BizDev guarding the interests of your business

The desire to ensure the stable development of your company is quite natural for every business representative. To implement such an idea, a lot of effort is put into it, modern tools, technical solutions are used, and various specialists are involved. But practice shows that it will be possible to ensure high efficiency of business in the market only through a comprehensive and professional approach. Therefore, such specialists as bizdevs (BizDev) have recently become quite actively used. This is an abbreviated name for Business Development Manager. This is a specialist who undertakes the implementation of a number of processes, the main goal of which involves improving the company's position in the market, and along with this, the level of income. Also, his work is aimed at improving the brand image and its recognition in the market, forming reliable partnerships.

As part of today's review, we will dwell in more detail on what the Business development technology is as such and when it is worth attracting a corresponding specialist to your business. Let's consider in detail the profession of a business developer and what tasks he will face in his daily work, what personal qualities he will have. Let's consider the approximate level of earnings. We will tell you how to start the process and what stages need to be implemented here. So, let's take everything in order.

What is the Business development direction in general

Most businesses operating in the market set 2 categories of key goals: financial and non-financial. This is what helps them develop in the market, survive in conditions of even fairly tough competition, attract new customers and retain the attention of regular ones, set up long-term and fruitful cooperation with partners. To implement this, it is necessary to develop a comprehensive strategic plan. Its creation will be one of the key tasks facing Business development. This one direction unites a huge number of smaller areas, in particular:

• project management;
• marketing;
• sales;
• promotion;
• networking, etc.

Accordingly, a person who will specialize in performing these tasks is called a business developer, or bizdev for short. Alternatively, his responsibilities will include analyzing the performance of the marketing department, which will ultimately allow him to make a number of assumptions aimed at identifying erroneous theories that will entail increased costs but will not give the desired results. That is, Business development itself is aimed at constantly analyzing the current situation, and then, based on the information received, selecting solutions that will open up new opportunities for business development, growth, increasing the level of trust from the audience, business partners, and more.

Of course, any company has a business plan that underlies the overall development of the brand, but it will have fundamental differences from the same plan that will become the basis for the work of your BizDev specialist. The specificity here is that work on the implementation of such projects will be carried out on an ongoing basis, taking into account current trends. That is, it will be dynamic and constantly aimed at ensuring the maximum result in the current conditions.

If we talk directly about the business tasks that Business development helps to solve, then the following points should be highlighted:

1. Business development in the market, increasing its profitability. As part of the implementation of the planned tasks, comprehensive monitoring of the current state will be carried out, current problems will be identified. Based on the information received, a strategy for future development is developed. Here, a step-by-step plan for solving the identified problems is literally written down. As a result, it is possible to significantly reduce the company's expenses, find new resources, and implement advanced solutions that optimize the work of each individual specialist and the business as a whole.
2. Strengthening the company's position in the market. Business development is largely aimed at developing and subsequently strengthening partnerships. In modern conditions, this point can be called one of the key ones in ensuring the stable operation of the company in the market in the face of rapidly changing trends and ever-increasing competition. It is partnerships that often help expand the target audience, set up effective product sales, increase productivity, and build brand stability in the market.
3. Search for new opportunities for further development. Currently, business development is quite actively used for comprehensive market research, forming a portrait of the target audience. Here, there is everything to clearly see how individual divisions within one company, regional offices work and see problem areas, identify growth points for yourself. This is what will allow you to create a truly effective strategy for brand promotion.

But how do you know that your business needs BizDev?

Signs that your business needs Business development

Absolutely any business may need to use the principles of Business development in practice, regardless of what market niche it operates in and how long it has been operating. Everything here depends on the current tasks facing your company at a given time. You should use the services of BizDev if:

