Tomorrow's Business Development Team

Published: IPA Bulletin - Sept/Oct 2009

Your Business Development Team's success will be grounded in "unique contributions" to target customers' business performance -
and making sure they know what you're contributing.

We're caught in a vortex of environmental change. The unabridged dictionary behind my desk defines vortex as a whirling mass of water forming a vacuum at its center, into which anything caught in the motion is drawn; a whirlpool; a whirl of powerful eddy of air; a whirlwind.

Sometimes I see and feel the painful frustrations from clients and friends that, in effect, say to me, "Someone changed the rules - seems to keep changing the rules - and hasn't asked our permission. When will this nightmare end?"

Here's what I believe causes us to be temporarily confused and frustrated. Our industry has historically focused on technology and equipment. Putting the customer and the customer's welfare at the center of our thinking - personal as well as organizational - was antithetical to our culture. As long as the tide (a.k.a. ink-on-paper demand) was rising, our boat was also rising. In almost everything we did, we failed to recognize that customers are the central purpose of our existence and ultimately determine what technologies prevail and who gets to say in business.

Your target customers deserve a compelling proposition for why they should do business with you relative to your competitors. Improved quality, service and price won't cut it.

When I look at high-profile association survey reports, I find that they tend to focus reporting on the overall economy (rising tides lift all boats?), technologies, equipment investments, and owners' priorities. Those reports seldom bring forward any depth of understanding or detail of how suppliers are increasing customers' demand for our industry's products and services. Yet, there are examples of suppliers who have indeed experienced increased customer demand for their services. And the principles by which this was accomplished are identifiable and adoptable.

Referring to and paraphrasing a Warren Buffet's quote, "OK, so then what?"

New Rules of Order

Our great industry needs to understand and then put into a "fast-forward" mode of action the fact that the only reason we have to exist is to improve our customer's economic performance and well being.

That statement generally defines what the future will look like, and who gets to prosper as well as who fades (far more quickly than expected) away. And given our great industry's food chain, most of us have a deep interest in other organizations understanding and taking proactive steps toward this potential change in perspective. What would our future be like without an association to call-on, without a terrific bindery that we often use, without the equipment or technology supplier, or without the paper merchant from whom we have come to expect reliable, dependable service?

So, what's next? Step into our target customer's shoes and ask, "What do I need to do to accomplish our priorities and achieve the desired results?"

Truthfully, most of us don't know our top 20 customers' priorities and performance objectives for this year and for next year - or what's most frustrating to them. We don't know what changes are occurring in their industry and company, how their business model is evolving, or how the successful organizations in their industry look.

Your organization probably has some or all of the tools many of your top 20 customers need to accomplish their priorities. However, two important pieces of information are missing.

You probably don't know their priorities and performance objectives, and
They don't know what your organization is capable of making happen - through your own internal resources plus those of your industry supplier and partners.

You accomplish these two missing links by doing your homework (e.g., website, read their literature, research published articles), going to visit with their senior management (how about a lunch date?), and conducting Periodic Business Reviews (PBR). However, not everyone on your Business Development Team is capable of initiating or facilitating such activities, and this fact may be one of the critical issues you, as the owner or senior manager, must quickly address.

Structural Changes Are Needed

Position, processes, and even remuneration must change. Here are a few suggestions I believe worth considering and then developing a plan to initiate.

Account Executives: They are responsible for developing new business and should be expected to invest 3-10 hours a week researching target accounts that lead to major business development opportunities. If they are fortunate to have a business development director, then three to five hours reading research that is handed off to them is a minimum each week. Your customer's senior management can quickly discern if a supplier has "done its homework" and won't waste time with someone they have to totally educate. Business development of approved target accounts is their primary role. Activities that support this priority are directed toward current as well as prospective target customers. Major accounts that are pursued should be expected to need a full-array of products and services. And the new business pipeline should stay full because customer organizations are merging and fading at an accelerated rate. If your account executive don't have the intellectual and communication skills to be effective in this role, you have to find the key people within your organization or on the outside (that means hire them) who can accomplish this task. Remuneration is primarily salary with quarterly bonuses based on increases in value-added revenues from both current and new customers.

Account Managers: Account managers (previously known as CSRs) are primarily responsible for the vast majority of day-to-day contacts with current customers. This person is an excellent communicator and knows how to make things happen within his or her own organization, as well as with outside suppliers. A priority for account managers is to grow their own organization's importance to current target customers along with resulting revenues and margins. This person is proactive and also invests two to five hours a week researching information that is shared with the account executive, business development director, and target customer contact personnel. Significant time is invested in understanding current and prospective opportunities to contribute to the customer's well being. Account managers accomplish this through understanding suppliers' capabilities, what their own organization is doing for other customers, and the changing needs and priorities of target customers. Remuneration is primarily salary with quarterly bonuses based on account performance from value-added improvement. This critical person's role now also includes updating and educating new buyers, who are steadily being rotated by their employer. On the surface this appears to be a chore or burden; however, seen with a long-term perspective, this role is an opportunity for creating working relationships and future business.

Given the fact that you should expect to evolve into more in depth customer relationships as you become a strategic supplier, don't be surprised that your organization evolves to include fewer account executives, who are far more effective than your current average, and more account managers, who are managing a wide array of day-to-day customer needs.

Business Development Director: The business development director primarily is responsible for orchestrating the company's business development communications, and many of the activities that support those communications. Communication and supporting activities should include:

Frequent communications to customers, suppliers, and employees regarding what's new, and economically meaningful to customers;
Systematic and frequent education and training sessions for associates, customers, and even suppliers;
Researching new business information, business models, technologies, and opportunities in general;
Initiating and facilitating PBRs;
Constant scanning of what's new in our industry, what's evolving in major accounts, and what competitors or other organizations do better;
Assimilating frequent feedback from current customers (e.g., through major customer surveys); and
Assessment of new, evolving opportunities. This position works closely with the technology director to ensure the company is working to provide what customers need or ask to be improved.

Technology Director: This person's responsibilities should include not only assessing potential upgrades to the company's offerings, but also ensuring the company's technologies are productive, efficient, and understood by both business development personnel and users of those technologies as well as target customers, and target suppliers.

Business Development Team Succeeds

The only reason we have to exist is to improve our customer's economic performance, and well being.

We've never had more tools by which to accomplish this role. And though our industry going forward may be smaller in terms of number of organizations, we have the opportunity to become the most prized supplier to target accounts based on what we can contribute.

Your Business Development Team's success will be grounded in "unique contributions" to target customers' business performance - and making sure they know what you're contributing.

As target customers and prospects frequently upgrade their personnel in their key chief or director of marketing positions, those newly appointed individuals are looking to bring their organizations into the 21st century at a rapid-fire pace. That should spell either opportunity or threat to the alert organization, but at least you know the direction and substance by which new rules are being developed for determining who will prosper and who will not.