24 The Financial Times Guide to Business Development
The 100 business development questions
(If a question is obviously not relevant to you, simply move on. For many of the
questions, I give chapter/section references to the specic part of this book that
will be most helpful.)
Converting telephone enquiries (see Chapter 5)
1 How many telephone enquiries from potential customers and
clients do you get each day/week/month/year?
2 What is the average potential spend per buying customer/client per
department/branch/ofce/shop/service?
3 What are your average conversion rates of telephone enquiries into
business per branch/ofce/shop/department/individual?
4 What are the total telephone enquiries worth in potential revenue
per week/month/year? (Multiply the number of incoming enquiries by
the average spend.)
5 How much extra revenue would you generate if you simply
converted an extra 10/20/30 per cent etc.?
6 How can you adapt your process and system so the person or
people who have the best conversion rates take the majority of
your calls?
7 How many of your call handlers have had proper soft skills training
in techniques to get better conversion rates?
8 How do you decide, right now, who takes incoming calls? Are these
geared towards getting the best conversion rates or are they simply
administratively convenient?
9 How much is it costing you in nancial terms at the moment to
process and handle incoming telephone enquiries?
10 Is it worth considering engaging specialist sales people to deal with
your incoming leads?
11 What systems do you have in place for tracking and monitoring
conversion rates?
12 How easy is it to get through to your business quickly and
efciently?
13 Have you given your switchboard or reception staff appropriate
interpersonal service training to deal with enquiries?
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Asking the right business questions: a toolkit for business development 25
14 What active steps can you take to increase immediately your
conversion rates from telephone enquiries?
15 Do the people who answer your phones know the most relevant
individuals in your business to put callers through to?
16 Do the people who answer your phone know your full range of
services and products?
17 What is the emotional state of your callers when they ring for the
rst time?
18 What do your people have to do or say to get potential customers or
clients into the state that you want them in by the end of the call?
19 What do you or your people say when you’re asked the ‘How
much?’ question?
20 How do you or your team respond to ‘you’re too expensive’?
Dealing with visitors to your premises/shop/ofce
21 Are your opening hours convenient for potential customers?
22 How easy is it to nd you?
23 Do you have good easy-to-follow directions?
24 What is the appearance or environment of your premises like? Will
it help or be an obstacle to doing business? (See Chapter 6.)
25 How caring and hospitable are you to visitors coming to your shop,
ofce or other premises? Are they offered hospitality, do you have toilet
facilities, are you child friendly etc? (See Chapter 6.)
26 Do you have a proper meet and greet policy? (See Chapter 6.)
27 What are your toilet facilities like? (See Chapter 6.)
28 Do you have easy parking facilities? (See Chapter 6.)
29 How many visitors come to your premises per day/week/month/
year to look at or talk about your goods or services?
30 What proportion of them buy from you?
31 If you have retail premises, how long do you leave visitors to
browse before talking to them?
32 Do you initiate conversation or do you or your team wait for them
to speak to you?
33 Do you or your people have appropriate techniques to engage a
26 The Financial Times Guide to Business Development
potential customer in a conversation or are they just asked ‘Need
any help?’?
E-mail enquiries
34 How many people e-mail you questions about your goods and
services?
35 Do you have a structured system for dealing with these?
36 To what extent do you store and use their e-mail details and
information in the future? (Subject to regulatory rules on this.)
37 What is your conversion rate of business from e-mail enquiries?
38 What training has the person or people who deal with these had,
given that this is a ‘sales’ role?
39 How long does it take to reply to e-mails?
General customer and client information and
communications
40 How many customers and clients does your business have?
41 Can you break these numbers down per location/ofce/shop/
services and product range?
42 Do you have a general customer or client database? (See Chapter 6,
golden rule 1.)
43 After they have bought from you or at the conclusion of a job,
when are you next in touch with them? (See Chapter 6, golden
rule 3.)
44 What more could you do to keep in touch with them after their
initial purchase? (See Chapter 6, golden rule 3.)
45 Do you have up-to-date e-mail and postal addresses for your
customers and clients? (See Chapter 6, golden rule 1.)
46 Do you have an effective IT system capable of storing and giving
immediate access to customer or client information so that you can
communicate with them easily?
47 To what extent do your customers and clients know the full range
of your services or products? (See Chapter 6, golden rule 4.)
48 What percentage of customers and clients are currently returning to
buy more from you?
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Asking the right business questions: a toolkit for business development 27
49 How frequently are you getting recommendations and referrals via
past customers and clients? (See Chapter 6, golden rule 5.)
50 What do you do at the moment to say ‘thank you’ for
recommendations and introductions?
51 How much is a potential customer or client worth to you over
1, 3, 5, 10 years? (For example, suppose you have a shoe shop selling
children’s shoes. You sell the parents their toddler’s rst pair of shoes at
14 months old. The total potential value of winning that sale is not just
the £30 for the shoes, but two or three pairs of shoes per year for the
child for the next 10 years as it grows. If the family has two children
then it is possible that you may sell 60 pairs of shoes in total to that
family. Your initial £30 sale is actually potentially worth a minimum of
£1,800.)
General marketing and business information
52 Are you able to break down your turnover into your various services
or product ranges delivered or sold?
53 Who are your biggest clients and customers in revenue terms?
54 Which products or services generate the most prot?
55 Can you identify your top 10 or 20 most protable customers and
clients?
56 What do you currently do to nurture and protect your big business
relationships?
57 When was the last time you spoke to your best customers or
clients? (See Chapter 6, golden rule 3.)
58 If you were to lose one of your big clients or customers, what effect
would that have on your business?
59 How strong is your ‘brand’? (See Chapter 7.)
60 What attributes give you a differential advantage over your
competition?
61 How effectively do you communicate that message to your market
place?
62 What is the prole of your perfect ideal customer or client?
63 Do you have the right materials to target the right people? (See
Chapter 8.)
28 The Financial Times Guide to Business Development
64 If you are launching a new service or product, how do you know
there is a demand for it?
65 If you are launching something new, how have you tested your
price points?
66 When was the last time you increased your prices? (See Chapter 3.)
67 If you charged 10 per cent more, what would happen? How do you
know? (See Chapter 3.)
68 What additional benets can you offer your customers or clients to
justify higher prices? (See Chapter 3.)
69 What has been your most successful business development or
marketing activity?
70 How can you do more of what works best?
71 What product or service could become an area of specialisation for
you to develop as a ‘niche’ business? (See Chapter 1, truth 19.)
72 What has been the least effective business development initiative?
73 What external things are happening in your specic sector that may
create opportunities for you?
74 How can you use one or more of the social media platforms
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. to develop your
business? (See Chapter 7.)
75 What are you currently doing to actively encourage positive word-
of-mouth and to generate recommendations? (See Chapter 6, golden
rule 5.)
76 How often do you mix, mingle and network at social/business
events? (See Chapter 8.)
77 How do you or colleagues introduce yourselves when you are asked:
‘So what do you do for a living?’ Do you have a response that is
helpful in business terms? (See Chapter 8.)
78 How effectively do you follow up and keep in touch with people
you have met?
79 Which other businesses or organisations could you team up with
for cooperation, mutual business development activities and joint
ventures? (See Chapter 7.)
80 What are the current burning issues in your business sector that
you could comment on in the media as an expert?
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