Business Development 101: How to Grow Your Company [Complete Guide]

Last Updated – Nov 21, 2023 @ 7:26 am

Lifting your company to new heights is a huge undertaking. In fact, it’s such an intimidating thing to do that a lot of businesses simply don’t take the risk.

But if you truly believe in your company, you must do everything in your power to maximize its potential. This is where business development comes into the picture.

Here’s a quick guide to business development and how it can help your company reach new milestones.

What is Business Development?

Business development is an essential process for every company regardless of its size, location, or industry. It involves the process of generating new opportunities for your business to grow.

This may include creating new products or services, creating a new marketing plan, or even adding another location to your business. The possibilities are endless.

Most business owners believe that as long as their company is already in operation, it does not need development. After all, the company is already making money, right?

Well, not exactly.

In fact, the best business owners and managers realize how important growth is. This is where business development comes into the picture.

Why Is Business Development Crucial?

Business development is integral for growing a business, and it can have numerous benefits for your company. We’ve listed some of them below.

It builds and nurtures relationships 

Relationship building is the core of every company.

It is what brings you new clients, employees, and investors. This will lead to new opportunities for your company.

It can boost revenue

With new opportunities come new clients.

This means that your company can get more business from existing customers, which can increase your revenue. 

It can help you eliminate your competitors

New opportunities can also help you edge out your competitors. When your company gets more clients, you can improve your services while lowering your prices at the same time.

This will make your services more affordable.

It can enhance your company’s visibility

Visibility refers to the number of people who know about your business.

Business development can help your company increase its visibility by increasing your number of employees, clients, and investors.

It improves your company’s image

Your company’s reputation is exceedingly crucial to your company’s success. Good or bad, people will judge your company based on how they perceive it.

Business development inspires positive feedback about your company, which can improve your company’s reputation.

It strengthens your business 

Business development can also drastically advance your company’s operations.

With new opportunities and resources, you can make your company run more efficiently.

It mitigates risks 

Business development can significantly reduce uncertainties in your company.

Since you are doing something different, new, and unique, you won’t have to worry about possible damages that your company might face in the long run.

It attracts the best talents

Lastly, biz dev can help you attract the best talents to your company.

It also gives your employees a sense of fulfillment that they are doing something to further improve their company.

Related: 50 Business Tips – from start to growth

How to Develop a Successful Business Development Strategy for your Company?

At this point, you might be wondering how you can develop a business development strategy. Here’s how you can do this.

Step 1: Identify your target market

The first thing that you must do is to identify your target market.

Your target market is a certain segment of the population that is most likely to buy your company’s products or services.

Your target market might be a certain age range, gender, location, or household income.

You need to know all these factors about your target market to be able to provide them with the best services available.

Step 2: Create a marketing plan

Your marketing plan should include the different strategies that you will use to market your company.

This could include advertising strategies, selling strategies, social media marketing strategies, and even word-of-mouth marketing strategies.

It’s important to integrate all of these things so that you can create a successful marketing campaign that will enable you to promote your company in the best way possible.

Step 3: Develop a sales strategy

One of the most important aspects of biz dev is its ability to create business opportunities for your company.

To maximize these opportunities, it is necessary for you to develop a sales strategy.

A sales strategy involves the process of generating new sales opportunities for your company. This can be done through networking, referrals, and many more techniques.

Whatever your sales strategy may be, it is important that you stick with it to ensure that your company can get more clients.

Step 4: Establish a pricing structure 

Another important thing that you must do in your business development strategy is to establish a pricing structure for your company.

This means that you must set a price for your company’s products or services.

Keep in mind that you should ensure that you are providing your target market with the best products and services that they can afford.

This will allow your company to sell its products and services to clients more easily. 

Step 5: Determine your product line 

Your product line is the list of all your company’s products or services. Take this opportunity to review your current product line.

Are they still ideal for your target market?

If there are some products or services that are not ideal for your target market, you need to remove them from your product line.

This will help ensure that you are able to provide the best products or services to your clients.

Step 6: Choose a distribution channel

With the help of distribution channels, your company will be able to reach a wider array of your target market.

You can use a distribution channel like an online store, a physical store, an online marketplace, or even a direct-to-customer distribution channel.

Some of the most popular online distribution channels for ecommerce in the country include:

• Lazada
• Shopee
• Facebook marketplace

Step 7: Build an advertising campaign 

Whatever industry you belong to, you need to create an advertising campaign. An advertising campaign will help you reach out to more clients.

Using a combination of online ads, email marketing, and public relations can help you actualize a successful advertising campaign.

The best part about advertising is that you can use it again and again to reach out to your target market as long as its message is relevant. 

Step 8: Find out what makes customers buy from you

Every business needs customers to run and stay profitable. The best way to get customers is to know what makes them buy from you.

Some businesses may require customers to buy from them because of the services that they provide, or a unique product feature.

For others, it may be because customers resonate with their branding. Others may inspire customers to buy from them because of the experience that they offer.

