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1
Business Development Is the Bottom Line
If a sale is an individual transaction, then the organizationâs overall sales function should embody a broader perspective that can be referred to as business development. Itâs all about developing new business for your organization. Business development principles should be known and carried out in every nook and cranny of the organization, and by just about everyone in the organization.
It all works in a cycle. When your organization develops new products or services, the goal is attracting and retaining specific customers. Servicing customer accounts with honesty, accuracy, and integrity closes the loop on this cycle of business development by making sure that customers have no reason to leave you and every reason to stick around and provide very valuable referrals. And finally, every strategic plan has, at its core, goals to acquire and retain customers. Almost everything done in your organization has a clear and practical tie to good business development.
Assignment
Develop a transaction map that tracks your products/services. I challenge you to find an element that cannot be tied to business development. Separately, create a process list that details the steps that make up your formal sales activities. Make this fun by picking up a new box of crayons and invite everyone in the organization to come by and add their own contributions.
Documenting a complete business development continuum for your organization will help everyone recognize their existing inter-dependence.
Epilogue
The whole is worth far more than the sum of its parts.
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Marketing 101: Lots of Ways to Influence Sales
In order to make more sales, itâs a good idea to look at the wide range of methods you have available to influence customers and prospects. Often we lose sight of the fact that direct sales activities represent only one of many essential elements of an overall marketing mixâone tool in the business development toolbox. For some the term sales has become passĂŠ, even unseemly. The term marketing has been substituted in polite conversation in order to protect sensitivities. But just substituting the word marketing in place of sales has not changed the reality of the situation. Sales must be made if your organization is going to continue to stay in business.
Assignment
Make a list of the elements you know of from your marketing mix that impact your business development success. Rank them in order of importance and add categories you donât think are covered here. Keep the list; by the time you finish this book youâll be adding more!
Many things influence the prospect along the business development continuum, so it pays to understand the other elements in the marketing mix and how they might help you to make a sale.
Some of the elements that make up a typical marketing mix are advertising, public relations, Websites, pricing strategies, cross promotions, trade shows, special events, direct sales, and publishing and speaking.
Epilogue
There are 64 colors in the crayon box, and all of the colors can help you make a nice picture. There are more elements than you think.
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The Three-Phase Business Development Process
In the grand scheme of thingsâbusiness development things, that isâthere exists a basic, three-phase process:
⢠Phase One: Getting to Know You
⢠Phase Two: Formal Sales
⢠Phase Three: Customer and Account Management
Although it is easiest to describe this as a linear process, as if the prospect/customer moves along a flat continuum from one phase to the next, the fact is that all three phases represent a dynamic series of transitions and feedback. Phase One starts with the organization floating its image and message in the prospect /customer pool. When the potential prospect recognizes that your firm is one of its options for a solution to a problem, then we transition to Phase Two and Formal Sales. Once the sale is made we make the formal transition to Phase Three: Customer and Account Management.
Because most organizations tend to be stronger in one phase of the business development process than they are in the other two, the sales effort can sometimes lose momentum. It is important that everyone in the organization understands how each of these phases plays out and the impact they each have on business development success.
Assignment
Make a list of the strengths and weaknesses you feel your organization has in each of these phases.
Epilogue
Good things tend to come in threes.
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Trust- and Rapport-BuildingâItâs Still Sales
The first phase in business development begins with letting people get to know you. A great deal of the groundwork with prospects is laid out before you even get to meet them. They will make judgments about you based on your âbrand.â Your brand is who and what you are in the eyes of others. How, when, and what prospects learn about you, your organization, and your solutions in this early stage can have a dramatic impact on your success at moving them to sales.
For example, in a professional services environment, being known as a forward-thinking, approachable professional who participates openly in a local business association may be the perfect groundwork for this phase. You and the future prospect may not even know each other yet, but you have begun a path of trust by sharing a common interest and âbumping into each otherâ professionally.
Assignment
Become active in a professional, business, or community group that will put you in proximity of your future prospects, and let them get to know you.
Most small businesses donât have unlimited funds to perform expensive marketing activities. Choosing how you promote your organization in this phase will say a lot to potential prospects. Do you value similar things? Do you speak their language? The goal is to be well known to them by the time they need your particular product or service.
Epilogue
Time is money. Be truly present in the community you wish to serve.
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The Formal Sales Cycle: Parts Are Parts
The formal sales phase of the business development continuum is triggered when the prospect admits a specific need and recognizes your firm as a potential supplier of the solution. This is the point when a lead turns into a prospect. You will close more sales if you recognize the distinct components of this phase and keep your actions on track.
Discovery: Develop a systematic approach to gathering the customer information you need to develop a solution.
Proposal: The proposal represents your offer of services or products in response to the prospectâs request for assistance. If you have performed a discovery process, you will be able to speak to the situation much more completely than your competition. The proposal represents the technical aspects of the solution you propose.
Assignment
Think about creative ways to present your solutions to prospects. Think as a stage manager, an orchestra conductor, or even a high school teacher preparing an important lesson for a group of preoccupied teenagers.
Presentation: The presentation of the proposal document (or your product) is your opportunity to convince the prospect to choose your solution. Treat the presentation as an important appointment with your prospect regardless of whether it was pre-scheduled or not. Build a case for your solution by demonstrating that you understand the prospectâs situation, the desire for this type of product or service, and why your particular offer is the one that offers maximum satisfaction.
Epilogue
What you have to offer is not nearly as important as what your prospect thinks of it.
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They May Be Clients AlreadyâBut Itâs Still Sales
Once a sale has been made with a new customer you have triggered the third phase of the business development continuum: the customer/account management phase. It is important to note that this is not the end of the continuum. Customers represent the best source of add-on sales and qualified referrals, and the level of operational feedback that drives innovation and fuels public relations efforts. They may be customers, but some of your most productive sales activities will occur in and around these accounts.
Contracting: The prospect becomes a customer at the moment of agreement. Whether you have a retail transaction or a written agreement, or simply do business with a handshake, this represents an important transition in the relationship. The prospect has chosen you and can reinforce his or her own decision by inviting others to choose you as well.
Add-On Sales: If you effec...
