Do you let business come to you naturally or are you constantly nurturing prospects? Trick question – you should be doing both. If you’re good at what you do and you invest in ongoing marketing efforts then business will come to you naturally. But, it’s also important to do some business development nurturing.
It’s like when you’re decorating your house. You invest in a houseplant, but then you fail to invest in taking care of that houseplant. It needs nurturing care. Sometimes specialized care. Or it won’t last.
You’ve decided to invest in your own business in order to create the life you want. But, you MUST invest in strategic ways to develop that business. Or it won’t last.
As business management experts, one of the best pieces of advice we can give you is to set a clear business development strategy. Then attack it with consistent follow through. We realize that can be a little easier said than done.
Business Development Basics
Let’s start with the definition. Business Development is the process in which you find, acquire, and nurture new customers and business opportunities. It’s how your business grows.
A Business Development Strategy is how. Your strategy for business development includes the methods you use, the purposes in which you use them, and the goals you set.
Get Growing with these Business Development Tips
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Tip One: Take a Step Back.
As you develop your business development strategy make sure you take a step back and look at your development strategy from multiple perspectives. You need to think about how you will conduct business development on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis.
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Tip Two: Define Your Personal Brand.
You can’t have successful business development without a clear brand. Your personal brand is what makes your business different than any other businesses offering similar products and services. It’s going to be a big part of why any person and any business opportunity would choose you versus someone else.
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Tip Three: Build a Network.
You’re not an island, so don’t act like one. You need to be branching out your network. In your network, you want to aim high. And not just in developing mentor relationships. Play on the upper level and don’t sell yourself short. And above all, maintain contact. Your network is going to be the birthplace of your biggest and best business development opportunities. We guarantee it.
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Tip Four: Organize Your Efforts.
Business development has a tendency of getting push back to second class in your mind. Creating a strategy is one way to help prevent this problem. However, if you don’t organize a development routine, it’s still likely to get stuck behind the noise of other business management needs.
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Tip Five: Prioritize Action.
Whatever you do, don’t spend all your time planning and never actually doing. If your identifying people or opportunities or networking pain points and doing nothing about it, you’re procrastination yourself out of profits. Make time for action. Schedule it into your day. Work it into your morning routine. Whatever it takes to make business development the priority it needs to be.
When the Going Gets Tough
Sometimes coming up with the plan is the easiest part. It’s the execution that most business owners have a problem with. The thing is though, unlike houseplants, you can’t order a fake business on Amazon and call it good.
Whatever you need, StellaPop can get you where you need to be with business development and management strategies that work.
We might even be able to teach you how to keep your houseplants alive too.
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