Definition of Growth and Development in Business
Have you ever heard the term 'business development' thrown about during meetings and get the feeling that no one actually knows what it means?
via GIPHY
Well, let us dive into some of the most important things to know about this term and its growth potential role for a business.
We've all seen roles advertising for a "Development Executive" or "Development Manager" or perhaps the more punchy "Development Strategist", and even the big bad "VP of Business Development".
If you're a small business owner, you might end up going to a Business and Development center for advice.
But what do these roles actually mean? 🤔
What Is Business Development?📌
Business development (BD) is essentially any activity or idea that aims to make a business better over time.
This means making use of customers, implementing strategic partnerships, using your markets and building your company's reputation. 📈
BD roles at any level, from executives through to VPs, are looking at how they can make the business grow their increased revenue, physically expand and develop, while fostering strategic and long-term partnerships in the process.
🤔 So why is there so much confusion about what this is and what it means?
A development professional tends to talk to multiple departments:
- Sales
- Finance
- Marketing
- Customer Services
- Legal
- Strategic management
- Product launches
- Growing brand awareness
This explains why people often confuse Marketing with Business Development.
The Difference Between Business Development And Marketing 🤝
Marketing is the process of creating, relaying, and delivering offerings that have value to your customers or strategic partners. Identifying every growth opportunity that is available is key.
Whereas your business professional will look for ways to appeal to target markets, your marketing team will adapt their marketing skills and marketing budget to create the material that allows for that target appeal to happen, creating a complementary partnership and long-term relationships.
The professionals might develop the plan, while the marketing team creates marketing content and copy.
However, whereas content creation can be easily outsourced to freelancers, agencies, or even college writing services, a development expert should know your company inside out.
Success comes when both departments work together to ensure the successful marketing of a product, based on the development and research informing the subsequent marketing material.
How Will A Business Grow In Different Areas?
- Building strategic partnerships for future business growth, and considering potential partners in business.
- Looking at their existing markets and development opportunities.
- Growing company reputation with a well grounded business plan.
Bridging The Gap Between Your Customer And Your Product 🌉
Let's face it, without your customer you wouldn't have a business. They pay for what you're selling and are the reason why your business will fly or fall.
Development professionals will look at the relationship between what you're selling (or what you could sell) and what the customer actually needs, to align the gap and provide something of added value, and build upon existing strong relationships.
It aims to bridge the gap between your customer and your product. Take a car company selling a new sports car as an example.
You might be selling the latest model but are seeing a decline in sales. It turns out your customer is being sold a car with everything you think they need - parking sensors, interior Wi-Fi, the full works.
But they have to pay X amount more, and they don't need those additions, so they would rather go to another car company instead that sells their product for less money and with fewer gadgets.
What Will Your Development Professional Do?
- Look at customer interaction with a product to establish the issue.
- Talk to the product development team to create the product the client wants.
- Work with marketing to develop the new branding and rollout.
- Generate potential leads before passing them on to the sales department.
- Look at new strategic partnerships to help reach the customer.
Growing Those Strategic Partnerships 🌱
Strategic partnerships are any relationships with other organizations that can help you grow your customer base, focus on an ideal customer, move into new markets, or help your business to develop unique strengths it didn't have previously.
This is essential to develop any size of business, from the smallest of new start-ups through to huge established corporations.
Traditionally, a larger company may provide the infrastructure or capital while the smaller business offers the expertise in a particular skill that the more prominent company needs.
- Cross-publishing collaborations are the perfect way to see how strategic partnerships can be beneficial for business development.
- Academic publishing has been hugely disrupted by a mandate that all scientific, peer-reviewed publications should be made open access.
A larger publisher might suffer in this climate, as it is harder to make business model changes on a company-wide level quickly and effectively.
The development professional in that large company might look to a smaller publisher with expertise in changing subscription journals over to the acceptable open access model. The smaller company will benefit from the larger company's investment in its technical expertise.
The Development Professional Would:
- Source the strategic partners that can provide them with the technical expertise.
- Develop and work with them to grow the business relationship.
- Work out what the strategic partner wants and how this will benefit them in other ways (if it isn't just the financial benefit).
- Negotiate the cost and outline the contract terms.
Strategic partnerships work at every level, from maintaining positive relationships with the press to establishing good relationships with your key suppliers.
