Business development can be considered a higher form of project management. Remember that you need to have a certain amount of expertise to take on every client and project that you do. People that have certain project management principles under their belt can get these jobs done quite easily. But you also are responsible for providing the expertise that provides solutions to business problems. The last thing you want is to follow up to collect - from brand new customers. The reason the businesses are working with you is to develop solutions for them. This can certainly become a difficult situation in some cases.
So to help you with your business development projects, here are three guidelines you really need to go by.
Having strong relationships with your clients when doing business development work is absolutely imperative. Anyone that has a client base needs to realize it includes future business partners, as well as existing clientele. There are many ways you can do this, but basically you want to include them in any appropriate marketing efforts. Webinars should always be done, and you should be conducting workshops online as well. The last thing you want is to follow up to collect - from customers. A huge dose of marketing is definitely needed if you want to help their business development. The best way to help them is to share with them what they need to know.
Relevant examples provided to client can help them overcome any obstacles in their way.
When dealing with clients, it is sometimes difficult to work with them when they don’t respond. This happens in any industry or business that you operate in. When this happens, it can cause you to wonder if you did something wrong, or if you should done something a different way. The best way to fix this is to ignore your mental or internal dialogue, and just speak your clients to ask them what is happening. Waiting for about a week is about all you should do. They may not have called you back for any number of reasons. This can leave you enterprise running after to find - lost monei. It could be that they are not interested, but at least you’ll know.
By just asking them why they are not contacting you, you could actually run into a very positive situation.
A great source of leverage with business development is actually social media today. Have you ever heard of LinkedIn? It is much better than Twitter or Facebook, especially when it comes to making professional contacts online. There have been some problems using the most popular two, mostly because of Facebook post-IPO. Since people are not active on Twitter everyday, this may not meet your direct development needs. The beauty of using LinkedIn is that you can find user groups linked directly to your industry every time. So what you need to do a showcase your expertise and business on a LinkedIn profile to attract the right clientele. There are so many parts of business development that are beyond the realm for the business owner. How well you will do really depends not on marketing methods but rather the details of any business who becomes a client. The last thing you want is to follow up to collect - from customers. You’re in a tough business that not many can do, but the potential gains for you and your clients are immense.