Tips to help your business development planning
A personal business development (BD) plan is a great tool to help you build your network, raise your profile, grow your client relationships and win work. It also gives you a road map and renewed focus to achieve your goals. Here are 6 tips to help you devise an actionable plan that brings the results you seek.
1. Things to consider before you begin
Before you start planning, it’s sensible to review your BD approach so far. Consider which activities have been successful for you in:
raising your profile,
strengthening new and existing business relationships, and
creating work opportunities.
Also, consider which have been less effective. Furthermore, review what activities you’ve enjoyed and which have proved challenging or less fulfilling.
By doing this, you will be able to focus your efforts on BD activities that a) bring greater and quicker rewards and b) you enjoy, so you are more likely to implement them.
2. Select achievable targets
Ideally, the targets and objectives of your personal BD plan should be influenced by your firm’s/ department’s/ team’s targets and growth strategy. This will help you align with them and avoid creating additional work for yourself in areas which may not be rewarding, or are hard to convert because of the firm’s resources.
Think about your current client portfolio and professional network. How has it evolved in previous years? What growth could be realistically achieved given market conditions and your available resources?
3. Be clear where your new work is likely to come from
A good BD plan generally focuses on 3 groups to generate a steady flow of profitable new work opportunities for a professional. These are:
existing clients
referrers of work/ third parties
new clients
The BD time and energy you give to each of these groups will vary according to the nature of your work. For example, someone involved in transactional work will invest more time on referrers and third parties.
In developing your plan, think about the sources of your most profitable work. Consider aspects such as the industry sector, the growth phase of their business, location, and a particular need or issue to be addressed.
With this insight, jot down the ‘quick wins’ and activities that involve you finding more of the same business opportunities. Think of the specific individuals you should strengthen your professional relationship with.
4. Tailor your BD activities to the individuals you have identified
With that list of individuals in place, you can now focus on BD activities that are most relevant to them. The aim is to create opportunities so the two of you are in dialogue. Handled well, these conversations will help you build rapport and trust with the person and spot opportunities to add value to them and win work.
Select BD activities which will engage and be relevant and valuable to those target people. Draw on the marketing resources in your firm to help you add value and keep in touch with them.
5. Raise your profile – both internally and externally
Many BD plans incorporate an element of profile-raising. This is because a strong reputable profile – or personal brand - helps a professional stand out and impress in an intensely crowded market.
There are many ways to raise your visibility and build respect. Commonly used strategies feature activities such as speaking engagements, writing blogs, white papers or guidance notes, producing videos or podcasts, supporting articles/PR in external publications, networking, collaborating with projects, social media content, and winning awards.
It’s essential that the time you put into your personal brand brings the results you want. That means being 100% clear about your target audience and delivering what will interest and support them.
Done well, profile-raising activities factor in an individual’s internal and external profiles - so how you’re regarded within and outside your firm. Think about the different people in your target audience and what will impress them. Schedule activities that raise your visibility to them.
6. Help your plan stay on track
For your plan to have a strong chance of success, it needs to be ‘actionable’ and work comfortably within all your other professional commitments.
Be mindful that BD plans can struggle to reach their goals within the hubbub of daily work. Drawing on the previous tips, your plan should include:
What you want to achieve, and by when
The activities to bring those aspirations to fruition, who they involve, and when you’ll do each one
Resources you need along the way to help you
In your planning, it’s better to focus the plan on smaller segments of time eg 100 days, to give you a realistic chance of success.
While it’s important to have a plan you regularly consult and review your progress against, you also want to help yourself achieve the tasks it contains. To do this, add those actions to your diary, ‘to-do’ list, Outlook tasks, or whatever system or prompt you use to get things done on a daily basis.
A strong BD plan is regularly reviewed and updated. It doesn’t just sit on your computer’s drive gathering dust! So, our final tip is to review your progress periodically – for example, once a month. In doing so, consider:
What’s gone well and less well?
What external factors warrant you to now adapt your approach?
What new insights have you gained which should be factored into your plan?
What do you need to do to still achieve your goals?
