In my experience, the people who succeed at business development are not necessarily the ones who are the best at it. They're the ones who are the busiest at it.

They're not the people with the greatest skills. They're the people with the most “hustle”.

I'd like you to do a little exercise for me, right now.

Really simple. Will only take 2 minutes.

First – write down what your top 3 sources of new clients are. It could be referrals, your website, networking, giving presentations – whatever.

Then for each of those methods – write down when you last did whatever it is. The last time you went networking, wrote an article for your website, asked for a referral.

If it's not within the last few days then the chances are you're not busy enough at business development.

In my experience, the people who get the most business from networking aren't the people who are the best at it in the technical sense. They're the people who do it the most.

The people who get the most clients from seminars? The people who run the most.

The people who get the most clients from referrals? The people who ask the most.

The people who get the most business from their website? Well, you see where I'm going.

So ask yourself seriously – how busy are you at business development? How much hustle are you putting into it.

I see far too many people “waiting” for something to drop. They put some feelers out, do a little networking, speak to a few people.

Then wait.

Don't wait.

If you're not busy with client work – do something.

I found myself falling into this trap myself recently. I read a few articles on the web about how to get clients online and kept thinking to myself “I could do better than that”.

But of course, what I should have asked myself (and thankfully eventually did) was “why haven't I done better than that?”. Why don't I get off my backside and get some better articles written, published and attracting traffic for me.

Instead of looking at others succeeding and thinking you COULD do better. Get out there and DO better.

Hustle, Hustle, Hustle.

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Photo by Steve Edgeworth