Key Strategies In Business Development For 2022

March 29, 2022

strategies in business development

Your strategies in business development may determine the success or failure of your company. It’s the critical component in turning your company into one with strong partnerships, promising clients, and greater profits. Creating a plan and implementing it correctly can help you and your entire firm achieve new heights of success and profitability.

many businesses

However, developing a reliable business development strategy is essential for long-term success and ensuring that everyone in your organization is working to achieve the same goal. But, how can you create a strong business development strategy?

Take a seat and stay awhile, as this blog post-dive in deep into that below. It will also discuss some common business development strategies you need to be aware of to stay ahead of the competition. Keep reading to learn more!

Business Development

Business development is discovering, attracting, and acquiring new business or customers to help your company achieve its revenue and growth objectives. It also benefits every individual at your firm, as it relates to and promotes rapid growth. How you accomplish these business goals is sometimes known as a business development approach.

business development plan

It’s not uncommon to confuse business development with sales, but there is a significant difference between them. Business development consists of a wide range of activities and responsibilities outside the typical sales team structure.

The business development function is included in specific organizations’ overall sales operation team. While in other firms, it’s a part of the marketing team or operates on its own.

What is a Business Development Strategy?

Business development consists of a wide range of activities and responsibilities outside the typical sales team structure.

The business development strategy is the document that outlines how you will accomplish your business goals and objectives. Business development is finding, nurturing, and acquiring new clients and business possibilities to promote company growth and profitability. Essentially, it entails the development of achieving long-term value for a business by creating customer value, market share, and positive relationships.

The Significance of Having a Solid Business Development Strategy

A solid business development tactic is the framework that guides your employee on how to find and create high-value leads that will ultimately help the company achieve its long-term business objectives.

Suppose you don’t have a good business development strategy. In that case, your personnel may find it difficult to identify qualified prospects or even waste precious time establishing relationships with leads who will never convert to sales.

existing customers

The scope of what business development entails varies from company to company. Professional service organizations generally follow a three-tier funnel strategy to generate new business. The first two phases are “attracting prospects and developing engagement,” typically marketing responsibilities and efforts.

While the final stage is “turning opportunities into clients,” which is generally handled by the sales team. This structure recommends that the firm develop a new business development strategy, including finding recent sales and distribution channels and new marketing partners.

The Four-Step Process

There are four key phases to consider when creating a solid, dependable business development strategy for your company. The following are the four stages:

1. Identify your Audience

You must first determine your target audience to develop a business development strategy to bring your company the most significant growth and sustainable possibilities. Concentrate on specific businesses, sector divisions, or individuals that you know will help your company grow.

business development processes

When it comes to your audience, think about quality rather than quantity. A large audience isn’t always required, but a high-performing one is always essential. It’s important to remember that business growth does not occur overnight. Strong relationships may take months, or even years, to turn into a sale.

Similarly, people who are not suitable will not reveal their inadequacies after your first encounter. This is why it’s critical to determine the precise target audience, so you don’t waste time developing a connection with an unsuitable prospect who will never close the deal.

2. Perform Market Research

After you’ve identified your target audience, the next step is to learn about them as much as possible. Before you can get them to collaborate with you, you must first be able to answer the below questions about your target audience:

  • What are the most critical challenges they’re facing?
  • What services are they looking for?
  • What is their current method of problem-solving?
  • How can your product or service assist them in improving their current situation?

Once you’ve got a response to the questions mentioned above, you may start analyzing your competition. Identify what differentiates you from your competition, and utilize that distinction as a competitive advantage while communicating value to prospects.

3. Determine the Most Effective Channels

After you’ve figured out who your target audience is, learned everything there is to know about them, and devised a strategy for differentiating yourself from the competition, you can begin planning how you’ll utilize the channels to reach your business goal and objective.

This entails analyzing your entire yearly revenue objectives and laying out the exact strategies you’ll employ to achieve them.

4. Define SMART Goals

Set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-related) objectives for each channel to assist you in measuring and monitoring your development.

business developer

Your company’s overall business development goals should not focus entirely on generating money and revenue. Still, it should include a component to bring new prospects into your sales funnel.

The Top Business Development Strategies to Use Today

As previously discussed, your company’s business development strategies can be described as channels through which you work to meet your overall revenue and business goals. The most effective business development strategies are listed below.

Through the efficient use and exploitation of these outreach approaches, businesses build effective business connections and partnerships.

1. Networking

As the most popular business approach, networking is based on the idea that established connections influence professional service buying decisions. The key to building solid ties is through face-to-face networking.

