BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND STARTUP

 

It takes a lot of talent and skills to make a startup succeed. Having a startup comes with a lot of challenges ranging from raising capital to develop product, ideas,

test and market the idea and most especially developing the business.

Startups are usually young business or company that have a unique idea, product or service to bring into the market and they require business development strategies to pull through.

In this my write-up, I'm going to focus more on pulling startup- understanding the role of a Business Development Manager (BDM) in helping startup to succeed.

WHO IS A BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER?

Business development is all about growing a business. It is all about having ideas that will help a business to grow better over time.

So one can say that a Business Development Manager (BDM), is someone who works to develope and grow a business. A BDM is involved in sales, growth, business expansion, bringing in strategic partners and increases profit.

In a nutshell, a BDM develops a business, develops strategic partnerships, increase revenue, develop opportunities and build company reputation.

So in essence, for a startup to succeed, a BDM is needed. Business development managers, are like a foundation of a successful company because their job is to continue generating revenue and helping a company grow.

But many startups make the mistake of not understanding the difference between a Marketer and a Business development manager. They always end mixing up the two. Let's talk a bit about the difference between the two.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MARKETING & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Marketing and business development may be used interchangeably, but the two has different approaches in making a startup succeed.

Marketing focus on consumers, focus more on target audience and understanding who they are. The role of marketing is to identify consumers who need the product and service their company offers. You can read more from Casey Stanton (Fractional CMO & CMOX founder) article https://cmox.co/business-development-vs-marketing/ 

You can look at marketing as the face that the public sees, like your website, social media channels and others. Marketing also involves creating materials that target clients within a poulation.

On the other hand, business development is what will earn your firm new clientele and help boost your revenue. Business development looks at identifying customers, finding out what product and making sure it's a good fit in the current market. Business development focuses mainly on business growth and increase revenue.

So a business development manager focus on

* Business expansion

* Strategic business partnerships

* Evaluation of competitor development

* Generate potential leads before passing them on to sales

So the role of a BDM combines aspects of a sales representative and a marketer. BDM are also responsible for sales, marketing and most especially strategic planning. A BDM generates new business opportunities, maintain current clients, conduct market research and developing strategies.

So a successful business development impacts every department within a company, including sales, marketing, manufacturing, human resources, accounting, finance, product development and vendor management

In summary, startup really need a BDM in order to succeed because Business development managers are the cornerstone of any successful organisation because they generate revenue and help in the growth of a company.

For more information or need the services of a business development manager, you can reach out to the writer.

Ogbuka ifeanyichukwu N.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ifeanyichukwu-ogbuka-b28394114

Twitter: @Maziogbuka

WhatsApp: +2348133299971

E-mail: mrvicbenson91@gmail.com