Rainmakers: featuring business development's elite
Rainmakers: featuring business development's elite
Interview with John Dinkel, Founder & CEO of Dinkel Business Development
John Dinkel was publisher of the Baltimore Business Journal for over 16 years before starting his own business development consulting company where he helps companies develop and implement business development bust practices. He has also developed a software platform to help the execute and stay accountable. I was introduced to him after I heard his radio show on iHeartRadio called CEO’s You Need to Know. In this interview, John shares his business development wisdom.
John Dinkel
Carl Grant
Seth Grant
Welcome to rainmakers. I'm here with John Dinkle, CEO of dinkel. Business Development. Welcome, John.
John DInkel :Thank you Carl. Thanks for having me.
Carl Grant :So you run your own business development consulting company. And and I've talked about this a bit. I'm fascinated by it. But you weren't always a business developer. You were you were a publisher. And so let's talk. Let's go back to your publishing days. And how did you go from publishing you were you were a publisher of the Baltimore Business Journal, I believe. Right
John Dinkel :Right, sure was
Carl Grant :And then you moved into business development, I take it you, you use that network that you developed there as a publisher, and then you hit my radar screen because you also host a show called CEOs You Need to Know so take us through the evolution of John Dinkel.
John DInkel :Yeah, so I thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for Thanks for having me. So I spent 16 years at the Business Journal prior to that, I 25 years in business development, sales operations, and I left there in 2017 as the publisher and was in that role for about 11 years, but what it taught me was, you know, high level networking and high level connections, high level relationships, I mean, so my role there was not only to run the day to day operations and, you know, had the the management team reporting to me, but but more of the face of the business community and the face of the paper. So, I was out there meeting with partners of law firms to, you know, CEOs to tech startups. And it allowed me to build a pretty big network over the, you know, years I was there. And I loved it and and what I really liked about it is I felt our product helped people, you know, whether it was content or branding, or networking at our events, I really just dug that and I really, I really love helping people about it, and I like to coaching my team. And so that led to, you know, the kind of the epiphany of why not do this myself. I mean, I, you know, take the experience I have within the sales and BD side and the operation side, the network that I built up over 20 years and, and that mentality of wanting to coach and help and mentor people and turn it into a business. So I left there and 17 started, took the summer off and started DVD in September of 17. And ever since then it's been it's been a joy ride. I love it.
Carl Grant :So talk to me about how you figured out the business development methodology that you use and talk a little bit about that methodology.
John Dinkel :Yeah, that's a great question. And it's really funny when I think when you're in it, and you're I was doing it for so long. I didn't realize what I was doing until I left and then start to map it out as a process for my clients. It was really just And that has developed over the course of the three years I've been doing this. But But basically, you know, I did this because I like to help people, I really do like to help them build their networks build their personal brand and build their their business. But it's all around relationship marketing lead generation. And, you know, I was I was practicing it at the BBj. But I didn't really understand the methodology and the process around it. So when I had to build this out, you know, I've had to kind of define for myself what that meant, and what I mean by relationship marketing. Lead Generation is the methodology of building relationships with your clients, prospects and referral partners in order to increase the number of top line on top of the funnel leads qualified leads, and it is all about relationships. It's more relevant today, you know, in the today's climate of a zoom meeting, and teleworking. You know, people still do business with people they like and they trust and so my model was really based on that is helping companies come up with a strategy around business development and coming up with a strategic plan with tactics, and accountability measures and timelines and all those things that you that you're doing normally in your job you just kind of don't think about. And so I help them focus and keep them, you know, keep them accountable to those activities. And a lot of those things are things that you, you know, you should be doing, but you just, you just don't do them like, well, so so some of the tactics I use, and what I coach clients on are, you know, multi tiered referral strategy, like, you know, and what I mean by that is I break that down 333 areas, and that's Referral Champions, Referral Partners, and Referral Groups. So Referral Champions are people that you know, friends of the company, you know, your board members, your your investors, your, you know, just friends family. know people that you can call on to ask for an introduction, every now your clients are great Referral Champions. Matter of fact, they're probably one of the best. And then Referral Partners are kind of your centers of influence, you know, those highly network people that you're building deep relationships with, you're helping them out, they're helping you out. And, you know, you get into your top of mind with each other. And then I look at Referral Groups, and those are of course of the groups that you belong to the try to leverage, you know, referrals out of, and then, you know, we get into networking strategy, content strategy, in house events, strategic alliances, roundtables. So there, there are a myriad of things that, you know, business development professionals can do CEOs can do nowadays, that are unaffected by our current situation. And a lot of instances, I think people know that they should be doing these things, but they, they just don't do it and in some cases, don't have the The skill set to do it.
