Business plans, mission statements, and corporate culture mean absolutely nothing if clients do not have or are not willing to spend money on your product or service offering. In order to establish a successful business development strategy you must find the money.
Multiple approaches can be utilized in order to identify where the available dollars are within any industry. There is no secret magical trick to identifying these dollars, Business Development (BD) professionals must employ various techniques to identify and qualify dollars. It isn’t that simple and if it were more people would be successful at business development. The most critical skill associated with this principle being able to understanding the environment and industry specific business cycles.
Every industry and business has an associated network of suppliers, competitors, and clients. Understanding the network and the economic linkage points is vital to identifying real opportunities. Once this organizational linkage map has been developed current trends and shifts within the industry segment will provide you with the insights that are necessary to capitalize on the near term potential opportunities (AKA: Low Hanging Fruit).
Developing new or recurring business is vital any organization. This is especially true for small businesses; with limited personnel and resources, finding quality opportunities to deliver near term revenue is the goal. The opportunity is not real if there is no money behind it. So, Lesson 1 is find the money!
