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The other aspect of business development is growing and strengthening your value to current and potential clients. Here, I think there are four crucial areas that you need to consider. 

1 – Developing new Skills  

The temptation is to rely on your skills, knowledge and experience as all you need to impact your clients.  However, you will engage your clients much more effectively if you are able to lead through influence, coaching and mentoring rather than just relying on the authority of your position to direct others. 

Investing in your personal development will unlock this capability.  You can explore a range of programmes that enable you to increase your emotional intelligence, develop coaching and mentoring skills, strengthen your communication skills and improve your group facilitation capability. 

You will also build your influencing skills by participating as a board member.  Consider joining a charity board of trustees, becoming a school governor or participating in your local political party or club committee.  You will learn the disciplines of governance and collegiate decision-making outside a business context. 

2 – Being an Expert in your Field 

As a portfolio executive, you should have defined a niche on which you focus.  How can you ensure that you are a recognised expert in your niche? 

We talked about being recognised in the previous article.  However, maintaining your expert edge requires intention and commitment.   But beware, lack of focus and planning can divert you to endless doom scrolling on social media or rabbit holes of endless irrelevant enquiry.  

Here are some top tips: 

• Subscribe to established, recognised industry and professional newsletters 
• Engage with special interest groups or regional meetings of your industry or professional associations 
• Sign up for broader business journals e.g. McKinsey, Forbes or Fast Company 
• Follow key gurus in your niche 
• Subscribe to rigorously selected podcasts 
• Read an international business journal such as The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times or Economist. 
• Set aside time to be available to engage with new contacts with emergent ideas in your field.  I choose to engage with LinkedIn members that approach me in order to access new thinking.  For example, I have built relationships with early adopters in AI so I can offer insights to my client base. 

3 – Develop Brand New Qualifications  

I am very cautious about falling into the trap that your success depends on increasing your qualifications and certifications.  However, from time to time, I identify a new skill set that will differentiate me from my peers and provide a special insight.  Let me provide you with two examples. 

I got very interested in a platform called AQai.  They have built a robust assessment tool to understand the adaptability of individuals, teams, and organisations.  I signed up to become a certified assessor who was qualified to use the assessment tool with my clients.  I found this was a powerful tool to engage with clients in a different way.  It gave me a whole series of insights into my own practice.  I also developed a series of articles, and I’ve been able to engage with CEOs and clients in a completely different way.  The relatively small investment of time and money has repaid itself in new wins with existing clients.  Beyond the financial payoff, I value new ideas, new thinking and learning new skills.  You might find the Game Changer Index another assessment tool of interest. 

4 – Adopt New Paradigms 

The final example is adopting a new paradigm. Because of my background in agile software development, I have always been interested in operating in complex, dynamic organisational environments.  When I first came across the VUCA paradigm of a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous world, it immediately appealed.  As I dug deeper into the rich understanding that VUCA offered, I felt that some of the conventional responses failed to recognise the power of emerging leadership styles, the richness of movements, the offer of distributed autonomous organisations (DAOs) and the wisdom of crowds.  Now, I have a set of ideas that build on the VUCA paradigm and extend conventional thinking with a distinctive point of view. 

Summary 

The world doesn’t stay still.  Although your core knowledge, skills and experience will continue to serve you well, you need to have a plan to keep up to date with emerging trends, enrich your hard skills with relevant soft skills and scan the horizon for new certifications or paradigms that will hone your distinctive edge. 

 

Charles McLachlan is the founder of FuturePerfect and on a mission to transform the future of work and business. The Portfolio Executive programme is a new initiative to help executives build a sustainable and impactful second-half-career. Creating an alternative future takes imagination, design, organisation and many other thinking skills. Charles is happy to lend them to you.

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