Business Development For Dummies

Business Development For Dummies

Released April 2015
Publisher(s): For Dummies
ISBN: 9781118962718

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Book description

Growing a small business requires more than just sales

Business Development For Dummies helps maximise the growth of small- or medium-sized businesses, with a step-by-step model for business development designed specifically for B2B or B2C service firms. By mapping business development to customer life cycle, this book helps owners and managers ensure a focus on growth through effective customer nurturing and management. It's not just sales! In-depth coverage also includes strategy, marketing, client management, and partnerships/alliances, helping you develop robust business practices that can be used every day. You'll learn how to structure, organise, and execute an effective development plan, with step-by-step expert guidance.

Realising that you can't just "hire a sales guy" and expect immediate results is one of the toughest lessons small business CEOs have to learn. Developing a business is about more than just gaining customers - it's about integrating every facet of your business in an overarching strategy that continually works toward growth. Business Development For Dummies provides a model, and teaches you what you need to know to make it work for your business.

  • Learn the core concepts of business development, and how it differs from sales

  • Build a practical, step-by-step business development strategy

  • Incorporate marketing, sales, and customer management in general planning

  • Develop and implement a growth-enhancing partnership strategy

    • Recognising that business development is much more than just sales is the first important step to sustained growth. Development should be daily - not just when business starts to tail off, or you fall into a cycle of growth and regression. Plan for growth, and make it stick - Business Development For Dummies shows you how.

