Business Development for Dummies

Business Development For Dummies helps maximise the growth of small- or medium-sized businesses, with a step-by-step model for business development designed specifically for B2B or B2C service firms. By mapping business development to customer life cycle, this book helps owners and managers ensure a focus on growth through effective customer nurturing and management. It's not just sales! In-depth coverage also includes strategy, marketing, client management, and partnerships/alliances, helping you develop robust business practices that can be used every day. You'll learn how to structure, organise, and execute an effective development plan, with step-by-step expert guidance.

Realising that you can't just "hire a sales guy" and expect immediate results is one of the toughest lessons small business CEOs have to learn. Developing a business is about more than just gaining customers – it's about integrating every facet of your business in an overarching strategy that continually works toward growth. Business Development For Dummies provides a model, and teaches you what you need to know to make it work for your business.

• Learn the core concepts of business development, and how it differs from sales
• Build a practical, step-by-step business development strategy
• Incorporate marketing, sales, and customer management in general planning
• Develop and implement a growth-enhancing partnership strategy

Recognising that business development is much more than just sales is the first important step to sustained growth. Development should be daily – not just when business starts to tail off, or you fall into a cycle of growth and regression. Plan for growth, and make it stick – Business Development For Dummies shows you how.

Anna Kennedy has almost twenty years' experience in business development and leadership with small/medium professional services companies. She also has on-the-ground experience in growing organizations, most recently in her own company, Rain Makers.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 4

