Springboard

We Make Sales Happen

FAQ’s Can you terminate me?

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

 

Everyone always asks how they can get out of the contract if they need to but they forget to ask if we can terminate the contract and yes, turnabout is fair play.

Can I be terminated?

You sure can and unfortunately we’ve had to terminate clients in the past.  Our new Client Acceptance Protocol will hopefully eliminate the need to do this in the future however we have terminated several clients over the past few years.  Typically the reason we terminate is the behavior is detrimental to our ability to represent you properly and it runs the risk of damaging valuable relationships.  We have had to terminate for non-payment or excessive late payments but also insulting a decision maker, getting angry at a prospect in a meeting, lying to us, inappropriate behavior in meetings with decision makers.  You wouldn’t believe the stories if I told you.  Some things can be addressed and fixed but we’ve found that at this point behavior is pretty much set in stone and if we can’t trust your behavior in a meeting it’s best to terminate the relationship immediately.  We can’t in good conscious take your money if we can’t do a proper job for you.

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.

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