    Table of contents

      1. Introduction
        1. About This Book
        2. Foolish Assumptions
        3. Icons Used in This Book
        4. Beyond the Book
        5. Where to Go from Here
      2. Part I: Getting Started with Business Development
        1. Chapter 1: Introducing Business Development for Services Firms
          1. Answering the Question: So What Is Business Development Anyway?
            1. Recognizing that business is a serious business
            2. Understanding how business development differs from selling
            3. Breaking business development into bite-sized chunks
          2. Placing the Customer Experience Center Stage
            1. Deconstructing the customer lifecycle
            2. Mapping business development to the customer lifecycle
          3. Making Business Development Manageable in a Small Business
            1. Dealing with overwhelm
            2. Anticipating growth and its impact on your business
            3. Taking stock of where you are
        2. Chapter 2: Finding Damaging Gaps in Your Business Development
          1. Spotting Patchy Business Development
            1. Recognizing the tell-tale signs of weak business development
            2. Looking for the obvious and the not-so-obvious problems
            3. Thinking like your customers
          2. Understanding Business Development Challenges for Services Firms
            1. Identifying value in a services firm
            2. ‘You’re the top!’ The owner-led sale
            3. Being proactive rather than reactive
          3. Taking Stock of Where You Are
            1. What you’re not doing – and being okay with it
            2. It’s a numbers game: How’s your firm really doing?
        3. Chapter 3: Diving Inside Your Customer’s Head
          1. Uncovering Your Customers’ Real Needs
            1. Understanding what customers need today and whether they know it
            2. Staying current with your customers’ needs
          2. Powering Growth Using Your Customer’s Viewpoint
            1. Focusing on your customer: Why you should care
            2. Mapping your customer’s journey
            3. Tailoring your solution to your customer’s need (not vice versa)
            4. Using influence to get the outcome you want
        4. Chapter 4: Using the Lifecycle to Your Advantage
          1. Clarifying Precisely What You’re Selling — and How
            1. Being in control
            2. Keeping your offer fresh
            3. Investing to stay up-to-date
            4. Creating the customer experience
          2. Considering the Pre-Sales Stage
            1. Selling without looking like you’re selling
            2. Dating the customer: EDUCATE stage
            3. Courting and proposing: PRESENT and PROPOSE stages
            4. Confronting reality: CONTRACT stage
          3. Handling the After-the-Sale Process
            1. Moving from ‘Yes’ to ‘Done’: DELIVER stage
            2. Wrapping up delivery: COMPLETE and EVALUATE stages
      3. Part II: Planning for Business Development
        1. Chapter 5: Getting Ready for Business Development
          1. Developing an Offer that Sells
            1. Ensuring that you’re giving the market what it needs
            2. Making your specialty really valuable
            3. Assessing your competition
            4. Accepting that the grass isn’t always greener
            5. Developing focus – or it’s all over
            6. ‘Really? You do that?’ Articulating your offer
          2. Presenting Your Offer
            1. Finding your customer
            2. ‘Tell me what you want, what you really, really want’
            3. Who drives the customer? Engaging effectively
            4. Getting to the sale
            5. Building your contract process
          3. Continuing Your Great Work beyond the Sale
            1. Understanding the importance of relationships
            2. Completing the work
          4. Learning from Your Customers
            1. Gathering intelligence: The importance of data
            2. Evaluating your offer
        2. Chapter 6: Building Your Business Development Plan
          1. Planning for Business Development Success
            1. Winging business development doesn’t work
            2. Knowing where you’re going
          2. Creating Your Winning Plan
            1. Choosing where to start planning
            2. Working on metrics
            3. Components of your plan: Creating the blueprint
            4. Monitoring progress
        3. Chapter 7: Putting Your Plan into Action
          1. Checking Your Plan before Lift-off
            1. Setting milestones, tactics and metrics
            2. Identifying initial tasks
            3. Calling on helpers
            4. Determining your investment
          2. Lift-Off! Launching Your Plan
            1. Communicating your plan internally
            2. Enrolling ‘friends’
            3. Making use of friendly feedback
            4. Getting the team going
            5. Considering a few final thoughts as the plan takes off
          3. Managing Risk while Implementing Your Plan
            1. Thinking the unthinkable: What can possibly go wrong?
            2. Dealing with large challenges
      4. Part III: Making the Most of Marketing
        1. Chapter 8: Appreciating the Benefits of Marketing for Your Business
          1. Working Together in Harmony: Marketing and Sales
            1. Enjoying the perfect relationship (not!): Marketing and sales
            2. Making your marketing sales-oriented
          2. Setting Out Your Stall: Marketing for Services Firms
            1. Selecting the best marketing techniques for you
            2. Energizing your team
            3. Using your network
