Introduction
In September 2010 I got an e-mail from my publishers, which read, ‘Ian, I
wonder if you might be interested in writing The Financial Times Guide to
Business Development? If so let’s have a chat.’ Despite being a little attered
by the idea, believe it or not the rational part of my brain screamed out,
‘No . . . not again.’ I’d written several books before, done the early morning
writing shifts and promised my wife, myself, my computer-typing nger
and my bad back that I had quit. As you can see, however, the temptation
was too great!
I started to ask myself why I should write such a book. What could I con-
tribute that was really different? What do business readers really want?
After spending several weeks thinking about these questions and asking
many business people about their likes and dislikes in existing business
development information, I eventually took up the offer of a ‘chat’ and
explained my concept. If I were to go ahead, I said, I would produce a busi-
ness development success book with a difference. I wanted to write one
that would:
be engaging, down to earth and entertaining to read and full of
simple, commonsense pragmatism, rather than just academic business
theory;
inspire aspirational readers from businesses of all sizes and sectors to
be ‘more protable’ rather than just ‘better educated and smarter’;
provide some real step-by-step priorities, tools and usable techniques;
have a realistic regard for business development spending power,
as many readers from small businesses simply want to know how to
make a little budget go a long way;
be provocative, honest and challenging where needed;
highlight real examples of outstanding business development practice
in action and also ag up examples of plain commercial silliness to
avoid;
xvi Introduction
be well structured so that it could either be read in individual sections
or viewed as a whole;
motivate, inspire and act as a catalyst for really effective action;
‘join the dots’ between other specialist books. (My research showed
that most business development books focus on specic topics. I
wanted to create one that would be comprehensive and pull all the
major issues together into one publication.)
Luckily, the publishers were happy to go along with my vision and so my
early morning writing shifts began again . . . as did my aching back!
Jump forward to the present and you now have the opportunity to read The
Financial Times Guide to Business Development: How to win protable customers
and clients, the most comprehensive collection of commonsense business
development techniques ever, all brought together into one book.
Regardless of your business sector or size, whether you are a budding entre-
preneur, existing business owner, manager or director, or an individual
providing a service of some sort, this is ‘the’ denitive business develop-
ment ‘how to’ book. It’s aimed at busy, ambitious business people who
make decisions, have to live with the consequences of their results and are
hungry for more revenue, prots and business success.
I am 100 per cent condent that you will nd this book engaging, provoca-
tive and informative, and that if you follow the steps you will automatically
experience massive improvements in your business development results.
Read, understand, smile and take effective action!
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