1. You are launching a new company or a separate project that involves integration with partners. A striking example here is modern startups. They enter the market literally with the idea itself, albeit a promising, brilliant one. But they have nothing to implement. That is, you cannot do without partner resources. Let's consider a simple example: you are launching an application that will display the movement of public transport in real time in an online format. The idea itself is really good, since a long wait for a bus or trolleybus is something that almost everyone would like to avoid. But in order to launch something like this, you will need to obtain this information directly. This means that you need to analyze the market, understand what kind of public transport is available in a particular city, contact companies providing passenger transportation services, and find out information about the availability of GPS sensors on transport. These are the jobs that the BizDev manager undertakes.
2. You are launching barter projects on the market. In business, there are often situations when one company requires products that another company has in stock and vice versa. In most cases, exchanging such goods for both parties will be more profitable than a direct purchase. But here it is necessary to identify the interests of each party, coordinate them, that is, find solutions that will satisfy both participants in the barter project. These are the tasks that will be assigned to Business development.
3. It is necessary to professionally build business processes between partners. Companies that are in the stage of rapid development or even start-ups often face this. It takes a lot of time and effort to build effective work with partners. Most of these tasks are shifted to business employees whose responsibilities do not include them at all. As a result, specialists are forced to devote less time to their direct responsibilities, which negatively affects the efficiency of the main tasks. That is why it would be a more appropriate solution to hire a business developer on staff or for project work. Thanks to this, you will have at your disposal a person who is well acquainted with the specifics of external negotiations, will be able to organize effective interaction with partners, and will take on all document flow.
4. It is necessary to have a separate representative of the company in a new niche or in a new market. Such a situation arises in cases when an international company enters smaller local markets, but they do not have a local representative office. As a result, local companies that would like to become your partners are forced to contact the central office to clarify various nuances of cooperation. And there can be a lot of such requests, which will ultimately lead to an increased workload for specialists, distracting them from performing daily tasks. Here, a more appropriate solution would be to invite a business developer to work, entrusting him with the management of local projects.

If such situations are quite relevant for you, even possible in the future, then it is time to think about using Business development in practice and, accordingly, attracting a separate specialist to solve all the problems in this niche.

Stages of Business development implementation

Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for all areas of business when implementing Business development. Here, the scope of activity, the size of your company, and the tasks that are relevant at the moment have a significant impact. Practice shows that in some situations, the work of a business development specialist will be reduced to building relationships between partners, in others - to tracking trends, conducting a comprehensive analysis of a particular product, in others - to finding new markets for selling products and opportunities for business development in general. But still, there is a universal set of recommendations and stages that everyone who would like to use Business development within their company will need to go through. In particular, we are talking about the following points:

• Defining the main goal. Here we are talking about determining what exactly you would like to achieve within your business in the long term. You choose the time interval yourself: six months, a year, 5 years, etc. That is, you need to think not only about current needs, but also about the future. This is what will allow you to build brand value, ensure a decent reputation, and positive feedback from consumers. That is, from the very beginning you should understand how your company will be positioned on the market. A comprehensive SWOT analysis can be of significant help in all this. With its help, you will be able to identify existing shortcomings in the company's work, compare yourself with your closest competitors, identify those points that help other organizations working in your niche achieve success in the market. Thanks to this, you will be able to find growth points, open up new opportunities for development.
• Choose the areas to which BizDev should be applied. Here we are talking about prioritizing your work with the audience, competitors, partners, products. It is important to understand how you will interact with potential buyers and other persons related to your business. Think about which work processes can be automated in order to increase the efficiency of work, speed it up, and minimize errors. You have a huge number of modern tools at your disposal that can be easily adapted to the work of your business. Alternatively, these could be email newsletters, chat bots, including those based on artificial intelligence, advanced CRM systems, SMS and push notifications. Also in practice, Viber business accounts have been widely used for effective interaction with potential buyers.
• Choosing channels for launching marketing campaigns. You should initially understand which methods of interaction with the audience, business partners will be the most convenient for both you and them. In practice, situations often arise when a business spends a lot of time and resources on launching tools and channels that ultimately do not produce the desired result and do not justify the investment. Therefore, you initially need to navigate the possible solutions, determine the potential of each option and choose those that will provide the desired efficiency in the end.
• Development of a business plan for Business development. Already at this stage, you should draw up step-by-step instructions that will allow you to go from the stage you are currently at to the set goal. Here, it is additionally important to connect tools for collecting statistical data in order to understand how effective the work you are doing will be. This way, you will be able to evaluate the results of each stage and make the necessary adjustments as quickly as possible.
• Optimization of BizDev. These are the works that must be performed continuously, because the efficiency of business development as a whole depends on it. This way, you will be able to distribute available resources as correctly as possible, select new sales channels, and find new opportunities for development. As a result, all business processes will become more effective, and their costs will be optimized.

In any case, it is important to understand that Business development is aimed at finding prospects and growth. Its effectiveness should not be underestimated for both large and medium-sized businesses. We are talking about a set of works that will help optimize your costs, increase the stability of functioning in the market, ensure immunity to various fluctuations, unforeseen situations, maintain competitiveness at a high level. And this means that you need to get a good BizDev manager on staff. Perhaps, among you there are also those who would like to try themselves in this rather promising profession. If so, then read our review below.