            4. Forming partnerships and alliances
            5. Understanding technology and the online dimension
            6. Finding some quick wins in marketing
          3. Deciding whether Your Firm Needs Branding
            1. Understanding the importance of brands
            2. Identifying yourself with a brand
            3. Marketing your brand
        2. Chapter 9: Driving Sales Success with Effective Marketing
          1. Revving up the Marketing Engine
            1. Appreciating the differences between sales and marketing
            2. Ensuring that marketing drives results
            3. Tuning up the marketing engine
            4. Carrying out the hard work of marketing
          2. Setting Accountabilities between Sales and Marketing
            1. What am I striving for? Establishing the goal
            2. ‘How will I know that marketing is achieving its goals?’ Measuring marketing
          3. Ensuring that Marketing Generates Interest
            1. ‘Hey, we’re over here!’ Getting attention
            2. ‘Over to you!’ Timing lead handover correctly
        3. Chapter 10: Creating Your Marketing Plan
          1. Preparing To Market Your Business
            1. Defining your plan
            2. Researching marketing opportunities
            3. Choosing your channels
            4. Brainstorming your tactics
          2. Putting Marketing into Practice
            1. Creating your marketing programs
            2. Creating your marketing calendar
            3. Creating and managing collateral and content
          3. Making the Most of Your Resources
            1. Breaking the plan down to decide on resources
            2. Satisfying marketing’s appetite: Who does the marketing?
            3. Making marketing accountable
        4. Chapter 11: Automating Marketing – More Leads with Less Effort
          1. Introducing the Automated Demand Generation Game
            1. Understanding the buyer’s journey
            2. Providing insights for your prospective customers
            3. Attracting an audience
          2. Asking whether Demand Generation Is Right for You
            1. Deciding when to consider automated demand generation
            2. Gathering the required resources
          3. Adding Automation to Your Marketing Armory
            1. Choosing your infrastructure tools
            2. Building your database
            3. Designing demand generation programs
            4. Testing and evaluating your programs
            5. Making the phone ring
        5. Chapter 12: Forming a Winning Team: Marketing and Sales Cohesion
          1. ‘We Can Work It Out’: Sales and Marketing Join Forces
            1. Reassessing roles as your business grows
            2. Laying out the connections between marketing and sales
            3. Setting common goals and targets
          2. ‘Come On, Come On, Let’s Stick Together!’ Marketing and Sales Can Collaborate
            1. Clearing up misunderstandings that threaten unified business development
            2. Acting to support unified business development
            3. Helping marketing and sales to get on
      5. Part IV: Seeing What Sales Can Do for You
        1. Chapter 13: Becoming the Leader of the (Sales) Pack
          1. Appreciating the Importance of Sales Leadership
            1. Getting clear what your business sells
            2. Establishing a sales process
            3. Tooling up for sales
            4. Setting goals and metrics
          2. Building and Leading Your Sales Dream Team
            1. Creating your pack of sales maestros
            2. Using people outside the pack
            3. Enrolling people to execute your sales strategy
          3. Delving Deeper into Leading the Sales Process
            1. ‘Put that it your pipe and smoke it!’ Managing a sales pipeline
            2. Working your sales process
            3. Engaging in collaborative selling
            4. Avoiding knee-jerk reactions to problems
            5. Taking the right action at the right time
        2. Chapter 14: Taking the Lead: Selling Under Control
          1. Okay, You’re In! Qualifying Leads into Prospects
            1. Getting your interactions right with customers
            2. Handling leads, whatever the source
            3. Determining who to sell to
            4. Gathering the tools to help qualifying
            5. Taking the meeting
            6. Gating prospects through your sales pipeline
          2. Pitching Your Services to Customers
            1. What prospects want: Understanding customer mentality
            2. Limbering up to pitch
            3. Writing good proposals
            4. ‘Let’s dance’: Pitching on the day
            5. The inquest: Assessing how the pitch went
        3. Chapter 15: Closing the Sale to Your Satisfaction
          1. ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’: Closing the Deal
            1. Picking your way through negotiation
            2. Getting to the real ‘yes’ without begging
            3. Contracting for a win-win
          2. ‘This Much I Know’: Managing the Transition from Sales to Delivery
            1. Staying on the team
            2. Passing on all you know
            3. Backing out gracefully
            4. Re-engaging with the customer
          3. ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’: Finishing Up the Sale
            1. Tidying up: Capture everything
            2. Learning from experience: Win/loss reviews
            3. Recognizing the value of evaluation
      6. Part V: Managing Your Customers for Business Success
        1. Chapter 16: Generating Success from the Customer Relationship
          1. Back Off, He’s Mine! Remembering that the Customer Belongs to Everyone
            1. Sharing the customer relationship
            2. Collaborating for customer success
            3. Creating a lifetime customer
          2. Tell Me What I Mean To You: Securing Value from Your Customers
            1. Understanding your value through the customer’s eyes
            2. Asking for more
            3. Turning the customer into an active advocate
        2. Chapter 17: Joining Together to Maximize Business and Customer Value
          1. You Know It Makes Sense: Seeing How Business Development Benefits All
            1. Creating an organization in which everyone sells
            2. Being a motivating business
            3. Talking about team communication
          2. Making the Most of Account Planning
            1. Analyzing where your revenue will come from
            2. Turning goals into reality
            3. Deciding what to include in your account plan
          3. Growing, Growing, Gone! Account Managers’ Role in Your Growth Plans
            1. Showing account managers how to do business development
            2. Thinking about monthly, quarterly and annual reviews
          4. Bringing Delivery to the Feedback Party
            1. Spreading delivery’s tentacles into the market
            2. Gathering new ideas and best practices
            3. Ensuring that sales learns from delivery
            4. Making delivery feel valued
        3. Chapter 18: Standing Tall To Get More Customers: Vertical Industries
          1. ‘The Only Way Is Up!’ Understanding Why Verticals Matter
            1. Working with verticals makes sense
            2. Identifying your verticals: Is going vertical right for you?
            3. Listening to what customers say about their vertical
          2. Leveraging Your Knowledge for Vertical Success
            1. Understanding similarities and differences between verticals
            2. Breaking down your services experience from a vertical perspective
            3. Finding gold in them there vertical hills
            4. Checking whether you’re ready to go vertical
          3. Designing and Executing Vertical Campaigns
            1. Writing vertically based promotional materials
            2. Getting your vertical message out there
      7. Part VI: Making Influential Friends: Partnerships
        1. Chapter 19: Seeking Partners for Mutual Benefit
          1. Considering the Types of Partnership Available
          2. Sticking to What You Do Best
            1. Keeping to your set path
            2. Going deep not wide
          3. Traveling Alone or Partnering Up
            1. ‘We belong together’: Finding reasons to partner – or not
            2. ‘Picture this’: Considering your business with partners
          4. ‘Service Firm WLTM Companion for Business Growth’: Finding Good Partners
            1. Creating partnership goals
            2. Getting your criteria together: Profiling ideal partners
        2. Chapter 20: Pursuing Your Plans for a Successful Partnership
          1. Locating Partnerships within Business Development
          2. Partnering Up Effectively
            1. Dating: Getting to know each other
            2. Testing the cultural fit: What do you have in common?
            3. Setting boundaries to stay realistic
            4. Agreeing shared goals
            5. Understanding why partnerships don’t work
          3. Going to Market Together
            1. Appointing a partner manager
            2. Creating a unified go-to-market strategy
            3. Defining roles and responsibilities
            4. Tackling the question of who owns the customer
            5. Wondering whether to white label or not
            6. Coping with co-branding
            7. Sharing the wealth
      8. Part VII: The Part of Tens
        1. Chapter 21: Ten Regular Actions that Benefit Your Business
          1. Making Five Business Phone Calls
          2. Calling Customers and Partners
          3. Talking to Employees
          4. Reading Some Blogs
          5. Sending Out Three Value-Added Emails
          6. Updating Your CRM/SFA
          7. Making Five New Connections on LinkedIn
          8. Tweeting Something
          9. Reviewing How Your Day Went
          10. Planning Tomorrow
        2. Chapter 22: Ten Key Metrics to Watch
          1. Knowing How Big Your Sales Pipeline Needs to Be
          2. Maintaining the Right Number of Opportunities
          3. Shortening Your Sales Cycle
          4. Planning Projected Revenue
          5. Producing the Right Number of New Leads
          6. Assessing Planned versus Actual Revenue
          7. Checking Profitability by Customer
          8. Monitoring Cash Flow: Days Sales Outstanding
          9. Keeping the Customer Happy with Satisfaction Scores
          10. Minimizing Staff Attrition
        3. Chapter 23: Ten Great Resources for Business Development
          1. Discovering Online For Dummies Resources for Business Development
          2. Signing up for Business Insider
          3. Using the Business Training Institute
          4. Improving with Influence Ecology
          5. Casting a Wider Net with the American Marketing Association
          6. Getting Better with the Sales Management Association
          7. Blogging for Success: Sales Benchmark Index
          8. Being In with the In-Crowd: LinkedIn Groups
          9. Leading with Confidence: Vistage
          10. Contacting the Author: RainMakers US
      9. About the Author
      10. Cheat Sheet
      11. More Dummies Products

    Product information

    • Title: Business Development For Dummies
    • Author(s):
    • Release date: April 2015
    • Publisher(s): For Dummies
    • ISBN: 9781118962718