Common sense can, at times, be as simple as thinking outside of the box.

Last week, I was touring a clients manufacturing facility when he took me through their graphic arts/reproduction area. This group produced all of their collateral material for Sales, Marketing and office use. It had half a dozen or more people working on what most people would consider the latest generation of graphic design and reproduction equipment.

Before I could say anything, it was explained to me that early on several of the smaller manufacturers in their general area had approached them for help with graphic arts and reproductions. The owner saw a way to create a win-win situation for everyone so she negotiated a price for these services. Over the years, strictly by word of mouth, these outside revenues have grown to the point that the department is now a profit center for the company

Have you ever sat in a sales meeting or sales presentation and you been asked - "But what are the business values? What value does this bring to my company." You sit and stare at your paper or brochure or maybe even the product while your mind races. You have presented all the benefits, the cost savings, the ROI issues not to mention the correct positioning, so what other value can there be? Well, have you gone over the most important benefit of all? Mainly, you - both your knowledge and experience of product/service as well as the people skills need to bring the total business value to partition? Too many times, we, as business development professionals, are so concerned with using the correct process that we overlook the most important business value that the client can expect to receive and fail to articulate this benefit to them. Paraphrasing the Pogo comic strip, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

An example of this is, I find it extremely important, as a business professional to remain in contact with the client during the project to assure the business value is received. This is not to say product knowledge is unimportant but times the manor in which a certain issue is addressed, aka hand-holding, becomes more important to the projects success. One of the things I have done over the years is to position myself, at the start of the project/implementation, as a "safety valve" for the client. Several times over the past years, personalities within the project team have clashed putting the project at risk. By remaining in contact with the client, and completely outside of the project management team, the client felt they could discuss these issues with me. This allowed us to make the needed personnel corrections keeping the project on track. The elegance of the situation was there is little to no loss of face - placing everyone into a win-win situation for future project work.

So, as business development professionals, we should recognize and articulate the fact that one of the major business values our product/service delivers to our client's is our expertise and ability to sell and communicate with the client, using our people skills, to ensure he receipt of all the business value.