Many business connections continue to grow, and the advantages of direct networking with the target market are still significant. However, networking can be an ineffective technique in today’s market if misused.

business model

Digital buyers and prospects are time-pressed, and face-to-face networking is time-consuming, especially compared to the past. Also, it may be costly, especially if travel and time away from the workplace become routine.

Companies may use new digital networking methods to assist with the expense and time, turning networking into a digital outreach approach rather than a regular in-person meeting. Even social media necessitates an investment of time and attention that might be squandered if misused.

2. Referrals

Referrals are another form of networking that can assist you in securing new customers. They’re frequently thought to be how networking and client happiness lead to new business development.

A positive relationship with a pleased client may open the door to a vast network of new prospects, but depending on client referrals to generate new business is quite risky if it is your only approach to expanding as a firm. Referrals are great, but they’re passive.

The referrals approach relies on your clients to identify the most significant prospects for your services rather than creating a strategic advertising plan. They also require that they make referrals at the right time.

Even though successful referrals occur daily, referral sources are frequently unaware of the full range of how your goods or services may assist possible prospects, resulting in a lower success rate than if you out the outreach yourself. Fortunately, many new digital techniques can considerably speed up earning and making appropriate referrals.

A crucial component of this is increasing the exposure of your area of expertise. Your current customers will have a better idea of what you provide, resulting in an increase in conversions and a more extensive client base than just a few clients and business contacts.

3. Develop Long-Term Customer Relationships

Do you continue to engage with your clients after the transaction has been completed? If you haven’t already, it’s time to create a strategy for keeping your buyers engaged. It’s worth it to invest in developing long-term relationships with your clients.

strategic business development

Return clients are easier to convert since they account for a substantial portion of a firm’s revenue. It’s even better known than it takes five times longer to convert new customers than to re-sell existing ones.

Repeat customers are simpler to sell to and provide valuable feedback and suggestions about how you may improve your business operations. Moreover, client feedback and recommendations can also provide helpful information to entice your next consumer.

4. Leverage a Sales Plan to Determine Areas of Growth

A sales strategy is required to have a successful business development strategy. Your strategy should include a description of your target audience, potential hurdles, a “game plan” for salespeople, team responsibilities, and market conditions. If you’ve already created a sales plan, make sure it syncs with your business development efforts.

The sales plan impacts your sales team, but it can also influence the activities of your business development personnel. A sales strategy can assist them in determining where the company needs growth: whether it’s in a new vertical, a new demographic, or a new need that has recently emerged in the industry.

5. Sponsorships and Advertising

Paid advertising and sponsored partnerships are functional business development approaches. When traditional advertising methods fail to achieve their historical effectiveness in today’s era, using well-targeted digital advertising is essential.

market development

The secret to digital advertising is to identify your target demographic on their favourite platform and begin growing there. Create powerful, targeted video ads and run them on YouTube if your target audience is frequent YouTube users.

Invest in advertising on Twitter if they have a high engagement rate with your business on the platform. Appropriately positioned advertisements allow firms to reach the right individuals with their messages and offers without paying for broad, general advertising on numerous platforms.

6. Thought Leadership and Content Marketing

The business development approach is known as thought leadership, and content marketing aims to bring your expertise to light for potential customers and referral sources. As previously discussed, fine-tuning your referral procedure is necessary to guarantee that the proper knowledge is promoted among your referrals, but this can only be accomplished when your unique skill is entirely apparent.

These business goals may be met by writing or producing content that demonstrates your expertise and how it may be used to solve client problems. Professional business development techniques, such as ebooks, articles, and speaking engagements, have been around for a long time.

business development initiatives

Many high-visibility professionals have established their practices and businesses on this method. Changing times and technologies have altered how this technique may be utilized to its maximum potential, just like all other methods.

The rise of digital interaction has made it easier and quicker to demonstrate your knowledge to your target market than it was in the past. The internet has reduced the distance between customers and organizations, allowing even relatively unknown persons and firms to be discovered by potential consumers outside their physical region.

Webinars are popular, and a democratized version takes the place of public speaking, which previously dominated the market. Websites and blogs now give every company a constant presence on the market all day long.

How to Create a Strategic Plan

A strategic business development plan refers to a roadmap that drives the entire firm and needs everyone’s participation to succeed. However, you’ll close more business deals and measure your progress with a plan. The following are the stages you need to create a strategic plan.

