3 Effective Business Development Strategies: Getting Started!

• by Yazan Rous
• July 9, 2017
• 5 Comments

Over the past few years, businesses all over the world have become aware of the importance of business developers. They recognize the value they bring to the organization. Still not all companies fully understand what business development managers do exactly.

If you are one of those people, please find the time to read this post: “What does it mean to be a business developer?”

Let us say you have just moved into a business development position from a sales or a marketing background. Big enterprises normally provide their employees with training and orientation. Small and medium size companies on the other hand usually lack such processes. If you find yourself confused about what to do, then keep on reading.

In this article we will discuss business development activities that successful business development managers adopt to ensure success in their work. These main strategies are divided into three main parts:

1. Business Development Activities
2. Enhancing Public Image
3. Increasing Market Exposure

In this article, we will attempt to provide a summarized review of what you as a business developer should do to add value to your company.

Business Development Activities

1. Market Research

Performing market research is highly important in order to understand your company’s current position and determine where it is headed. There are 3 steps I recommend for successful market research activities:

Perform research about the industry you are in, the geographical area you cover and the market segment you are targeting. There are many useful ready-made reports you can find online to get information about market trends and value. You can then calculate your market share out of the total market value.
Do research for contracts, bids and opportunities of cooperation with other companies. Your company can increase its revenue channels by seizing this opportunity.
Subscribe to industry-related databases, forums and blogs. These can be of great value to you, especially if you are in the construction or building industry. They provide detailed information regarding all projects within your area from concept to execution. This can save you plenty of time when collecting information and vastly reduce your market intelligence efforts. Use them wisely to gain leverage over your competition.

1.2 Competitive analysis

Once you learn everything you can about the products/ services your company offers, you proceed with competition research. You have to learn about your competition in order to understand where you stand. This will also help you determine your desired market positioning. You need to follow these steps in order to assess the competition:

• Determine your company´s top competitors (4-6 competitors).
• Set up a criteria or mechanism of comparison; choose different variables to use in order to compare, such as strengths/ weaknesses, price, product quality, exposure, brand reputation, etc.
• Try to find out what projects your competitors are targeting within your market segment; assess if you can develop an offering that can take clients away from them.
• Since you are a new business, competitors do not know you yet. Use this to your advantage: visit your competitors´ showrooms (if they have any) anonymously, like any regular customer and collect valuable input to use in your research.

1.3 Current Client Relations

1. Conduct warm calls with your existing clients, in order to assess the company´s current situation and what you doing right/ wrong. Assess your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats (SWOT Analysis) and ensure your clients are not being tempted by other competitors.
2. Build a close relationship with your clients, through the use of emails, phone calls, face to face meetings and technical product presentations in order to assess your client requirements and needs. Do not forget to provide them with the latest copy of your marketing material.
3. Follow up, Follow up, Follow up, do not push hard, but also do not give up easily, 80% of B2B sales are conducted after the 5th encounter.

1.4 Reach out to new clients

1. Identify your main target audience sectors, and then categorize the main companies you want to approach within these sectors.
2. Conduct cold calls with the desired company and arrange meetings in order to identify their current supplier or service provider; find out why they are currently working with that supplier/ service provider and if they were happy with their current provider; then tailor your sales pitch based on the given feedback to win the business.
3. Email your marketing materials to existing clients & potential clients within your target audience in order to raise awareness about the latest products you added or new services you provide.
4. Follow up, Follow up, and Follow up! Don’t push too hard but also do not give up. There are several email tracking tools that you can use, these can be useful as you will find out instantly when a certain person has checked your email. Therefore you are always in the know if something comes up and when you should give your client a call.