Getting to know the profession of Business Development Manager

Business Development Manager is a specialist who will take on the solution of quite diverse tasks, from setting up an e-mail newsletter to conducting B2B sales, closing deals with business partners and more. Such a manager must be thoroughly familiar with the specifics of the business, know its advantages and weaknesses. It is also very important to understand the needs of the target audience and be able to find solutions that would fully cover them. He/she must also have a perfect command of advanced marketing tools, which will allow him/her to effectively attract new clients and retain the attention of a regular audience, find ways to interest partners and find in all the variety of solutions exactly those that will allow him/her to scale the business and effectively bypass competitors, and ensure the brand's leading position in the market.

Today, almost any more or less large company assumes the presence of marketing, sales, and customer support departments (a division that ensures customer satisfaction and their success when using a product or service). But one of the most difficult tasks here will be the harmonious distribution of work between them, ensuring effective interaction. Quite often, the coordination of their actions is also part of the responsibilities of the business development manager. Such a specialist will distribute the resources of each department based on an agreed business strategy, synchronize the work of individual specialists, and transform the results obtained into effective business development.

The Business Development Manager will also be able to put forward hypotheses for subsequent business development based on archival and new information. The formed assumptions are sent for testing to marketers and sales managers. Subsequently, bizdev will coordinate their work, build relationships, including with partner companies.

And even if your business does not yet have such departments, dedicated employees, if all the work that is usually assigned to the sales, marketing, customer support department is performed by 1 or 2 people, then their work still needs to be coordinated and directed in the right direction, clearly following the general mission of business development, analyzing the results obtained and taking a number of measures aimed at improving them. That is, a BizDev manager will be useful in a business of any format, direction. He will be able to coordinate the work of the team, clearly outline the range of upcoming work, establish valuable cooperation.

Who can become a Business Development Manager?

Most of the candidates for the position of bizdev are specialists who work in related niches and want to ensure a new start for career development. Experience shows that the following people most often take on the role of such specialists:

• customer support department employees;
• sales managers;
• marketers;
• business analysts;
• project managers;
• lead generation personnel.

If you have experience in one of these areas, then it will be much easier for you to master the profession of Business Development Manager and ensure yourself a stable, effective job, good pay. Unlike the same specialist in marketing, sales, bizdev must have excellent analytical skills, creative thinking abilities. This is the only way to assess the prospects and opportunities for the company's subsequent development, find entry points into related markets, launch new services, attracting more and more target audiences, and even perform a large-scale rebranding of the brand.

By and large, the BizDev manager will combine the responsibilities of other specialists. He needs to build strategies, find good performers, promote products, and also understand what work a particular specialist can do and delegate tasks, check the quality of their solutions. That is, they will be responsible for the overall coordination of work, improved interaction with partners. As a result, his actions will have a positive impact on increasing the brand's income.

What problems can bizdev encounter at the beginning of work?

Not only the specialist himself, but also the immediate management of the company should be well versed in the work of the Business Development Manager. This is what will allow him to set quite adequate tasks that correspond to his professional responsibilities. Unfortunately, practice often shows cases when a BizDev is assigned to solve problems related to direct sales or customer support. Therefore, it is important to clearly define the boundaries of responsibilities. Thanks to this, it will be possible to set fairly clear tasks, the solution of which will not cause additional difficulties for the specialist.

Another point that often arises in reality is the assignment of work with the financial department and accounting to the BizDev manager. As a result, this specialist turns into a kind of transmission link: he receives certain calculations from the accounting department, sends them to partners, receives responses from partners and sends them back to the same accounting department. In this case, no work aimed at promoting the business, opening up new areas for development will be performed. That is, the knowledge and skills that the specialist had at the start of the work will simply be lost, forgotten. The business will not receive any benefit from adding a Business Development Manager to the staff. The main problem that BizDevs will face in practice is precisely the lack of understanding of the responsibilities of this specialist on the part of company managers. And if you have already had experience in performing similar work, then you will be able to show your importance to the management, ensure good development of the business. But if work in this niche is just beginning, then with a high degree of probability you cannot count on good career growth without competent management.

