What is Business Development? Key Strategies, Meaning, and Importance

When it comes to starting a business, having a set plan in place is always important. This could look like creating an outline that highlights the needs of your business, including any overhead costs and investments, who your business is targeting, and how you plan to evolve and expand operations over time. With this in mind, it’s essential to come up with a business development plan that includes all this information and more so that you can be well on your way to having a successful business.

These days, with the rise of social media and, in turn, increased competition across various industries, business owners need to be especially mindful of the products and services they put out so they don’t get drowned out by the noise. Having a strong business development plan ensures that business owners stick to their goals, seek out new opportunities and tools that scale and benefit their operations, and implement new approaches to increase sales and engagement, which could look like developing an email marketing strategy that promotes repeat purchases from existing customers, collaborating with similar niche businesses to design a new product or service that highlights both brands’ unique selling propositions, or even making a website easier to use and navigate.

Given the impact a proper business development plan can have, learn why it’s essential for every business and check out these key tips and strategies that’ll help you get started on creating yours.

What is Business Development?

Before getting started on making a set plan, you first need to know what business development actually is. Business development is a model or blueprint you follow as you grow and expand your company. This type of guide is useful when starting out because it gives you more direction on how you want your company to operate, the goals you want to achieve, and how you’ll scale your business over time by setting milestones for yourself, whether in monthly or yearly increments.

Having a business development plan in place could also look like making sure you network with others in your industry if you’re just starting out and looking for guidance and support, trying out different social media platforms to see where your content performs better, and refining any of your existing strategies and processes where needed.

If your business is primarily online, but you’re looking to expand to brick-and-mortar in the future, your business development plan could also include a distinct strategy for how you’ll eventually grow to be in-person.

Your plan can cover how to secure a business loan for any startup costs, research for the best place(s) to set-up-shop that will drive consistent customer sales, and developing a solid financial plan that includes the amount of revenue you need to bring in each month to stay open, cover expenses, and pay yourself and your employees a liveable wage.

Having a set business development plan is crucial to starting and operating a successful business. It allows you to focus on building and maintaining a profitable business while staying on track with your goals.

Why It’s Important

Now that you know business development is, it’s necessary to truly understand its importance. When you’re just starting out and as you continue to grow and expand, you’ll be able to better focus on what you need to accomplish as opposed to figuring it all out as you go along, which can become overwhelming and time-consuming. Since you already have all the steps laid out with your business development plan, you can focus on checking them off your to-do list and refining any areas where necessary.

If you’re looking to eventually bring on a business partner or want to have another investor, having a business development plan also shows that you’re well-prepared. With this outline, you’ll be able to present your business in a professional manner that makes others want to buy into you and be a part of what you’re selling. And you’ll have more of a chance to secure these partnerships and investments, which benefit your business in the long run.

According to recent studies, businesses that have a development plan in place scale 30 percent faster and can get 133 percent more financial backing from outside investors compared to those without. These same businesses also experience 30 percent more sales growth, directly contributing to their profitability and expansion. With these statistics in mind, it’s important to develop a unique business development plan that works for you and allows your business to thrive and be ready when opportunity strikes.

Key Business Development Strategies

When starting any business, it’s important to have certain strategies in place that you can use and reference as you continue to expand. When it comes to implementing a new business development strategy, you want to make sure that your approach is unique, effective, and tailored to your type of business. This could look like setting up analytics tools like Hubspot Analytics or Google Analytics for your website to track your customer’s behaviors to see what areas of your website they’re engaging with the most as well as the products or services they continue to buy. It could also be having a proper sales funnel set up that improves the customer journey and experience so that they’re more likely to buy from you.

Another key business development strategy is setting up a proper CRM system like Salesforce or Hubspot (the CRM version) that allows you to manage your customer engagement and interactions all in one place. You can easily start using tools like these by signing up on their website and selecting the plan that best fits your needs and that of your business. You can even sign up for a 30-day free trial on both sites to test them out and see what works best.

While working on building your business, identifying your customers’ needs and staying on top of industry trends are crucial for your business development plan. Reason being, this information gives you insight into what consumers are currently drawn to and purchasing the most based on outside influences like the time of year, what’s trending on social media, and the state of the economy, which have a direct impact on price points and fluctuations.

You can take simple steps like doing more research on your industry, sending out a quick survey or questionnaire to existing customers or people you know to get to know their buying habits, or going to local or regional trade or industry events to learn more about what’s emerging on the market and why customers are interested in these offerings. Being aware of these trends and how they impact your customers’ needs makes all the difference in how you run and expand your business because it allows you to create a game plan and make informed business decisions.

Practical Tips to Get Started

Ready to get started on creating a development plan for your business? Here are some practical tips and tools you can use and implement:

1. Write Down Your Goals

Before starting any business or expanding an existing one, you need to know what you want to accomplish. You can do this by answering questions like: who is the ideal customer I want to target? How much revenue do I want to bring in the first year? What engagement metrics do I want to hit on my website or social media within the first 30 or 60 days? Questions like these will help you to figure out your desired outcomes and the steps you can take to achieve them.

2. Use Productivity Tools to Help You Out

When starting out, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle of day-to-day tasks. By using productivity tools, you can manage your time better and easily check off your to-do list. Platforms like Monday, Asana, and Notion are a big help when it comes to keeping track of your calendar and blocking out time for certain tasks you want to get done, which is a big help when creating a step-by-step business development plan.

3. Take Care of the Logistics

Coming up with a business name can be fun, but you also have to make sure you can use it. As part of your business development plan, you want to make sure the name of your business is legally available and registered with the state you plan to operate in. You can do this by visiting your state government’s website and going to their business directory to see if the name is already in use. Based on what you find, you can either go back to the drawing board and come up with a new name or move forward with registering your business with the state (as an LLC, S-Corp, etc.) and obtaining an EIN from the IRS. You’ll also want to set up an official business email and phone number so that customers can contact you, as well as a business bank account and payment processors like PayPal or Square so you can start accepting payments.

4. Create a Budget

Like with any new business, it’s going to take money to start. Whether you plan on being online-only or having a brick-and-mortar store, you need to know exactly how much it’ll cost. You can determine your budget by jotting down all the anticipated one-time and recurring expenses, along with any emergency costs, in an easy-to-see manner like on an Excel spreadsheet or in a Word Document. That way, you can reference it as you go and not solely rely on memory.

5. Take It One Day at a Time

It’s easy to get stressed by all this. By taking things one day at a time, you can alleviate any worries you may have so that you can stay calm and focus on what you need to get done. Instead of trying to do everything at once, you can start by doing one or two tasks each day that you know you can handle so that you don’t get burnt out. Also, be sure to take breaks when necessary like going for a walk, exercising, or spending time with friends and family, so that you can return to things with a fresh mind.