It’s time to share the goods on business development for the very small business owner, the one-man company, the side-business-masterminder, the consultant, the independent artist and developers alike. You know… people like us.
First, What exactly IS Business Development?
For the big machine of corporate America (and most businesses with several employees and revenue of a million dollars or more), business development is a set of tactics, processes, and planned actions that identify customers, markets, and sales opportunities in an organized and structured manner. The eye-crossing, glaze over definition of biz dev that Wikipedia offers gets deeper if you want more of that. Most companies have a Sales Director, VP of Sales, Biz Dev Team, etc…
But not you.
Business Development for the Small Small Small Business is very different.
Primarily because you have to do it yourself – all of it and you’ll probably have no support from others. As a result, you’ll typically default to your only known business development tools; basic sales or price, word-of-mouth, friends and family referrals, tinkering with social media, maybe some ppc or affiliate stuff and praying!
Please note, “sales” is not business development nor is networking, tweeting, emailing or “dialing for dollars” or running a booth at a conference or running advertising online or in the media.
For our sake as a small small small business,
business development is:
philosophy + boundaries + process to follow + action to get results you intend.
P+B+Pr+A=R
“PB PrAR”. I suppose that’s pretty simple. If you notice the “R” above , it’s for ‘results’, but can also be seen as ROI, the return on investment. So, say it like “PB Praroi” and we can start our own inside lingo. Ok.. Moving on.
A Practical View of Biz Dev
By now, you know what the big machine calls business development and you know that you are not the big machine. You also know that the small small small business has to look at biz dev in a different way. The PB Praroi way.
But right now, you might still be thinking this is all too much for you and you don’t really need biz dev. I beg to differ.
When you know biz dev, you know how your business works to help others in a profitable (or at least in a revenue generating) manner. You want this, now, you need this. If you are in business, you need some sort of biz dev in place and this helps you see a more complete view of the customer getting side of your efforts.
In the next post in this series, we’ll cover the PB Praroi formula and how to put it to work for you. For now, chime in if you have a biz dev process, want one or still unsure.