Where to Go from Here 4

Part I: Getting Started with Business Development 5

Chapter 1: Introducing Business Development for Services Firms 7

Answering the Question: So What Is Business Development Anyway? 7

Recognizing that business is a serious business 8

Understanding how business development differs from selling 9

Breaking business development into bite-sized chunks 11

Placing the Customer Experience Center Stage 12

Deconstructing the customer lifecycle 13

Mapping business development to the customer lifecycle 14

Making Business Development Manageable in a Small Business 14

Dealing with overwhelm 14

Anticipating growth and its impact on your business 15

Taking stock of where you are 16

Chapter 2: Finding Damaging Gaps in Your Business Development 19

Spotting Patchy Business Development 20

Recognizing the tell-tale signs of weak business development 20

Looking for the obvious and the not-so-obvious problems 21

Thinking like your customers 23

Understanding Business Development Challenges for Services Firms 25

Identifying value in a services firm 25

‘You’re the top!’ The owner-led sale 26

Being proactive rather than reactive 27

Taking Stock of Where You Are 30

What you’re not doing – and being okay with it 30

It’s a numbers game: How’s your firm really doing? 32

Chapter 3: Diving Inside Your Customer’s Head 33

Uncovering Your Customers’ Real Needs 34

Understanding what customers need today and whether they know it 36

Staying current with your customers’ needs 37

Powering Growth Using Your Customer’s Viewpoint 39

Focusing on your customer: Why you should care 39

Mapping your customer’s journey 42

Tailoring your solution to your customer’s need (not vice versa) 46

Using influence to get the outcome you want 48

Chapter 4: Using the Lifecycle to Your Advantage 51

Clarifying Precisely What You’re Selling — and How 52

Being in control 52

Keeping your offer fresh 55

Investing to stay up-to-date 58

Creating the customer experience 59

Considering the Pre-Sales Stage 62

Selling without looking like you’re selling 62

Dating the customer: EDUCATE stage 62

Courting and proposing: PRESENT and PROPOSE stages 65

Confronting reality: CONTRACT stage 66

Handling the After-the-Sale Process 67

Moving from ‘Yes’ to ‘Done’: DELIVER stage 67

Wrapping up delivery: COMPLETE and EVALUATE stages 68

Part II: Planning for Business Development 71

Chapter 5: Getting Ready for Business Development 73

Developing an Offer that Sells 73

Ensuring that you’re giving the market what it needs 75

Making your specialty really valuable 78

Assessing your competition 80

Accepting that the grass isn’t always greener 81

Developing focus – or it’s all over 83

‘Really? You do that?’ Articulating your offer 83

Presenting Your Offer 84

Finding your customer 84

‘Tell me what you want, what you really, really want’ 85

Who drives the customer? Engaging effectively 87

Getting to the sale 88

Building your contract process 89

Continuing Your Great Work beyond the Sale 89

Understanding the importance of relationships 89

Completing the work 91

Learning from Your Customers 92

Gathering intelligence: The importance of data 93

Evaluating your offer 94

Chapter 6: Building Your Business Development Plan 97

Planning for Business Development Success 98

Winging business development doesn’t work 98

Knowing where you’re going 99

Creating Your Winning Plan 100

Choosing where to start planning 101

Working on metrics 108

Components of your plan: Creating the blueprint 110

Monitoring progress 113

Chapter 7: Putting Your Plan into Action 115

Checking Your Plan before Lift-off 116

Setting milestones, tactics and metrics 116

Identifying initial tasks 121

Calling on helpers 122

Determining your investment 125

Lift-Off! Launching Your Plan 125

Communicating your plan internally 126

Enrolling ‘friends’ 127

Making use of friendly feedback 128

Getting the team going 130

Considering a few final thoughts as the plan takes off 131

Managing Risk while Implementing Your Plan 132

Thinking the unthinkable: What can possibly go wrong? 132

Dealing with large challenges 133

Part III: Making the Most of Marketing 135

Chapter 8: Appreciating the Benefits of Marketing for Your Business 137

Working Together in Harmony: Marketing and Sales 138

Enjoying the perfect relationship (not!): Marketing and sales 139

Making your marketing sales-oriented 140

Setting Out Your Stall: Marketing for Services Firms 144

Selecting the best marketing techniques for you 145

Energizing your team 146

Using your network 148

Forming partnerships and alliances 149

Understanding technology and the online dimension 150

Finding some quick wins in marketing 152

Deciding whether Your Firm Needs Branding 154

Understanding the importance of brands 154

Identifying yourself with a brand 155

Marketing your brand 155

Chapter 9: Driving Sales Success with Effective Marketing 157

Revving up the Marketing Engine 158

Appreciating the differences between sales and marketing 159

Ensuring that marketing drives results 160

Tuning up the marketing engine 162

Carrying out the hard work of marketing 165

Setting Accountabilities between Sales and Marketing 166

What am I striving for? Establishing the goal 167

‘How will I know that marketing is achieving its goals?’ Measuring marketing 168

Ensuring that Marketing Generates Interest 170

‘Hey, we’re over here!’ Getting attention 170

‘Over to you!’ Timing lead handover correctly 172

Chapter 10: Creating Your Marketing Plan 175

Preparing To Market Your Business 175

Defining your plan 176

Researching marketing opportunities 177

Choosing your channels 179

Brainstorming your tactics 182

Putting Marketing into Practice 186

Creating your marketing programs 186

Creating your marketing calendar 192

Creating and managing collateral and content 194

Making the Most of Your Resources 196

Breaking the plan down to decide on resources 196

Satisfying marketing’s appetite: Who does the marketing? 197

Making marketing accountable 198

Chapter 11: Automating Marketing – More Leads with Less Effort 199

Introducing the Automated Demand Generation Game 200

Understanding the buyer’s journey 201

Providing insights for your prospective customers 202

Attracting an audience 202

Asking whether Demand Generation Is Right for You 203

Deciding when to consider automated demand generation 203

Gathering the required resources 205

Adding Automation to Your Marketing Armory 206

Choosing your infrastructure tools 207

Building your database 210

Designing demand generation programs 212

Testing and evaluating your programs 216

Making the phone ring 218

Chapter 12: Forming a Winning Team: Marketing and Sales Cohesion 221

‘We Can Work It Out’: Sales and Marketing Join Forces 221

Reassessing roles as your business grows 222

Laying out the connections between marketing and sales 223

Setting common goals and targets 225

‘Come On, Come On, Let’s Stick Together!’ Marketing and Sales Can Collaborate 227

Clearing up misunderstandings that threaten unified business development 228

Acting to support unified business development 230

Helping marketing and sales to get on 231

Part IV: Seeing What Sales Can Do for You 235

Chapter 13: Becoming the Leader of the (Sales) Pack 237

Appreciating the Importance of Sales Leadership 238

Getting clear what your business sells 238

Establishing a sales process 240

Tooling up for sales 246

Setting goals and metrics 248

Building and Leading Your Sales Dream Team 249

Creating your pack of sales maestros 250

Using people outside the pack 251

Enrolling people to execute your sales strategy 251

Delving Deeper into Leading the Sales Process 253

‘Put that it your pipe and smoke it!’ Managing a sales pipeline 253

Working your sales process 255

Engaging in collaborative selling 259

Avoiding knee-jerk reactions to problems 259

Taking the right action at the right time 261

Chapter 14: Taking the Lead: Selling Under Control 265

Okay, You’re In! Qualifying Leads into Prospects 266

Getting your interactions right with customers 266

Handling leads, whatever the source 267

Determining who to sell to 269

Gathering the tools to help qualifying 269

Taking the meeting 270

Gating prospects through your sales pipeline 273

Pitching Your Services to Customers 274

What prospects want: Understanding customer mentality 275

Limbering up to pitch 279

Writing good proposals 280

‘Let’s dance’: Pitching on the day 282

The inquest: Assessing how the pitch went 284

Chapter 15: Closing the Sale to Your Satisfaction 285

‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’: Closing the Deal 285

Picking your way through negotiation 286

Getting to the real ‘yes’ without begging 286

Contracting for a win-win 287

‘This Much I Know’: Managing the Transition from Sales to Delivery 290

Staying on the team 291

Passing on all you know 291

Backing out gracefully 293

Re-engaging with the customer 293

‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’: Finishing Up the Sale 294