Business development strategy works to establish beneficial relationships that will grow the business by increasing profit, reach, knowledge, and reputation.
Moving Into And Understanding Markets🧐
- What Should Your Development Professional Do?
- Growing Your Company Reputation
- Developing Ethics & Transparency
- Roles And Responsibilities
Understanding your markets is mainly about understanding your customers on a wider level, and leveraging this understanding will help with business growth.
Here's what Matt Janaway from MarketingLabs has to say:
"Understanding your target customer no matter what market you want to move into is the only way you'll succeed. You need data to support your decisions and to ensure you're making the right steps to get the best results. Your research can't stop once you've decided to take the plunge with a new market though.
Continued testing, research and strategy adjustments are key to ensure you are delivering the right messaging to your new audience, even when you have established your business within a market.
Just because something worked well before doesn't mean you can't get it to work better with a few tweaks based on what your data is telling you."
If you're doing this without the help of a strategic partner, then your development professional will need to research or work with a team that understands the potential market's purchasing tendencies and culture, while also establishing whether developing into that market will ultimately benefit the business.
Let's consider that a company is looking to expand into market X, but wants to know whether their product Y will be a hit with their customers.
Your business professional needs to find out how the potential customer will react to the product, whether it will be of value to them, and whether the success in that market will help grow the business.
Just because something worked well before doesn't mean you can't get it to work better with a few tweaks based on what your data is telling you.
What Should Your Development Professional Do? 💼
via GIPHY
- Work with the market research team or consultant to conduct market analysis.
- Analyze how the customer would react to the proposed product with marketing tools.
- Speak to the marketing team who adapts the branding to the target culture.
- Establish potential sales leads and pass these on to sales.
- Decide whether this market move will ultimately benefit the business.
Growing Your Company Reputation ✊
Company reputation is key to business growth.
Customers won't buy your product if they don't trust you, and partnerships can't be strategic if people don't want to work with you, while markets won't pick up your products if they don't know who you are.
People need to recognize your brand and product for all the right reasons.
Another important aspect to consider is product adoption. How are your customers reacting to your product? The ability to measure and increase the product might prove valuable in the long run.
Developing Ethics & Transparency👐
A company's reputation will grow if it markets itself as an ethical and transparent company and the development strategist ensures that the business is fulfilling all the customer's needs without cutting any corners ethically.
Growing employee loyalty is just as crucial as developing customer loyalty. Happy employees represent a company that operates with integrity and transparency, as people tend to trust an organization that treats its staff well.
As well as maintaining transparency in its interactions with clients, organizations, and employees, keeping to an environmentally friendly policy is also vital for the business to develop as an ethical establishment.
Global companies often lose clients because they have overlooked an unethical warehouse where people manufacture their goods, or they have disposed of their waste in a harmful way.
The development professionals will look at core company values and make sure they align with fundamental human rights and environmental policies.
Roles And Responsibilities 👀
The role of a development professional will vary from company to company.
A small company might have the business executive looking at overall company growth, while larger teams might have each member dedicated to a particular project, like a product or market launch.
Job titles across different companies could be:
- Development Executive
- Development Strategist
- Development Manager
- Development Director
- Development Consultant
- Development Representative
- Development Associate
- Development Analyst
- Development Officer
As some companies do see the business development role as overlapping with sales or marketing, you might find smaller companies merge the roles or fall under different business functions entirely.
Business Development Skills📑
As with any role, there is a set of fundamental skills that will lead you to thrive in a development position.
Here are our top 10 recommendations for what would make you successful in the role and create opportunities for growth. We've put a couple of them together as sometimes you can't have one skill without the other.
- Research And Strategy
- Analytically Minded
- Communicative And Collaborative
- Creative Thinking
- Project Management
- Goal-Oriented
- Negotiation
- Resilience
- Critical Thinking And Decision Making
- Staying Humble
1. Research And Strategy
Researching cutting-edge industry trends, new product potential, and market expansion is an essential part of the role. Checking out small business blogs and learning more can be highly beneficial.
Strategizing what to do with your research is necessary for implementing the work as you'll need to have an action plan to take your research from theory into practice.
Being customer-focused is excellent, but only if you can give the client what they want without costing your business too much money.
Expectation management is an integral part, as it's walking the fine line between offering the client a fantastic product while still making a profit.
2. Analytically Minded
You need to be able to spot patterns and trends in a wide range of information, from reports and datasets to articles and industry research, to succeed in business development.
Drilling down to the core problem is also essential for planning and strategizing along the way.
3. Communicative And Collaborative
Whether you're pitching to a new client, running a cold calling campaign, or encouraging different departments to work with you (or each other).
Having outstanding interpersonal skills is essential for successfully managing many aspects of a business development project. Being willing to help others is also a vital element of strategic partnerships.
4. Creative Thinking
Businesses can grow only if the development department has new and innovative ideas.
Creative thinking about launching products or solving problems is essential for overcoming obstacles to growth and creating something unique for your clients.
5. Project Management
You're going to have a lot on your plate, and being hyper-organized is the key to success.
Running each new development opportunity as a project will provide you with an overarching strategy, a set plan, and a budget to work with.
It also allows you to spin many plates in one, go through implementing timeline management having excellent planning skills.
6. Goal-Oriented
Good business developers will be working towards a set goal. Which new product will reach the customers? And will entering this new market benefit the company?
Working towards established and quantifiable goals, and enjoying the achievements, or learning from failures, will make you an asset to a business development team.
7. Negotiation
You might not be on the sales team, but you'll need to know how to negotiate.
Whether you're trying to secure a new client account, negotiate a good deal with a supplier or strategic partnership that has long-term value, negotiation is a crucial part of business development.
8. Resilience
You're going to be pulled in 100 different directions, and you'll need buckets of resilience to learn from mistakes and pick yourself up after your failures.
There'll be times when you won't know whether something was successful, and you'll have to keep working through those uncertainties.
9. Critical Thinking And Decision Making
Making decisions and having logical thinking is essential for ensuring business growth and project success, especially while under pressure.
You'll be the person people look to for solutions or advice, so you'll need to make logical decisions both for short and long-term planning that all reach a common goal.
10. Staying Humble
Last but not least, your ability to stay humble will ensure that you keep growing and improving your success rate.
Success has a way of getting to our heads, and this can hamper new business relationships and set you back. Be open to learning from everyone and anyone.
Business Development vs Sales📈
If business development is the process of researching new products and where they will fit into a new market, then sales is the process of selling the product successfully to that market.
You cannot sell the product without first putting the development legwork in, but you won't make money and develop your business without selling its message to potential clients.
The Customer, The Product & The Market 🙌
The development arm of a business will look at identifying your ideal customer/s and finding out what product they want, then developing the product and making sure it's a good fit in the current market.
Finally, the professionals would take care of maximizing the referrals from the existing customers.
In essence, it's lead generation as you develop a list of potential new opportunities (your target market).
It's all the work you put in to make sure that you're selling the right product to the right market, and securing growth opportunities for your business.
Sales: Successfully Selling Your Product To The Customer💸
Sales are the team that takes forward the selling of the product once you've carried out all your background product and market testing and sending it out through the correct sales channels.
To successfully maximize your sales in the market, you'll need a flourishing sales team with established KPIs that increase in size as your product becomes more successful and make sure that all leads are processed through the sales funnel.
The chosen KPIs may change depending on your business and its sales cycle.
A successful salesperson's sales tasks should include:
- Handling prospecting,
- Pitching to the stakeholders
- Converting qualified leads
- Effectively bringing new business to your company within their sales role
- Creating appealing invoice letters
A Combined Role: Where The Two Overlap 📰
In larger companies, the sales team might not have time to chase up all the leads generated by the development team.
In fact, hiring an intermediary in a Sales Development role can help ratify a sales lead from Biz Dev before it gets passed on to the Sales Executives for follow-ups, freeing up their time to spend on successful sales.
Alternatively, the Sales Development role might source leads, while the Development team focuses on product development and market expansion.
When Things Go Wrong😱
via GIPHY
What are some of the Business Development mistakes?
Companies often have a lower success rate if they don't understand the need for independent Sales and Business Development teams.
If a company expects its Sales team to blindly sell a product to a market that doesn't need it or generate all the leads themselves, they won't have time to sell the product successfully, or it will become futile as the customer doesn't want that product.
Or, the company hires too much of one and not enough of the other.