Personal qualities that a Business Development Manager should have

We have already mentioned above that a person who has certain knowledge and skills in the field of sales and marketing can become a good specialist in the field of Business Development. But in parallel with this, it is also important to have certain personal qualities, because they largely help to achieve good results and not give up when the first difficulties arise. In particular, we are talking about the following qualities:

1. Natural curiosity. For the most part, business development is a rather boring and monotonous job that will require specialists to be extremely diligent and meticulous. Very often, many jobs have to be started literally from scratch, systematically advancing them until the set goals are achieved. And it will be much easier to implement all this if you initially have certain interests, curiosity, and a desire to understand the details in order to achieve the set goal. You will have to put in a lot of effort to monitor market trends day after day, identify the smallest changes and respond to them as quickly as possible.
2. Business correspondence skills. It is important to understand that one of the key responsibilities of a business developer will be correspondence with partners. And here it is important to be extremely careful, attentive, and learn to maintain a business tone. Here it is necessary to maintain strict business relationships, not to get personal, but also not to go to extremes in the desire to please a business partner. For effective communication, it is important to have a certain eloquence, to be well-versed in technical issues related to business in general. This is what will allow you to offer a partner or even a client what they are looking for in a certain period of time.
3. Analytical thinking. In the work of a BizDev, there will be a lot of tasks that cannot be solved without a comprehensive analysis of the current market situation, putting forward new hypotheses and testing them. That is, here it will be necessary to predict the result even before the actual launch. It will also be necessary to analyze the results of each advertising campaign, identifying new areas for growth, opening new representative offices, attracting other partners, expanding the target audience and the business as a whole. It may be necessary to improve the product itself. That is, you need to understand how this can be done.
4. Communication skills. In their daily work, a BizDev manager will have to deal with a large number of people: business partners, colleagues, potential clients. Without the ability to conduct a productive conversation, it is unlikely that you will be able to achieve the desired results here. You need to be able to gently and unobtrusively prove your point of view, prove the importance of implementing the proposed initiatives. It is important to patiently listen to the comments and suggestions of colleagues, be able to present your idea to the management, thereby confirming its prospects. Without good communication skills, you will not be able to present your business to potential clients, persuade them to invest in it.
5. Organizational skills. We have already talked about the fact that for the most part, a Business Development Manager will be a link between a large number of specialists and departments. This means that it is important to understand how to effectively organize teamwork, how to minimize risks and dangers in the event that the work will be carried out by a large number of people who have their own views on the current situation. That is, the business development manager will need to distribute work and the load between different departments and people, monitor what results he gets and make certain adjustments if he still fails to achieve the goal the first time.
6. Creative thinking. These are the skills that will allow you to launch truly extraordinary advertising campaigns, come up with creative ideas that will hook potential clients, attract their attention, and encourage a desire to get to know the specifics of the business, its products or services in more detail. If you compare the work of a sales manager, a marketer and a business developer, the latter will have much more opportunities to demonstrate creative skills. Practice shows that the bolder the decisions made during the work, the more impressive the results can be obtained in the end.
7. Stress resistance. Working with people in itself is associated with increased difficulties. It is especially difficult to find words and solutions that would satisfy all participants in the process. But it is also important to understand that each person has their own opinion on this or that matter. And even if you offer something really useful, not everyone will see value in it for themselves. This means that you will probably have to be nervous in your daily work. And if you do not have stress resistance, you can greatly complicate not only your work, but your life in general.

As you can see, not everything is as simple as it may seem at first glance. The Business Development Manager will have to control several areas at once, monitor current trends, analyze results, and set priorities. And with all this, it is important to understand in which direction the business should move in order to scale the results. That is, without the skills and personal qualities that we mentioned above, you can’t do without it.

Launching a business development project correctly

Regardless of the niche you plan to work in, the fundamental sequence of actions for launching Business Development will be approximately the same. And the first thing you should start with is to perform a business audit. Initially, it is important to determine how the company works, how many departments it has and what tasks each of them solves, what tools are used here. It is imperative to identify metrics indicating the success of the project, the goals set. It takes into account how motivation is built in the team, how effective the existing incentives have been.

And only after ensuring good technical savvy can you move on to other stages. In particular, attention is paid to the effectiveness of the work of marketers and the sales department, the existing target audience and partnerships are analyzed. We will now dwell on these points in more detail.

Marketing

We are talking about understanding what channels for interacting with the target audience the business uses and what is the effectiveness of each of them. Here it is necessary to evaluate both the closest competitors and your own company, to find out what goals need to be achieved. Thanks to this, you will be able to see the strengths of the business and present your brand in the most favorable light, present the key advantages to the audience.

