We recently launched biz.dev.Lab™ to offer companies a repeatable process for developing new business through strategies of relevance, visibility and customer acquisition. The impetus for developing the Lab was to help companies transition away from pre-Internet business development strategies; those that place a disproportionate level of responsibility for revenue generation in the hands of Sales team(s). The Lab provides a way to view business development more strategically and offers companies an easy method for predicting and managing revenue growth. Using the Lab, business development becomes a measurable program that has value as a corporate asset.
The concept for the lab was developed over the last ten years while I was marketing and selling enterprise technology to F500 companies. The lab can be used to develop biz dev strategy for the company overall, to manage a specific business unit, or to launch new products into new markets. Using a simple set of principles, the lab helps you achieve three critical success factors in developing new business:
1. Relevance with an audience. Use the lab to create relevance for a company/product/service within a target market.
2. Visibility with an audience. Use the lab to create visibility for a company/product/service within a target market.
3. Effective use of technology for lead capture and lead management. Use the lab to create capture strategies for driving target customers to your website or business, and making sure leads are captured and managed through closure.
We designed the Lab to address a common challenge facing companies who desire new account growth but don’t know where they need to invest to meet their goals. Should we hire more sales? Should we do more marketing, and if so through which channels? Do we need a new website to improve lead generation? Is growth a marketing problem or a sales problem?
To appreciate the Lab, it’s important to understand the process it replaces/improves. Historically, revenue generation has been framed as a challenge to the sales team. ”If we just had more sales performance, we’d meet our numbers”. This common belief has led many organizations to cull their sales teams and seek out replacement reps with “solid” Rolodexes. Warren Buffet once quipped, “ If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians“. I feel the same way about Rolodexes; the only thing they predict is past success.
Moving away from the “Rolodex” model
Although the Lab can be applied to any type of business development environment, it favors the use of biz dev technology and Internet networking. Prior to having the Internet as a biz dev resource, business development professionals needed to establish large network of contacts where human connections between individuals or groups held incredible value and power. The Internet changed all of that.
In sales, a large Rolodex doesn’t hurt but it’s also not required any longer because everyone is accessible to everyone else. I say this both from personal experience and from information I’ve gathered researching Internet-enabled business development strategy. In 1999 I made the transition from running a B2C consumer lending company to working for a software company doing B2B technology sales. Although I had no Rolodex coming into the new job, in a short period of time I was as successful as my well established peers. What made me successful was my ability to approach business development as a process that relied heavily on marketing relevant ideas to my target audiences. To do this, I made extensive use of online tools and technologies that could quickly connect me to my target audience and help me present my marketing message. I didn’t have the luxury of a Rolodex so I figured out a way to be successful without one. What that experience taught me is that I didn’t need previous contacts to achieve future success. Relevance and visibility were more important.
Given the availability of online networks, companies can develop relationships as a corporate asset through networking a company identity. Is there a role for personal networking in sales? Sure. However, by adopting a Internet-driven corporate networking model, companies alleviate the risk of abrupt changes to pipeline building and revenue generation.
Many companies have successfully used the Internet to build B2B networks that are truly corporate assets. There are many great examples, including these two:
1. salesforce.com - probably one of the first huge success stories of a company that leveraged the Internet exclusively to drive B2B sales. Unlike their competitors, they developed an Internet- based bizdev model that effectively took over the market from some major players. Most (if not all) of their leads are generated online and their bizdev workflow ensures a rep follow-up on new leads almost immediately after the prospect hits “submit”.
2. Hubspot.com - similar to salesforce.com, these guys have become pros at leveraging social media and blogs. As far as I can tell, their bizdev model is nearly identical to salesforce.com but their marketing network is vastly different. Much of their marketing is organic and they promote using the Internet as a bizdev network builder.
I like these two examples because both companies realized the importance of relevance, visibility, and became pros at lead acquisition and lead management. Not every company will use the same marketing model as these two firms but there are great lessons to be learned from each of them.
Getting the most out of biz.dev.Lab
The theory behind the lab comes from our collective experiences in B2B marketing and sales, as well as the ideas of many other great marketers and great sales leaders that we’ve studied or met. We tried to synthesize the key elements into a repeatable process that makes sense for any type of business selling to any type of audience. The outcome of the lab is a working model for growing revenues and a well defined, high-performing biz.dev.Architecture.
In future posts, I’ll talk more about the concept of a biz.dev.Architecture and why it’s important for every business to spend the time to design and build a good one.