Business Development
‘Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.’ - Richard Branson
Generating new business is a crucial part of any organisation. The creation of new opportunities allows your business to grow financially. This, in turn, enables you to grow in physical size and to take on new staff.
What is Business Development?
Business development in basic terms, is the act of engaging with new customers and encouraging them to place orders with your business. However, when thinking about business development, your sights should be set on long-term gains rather than short-term sales. You want to encourage the customers to purchase from you over and over again, not just once.
Bringing in new customers can be challenging, but if you do it systematically and correctly, you will develop a good relationship with them and they will continue to buy from you into the future.
Why is Business Development Essential?
In my experience, business development is the main thing any business needs to focus on in order to remain successful (or become successful). There are four key benefits of business development, all of which can have a considerable impact on your company.
1. The generation of new sales.
Every single business needs to sell in order to survive. If you don’t sell, you don’t have a business. Even more established businesses need to generate new business avenues to maintain (and increase) the turnover and profit revenues they’ve established. They need to replace business that may have been lost to competition and customers who simply don’t require the product they’re selling anymore, perhaps because they’ve gone out of business themselves. To simply rely on your current customer base is dangerous. Although it can be tempting to rely on your existing customer base, if you are not bringing in new customers each month, then you run the risk of stagnating and you will consequently see a drop in revenue.
TOP TIP: It is important to not have more than 5% of your business with one customer. I have known some businesses close overnight because they’d become overly reliant on one customer to keep them afloat.
2. The creation of long-term value for your company.
By growing your business the right way, and by adopting a strategic approach to business development that puts the customer at the heart of it, you will create long-term growth and success. Longevity is a goal for all businesses, and this strategic approach to business development helps to protect you against challenges you may face in the future. The more customers you have, particularly repeat customers, the more stable the foundation of your business is.
3. Support to move into new markets.
If part of your plan is to move into new areas, business development will provide the backbone for this. By adopting a business development strategy for moving into the new area, you will be able to systematically and effectively move into that area and continue to grow.
Top Ten Tips for Business Development
We’re going to keep it simple and to the point. Here are the top ten tips you need to consider when you’re starting to establish a business development strategy.
1. Define your growth targets.
How will you know whether you’re successful if you don’t have goals to aim for? First and foremost, you need to set targets for your business. This might be the number of new clients you’d like to gain, revenue you want to make, or profit you want to achieve each month. Knowing your current numbers will support you to create these targets, as will knowing where you want to go.
2. Decide who your ideal customer is.
If you have an image in your head of what your ideal customer is, it can make it far easier to ensure that you’re targeting the right potential customers. Consider this, you already have several customers, why do they buy from you? What type of business are they? Do they have something in common with one another? Once you identify what your ideal customer is, you’ll have more clarity about which companies to set your sights on.
3. Find where your ideal customers are.
Once you already know what your ideal customer looks like, and you’ve established some growth targets, you need to find out where your ideal customers are. Industry networking events and exhibitions are often a great place to start, but you may also want to look at local trade associations or Chambers.
TOP TIP: If you join trade associations, you need to attend events and be active in order to get your desired results. It can take time. However, if you persist it will pay off. Remember, a strong network is key to business growth.
4. Be systematic in your approach.
Once you know who you want to target (potential ideal customers you have identified), you want to adopt a systematic approach. Don’t just go blindly contacting everyone all the time. This won’t achieve the results you are looking for and will waste your time. It is important to categorise each potential customer and lead into the following stage of the buying process, as this will inform you of what approach to take.
Suspect - people who are interested in what you sell, but may not have the budget or need to buy from you.
Prospect – your ideal customer. They are buying what you currently sell. You have qualified them and they may have the budget, the authority and the requirement to purchase from you.
Lead – prospects who are engaging with you. They have sent an enquiry and may now be ready to buy.
Buyer – has already bought from you.
Customer – people buying from you on a regular basis and are the cornerstones of your business.
The key is to move each potential customer along in the Sales Funnel process.
5. Keep track of your business development.
Keeping track of your business development allows you to monitor your success and to assess what is working and what isn’t. It is important to create a record of what you are doing, with whom, and where they are on their sales journey. It can be something as simple as a basic spreadsheet. It needs to tell you who you contacted, your contact with them, and where they are in their buying journey.
6. Keep on top of it.
I know that this is often easier said than done, but it is really easy to forget about planning for the future as you get busy. Daily tasks such as order processing, invoicing and ensuring goods are despatched on time are all fundamental aspects of your business and can find themselves at the top of your list of priorities. However, without one eye on business development, you will struggle to grow and you may see your business turnover decline with time.
7. Consider other market sectors.
You have already established what your ideal customer looks like, but perhaps there are others from different industries or sectors that you haven’t considered yet. Diversifying helps you to spread the risk, especially if one market sector goes into decline. If you are able to expand into other sectors, the risk decreases. In other words, you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.
8. Focus on marketing.
In the context of business development, by knowing who your ideal customers are and where you can locate them, you can adapt your marketing strategy in line with this. Having a targeting marketing approach will reap the rewards long-term and bring in new potential customers to the top of your sales funnel.
9. Prioritise the needs of your customer.
You should never focus on ‘selling’. When pushing for new business, it is really easy to fall into the trap of selling what your company does. Instead, you should learn more about your prospects. What do they need? Where do they buy from? If you understand their pain points, you will be able to offer solutions from your company, rather than pushing for a sale. Listen to and qualify your suspects, seize the opportunities that present themselves. Developing long-term relationships is a considerable asset for any business.
10. Persevere.
Don’t give up. Bringing in new customers to any business isn’t easy and at times it can be incredibly frustrating. You might work extremely hard on one prospect, get them talking and enquiring only for them to go elsewhere at the 11th hour. You need to persevere and keep the faith. Don’t let a ‘no’ knock you back.
