Details

Business Development For Dummies

1. Aufl.

von: Anna Kennedy
17,99 €
Verlag:	Wiley
Format:	PDF
Veröffentl.:	04.02.2015
ISBN/EAN:	9781118962695
Sprache:	englisch
Anzahl Seiten:	432

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Beschreibungen

Titelbeschreibung

Growing a small business requires more than just sales Business Development For Dummies helps maximise the growth of small- or medium-sized businesses, with a step-by-step model for business development designed specifically for B2B or B2C service firms. By mapping business development to customer life cycle, this book helps owners and managers ensure a focus on growth through effective customer nurturing and management. It's not just sales! In-depth coverage also includes strategy, marketing, client management, and partnerships/alliances, helping you develop robust business practices that can be used every day. You'll learn how to structure, organise, and execute an effective development plan, with step-by-step expert guidance. Realising that you can't just "hire a sales guy" and expect immediate results is one of the toughest lessons small business CEOs have to learn. Developing a business is about more than just gaining customers – it's about integrating every facet of your business in an overarching strategy that continually works toward growth. Business Development For Dummies provides a model, and teaches you what you need to know to make it work for your business. <ul> <li>Learn the core concepts of business development, and how it differs from sales</li> <li>Build a practical, step-by-step business development strategy</li> <li>Incorporate marketing, sales, and customer management in general planning</li> <li>Develop and implement a growth-enhancing partnership strategy</li> </ul> Recognising that business development is much more than just sales is the first important step to sustained growth. Development should be daily – not just when business starts to tail off, or you fall into a cycle of growth and regression. Plan for growth, and make it stick – Business Development For Dummies shows you how.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 3 Beyond the Book 4 Where to Go from Here 4 Part I: Getting Started with Business Development 5 Chapter 1: Introducing Business Development for Services Firms 7 Answering the Question: So What Is Business Development Anyway? 7 Recognizing that business is a serious business 8 Understanding how business development differs from selling 9 Breaking business development into bite-sized chunks 11 Placing the Customer Experience Center Stage 12 Deconstructing the customer lifecycle 13 Mapping business development to the customer lifecycle 14 Making Business Development Manageable in a Small Business 14 Dealing with overwhelm 14 Anticipating growth and its impact on your business 15 Taking stock of where you are 16 Chapter 2: Finding Damaging Gaps in Your Business Development 19 Spotting Patchy Business Development 20 Recognizing the tell-tale signs of weak business development 20 Looking for the obvious and the not-so-obvious problems 21 Thinking like your customers 23 Understanding Business Development Challenges for Services Firms 25 Identifying value in a services firm 25 ‘You’re the top!’ The owner-led sale 26 Being proactive rather than reactive 27 Taking Stock of Where You Are 30 What you’re not doing – and being okay with it 30 It’s a numbers game: How’s your firm really doing? 32 Chapter 3: Diving Inside Your Customer’s Head 33 Uncovering Your Customers’ Real Needs 34 Understanding what customers need today and whether they know it 36 Staying current with your customers’ needs 37 Powering Growth Using Your Customer’s Viewpoint 39 Focusing on your customer: Why you should care 39 Mapping your customer’s journey 42 Tailoring your solution to your customer’s need (not vice versa) 46 Using influence to get the outcome you want 48 Chapter 4: Using the Lifecycle to Your Advantage 51 Clarifying Precisely What You’re Selling — and How 52 Being in control 52 Keeping your offer fresh 55 Investing to stay up-to-date 58 Creating the customer experience 59 Considering the Pre-Sales Stage 62 Selling without looking like you’re selling 62 Dating the customer: EDUCATE stage 62 Courting and proposing: PRESENT and PROPOSE stages 65 Confronting reality: CONTRACT stage 66 Handling the After-the-Sale Process 67 Moving from ‘Yes’ to ‘Done’: DELIVER stage 67 Wrapping up delivery: COMPLETE and EVALUATE stages 68 Part II: Planning for Business Development 71 Chapter 5: Getting Ready for Business Development 73 Developing an Offer that Sells 73 Ensuring that you’re giving the market what it needs 75 Making your specialty really valuable 78 Assessing your competition 80 Accepting that the grass isn’t always greener 81 Developing focus – or it’s all over 83 ‘Really? You do that?’ Articulating your offer 83 Presenting Your Offer 84 Finding your customer 84 ‘Tell me what you want, what you really, really want’ 85 Who drives the customer? Engaging effectively 87 Getting to the sale 88 Building your contract process 89 Continuing Your Great Work beyond the Sale 89 Understanding the importance of relationships 89 Completing the work 91 Learning from Your Customers 92 Gathering intelligence: The importance of data 93 Evaluating your offer 94 Chapter 6: Building Your Business Development Plan 97 Planning for Business Development Success 98 Winging business development doesn’t work 98 Knowing where you’re going 99 Creating Your Winning Plan 100 Choosing where to start planning 101 Working on metrics 108 Components of your plan: Creating the blueprint 110 Monitoring progress 113 Chapter 7: Putting Your Plan into Action 115 Checking Your Plan before Lift-off 116 Setting milestones, tactics and metrics 116 Identifying initial tasks 121 Calling on helpers 122 Determining your investment 125 Lift-Off! Launching Your Plan 125 Communicating your plan internally 126 Enrolling ‘friends’ 127 Making use of friendly feedback 128 Getting the team going 130 Considering a few final thoughts as the plan takes off 131 Managing Risk while Implementing Your Plan 132 Thinking the unthinkable: What can possibly go wrong? 132 Dealing with large challenges 133 Part III: Making the Most of Marketing 135 Chapter 8: Appreciating the Benefits of Marketing for Your Business 137 Working Together in Harmony: Marketing and Sales 138 Enjoying the perfect relationship (not!): Marketing and sales 139 Making your marketing sales-oriented 140 Setting Out Your Stall: Marketing for Services Firms 144 Selecting the best marketing techniques for you 145 Energizing your team 146 Using your network 148 Forming partnerships and alliances 149 Understanding technology and the online dimension 150 Finding some quick wins in marketing 152 Deciding whether Your Firm Needs Branding 154 Understanding the importance of brands 154 Identifying yourself with a brand 155 Marketing your brand 155 Chapter 9: Driving Sales Success with Effective Marketing 157 Revving up the Marketing Engine 158 Appreciating the differences between sales and marketing 159 Ensuring that marketing drives results 160 Tuning up the marketing engine 162 Carrying out the hard work of marketing 165 Setting Accountabilities between Sales and Marketing 166 What am I striving for? Establishing the goal 167 ‘How will I know that marketing is achieving its goals?’ Measuring marketing 168 Ensuring that Marketing Generates Interest 170 ‘Hey, we’re over here!’ Getting attention 170 ‘Over to you!’ Timing lead handover correctly 172 Chapter 10: Creating Your Marketing Plan 175 Preparing To Market Your Business 175 Defining your plan 176 Researching marketing opportunities 177 Choosing your channels 179 Brainstorming your tactics 182 Putting Marketing into Practice 186 Creating your marketing programs 186 Creating your marketing calendar 192 Creating and managing collateral and content 194 Making the Most of Your Resources 196 Breaking the plan down to decide on resources 196 Satisfying marketing’s appetite: Who does the marketing? 197 Making marketing accountable 198 Chapter 11: Automating Marketing – More Leads with Less Effort 199 Introducing the Automated Demand Generation Game 200 Understanding the buyer’s journey 201 Providing insights for your prospective customers 202 Attracting an audience 202 Asking whether Demand Generation Is Right for You 203 Deciding when to consider automated demand generation 203 Gathering the required resources 205 Adding Automation to Your Marketing Armory 206 Choosing your infrastructure tools 207 Building your database 210 Designing demand generation programs 212 Testing and evaluating your programs 216 Making the phone ring 218 Chapter 12: Forming a Winning Team: Marketing and Sales Cohesion 221 ‘We Can Work It Out’: Sales and Marketing Join Forces 221 Reassessing roles as your business grows 222 Laying out the connections between marketing and sales 223 Setting common goals and targets 225 ‘Come On, Come On, Let’s Stick Together!’ Marketing and Sales Can Collaborate 227 Clearing up misunderstandings that threaten unified business development 228 Acting to support unified business development 230 Helping marketing and sales to get on 231 Part IV: Seeing What Sales Can Do for You 235 Chapter 13: Becoming the Leader of the (Sales) Pack 237 Appreciating the Importance of Sales Leadership 238 Getting clear what your business sells 238 Establishing a sales process 240 Tooling up for sales 246 Setting goals and metrics 248 Building and Leading Your Sales Dream Team 249 Creating your pack of sales maestros 250 Using people outside the pack 251 Enrolling people to execute your sales strategy 251 Delving Deeper into Leading the Sales Process 253 ‘Put that it your pipe and smoke it!’ Managing a sales pipeline 253 Working your sales process 255 Engaging in collaborative selling 259 Avoiding knee-jerk reactions to problems 259 Taking the right action at the right time 261 Chapter 14: Taking the Lead: Selling Under Control 265 Okay, You’re In! Qualifying Leads into Prospects 266 Getting your interactions right with customers 266 Handling leads, whatever the source 267 Determining who to sell to 269 Gathering the tools to help qualifying 269 Taking the meeting 270 Gating prospects through your sales pipeline 273 Pitching Your Services to Customers 274 What prospects want: Understanding customer mentality 275 Limbering up to pitch 279 Writing good proposals 280 ‘Let’s dance’: Pitching on the day 282 The inquest: Assessing how the pitch went 284 Chapter 15: Closing the Sale to Your