Springboard

We Make Sales Happen

FAQ’s What’s the contract look like?

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Answering your questions.  Have one?  email me at kschwartz@springboardbizdev.com

 

What’s the contract look like?

It’s a standard subcontractor service provider agreement with a statement of work detailing services to be provided.  Typically when this question is asked they are saying how long is the contract?  It depends, we have several options:

  • One year with 30-60 days written notice to terminate depending on type of service
  • 6 month contract with 90 day renewals

We find that the 6 month contract is usually the best option as we’re hitting stride between 4-6 months.  That’s typically 80-120 hours worth of work or 2-3 weeks for a full timer and in most cases we’ve already closed business – government work can take longer.

FAQ’s Retainer plus Commission?

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Answering your questions, please send us any additional questions you may have at kschwartz@springboardbizdev.com

Why do you do retainer plus commission?

If you hired a full time business developer with experience, relationships and a process that works you’re starting at a bare minimum salary of $120,000 plus benefits, taxes and expense reimbursement which you should expect to be a minimum of $1500 per month plus membership fees.  In grand total a minimum of $160,000 and that’s before any sales and commissions.  Our minimum is less than 1/3 this amount and typically includes our expenses – our memberships, mileage, event fees, lunches, phones, overhead, etc.  That retainer guarantees you a minimum amount of time.

The commission is the success fee.   If our connection got you the opportunity to work with that decision maker and a deal comes from it there is a commission paid.  It’s paid on paid and on the total contact amount.  The rate varies based on services provided.  The structure is the same as hiring full time just a lot less expensive and in most cases we get more done faster.

FAQ’s What’s your SECRET SAUCE?

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Answering more of your questions – if you have one email me at kschwartz@springboardbizdev.com

 

What’s your SECRET SAUCE?

I always laugh at this guestion.  What’s the Secret Sauce on a Big Mac, it’s Thousand Island dressing – there’s no secret and they know you won’t do it on your own at home, it’s too much work.  For us, there is no secret sauce, we simply talk to people.  I hate to make it sound so simple but that’s really all it is.  We aren’t growing your business, dealing with employee challenges, handing client fulfillment and service, meeting with the bookkeeper, etc.  You don’t have the time and typically you don’t have the desire to identify, find, and develop relationships with decision makers that lead to opportunities.  It’s not easy, it requires a tremendous amount of dedication, time and focus that you simply don’t have right now and its all we do.

Our consultants understand their base so well; they understand what they need, where they are going, what they need to get there, who’s a good fit culturally, what won’t work, how we need to communicate with them, etc.  So a strong baseline understanding of the prospect is critical and then we simply talk with them.

I think the biggest thing is there’s no bullshit.  There’s no tactics to convince someone to work with you, there’s no manipulation or bait and switch; it’s simply a conversation about need and fit.  This is the reason our prospects continue to work with us – we’re respectful of their time, their needs, their budgets, their focus, and we make sure they get what they need so they can shine.  That doesn’t mean they are always correct in their thinking so we present options to help them see what’s available.  What we find is as we move forward in our relationships with these decision makers they recognize that we only bring unique, game changing capabilities to the table for them.

FAQ’s Accountability

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Answering more of your questions.  If you have a question we haven’t answered email me at kschwartz@springboardbizdev.com.

How Do YOU know what we’re doing?

ACCOUNTABILITY – this can be an interesting word with business developers.  We used to do huge spreadsheets detailing everything.  What we found was that it detailed our networking as it pertained to that client, our partners, our prospect meetings, etc. but it didn’t allocate time for all the emails, calls and follow ups and no one read it anyway.  Business developers by nature aren’t much for time tracking and it took hours per spreadsheet to complete.

Recently we changed our entire communications structure and each consultant follows similar requirements.  While some do still prepare the big spreadsheet every month we are all in constant communication with our clients.  We’ve had some clients tell us to limit communication until we have a strong prospect on the line and need their involvement, we used to agree to such a request but that’s no longer the case.  We’ve found that even when the prospect asks us not to communicate they ultimately get frustrated because we didn’t communicate and so here’s what we’ve done to address the communication concerns.  After every networking event, meeting, partner conversation, strategy discussion that pertains to a client it’s documents via voice recorded email and sent to the Springboard office to be added into our CRM under the client and the prospect.  The office then sends the email to the appropriate client for a quick update.

This keeps our clients up to date in real time.  While some find the additional emails frustrating we’ve found that it’s the best way to keep our clients in the loop so they can prepare, send us necessary information, give us any pointers or dates we may need, and feel more confident in their business development efforts.

FAQ’s How Do we CLOSE deals?

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Answering more of your questions:

 

How Do we CLOSE deals?

I’m not a believer in hard closes or sales tactics, either there’s a need or there’s not; either there’s a fit or there’s not.  We don’t want someone to buy your services and 3 months later having buyer’s remorse, terminating you and then telling all their friends how we talked them into doing business with you and you didn’t deliver.  3 months worth of revenue and commissions is not worth it!  For us it’s a simple discussion, are we the right fit and what do they need from us to make a final determination?  If there are additional questions, we answer them.  We do handle objections which quite frankly are just a need for more information – we’ve missed something in the conversation and so we ask what additional information do they need?

We’re also not naive enough to believe we’re the only firm they are talking with so we’ll discuss how things may have changed along the way, what if anything is different in the competitions presentation and should we consider that as well?  We want to ensure we are talking apples to apples and that when we deliver our proposals we’re all still on the same page.

So I hate to say it but there isn’t a closing style or tactic we use, many of our clients are putting together proposals and its a competitive process so there is a bit of a game to the process.  We need to be the right fit at the right price.  It’s the nature of the beast today.  We try to do more work up front so there’s no need for heroic efforts on the back end.

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