You need a strategy to win good business
Dara Lawlor

No Strategy = No Win

Dara Lawlor -
You need a strategy to win good business

“What will you be happy with this weekend?”

“Well obviously to cross the line in one piece…maybe break six hours…… and if I don’t beat Peter, well life won’t be worth living…”

It was the 5th of May 2022, and we were on a delayed Ryanair flight to Mallorca for the Ironman 70.3 race in Alcudia.  I hadn’t raced in four years, but the pandemic gave me a renewed appreciation of the good  things that I had started taking for granted before March 2020 – namely good health, fitness, ambition and being able to travel to great locations to race.  Being cooped up on a small island on the west coast of Europe for two years had taken its toll.

It’s fair to say that my other half was far more interested in me getting home and hosed safe and sound, whereas in my mind if I didn’t beat my best mate, the humiliation would blare through the ages, and they’d be singing songs about it 100 years from now.  Am I exaggerating? Well, if you’ve any competitive streak, you’ll know exactly what I mean.  

Once I registered for the race the previous November I started to think about my approach and what I’d need to do in order to do the business in Mallorca.  It looked like this:

1. Get checked – to give myself and my partner peace of mind that I was fit to train and race I got my ticker checked.  After the tests the cardiologist told me that I was fine and good to go.

2. Get permission – triathlon, while fun, is a selfish pursuit with early mornings in the pool and weekends taken up with long bikes and runs.  My partner was aware of the commitment and was happy to accommodate – the prospect of a week in Mallorca didn’t hurt.

3. Get a programme – I amended a training programme that I had successfully used in the past in order to cater for a busy work schedule.

4. Avoid injury – I had regular preventative maintenance sessions with my sports therapist to keep soft tissue injuries and other nasties such as plantar fasciitis at bay.

5. Lose weight – less weight means more speed.  To beat Peter – someone with a similar body type – I would need to lose the pandemic pounds.  Over four months I knocked off 12 kilos through avoiding rubbish and alcohol.

This, believe it or not, is a strategy.  Each of these threads needed to come together over four months in order for me to achieve my goals.  My performance in a race is down to the consistent work that takes place in the months leading up to it.  It’s never down to one great session, a new and more aerodynamic bike helmet, or what drink mix I’m using for fuel.  If I work according to the pillars of my strategy I know roughly how I’m going to perform. 

It’s the same story for my clients.  I help SMEs build good healthy businesses – which they sometimes sell – primarily through winning, retaining and growing large contracts.  If they work according to my approach they’ll win their fair share of good business. Here’s what it looks like:

“Build the engine” is the term I’ve heard more than any other from my triathlon coaches.  A base of good aerobic fitness is the price of entry for endurance athletes.  Anything less, you’ll get sick, injured and bonk in races. With my clients I look at the fundamentals of brand, product, market, contract mix, process and people.  Scrimp on any of these and you’ll be found out later on – if not at competition time, then definitely at delivery.

Once I’ve built my aerobic fitness I tailor my training to the race that’s coming up.  The type of training required for a half-ironman is a lot different to that needed for the shorter and more intense sprint triathlon distance.  Each client operates from a different set of concerns.  Though your offer possibly covers a lot of what they need you may have to calibrate and tune up in order to hit their sweet spot.  I coach my customers to develop a greater understanding of their clients’ problems.  As well as this we work at creating the right environment so that they can educate them on how their products and services will address their concerns in a way that the competition won’t.

If I’ve done the work in the previous two stages then race day should run smoothly.  That said, I still have to work to a routine and process – pre-race preparation, equipment, nutrition and hydration, transitioning between disciplines among other things.  For my clients the foundation and calibration work puts them in the best position possible to retain contracts or unseat incumbents.  The preparation work won’t count for much though if they aren’t able to perform on the day and pass the exam – in this case the procurement competition.  This requires a strategy on its own with regard to the people on the team, meeting routines, design and production work as well as regular reviews. 

There’s heaps of intelligence available to triathletes in order to assess their performance.  Post-race you’ll find them poring through the data  on apps like Strava and Training Peaks and working out where things went wrong or right and what to change for next time out.  

Win, lose or draw it pays to carry out a review.  Internally you can assess how well you worked as a team and what could make things smoother next time around.  Externally, you can meet with the client to discuss how you performed in their eyes.  I think it’s as important to conduct a debrief if you win as it is when you lose.  In one instance we found out that a competitor who, until then, had been regarded as a laggard had made up a lot of ground and was within a whisker of winning.  That lit a fire under my client like nothing else.

Incidentally, I beat Peter in Mallorca by two minutes.  But there’s always a sting in the tail and he kicked my arse in a sprint six weeks later.

If you don’t want to leave things to chance and are interested in developing a solid business development strategy click on the link below to arrange a chat.  Also, you can take this business development scorecard to get a snapshot on what it looks like at the moment.   

Dara Lawlor

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Dara Lawlor
Dara Lawlor

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