Even if you are new
to business or a veteran, you’ll need to learn or improve upon your business development
strategies to ensure success.
A good business
strategy matters a lot when it comes to success - failure ratio. With a good
business strategy, you can unlock massive growth using the trending business
development channels such as; pitching, cold emailing, BD Strategy, negotiating
and deal closing.
What's Business Development Strategy?
Business development strategies are those salient steps you
take to grow a business. It involves
searching the hidden opportunities within the firm and then coming up with
killing strategies that will enable the business owners, employees, managers to
achieve dual goals: meet new goals and
make more profit.
Many big businesses rely on hiring expensive business
consultants to help figure out their weaknesses and direction they should take
their company in. With the right education, you can train yourself to be in
that position to grow your small business idea to a big firm.
Business development is therefore a process of creating a
long-term value for a business or organisation from market, customers, and relationship.
It clarifies how the interaction between to contending forces (market, customers,
and relationship) combines together to create a new opportunity for growth and
profit.
So, the strategy has three cardinal points to clarify.
Know your Customers
These are the consumers of your products or services. In
fact, for your business to grow, you have to know them. What is their age
range, gender or location? They are the population who pay for your product or service.
As a conscious business analyst, you will observe that
although everybody is your potential customers, not everyone is your natural
customer. Some may have to be made. Maybe you have to inform them that you have
a product that will solve their problem. Maybe you have to create a product to
have features they like. Or, maybe you have to make more awareness about your
product or service.
Your ability to define your customer will give you an edge
in developing a long-term business strategy for your business.
Know the Market
What is “market”? It’s a habitat where customers
live. Different customers “live” in a particular market niche and the best way
to understand the market is by analysing the demography. See for instance, if you are currently focusing
on selling to the Nigerian market but you reside in Ghana, it therefore means
that you are not available to me as a customer as I cannot reach the Ghanaian
market.
There are many dimensions that define the market apart from
demography. These are lifestyle, financial background and buying mindset. Your
ability to identify these parameters with help you identify new opportunities
to reach fresh customers by exploiting new market. This is an important
breakthrough to unlock long-term value.
See for instance, a company is dealing on “car spare parts”
in a location that so many people have cars. They’ll be very pleased to do business in this
region because there are patronisers there. But they cannot offer the service
or product to anybody who does not have a car in that region. So for them to exploit
the market, they may think of related products, such as generator parts that
will fit the population.
Build Relationships
Whether you like it or yes, every successful business development
effort must be built on an underlying foundation of strong relationships. While managing your business, you have to leverage
on relationship that are anchored on respect, trust, and mutual appreciation of
customers’ values.
Business relationship is much more complicated than envisaged.
It cuts across relationship with customers, partners, press and the general business
community. All these are very critical to the crafting of any business development
effort.
Nowadays, you can leverage on the emergence of social media
to strengthen your marketing efforts.
Learn your way out.
Company now have a choice either to hire a competent business
analyst to design a well-structured business development strategy or do it themselves.
I particularly enrolled in a business development strategy short course, where I got the in-depth understanding of business
strategy development.
Since business strategy development is a continues process,
its proper for you to do it yourself. Have any question or comment? Share with
us in the comments section.
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