To the uninitiated business development can feel a little overwhelming. How do the Sales Ecosystem and Sales Funnel fit together? Who should I be speaking to and when? There are lots of questions that need answering. This is made harder when business development forms only part of your role description, and other work commitments compete for your time. To help make things simpler, I have formed the Triple A Framework. This has a cyclical structure that guides you through the process of business development (see the figure below). The framework is there to steer you towards strategic planning and systematic action to ultimately increase the revenues entering your business. It comprises:
- Assess
Assess the strategic intent of your company, product offering, customers, and internal and external environments.
- Aim (Plan)
You must aim your business development action towards achieving the intent of your company. Understand the available marketing options and develop an aggressive strategic, operational, and tactical plan with a systematic cadence to maintain daily, weekly, and annual business development activity.
- Action (Execute)
Execute systematic pursuit and opportunity development within the Sales Ecosystem to grow long-term revenue. Implement Act as a conduit of information and feedback between the customer, market, and your organization.
Over the coming months we will be discussing Assess, Aim & Action in more detail. Each component will be explored and practical advice provided. This will allow you to create a robust and practical business development plan that you can action immediately.
In addition to the Triple A Framework we will discuss some simple marketing methods as a way of acquiring a variety of brand-customer touch points from your customer base. These simple and cost-effective marketing tactics allow your target customers to become familiar with your brand, products and services, feeding leads into the top of your Sales Funnel.
Call to Action
Do you use a framework to shape your business development activity? If so let me know what you are using in the comments below. Are there other aspects to this framework that you think I’ve missed.
I have written a book that takes a deeper dive into the Triple A Framework. It’s due to be released in September 2022. For more info check out the page here.