A Game-Changing Business Development Strategy to Achieve Consistent Growth

Your business development strategy can determine the success or failure of your firm. In this post, we’ll explain how to create a marketing strategy and plan that can propel any professional, practice or firm to new levels of growth and profitability.

Business Development Defined

Business development (BD) is the process used to identify, nurture and acquire new clients and business opportunities, driving growth and profitability. A business development strategy is a document that describes the strategy you will use to accomplish that goal.

The scope of business development can vary a lot from organization to organization. Consider the model professional services organizations use to get new business shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The three stages of the business development funnel

The first two stages of the model, Attract Prospects and Build Engagement, are traditional marketing functions. The final stage, Turn Opportunities into Clients, is a traditional sales function. In its traditional role, business development would be looking for new channels of distribution or marketing partners.

But roles are changing and naming conventions evolve. In today’s world many firms refer to the entire marketing and sales process as business development. We know, it can be confusing. So let’s sort it out a bit.

Business Development vs. Marketing

Marketing is the process of determining which products and services you will offer to which target audiences and at what price. It also addresses how you will position and promote your firm and its services in a competitive marketplace. The result of all this activity should be greater awareness of your firm among your target audience — and a stronger flow of qualified leads and opportunities.

Historically, business development has been a subset of the marketing function that was focused on acquiring new marketing or distribution relationships and channels. While this role still exists in many companies, the business development title has become interchangeable with many marketing and sales functions.

Business Development vs. Sales

Sales is the task of converting leads or opportunities into new clients. Business development is a broader term that encompasses many activities beyond the sales function. And while there is some overlap, most traditional BD roles are only lightly involved in closing new clients.

Business development is often confused with sales. This is not too surprising because many people who are clearly in sales have taken to using the title of Business Developer. Many organizations likely believe that the BD designation avoids the stigma sometimes associated with sales.

Nowhere is this practice more prevalent than in professional services. Accountants, lawyers and strategy consultants do not want to be seen as “pushy sales people.” This titular bias is deeply rooted despite the fact that developing new business is an important role of most senior members of professional services firms. Also, the many aspects of the traditional business development role (finding new distribution channels, for instance) don’t translate easily to the professional services environment.

Since clients want to meet and get to know the professionals they will be working with, the seller-doer role is well established in many firms. The preference for seller-doers also tends to discourage firms from fielding a full-time sales force.

To alleviate the burden on fee-earners’ time, however, some firms have hired one or more Business Developers. In the professional services, these folks are often involved in lead generation and qualification, as well as helping the seller-doers close new clients. In other organizational contexts, this role might be thought of as a sales support role.

The result of this confusing picture is that many professional services firms call sales “business development” and make it part of every senior professional’s role. They may also include some marketing functions, such as lead generation and lead nurturing, in the professional’s BD responsibilities.

This expanded role—in which business development includes the full range of lead-generation, nurturing and sales tasks—is what we will concentrate on in this post.

Business Development Examples

To clarify what the professional services business development role entails, let’s consider this example:

Bethany is the Director of Business Development at a mid-sized architecture firm. She is not an architect herself. Nor is she involved in any aspect of delivering client projects. Instead, her role is focused on signing new business for her firm, including new and repeat clients.

For new clients, Bethany spends much of her time responding to RFPs, communicating directly with inbound leads generated by the marketing team, and nurturing potential clients that she met at a recent industry conference. Bethany also collaborates with the marketing team to develop any materials she needs to sell to new accounts.

When it comes to existing accounts, Bethany also plays a major role. She meets monthly with delivery teams to understand whether current client projects are in scope or if change orders are needed. She also maintains a relationship with clients’ key stakeholders. If an opportunity for more work arises, she knows that her relationship with the client is an important component of the potential deal.

In this example, Bethany is the primary driver of business development, but that does not mean she is doing this alone. Her colleague, Greg, is a lead architect at the firm. While Greg’s primary focus is working with clients, business development—and even marketing—is also an important part of his professional life. Greg often attends industry conferences with Bethany, where he is a speaker and subject matter expert and she is the primary networker. The business development dynamic does not end with Bethany. In fact, it permeates the whole organization.

