Let’s get right to the point.. What is Business Development ?
Business development generally refers to all the activities and strategies that a company implements to stand out in its industry, increase sales and profitability. Activities such as finding strategic partners, acquisitions and financing can complement a strategy purely based on sales and marketing.
So in short, Sales is a sub-category of business development. We can distinguish two main types of sales.
Table of Contents
Inbound sales
A customer or prospect contacts you directly through a referral, ad or Internet search. See this post for more details
- Traditional or online marketing
- incoming call
- inquiries via forms or emails etc.
Outbound sales
When a business contacts potential prospects directly, we typically use the term Outbound Sales.
- These activities include:
- Cold call or emails
- Social selling
- Networking
- Trade shows etc.
An effective strategy will take into account the target industry, the length of the sales cycle, and the value of the sales ticket.
How to put in place a robust strategy?
First things first, you need a strategy –
It is very common for small structures not to have a clearly defined strategy or process. If this is your case, you are not the only one!
To define your strategy, you need to have a clear understanding of who your customers are:
- Their industry
- Size
- Who in these organizations makes the decisions about your products or services
Take a look at your main customers? Do you see any similarities?
Once you know who to contact, you need to figure out how to reach them. What are their habits when they enter the buying cycle? (Would they do a google search? Check their internal supplier base?)
Finally, list all the actions you can take to be on their radar when they need you, ideally in the form of a matrix for determining priorities.
Your strategy will be to organise these activities to generate leads and convert them into customers.
The theory is that simple!
The importance of having a strategy, no matter how good, is to be able to organize tasks, delegate and be able to scale up.
Do you need help or advice? It costs nothing to discuss. Our team will be happy to help you.
