A business development plan or business plan describes what a company`s goals are and how it intends to achieve them, including goals, start-up costs and targeted milestones. Who do you want to gain as new customers? Focus on your “most appropriate” customers, not all possible prospects. It is more effective to focus on a small target group. But don`t go that far that you can`t achieve your business goals. A data-driven business development process allows managers to keep an eye on KPI performance, so there are no surprises at the end of the quarter. It also provides timely market feedback on the effectiveness of your business development plan, allowing you to focus your resources on powerful tactics and improve or abandon underperforming tactics. Once you have developed a strategic business development plan designed to create long-term value for your business, it is very important to share your vision with key stakeholders. If recommendations are critical to growing your business, consider the stage of the buying process at which your BDRs will ask for recommendations. Will you ask for a recommendation even if a potential customer decides they like your product/service but don`t fit well? Or are you waiting for a customer to use your solution for a few months? Define these settings in your policy. You also need to balance your decisions in two important ways: First, you need tactics that cover each step of the business development pipeline shown in Figure 1. Some techniques are great for gaining visibility, but they don`t address long-term care.

You need to cover the entire funnel. Often overlooked, these important considerations often make the difference between success and failure. Unimplemented strategies do not work. Keep track of what you do and when. This will motivate both the action and provide a great starting point for troubleshooting your strategy. Monitor and record the effects you see as well. The most obvious influence will be the amount of new business you have closed. But you also need to keep an eye out for new leads or contacts, at a minimum. Finally, don`t overlook important outcomes of the process such as recommendations, new names added to your list, and content downloads that expose potential customers and referral sources to your expertise. Do you interact with your customers even after the deal has been finalized? If not, it`s time to come up with a plan to engage your buyers. Building long-term relationships with your customers pays off.

Much of a company`s business comes from repeat customers, and returning customers are cheaper to convert. In fact, it is known that it costs five times more to convert new customers than to sell to loyal customers. The line between strategy and tactics is not always clear. For example, you may think of networking as a general business development strategy or as a tactic to improve the impact of a thought leadership strategy. Confusing, of course. From our point of view, distinction is a matter of concentration and intention. If networking is your business development strategy, you should focus on making networking more effective and efficient. They choose tactics that aim to make networking more powerful or easier. You can try another marketing technique and abandon it if it doesn`t help you implement your network strategy.

A business development plan is happy to decipher this and evaluate the changing trends that will help you find the most suitable audience. Will your business development plan rely heavily on thought leadership, the . B online speak or participate in conferences? Are you going to host a local meeting for other people in your industry? Or will your sales reps network heavily on LinkedIn and social media? Developing a solid business development plan helps a company understand the most profitable markets and the plans that need to be pursued first. A consistent tactical plan for each target market and marketing channel effectively promotes your brand and allows you to adapt to changing circumstances. For example, if you plan to launch a marketing campaign, make sure it starts on a specific date and gives results on a specific date. Let`s review the steps you need to take to create a strategic plan. Remember that you are not the first to go through this. Find mentors, consultants, or other business owners who can help with your planning.

Your accountant or accountant may also be able to help you or direct you to the right people. If you have customers who are willing to provide feedback on your sales process and offers, make sure you hear and implement them. Your customers offer a unique and valuable perspective because they chose your product over the competition – their ideas can help shape your strategy to keep your business at the forefront. Your business development plan is your roadmap to growth, so make it clear, specific and realistic. Customer retention: If you generate $10 million in new sales and lose $5 million in existing revenue, you won`t reach your $10 million revenue goal. And customer loyalty is a measure of the level of service you offer. All businesses (especially technology and professional services) should strive to create a great customer service experience. Business development is not just about increasing sales, products and market reach.

Strategic decisions are also needed to improve results, including cost-cutting measures. An internal assessment that reveals high spending on travel, for example, can lead to changes in travel policies, such as . B videoconferencing instead of on-site meetings, or opting for more cost-effective transport. Let`s take the example of an IT consulting firm that wants to sell contracts with higher lifetime values. To achieve their goals, they need to target large companies. In large companies, these decisions are made by the CIO and not by the owner of a small business. A new buyer persona profile must be created for the CIO in the target market. The other observation is that the main tactics involve a mix of digital and traditional techniques. As we`ll see as you develop your plan, a healthy mix of digital and traditional techniques tends to increase the impact of your strategy.

Having a business development plan is like having a healthy lifestyle – it will only offer great things in return, but it takes a little effort and time. Can you directly create new business by sponsoring events and advertising? It would solve a lot of problems if it worked. You no longer need to try to get time from busy billable professionals. Business development is about staying ahead of current trends and developing plans to enable expansion. Now that you understand what business development means, it`s time to create a plan to launch your strategy. Business development (BD) is the process used to identify, nurture and attract new customers and business opportunities to drive growth and profitability. A business development strategy is a document that describes the strategy you will use to achieve this goal. The basis of your business development plan is to define the overall goals you want to achieve over the next 12 months.

Don`t worry, we`ll have a lot more details later in the process. But for now, what are the 3-5 successes that will determine whether your year was successful or not. We call these big, hairy and bold goals. These strategies present significant challenges. First of all, they are relatively expensive, so they have to be fair to be effective. Second, if you don`t catch the lead at the right time, your offer may have no attractive relevance – and therefore no impact on business performance. Will the new company need external suppliers? For example, does shipping a product require a special courier service? Will the company work with an established retail chain? What are the costs associated with these commitments? The business development team is working on these issues. Caught between the pressures of clients` work and an urgent need for new business, they are looking for something quick and easy that yields short-term results. Of course, this is not a real strategy at all. Who will your business development team follow? Your target market is the customer group for which your product/service was developed. For example, if you sell a range of products for facility teams in enterprises at the enterprise level, your target market could be facilities or concierge coordinators in companies with more than 1000 employees. .