10 Resources to Reboot Your Business Development Results

Does this sound familiar?

The last several years have been pretty good. Successful, even, in the arena of sales. Strong economy. Low unemployment. Customers have been buying. You’ve competed to keep your customers. Service them well.

Then, out of the blue, COVID-19. A global pandemic blows up your business base. Everything is on hold. The world is in limbo.

You’ve got to either pivot your offer to new target markets or find new markets where customers are still buying. But your pipeline is dry and dusty and your prospecting skills have grown cobwebs since you’ve used them last.

You Need to Reboot Your Business Development

We tackle this quite often for different reasons: A business loses its biggest client to a competitor or their biggest client goes out of business, a big competitor comes into the market and changes the competitive landscape, the industry changes and your offer suddenly becomes irrelevant, the economy crashes and drastically impacts the revenue potential of your product or service.

The last scenario was what we experienced in 2008 when the housing market crashed and the economy spiraled down all around us. That was a slow and painful recovery period. Especially for businesses and sales teams that were “fat and happy” and not continually building a pipeline of potential customers (and relationships).

This is the same challenge businesses and sales leaders are scrambling to solve right now: Sellers have been order takers instead of order makers.

That’s a bit cheesy but still accurate.

Many sellers have not been actively prospecting or developing business and are struggling to do it now.

So, how do we get back to biz dev fundamentals? We’ve got to reboot.

10 Resources to Help Sellers Reboot Your Business Development Efforts

1. Quickly Build Your Go-To-Market Strategy. Start with a clear plan.

2. Three Must-Haves for Effective Business Development. One call or email is NOT going to get you results.

3. Try a Micro-Campaign. Intensely focus on each segment of your target customers.

4. When You Think You’re Being Ignored. Check out this shift in prospecting mindset!

5. Fire up Your Follow Up Game. 5 Reasons you need to invest in smart and effective touch points.

6. Improve These Two Skills to Improve Your Responses. There is no “magic bullet” – this takes effort and skill.

7. This is What Good Business Development Looks Like. Follow one SDR as she prospects and lands a meeting.

8. Shake off the Rust with this HIIT Sales Challenge. Build Pipeline with these rounds of activity.

9. Up Your Referral Game. Don’t forget about existing customers just because they aren’t buying!

10. Do you have “Order Takers” on your Team? For sales leaders or business owners, recognize the signs your reps are not living up to Sales Performance expectations.

Ready, set, go! Go get busy building relationships and moving opportunities through your pipeline.

It can be difficult and you might feel like you’re starting from ground zero or day one on the job again. Don’t be intimidated. Make your plan and get started. Try. Just try.

Now, if you need more help, we’ve got your back. We’re helping sellers customize their go-to-market strategies to quickly pivot their energy and focus and coaching them up, improving prospecting and business development skills.