How building your team’s BD capabilities is just like making pizza
Is your team ready for business development in 2017?
It’s the beginning of February, and you know what that means: Our one-month free trial of 2017 is over. It’s time for us to buckle down, and start getting serious about the business development of our company.
But where do we start?
It may seem overwhelming to think about at first — but consider this: How do you make a pizza? And I don’t mean picking up good ol’ McCain (ever notice how they are always a let-down?), or some home-brand frozen pizza from the supermarkets that you can just pop into the oven. The best pizzas are the ones you make from scratch, don’t you agree? And how do you make those? You break them down into elements. You make sure you have the right ingredients for success: cheese, tomatoes, olives, ham — and if you’re feeling really adventurous — pineapples.
Setting up for business development success in your team is the same process. You need to ask: “Does my team have the right ingredients for business development?”
Here are the 4 essential ingredients, the 4 success factors for BD that you need look out for in your team:
1. Attitude towards Business Development
Does your team have the right attitude towards BD? Often times, especially in professional services, employees were not primed for BD in their studies or training for the profession, and may view BD as a “dirty word”, associating it only with “telemarketer” activities like making cold calls, when we know it is definitely not the case. Changing your team members’ perceptions towards BD activities from negative to positive is a crucial first step to ensure BD success. Your chances of making a good pizza are pretty slim if you think it’s going to taste like boiled brussel sprouts.
2. Confidence towards Business Development
Are your team members confident when it comes to performing business development activities? A lot of BD requires us to interact with clients, and potential clients. I’m sure you’ve been in situations where you have to drum up the courage to either ask for continued business, or pitch your business to a stranger that could potentially be a client. It moments like these, the confidence you project — whether in yourself or your products/services — makes or breaks these interactions.
Therefore, it is important to identify who among your team are confident enough to send to networking events, and find out what holds your less confident team members back, and help them develop their confidence.
3. Skills for Business Development
So, everyone on your team has the right mindset for BD. But do they have the right skills to ensure BD success? Do they have sufficient knowledge about the industry that they work in? Do they display good interpersonal skills when interacting with others? Or are they more skillful when it comes to marketing activities, like online campaigns and social media?
Studies have shown that individual factors, like skills, are critical success factors for businesses. There is no “singular playbook” when it comes to conducting BD, so finding the specific skills of your team members and fostering those skills will help you maximise your chances for BD success.
4. Strategies for BD
As a team, it is also important to have consistent, agreed-upon strategies in place that everyone can follow when it comes to managing BD success. Make sure your team members regularly update the client relationship management system. Make sure your team members have strategies in place to follow-up with existing clients about future projects/business. These well-established strategies will provide your team with a roadmap to BD success.
Our conversations are indicating greater optimism in business for 2017. As for business development, things that worked in 2016, might not work in 2017. Its essential to look at the rapidly changing trends in marketing and business development to adopt the approach that has the highest impact.
