Business Development For Dummies E-Book

Anna Kennedy

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 620

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

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.

Leseprobe

Business Development For Dummies®

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, www.wiley.com

This edition first published 2015

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex.

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-118-96271-8 (paperback); ISBN 978-1-118-96269-5 (ebk);

ISBN 978-1-118-96270-1 (ebk)

Printed in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Business Development For Dummies®

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/businessdevelopment to view this book's cheat sheet.

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Icons Used in This Book

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Getting Started with Business Development

Chapter 1: Introducing Business Development for Services Firms

Answering the Question: So What Is Business Development Anyway?

Recognizing that business is a serious business

Understanding how business development differs from selling

Breaking business development into bite-sized chunks

Placing the Customer Experience Center Stage

Deconstructing the customer lifecycle

Mapping business development to the customer lifecycle

Making Business Development Manageable in a Small Business

Dealing with overwhelm

Anticipating growth and its impact on your business

Taking stock of where you are

Chapter 2: Finding Damaging Gaps in Your Business Development

Spotting Patchy Business Development

Recognizing the tell-tale signs of weak business development

Looking for the obvious and the not-so-obvious problems

Thinking like your customers

Understanding Business Development Challenges for Services Firms

Identifying value in a services firm

‘You’re the top!’ The owner-led sale

Being proactive rather than reactive

Taking Stock of Where You Are

What you’re not doing – and being okay with it

It’s a numbers game: How’s your firm really doing?

Chapter 3: Diving Inside Your Customer’s Head

Uncovering Your Customers’ Real Needs

Understanding what customers need today and whether they know it

Staying current with your customers’ needs

Powering Growth Using Your Customer’s Viewpoint

Focusing on your customer: Why you should care

Mapping your customer’s journey

Tailoring your solution to your customer’s need (not vice versa)

Using influence to get the outcome you want

Chapter 4: Using the Lifecycle to Your Advantage

Clarifying Precisely What You’re Selling — and How

Being in control

Keeping your offer fresh

Investing to stay up-to-date

Creating the customer experience

Considering the Pre-Sales Stage

Selling without looking like you’re selling

Dating the customer: EDUCATE stage

Courting and proposing: PRESENT and PROPOSE stages

Confronting reality: CONTRACT stage

Handling the After-the-Sale Process

Moving from ‘Yes’ to ‘Done’: DELIVER stage

Wrapping up delivery: COMPLETE and EVALUATE stages

Part II: Planning for Business Development

Chapter 5: Getting Ready for Business Development

Developing an Offer that Sells

Ensuring that you’re giving the market what it needs

Making your specialty really valuable

Assessing your competition

Accepting that the grass isn’t always greener

Developing focus – or it’s all over

‘Really? You do that?’ Articulating your offer

Presenting Your Offer

Finding your customer

‘Tell me what you want, what you really, really want’

Who drives the customer? Engaging effectively

Getting to the sale

Building your contract process

Continuing Your Great Work beyond the Sale

Understanding the importance of relationships

Completing the work

Learning from Your Customers

Gathering intelligence: The importance of data

Evaluating your offer

Chapter 6: Building Your Business Development Plan

Planning for Business Development Success

Winging business development doesn’t work

Knowing where you’re going

Creating Your Winning Plan

Choosing where to start planning

Working on metrics

Components of your plan: Creating the blueprint

Monitoring progress

Chapter 7: Putting Your Plan into Action

Checking Your Plan before Lift-off

Setting milestones, tactics and metrics

Identifying initial tasks

Calling on helpers

Determining your investment

Lift-Off! Launching Your Plan

Communicating your plan internally

Enrolling ‘friends’

Making use of friendly feedback

Getting the team going

Considering a few final thoughts as the plan takes off

Managing Risk while Implementing Your Plan

Thinking the unthinkable: What can possibly go wrong?