1.5 Networking Events

As a BDM, spending your whole day inside the office will not be the best use of your time. You need to dedicate your time as well to meet people related to your market. Attending networking events can be of great value to you. Not only you get to meet new people, you will learn new things about your market as well. Attend industry-related networking events, exhibitions, seminars, conferences and trade shows to be in contact with new, potential clients. Having a booth in the exhibition/fair is an advantage. However make sure it presents a good image and reflects the company brand identity. Otherwise it may reflect as unprofessional or cheap.
Attend as many industry related events as you can. Make sure you follow up with a thank you email to everyone you meet the following day.

2. Enhancing the Public image

This strategy addresses the company’s image and how it is perceived by its different stakeholders. The company is a brand, and like any brand, you cannot control the way clients perceive it. However you can always try to influence your audience perception. This can be achieved through the following:

2.1 Website

1. You can work with the marketing division or marketing specialists on enhancing the company website, making it more user-friendly, with a clear call-for-action message in order to convert views into actions. A poorly designed website can drive people away from your business and can make you lose customers before they get the chance to know your product / service.
2. Make sure your website is ‘responsive’. Responsive means that your website is able to adapt to multiple browsers and can fit to multiple screen sizes, depending on the device used to view it (PC, Tablet, Laptop, Mobile, etc).
3. Proofread your website content and make sure there are no punctuation or grammar mistakes; also your font must be clear enough to read without problems. These small mistakes can go unnoticed most of the time; however for clients with an eye for detail, your company will be perceived as unprofessional or of low quality.
4. Use only high quality images on your website; low quality images may reflect a bad image or poor quality. Consider hiring a professional photographer to take some shots of staff in the office or engineers working on site. These photos can be used on the website and for other marketing purposes, so don’t forget to archive these photos and label them for easy use in future.
5. Consider adding the organizational chart of your company to the website, at least for upper management. This could ease the life of the website viewers as it would be clear who does what inside the organization, and who they need to contact.

2.2 Branding

There should be only one integrated communication theme that governs all the aspects of your brand. Whether online or offline your brand must reflect consistency.
Creating and implementing the suggestions below in compliance with your brand guidelines will ensure your company image is unified, cohesive and professional. Addressing your customers in English is also important. You also need to consider your target audience, therefore adding the native language of your target audience is as important.
Your marketing material should include:

• Company Profile
• Generic Company Brochure
• Product Catalogues
• Branded Folder
• Branded CD’s
• Customer testimonials
• Press Releases
• A unified presentation template, also making sure all employees use it.
• Short 1-3 minutes promotional videos that promote the company and its products to be used on multiple platforms (YouTube, Exhibitions, Reception area, etc.).
• A unified company signature for emails, making sure all employees use it.

2.3 Office

Ensuring your company offices reflect the company brand image includes:

• Reception Area equipped with marketing materials and business cards displayed in an attractive manner, available as takeaways for visitors.
• Company videos displayed on loop in the waiting area, giving visitors an opportunity to know more about your business while waiting.
• Proper Signage displayed in the company common areas, clearly displaying the company name and logo.
• Common areas and staff offices must be clean, tidy, uncluttered and inviting; bathrooms must remain clean at all times.
• Make sure that snacks and hot beverages are available at all times for visitors, served in an attractive dishware.
• Your conference room should always be ready to accommodate guests, trainings, seminars and meetings; therefore it should be equipped with a screen or projector, a laser pointer, teleconferencing equipment and a white board.

3. Increasing market exposure

3.1 Optimize your online presence

Conduct an online reputation management research, this would ensure that all articles, posts, videos and comments out there present your brand in a positive manner.
Develop your company presence over different social media platform and ensure you choose your platforms according to your target audience (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.)
Develop content to post on your different social media platforms, such as press releases, success stories, case studies, promotional videos, ongoing training activities, testimonials, etc.
Increase your online exposure by applying search engine optimization techniques to enhance your online visibility.

Conclusion

By applying the above strategies, you can get ahead of your colleagues and show a professional image in front of your superiors. Make sure you get upper management support for your actions. Present them with a plan of what you want to do. They need to believe that what you are doing is in the best interest of the company. You will find that without upper management support, accomplishing the above strategies will be difficult if not impossible.