Back to Basics: BD101

Simplifying business development

magine you meet new friends at a gathering and they ask: “What do you do?” You muster your thoughts and analyze the situation: do you go all technical and pitch an elevator speech? Or, you could go basic and say “sales,” but that isn’t quite right either.

As business development professionals, our architecture, engineering and construction, or AEC, colleagues know exactly what business development is and how essential it is to solving problems and winning work. But to your non-industry friends, how do you explain this without buzzwords like market analysis, pre-positioning, or customer relationship management?

While people are familiar with marketing (there isn’t really a “major in business development” degree out there, right?), business development sounds like an ultra-technical term that mostly confuses the general public more than it informs them (“private equity,” do you hear me?). Make no mistake, business development is complex, but we can all benefit from the simplicity of it. Business development, in its most simple form, is client relationships. Business development is “developing business,” not in a way of selling our services but in a way of developing meaningful relationships with potential clients. It’s the art of getting to know them and the problems they are trying to solve and matching our services to meet their needs. Business development is about our clients. It is knowing the right people and knowing what keeps them up at night.

As sales professionals, we can get caught up in the granular details. Who has funding? When is it available? What projects are on the list? How many projects do we have in the “funnel”? It is easy to lose track of the “people” aspect of winning work. Business development, at its core, solves this problem by focusing on the relationships we build with existing clients, potential clients, and even competitors. We foster these relationships to gain trust and hope that in the future we can be trusted advisors and preferred consultants by our clients. Our genuine interest in knowing their issues—and actually solving them—is how we grow our business. Our clients buy from people they trust.

Marketing and business development go hand in hand. Marketing raises awareness, familiarizes clients with your firm and services, and highlights your firm’s accomplishments. Through these, your business development activities are enhanced: the clients know who you are and your reputation. Business development is based on sound marketing. At the same time, great marketing comes from effective business development, through completion of successful projects. The two must align and complement each other.

While marketing is broader, business development is more targeted—people-specific, to be exact. We get to know our clients and their specific issues, who they work with, how they manage their projects, how their influence affects the decision-making process, their communication preferences, and their perspective on project delivery. In business development, we master the art of listening and asking the right questions. We master how to do both and know exactly when to do both. In business development, we don’t ask “What projects are coming up?” Instead, we ask, “Who do we need to talk to?” and “What issues can we solve for you?”

According to the Society of Marketing Professional Services, or SMPS, publication Markendium, a business development plan is focused on companies and people, not projects or opportunities. Therefore, business development is not a list of projects, a specific dollar amount, nor “closing a sale.” It is not about win rates, nor a measure of returns on investment, and definitely not about immediate results. Business development is long term, with lows and highs. Returns on investments are often slow because that measurement relies on metrics that aren’t easy to quantify, such as trust, quality of performance, and responsiveness to a client’s needs. Business development looks at trends in the market which are often gradual or, at times, quickly changing. And most especially, business development relies on people—and people can change.

Business development is the link that connects a firm’s initial marketing activities to the goal: signing a contract. Business developers are dedicated sales professionals who maintain relationships with clients, the trusted project managers who deliver the work, and the team members who are executing the work. In a sense, we are doing business development at all levels. Therefore, it is important that we lean on our business development team to bridge the gap: they have the specific client perspective that is necessary to provide excellent service.