On the U.S Small Business Administration (SBA) website, a business employing 100 to 1500 employees, and generating $1 million to $40 million is considered a small business.
Once your small business starts generating good revenue, consider hiring a business development manager/officer (BDO). This expert increases outreach, brings new business, brings new investors, and opens new marketing channels.
Very small businesses might not need this sort of employee, especially in their earliest stages. However, if you have at least 10 employees, consider outsourcing for your business.
Some of the skills you can outsource include business development, digital marketing, managed IT services, and many more.
Here Are Five Prime Reasons Why A Small Business Needs A Business Development Manager
You should never downplay the importance of a business development officer. But first, do you know the roles these important specialists play? See the 5 most important ones below:
1. Lead generation/Attract new prospects
As you might be able to tell from the term “business development,” this means being able to bring new business.
To do this, it is the work of the BDO to cold-call prospective customers and generates new leads. He or she is going to do this with the support of your marketing team. Once the leads are in, the marketing team has to collaborate for the conversion of the leads.
There are various ways for lead generation. It can be through attending live events, sharing well-articulated social media content, blog posts, and other techniques.
As a business development officer, you are going to generate leads so that you can convert them to paying customers later.
A very prominent website called Sales Force says that lead generation is the process of attracting the interest of potential customers who might qualify to buy in the future.
While lead generation is just the beginning of a long process, it is the most important step in marketing.
2. Plan for and execute live events to meet new prospects
Your business will benefit a lot if you take part in live events such as trade shows and exhibitions. The right person to plan and execute this is a BDO. Such live events give new prospects a firsthand experience with your products and services.
If your business operates in most or all of the states, a BDO can plan to exhibit your products and services at big trade shows in different places.
He will discuss with you or your managing director so that you can pick the trade shows that would have the biggest impact on your business.
For instance, in 2023, major trade shows that you might want to attend include the NASBP Annual Meeting and Expo in Marco Island, The Action Expo Melville, The One Show in New York, Suppliers Day, and Girls Day Out to name but a few.
You could always refer to websites such as 10 Times, which brings you all the trade fairs happening in America throughout the year.
They even have filters to help you select events related to your type of products and services.
3. Generating the right marketing material
Since the work of the business development officer is to attract new prospects in the hope of converting them to buyers in the future, marketing messaging is very important to them.
Your BDO is going to work with the marketing team to craft the correct messaging for newsletters, business cards, websites, emails, and social media content.
Creating effective marketing material requires experience and skill. Even the call-to-action buttons in the email must be inserted in such a way as to prevent the message from becoming too salesy.
4. Meeting with potential and existing investors
This is one of the most important roles of a business development manager. Meeting with potential investors requires a proper preparation.
You also need to understand your industry perfectly, and you must be able to demonstrate how your business is changing the industry as a whole.
You also need to show how your finances are structured to inspire confidence in angel investors. As a BDO, you must understand the model and structure of the business.
Every investor needs the assurance of getting good returns on their investment. The business development officer and the managing director must guarantee these returns.
5. Maintaining existing clients
The BDO is not only concerned with attracting new clients to your business but he or she also comes up with proposals to retain existing clients.
Return customers are the Holy Grail of any business. They not only demonstrate brand loyalty, but they are also your brand ambassadors out there.
After going through the long process of eliciting interest in new prospects, converting them, and making them buyers, you don’t want to lose them.
The marketing team must keep reaching out to these customers with new offers, goodwill messages, and much more. Here, email marketing plays a huge role.
Conclusion
There are tens of roles that a business development officer plays in a small business. Apart from the five, we have shown here, others include coordinating with other departments to ensure the client’s needs are met satisfactorily.
This person also analyzes data to help the marketing team and the managing director make data-driven decisions on where to spend, how much, and so on.
A business development officer requires communication skills, teamwork/people skills, data analysis skills, and more. A marketing or business administration graduate would fit this role very well.
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