Find Outlines Highlights Fundamentals Corporate Textbook at Amazon
|
The Business Development Strategy is employed to underpin your main Business Plan and basically it sets out a popular approach for constructing new opportunities, either from within existent accounts or by proactively targeting brand new potential accounts and then working to close them. This document highlights the key issues you must consider prior to compiling your own plan and will hopefully guide you logically through a proven framework. The key word is ‘Strategy’, because you are creating a workable and accomplishable set of goals intended to be attained in order to exceed your annual target. Your Starting Point: The key words are Who? What? Where? When? Which? Why? How? For example: Who – are you going to target? What - do you want to trade them? Where – are they located? When – will you approach them? Which – are the suitable target personnel? Why – would they want to meet with you? How – will you reach them? If you have conducted regular account reviews with your key accounts for the duration of the former twelve months, you will have to be conscious of any new probabilities that will surface for the duration of the next twelve months. You will also, when assessing what part of your annual target normally comes from existent accounts, need to review selective information over the last two or three years. (It is likely that you may employ Pareto i.e. 80% of your business will in all probability come from existent accounts and in fact 80% of your total revenue will come from just 20% of your customers/clients) You will be left with a remainder – i.e. “20% of my business next year will come from new opportunities” – accordingly you may then commence to allocate your syndication time accordingly. Ideal Customer Profiling: Pro-active business development demands that we construct an idealisti target at the front end – i.e. an Ideal Customer Profile. The necessary characteristics you will need to consider are: - Industrial Sector - Geographical Location (Demographics) - Size of organisations (Turnover, number of laborers etc) - Financial Trends - Psychographics – i.e. Philosophical compatibility Many strategic sales masters plainly profile their best existent clients and undertake to replicate them – there’s not one thing faulty with doing this but we must always do not forget that we are seeking an IDEAL and we may always improve on what we already have. ‘New’ Opportunities From Within ‘Old’ Accounts: Because it costs approximately ten times as much, to initial locate and then trade to a new client as it does an existent one (although these costs are seldom reflected in the cost of sales), it is necessary that we to the full or entire extent give rise to our existent accounts working upwards, downwards and sideways, therefore making the most of the (hopefully) magnificent reputation we have produced already. Most corporate accounts have assorted divisions, departments, sites, even country offices and you must satisfy yourself that you have exhausted each possible avenue. Don’t be affrighted to ask the question “Who else must I be talking to in your organisation”? Developing New Opportunities: There are a number of ways in which we may target new chances e.g. o Direct Mail o Telephone Canvassing o Researching Archived Files For Customers Who Used To Buy From Your Company o Exhibitions o Seminars o User Groups o E-Mail Campaigns o Referrals o Qualified Leads o Advertising Not all of these will be suitable to your queer industry, but you must not be affrighted to experiment – i.e. challenge the paradigm – and do not receive that just because a queer idea has not worked in the past that it will not do so in the future. (Remember when you were learning to walk – it didn’t work initial time then!) The indispensable thing is to make an early decision in terms of what you are going to try and then build this (those) ideas into your master plan. A Typical Business Development Plan: You will have to plan out the whole year and review / revise quarterly. o List your existent accounts and plan what actions / actions need to be finished in order to wholly exhaust all opportunities. You may for instance, plan to cover more bases within the decision making unit or contact related companies or offices. The Strategic Account Profile may be used as a prompt. o Begin to target new accounts using business directories etc. and set targets per week / month / quarter i.e. I ordinarily grant for eight hours per week as a minimum (Don’t forget to continually refer back to your Ideal Profile) o Then build in what assistance you need from your merchandising function – i.e. qualified leads, seminars, exhibition attendance etc. o Finally share your plan with your manager and then commit to it. You must likewise measure it versus S.M.A.R.T.E.R. i.e. is it. S.pecific M.easurable A.chievable R.elevant T.imed E.xciting R.ecorded Linking With Your Commercial Plan: I have suggested that your Business Development Strategy, would link with your Master Business Plan but logically you ought to likewise integrate it into your Commercial Kit(this is a document that outlines your monthly,quarterly and annual targets) – distinctively the areas that deal with new business generation, account management and development, four tier account lists etc. These three documents when combined will have to drive and guide you through the next twelve months and beyond. Summary: As I have said oftentimes sufficient “People do not fail because they planned to fail but rather because they failed to plan” The man who knows where he wants to go is more likely to get there, he just has to determine how to get there. All plans are fundamentally maps and guides; the strategic factor is the ‘How’. Do be prepared to modify course, flexibleness is key, and don’t be frighted to experiment, look outside the square. Copyright © 2008 Jonathan Farrington. All rights reserved
|
