Investing in your Young Professionals' Business Development skills - the opportunity you cannot miss.
It’s a sad truth that the most successful organisations are not simply based on a great product, but ultimately an even better Business Development team. Such teams are underpinned by a wealth of relationships (personal and business) and subtle skills that can be drawn upon to deliver results.
For many organisations however, the incentive to invest in the Business Development skills and therefore future relationships of their young professionals is simply not there. Factors such as a loss in day to day productivity, immediate loss in earnings, and fears of attrition, means that organisations are frequently forced to hire in Business Development expertise with years of experience accumulated elsewhere at significant cost.
So how can organisations invest in the Business Development skills of their Young Professionals whilst minimising the impact on the day-to-day activities of the organisation?
Organisations should look to capitalise on the day-to-day Business Development related activities of their young professionals, whilst also allocating a set number of ‘Business Development days’ per year to focus on the development of meaningful relationships.
From a day-to-day perspective organisations should look to involve their Young Professionals in the following activities, a number of which utilise existing skill-sets:
- Strategy Development: Often reserved for the big fish, there should be no reason why a Young Professional cannot assist in the creation of marketing material that clearly defines an organisations’ core capabilities (what do we do?), track record (where have we done it?), and differentiating factors (why are we better?). Whilst this might sound like admin, instilling such principles in the minds of Young Professionals helps shape their approach to business, and ensures they are able to hold a very credible conversation with anyone external (or even internal) to their business.
- Scanning the Market: the internet is a fantastic enabler for Young Professionals and their quest to carve out a Business Development career. Free information provides them with excellent insights into the latest industry movements, key industry players, and therefore a platform to provide usable information to colleagues further up the organisational chain.
- Bid Management: Don’t get me wrong, the role of a Bid Manager is significant and often underappreciated. There are however elements of the role that junior staff are very qualified to run. Elements such as response coordination, risk management, project plan development can all be led, or at least supplemented by young professionals.
Whilst using day-to-day activities as a platform to develop business development skills of young professionals is great, ultimately the commitment of dedicated time is essential. There is however a very simple solution to this, and one far more effective than classroom training – networking events.
- Networking Events: Give your young professionals the opportunity every quarter to attend at least one networking event at which their objective is to meet three new people, learn about their business, and clearly explain what your business does and where it does it. Then task your young professionals with the objective of maintaining these relationships, and developing them over time.
Whilst most of what I have discussed above may seem obvious and not particularly innovative, they remain simple steps that can be done with nothing other than the commitment of management. There however lays the difficulty. Organisations must increase investment in the Business Development skills of their Young Professionals in order to maximise the number of future relationships, and skill-sets required to exploit them.
Thanks for reading and feel free to share your views.
Rob