Carl Grant :Like You I built a professional network without realizing I was doing it at the time I got a job doing a capital attraction for an economic development organization. And my job was to bring venture capital into a jurisdiction and keep the companies from leaving the jurisdiction to go get that capital. Right. And in doing that, I got to know most of the venture capital community, I didn't realize that at the time, there was a government job. I was building a valuable network and when I got the phone call from PricewaterhouseCoopers, offering me a lot more money than I was making in my government job to go do business development for them. I realized, oh, wow, you know, I develop something powerful here, something worthwhile, valuable, and it sounds like you did the same thing. So for a young person watching or listening today, I know you've talked a lot about building a professional network, you know, business network, and then also building a personal brand. So let's break those down. Let's go. Let's why well, you know, if there's a, you know, 20 year old person sitting in college today and and they're listening to this and they're studying to be an accountant or a lawyer or whatever, you know, a publisher, what, what, why is it important to them to think about a professional network? And, and how would you tell them to go about developing it?
John Dinkel :Yeah, so great question. And, and I love talking to young people about this, because I wish someone had talked to me when I was in my early 20s. about this, I really didn't get it till I was in my 30s, you know, and so starting out, starting out early and building up your network, and whether you go into a sales related position or HR or like you said, accounting, you know, building your network is crucial and so important to young people to understand and to act on and because not only is it You know going to help you in your career, you know and learn of new jobs and things like that, but it's going to help you develop yourself like become more. You know, I won't say more salesy but but learn to deal with people more and learn to communicate better, and learn different ideas, collaboration, all those things that you know, a big network and can give.
Carl Grant :Where do you start? Like, why would somebody want to know me? Like, you know, that like, I'm sure that's what somebody listening is thinking, why would anybody want to know me? What do I have to offer them? And where do they start?
John Dinkel :So a good question and like a lot of that if I were someone now, I would start I would start with the social media. I mean, especially in these times, you know, social media especially LinkedIn, some of these more business social media platforms are great way to start building your network. You know, and getting on some of these webinars, so Everybody's doing webinars these days, but there's a lot of ways to connect with a lot of people through webinars, eventually, we'll get back to you know, social networking in person networking. That's another great way. But right now, it's it's building that LinkedIn network and it's liking, you know, kind of similar. It's following, you know, similar. You know, industry pages, you know, if you're an accounting you follow, you know, Maryland Association for Certified Public Accountants, if you follow, you know, different things like that things that you're interested in, too, because that's the other thing about building your network. I mean, for me, I had met some really interesting people that learn so much from that, you know, just a different way for me to think about things and also things that I'm interested in just learning more and more about it. So, yeah, to get started and start with your friends and family. I mean, start with all the people you think you know, and just just LinkedIn with them, just connect with them. If you're, you know, if you're averse to using LinkedIn, I mean, you can also use just, you know, common database, if you have a CRM if the company you're working for as a CRM and use, you know, something like that. But, you know, LinkedIn is a great tool to use to get started.
Carl Grant :Okay, and then we're in the COVID-19 shutdown right now, but things will change. And this will be out there for a while afterwards, when you go into the physical realm, where are some of the places that you would go to to meet people and how do you get involved?
John Dinkel :Yeah, so I like to go to, again to Association types of events, because I can get really targeted with that. If I'm, if I'm targeting CEOs or CFOs, I might go to you know, you know, financial executives International, it's a CFO organization. So you can get really targeted with a lot of these Association and trade groups. I also look at some of the awards events, because those bring out some of the high level people that normally Don't come out to events. Same with bigger nonprofit events where you get, you know, board members that are high members of the business community that don't, you know, come out to your normal happy hour, but they'll come to something like that. So yeah, when it comes to networking, you know, I always look at, you know, kind of what what, what's your goal for this networking event, you spend a lot of time money resources to go to these events. And you really need to sit down and think about that before you get to an event. I mean, think about what what do you want to achieve from this thing? What are who you want to meet? What are the goals you want to accomplish? You know, I always think about that whether I'm going to a little happy hour or big annual event, you know, my goal, I set a goal for myself to meet five CEOs that you know, the next you know, kind of big networking event, then I make sure I do that, you know, and set these kind of personal goals. I think it's really important
Carl Grant :How do you follow up, John?
