During my conversations across a number of different industries I hear a number of business development mistakes repeated over and over again. In an effort to help you avoid the worst I list the most common five below. Identify which most applies to you and commit to making a change.
Waiting for Phone to Ring
It’s amazing how often I hear of business development and sales professionals forgetting the concept of the sales funnel. Failing to facilitate a steady stream of leads into the top of your funnel will see your revenues dwindle to nothing.
Sitting by the phone. Relying on marketing. Focussing on social media likes. None of these replace making physical contact with customers, developing relationships and helping them solve their problems.
Proactivity is key. Getting into the market and making contact with existing and prospective customers whilst seeking market intelligence will keep that funnel full. Obviously, you cannot stop.
Not Aligned with Purpose
Having the perfect plan with lots of scheduled activity is good. However, you are destined to fail if there is no alignment with your company purpose. Having a disconnect becomes tiring as you are inadvertently working against your business. Additionally customers sense this disconnection and it sends them running. You also risk moving the company down an avenue that it doesn’t want to be in. Ultimately, forgetting company purpose can cause an inordinate amount of reputational damage.
To stay on path perform a simple check-in during your planning process. Simply ask whether the annual business development plan aligns with the company purpose? Are the daily activities listed in the tactical action plan in alignment? If not, revisit the plans and see what changes can be made to create the much needed alignment.
Acting on Gut Instinct: No business development planning
Being so wrapped up in the day to day activity that your strategy gets forgotten is a huge business development mistake. Do not run on gut instinct alone. Unfortunately, this leads to a habit of chasing the latest shiny opportunity regardless of whether it is a good fit. Consequently a massive amount of time is wasted. Time which should have been spent on opportunities with a greater chance of success.
Therefore, taking time to develop a plan. Refining it with feedback from the market keeps you focusing in the right places. Maximizing the use of your limited time and resources.
Refusing to Share Information
Working with lone wolf salespeople is a pretty dispiriting experience. Often fear of failure or a desire to hog the success can make the insecure business developer refuse to share vital information with the team. Unfortunately, this business development mistake really harms organizations.
Ultimately the lack of information sharing means that items vital to client success do not get communicated. Opportunities where the involvement of the wider team would provide a huge benefit are held close. While these lone wolves often have short term success, their impact on the morale of the wider team can prove disastrous. Remember these individuals are working for the betterment of themselves. Not the team or the business.
Instead behave as a team player. Share success with the wider organization and keep everyone informed. That way nothing gets missed, client relationships are shared and the organization as a whole benefits.
Not listening: the most common business development mistake
Lastly we come to our most common business development mistake. Not listening. We’ve all had experiences where sales personnel talk at you about how great their product, team or themselves are. All this talk smacks of arrogance. Arrogance of thinking you know what the customer wants before you’ve even asked.
That’s not service. It is no way to develop a relationship based on trust.
The customer must be the hero of your conversation. To facilitate this you must listen. Ask well thought and well intentioned questions. Then shut up and listen. Seek to learn what your customer does, where they have problems and how you might be able to help. How will you find this out if all you do is talk?
Further Action
There we have the five most common business development mistakes and how to avoid them. I challenge you to think about which one you most identify with and take action to improve.
business development mistake
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