Question

What is the purpose of having a developmet plan for your business?

Answer 1

The term "business development" means different things to different people. For me, the best definition of business development is Scott Pollack's definition from his article in Forbes: Business development is the creation of long-term value for an organization from customers, markets, and relationships.

1. Set your destination

The foundation of your business development plan is to define the high-level goals that you want to achieve in the next 12 months. Don't worry, we're going to get a lot more granular later in the process. But for right now, what are the 3-5 achievements that will determine whether or not your year has been successful. We'll call these big, hairy, audacious goals.

2. Focus your approach

Tightly defined target markets and buyer personal profiles are crucial for a successful business development plan.

3. Define your marketing channels

The next step is to define the channels in which you will generate leads for each market segment. Here are some typical marketing channels for professional services and technology firms.

• Inbound leads - leads generated on your website with premium content and other offers.
• Paid Search Advertising - leads generated by search engine advertising like Google Adwords.
• Paid Social Advertising - leads generated by social media advertising like Facebook Ads or LinkedIn Sponsored Updates.
• Outbound leads - leads generated by outbound prospecting, primarily targeted email prospecting.
• Referrals - leads that are referred by satisfied customers.
• Networking - leads resulting from your networking efforts. They could be direct leads with prospects you meet or referrals from your network.
• Channel Sales - leads generated by channel partners.
• Cross-sells - these are opportunities to sell new products/services to customers
• Up-sells - these are opportunities to sell higher levels of products/services to customers.

4. Choose KPIs and create dashboards to keep you on track

A data-driven business development process allows managers to keep on top of KPI performance so that there aren't any surprises at the end of the quarter. It also provides timely marketplace feedback on the effectiveness of your business development plan, letting you focus resources on high-performing tactics and either improving or abandoning low-performing ones.

5. Define your sales process to align with your customer's needs

The key to a scalable revenue generation process is to consistently apply your sales approach in a way that corresponds with your target customer's buying process.

6. Determine resource needs

Now that you know how you want to grow your business, you need to figure out the most efficient way to execute your business development plan. What are your people, technology, and resource needs?

7. Share your business development plan with stakeholders

Once you have developed a strategic business development plan designed to create long-term value for your business, it's very important to share your vision with key stakeholders.