Satisfaction 285 ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’: Closing the Deal 285 Picking your way through negotiation 286 Getting to the real ‘yes’ without begging 286 Contracting for a win-win 287 ‘This Much I Know’: Managing the Transition from Sales to Delivery 290 Staying on the team 291 Passing on all you know 291 Backing out gracefully 293 Re-engaging with the customer 293 ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’: Finishing Up the Sale 294 Tidying up: Capture everything 294 Learning from experience: Win/loss reviews 295 Recognizing the value of evaluation 295 Part V: Managing Your Customers for Business Success 297 Chapter 16: Generating Success from the Customer Relationship 299 Back Off, He’s Mine! Remembering that the Customer Belongs to Everyone 300 Sharing the customer relationship 300 Collaborating for customer success 302 Creating a lifetime customer 307 Tell Me What I Mean To You: Securing Value from Your Customers 308 Understanding your value through the customer’s eyes 308 Asking for more 311 Turning the customer into an active advocate 313 Chapter 17: Joining Together to Maximize Business and Customer Value 315 You Know It Makes Sense: Seeing How Business Development Benefits All 316 Creating an organization in which everyone sells 316 Being a motivating business 318 Talking about team communication 319 Making the Most of Account Planning 322 Analyzing where your revenue will come from 323 Turning goals into reality 323 Deciding what to include in your account plan 324 Growing, Growing, Gone! Account Managers’ Role in Your Growth Plans 325 Showing account managers how to do business development 326 Thinking about monthly, quarterly and annual reviews 328 Bringing Delivery to the Feedback Party 329 Spreading delivery’s tentacles into the market 330 Gathering new ideas and best practices 330 Ensuring that sales learns from delivery 331 Making delivery feel valued 331 Chapter 18: Standing Tall To Get More Customers: Vertical Industries 333 ‘The Only Way Is Up!’ Understanding Why Verticals Matter 334 Working with verticals makes sense 335 Identifying your verticals: Is going vertical right for you? 336 Listening to what customers say about their vertical 338 Leveraging Your Knowledge for Vertical Success 340 Understanding similarities and differences between verticals 340 Breaking down your services experience from a vertical perspective 341 Finding gold in them there vertical hills 342 Checking whether you’re ready to go vertical 343 Designing and Executing Vertical Campaigns 343 Writing vertically based promotional materials 344 Getting your vertical message out there 344 Part VI: Making Influential Friends: Partnerships 345 Chapter 19: Seeking Partners for Mutual Benefit 347 Considering the Types of Partnership Available 348 Sticking to What You Do Best 349 Keeping to your set path 350 Going deep not wide 350 Traveling Alone or Partnering Up 352 ‘We belong together’: Finding reasons to partner – or not 352 ‘Picture this’: Considering your business with partners 354 ‘Service Firm WLTM Companion for Business Growth’: Finding Good Partners 355 Creating partnership goals 355 Getting your criteria together: Profiling ideal partners 357 Chapter 20: Pursuing Your Plans for a Successful Partnership 361 Locating Partnerships within Business Development 361 Partnering Up Effectively 362 Dating: Getting to know each other 362 Testing the cultural fit: What do you have in common? 364 Setting boundaries to stay realistic 367 Agreeing shared goals 368 Understanding why partnerships don’t work 369 Going to Market Together 370 Appointing a partner manager 370 Creating a unified go-to-market strategy 370 Defining roles and responsibilities 372 Tackling the question of who owns the customer 373 Wondering whether to white label or not 374 Coping with co-branding 374 Sharing the wealth 375 Part VII: The Part of Tens 377 Chapter 21: Ten Regular Actions that Benefit Your Business 379 Making Five Business Phone Calls 379 Calling Customers and Partners 380 Talking to Employees 380 Reading Some Blogs 380 Sending Out Three Value-Added Emails 380 Updating Your CRM/SFA 380 Making Five New Connections on LinkedIn 381 Tweeting Something 381 Reviewing How Your Day Went 381 Planning Tomorrow 381 Chapter 22: Ten Key Metrics to Watch 383 Knowing How Big Your Sales Pipeline Needs to Be 383 Maintaining the Right Number of Opportunities 383 Shortening Your Sales Cycle 384 Planning Projected Revenue 384 Producing the Right Number of New Leads 384 Assessing Planned versus Actual Revenue 384 Checking Profitability by Customer 385 Monitoring Cash Flow: Days Sales Outstanding 385 Keeping the Customer Happy with Satisfaction Scores 385 Minimizing Staff Attrition 385 Chapter 23: Ten Great Resources for Business Development 387 Discovering Online For Dummies Resources for Business Development 387 Signing up for Business Insider 387 Using the Business Training Institute 388 Improving with Influence Ecology 388 Casting a Wider Net with the American Marketing Association 388 Getting Better with the Sales Management Association 388 Blogging for Success: Sales Benchmark Index 388 Being In with the In-Crowd: LinkedIn Groups 389 Leading with Confidence: Vistage 389 Contacting the Author: RainMakers US 389 Index 391

