In today´s business world, you have to be a lean business developer and work for a company that’s constantly able to follow new trends if you don´t want to be left behind. More than that, if your company is able to create new trends, it will stay ahead of the competition and turn into a market leader. As a business developer, you have probably asked yourself many times what your role is in keeping the company agile and on top of its competitors. Below I´m listing a few pieces of advice that I have gathered from my experience as a biz dev throughout the years.
1. Always set yourself new and higher goals.
If you set your mind to be the kind of business developer that always competes with himself / herself, then you are bound to achieve success in your endeavours. There are a few steps to follow in order to achieve this:
- Look upon your business with a critical eye. Notice its good and bad aspects and set upon improving things that are not working. Just because your company is making a good profit, it doesn´t mean it can’t make more.
- Find ways to improve operations . A lot of times companies are hindered in their operations by avoidable bottlenecks related to bureaucracy or company procedures. These can be smoothed out by streamlining operations and even getting rid of unnecessary ones.
- Analyze your business thoroughly on a regular basis. Avoid being bogged down by issues that could slow down the business. It´s not about fixing obvious issues, but about looking into more detail and unveil hidden ones.
2. Work together with your team.
A business developer´s job involves both working alone, but also bringing input to the table when you have team meetings. Employees should always be aligned with company goals and if you work in a team you should all be on the same page. Together you can constantly do research on the competition, improve your company’s offering, propose solutions and oversee their implementation. Take advantage of your team’s input and use tips your colleagues give you about potential leads. Simply reacting to market trends is not an option. You should always be proactively involved in your job and on the lookout for new opportunities to do business.
3. Don´t self-indulge.
It´s easy to become self-indulgent and start taking it easy if your company is making a decent profit. But what a biz dev should avoid is just that and there are ways to avoid creating a comfort zone for yourself.
- Consistently evaluate how the solutions you are selling evolve and
whether people continue to need them . You should for instance look for forums
where people talk about your product or similar products, blog entries and comments
on blog posts or have your company start a blog if it doesn´t already have one. - Take immediate measures if sales are slowing down. If the sales for your
product / service are starting to slow down, don´t wait until it´s too late, but
brainstorm with your team or colleagues for solutions. - Look into the competition´s activity. Do research into the number of clients
they have, what they are selling and how they are selling it. How do they get in touch
with potential clients? Choose the most appropriate communication channels that
reflects your company’s image: email, Twitter, promotional events, etc.
4. Accept that you will make mistakes.
As a business developer, you will have to take risks and taking risks also involves making mistakes and learning from them. Sometimes you need to put in a lot of effort until you make a sale and it doesn´t always work. But as long as you keep your confidence levels up and maintain a never-give-up-attitude, you stand a good chance of gaining new clients. Your mindset should be focused on the idea that mistakes are made to be learned from. It’s also important to plan ahead and have a plan B. A rescuing idea can be of much use when an initial plan of acquiring new clients or expanding the business falls through. Keep a few ideas up your sleeve because these ones will turn into aces when made use of.
5. Re-build your business from scratch.
This is just an imagination exercise, but it´s very useful for resetting business goals and setting new ones. Ask yourself:
- How you would build a business to compete with your current company and your
current competitors? - Is your current company competing efficiently?
- What features can you add / change to your offering to give it a higher competitive
advantage?
This will teach you a lot of lessons regarding business expansion and the development of
current and new offerings you company can launch on the market. It will give you fresh ideas
from a new perspective. To know more about fresh ideas on how to develop ideas, have a look at one of my other recent posts: 7 Tips to Increase Customer Acquisition without Selling. Read more interesting articles on Business Development here.
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