December 24, 2023

Five Questions for a Year-End BD Review

A year-end review does not need a new dashboard. It needs five honest questions and a meeting where partners answer them from records the firm already keeps.

Where did the work actually come from?

List the engagements won this year and note the original source of each: a referral, an existing client, an event, a direct approach. Many firms find that their own account of where work comes from differs from the record.

Do not rely on memory in the meeting. Ask a coordinator to prepare a one-page table before it: engagements won, source, fee band, and who led. A page of real records keeps the discussion grounded and makes it harder for the loudest recollection to win.

What did we pursue and not win?

Count the proposals that went out and the results. Also note the ones you declined and why. Declining well is a BD skill, and the reasons often point to gaps in targeting.

Be careful about the win rate. A figure that counts every proposal, including those the firm was invited to as a formality, gives a misleading picture. Decide how you will count before looking at the results, and describe the rule beside the number.

How long did opportunities sit?

Look at the time between first contact, proposal and decision. Long silences are often a sign that the opportunity was weak from the start, or that follow-up slipped. Either is worth knowing.

A useful comparison is between opportunities that came through a relationship and those that came from a cold approach. Do not expect a clean answer from a small sample, but the difference in time to decision is often visible even with modest data.

Which effort did we not repay?

Identify time spent on activities that produced no conversations: events, articles, mailings. Be careful here. Some effort pays back slowly, so ask whether there is any evidence of influence at all, and be honest if there is not.

Consider the cost side as well. Estimate the partner and staff hours spent on each activity, using rough figures agreed in advance. An honest estimate, however approximate, allows you to compare effort with outcome and to see which activities deserve a larger share of time.

What do we stop, keep and start?

Turn the answers into three short lists. Limit each to two or three items. Any number you attach to next year's goals is a rough planning assumption, to be revised as the year unfolds.

Keep the lists short and specific. Stop sending a quarterly mailing that nobody answers. Keep the referral breakfasts that produced two conversations. Start a short call with each of your ten largest clients. Concrete actions are easier to carry out than aspirations.

Assign owners before you leave the room

Every item on the lists needs a named person and a date. Otherwise the review becomes a pleasant conversation with no consequence. Put a checkpoint in the diary for the end of the first quarter.

Finish the meeting by writing the minutes together on a single page. Send it out that day. At the checkpoint in spring, begin the meeting by reading the page aloud, and ask each owner what has happened since. It is a modest ritual and it works.

Keep the tone practical

A year-end review can drift into blame or self-congratulation. Keep the questions concrete and the language plain. The purpose is to decide what to do differently, not to judge individual partners for last year's luck.

It also helps to invite one person from outside the BD group, such as a finance lead or an operations manager. They ask the naive questions that insiders have stopped asking, and those questions are often the most useful ones. Keep the record of the meeting where the whole partner group can read it, so that next December's review can begin from these notes and not from memory.

VIPMarketing Editorial