Introduction
Where did your last few 90-minute meetings come from? If you can name the person who introduced you, the client who referred you, or the talk that started the conversation, you already have a clue about where to spend your time.
Building an EOS practice takes steady work alongside client delivery. Start with relationships you can develop and a follow-up process you can keep running during a full delivery week. Add tools when they solve a specific problem in that process.
1. Where should you start when building an EOS practice?
Start close to people who know your work. A client can describe what it feels like to work with you. A trusted connector can introduce you to an owner who will take the call. A talk gives a group of owners a chance to hear how you think and decide whether the subject is relevant to them.
Early on, you may have few EOS clients to ask. Look to former colleagues, business owners who know you, and advisors who serve similar companies. If you already have an established practice, look for concentration. If most of your introductions come from one person, put some time into building a second source.
Action Step List your last 10 qualified opportunities by source. If you’re just starting out, list 100 people who know you and your work and could introduce you to a qualified business owner. Choose one source to develop over the next month and block the time to work it.
2. How do you make business development part of your weekly work?
Teaching, facilitating, and coaching are skills you practice in the session room. Practice building deserves its own time on the calendar. Decide what you’ll do in a normal week, when you’ll do it, and what will tell you it’s working.
Track an activity you can control, such as completed connector meetings, alongside an outcome you want, such as qualified introductions. If you’re consistently doing the work and getting few introductions, look at who you’re meeting and what they understand about the companies you help.
Action Step Pick one weekly activity and one outcome to measure. Put the activity on your calendar for the next four weeks and review the results at the end of the month.
3. How can clients, connectors, and talks create new opportunities?
Clients. At the end of a productive session, ask, “Who do you care enough about that you’d want them to have this?” If a name comes up, help the client make a simple introduction. A two-sentence note they can forward may be all they need.
Connectors. Go to a networking event with a clear purpose. Identify the people you’d like to know, learn enough to see where you might help each other, and arrange a separate conversation when there’s a reason to continue.
Talks. Choose an audience likely to face the problem you’re addressing. A small room of owners wrestling with accountability may lead to more useful conversations than a large general audience. Give people a way to ask a question, request a resource, or continue the conversation.
Action Step Choose one of these routes this week. Ask a client for an introduction, book a connector meeting, or identify a speaking opportunity and define how interested attendees can follow up.
4. How should a connector meeting differ from a prospect meeting?
Meet a connector to understand who they help, what problems they see, and where an introduction in either direction would be useful. Give them a specific picture of a company you can help. For example, an owner whose leadership team keeps revisiting the same decisions may be easier to recognize than an owner who wants to grow.
When a prospect comes through a warm introduction, find out why the owner is interested now and who should be involved. If a brief warm call would help, use it to understand the situation and see whether a 90-minute meeting with the leadership team makes sense. Save the deeper discussion for the people who need to be in the room.
Action Step Label connector and prospect conversations separately in your tracker. Before your next prospect call, write down what you need to learn and the next step you’ll propose if there’s a fit.
5. How do you stay useful to the people who refer you?
Ask what’s on their plate. An advisor may want to meet someone who understands a client’s industry. Another may appreciate a quick call to think through a difficult issue. You’ll learn more by asking than by assuming every connector wants more leads.
A check-in works best when it has a reason behind it. Share a resource on an issue they mentioned, introduce someone who can help, or follow up on a decision they were weighing. Remember what you offered and close the loop.
Action Step Ask two connectors what would help them this month. Follow through on one thing for each person and set a date to check back.
Click Here for the Top 10 Ways to Add Value to a Connection
6. Who should you reconnect with on LinkedIn?
Start with first-degree connections. Separate people who may need your help from people who are likely to introduce you. A founder who is building a leadership team belongs on a different list from a banker who already advises several founders.
Use LinkedIn search, Sales Navigator, or a connections export to narrow the list by role and company fit. Check how well you actually know each person. When meeting a trusted connector, bring one or two names from your shared network as a starting point. They may know someone who is a better fit.
Action Step Build a shortlist of ten people from your existing network. For each, note why they’re on the list and one genuine reason to get in touch now.
Click Here to Learn How to Organize and Prioritize Your 1st Degree LinkedIn Connections
7. How do you explain the value of EOS without sounding like a pitch?
Describe a situation a business owner would recognize. A leadership team might leave weekly meetings with good discussion and still spend the next week sorting out who owns the decisions. Explain what the team changed and what it was able to do differently afterward.
Use outcomes you can substantiate and only share client details you have permission to use. In a live conversation, keep the story short enough to leave room for the other person to tell you what’s happening in their business.
Action Step Write a 60-second story from your own work. Include the situation, what the team did, and one observable result. Practice it aloud and use it the next time the situation is relevant.
8. Which warm relationships should you work first?
Start with clients who can speak from experience, prospects you’ve already qualified, and connectors who know your work. Ask clients which bankers, attorneys, or accountants they trust. Ask strong connectors who else they rely on when a business owner needs help.
Use the connector funnel as a planning example. A starting pool of roughly 90 connectors could support 40 connector meetings → 12 leads → 4 warm calls (VTHs) → 2 90-minute meetings → 1 Focus Day. These are illustrative numbers. Replace them with your own conversion rates as you build enough history to see where people move forward and where they stall.
Action Step Rank your warm relationships by how well they know you, how closely they fit, and how recent the conversation was. Start with the best five and track which conversations turn into introductions or next steps.
