David Koren

Business Development in a Nutshell

I was talking to some of the marketing staff and business developers in one of our offices recently, and I thought of a gross simplification for the whole business development process, in terms of what the steps are, that I thought might be helpful, especially in this economy. Here it goes…

FIRST, YOU HAVE TO FIND OPPORTUNITIES. So, where do opportunities come from? Well, they can come from anywhere, but the best opportunities come from existing relationships that you have, because those are the ones you are most likely to close. Aside from that, they can come from referrals, or from public listings, or in the mail. Or you can even find opportunities by making a list of the 50 organizations you’d like to work for, and calling them all on the phone. But that not only is much less fun than emptying the cat’s litterbox, it’s also highly unlikely to be productive, in terms of finding opportunities. Calling on the phone is great for finding out information, and really bad for generating business. To generate business effectively, you really need a relationship.

SECOND, YOU HAVE TO DECIDE WHICH OPPORTUNITIES TO PURSUE. One of my favorite business articles ever is David Maister’s “Strategy Means Saying No.” The idea being, if you don’t say “no” to something, you don’t have a strategy, you’re totally adrift in a turbulent sea. Which invokes the famous Yogi Berra quote, “If you don’t know where you’re trying to go, you’ll probably end up someplace else.” Too many firms believe that all business is good business, and it simply isn’t true. You need to focus your efforts predominantly on work that you can win and that you want to do, and that you can do (and make money doing) if you win. It’s ok to throw a Hail Mary pass every so often, and to pursue something you have no business pursuing because you REALLY want it, but you can’t base a career, or run a firm, on this strategy.

THIRD, WHEN YOU’VE DECIDED TO GO, YOU HAVE TO NAIL IT TO THE WALL. Ok, so you want the project, you think you can win the project, and if you get it, you can do it (and make money doing it). So, why are you pursuing the project in a half-assed way? Give it everything you have! Pull out all the stops! Have early meetings! Stay up late! Convince the client how much you want to work with him or her, and how important the challenge they’re facing is to you. Show your passion. Be bold. And check your work.

Yes, it’s grossly simplistic, but having a list of three things you have to do to succeed is even better than having a list of ten things you have to do to succeed!

How Do You Describe Social Media Tools to People Who Haven't Used Them?

I was at a design industry cocktail party a few days ago, and I was talking to someone who is roughly my age who doesn’t understand Social Media. She’s on Linked-in. She’s on Facebook. She hasn’t used Twitter (yet). As I am (like everybody else) trying to figure out how to use these tools in a way that is productive and useful and helpful to others but not a tremendously wasteful time-suck, I offered her what I’ve been thinking lately about these tools:

“Linked-in is your address book. It’s your network.”

“Facebook is like a neverending cocktail party with all your friends.”

“Twitter is the future of the newspaper.”

She was quite surprised at how I described Twitter, “Really???”

Yes, really. She, like a lot of people (and like me until my wife Sasha sat me down a few weeks ago and said, THIS is how you use Twitter) sees Twitter as a tremendous time-suck, just like Facebook. It all depends on how you use it. If you think of it as a billion-channel broadcast system that allows you to access all (or nearly all) of the up-to-the-minute information and perspective you do now, in one place, it’s invaluable, or on its way to becoming invaluable. And, besides that, you get to be a channel, or several channels, and tell the people who follow you what you’re doing, or what you think.

With print media evaporating at a rapid pace (Have you seen Newsweek lately?), increasingly Twitter is how the information we need is going to come to us. I just hope it can ramp up fast enough, and that we can all figure out how to make using it part of our daily routine.

The "Expert Traveler" Lane: Do you pick the blue pill or the red pill?

I’m writing this post on a plane from Chicago Midway to LaGuardia. At Midway I found something I haven’t seen before in an airport: a multiple-choice question that allows you to self-select which category of traveler you are, and the answer to your question determines which line you wait in as you go through security. There are three lines (and I’m paraphrasing the categories, because I’m on a plane without wifi!): “Family/Fluids,” for those of us traveling with kids or who have fluids of some kind with us, or some other item that’s going to raise eyebrows as it goes into the scanner, “Casual Traveler,” for those of us getting on a plane to go on vacation, or who don’t travel that much, and “Expert Traveler,” for those of us who travel all the time and have our whole ritual worked out… pull out computer, put in plastic tub, take off shoes, put in another plastic tub, put jacket over shoes, etc.

I kind of resented the segregation at first… I mean, am I really an “expert traveler”? Do I want to describe or label myself that way? So I got into the “Casual Traveler” line and got to the ID checkpoint. Then the lines continued toward the scanners. Overwhelmed by curiosity, I switched to the “Expert Traveler” line, and immediately felt my posture change. Now I had to perform. Through my choice, I had told everyone that I knew what I was doing. This was not the time to leave my Blackberry in my pocket, set off the beep, and have to go back through. This was a test, and I needed to nail it.

When I got to the scanners, I was surprised to see that the line really wasn’t moving any faster than the other lines. You would think that these “expert travelers” would be flying through the line! But, while not quite moving in a blur, we were remarkably efficient and well-behaved. It was a test for all of us. No one wanted to be the “expert traveler” to set off an alarm, or forget that we had a bottle of water or a letter opener in our bag.

This is the real benefit of this segregation: the choice we make changes the way that we define ourselves, which changes the way we behave. We have taken the blue pill (or was it the red pill?) and we are now on a journey that we have helped to create, and we are to some extent responsible for the results. This is actually a key lesson for participatory culture in general: it is important to make people partners in the experiences we create by giving them a choice. Once people pick the red pill or the blue pill, they become a partner in the journey, transformed from a spectator into a participant.

One of the (many) reasons that I believe Governors Island is a truly special (occasionally magical) place in New York City is that you have to choose to go there. You can’t just take a stroll into it, like you can with Central Park or Prospect Park. You have to get on a boat. Your journey is intentional. From the second you step onto the boat, you are a participant in the story, you are counted, you are a citizen of the island. You are no longer a spectator. And this influences the way people behave on the island, and the kinds of experiences that are open to them to have there.