The System Side of Business Development To Develop a Consistent, Predictable and Duplicable Structural Backbone for Your Business Development

by Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan

So, what does it take to create a Championship Business Development Team?

We have three aspects to consider when creating such a team:

1. Leadership
2. People
3. Systems

So, Let's Discuss Systems Here

You have to see your business development activities as a system with specific processes. Some processes can be automated, some are manual and there is not a sausage you can do about it.

Of course, the aim is to automate as much as possible in your business development, but certain things just have to remain manual. Nevertheless, your operation must be autonomous enough to dictate your own "Rules of the Game". You must be able to do business on your own terms, and you must not let certain prospects spit into your soup by saying, "We expect to helve that price", "We pay 90 days after billing" and other rubbish.

In the movie Excalibur, the Sword (named Excalibur) was the symbol of everything the knights of Camelot stood for. Every decision was based on the values represented by Excalibur.

You must be able to express your Rules of the Game without worrying how prospects will feel and whether or not they get pissed off with you. As Roy Williams, the Wizard of Ads says, "This is who we are and what we stand for. You can like it, you can lump it, or you can take it down the road and dump it, but we will forever remain who we truly are."

And many aspects of this can be automated. For instance, you don't need to tell every prospect what you stand for. You just create an "Ideal Client" profile, and prospects can de/select themselves. You see, no manual labour is required.

LG - Lead generation to create a preponderance of qualified sales leads

LC - Lead Conversion to constantly converting some of your leads into paying clients

VD - Value Delivery to create and deliver the kind of value to which the client says, "This was a bargain" and the technology company says, "We've made nice a margin on this gig."

1: This is the typical con artist company and companies that can't properly express the value of their services. They can attract and convert lots of prospects into clients and customers, but what they offer is of no value. Many search engine optimisation firms suffer from this. hey say clients need search engine optimised websites, but what they fail to recognise that search engine optimisation doesn't necessarily translate into ROI. Thus they have huge client attrition.

2: This is the typical professional firm, like accountants and lawyers. They can convert prospects to their valuable services, but they often don't have enough qualified elads to be converted. They have lead generation problems.

3: This is the typical Internet marketing company. It has huge traffic to the website (lots of low quality leads) and a valuable service, but the website fails to convert visitors to clients. Of course, you can't conert low quality leads. Therefore most Internet marketing companies employ legions of sales people pounding pavements peddling door to door and cold calling.

4: There are plenty of quality leads generated, they are converted at a good rate and the company has a products or services which represent distinctive value for the target market.

And remember! Don't sell harder. Market smarter. Both you, your employees, your clients and prospects will find it more enjoyable, profitable and attractive.

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