Tidying up: Capture everything 294

Learning from experience: Win/loss reviews 295

Recognizing the value of evaluation 295

Part V: Managing Your Customers for Business Success 297

Chapter 16: Generating Success from the Customer Relationship 299

Back Off, He’s Mine! Remembering that the Customer Belongs to Everyone 300

Sharing the customer relationship 300

Collaborating for customer success 302

Creating a lifetime customer 307

Tell Me What I Mean To You: Securing Value from Your Customers 308

Understanding your value through the customer’s eyes 308

Asking for more 311

Turning the customer into an active advocate 313

Chapter 17: Joining Together to Maximize Business and Customer Value 315

You Know It Makes Sense: Seeing How Business Development Benefits All 316

Creating an organization in which everyone sells 316

Being a motivating business 318

Talking about team communication 319

Making the Most of Account Planning 322

Analyzing where your revenue will come from 323

Turning goals into reality 323

Deciding what to include in your account plan 324

Growing, Growing, Gone! Account Managers’ Role in Your Growth Plans 325

Showing account managers how to do business development 326

Thinking about monthly, quarterly and annual reviews 328

Bringing Delivery to the Feedback Party 329

Spreading delivery’s tentacles into the market 330

Gathering new ideas and best practices 330

Ensuring that sales learns from delivery 331

Making delivery feel valued 331

Chapter 18: Standing Tall To Get More Customers: Vertical Industries 333

‘The Only Way Is Up!’ Understanding Why Verticals Matter 334

Working with verticals makes sense 335

Identifying your verticals: Is going vertical right for you? 336

Listening to what customers say about their vertical 338

Leveraging Your Knowledge for Vertical Success 340

Understanding similarities and differences between verticals 340

Breaking down your services experience from a vertical perspective 341

Finding gold in them there vertical hills 342

Checking whether you’re ready to go vertical 343

Designing and Executing Vertical Campaigns 343

Writing vertically based promotional materials 344

Getting your vertical message out there 344

Part VI: Making Influential Friends: Partnerships 345

Chapter 19: Seeking Partners for Mutual Benefit 347

Considering the Types of Partnership Available 348

Sticking to What You Do Best 349

Keeping to your set path 350

Going deep not wide 350

Traveling Alone or Partnering Up 352

‘We belong together’: Finding reasons to partner – or not 352

‘Picture this’: Considering your business with partners 354

‘Service Firm WLTM Companion for Business Growth’: Finding Good Partners 355

Creating partnership goals 355

Getting your criteria together: Profiling ideal partners 357

Chapter 20: Pursuing Your Plans for a Successful Partnership 361

Locating Partnerships within Business Development 361

Partnering Up Effectively 362

Dating: Getting to know each other 362

Testing the cultural fit: What do you have in common? 364

Setting boundaries to stay realistic 367

Agreeing shared goals 368

Understanding why partnerships don’t work 369

Going to Market Together 370

Appointing a partner manager 370

Creating a unified go-to-market strategy 370

Defining roles and responsibilities 372

Tackling the question of who owns the customer 373

Wondering whether to white label or not 374

Coping with co-branding 374

Sharing the wealth 375

Part VII: The Part of Tens 377

Chapter 21: Ten Regular Actions that Benefit Your Business 379

Making Five Business Phone Calls 379

Calling Customers and Partners 380

Talking to Employees 380

Reading Some Blogs 380

Sending Out Three Value-Added Emails 380

Updating Your CRM/SFA 380

Making Five New Connections on LinkedIn 381

Tweeting Something 381

Reviewing How Your Day Went 381

Planning Tomorrow 381

Chapter 22: Ten Key Metrics to Watch 383

Knowing How Big Your Sales Pipeline Needs to Be 383

Maintaining the Right Number of Opportunities 383

Shortening Your Sales Cycle 384

Planning Projected Revenue 384

Producing the Right Number of New Leads 384

Assessing Planned versus Actual Revenue 384

Checking Profitability by Customer 385

Monitoring Cash Flow: Days Sales Outstanding 385

Keeping the Customer Happy with Satisfaction Scores 385

Minimizing Staff Attrition 385

Chapter 23: Ten Great Resources for Business Development 387

Discovering Online For Dummies Resources for Business Development 387

Signing up for Business Insider 387

Using the Business Training Institute 388

Improving with Influence Ecology 388

Casting a Wider Net with the American Marketing Association 388

Getting Better with the Sales Management Association 388

Blogging for Success: Sales Benchmark Index 388

Being In with the In-Crowd: LinkedIn Groups 389

Leading with Confidence: Vistage 389

Contacting the Author: RainMakers US 389

Index 391

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