Autorenportrait

Anna Kennedy has almost twenty years' experience in business development and leadership with small/medium professional services companies. She also has on-the-ground experience in growing organizations, most recently in her own company, Rain Makers.

Back cover copy

Learn to: <ul> <li>Get your business development strategy in place and build a practical step-by-step plan</li> <li>Leverage your customer relationships for even greater success</li> <li>Go beyond the typical sales cycle</li> <li>Develop and implement a partnership strategy</li> </ul> Get an expert, authoritative model for growing your business Growing a business isn't just about sales! With this hands-on, accessible guide, you'll discover how mapping business development to the customer lifecycle ensures a focus on growth through customer nurturing and management. Packed with strategies, tips and step-by-step guidance, you'll find everything you need to plan for growth and make it stick. <ul> <li>Break down your business development – take stock of where your business development plans are, identify your weaknesses and learn how to think in terms of goals</li> <li>Dive into the customer lifecycle – use the customer mindset to power growth and effectively align your business development to the customer lifecycle</li> <li>Work out your best offer – validate or adjust your market offer for maximum position with marketplace needs, build your business development plan and put your plan into action</li> <li>Make marketing matter – put your budget to good use with practical tips on creating and executing a marketing strategy that drives sales</li> <li>Bring it full circle – find best practices to manage, develop, and leverage customer relationships and customer engagement for even greater success</li> </ul> Open the book and find: <ul> <li>How to tailor a business development plan specific to your business</li> <li>Guidance on orchestrating marketing and sales efforts that operate in concert</li> <li>Strategies and tactics for great selling practices</li> <li>How to maximize customer value</li> <li>Why business partnerships are so important</li> <li>High-level do's and don'ts for every stage of business development</li> </ul>