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THE arrival of a worldwide recession has served to push networking lunches, long distance travel and informal ‘catch up’ coffees a long way down the list of priorities for many companies. But the need to build and retain client relationships remains more important than ever at this time, as staff numbers shrink and cash flow dries up. Clients have become rarer and consequently competition for their work is fiercer, as too many service providers chase after and jostle for this ever-diminishing base. However, I believe that expert and effective outsourced business development offers an affordable alternative to an expensive sales and marketing team.

No business sector has escaped the ravages of this economic downturn. Even so-called ‘required’ services such as IT face the unique challenge of finding the right client – one that will not only enlist specialist services but who will also willingly pay in a timely manner for those services. Arguably, identifying and intelligently targeting your preferred market is vital to success. There is mounting evidence among companies across the UK that that direct marketing such as letters, flyers, e-shots and even cold calling have not had the same impact as perhaps they did two years ago. Word of mouth referrals and strategically networked contacts have become more successful in today’s cautious market place.

It is incredible how many companies systematically produce and then fail to adhere to a business development or marketing plan. A business plan is often drawn up forecasting end-of-year targets, and usually gives a nod to business development by allocating a marketing budget. Carefully considered thought is infrequently given to the target market best suited to a particular business model. Consequently, approaches are often misdirected, with inappropriate staff recruited for a business development drive, leading on to the attraction of unsuitable clients. This inevitably leads to missed targets and unsatisfactory year-end results. A fresh pair of eyes, with no agenda save ensuring that appropriate clients are attracted to the business in order to achieve maximum year end targets, is a requisite added value in today’s challenging marketplace. You have to put clients’ profitability first.

Now more than ever before businesses need to pause and re-assess. They need to review where they’ve been, examine where they are and establish the markets they need to get to. My business was formed to assist in this process. A client may, for example, take the step of dispensing totally with how recruitment has been conducted, with the view to attracting the appropriate staff for clientele best suited to the business model. In this process, we may discover that the business model was not sound enough to achieve the business targets.

The reality of today’s market is that mere strategy is not enough. What you do must be delivered with scale, tenacity and creativity. A mere checklist for success will not suffice. The challenge, therefore, is to distinguish yourself in the market place. Why should the client use you and not the company they’ve been using for years? I believe it’s important for businesses to stop talking about who they are and what they do, and begin showing how clients will benefit from employing their services. Can you show that you understand their vision and know how to help them achieve it? I regard this as a cornerstone of what I do.

Once that step is achieved, I believe it is paramount that clients are positioned in the market place through the use of networking forums that are aimed at specific target markets in a timed and focused manner. But they need to be tested and measured, as simply registering for advertised networking meetings is frequently proved to be of nominal value.

Once appropriate networks are identified, business development should move to marketing and public relations. Bill Gates once said: “If I were down to my last dollar, I would spend it on public relations”. Repetition still remains one of the key tools of reputation establishment. Nonetheless, while I always advise clients to engage in some form of public relations activity, I will always believe that they are their own best PR. We unwittingly engage in public relations daily. By our every action, we tell people who we truly are, so we need to be very careful that our business principles and actions are not negating our core communication messages.

Nothing in business works quite so well as referral. Moving away from the often-impersonal methods of marketing, back to a model that relies often on a face-to-face, personal touch is, I believe, the key to developing sustained and meaningful new business in the months and years to come. And while many businesses may believe that cutting marketing staff at this time and concentrating on core business is the way forward, choosing an outsourced function means that companies can continue to pursue vital new markets at a fraction of a cost.

• For more information, visit www.berniejackson.co.uk