John Dinkel :So I, I follow up in a number of different ways. Social media, LinkedIn, In Twitter, obviously the personal email, sometimes with a personal note, sometimes with a personal gift, I mean, send somebody a book, you know, so I follow ups huge and a lot of people don't get the get that I think I read an article or a statistic not long ago, that 45% of sales professionals don't follow up after the first time. And I believe it I've been, you know, running a running an organization in my past, I see network sales folks or BD folks will follow up once and then I don't hear from him.
Carl Grant :How do you stay in touch? How do you stay engaged?
John Dinkel :So I stay engaged, creating value, you know, whenever I look at a person or someone that I want to be engaged with and have a relationship with, it's giving value, so giving value in the form of inviting them to an event, letting them know about a really cool webinar, sending them a book and giving them an article, sending them a bottle of wine being like, you know, I always think about I always tell people always think about how can you give value to that person because it always comes back, always having that give to get mentality is is just huge for me. And I think it's such a, it's such a powerful tool and if your listeners, I would encourage them if they haven't read the book by Bob Berg, The Go Giver, I would really encourage them to get to read that book.
Carl Grant :Good Book. Now, you we talked about the personal brand. Not everybody is, you know, big publisher of Business Journal. You know, it's easy, easy to build a brand when you've got, you know, readership across the whole city, right? How does how does a young person or somebody who doesn't have your kind of role build a brand.
John Dinkel :So building the brand a couple a couple ways. One is being a thought leader. You know, even at a young age, you have experience and you have connection, so I think, you know, going out there and writing stuff and getting noticed on LinkedIn Doing content. And you know, whether it's through social media or you know, doing a blog or doing a podcast, you know, be that thought leader, and other ways to get involved with the community. I mean, volunteer your time, get on boards, get on committees, your nonprofit, some of these big nonprofits are looking for young people and they want your, they want their, you know, their opinions and their way of thinking. So that's another really good way to start to build your brand is get out there, do some volunteer work, you'll meet some great people. And, obviously, you know, building that personal brand through thought leadership, building content, and also you know, just being, you know, be a good person, man, be be friendly, be happy, be you know, love what you're doing. Because that that translates in any interaction you have with somebody. I mean, I love what I do. I love helping people and if you if you if you can exude that it's gonna, it's just you're gonna, you're gonna go places.
Carl Grant :Well, I guess we're doing some of that right now, aren't we? So you, you went and you started out going to Salisbury University and then you know how if if a young person going to Salisbury University we're listening today has no idea what he or she wants to do and they hear you talk and I said, Well, I really like to do a John Dinkel does, what advice do you have for them?
John Dinkel :My advice is to talk to people that are in the field, you know, because it is being in business development being in sales. It's It's tough. I mean, especially now, I mean, and and it takes time, are you building relationships doesn't happen overnight. I mean, I've some of my best relationships. I've known people for 15, 20 years. So it does take time and and it's not an easy role. You there's still a lot of rejection. There's a lot of hard work, a lot of you know, long hours but so I would say the first thing would be to reach out to as many folks like me, I love talking to young people and ask advice and understand what you're getting into.
Carl Grant :So I think that's really good advice. And we're going to wrap it up with that, you know, as a college student, looking for a mentor, when when somebody reaches out to me, I'm sure for you as well and says, Would you be willing to mentor me? I have a hard time saying no to reply. That right is, you know, because you're flattered that they would reach out to you. And, and it's it's kind of fun. I mean, you can't take on 100 mentees, but a few right.
John Dinkel :Yeah, I agree. I love doing that sale. I'm right there with you, Carl.
Carl Grant :All right. John Dinkel, CEO Dinkel Business Development. Thank you so much for joining today.
John Dinkel :Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity.