Business development

"Everyone fights, no one quits. If you don't do your job I'll shoot you myself"**.

Starship Troopers - Robert A Heinlein.

One of the key skills expected of consultants in any sector and any role is business development. A lot of people are really uncomfortable about that. Sales and business development gets a bad reputation partly because as individuals we mostly experience the consumer side of B2C sales, and B2C sales is often pretty awful.

B2B vs B2C

Almost all B2C organisations are driven by high volume, low margin sales. That means they can afford very little effort per sale, which in turn means a fast turnaround. Your sales person hasn't got time to get to know you and understand your communication preferences. They tend to rely on "salesmanship".

A lot of the time, that feels like bullying. Or manipulation. Or both.

B2B sales is generally very different. It's more marketing heavy, about building relationships and reputation. You can never afford to alienate a potential customer so a lot more effort goes into understanding them.

If you genuinely believe that your company can do at least as good a job as the competition, sales is nothing more than making sure you make your pitch as relevant and clear to the client as possible. It's helping them to see every nuance of what you hope to convey. It is, in the end, just good communication.***

Step 1 - sharing intel & introductions

One of the simplest and most straightforward things you can do is to share information about the way the client works and the things that they do well (or might benefit from some help with) with your account leadership. Even things that seem quite trivial could spark a conversation that leads to opportunities.

Again, all we're doing here is looking for areas where we can help the client improve their own situation. As consultants we see lots of different situations and can often bring varied experience to bear on a problem the client may not previously have seen.

You can also share intel about companies you've worked for (although you need to be ethical and professional about this - don't share things that are definitely or probably confidential).

Another way you can help is with introductions - just asking a contact if they'd be willing to talk to someone from your business. While it can be a very impactful way of helping out it does require some confidence that it isn't going to backfire - a gung ho salesperson can harm a casual relationship very easily.

Step 2 - contributing to marketing

The next most basic thing you can do to develop business is contribute to marketing. Again, if you think your company does a good job in their sector it's in your own interest to advertise the fact. By being a part of marketing efforts you potentially increase the work available to you; and you learn valuable communication skills that come in handy for all sorts of things. Things under this heading include

 - writing case studies and articles

 - attending or even talking at events

 - re-sharing linkedin posts

Think of this as building a reputation, both for yourself and your company.

I'll come back to that in a future post about communication.

Step 3 - identifying opportunities

One step up from sharing intel with your account leadership is identifying opportunities yourself. That doesn't necessarily happen too often, and it depends a lot upon how big a picture you actually have. But if you see something where the client might benefit from specialist skills or additional pairs of hands, let your account leadership know. They can have the conversation with the client and explore any possible additional help.

Step 4 - talking to stakeholders

If you're in a role where you're potentially offering new services to clients it's likely that you're fairly senior and have some experience of what you're talking about. At this point it's about good communication - understanding requirements; having a pretty good idea of what can be achieved and with how much effort. Very rough scoping and estimation is a key element.

You can think of it as a triage stage where you're giving the client ball park information that enables them to decide whether to start looking more deeply or not.

Step 5 - agreeing sales

In most companies you aren't going to be doing this unless it's actually your job. This is where we're writing Statements of Work and contracts, calculating commercial models etc. This isn't my job, but it can be valuable to understand what goes on, and if you ever end up as an indie consultant you need to know this.

Key things to understand at this level are: 

    have a good cost model that allows you to negotiate pricing based on what you can both afford; 

    have a documented model of risks and benefits (on your side)

    is this potentially a long term partnership, 

    is there any risky ambiguity in the scope

Writing contracts is a specialist job. You probably have some off the shelf ones, but if your signature is at the bottom you need to check every detail. I've seen serious problems caused by lack of attention to detail at this stage.

Summary

So in summary, business development is something we all get involved in to some degree, and you don't have to be a super-extravert sales-y person to contribute. 

At the most basic level, simply doing your job well contributes to the reputation your firm builds, which is the key to building new business successfully. 

** A long time ago, the CEO of a consultancy I worked for stood in front of the entire company and said "Everyone in this company sells. If you're not prepared to sell, there is no place for you in this company". He didn't make any friends that day. A couple of decades later I think he had a point, he just expressed it very badly.

*** You might not genuinely believe your company can do a good job - I've been there. If so, you probably want to sit the sales process out - you're unlikely to be convincing and you won't be comfortable with yourself.