Practicing purposeful business development sees you becoming the hub for information entering an leaving your organisation. This is a pivotal part of your company adapting to the marketplace. Of course, feedback plays a crucial part in this.
My previous post explored the what of business development feedback. In this post we look at who to give the feedback to and where the best places are to get this done effectively.
The who of business development feedback
So who do we need to pass this valuable market information to? A great starting place is your Internal Stakeholder assessment. This provides a list of relevant personnel with responsibility for the company offering and output. They need to know what’s going on to be able to adapt. Be aware, each will be interested in slightly different information so you must tailor your messaging to each. Remember, if you are not sure what information is most important to them, ask.
Some of the stakeholders to consider are presented below.
Leadership team
Setting the strategic direction of the company is typically controlled either by the owner, the managing
director, or the executive management. In smaller companies, access to these personnel is fairly straightforward. The larger the company, the more levels of management appear and access gets more complicated.
As a business developer, you should adhere to the chain of command and feedback the information to your leadership team. They will want to know the strategic information and trends that will be impacting their part of the organization over the long term. Revenue and pricing trends are crucial to this group, as their performance is often measured on these numbers.
Product manager
These personnel are in charge of a particular product or service line and have influence on both it’s evolution and delivery. Customer trends are critical to this person, as they will need to adjust the product offering in line with the customer needs.
Research and development team
Similar to the product manager, the research and development team are looking to produce new company offerings over the long term. They need the long-term market and customer trends, particularly through the lens of new markets and products. These personnel shape the future products and services of the company.
Subject matter experts
The experts should be aware of the market trends associated with their expertise already. However, it is useful to discuss these with them. Getting their perspective widens your understanding of events and trends.
Team leaders
These stakeholders are at the coalface running the teams delivering the company offering. They need to know the shorter-term trends, particularly around the customer and upcoming opportunities. This can add real depth to their customer interactions and allow them to appropriately plan team resourcing.
Marketing team
This team is responsible for pushing the company offering out to the market. Short-, medium-, and long-term market trends are critical to their campaign planning. Any customer feedback on the company offering—and specifically around the customer reaction to marketing campaigns—will be appreciated.
It should be obvious by now that the information gained by the business developer is critical to decision-making at all levels. Therefore, it is your duty to disseminate this information regularly and widely to help inform and shape the future of your organization.
The where of business development feedback
It is clear by now that you have access to a vast wealth of time-sensitive information, and awareness of who to be sharing it with. But how do you get this information to the right people in time?
In my opinion, there needs to be time allocated in the division or company leadership meetings where the business developer can summarize their findings for that week. This only needs a broad synopsis, with deeper dives being taken separately from the meeting with those interested parties.
Make the time to share this information with interested personnel through quick, scheduled, or informal catch ups. It is important to not let these meetings become a time sink. Otherwise people will avoid meeting you. Also remember that most of your time needs to be out in the market with the customers.
While regular feedback is important, market and customer intelligence must form part of the strategic and operational planning. Discuss this with your leadership team and find the best way to feed this knowledge into the process. Perhaps this could take the form of an evidence-based presentation or report. Better yet, it could be a seat at the table during strategy formation and assessment.
Please remember this place needs to be earned through your gained knowledge and understanding of what’s happening in the market. To get this timely information takes proactive and systematic business development.
Final thoughts on the secrets of business development feedback
I hope you can now see how important the information gleaned from activity in the market can be. Identifying the right stakeholders to keep informed makes sure that the intelligence you gather adapts and shapes your organization.
Successful business development feedback
Are looking to begin your Business Development journey but are not quite sure where to start? Download my quick start guide to business development. This gives a series of simple activities to quickly set you on the right path.
For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.
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