A sales team without any leads is starting from scratch and selling blind, whereas a business development team with a small sales arm might research their products and market perfectly, but have no one to sell to.
Having strong relationships with partners will also encourage effective communication in all facets of the development role, making sure all teams are kept in the loop.
Business Development Tools🔧
A key factor of development in a business, is saving time, and giving professionals enough time to focus on key business areas.
- Close
- HubSpot
- Amelia
- Pipedrive
- Streak
- Copper
- Prezentor
- Calendly
- Proposify
- DottedSign
- EngageBay
- Trello
- Appointy
Tools like fully-integrated sales and marketing CRMs, sales management tools, or software that syncs to your email and allows you to manage documents on the go are all perfect for the development professional.
Here are our top 12 tool recommendations for assisting development in a business and why we think these are useful.
Important disclosure: we're proud affiliates of some tools mentioned in this guide. If you click an affiliate link and subsequently make a purchase, we will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you (you pay nothing extra).
1. Close
Close is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool that saves time with email automation, predictive dialers, and calling, all in one easy-to-access place. Unlike other CRM tools, its highly automated features save valuable time and are extremely easy to access.
Close has some impressive integration options with platforms like Zoom, Slack, Asana, Gmail and so much more.
With Close, you can interact with your entire team with great collaboration tools and ensure that nobody is left in the dark about any project.
The UI with Close is simple to use and everything you need is easily accessible.
Pros
- Simple UI
- Great automated email function
- Excellent for outbound sales
Cons
- Technical support needs improvement
Price
Close has four pricing plans.
- The first is the starter, great for small teams at $29/month.
- The second is the basic plan, suited for outreach at $69/month.
- The third is the professional plan, ideal for teams looking to automate their entire email platform at $99/month.
- The fourth and final plan is the business plan, best for CRM and sales optimization at $149/month.
2. HubSpot
HubSpot is a fully integrated CRM that acts as a one-stop-shop for all your marketing, sales, and customer service needs. It's the perfect CRM for business development as it provides all your business analytics and sales funnel in one functional space.
As seen in the image above, there are various hubs to choose from.
If your team is focused on marketing, sales or other services, HubSpot can cater to every business need. HubSpot has recently added a new hub to its family, known as the 'Operations Hub'.
This hub focuses on everything you need to make sure your business strategy is succeeding.
One of HubSpots features that stands out, is its ability to target your specific audiences. This ensures that the marketing or sales team knows of all the important steps.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Effective email integration
- Quality free version
- Educational knowledge hub
Cons
- Can be buggy
- Updates frequently
Price
HubSpot has four pricing plans.
- The first plan is free.
- The second plan the starter and is best for small to medium sized teams at $45/month.
- The third plan is the professional plan and is suited for medium to large sized teams at $800/month.
- The fourth plan is the enterprise plan and is ideal for large companies at $3200/month.
3. Amelia
Amelia is a simple yet powerful automated booking specialist, working 24/7 to make sure your customers can book appointments or events and pay online even while you sleep.
The Amelia WordPress booking plugin will fully automate the interaction with potential customers, help them pick the right service and employee, take care of the payments, real-time SMS reminders both for the customer and employee for booked, canceled, or rescheduled appointments.
Amelia is easy to navigate, and you do not need to worry about any training to use the software. It's integration with Google Calendar makes it an attractive option for businesses.
Pros
- Updated features
- Simple UI
- Many features
- Good calendar synchronization
Cons
- Customer service needs work
- Occasionally glitches
Price
Amelia has three pricing plans.
- The first plan is the basic one at $59/year.
- The second plan is the pro plan at $109/year.
- The third and final plan is the developer plan at $249/year.
4. Pipedrive
Pipedrive fully automates leads from chatbots and web forums, saving you time spent on lead generation. Integrated insights and AI allow for quick and easy reporting on key business areas
Your marketing department or sales teams will enjoy managing leads and potential clients with Pipedrive.
Pipedrive offers many collaborative business opportunities, from being able to use on mobile and integrate with other apps, while maintaining communication with team members, it stands out.
Pipedrive has an impressive deal closing statistic. Users can expect to close 28% more of their deals after a year of using Pipedrive.
