Traditional practice and descriptions of business development are more concerned with marketing techniques to grow an enterprise. Most of the focus in these techniques centers on traditional marketing techniques with a strong emphasis on customer acquisition, (finding and reaching customers), and customer retention (keeping customers satisfied).
New business techniques focus more on going beyond the product and service that a business offers. It also encompasses advice, delivery and adapting to the customer’s needs. New business techniques are therefore concerned with an enterprises service and or product, marketing and design of a business model.
Below are concepts that you should have in mind if you want to avoid making mistakes in the turbulent world of business and if you are to maintain your competitive edge amidst all the new and upcoming business techniques.
- No matter how many new techniques you employ in your business strategies, at the end of the day, it’s about how many transactions that you successfully conclude and not how many leads you get.
- It should be clear what the difference between business development and sales is, sales is focused on bringing in revenue while business development is about initiating and building relationships that will enable the business to enhance its products or services and strengthen channels of distribution as well as build on revenue.
- Focus more on satisfying your potential clients using your competitive advantage because you will be under less control of your competitor’s price points and luck.
- When writing proposals, focus more on the customer’s perspective and less on describing your business. You should focus more on why your business is best suited to provide the customer’s needs and how your business will go about meeting the customer’s needs. It is therefore very important to understand who your customers are and what matters most to them.
- Hire the right person for the correct stage of the business. There are 3 main stages in bringing a product or service to market – scouting, testing and scaling. You may have a superstar who is very industry experienced and good at scaling but is not good at scouting.
- When you have business opportunities and leads, focus more on what it will take to convert the opportunity into a success using your competitive advantage and less on if the business opportunity is good or not. Thinking about leads from the right perspective is important to keeping all participants focused on the right expectations.
- It is important to understand, comprehend and monetize how much and what it takes to funnel business leads into becoming your long term customers.
- When assessing opportunities, all participants should understand how the deal fits into the strategy of the business. Is the deal meant to solely drive revenue? Is it meant to tap into new markets? Etc. If the goal is measurable, it is easy to gauge what a successful deal looks like even if it is below projections.
- It is important to create a culture of mutual accountability. If everyone is responsible for a project, a successful deal means that everyone celebrates. If the deal is not a success, then everyone will learn from the experience and will do it better the next time.
If you keep in mind the above concepts, it will be easier to adopt and leverage on the new business techniques that fit into your businesses strategy and make you a success.
Jack Dawson is a web developer and UI/UX specialist at Https://remotedba.com/. He works at a Remote DBA Expert firm, having founded the same firm 9 years ago. He likes to share knowledge and points of view with other Oracle developers and consumers on platforms.