{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"BDF Insights","title":"Service, trust and visibility: How does a technical services firm actually grow?","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1023,"description":"Ask ten people inside a technical services firm what business development actually means, and you will get ten answers. Sales. Marketing. Proposals. Conferences. What the directors do when they are not billing.\nThey cannot all be right, and the disagreement is not harmless. Twelve senior people carrying twelve different definitions will pull in twelve different directions, and no system built on top of that will hold.\nThis episode settles two questions before anything gets built.\nWhat business development actually is. The definition worth using: the structured approach that converts strategy into opportunity, by identifying, shaping and pursuing work that creates value for clients and sustainable growth for the firm. Strategy comes first, because there is nothing to convert until the firm has decided where it is going. Strategy here does not mean a six month exercise. It means honest answers to five questions: where do we play, who do we serve, what do we want to be known for, how do we win, and what will we not do. The fifth is the only one with a cost attached, which is why it usually gets left off.\nWhat growth actually rests on. Three foundations that have to be tended together: excellent service, trusted relationships, and visibility. The episode works through why the order matters, because the direction of failure is asymmetric. A firm with excellent service and limited visibility has a fighting chance. A firm with high visibility and poor service is in a much worse position, and no amount of business development recovers it.\nIt also covers why visibility is the foundation that disappears first, why the best source of new work is almost always a client you already have, and what David Maister found when he studied where professional firms actually put their business development effort. The short version: the activities with the highest return get the least deliberate investment, because they do not look like business development from the outside.\nThe episode...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xyKWx8bu0sVuqy1l0KVVIGIi1Tu7mUQBfTwW2gQ8Zf4/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9hYzc0/YTY0M2M1MzlkNWEz/ZTg3ZmJkZmExYWMx/NThmOC5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}