What is business development and why is it important?
In short, business development pertains to the ideas, initiatives, and activities that enables a business to grow. In effect, it is the lifeblood of any business. Those in business development work towards increasing revenue, growth and relationships. They do this strategically and in alignment with their company purpose. As such, they create a healthy, vibrant company that will prosper over the long term.
While people often define business development differently I characterize it as follows:
The act of sustainably growing your business
Its all about the long term. Relationships, alliances and opportunities must be pursued with the long term viability of your organization in mind. Entering the discipline with a mindset of short-termism may get you early wins but will ultimately see you beaten by competitors operating under a long term strategy.
What is the difference between sales and business development?
Sales focuses on identifying leads, before developing them along the sales cycle toward a closing. On the other hand business development involves finding new growth opportunities for the company and forming strategic partnerships that open up new markets. As such sales forms a subset of the work winning discipline.
I often think of sales as being more transactional and business development being focused on relationships and longer term strategy. I talk about the reasons you need a business developer in your organization in my blog post never hire a salesperson to grow your business. Ultimately you need the strategic skillset that a business developer brings represented in your leadership team.
What are the top skills for business development executives?
We now know that business development is long term and strategic in nature. Additionally sales is actually a part of the overall work winning skill set. What other competencies do you need to be successful at growing your company revenues.
- Sales and Pursuit. An aggressive pursuit of sales opportunities that align with the company’s vision and intent.
- Customer Relationships. The development of robust, trust-based relationships with customers, allowing for honest two-way communication.
- Commercial Integrity. A strong commercial acumen with the ability to sell offerings at a profit margin that aligns with the company goals.
- Productive Paranoia. An avid following of quoting (leading indicator) and revenue (lagging indicator) numbers.
- Market Intelligence. A deep understanding of the market, the key players, and consequences of any changes therein.
- Offering Intelligence. A deep understanding of the problem that your company offering solves.
- Adaptive Feedback Loop. A conduit for information between the market and the company, to ensure that customer and market feedback is heard and acted upon.
- Customer Service. A polite and professional approach in all dealings. You are the face of your organization.
If you are looking to grow your business, take on client facing responsibility or hiring someone else for this role consider the skills above. How do you rate in each? If you are interviewing a candidate ask them about each and gauge their competency.
Which of these skills do you most strongly identify with?
Grow your work winning skills
Of course, these skills are not necessarily innate to the individual and can most definitely be learned. What better place to start than by downloading my fast business development guide below. This gives a list of actions and activities to set you on the right path right now.
For a comprehensive and practical framework to base your business development activity around I recommend checking out my new book Business Development Begins Here. It is available to order on Amazon. Visit the link to reserve your copy now.
Coaching
If you want a more proactive and personal approach to your work winning I am available to help. Through face to face video calls I’ll set you on the right path and keep you accountable to future activity. I currently have one space available on my 1on1 personalized coaching program. To learn more click the button below.