In this business development example, you can see that the range of roles and responsibilities is extensive. This is why business development has to be delivered strategically. Let’s talk about what that means.

Strategic Business Development

Not every business development activity has the same impact. In fact, many are opportunistic and tactical in nature. This is especially true for many seller-doers.

Caught between the pressures of client work and an urgent need to bring in new business, seller-doers cast about for a quick and easy win—maybe a small piece of business at a low price point—that will produce short term results. Of course, this is no real strategy at all.

Strategic business development is the alignment of business development processes and procedures with your firm’s strategic business goals. The role of strategic business development is to acquire ideal clients—the kind that are highly profitable and aren’t overly demanding—for your highest priority services using brand promises that you can deliver upon.

Deciding which targets and strategies to pursue can be a high stakes decision. A good strategy, well implemented, can drive high levels of growth and profitability. A poorly conceived strategy can stymie growth and frustrate valuable talent.

Yet many firms falter at this critical step. They rely on habit, anecdotes and fads—or worse, that innovation killer, “This is how we have always done it.” In a later section, we’ll explain how to develop your strategic business development plan. But first let’s explore some of the strategies that might go into that plan.

Top Business Development Strategies

Let’s look at some of the most common business development strategies and how they stack up against what today’s buyers are looking for.

1. Networking

Networking is probably the most frequently used business development technique. It’s built on the idea that professional services buying decisions are rooted in relationships, and the best way to develop new relationships is through face-to-face networking.

It is true that many relationships are established in this way. And if you are networking with members of your target audience, you can develop new business. But there are limitations. Today’s buyers are very time pressured, and networking is time consuming. It can be very expensive, if you consider travel and time away from the office. Your business development potential is also limited to the relatively small number of people you can meet in person.

Newer digital networking techniques can help. But even networking on social media requires an investment of time and attention.

2. Referrals

A close relative of networking, referrals are often seen as the mechanism that turns networking and client satisfaction into new business. You establish a relationship, and that person refers new business to you. Satisfied clients do the same.

Without question, referrals are common, and many firms get most or all of their business from them. But referrals are passive. They rely on your clients and contacts to identify good prospects for your services and make a referral at the right time.

The problem is, referral sources often are unaware of all of your services or the range of ways you can help a client. So many referrals are poorly matched to your capabilities. Other well-matched referrals go unmade because your referral source fails to recognize a great prospect when they see one. Finally, many prospects that might be good clients rule out your firm before even talking with you. One study puts that number at over 50%.

Importantly, there are new digital strategies that can accelerate referrals. Making your specific expertise more visible is the key. This allows people to make better referrals and increases your referral base beyond clients and a few business contacts.

3. Sponsorships and Advertising

Can you develop new business directly by sponsoring events and advertising? It would solve a lot of problems if it works. No more trying to squeeze time from fully utilized billable professionals.

Unfortunately, the results on this front are not very encouraging. Studies have shown that traditional advertising is actually associated with slower growth. Only when advertising is combined with other techniques, such as speaking at an event, do these techniques bear fruit.

The most promising advertising strategy seems to be well-targeted digital advertising. This strategy allows firms to get their messages and offers in front of the right people at a lower cost.

4. Outbound Telephone and Mail

Professional services firms have been using phone calls and mail to reach potential clients for decades. Target the right firms and roles with a compelling relevant message and new opportunities abound. At least, that’s the theory.

There are a couple of key challenges with these strategies. First they are relatively expensive, so they need to be just right to be effective. Second, if you don’t catch the prospect at the right time, your offer may fall flat—delivering no impact on your business development goals.

The key is to have a very appealing offer delivered to a very qualified and responsive list. It’s not easy to get this combination right.

5. Thought Leadership and Content Marketing

Here, the strategy is to make your expertise visible to potential buyers and referral sources. By writing and speaking about issues relevant to your audience, you can demonstrate your expertise and how it can be applied to solve their business problems.