Dealing with large challenges

Part III: Making the Most of Marketing

Chapter 8: Appreciating the Benefits of Marketing for Your Business

Working Together in Harmony: Marketing and Sales

Enjoying the perfect relationship (not!): Marketing and sales

Making your marketing sales-oriented

Setting Out Your Stall: Marketing for Services Firms

Selecting the best marketing techniques for you

Energizing your team

Using your network

Forming partnerships and alliances

Understanding technology and the online dimension

Finding some quick wins in marketing

Deciding whether Your Firm Needs Branding

Understanding the importance of brands

Identifying yourself with a brand

Marketing your brand

Chapter 9: Driving Sales Success with Effective Marketing

Revving up the Marketing Engine

Appreciating the differences between sales and marketing

Ensuring that marketing drives results

Tuning up the marketing engine

Carrying out the hard work of marketing

Setting Accountabilities between Sales and Marketing

What am I striving for? Establishing the goal

‘How will I know that marketing is achieving its goals?’ Measuring marketing

Ensuring that Marketing Generates Interest

‘Hey, we’re over here!’ Getting attention

‘Over to you!’ Timing lead handover correctly

Chapter 10: Creating Your Marketing Plan

Preparing To Market Your Business

Defining your plan

Researching marketing opportunities

Choosing your channels

Brainstorming your tactics

Putting Marketing into Practice

Creating your marketing programs

Creating your marketing calendar

Creating and managing collateral and content

Making the Most of Your Resources

Breaking the plan down to decide on resources

Satisfying marketing’s appetite: Who does the marketing?

