subject: Ongoing Business Strategic Development Keeps Your Competitors At Bay [print this page] Business development is a broad term that refers to ways to create a stronger market presence. It often encompasses market planning, promotional strategies, leadership, and management development to name only a few of its elements.
When implemented strategically it helps the organization develop stronger relationships with existing clients and expand the business' customer base. No matter how few people are involved in your business, someone must be tasked to handle business strategic development.
Most companies are too small to have an extra person to spare - one whose role is designated as that of business development manager. For most of you this is where a business strategic development mastermind group enters the picture.
Even if your goal is to handle the process yourself, you may wish to start with the help of an expert in business strategic development so you'll be on the right track from the very beginning. The obvious question then is, so where can we find someone to help us? Well, today business development managers can be found in virtually every industry as all types of businesses are looking for professionals to help them succeed.
Naturally some business development managers specialize in one particular industry. In many cases these experts were industry specialists first, folks who perhaps worked at university research positions or industry trade associations while they were leaning the skills of business development.
They bring their inside information along with what they've learned from the industry's leading companies to bear on your situation. You get the benefit of their hard earned expertise without having to teach them about the uniqueness of your industry.
On the other hand some take a 'horizontal' approach, working across a board range of industries applying the same strategies and plans to several different types of businesses. This often results in breakthrough insights when what has worked in one industry is implemented for the first time in a new and different way.
Generally speaking business development managers look to the company's leaders for their direction. That's fine when the top executives already know the right direction to proceed.
This is often the Achilles heel of small businesses. That's why so many successful small business owners opt for industry specific experts to help them. These business development specialists already know what the leaders are doing and can offer a range of ideas and options the business owner can use to form their own opinions about the way forward.
The result often enhances the company's ability to expand and flourish by reaching out to the unexplored segments of their market and acquiring new customers where they would have never thought to look for them.
Add to the experiences of these experts the insights of the business owners peers - via their business development mastermind group, and the organization can realize its true potential more cost effectively than the business owner would have ever imagined.
While the business development manager may be a 'by the hour' consultant, the mastermind group continues for the long term as both a sounding board for the ideas of the expert and as a testing ground for the business owner's assumptions.
If you are looking for someone to manage the strategic operations of your business, strengthen ties with existing customers as well as cultivating new business from other sectors of your market, check our your industry's leaders.
Ask them for their suggestions and then recruit a handful of them to be part of your business development mastermind group.