Books, articles and speaking engagements have long been staples of professional services business development strategy. Many high-visibility experts have built their practices and firms upon this strategy. It often takes a good part of a career to execute this approach.

But changing times and technology have reshaped this strategy. With the onset of digital communication it is now easier and much faster to establish your expertise with a target market. Search engines have leveled the playing field so that relatively unknown individuals and firms can become known even outside their physical region. (Though with the rise of AI, this landscape is evolving quickly.) Webinars have democratized public speaking, and blogs and websites give every firm a 24/7 presence. Add in video, podcasts and social media and the budding expert can access a vastly expanded marketplace.

But these developments also open firms to much greater competition, as well. You may find yourself competing with specialists whom you were never aware of—raising the stakes on your business development strategy.

6. Combined Strategies

It is common to combine different business development strategies. For example, networking and referrals are frequently used together. And on one level, a combined strategy makes perfect sense. The strength of one strategy can shore up the weakness of another.

But there is a hidden danger. For a strategy to perform at its peak, it must be fully implemented. If you attempt to execute too many different strategies you will never completely implement any of them.

Good intentions, no matter how ambitious, are of little real business development value. Under-investment, lack of follow through and inconsistent effort are the bane of effective business development.

It is far more effective to fully implement a simple strategy than to dabble in a complex one. Fewer elements, competently implemented, produce better results.

Next, we turn our attention to the tactics used to implement a high-level strategy. But first there is a bit of confusion to clear up.

Business Development Strategy Vs. Tactics

The line between strategy and tactics is not always clear. For example, you can think of networking as an overall business development strategy or as a tactic to enhance the impact of a thought leadership strategy. Confusing to be sure.

From our perspective, the distinction is around focus and intent. If networking is your business development strategy all your focus should be on making the networking more effective and efficient. You will select tactics that are aimed at making networking more powerful or easier. You may try out another marketing technique and drop it if it does not help you implement your networking strategy.

On the other hand, if networking is simply one of many tactics, your decision to use it will depend on whether it supports your larger strategy. Tactics and techniques can be tested and easily changed. Strategy, on the other hand, is a considered choice and does not change from day to day or week to week.

10 Most Effective Business Development Tactics

Which business development tactics are most effective? To find out, we conducted a study that looked at 824 professional services firms. The research identified those firms that were growing at greater than a 20% compound annual growth rate over a three-year period.

These High Growth firms were compared to firms in the same industry that did not grow over the same time period. We then examined which business development tactics were employed by each group and which provided the most impact.

The result is a list of the ten most impactful tactics employed by the High Growth firms:

1. Providing assessments and/or consultations
2. Live product/service demonstrations
3. Business development materials (e.g., qualifications presentations, proposal templates, etc.)
4. Speaking at targeted conferences or events
5. Conducting and publishing original research
6. Networking at targeted conferences, trade shows and events
7. Marketing partnerships with other organizations
8. Outbound sales calls from internal teams
9. SMS text messaging
10. Presenting in educational webinars

There are a couple of key observations about these tactics. First, these techniques can be employed in service of different business development strategies. For example, number four on the list, speaking at targeted conferences or events, can easily support a networking or a thought leadership strategy.

The other observation is that the top tactics include a mix of both digital and traditional techniques. As we will see when we develop your plan, having a healthy mix of digital and traditional techniques tends to increase the impact of your strategy.

Business Development Skills

Now that we have identified some key business development strategies and tactics you might incorporate into your business development plan, it is time to consider the skills your team will need. Business development requires a broad range of technical skills, but there are some that make a particular difference.

When the Hinge Research Institute studied marketing and business development skills in our annual High Growth Study, we found that the firms that grow fastest have a skills advantage within their marketing and business development teams.

In Figure 2 below, we see which business development skills are the most important for the high growth firms:

Figure 2. Skill ratings by marketing function (High Growth vs. No Growth firms)

Let’s dive into the top three skills from this list. 

