Strategic Business Development

Looking For Business Development Support?

Very often strategic business development is considered as a knee jerk reaction to a fall in sales or company re-structure.  

However strategic business development should really be an ongoing process.  

Having an outside company with fresh eyes looking at your business strategy and market can be so helpful.

Just fill in the form to get free quotes and advice from business development agencies local to you.

What Is Strategic Business Development?

This is a term that has been taken out of context in recent years; as a fancy name for a sales role.

Business development is a very strategic form of marketing which looks at your business set up and the marketing, and how they work together.

They will look at the goals of your company.  Look at the long term strategy and the marketing that is currently in place.  

This ‘troubleshooting’ will ensure that your goals are their goals. The main reasons you would bring on an agency would be because sales are down.

 You need help in looking at the current set up and how to change and improve things in order to get sales up and business flowing.  Sometimes an outside opinion cam highlight things.  Problems that often cannot be seen by those involved within the company.

They will support the sales and marketing program looking at ways to either improve them or to modify them for more productive services.  As such they will need to have a thorough understanding of the clients industry and market place in order to bring the maximum benefit to the client.

This can be helpful in marketing for startup companies.

Your Business Development Strategy

Let us consider some of the top business development strategies that your company can get involved in:

• Business Networking – Business networking has always been a great way to building relationships.  Whether it is a networking breakfast or meeting up for a drink on a Friday afternoon, meeting like minded people is a very old marketing strategy.  Whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company meeting other CEO’s or a freelance musician, talking is the way business is moved forwards, even in our new digital world.
• Referrals – This would come from networking, the group you are with may not have need for your services now, but they may well know someone who does.  Imagine you are meeting with 20 business owners, they each know three other business owners.  You could then find a lead from 60 business owners just from your first sit down meeting.  Who knows what will happen over time.  Referrals still take work however, the sales process is not over with a name and number, the work begins.
• Sponsorships And Advertising – Sponsoring events is very common, from local undertakers sponsoring a local event to Red Bull sponsoring an international air show.  However studies have shown that sponsoring events is more about branding than it is part of a business development strategy.
• Outbound Telemarketing & Traditional Mailing – Picking up the phone and making a few phone calls for a few hours a day is understated.  Traditional mailings are also understated, both low cost and simple to do.  Most of us get free phone calls with our mobile phones, so the only thing you need to invest is a bit of time.  Whether you are doing 1 morning a week or 1 day a week, tenacity is needed and the results should follow.
• Content Marketing – This is a relatively new form of marketing but as we all know, digital is the new battleground.  Whether you are a new business or an international business, your website is your shop window and creating useful and well written content is necessary in order to stand out.  Social media is a great vehicle to share your content for the world to see.

Industry Experience

As there are many strategic business development companies around, it makes sense to use one that knows your industry.  

Whether you are a medical company, and engineering firm, an IT company and so on.  

Finding an agency that has a working knowledge of your industry will bring many benefits.

Business development is something that takes planning and implementation.  Failure to plan is the same as planning to fail as they say.

Not all businesses have a plan of attack at the beginning of starting out.  However sometimes it is wise to take a step back and have a think.

Consider some of the following bullet points and can you apply them to your business?

Business development is at the heart of lead generation strategies for startups and new companies.

Compare Multiple Business Development Quotes

It is wise to shop around and compare quotes, so as to ensure you do not pay over the odds.  All business development companies are private businesses.  All are profit making companies and will insist they can help you rather than turn your business away.

Finding the right business development agency to help you plan and implement a marketing strategy is important.  Therefore talking to a few agencies is wise, to find the ‘right’ agency to help you with your strategic business development strategy.

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