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Business Development the Right Way
It doesn’t matter what business you are in; business development is one of the toughest challenges you have to meet. Your company’s future depends on your team’s ability to capture an expanding base of clients. Growth is achieved by driving into new markets - expanding business with existing clients - and avoiding serious mistakes that will harm your company’s reputation and its ability to get even more business.
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A central business of business is getting business
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More energy and effort is put into trying to figure out how to make business development work than any other management function; including advancing the technology that is at the heart of a company’s value proposition. There are plenty of books out that that deal with the technologies and tools of business development. This is not one of them. My focus is on the human interactions that accompany the development or expansion of a business development component of your senior management team.
Over the years, I have worked with dozens of CEOs. The vast majority of them have felt more confident about their company’s technology and technological edge than about its ability to generate an expanding customer base. One client put it this way, “Sure, there is always competition but the core of our management team is focused on delivering advances that keep the company’s value proposition ahead of its competition.”
Business development is another thing altogether. Most CEOs that I have worked with have, sooner or later, had a similar experience. Their value proposition was significantly better than the competition’s but they still ended up losing the business. In fact, very often the company that is best at business development is well back in the pack then it comes to innovation and cutting edge value propositions. But they win while other companies lose out to them. This is a CEO’s worst nightmare. “We were better than them but we lost out.”
The Constant Challenge
I think back to a program that I organized several years ago. It was focused on the challenges that CEOs of mid-market companies faced. After an introduction, we settled in for a bit of ‘brain storming’. The CEOs were asked to ‘shout out’ brief descriptions of the management challenges they found the most difficult. It was rapid fire. One of the first offered was ‘getting business development to work’. That suggestion changed the pattern. I noticed that this challenge was dominating the process. Other CEOs called out variations of it. Some embellished the description. Business development was clearly the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room.
I decided to deal with the big ape and shifted the process to defining the challenge. The group was asked to formulate questions that highlighted it. Here is what they came up with:
• Why does business development never seem to fully live up to its name?
• Why is it so difficult to get business development working effectively for my company?
• Why does my business development team look like a revolving door - with one person after another being hired amid great fanfare only to be let go within a year for ‘non-performance’?
• All these consultants are peddling the same tired old solutions to a problem that never seems to go away. Why can’t somebody come up with something that works?
• The general sentiment was ‘there just has to be a better way!’
The experience was not a new one. In my work with CEOs, I’ve never met one who was really happy with the way business development was working. They all end up saying about the same thing. “Traditional solutions fail to produce expected results while regularly generating unexpected costs. More and better tools don’t seem to make much of a difference. There needs to be a better way.” One particular conversation stands out. It took place in a bar on the upper east side of Manhattan where I had met a fellow CEO for drinks. He had had a particularly frustrating day and was venting big-time.
“Why can’t we get this right? It’s not complicated and we’re supposed to be good at what we do. Why can’t we get this damn thing right?” I remember his look of utter frustration. I had started three companies by then and I knew exactly what he was talking about. Being in business begins with getting business. Get it right and you can win big. Get it wrong and nothing else much matters. Business development is one of the major challenges that every CEO and senior team must meet and master.
For all my experience, I had little to suggest to my frustrated companion. It was a very humbling experience and I realized that I had been carrying the same burden. All CEOs face the same challenge.
My frustration grew until there was no way out but to find an alternative approach that really worked. Finding a way to make business development work became a crusade. After we parted, my walk up First Avenue towards my home on East 59th Street in Manhattan beca...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A central business of business is getting business
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More energy and effort is put into trying to figure out how to make business development work than any other management function; including advancing the technology that is at the heart of a company’s value proposition. There are plenty of books out that that deal with the technologies and tools of business development. This is not one of them. My focus is on the human interactions that accompany the development or expansion of a business development component of your senior management team.
Over the years, I have worked with dozens of CEOs. The vast majority of them have felt more confident about their company’s technology and technological edge than about its ability to generate an expanding customer base. One client put it this way, “Sure, there is always competition but the core of our management team is focused on delivering advances that keep the company’s value proposition ahead of its competition.”
Business development is another thing altogether. Most CEOs that I have worked with have, sooner or later, had a similar experience. Their value proposition was significantly better than the competition’s but they still ended up losing the business. In fact, very often the company that is best at business development is well back in the pack then it comes to innovation and cutting edge value propositions. But they win while other companies lose out to them. This is a CEO’s worst nightmare. “We were better than them but we lost out.”
The Constant Challenge
I think back to a program that I organized several years ago. It was focused on the challenges that CEOs of mid-market companies faced. After an introduction, we settled in for a bit of ‘brain storming’. The CEOs were asked to ‘shout out’ brief descriptions of the management challenges they found the most difficult. It was rapid fire. One of the first offered was ‘getting business development to work’. That suggestion changed the pattern. I noticed that this challenge was dominating the process. Other CEOs called out variations of it. Some embellished the description. Business development was clearly the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room.
I decided to deal with the big ape and shifted the process to defining the challenge. The group was asked to formulate questions that highlighted it. Here is what they came up with:
• Why does business development never seem to fully live up to its name?
• Why is it so difficult to get business development working effectively for my company?
• Why does my business development team look like a revolving door - with one person after another being hired amid great fanfare only to be let go within a year for ‘non-performance’?
• All these consultants are peddling the same tired old solutions to a problem that never seems to go away. Why can’t somebody come up with something that works?
• The general sentiment was ‘there just has to be a better way!’
The experience was not a new one. In my work with CEOs, I’ve never met one who was really happy with the way business development was working. They all end up saying about the same thing. “Traditional solutions fail to produce expected results while regularly generating unexpected costs. More and better tools don’t seem to make much of a difference. There needs to be a better way.” One particular conversation stands out. It took place in a bar on the upper east side of Manhattan where I had met a fellow CEO for drinks. He had had a particularly frustrating day and was venting big-time.
“Why can’t we get this right? It’s not complicated and we’re supposed to be good at what we do. Why can’t we get this damn thing right?” I remember his look of utter frustration. I had started three companies by then and I knew exactly what he was talking about. Being in business begins with getting business. Get it right and you can win big. Get it wrong and nothing else much matters. Business development is one of the major challenges that every CEO and senior team must meet and master.
For all my experience, I had little to suggest to my frustrated companion. It was a very humbling experience and I realized that I had been carrying the same burden. All CEOs face the same challenge.
My frustration grew until there was no way out but to find an alternative approach that really worked. Finding a way to make business development work became a crusade. After we parted, my walk up First Avenue towards my home on East 59th Street in Manhattan beca...
- GenresBusiness
184 pages, Paperback
First published June 11, 2014
3 people are currently reading
165 people want to read
About the author
Earl R. Smith II
15 books42 followersI write action-adventure thrillers – often with a paranormal twist. The Cabal Series tells the story of a very powerful female detective and her eclectic adopted family. The John Reynolds Saga begins with Response. It is an international espionage series. Check out my recent publications of short stories, essays, and books.You can visit me at http://www.dr-smith.info/
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June 19, 2014The material for the book has been drawn from experiences with dozens of C-level executives, consultants and members of boards of directors and advisory boards. The goal of the book is to help you understand how to build an effective business development team and the value proposition behind advisory boards as business development engines.
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