GrowBIG Playbook: How To Run A BD Pipeline Meeting

What's On My Mind

Pipeline meetings are likely your highest leverage time. Lead them for impact!

I love the perspective we get.

Clients reach out all the time with seemingly small questions.

What's the right way to ___?

I've got __ coming up...what would you do?

Two things:

We answer every request, so reach out at any time.
We see themes.

So fun.

I've seen a HUGE theme lately.

People are struggling with pipeline meetings.

You know, the meeting you sync with your team on your major BD opportunities.

These are done universally across new business teams, client teams, practice area teams, and about any way you can go to market.

It's crazy how many people are struggling with this right now, intuiting something's off, but not knowing what to do.

Here's the right way.

The goals of a pipeline meeting are simple:

Past: Sync on what's been done and learned.
Future: Talk through the next right actions for the most important opportunities.

The problem?

Most people spend 90% of their time on the past and 10% on what they should do next.

This is NOT GOOD.

You know what it looks like–go around the table or Zoom screen, with each person talking about what they've done and learned since the last meeting.

Historical updates. One by one. Death.

(No joke: A client had me sit in on one of their meetings once and one person was going on and on about how he learned one of his client's nieces loves ponies.)

This is looking through the rearview mirror not the windshield.

Simple fix...

Shift nearly all of your historical updates to real-time, synchronous updates.

This is a game changer.

Covering the past as it happens each day lets you discuss the future when you're together.

Decide as a team what works best for async updates.

Anything is fine, but everyone needs to use the same system: email thread, shared OneNote, or even newer voice or video message apps like Voxer or Marco Polo.

(Super Black Belt Pro Ninja Tip:

We use Voxer for this, an app that lets you send async voice messages to individuals or a distribution list.

In my own tests, I can talk about 10x faster than I can type, which is a huge time saver. People can hear your intonation too, which deepens understanding.

And, Voxer lets you listen to messages at 2x, 3x, or 4x speeds. I like 3x, which balances clarity and speed.

So combining recording and listening is about 30x throughput improvement over typing–love it!)

Two simple keys to success:

Input: Every person agrees to use the same communication channel and give updates within 24 hours of something happening.

There must be one comm system for everyone. Whatever works is fine.
Output: Every person agrees to review all messages before each pipeline meeting.

BOOM!

This unlocks spending 90% of your time in live meetings talking about the future, not the past.

Think of it this way: the future is the only thing you can change–that's where you want to spend your time. 90%!

In meeting Pro Tips:

Limit historical conversations to 10% of your time. This is fast and will initially feel uncomfortable–only 6 minutes of an hour meeting.

That's why everyone reviewing the async updates beforehand is important.

Every minute you spend on the past is a minute not spent on what you can control—the future.
Have someone set a timer on their phone to buzz when your 10% time is up.

Let your phone be the bad guy so you don't have to.
Have your opportunities ordered from high impact to low impact.
Talk through potential next steps for each, starting with the highest impact and going in order.

Your options for each are vast–think through Give To Gets, Positioning, Thinking Preferences–all you've learned from our training or The Snowball System.

Common playbook!
Get people energized for what comes next–everyone should leave these meetings excited with new ideas and learnings.
BONUS: There's a halo effect in discussing the next steps on an opportunity.

Everyone else is thinking through their opportunities and getting ideas too. Leverage.
Finish with a quick recap of your team's long-term upside potential and short-term actions before the next meeting.

The future is fun!

Let's recap.

Getting pipeline meetings right is one of your most important priorities.

The brainpower on these calls is tremendous.

Every expert times every minute equals tremendous investment.

You want to have a future-focused format where your team is...

Learning skills they'll use for years and,

Committing to simple actions they'll take in days.

One thing's for sure.

If you want to accelerate your growth..

It's faster to drive looking through the windshield than the rearview mirror.

ps. Feel free to forward this to your teams to get everyone on the same page!

pps. KILLER content over on the podcast!

I got a lot out of Bob Buday's book, Competing On Thought Leadership. Our interview is HERE. Deep!

And I'm also a fan of Pam Slim's books Body Of Work and The Widest Net. Our interview on her new one is HERE. Fun!

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