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Let's look closely at the keys to success in business development and sales. Successful business development sells is a process. It is a system, and it's a system you can learn.
If you spend any amount of time in this area, you will find that there are certain skills you're going to pick up. It's like building a jigsaw, and if you have enough of those skills, you get the picture, and you become much more, much more effective at sales and development.
Now, business development is all about developing new products and markets. So, it's the big picture. It's a strategic activity. From a business perspective, it is the driving force. It is the, the long-term goals of the business. Sales is about closing deals with paying customers. Sales is tactical, so it's at a different level.
Now, an executive in a business, a senior leader of a business, must be able to do both of these things. They must have the big picture, the strategic view, the long game, if you like. They must be able to see the opportunities coming towards the business that they can see on the horizon, or maybe in another market.
A salesperson, however, although they're handling the day-to-day sales and the tactical operations, they must see the big picture. They must meet the needs of this perspective, which means that they understand why they're selling to a customer.
Now, increasingly in business, potential customers are harder and harder to find, and this is why business development, lead development, has become an increasingly specialized activity. This is why, very often in bigger businesses, business development is split from the sales function. The business development guys go out there, develop the products and the markets, and then generate the leads, which they then hand over to the sales team to close.
But selling and closing deals with customers who know, like, and trust you takes time. You need to build those business relationships, and that means you need to have experts doing it. And that's why, very often, the sales function becomes quickly specialized. It's to make them more effective, more successful.
Now, if you're a salesperson and you understand business development, you're already ahead of your competition. You're probably ahead of your colleagues within the business.
Let's take a look at core business development knowledge. You need to have a perspective of the current state of your business. Think about it in terms of a SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You need to understand your industry and sector trends and the key issues and challenges facing your business. You must know who your competitors are, what they're good at. Again, think in terms of SWOT, because when you come up against a potential, potential competitor when you're talking to a lead, you need to be able to explain, without dissing them, without being, you know, aggressively horrible about them, because that never goes down well, but you do need to explain why your solution is the one that the customer should purchase.
You need to have a good idea about where your sources of sales are currently coming from and where you think new sales can come from. This means having a strong grasp of customer profiles, understanding of their business, understanding their needs, their pain points, their challenges, because these are the things your product and solutions are trying to address.
You need to have the clear idea of new product and service opportunities, new market expansion opportunities. This is all about the long-term perspective. But at the same time, within your own business, you need to have a very clear idea of business costs and savings. So, when you're negotiating and looking at the opportunities in front of you, you are able to get the best deal for your business that you can.
Now, core business development skills include detailed product expertise. You must know your products and services inside out. The ability to network and build relationships with potential leads and customers. A good grasp of marketing, both online and particularly online and offline. Today, it's more and more important to understand how online marketing works, as well as the old historic offline marketing, because it's such an important factor now in business development.
You need to understand the art of cold calling and how to actually get that lead on the phone and get that meeting with them. And very often, when you're speaking to somebody for the first time who's never met you, you need to know how to win meetings, how to actually persuade them to take a meeting and go and see potential leads and potential customers and actually get your point across. That means you need to know how to pitch and to present.
Then, of course, you need to know how to negotiate and also to save costs in that negotiation, so you get the best deal, but not just in terms of the headline numbers, but also in terms of the profitability for your business.
So, what are some of the key issues in business development and sales? Well, the first major one is, are you talking to a decision-maker? Is this somebody, this lead, is this person able to actually make a sales purchasing decision, or will you have to defer to a committee or two people above him?
Can your product and service solve a pain for your customer? Do they have a need for what you're trying to sell them? Because if they don't, you're completely wasting your time.
When will your need, when will your lead need, lead? When will lead need your product or service? Because if they have a pressing need for it, that's great. But if they don't need it for a year, then you don't need to spend time with them. Now, you need to keep them warm and come back to them when they need it.
Critically, can they afford to pay for your product or service? There's no good having a customer who doesn't have money. If they're about to go out of business or they're really strapped for cash, go and find a better-qualified lead who can pay for your business or service.
And you need to be able to demonstrate clearly to your lead how your product or service can solve their pain or their problem, and that's a real skill which is really important to get across. You need to be able to compare and contrast your solution to that of your competitors. You need to be able to demonstrate effectively what your product and service can do. You need to be clear about the benefits to your lead's company, as well as to them personally in buying your product or service. You want them to understand that if they solve this problem within their business and it makes them and their business more successful, it'll also reflect back on them in terms of personal glory and potentially career advancement.
You need to be very clear about your product or service pricing and what you can and cannot give away in negotiation. How will this product or service be implemented, and precisely what contract terms you are selling your product and service on, and where your leeway is in terms of what points you can give away when you're negotiating the contract terms.
So, these are some of the keys to success in business and development and sales. Now, obviously, in one video, I can't cover everything in very great detail, but I want to give you the idea that there is a framework out there. There is a process out there. There is a system out there that you can learn.