A strong business development strategy allows your business to create strong relationships with promising prospects and generate revenue.
If you ask 10 professionals what business development, or ‘biz dev,’ is, you’ll likely get 10 different answers.
To some, business development is just another term for sales. Many view it as the process of forming strategic partnerships. Others define it as a marketing tactic.
Business development expert Scott Pollack describes it best: “Business development is the creation of long-term value for an organization from customers, markets and relationships.”
This makes business development unique from other professional fields because the day-to-day tasks vary greatly by industry and by the specific needs of each organization. It is often the link between several different departments, such as marketing, branding and sales, and business development professionals collaborate with these teams to discover opportunities and develop relationships that ultimately have a positive impact on the organization.
An effective business development strategy is essential for driving growth and profitability This comprehensive guide will walk you through the key steps to creating a custom strategic plan for your company’s success,
1. Define Your Business Objectives
Start by getting very clear on your overarching business goals. Ask yourself:
-
What are our primary objectives for growth over the next 1-3 years?
-
Are we focused on rapid expansion or sustainability?
-
Do we need to diversify our products and services or consolidate?
-
How will we measure success for the business?
Having clearly defined objectives provides focus and direction for your strategy and tactics All efforts should ultimately tie back to accomplishing these core goals,
2. Conduct Market Research
With your business objectives in mind, dive deep into understanding your market landscape.
Key areas to research include:
- Size of your total addressable market (TAM)
- Customer demographics, psychographics and behaviours
- Industry trends, challenges and opportunities
- Competitive offerings, positioning and messaging
- Economic, regulatory and technological factors
Conduct surveys interviews focus groups and competitor analysis. Gather both quantitative and qualitative data. Your strategy should be grounded in these market insights.
3. Identify Your Target Customers
Define your ideal customer avatars (buyer personas) based on your research. Get very specific on details like:
- Demographics such as age, gender, income, location
- Values, interests, personality traits
- Goals and challenges they face
- What motivates them to buy
- Where and how they consume information
Understanding your key personas will inform how you position your offerings and tailor marketing and sales messaging.
4. Evaluate Your Current Position
Take an honest look at your existing business. Assess strengths and weaknesses across areas like:
- Current market share and growth trajectory
- Brand awareness and positioning
- Product/service portfolio
- Pricing and profit margins
- Customer acquisition and retention costs
- Sales process and conversion rates
- Organizational capabilities and skill gaps
A clear-eyed analysis of your current reality sets the stage for how to improve and leverage advantages. Know where you stand today.
5. Develop Strategies
With all the knowledge gathered above, identify the key strategies required to hit your objectives.
Some common business development strategies include:
- New market entry – Expanding into untapped regions and customer segments
- New product innovation – Developing and launching new offerings
- Strategic partnerships – Joining forces with complementary providers
- Acquisitions – Buying companies to integrate capabilities
- Improved marketing and sales – Optimizing messaging, promotions, tools
- Customer experience enhancement – Improving service, support and satisfaction
Articulate the 3-5 priority strategic moves that will drive your top-line business goals.
6. Define Tactics and Action Plans
For each strategy, map out the specific tactical activities required to implement them.
Some examples of tactical plans include:
- Product development roadmap – Key features and release timeline
- Content strategy – Content types, promotion channels and cadence
- Lead generation campaigns – Targeted outreach, nurturing sequences, sales collateral
- Prospecting process – Tools, qualifying criteria, sales stages
- Account management strategy – Onboarding, upsells/cross-sells, retention tactics
- Digital marketing plan – SEO, ads, email, website enhancements
Clearly define each initiative, owners, budgets, processes and success metrics. Break execution down into doable action steps.
7. Set Metrics and KPIs
To track progress, define the key performance indicators that will measure success of your plan.
KPIs should tie directly back to your business objectives. Examples include:
- Revenue growth
- Customer acquisition costs
- Lifetime customer value
- Net promoter score (NPS)
- Average deal size
- Sales cycle length
- Website traffic and conversions
- Social media engagement
Setting targets for lead, revenue and growth KPIs gives you benchmarks to aim for.
8. Allocate Resources
The final step is to allocate resources and funding to support your strategic initiatives and tactics.
Consider elements like:
- Staff time – Who will own and work on which activities?
- Training and development – Are any new skills required?
- Systems and tools – What technology is needed?
- Marketing budget – Paid advertising, events, collateral etc.
- External support – Agencies or contractors needed?
Secure the human, financial and operational resources required for robust strategy execution.
Make It Actionable
The key to success is taking this living strategic plan and turning it into concrete day-to-day actions across your organization. Assign owners, set deadlines, track progress in a project management system, and adjust based on results. A strategy must be operationalized to truly drive growth.
Following this 8-step process will allow you to develop a focused, effective business development strategy tailored to your goals. With robust execution, your company can continue growing and adapting to market changes. Revisit the plan regularly, and scale new heights of success!
How to create a business development strategy for your business
There are four main steps to take in creating a firm, reliable business development strategy.
Creating a successful business development strategy starts with identifying your ideal audience. Focus on specific firms or individuals that will propel your business forward. You don’t need to have a large audience, but you do need a high-quality one.
Business development can be a long process, and the relationships you develop may take months or even years to turn into a sale. The last thing you want is to foster a relationship with an unqualified prospect.
Once you have defined your audience, learn everything you can about them. Before you can encourage your audience to work with you, you have to be able to answer the following questions:
- What are their primary issues?
- What specific services do they need?
- How are they solving their problems right now?
- How does your product or service improve their current situation?
With these questions answered, you can start analyzing your competition. Understand what makes you different from all of your competitors. This is the competitive advantage that you will use to communicate your value to prospects.
Why you need a business development strategy
A strong business development strategy is the roadmap that instructs your team how to find and generate high-value leads to support your long-term goals.
Without a strategy, your team may struggle to find qualifying prospects or, at worst, spend months developing a relationship with prospects who don’t convert.
Business development is the creation of long-term value for an organization from customers, markets and relationships.
Scott Pollack, business development expert
Business Development Secrets – 3 Business Development Strategies
How to create a successful business development strategy?
There are four main steps to take in creating a firm, reliable business development strategy. Creating a successful business development strategy starts with identifying your ideal audience. Focus on specific firms or individuals that will propel your business forward. You don’t need to have a large audience, but you do need a high-quality one.
What is a business development strategy?
Now that you understand what business development entails, it’s time to create a plan to set your strategy in motion. When we refer to a business development strategic plan, we’re referring to a roadmap that guides the whole company and requires everyone’s assistance to execute successfully and move your customer through the flywheel.
What are some examples of business development strategies?
Some examples of tactics for a business development strategy include email campaigns, print advertising, direct mail, blog posts or trade shows. 7. Record the plan When you’ve determined the goals and methods for the business development strategy, record the plan on a document that you can share with team members and others in the company.
What is a business development strategic plan?
When we refer to a business development strategic plan, we’re referring to a roadmap that guides the whole company and requires everyone’s assistance to execute successfully and move your customer through the flywheel. With a plan, you’ll close more deals and quantify success. Let’s go over the steps you should take to create a strategic plan. 1.
