The 10 key's to Business Development

Here are my tips for better business development

1. Warm Introductions: Always try to get referrals to speak to your potential customers. You don't want your potential customer to wonder who you are, what you are etc.. Getting connected to your potential customer through referral gives you/your company a lot of credibility and trust.
2. Deal with Decision Makers: Spend a lot of time in the backend researching for the right decision-maker and spend a lot of your time and energy with him to sign off your deal. Trust me you will save a lot of time.
3. Don't Be Scared, Prepare! : What do I mean? Find out everything about the company and people you are dealing with through online and offline channels. You should be bulletproof with the information when you go for the meetings with your potential customers.
4. Ask, Don't Talk! : The biggest mistake most of them do in the business development is that they spend a lot of time explaining the product and services rather than asking their customers about their problems, needs, requirements, expectations.
5. Provide as little information as possible, Don't waste time! : Until you are sure of signing the deal, do not spend a lot of time preparing and sending the complicated documents/decks. Keep it simple and save time.
6. Picture = A Million words: When getting to the stage of sending the documents or decks to the potential client, do include pictures of your product or service don't limit to simple texts. Pictures or Graphics communicate better than simple texts and will take you a step closer to signing the deal.
7. Manage the follow-up's Process: You should be setting the rules of communication, setting and fixing the meetings and own all modes of communications proactively to save the time and move things forward all the time. Your client will always be busy with their own priorities. You don't want to wait until they respond when they get time. Take control of the overall process to get things done. Signing the deal at the right time is crucial for both the parties.
8. Persistence & Pressure, Please! : You will be busy with your set of tasks and priorities in your daily life. You have to be persistent and push the things each and every day to get them done.
9. Keep Excitement until the deal closes: Many of them show a lot of excitement at the beginning of the deal thinking we can do this and that but, guess what, a lot of deals get a stall, moving back and forth over emails, etc. So, you need the energies and excitement to open the doors when the deal gets stuck in the middle, not at the beginning.
10. Sale begins after the deal is done: Most importantly remember that sale happens after signing the deal. Yes, you have done a great job signing the deal but, the actual business development process begins after signing the deal helping your clients generate revenues, onboard more customers, etc..

I hope that the above information will be useful in your Business Development.