The one topic that comes up in our consultancy sessions again and again, is that of effective business development to fill and maintain a healthy sales funnel for the business. From our experience in business development (BD) and from having worked with a wider range of clients, understanding their needs and challenges, our Bex team has drafted up this blog.
This article aims at helping business owners better understand the core elements to craft a successful incubator for sustainable business development teams.
1. SOP’s & Company Culture
When developing Standard Operating Procedures for your business development and customer service team, your brand has the power to deliver a consistent multidimensional brand experience that delivers time and time again.
Whilst crystal clear standards are of great significance for employee onboarding and training, every sales person brings along own soft skills that can craft powerful connections and relationship building. It is crucial to find the right balance between those hard and soft skills to motivate your team and support where their passion can take you.
A team lead shall be sparking the team with new ideas and concepts on how to successfully reach out to cold leads and where potential opportunities lay to further support an evolving powerful team of business developers.
Open communication is key to raise challenges which require personal development and to share opportunities openly within a safe environment.
Recognition is key and rewards are the cherry on the cake – do not waive crucial acknowledgement as obvious. Small gestures and incentives can create great motivation and results if achievable in a timely manner.
2. Innovation & Technology
Building up your sales pipeline with a healthy sales funnel for conversion is the key objective for your BD team. Success becomes the ultimate motivator. So even more crucial are the tools you provide to your team and the spark of novel ways on how to reach out efficient and effective.
Whilst face to face networking events have been a key driver for many industries in the past, the global changes in 2020 and 2021 demand to rethink ways on how to go about cold acquisition.
A wide array of tools is available, with video prospection being the leading source of actual business conversion. Recording a video with a professional background, customised to your prospect, personalised based on thorough research, with a great personal touch, allows the viewer to consume your pitch at their own leisure. We love using Loom but there are many options to choose from.
The phrase’ this is how we have always been doing things around here’ will not facilitate a novel and interesting approach for your prospects, so step out of your comfort zone and allow some space for your team to try new ways on how to amaze your target audience.
Keep in mind that forward thinking and swift adaptation to novel technology reflects positively on your brand positioning. Important though that at all times, those solutions are safe and GDPR compliant. Many CRM systems offer integrated marketing tools and empower great customisation, i.e. check out Zendesk or Salesforce. This brings along a powerful integrated tool for neat daily orgainisation, clear action list and smart automation to save time. Do not forget different industries and markets favour different ways and platforms for communication.
3. Knowledge and Organisation
Thorough knowledge about your company, your products and service and values are a crucial foundation for any sales person to feel confident and comfortable for active outreach tasks. It is recommended that your BD team not only understands what’s in your company brochure but interacts frequently with your production and service delivery teams to fully comprehend the value your business brings for clients, the amount of work and thought that goes into it and to absorb customer success stories which are great to share in a pitch.
Feed your BD team well constantly and they will package the shared information in their very own way to capture the prospects attention.
Your team will understand that every pitch has to revolve all around the prospect and the value your company brings on the table, not actually about your business. The renown elevator pitches are so crucial to capture the attention initially and to receive the opportunity to deliver a full pitch to the decision makers. Good preparation and experience help craft powerful elevator pitches that strike.
In depth research on potential industries, but further on the individual prospect prior to reach out, build the framework for a great conversation. Once the potential client feels that the sales person did their proper homework, the client understands that this person must have a valuable solution or product for their problem and are ready to listen.
Background insights on the competitive set help further and active listening then fuels a captivating conversation. It is inevitable for the BD person to be able to swiftly adapt the conversational flow with this new information to reflect full understanding. A high level of personalisation strikes at all times and tools such as the Sales Navigator of LinkedIn supply a great platform for direct custom outreach. Furthermore retargeting for Website visitors on various social channels is a great support for the BD team.
4. Resilience & Objection handling
Professional and consistent follow up are not a sign of desperate attempts to steal someone’s time, but if prospects are well chosen, affirm the genuine interest in this collaboration and professional set up of your company. It is all about the right mindset and daily motivation of your BD team to convert those prospects with professional perseverance and genuine interest for objection handling. To successfully handle objections, your team needs to be versed, trained and then will enhance these foundations with experience.
If the background research was a job well done, this knowledge on value and opportunity for the prospects, can now be utilised to transform objections into new possibilities and actual solutions that impact their outputs, save time, drive revenue and deliver greater experience.
Furthermore those conversations are of utmost importance for your future product and service development in the future.
5. Coachability & Curiosity
Candid real time feedback supports self awareness. It sparks the path to active learning and personal development. This great opportunity for all team members in your organisation needs to be seeded from within your company culture and values. A team approach, mutual learning and growth, a collaborative environment that works towards the same goals with the same passion; is what makes the difference.
If your team is genuinely interested in personal growth and in seeing your business succeed because they believe in your vision, then open communication in the right place at the right time, will fuel the mutual learning benefits across departments.
The latest ‘Investing In Skills Scheme’ promoted by Jobsplus makes employers eligible for up to €25.70 per hour of training for each employee together with €5.15 an hour to cover wage costs.
If your business needs a helping hand, to get this process started or requires hands-on customer service & sales training, speak to our bex trainers.
