Have you moved into the role of business development manager?
Maybe you've even had a promotion and taken on this new title in your organization, and
you're wondering, what the heck does a business development manager do?
And let's be honest, should you be spending your time in the same way that the other sales
professionals do.
That answer along with exactly what you should be doing as a business development manager
is exactly what we're gonna cover in today's video.
Hi, I'm Sean Casemore, and I help you learn how to sell more in less time.
So if that sounds good to you and I'm not sure why I wouldn't, then make sure you click
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So further ado, let's get into it.
Let me start with this.
A lot of organizations have their own definition of what a business development manager does
and what they should focus on.
In fact, a lot of sales leader sales executives have their own definition of what this role
is.
What I'm gonna share with you are the common traits.
So the common characteristics that every business development manager should focus on if they
really wanna be effective and be able to call themselves a business development.
That's the key word, development manager.
So let's jump in to the first one.
The first point I want to cover off here is, is pretty critical to being effective as a
business development manager.
You have to be forward thinking.
Here's what I mean by that.
Sales is essentially a day to day activity focused role, right?
You're taking existing customers, connecting with them to try and sell them more.
You're spending time finding new customers to sell your products or services to, and
it's very much a day by day by day activity.
Whereas a business development manager, the key, as I mentioned earlier, is the word development.
Your goal of your role, pardon the I didn't mean for that to actually rhyme.
Um,
Rhymes with pared.
Rhyming, that's way
Around, Okay?
But the goal of your role is essentially so that you can go out and find new opportunities,
which are in the future.
So as a result, you need to be forward thinking, always thinking ahead.
Now's the problem with this.
If you're forward thinking and you're doing what you're supposed to do, you're finding
new opportunities, right?
You're finding new territories, new regions, new partners, new ultimately new products
maybe even that you should bring to market or that your organization could bring to market.
You're gonna get a lot of pushback.
Step one is to make sure you're forward thinking, but be prepared for pushback.
Now, how do you deal with that pushback?
Well, what I want you to consider is that every time you identify through forward thinking
potential opportunities, you have to be able to, in your own mind, tie them back to where
the organization is today and how this will help further them in the future.
And that really comes back to being very familiar with the organization's sales strategy or
their growth strategy.
Here's an example.
Let's assume for a moment the company wants to grow 10% year over year, and that's a pretty
dull target.
But let's assume that for a moment, 10% year over year, you are going to have to identify
opportunities that in two or three years might lead to 30% growth.
Does that make sense?
So we're forward thinking and when you identify those, tie them back to how they will get
the company to where it wants to go.
That's how you'll get the buy-in to your ideas when you're forward thinking.
So that's the first point.
The second thing you need to consider as a business development manager is that your
math is a little bit off, meaning that I want you to be seeking opportunities, right?
Be strategic and seeking companies, seeking partnerships, right?
That the math equates to one plus one equals five, one plus one equals five.
I know that's not what you were taught in high school, but bear with me for a moment.
You have to bring forward opportunities that the company can pursue that will equate to
dramatic return on their investment.
And that investment can be your time, the company's time, it can be cash, it can be
ip, it can be all sorts of different aspects, but whatever you bring to the table, it can't
be nahh, right?
You found a new, A new territory, Okay, we can get a few more customers.
Nah, right?
You wanna bring something forward where you can say, Look, I've found a strategic partner
that's selling a complimentary product that if we are to work together and by the way
their interested of working together, we could create a brand new product which opens up
an entirely new market for our existing customers, right?
That example, one plus one equals five.
That's a huge opportunity.
So you have to be thinking strategically, and you always have to remember, ask yourself
this question, Is this opportunity going to equate to one plus one equals five?
If not, move on to the next opportunity and keep monitoring that one to see if you concur,
convert it into a stronger, more positive opportunity for the organization.
All right.
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You can also comment down below with, if you are a business development manager, what are
the strategies that work well for you to be effective?
Or if you're considering that as a role, what questions do you have?
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Happy to answer and really looking to build a community around this video.
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This third strategy, I think, is something a lot of business development managers that
I've met really get trapped into, and it's protecting your time.
Now, that may seem obvious, right?
In sales, we have to protect our time, but as a business development manager, it's absolutely
critical that we protect our time.
I'm not a thief, but hey, if you guys are looking for stolen time, maybe you should
arrest everyone
Here.
Now, what do I mean by protect your time?
Well, if you're new to the organization, and this is an existing role, you're gonna learn
very quickly as to how did the previous person spend their time?
Who did they talk to?
What kind of meetings did they sit in?
All those kinds of things.
If you're formulating this new role, if it's never existing before, you're gonna be dragging
along the baggage of your old role.
Let's assume for a moment you're moving from sales into business development, right?