Step 9: Make sure your website is working properly

It is important that your business’ website is working properly. Otherwise, you will miss out on business opportunities.

You must have a website that is both functional and appealing. You can do this by making sure that your website has a good design that is mobile-friendly.

Your website should also have a good load time, and convenient payment gateways. 

Step 10: Get feedback from your customers

This is one of the best ways to improve your company and services. By getting feedback from your customers, you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of your company.

You can also take this opportunity to find out how your customers feel about your company’s products and services.

There are two easy ways to get feedback from your customers.

The first way is by sending them a questionnaire, and the second way is by creating a survey online. Make sure to reward them through discounts or exclusive perks.

7 Important Business Development Skills you need to Acquire

Here are some of the most important business development skills that you need to acquire.

Negotiation Skills

Negotiation skills are incredibly important when it comes to biz dev since you will be meeting with various people.

It is important that you are able to negotiate well when it comes to business development.

If you are not able to negotiate well, you could lose a deal or decrease your profit.

Web & Tech Savviness

Since the internet is practically an endless resource of information, you need to make sure that you are well-versed in web savviness.

With the internet becoming more and more popular, your potential clients are most likely to search the web for more information about your company and the products that you offer.

Therefore, you need to ensure that your social media pages, blogs, and online store stand out.

Project Management Skills

Project management skills are important in every business.

However, they are especially important in business development because of the various tasks that it requires.

Project management skills will ensure that you’re not missing anything important and that you are able to track the progress of every project.

Business Intelligence

Business intelligence is the ability to gather and understand data about your company and the industries that you belong to.

With business intelligence, you can better understand your company’s performance and how you can improve it.

You can also have a better picture of the market that you are in. With all this information, it will be easier to create a business development plan for your business.

Related: 150+ Profitable Business Ideas in the Philippines

Marketing Skills

You can’t just rely on word-of-mouth to promote your company.

With marketing skills, you will be able to market your products and services more effectively.

This will make it easier for you to reach out to your target market in the best way possible.

Sales Skills

Sales skills are very important when it comes to business development. These skills can make it easier for you to generate sales opportunities for your brand.

People Skills

Business development requires that you meet with many people. These can be your potential clients, partners, and even employees.

All of these people need to understand the product and services that you offer. They also need to understand the purpose of your company.

That is why it is important that you have good people skills. Good people skills will make it easier for you to communicate with people.

The better you are at communicating with others, the better you will be at getting clients for your company.

5 Business Development Tools for Scaling your Business

Since business development can be a challenge, it is important that you use the right tools to help you succeed.

Here are five tools that you can use when doing business development.

*For a more in-depth guide about business tools, click here.

CRM Software

This tool can help you manage your company’s contacts and customer relationships by enabling you to keep track of all of your contacts, interactions, sales, and many more.

This is important because it will make it easier for you to promote your business and services. Some of the most popular CRM software include:

• Zoho
• Monday
• HubSpot CRM
• Zendesk

Social Media

Just consider how many people are on social media.

The beauty of social media marketing is that you can reach out to billions of people with just a click of a button.

You can use the various social media sites to generate leads, conduct market research, and promote your company.

Social media can also be used to build a community of loyal customers. That is why it is important that you use social media when doing business development.

Some social media platforms you can use include:

• Faceook
• Tiktok
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Twitter

To make managing your social media easier, take advantage of tools such as:

• Buffer
• Google Trends
• Feedly

Team Communication

A good team communication tool can help you build a stronger relationship with your team. This will make it easier for you to do business development in the long run.

A good team communication tool can help you keep in touch with your team. With team communication in check, your team can become more coordinated and informed.

This will also enable you to delegate tasks effectively. Some tools you can use are:

• Google Meet
• Flock
• Gmail
• Microsoft Teams
• Zoom
• Skype

Task Management

Task management involves the planning, organizing, and execution of tasks.

With all the various tasks that you have, it is important that you use a tool that can help you manage them. Otherwise, you might get overwhelmed by some of the more important tasks.

Task management tools can help you organize your tasks so that you can complete them effectively. Some of the tools are recommended for task management include:

• Trello
• Slack
• Team viewer

Marketing

You need to know how to get people interested in your company and the products that you offer.

With marketing tools, you can generate leads, advertise, and many more. It can also provide you with useful data about your marketing efforts.

This will make it easier for you to promote your company and generate sales opportunities. Here are some marketing business tools that are perfect for you:

• Mailchimp
• CovertKit
• Facebook Ads

The Importance of Having a Strong Business Development Strategy in Today’s Competitive Market

There is always a need to find new and better ways to promote your business and generate sales. Your business development strategy will determine the direction of the company.

It can also dictate how the company will grow and reach out to its audience in today’s hypercompetitive market.

Without a business strategy, you will get lost in today’s business clutter. People will not buy your products, or worse, they will  forget about your brand altogether.

To say that business development can be a challenging task is an understatement.

But when you have the right tools and strategies, you can make managing this gargantuan undertaking a lot easier.