High growth firms’ number one business development skill is strong project management. And for experienced business development specialists, this makes good sense. Staying organized, accurately tracking business development activity and managing accounts are essential for building and maintaining strong business relationships. Sound project management practices also allow the business development team to produce stronger proposals more quickly without sacrificing quality.

The next most important skill is simplifying complex concepts. In business development conversations, it is vital that team members are able to communicate your firm’s service offerings and capabilities in a way that prospects can understand. Speaking in industry jargon or presenting overly complicated charts creates unnecessary confusion and friction. Therefore, it is no surprise to see that the fastest growing professional services firms have an advantage in communicating complex information in a way that buyers understand.

The third most important business development skill is data analytics. Firms that make a habit of regularly monitoring key metrics have a real advantage. They can see what marketing techniques are working and which are having problems. This allows them to make course corrections in near real time. Firms that rarely or never look at data are running blind, relying instead on potentially misleading anecdotal evidence.

Review the other business development and marketing skills in the figure above and determine if there are any skill deficiencies in your business development team. Developing these skills should be a key priority.

How to Create Your Strategic Business Development Plan

A Business Development Plan is a document that outlines how you implement your business development strategy. It can be a plan for an individual, a practice or the firm as a whole. Its scope covers both the marketing and sales functions, as they are intertwined in most professional services firms.

Here are the key steps to develop and document your plan.

1. Define your target audience

Who are you trying to attract as new clients? Think about your “best-fit” clients, not all possible prospects. Focus on a narrow target audience. But don’t go so narrow that you can’t achieve your business goals.

2. Research their top challenges and buying behavior, as well as your competitors

The more you know about your target audience the better equipped you will be to attract their attention and communicate how you can help them. What are their key business issues? Is your expertise relevant to those issues? Where do they look for advice and inspiration? What is the competitive environment like? How do you stack up?

3. Identify your competitive advantage

What makes you different? Why is that better for your target client? Are you the most cost-effective alternative? Or the industry’s leading expert? However you position your firm, your claims need to be true, provable and relevant to your target audience. It is very useful to document this positioning as you will use it over and over again as you develop your messages and marketing tools.

4. Choose your overall business development strategy

Pick the broad strategy or strategies you will use to reach, engage and convert your prospects. You can start with the list of top strategies provided above. Which strategy best fits your target audience’s needs and preferences? Which ones best convey your competitive advantage? For example, if you have superior industry expertise, a thought leadership/content marketing strategy will likely serve you well.

5. Choose your business development tactics

A great place to start is with the list of the most effective tactics we provided above. Make sure that each technique you select fits your target audience and strategy. Remember, it’s not about your personal preferences or familiarity with a tactic. It’s about what will create a connection with your audience.

Also, you will need to balance your choices in two important ways: First, you will need tactics that address each stage of the business development pipeline shown in Figure 1. Some techniques work great for gaining visibility but do not address the longer-term need to nurture prospects over time. You need to cover the full funnel.

Second, you need a good balance between digital and traditional techniques (see figure 3 below). Your research should inform this choice. Be careful about assumptions. Just because you don’t use social media doesn’t mean that a portion of your prospects don’t use it to check you out.

When, how often, which conferences, what topics? Now is the time to settle on the details that turn a broad strategy into a specific plan. Many plans include a content or marketing calendar that lays out the specifics, week by week. If that is too much detail for you, at least document what you will be doing and how often. You will need these details to monitor the implementation of your plan.

7. Specify how you will monitor implementation and impact

Often overlooked, these important considerations often spell the difference between success and failure. Unimplemented strategies don’t work. Keep track of what you do, and when. This will both motivate action and provide a great starting place as you troubleshoot your strategy. Also monitor and record any results you see. The most obvious effect will be how much new business you closed. But you should also monitor new leads or new contacts, at the bare minimum.

Finally, don’t neglect important process outcomes such as referrals, growth of your list and downloads of content that expose prospects and referral sources to your expertise.

Follow these steps and you will walk away with a fully documented business development strategy and a concrete plan to implement and optimize it.

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