What Is Business Development and How You Can Excel at It

Depending on who you ask, you’re likely to get a different definition of business development. Some see it as a leadership position; others view it as part of sales or even marketing.

The truth is, business development contains important elements defining each of these profound roles. As a result, business developers often feel like they wear many hats and constantly have their hands in different projects. For example, they may be simultaneously working with other departments on creating a website, trying to secure new partnerships, increasing brand awareness and making and assessing business goals. Despite their multifaceted job, business developers are guided by a single objective: to create value for their company.

While it may sound conceptual, there are tangible ways developers work to achieve that goal. For this reason, I’ll be providing you with a breakdown of what business development exactly means, go over how it differs from other similar roles in a company, and show you the skills you’ll need to succeed in biz dev.

What is business development?

Business development is the process of making a business better and bigger through initiatives and new ideas, creation of value for your organization or business. This includes increasing profitability and focusing on growth opportunities by building connections with strategic partners and making calculated business decisions.

While there’s no such thing as a Herculean job candidate, one might be led to think so just looking at job descriptions for business developers. They need to be “creative, analytical, organized, possess strong communication skills, and much more.” That’s because a business developer has to be dynamic and use any one of their abilities, whether that’s brainstorming new ideas, creating business plans or making fruitful partnerships, to help their company grow stronger and better over a period of time.

In order to understand how business developers can achieve this feat, here’s a breakdown of the key areas that make up their role:

A) Find growth opportunities

A business needs to be able to grow steadily to be able to compete successfully against others. Business development will focus on pinpointing specific growth opportunities.

For instance, a biz dev team might look at how a company can expand into different markets and conduct research into developing new products or services. These changes, in turn, can help them access more clients down the line. Business developers may also be involved in finding smart ways to market a small business, or working with marketing experts on campaigns that’ll drive the desired growth.

B) Increase profitability

When talking about a company increasing its value, we’re usually talking about profits. While there are many things in a customer’s eye that might make a company valuable, for a business the value is intrinsically tied to the profits it’s bringing in.

That’s why biz dev teams will often focus on concentrating sales efforts. This can include expanding to new audiences and looking for ways to find more clients while keeping costs low. While this isn’t the same as sales itself, which we’ll get into soon, it's similar to the formation of strategies that help increase sales.

C) Build long-lasting relationships

In the field of business development, the focus should also shift to creating bonds with both customers and strategic business partners. Above all is, business development is done with people not

When talking about relationships with customers, business developers look for ways to bridge the gap between what customers want or need and what the business is actually offering them.

They will look for ways to make a product or service more appealing to clients based on feedback or market research, and then liaise with other departments, like marketing, product development or sales, to make it happen.

Likewise, relationships can also be external. For example, during the growth stage, a small business might need to foster strong partnerships with other companies in order to get started. Alternatively a larger company can help a newer one with guidance, capital, or even infrastructure if that’s not yet in place.

Sales vs. business development: What’s the difference?

As we saw earlier, biz dev usually has a hand in sales. But while the goals and responsibilities of both departments are aligned, they aren’t quite identical. In the simplest terms, sales is tactical, whereas business development is primarily about developing a strategy.

A biz dev also takes a more holistic approach to the sales funnel by analyzing what’s working and what can be improved in the long term. By contrast, a sales team will likely concentrate on short-term success and swiftly closing deals.

Ok, but where does marketing fit in?

It’s very important to understand first, that although you may think that hotels and hostels are our partners (and we call them partners mostly not to mix them with our guests) they are actually our clients/customers

Biz dev and marketing work closely together. While marketing is focused more on attracting new customers and leads, business development is also about building new relationships with clients (partners) and maintaining these new bonds to leverage them when needed.

You can think of marketing, sales, and business development as a cycle of lead generation and treatment. Each one handles a different aspect of the buyer’s journey:

• Awareness: This is when a buyer (Hotel, Hostel, etc) recognizes they need to increase their occupation and knows they need a solution, but they’re not sure what it is yet. In order to get a better understanding of what that could be, they research the consumer market.

• Consideration: At this stage, a buyer has a better understanding of their problem and is committed to finding a solution. They might be considering a few different approaches or answers, but haven’t settled on one.

• Decision: The buyer knows the solution they need, based on their research, and might be looking at multiple options from various companies or vendors, before ultimately settling on one option.

Once you understand how the buyer’s journey works, you’ll also have a better grasp of the roles of each department during different stages. In our case, business development is responsible for reaching customers in the awareness stage as well as in the consideration stage. They will look closely at the buyer’s problem and try to figure out how their own products can act as a solution.

Marketing also works in the awareness and consideration stages, with some changes. Our Marketing Team will try to present Urban Roomie directly to the buyer during the buyer’s research phase. Finally, the Business development team is responsible for guiding the buyer through the decision stage and getting them to choose their product or service, thus closing the deal.

Business development tools you’ll absolutely need

Aside from your colleagues and assistance from other departments, there are a few tools that are especially helpful for the day-to-day tasks of business development. These tools will help you manage your workload, stay on top of tasks, or organize projects with ease:

Marketing automation tools: Marketing automation lets you run specific tasks automatically without your intervention. For example, you can automate emails, pop-ups, invoices, and a number of other things to save time. This is especially helpful if you’re in the phase of collecting information about your audience and you want to engage with them but you don’t have the resources to do it on the spot.

CRM tools: Since relationships are so important in business development, you’ll want to invest in a good CRM (customer relationship management) tool. This will allow you to keep track of both clients and potential partners. You can collect all their contact details in one place, track communications across multiple channels, run reports and gain analytical insights, view their spot in a sales funnel, and more.

Ascend by Wix is a great CRM tool for small businesses that can integrate with your website to help you capture leads and reach your goals.

image of ascend dashboard - business development crm toolimage of ascend dashboard - business development crm tool

Task management tools: Aside from tracking your customers, you also need help keeping on top of all your tasks. Use a workflow planner or task management tool to stay on top of all your tasks, organize them, and communicate with your team to see where everyone’s at. You might want to consider tools like Trello, Asana, or Slack.

Networking tools: Before you add new partners or clients to your CRM, you need to first make an initial connection. Don’t underestimate the power of social media in order to network. Twitter and LinkedIn are great places to make professional connections with others in your industry.