So you're gonna be expected to continue to work in in areas of sales that may no longer
make sense regardless of what this role consisted of in the past, whether it's new or existing,
regardless of whether this is something you've done before or not, you really have to protect
your time.
What that means is really taking a look at your calendar in all honesty and asking yourself,
When I look at the meetings and I look at the bookings that are in my calendar, do those
equate to the previous point where investment in these conversations, right?
Moving these opportunities forward is gonna equate to one plus one equals five, or this
is a matter of I'm just spending time doing things that aren't really relevant to what
I should be doing.
So consider how to best protect your time and that will ensure that you have the time
available to pursue these opportunities.
This fourth area is something that is probably an afterthought, but I think it's important
you think about it early on in your role.
You see, again, business development being a little bit of a different role, very forward
thinking, very much capitalizing, identifying and capitalizing on opportunities that help
create that one plus one equals five environment.
And obviously you're protecting your time in order to make sure you can pursue and identify
those opportunities.
However, you have to set up performance metrics or measures that make sense for you that drive
your behavior.
You know, when you look at performance measures, a lot of times we look at them on a team level.
Very common measures, and I'll give you an example in a minute, but what I want you to
think of it is, based on your objectives, the goals of your role, what are the measures
that are really leading measures that drive your behavior to pursue those opportunities?
So an example might be new opportunities created or identified, right?
Or new partnerships identified.
There's a couple examples of leading measures that inspire you to pursue those things.
If you just take a look as an afterthought and say, Well, what ultimately partnerships
did I identify this year that's really looking backwards.
Doesn't really tell us too much, but when I measure myself on a monthly basis or even
a weekly basis as to what partnerships am I identifying, it drives a certain kind of
behavior.
Measures need to be obviously aligned with our forward thinking approach and really be
leading measures that drive our behaviors in the right direction.
Now, some leading measures can also be looked at lagging, so you, that's okay if that happens,
but just ask yourself, if you're setting up performance measures for your role, what kind
of measures will drive my behavior in the way that'll ensure that I achieve the goals
of my role?
Typically, those are leading measures, not necessarily lagging measures.
Okay?
This last point I think is something that will, you'll get trapped in, and it ties back
to my earlier point of protecting your time when you're identifying, and let's use an
example here.
Let's just say you identify a new region or a new country that you could sell your products
or services into, and you maybe identify a distributor you could work through, or a company
that could be a partner in that region.
You want to make sure you bring sales into the process as early as possible.
Now, you obviously have to have a little bit of a foundation here.
If you bring sales in too early and you really haven't figured anything out, that's not gonna
look good on you.
However, if you hang on to these new territories, new regions, new partnerships or new selling
opportunities for too long, suddenly it becomes your account, which means it's your problem,
which goes back to protecting your time.
Your calendar will fill up with ongoing conversations where you could have turned these new regions,
territories, partnerships, et cetera, over to somebody else that can really manage the
detail.
So I'm not suggesting, hey, identifying opportunity, you dump it onto somebody else and move to
the next one.
But you have to be very critical of when you make that change.
And generally speaking, what I find is good is that if you just consider that, Hey, as
soon as I've got something figured out here, I wanna bring in somebody in sales.
Could be the sales manager, right?
Could be a sales leader or just a high performing sales person.
That would be valuable in this conversation because suddenly you start to, in the eyes
of the partner, the customer, et cetera, create a partnership, But it makes it very easy for
you to let go at some point rather than have to hold onto these things and get tied down
and not be able to focus on that forward thinking aspect that is so critical to being a successful
business development manager.
All right?
If you are moving into the role of business development, you'll need a way to track what
you do and when you do it, and to drive these new kinds of behaviors I mentioned earlier.
For that reason, I've put down below what I consider a tool that can be used in many
different reasons.
It's called the 30 Day Sales Action Planner, and it's meant to drive behaviors for you
that are in the right direction over the next 30 days.
I know the word sales is there, but let's be honest, the end goal of business development
is to make sales.
So grab that resource.
There's no cost.
It's my gift to you to try and help you formulate the right approach so that you can be effective.
There's a link down below, click on it.
You can download it as a pdf, print it off, however you prefer to use it, and that will
drive the right kinds of behaviors to ensure you are successful.
All right?
Make sure you click, like on this video, if you liked it, obviously that notifies me,
you liked it, uh, click subscribe.
You'll be notified when my next video comes down.
Comment below if you have other strategies you'd add to this list so we can create a
resource for future business development managers who are maybe going through a similar transition
to you.
Now, what I would suggest is the next best tool for you when it comes to being successful
as Business Development Manager is influence.
You can watch this video next on how to be more influential in sales and apply those
very same strategies to your new role to be successful as Business Development Manager.
And until then, let's get out there and identify some new opportunities.
We'll talk to you soon.
Take care.