting. Guiding is all about understanding your role in this whole process that you need to be a good guide, right? Confirming is, is like a backstop. It's always confirming the process that you've made to date, everything you've accomplished together to date. and then moving forward from there. It's never letting things slide backwards or stall or that's confirming. Advancing is always designing a process where you have a very clear next, next move, next step, whether it's small or big or whatever it is, that's advancing. We're always want to keep things moving forwards because movement in this whole process is critical. Always want to keep things. Otherwise it just stalls, right? It's like anything else. It's just, we want a nice momentum. And the last one connecting, Connecting is all about, kind of a creating a chain of activities and interactions and events that's that, are all linked from the beginning to the end and anytime that that chain or that connection of activities breaks, it leads to confusion and ambiguity. So in the sales process, we want to always make sure that we're connecting activities one to another one to another. So that's a long list right there of a bunch of things. a bunch of elements I think that are, kind of part of this whole world of choreography that make it seem, seamless and pleasant and enjoyable and focused on others. And, just a nice series of interaction and conversations that lead to one another. I have so many questions and about all of this. I am really excited to dig into this one because I I'm more of a process oriented person myself. Yeah. and I see how there's some gaps in my own sales process that I could probably learn from.

John Tyreman: 28:39

Yeah, that's going to be a fun one to unpack. all right. The last one contract. So what are some of the things that we'll be doing a deep dive into under the contract part of your framework?

Mark Wainwright: 28:50

Yeah, a good bit of this, things we've referenced or maybe talked in depth about. obviously contemporary approaches, to, to pricing, tiered pricing, three option pricing. that's an important component of this and we can reference some of the other material that we've developed around it, but we'll, we'll, we'll touch on that cause I, cause it's worth digging into. the, the other, the other thing is, is this whole world of, of cognitive bias and how that influences us one way or another when we're trying to make informed decisions. decisions. We can go deeper. We can bring up different cognitive biases that we've come across or that we're exploring and leveraging. it's worth restating again and again, John, I recognize and understand and leverage cognitive bias in every single sales conversation that I'm in every single one, right? And whether people recognize it or not, these things are happening in every single conversation. So the fact that I am aware of them and leverage them in a good way to benefit myself and my prospective clients. Is super powerful. So that's that's another part of it. We haven't talked a ton about negotiation that it needs to be a win win and it can't be a zero sum game. So we will talk about that. And what I think I'd like to do a little bit in this whole contract phase is let's we can pull apart some contracts. I mean, I have enough contracts, that I've developed or other people have developed. I know you've got some as well. So we can Look at some contracts and kind of tease out some of those crazy legalese clauses in there that, are wonderful items for negotiation or, we can just bring up other, other elements, that we can use inside of a negotiation. Conversation, negotiations a good thing. I, I think most fear it, most people are sort of conflict averse, but I think negotiation is, is really good. One of one of the most powerful elements of negotiation is, it's a negotiation can be, whether you're having it or not, or how successful it is, can be a leading indicator that you need to change, your contracts or you need to change your pricing or whatever else. If you're never, ever negotiating contracts, that's a bad sign. Yeah. You

John Tyreman: 31:04

know,

Mark Wainwright: 31:05

that's, that says, Oh yeah, they priced this thing super low and we're totally happy with it. We're not going to negotiate at all because they might actually bump it up. So. So that's, that's important. I negotiate, my contracts most and not a hundred percent, but most, and a lot of times it has to do with little nitty gritty things here and there. But, negotiations just that one final moment in this whole process where everybody comes together and says, Oh, this is going to be great. because if you don't negotiate and there's stuff left out of the conversation and there's things that are missed, problems can arise in the future. So. There you go. That's contract.

John Tyreman: 31:40

Yeah. I, I like that you bring up negotiation as, an area of the sales process that can kind of illuminate different aspects of your contract and what you can tweak to improve. And maybe it's your price, maybe it's the terms that you set, things like that. And it's, I think it's, it's great to be able to recognize those patterns. And look at your past contracts, look at your past opportunities, why you won, why you didn't win and understand, what were some things that you conceded in during those negotiations and revisiting all of that, because that is so important to go back and look at what you did well, what you didn't and what, and how you can improve. I agree. Excellent. Well, Mark, I'm excited to dig into each of these three. Areas of your framework. and for folks that are listening, it's going to be a wild ride. I think they're going to get a lot of great information out of it.

Mark Wainwright: 32:35

Good. I think a lot of people look at a, at a process, maybe even the sales process is something linear. I think this lends itself really well to being more of a cycle where we're There's creations happening, choreography, contracting, and then that just, that builds on itself. So it's a, from my perspective, it's definitely a cyclical framework and a cyclical process. So yeah, I'm excited to, I'm excited to dig into it next time. All right, John, I think that's it for today until next time,

John Tyreman: 33:04

until next time,

33:05

Mark.