In particular, when assessing the communication channels used, bizdev analyzes the launched advertising campaigns and communication channels according to a number of criteria:

• features of the brand's interaction with regular customers and a new audience;
• messages sent to users;
• nuances of organizing advertising campaigns;
• brand positioning on the market as a whole;
• key differences from competitors.

It is on the basis of this information that the effectiveness of marketing within a given organization is assessed, weaknesses are identified, and solutions are selected that can improve the current situation.

Sales

At this stage, we are talking directly about the analysis of the sales process itself. In particular, here we evaluate how effective the solutions used are in practice, and the level of their diversification. Just a few years ago, even very large companies were absolutely not set up to organize direct sales, did not use the opportunities that social networks provided them at the initial stage of their development. Also, few people bothered much with SEO optimization of the site. Today, trends have changed dramatically, previously working channels have ceased to give the desired results, but not every business can adapt to a new way.

And here the task of the Business Development Manager will be to find the most effective solutions for the development of the company in modern conditions, when many businesses have moved to the online space. And here special attention should be paid to the flexibility of the strategies being developed: we rely on all options that could be adapted as quickly and easily as possible to the requests and wishes of each client.

Working with clients

Here we are talking about the importance of performing a comprehensive analysis of your business's current clients, because they will be the basis for building subsequent advertising campaigns. That is, knowing who exactly is interested in your products and services, you will be able to find similar segments in the market and launch your advertising on them.

Here everything is quite simple and logical: if you understand the needs of your buyer, you will be able to find the most promising and interesting products for him much faster and more accurately. Understand which partners can enhance the value of such an offer. Here you will have to collect a fairly impressive amount of data, systematize it, and perform a comprehensive analysis. So you will get all the data that will allow you to subsequently build the most effective partnership.

Partnerships

Most businesses seek partners in related areas for effective development in the market. This is what will significantly expand the target audience and minimize the costs of attracting leads. Your commercial offers will be more valuable to the audience. As a result, the business will become closer and closer to potential clients.

How much can a Business Development Manager earn?

Finally, we have come to the question that interests everyone who is interested in the profession of a business development manager. But we would like to say right away that, unfortunately, we cannot provide exact figures. Firstly, today there are a number of fundamental differences in the requirements for these specialists in American and European organizations. Thus, BizDev in the USA will mainly work on establishing partnerships, attending all sorts of seminars, conferences, analyzing all these platforms where future partners can be represented. If we talk about Europe, then here this specialist performs the duties of a universal soldier. Often he takes on the duties of a sales manager, lead generator, marketer. Quite large teams often work under his leadership. And all this has a direct impact on the salary level.

If we talk directly in our country, today the Business Development Manager rate is in the range from $800 to $2500 per month. But already at the start, you need to be aware of current market trends, have certain skills in marketing, sales or directly in business promotion. Experience in IT projects is also welcome. Often, the salary will include the rate itself, as well as bonuses that will be paid upon achieving the set goals on time. That is, the final income level can vary in a fairly wide range. And, to tell the truth, it will largely depend on the personal motivation of the BizDev manager, his perseverance, desire to develop and earn.

Summing up

Business Development has repeatedly proven its high efficiency in practice. In particular, back in 2022, Netflix massively expanded its operations, expanding into more than 100 new markets, which increased its customer base by more than 200 million people. Around the same time, Starbucks opened its own coffee shops in 60 countries, increasing its global presence to almost 35,000 stores. Amazon began using Amazon Alexa and Amazon Web Services - services that gave rapid growth to development and provided excellent income to the company. And Google also launched partnerships with smartphone manufacturers, offering them to offer their products with pre-installed applications. Uber launched an advanced business model for taxis, involving the sharing of vehicles, and Airbnb implemented something similar, but with houses and apartments.

Today, massive studies are being carried out that clearly demonstrate the benefits of launching Business Development in practice and directly from the use of BizDev managers by small, medium and even large businesses. But here it is important to understand that the high efficiency of such specialists largely depends on their training and technical equipment.

In particular, one of the reliable assistants of your business developer, as well as a sales manager, marketer and many other specialists can be mobile proxies from the MobileProxy.Space service. Here you can get acquainted with the specifics of this solution, undergo free testing and make sure of the high functionality of this product. You get a lot of opportunities to work on the Internet without risks and restrictions, effectively bypassing various blockings. Also, the confidentiality of actions on the network is maintained, reliable protection against unauthorized access is formed. If you have additional questions, go to the FAQ section. With a high degree of probability, you will find answers to them here. Also, specialists of the round-the-clock technical support service will be at your service in subsequent work.

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