As a business owner, entrepreneur, and business builder you wear three hats every single day. On top of providing the people you serve with top notch products and services that solve their problems, you are also a media company, and a business developer. In business development? Do biz dev ops? Yeah, you get it.
This shouldn’t be a surprise. If you’re a solopreneur or run a small team you not only deliver awesome value but, you have to manage the functions of your business. Check. As a business owner in 2019 you’re also responsible for delivering content that keeps your brand relevant, trusted, and trafficked every day, that’s the media distribution hat. Check. But, are you taking your business development seriously? Check?!
Let’s start with getting a little clearer about the definition of business development. First, business development is not sales. Sales is what you are already doing in your business and it’s very transactional in nature. The goal of a sales interaction, piece of content/copy, or even some of your marketing is to convert someone from being interested to being a customer.
Business development is a little bigger picture. It’s less about the singular sale and more about flushing out bigger opportunities to move your business or brand forward. It can also be about building brand or capturing bigger pieces of the market in which you’re playing. They’re activities that support broader strategic goals, cultivate relationships, and help you look for new ways to serve current and potential markets. Business Development then is like the older brother or sister to Sales.
You’re probably thinking, “Why should I care about business development? It’s already something that I’m doing as a function of just being in business.”
Great question hypothetical heckler but, I’d argue that most people don’t spend the time or energy to do the deep work of building brand, platform, and trust in a community. Then, when the sales start to slow down it’s a mad dash to networking events, ValPak mailers, and poorly designed Facebook Ads to try to increase exposure and ask for the sale en masse. There’s no ROI positivity in any of that desperation mess.
As a business owner you have lots of responsibilities. You have to manage the expectations of your current (and recurring) customers as well as being on the hunt for your next ones. You have to produce original content regularly to build trust and referability in your community. It can be easy to push off the bigger picture and less direct outcome driven activities to a time when you have more time. Which is essentially never.
I’m going to share some tips that you can put into action right now to help you start building a healthier business development practice. These are just some ideas that you can use to start thinking more critically about what the long tail of your business looks like. You are going to essentially be digging the well before you’re thirsty here so that when a slowdown does inevitably happen for you it’ll be easier for you to recover. So here’s how you can build long term value for your business. (Also, no one likes seeing EVERY single social post from you advertising some free trial, direct ask for business, or to try some free program.)
1. A.B.G. (Always Be Giving)
Always be giving is an acronym I really love because it’s literally the opposite of the sleazy sales “always be closing”. I love it because it’s an idea that puts an emphasis on building relationships where you’re looking to be of service to people with no expectations on any kind of return. Remember business development is not sales. No one goes to a networking event actively looking for people to sell them anything. They go to interact with new people, socialize with colleagues, and support the people/causes/communities they care about. It shouldn’t be surprising that in your business development role you should be as visible in your community as possible, so definitely go to as many of these kinds of events that makes sense, but going with good intentions will set you apart from your first handshake. Plus think about all the content, pictures, ideas, and organic press that will just come naturally from showing up. Not to mention all the goodwill you earn as you become someone to create introductions and offer resources to the new people that you meet.
2. Make time for exploratory thinking.
I love #hustle porn just as much as the next entrepreneur but sometimes you have to pick your head up and look around. Checking in to make sure the people and the markets that you’re serving are still the best fits is important. Making time to do a bit of competitive research, revisit any kind of plans you put in place a while back, and doing some time/cost assessments on your own growing needs might impact the next decisions you have to make. It can also uncover opportunities and help you hone in on who you should be looking to connect with. Business growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum and it’s not a solo sport. Looking for people and businesses that you can bring value to that will also support your growth is critical to your long term sustainability.
3. Products, vendors, and costs oh my!
I have two borderline intolerable pet peeves. First, loud chewers literally trigger a fight or flight response in me (Thanks 23andMe for verifying my misophonia.) and second when business owners tell me they do things because it’s “always the way they’ve done it”. I’m working on taming the adrenaline dump my brain delivers when someone’s chewing grossly a little too close to me and there’s absolutely NO REASON why you should do anything just because you’ve always done it in your business. Time passes, technology gets better, solutions are invented, and industries are disrupted. That means now more than ever as a business builder you are spoiled for choice when it comes to the products and services you use every day. Business development is as much about effectively managing your own internal projects and costs as it is developing new opportunities. Why? Because dealing with vendors is another opportunity to develop long standings and mutually beneficial relationships. And, reducing costs is as important to profitability as is increasing gross revenue, so there’s that.
Those three concepts are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the work you should be doing “on” your business. You can see how easy it is to push it aside because right now you’re worrying about managing schedules, keeping customers happy, and how your next Instagram post’s copy is going to read. It’s also easy to just lump this stuff into the work you should be doing as a business owner any way. That is dangerous thinking. It’s dangerous because you run the risk of being too biased towards the outcomes of today that you aren’t thinking about what your tomorrow is going to look like. And if you’re like me, you’re planning on also having a business tomorrow. This is why I like separating out business development activities as their own silo when it comes to how you’re building your business. When you separate these activities you’re shining a new light on them that allows you to compartmentalize them separately away from the day to day operations of your business. Just like being a media distributor/company it’s almost like another identity you have to dawn. That’s a good thing!
So I challenge you to create a new calendar in your scheduling app of choice, pick a bright color, and start building in business development activities today. You might surprise yourself when it comes to the conversations you have that lead to interesting opportunities that weren’t even on your radar. Don’t forget to let me know how it goes!