Do you need Business Development as a sales function?

Ask any old school sales leaders and they'll tell you about the two main types of sales people - hunters and farmers. Those that go out and HUNT for new potential customers and opportunities as net new accounts, and those that FARM existing clients for new opportunities in other areas of the account. They're two very different skill sets, just as those skill sets of opportunity creators is different to opportunity closers.

I recently put this slide up at two client workshops where at The Customer Agency , we taught sales leadership basics to managers not experienced in sales. As with many companies we work with, these leaders have ended up with revenue-generating responsibilities and sellers within their core teams but never been taught sales management principles or come from a pure sales background.

It's pretty simple but identifies the focus needed to drive activity, to grow the pipeline in order to grow the business:

Surprisingly this slide had alot of discussion and debate, it's simplicity was an 'aha moment' and then we focused on what type of activity and roles were needed to grow net new accounts vs develop, retain and grow existing accounts.

PIPELINE IS THE HEALTH OF YOUR BUSINESS

So focusing on the right activity to grow your pipeline is key to developing a strong, healthy pipeline with the right mix of opportunities, aligned to the ideal customer profile and the ideal persona's that influence, makes decisions or commits times, resources and budget to change.

The big question we focused on is where and how these net new customers come from??It's easier to spend time with existing accounts, where we are known and map who we need to engage with higher and wider within the account, but where do you start with companies that we're not engaged with today? What skill set is needed? What type of role and person? This is where the role of a Business Development Manager comes in.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER IS THE KEY TO GROWTH

I'm a big advocate for growing within your existing base and accounts, and the power of referrals to new customers. However, there are times and situations when you need a concentrated, systematic approach to the outbound targeting of net new companies that can become customers. The business development manager role and the function of "BD" or "Business Development" are focused on identifying companies that don't know you or that you have no commercial relationship with today. The goal is to identify who you would like to have as a customer, engage with them, identify an opportunity and, depending on your sales model, pass it over to sales teams or to progress the opportunity through to closure.

FOCUSING ABOVE THE FUNNEL

Hiring a successful team of Business Developers will focus efforts solely 'above the funnel' - qualifying opportunities, progressing them into sales accepted leads (SAL), and entering them at the first stage of your sales process.

In order to do this, this is where the magic of a Business Developer happens as they plan what we call a 'reasons to call' approach. They research the target account, identify key stakeholders to approach, conduct research on them, the projects they've completed or are working on and identify a reason to call as a hook or an entry point to stimulate awareness and interest to drive the decision to commit to a meeting and conversation. The secret here is NOT to treat every account, person and opportunity the same.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD BUSINESS DEVELOPER?

At The Customer Agency we often talk to research shows that 80% of success in any role is not the technical or solution or product 'awareness' that you demonstrate, but in fact 80% of your success is your mindset, belief and behaviours. The same is said with BD roles.

Where we've seen Business Development as a function or individuals fail over the years is where they focus more on the product or offering than the mindset. The mindset makes the total difference, with key traits for a good business developer being:

1. High CQ - Curiosity Quotient. We all know about EQ, self awareness and awareness of others, but CQ is the Curiosity Quotient. A strong BD is innately curious by nature - we call them 'quesiton-ologists' - experts in asking questions, listening and having a point of view.
2. High AQ - Adaptability Quotient. We all know those people who are stuck in their ways, and hate failure or the idea of rejection - these people how low AQ. A strong BD has high AQ, lives in a world of uncertainty and change, and can handle rejection without ego but confidently without overthinking it.
3. Natural Planner. A strong BD has three levels of planning that come naturally and often intuitively - planning which target accounts/segments to target, planning which stakeholders to research and contact, and planning the call itself (reasons to call and meeting planning).
4. Living in the Problem Space. A strong BD knows how to live in the problem space, put themselves into the stakeholders' shoes, understand their problems, the financial and commercial impact, and ask the right type of situational questions to quantify the problem and drive interest to action.
5. Qualification. As the saying says ABC - Always Be Qualifying. A strong BD is qualifies the person, the opportunity and the propensity to action at all times, identifying when to pivot conversations to action and yet still be qualifying.
6. Action Taking Focused. This isn't the action that the BD takes, but they're laser focused on working out who are time wasters and who are focused on actually taking action - committing time and resources that equate to budget to drive change and transformation.
7. Relationship Building. A successful BD is a people person - they're likeable, adaptable and understand the natural skills needed to feel comfortable building relationships in any forum, whether online, in person or on the phone.
8. Activity Focused. A strong BD is self-driven and understands that (as my slide suggested), without activity, there is no pipeline. They do not suffer call resistance, are happy to pick up a call, craft an email, meet with someone and know the hard work they put into this focused activity even with rejection will pay off and above all, they will learn and improve the techniques they use with each success and failure.
9. Value Focused. Building good relationships and understanding problems mean nothing if you can't help them - a strong BD always is looking for how they can offer value, what they can to help, be it today or in the future and use this in how they plan, engaging activity and approach qualifying based questions.
10. Resilience. A strong BD is resilient, knows when to be in the zone, and when to take the down time to plan and reflect on the learnings. BD can be full of rejection, some rude, some blunt and some nice...either way rejection goes hand in hand with success and how it's handled is critical to ensure the next call or next meeting is treated with fresh eyes and energy.
11. Enjoy BD with passion. Sounds simple, but so many people we've seen fail in BD roles, just don't enjoy the basics of BD - the research, the planning, the picking up the phone, the relentless pursuit - you must have joy in this and be comfortable in doing it, without ego but with the satisfaction of achieving progress that leads to the first meeting, that leads to more and an opportunity that eventually leads to value being realised and an opportunity closed.

QUESTIONS TO ASK A BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

So if you're looking to hire a BD, there are some key questions to ask that will help identify these traits:

• Describe your approach to researching and building a list of target accounts for a new industry or product segment
• How do you generate leads?
• How do you identify who to talk to? What's your approach?
• If you had to produce a reasons to call list for our product, offering or service, what would it be?
• Describe your most recent rejection - what happened, what did you learn, how did you feel?
• Describe your largest success or one that you're proud of - what did you do to identify and engage the opportunity the first time, and what made it a success?
• What areas of business development do you get joy out of?
• If you had to define your business development framework in 6 steps what would it be?

FINAL THOUGHTS ON BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGERS

To be blunt, looking for a strong business development manager can feel like looking for a magical unicorn, but they DO exist.

Look for those people, regardless of sales experience, who show the traits listed above, that love the thrill and hunt of finding new opportunities and progressing them, and don't make the mistake thinking this is a junior function. It's a critical function of any successful pipeline growth strategy that needs the experience warranted with the most important part of your business - generating net new opportunities.

Remember without pipeline you have no business, and without activity from business development you have no pipeline.

Work out if business development is right for you, how you can dedicate resources to this and identify the correct business development manager for your needs - ensuring they have a solid understanding of who target named customers are (who you want to be customers), the reasons to call and what value can be provided to solve problems.

At The Customer Agency we can assess your current BD function, define a new one, map your target market and named target accounts or implement frameworks for compelling reasons to call as a core function of BD.