Pros
- Simple UI
- Good sales pipeline management
- Nice integrations
Cons
- Technical service can be improved
- Mobile app can be improved
Price
Pipedrive has four pricing plans.
- The first plan is the essential plan at $12.50/month.
- The second plan is the advanced plan at $24.90/month.
- The third plan is the professional plan at $49.90/month.
- The fourth and final plan is the enterprise plan at $99.00/month.
5. Streak
Streak is incorporated into your Gmail and automatically pulls information from your contacts and emails to save you time on data input. It manages your sales pipeline and ensures you are always kept up to date with reminders and tasks.
It's perfect for business development professionals who use Gmail extensively.
With Streak, expect simple navigation and task organization. Users who use Streak praise it for its functionality and multipurpose features/tools.
Whether you are in the office or on the go, Streak offers effective features on all its platforms.
Pros
- Good Gmail integration
- Simple UI
- Sufficient features with free version
Cons
- Occasional syncing issues
- Slow loading time now and then
Price
Streak has four pricing plans.
- The first plan is free.
- The second plan is for solo professionals at $15/month.
- The third plan is the pro plan at $49/month.
- The fourth and final plan is suited for enterprise at $129/month.
6. Copper
Copper is perfect for small business development professionals. It integrates Gmail and G-Suite, allowing you to align business leads in one place for your sales and business development teams.
One of Copper's new features is its ability to send you custom business reports and keep you updated with all you need to know.
You are able to personalize and adjust all your business needs in the report settings to make sure you are getting the accurate information you need.
With Copper, you can also track all your leads in a simple-to-use UI and set up a pipeline that is best suited for you and your business needs.
Pros
- Good Gmail integration
- Effective automation of data entry
- Simple UI
- Good mobile version
Cons
- Have to pay for better features
- Customer support can be hard to reach
Price
Copper has three pricing plans.
- The first plan is the basic plan at $25/month.
- The second plan is the professional plan at $59/month.
- The third and final plan is the business plan at $119/month.
7. Prezentor
Prezentor enables salespeople to save time before, during, and after a sales meeting. They give you highly personalized sales content that is interactive and adapts to the customer's interest, improving the customer dialogue and win rate.
All with sales analytics, so your salespeople and business developers know what to focus on in any given situation.
This is an excellent sales management tool that manages how you communicate with clients via email, social media, and via your phone.
Manage your data and sales with sales automation tools that tell you exactly what the client wants. Prezentor users have reported an increase in sales and an increased interest by clients in the presentation data tools.
Prezentor aids in communicating hard to understand topics by breaking them down and having the clients see the bigger picture and have a better understanding of the services offered.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Effective data collection
- Creates nice presentations
Cons
- Not easy to amend presentations
- Switching between applications can be tiresome
Price
Prezentor has three pricing plans.
- The first plan is for individuals getting started at $22/month.
- The second plan is for professionals at $41.64/month.
- The third and final plan is for experts and large teams at $68.25/month.
8. Calendly
Calendly is perfect if you're trying to sync meeting times across international teams, as it allows you and your co-workers to view one calendar and suggest times that work for everyone.
Calendly not only allows for syncing of meetings but also allows for easy collaboration between teams with an overall view on each team member's tasks. Calendly integrates with many useful apps like Zoom, Slack and HubSpot, just to name a few.
With Calendly, you can rest easy knowing your calendar will never be double booked again.
Pros
- Simple UI
- Nice integrations
- Organized
- Easy meeting scheduling
Cons
- Not a wide variety of customization
Price
Calendly has four pricing plans.
- The first plan the basic plan which is free.
- The second plan is the premium plan for small teams at $8/month.
- The third plan is the pro plan for teams and businesses at $12/month.
- The fourth and final plan is the enterprise plan and the price is determined based on the needs of the business.
9. Proposify
Proposify streamlines the sales process, so all your sales templates, proposal content, pricing and sign off are all located in one place. Proposify also allows for monitoring of proposal interaction with templates to inform reach out.
Proposify gives you insights into the best content and sales presenting for your proposal to ensure you can close your sales deals with confidence.
You can customize and personalize your proposals based on your client's needs and wants, getting straight to the point.
With Proposify you can monitor your sales teams and reps at anytime, giving them the information they need at different stages of the closing process.