Making marketing accountable

Chapter 11: Automating Marketing – More Leads with Less Effort

Introducing the Automated Demand Generation Game

Understanding the buyer’s journey

Providing insights for your prospective customers

Attracting an audience

Asking whether Demand Generation Is Right for You

Deciding when to consider automated demand generation

Gathering the required resources

Adding Automation to Your Marketing Armory

Choosing your infrastructure tools

Building your database

Designing demand generation programs

Testing and evaluating your programs

Making the phone ring

Chapter 12: Forming a Winning Team: Marketing and Sales Cohesion

‘We Can Work It Out’: Sales and Marketing Join Forces

Reassessing roles as your business grows

Laying out the connections between marketing and sales

Setting common goals and targets

‘Come On, Come On, Let’s Stick Together!’ Marketing and Sales Can Collaborate

Clearing up misunderstandings that threaten unified business development

Acting to support unified business development

Helping marketing and sales to get on

Part IV: Seeing What Sales Can Do for You

Chapter 13: Becoming the Leader of the (Sales) Pack

Appreciating the Importance of Sales Leadership

Getting clear what your business sells

Establishing a sales process

Tooling up for sales

Setting goals and metrics

Building and Leading Your Sales Dream Team

Creating your pack of sales maestros

Using people outside the pack

Enrolling people to execute your sales strategy

Delving Deeper into Leading the Sales Process

‘Put that it your pipe and smoke it!’ Managing a sales pipeline

Working your sales process

Engaging in collaborative selling

Avoiding knee-jerk reactions to problems

Taking the right action at the right time

Chapter 14: Taking the Lead: Selling Under Control

Okay, You’re In! Qualifying Leads into Prospects

Getting your interactions right with customers

Handling leads, whatever the source

Determining who to sell to

Gathering the tools to help qualifying

Taking the meeting

Gating prospects through your sales pipeline

Pitching Your Services to Customers

What prospects want: Understanding customer mentality

Limbering up to pitch

Writing good proposals

‘Let’s dance’: Pitching on the day

The inquest: Assessing how the pitch went

Chapter 15: Closing the Sale to Your Satisfaction

‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’: Closing the Deal

Picking your way through negotiation

Getting to the real ‘yes’ without begging

Contracting for a win-win

‘This Much I Know’: Managing the Transition from Sales to Delivery

Staying on the team

Passing on all you know

Backing out gracefully

Re-engaging with the customer

‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’: Finishing Up the Sale

Tidying up: Capture everything

Learning from experience: Win/loss reviews

Recognizing the value of evaluation

Part V: Managing Your Customers for Business Success

Chapter 16: Generating Success from the Customer Relationship

Back Off, He’s Mine! Remembering that the Customer Belongs to Everyone

Sharing the customer relationship

Collaborating for customer success

Creating a lifetime customer

Tell Me What I Mean To You: Securing Value from Your Customers

Understanding your value through the customer’s eyes

Asking for more

Turning the customer into an active advocate

Chapter 17: Joining Together to Maximize Business and Customer Value

You Know It Makes Sense: Seeing How Business Development Benefits All

Creating an organization in which everyone sells

Being a motivating business

Talking about team communication

Making the Most of Account Planning

Analyzing where your revenue will come from

Turning goals into reality

Deciding what to include in your account plan

Growing, Growing, Gone! Account Managers’ Role in Your Growth Plans

Showing account managers how to do business development

Thinking about monthly, quarterly and annual reviews

Bringing Delivery to the Feedback Party

Spreading delivery’s tentacles into the market

Gathering new ideas and best practices

Ensuring that sales learns from delivery

Making delivery feel valued

Chapter 18: Standing Tall To Get More Customers: Vertical Industries

‘The Only Way Is Up!’ Understanding Why Verticals Matter

Working with verticals makes sense

Identifying your verticals: Is going vertical right for you?

Listening to what customers say about their vertical

Leveraging Your Knowledge for Vertical Success

Understanding similarities and differences between verticals

Breaking down your services experience from a vertical perspective

Finding gold in them there vertical hills

Checking whether you’re ready to go vertical

Designing and Executing Vertical Campaigns

Writing vertically based promotional materials

Getting your vertical message out there

Part VI: Making Influential Friends: Partnerships

Chapter 19: Seeking Partners for Mutual Benefit

Considering the Types of Partnership Available

Sticking to What You Do Best

Keeping to your set path

Going deep not wide

Traveling Alone or Partnering Up

‘We belong together’: Finding reasons to partner – or not

‘Picture this’: Considering your business with partners

‘Service Firm WLTM Companion for Business Growth’: Finding Good Partners

Creating partnership goals

Getting your criteria together: Profiling ideal partners

Chapter 20: Pursuing Your Plans for a Successful Partnership

Locating Partnerships within Business Development

Partnering Up Effectively

Dating: Getting to know each other

Testing the cultural fit: What do you have in common?

Setting boundaries to stay realistic

Agreeing shared goals

Understanding why partnerships don’t work

Going to Market Together

Appointing a partner manager

Creating a unified go-to-market strategy

Defining roles and responsibilities

Tackling the question of who owns the customer

Wondering whether to white label or not

Coping with co-branding

Sharing the wealth

Part VII: The Part of Tens

Chapter 21: Ten Regular Actions that Benefit Your Business

Making Five Business Phone Calls

Calling Customers and Partners

Talking to Employees

Reading Some Blogs

Sending Out Three Value-Added Emails

Updating Your CRM/SFA

Making Five New Connections on LinkedIn

Tweeting Something

Reviewing How Your Day Went

Planning Tomorrow

Chapter 22: Ten Key Metrics to Watch

Knowing How Big Your Sales Pipeline Needs to Be

Maintaining the Right Number of Opportunities

Shortening Your Sales Cycle

Planning Projected Revenue

Producing the Right Number of New Leads

Assessing Planned versus Actual Revenue

Checking Profitability by Customer

Monitoring Cash Flow: Days Sales Outstanding

Keeping the Customer Happy with Satisfaction Scores

Minimizing Staff Attrition

Chapter 23: Ten Great Resources for Business Development

Discovering Online For Dummies Resources for Business Development

Signing up for Business Insider

Using the Business Training Institute

Improving with Influence Ecology

Casting a Wider Net with the American Marketing Association

Getting Better with the Sales Management Association

Blogging for Success: Sales Benchmark Index

Being In with the In-Crowd: LinkedIn Groups

Leading with Confidence: Vistage

Contacting the Author: RainMakers US

About the Author

Cheat Sheet

More Dummies Products

Guide

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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Introduction

Whatever role you play in your company, finding out more about business development gives you a broader perspective on how to make the firm grow. The purpose of business development is to drive growth, or whatever form of expansion is important to you right now.

Absolutely everybody in the company can make a contribution to growth, and this book not only gives you a grounding in business development – it also shows how people in different areas of the business can do their bit. As the saying goes, the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

People commonly move into business development from other parts of the company, and leaders often have to manage business development and all its component parts. This book helps you do that.