The secret to selling authentically

If you’re not in the midst of another busy season, you may be shifting your focus to growing new business during this last stretch of the year.

If you’re not particularly excited about business development (particularly in the midst of a global pandemic), we understand. Most people don’t choose an accounting career because they want to be a salesperson! We definitely didn’t. Yet, developing new business is often critical to advancing and thriving in an accounting career.

Since business development can sometimes feel awkward, hard and scary, procrastination is usually easy to do. When you’re a busy leader, business development often gets pushed down to the bottom of your to-do list…which means you never quite get to it!

We get it. When we started our own business development journeys in public accounting, we remember how much our fears held us back from even trying. We were afraid of being too salesy, promoting ourselves felt awkward, and we hated the idea of putting ourselves out there, just to get rejected. It was easier to push business development to the side and focus on all the things our jobs required. So, we each hired a coach to help us work through our challenges and hold us accountable. Through coaching,  we discovered and leaned into our unique business development styles and created an intentional, systematic process to support us. With time and consistent effort, we were each able to grow significant new business…and we actually had fun doing it!

What if you didn’t have to change who you are to be successful in business development?

What if you didn’t have to change who you are to be successful in business development? What if you were able to shake off some of the pressure and anxiety, be yourself and actually have some fun with it?

We know it’s possible because we’ve experienced it ourselves, and we help many of our clients do the same. We want to help you make this shift, too…even in the midst of a global pandemic. Check out our latest episode of Leading Possibilities, where we tackle the question, “How can I develop business when I’m not like the other rainmakers in my office?”

We also have two other new resources to support you:

• The I2L Business Development Challenge! This online power program will help you transform the way you think about business development, sell in a more authentic way and expand your network…in just 5 minutes a day and 20 days!
• Brian’s 9/24 webinar, Selling Authentically: Two Simple Changes to Develop New Business. This free webinar on September 24 at 3pm CDT will help explore your business development mindset – what’s currently getting in your way and how you could embrace a new mindset that will help you attract new business more easily.

Just imagine what’s possible for you as a leader when you can develop new business in an authentic way. Instead of sales being the thing that’s holding you back from advancing in your career, it might just be the very thing that propels you forward!

See you in the DoP,