Pros
- Highly customizable
- Large variety of templates
- Simple UI
- Time saver
Cons
- Slow functionality at times
- Occassionally crashes
Price
Proposify has three pricing plans.
- The first plan is free and for solo professionals.
- The second plan is the team plan at $49/month.
- The third and final plan is the business plan at $590/month.
10. DottedSign
DottedSign is an eSignature and document management tool developed by Kdan Mobile that is flexible, simple and fast, saving you time. It is ideal for managing signatures on the go.
With DottedSign, you can sign off on deals from anywhere, your mobile device or desktop.
All tasks that are needed for signing are stored in one place, making it easily accessible and hassle-free.
DottedSign is environmentally friendly, without the need for physical paper documents, you can rest assured knowing you are contributing to the health of the planet too.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Convenient
- Sends email reminders
Cons
- Can be buggy
Price
DottedSign has four pricing plans.
- The first plan is free.
- The second plan is the pro version at $4.99/month.
- The third plan is a business plan at $47.49/month.
- The fourth and final plan is for enterprise and cost is determined.
11. EngageBay
EngageBay is a single, unified and affordable digital platform for small and medium businesses that combines marketing automation, sales automation, ticketing helpdesk, and a free CRM, all in a single solution.
With features such as Email Marketing, Lead Generation tools, Contact Management, Deal Pipeline, Telephony, Email Sequences, full-service Help Desk Automation and many others, EngageBay is a complete solution for a business marketing, sales and service needs.
EngageBay's software is easy to use, with a simple UI. It has integrations with Zapier, Shopify, Quickbooks, and many more.
Pros
- Feature-rich
- Easy to use in general
- Good customer support
Cons
- Some navigation elements can be improved
Price
EngageBay's all-in-one plan has four pricing options.
- The first plan is free.
- The second plan is a basic plan at $10.79/month.
- The third plan is the growth plan at $35.99/month.
- The fourth and final plan is the pro plan at $57.59/month.
12. Trello
Trello is all about team collaboration and how you can use this SaaS software to manage all your projects in one place.
As your team grows, you can customize and personalize projects and tasks, while keeping team spirit up in the process. Easily integrate tools like Dropbox, Google Drive, Slack and more to enhance productivity.
Trello has a simple UI and impressive automation. With Trello, the whole team is kept up to date and nobody gets left behind.
Pros
- Simple UI
- Organized
- Nice integrations
- Effective project management
Cons
- Could have more templates
Price
Trello has four pricing plans.
- The first plan is free.
- The second plan is for small teams at $5/month.
- The third plan is for larger teams at $10/month.
- The fourth and final plan is for enterprise and for 25 users it is $17.50/month, this can change based on your requirements.
13. Appointy
Appointy is a multi-functional online scheduling software for marketing, sales, customer success, and business development teams that eliminates the need for back-and-forth emails to find the perfect time to meet.
It automates meeting scheduling throughout your sales pipeline so you can save time and focus on qualifying, winning, and serving more leads faster.
Trusted by 45,000+ growing businesses and mid-large enterprises to reduce admin tasks, Appointy can help you manage your meetings, send automated SMS/email reminders, integrate with iCal, Google, and Outlook calendars, schedule resources & employees, make data-driven decisions - all from one easy-to-use interface.
Remember The Importance Of Networking📱
When talking about BD, we cannot forget one of the most important contributions to a successful business, that is networking.
Networking helps to meet other BD professionals and that way, you expand on your expertise but interacting with new ideas from different professionals, and venturing out to find new growth opportunities.
Trade Shows are one of the best places to meet development professionals and throw ideas around.
Nowadays, social media networks like LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook Business help BD professionals to reach out to a wider audience at the click of a button.
It is one thing to network and create a platform for conversation and prospective relations in the future, but you need to maintain those networking relationships too in order to grow your business and keep up to date with trends.
Networking can help you form an idea of some of the best strategic business decisions that need to or can be made to fit your own business.
You Are Ready To Succeed 💯
With all this guide provides, you are set to go out and implement strategies that will work for your business.
via GIPHY
It takes time to build a solid business foundation, but once it has been established, the opportunities for growth are endless.
Use the tools mentioned to help you achieve your short-term and long-term development goals.
Definition of Growth and Development in Business
Source: https://marketsplash.com/business-development/
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