Mike Deimler is one of the best client relationship developers on the planet. In this episode, Mo brings to light the three major lessons that Mike Deimler shared during his interview and how you can apply them directly to business development.

Making progress every day is crucial. Mike went through an extremely traumatic event as a child where he lost his eye and a close relative gave him a key piece of advice that changed his life. Mike decided to focus on making progress instead of being stuck as a victim.
As a partner at BCG for the past 30 years, Mike always tries to make progress in three important areas: with his clients, his leadership roles at the firm, and within his personal life.
In business development it’s very easy to have setbacks, maybe more than any other area of life. When setbacks happen it becomes easy to switch your focus to delivery and forget about growth.
Mike’s system for business development has been a powerful framework for getting results. Taking a strategic perspective and writing down the top priorities your client should be focusing on is a great way to get started.
As great as your ideas for your client are, you need to think about how you can persuade them to move from their current position. Start off by asking questions so you can understand their world from their perspective.
By doing things when clients aren’t ready to hire him, Mike has created some of the most beneficial and profitable client relationships for his business. Making strategic investments into a client with a give-to-get is a great way to start a relationship.
Investing in a person before they can hire you is another way to create demand for your expertise. The biggest contracts that are ever sold, by and large, are the ones created before there is actually a commercial opportunity. Moving without the ball will help you with a huge number of future client opportunities.
The power of a system, when it’s implemented, is that it creates incremental momentum that moves you progressively towards your goals each and every day.
How are you staying focused on doing the work that’s important right now but also always investing in the future?
Proactive investing and give-to-gets, when done correctly, hit all six dimensions of Robert Cialdini’s Persuasion framework.
It establishes authority and creates a need for reciprocity. You may not get anything in return right away but you almost always get some value back eventually. Instead of just talking about what you can do, a give-to-get puts you into a position to actually do it.
Your give-to-get should have a clear next step for the client. Don’t overwhelm them by offering a number of options, make it clear and easy to understand what the simple next step is because people want to continue going down the road they are already on.
People tend to spend time and money with people that they like so your give-to-get should be enjoyable. Build in some time to bond with the person on a human level.
Try to include any potential decision makers on the project as part of the give-to-get meeting. Any sizable work often requires a number of decision makers to say yes to it.
People want more of what there’s less of. If you are genuinely busy, make it known how special it is that you are offering them a give-to-get.
If you can create valuable and enjoyable give-to-get meetings where you are helping your clients and that naturally leads to a next step it will create demand for your expertise.
Check out the mini courses down below to learn how to apply these business development ideas to your organization.
The most inspiring thing about Mike is his consistent drive to continue moving forward in all areas of his life and focusing on improving his craft. If you can always have an open mind and always be striving to get better yourself, then you’re going to continue to have a bigger and bigger impact on the world.

Mentioned in this episode:

bdhabits.com

bdhabitsforteams.com

winning-more.com

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Insights From the Habits of Mike Deimler - Powerful Lessons From One of the Top Trusted Advisors in the World