1. Craft your Elevator Pitch

What is your company’s mission, and how will you explain it to your potential customers in 30 seconds or less? Keeping it at the top of all strategic planning will remind everyone why you’re doing what you’re doing and what you’re aiming for.

innovation management process

Some individuals think that the ideal pitch isn’t a pitch but rather a story. Some people prefer certain pitches, whether a one-word pitch or a Twitter pitch that narrows your elevator speech to 280 characters. Find the appropriate one that works well for your business development reps, company, and offer, and document it in your business development strategy.

2. Include an Executive Summary

You’ll discuss your strategic plan with executives and perhaps even board members, so they need a high-level overview to read. Choose the most significant parts of your strategic plan and list or summarize them here. If you’ve created a business proposal or value proposition, you may already have an executive summary for your organization.

Use this as a starting point, but make your own tailored to your company’s development goals and interests. After they’ve read your overview, they should be able to have an idea of where you’re heading for growth in the company — without having to read the rest of your development strategy.

3. Conduct a SWOT Analysis

Identify your business objective before beginning a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique that evaluates a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Once you’ve determined what you’re striving for, conduct market research by engaging your employees, business partners, and customers.

organizational growth

The next thing is to figure out what your company’s strengths are. Perhaps you have a tight-knit organization with low employee turnover, a presence in an accessible location that makes it easy to meet clients in person, or a unique selling proposition that your competitors haven’t been able to duplicate.

The next step is to identify your company’s weaknesses. Have you ever had an issue with your product’s functionality? Have you been unable to construct a customer support team that can satisfy the demands of your clients? Now to opportunities. Have you formed a new business relationship that will allow you to enter a previously untapped market sector?

What are your threats in the market? Do you find that your physical location is becoming filled up? What about your competitive space? Is there a lot of competition in the market? SWOT analysis can help you find a better approach for your firm by revealing areas where you may improve.

4. Determine How You’ll Measure Success

How will you track your business’ progress? Your team must understand how they’ll be graded, targeted, and rewarded. The following are some of the most critical performance indicators for business development:

  • Revenue
  • Company growth
  • Leads generated per month
  • Lead conversion rate
  • Pipeline value
  • Client satisfaction
  • Reach

5. Set a Budget

What will your budget look like for accomplishing your objectives? To establish a realistic budget, evaluate financial records, historical budgets, and operational estimates.

generate high value leads

After you’ve created a “draft” budget, compare it to other businesses in your field to ensure that you’re not omitting or misjudging any information. Don’t forget to include the cost of payroll, facility expenses, insurance, and other operational line items.

6. Identify Your Target Market

Who do you want to target with your business development effort? Your target audience is those you wish to sell your product/service to. For example, if you offer a collection of goods for Facility Management professionals at corporate-level organizations, your target market might be facilities or janitorial coordinators at corporations with 1,000+ employees. To find out who your target market is:

  • Examine your product or service in-depth
  • Take a look at your competition
  • Perform research
  • Choose criteria to segment by

The person who is most likely to acquire your product is your target customer. Do your research and double-check that your strategy plan addresses the appropriate individuals. After that, you will be able to expand your company.

The following are some of the appropriate outreach strategies: networking, referrals, upselling and cross-selling, sponsorship and ads.

7. Choose an Outreach Strategy

What strategies will you employ to entice new clients for your sales team to close new business deals? You might concentrate on one approach or a combination of several.

strategic partnerships

Once you’ve determined your target audience and where they congregate, you may use an appropriate outreach technique. The following are some of the proper outreach strategies: networking, referrals, upselling and cross-selling, sponsorship and ads.

Conclusion: How Key Strategies in Business Development May Improve Your Company

Many organizations find it more effective to integrate various business development approaches to best match their needs and achieve their defined objectives. It’s also critical to carefully select any strategies in business development to avoid the costs incurred from unsuccessful attempts to acquire new clients and business opportunities.

sales process

Good intentions, however determined, are of limited business development significance. It’s much more worthwhile to put forth a basic strategic plan than to experiment with complex ones to seek positive results. The fewer components you implement, the better your outcomes will be.

Finally, the success failure of your company is determined by your strong business development strategy. It should be a top priority to create a business strategy and an action plan to help you and your organization achieve new heights of success.

About the author: Joe Silk -

Joseph is a freelance writer who focuses on sharing our Startup Oasis team's abundant knowledge with the rest of the world. Our team has no secret for anything to do with Startups, SaaS software firms, technology, Web and mobile apps, IoT, UI/UX Design. View on Linkedin

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