9. Would your LinkedIn profile make someone comfortable introducing you?
A connector may look at your profile before passing it along. A prospect may look before replying. Both should be able to tell who you help, what issues you work on, and why they can trust you with a conversation.
Use the headline to identify the audience you serve. In the About section, explain the issues you help leadership teams work through. Use the Featured section to give readers a sample of how you think, such as an article, a short video, or an example you have permission to share.
Action Step Ask a client and a connector to read your profile. Have each tell you who they think you help, what they’d say in an introduction, and where they had to guess. Revise the section that caused the most confusion.
Click Here for Tips to Optimize Your Profile
10. How do you build a network of advisors worth referring?
Build a roster of non-competing advisors you would feel comfortable introducing to a client. Ask trusted people who they already refer. For each advisor, learn the problems they handle well, what a good introduction looks like, and how they want to receive it.
If several advisors serve similar companies and have a reason to meet, try a small roundtable. Use a brief check-in, work through one or two issues with Identify, Discuss, Solve (IDS), and agree on next steps. The EOS Trusted Advisor Network (ETAN) is one model for bringing complementary advisors together.
Action Step Start with three advisor categories your clients use. Identify one person in each category, learn what a useful referral looks like for them, and make one introduction when there’s a fit.
Click Here for Tips to Build Your Referral Partner Playbook
11. How can your marketing and follow-up work together?
Choose one issue that matters to the same people you want to meet. If owners in your market keep running into unclear accountability, build a talk, article, or live Q&A around that issue. Invite people through connectors and existing relationships. Use LinkedIn and email to give them a reason to take a look.
Decide what happens when someone responds. Send the resource they requested, record their interest, and offer a conversation if it fits. A clip or short guide can give you a reason to follow up later, especially with someone who couldn’t attend.
Action Step Pick one topic and one format. Write down who will invite people, how interested readers or attendees can respond, and who will handle replies. Set those pieces up before promotion starts.
12. How do you tell what’s worth repeating?
Trace qualified opportunities to their original source. Track what happened after the first conversation and which sources produced 90-minute meetings and Focus Days. If you can remember how a lead closed but can’t say where it started, ask and record the answer.
When an activity falls short, look at where it breaks down. A well-attended talk with few follow-up conversations could point to audience fit, the invitation to continue, or the follow-up itself. Fix the weak step and measure again. Once the process reliably produces a result, document the repeatable parts before delegating or automating them.
Action Step Review your five most recent opportunities. Mark where each started, the furthest stage it reached, and its next step. Choose one bottleneck to fix this month.
13. Where can AI save time in business development?
Start with work you can check quickly. Use AI to group contacts by role, suggest annual-planning topics, outline an article, or organize notes for a short video. Tell it what a good result looks like. If you want a contact shortlist, specify the roles, types of companies, and reasons that would make someone a priority.
Review the results against your own knowledge. A job title can suggest a match without telling you whether the company needs your help. Personalize follow-up yourself, especially when it involves a referral or a situation a client shared with you.
Action Step Pick one repeatable task. Give AI a clear brief, check its work, and compare the time it took with your usual approach. Keep it in the workflow if it saves time at the quality you need.
Click Here for the Top 10 Business Coach AI Prompts
14. What tools do you need to keep opportunities moving?
Use one CRM or tracker for prospects and connectors. At a minimum, record the source, stage, last conversation, next action, due date, and owner. An introduction you’ve acknowledged still needs a next action if the prospect is waiting to hear from you.
Choose communication tools people already use with you. LinkedIn can help you research a contact. A call, text, or voice note may make more sense for keeping in touch. Put the next step back in the tracker so you can see the full relationship regardless of where the conversation took place.
Action Step Review the tracker once a week. Give every active opportunity a next action and a date. Clear overdue items by completing them, rescheduling them, or closing them out.
15. What should you focus on over the next 90 days?
In the first month, review your sources, reconnect with your strongest connectors, and fix overdue follow-up. In the second month, test one way to teach your market about an issue it already cares about. Use the last month to review the conversations and meetings those efforts produced.
Set a minimum you can keep even during annual planning season. If the calendar is full, a brief personal note to a top connector and a follow-up with a qualified prospect can keep things moving. Protect time for 90-minute meetings before client delivery fills the calendar.
Action Step Set a 90-day target for qualified conversations and 90-minute meetings. Reserve a weekly block for connector outreach and warm follow-ups. At day 90, use your results to decide where to spend the next quarter’s time.
16. When is outside support worth it?
Match the help to the work you’re struggling to do consistently. If you want peer input or help thinking through your practice plan, Nexus Business Solutions offers coaching and the Nexus Accelerator. Nexus Accelerator Trial Sign-Up
If you need help turning your expertise into something prospects can use, BDR.ai’s Content to Client Engine for EOS Implementers can support a hosted interview, educational resources, LinkedIn outreach, and follow-up.
Before you choose a provider, write down the work you want help with and what you’ll continue to own. For a content project, you might own the topic and the client examples while a partner handles production and promotion. Measure whether the work leads to useful conversations with the right people.
Action Step Identify one bottleneck. Write a short brief that names the work, who owns the handoff, and how you’ll measure progress. Use that brief to evaluate whether outside support makes sense.
About Jim Coyle and David Bush
Jim Coyle is an Expert EOS Implementer® and founder of Nexus Business Solutions. He has delivered more than 1,000 EOS sessions and coaches Implementers on growing their practices. Nexus Accelerator Trial Sign-Up
David Bush is President and Co-Owner of BDR.ai. He works with EOS Implementers and other business owners on targeted outreach, educational content, and systematic follow-up.
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