Recently I wrote a series of posts on LinkedIn, with my tips on Business Development. They proved very popular, so I’ve taken the opportunity to summarise some of the key points below!
Whilst all the tips were initially aimed at those working in BD in Recruitment, I hope BDRs & AEs see relevance too.
New to a Business Development Role?
The below tips are for you:
Identify your Tier 1 Ideal Customer Profile.
- Map 2 to 3 stakeholders from each account and build a different cadence suited to each stakeholder's role. E.g., a CRO & VP of Sales have different priority initiatives (recognise this).
- Don't prospect more than 30 companies at a time, it just gets messy.
- Remember, it’s important to focus on quality outreach rather than quantity.
Funnel Management.
- Continually add to the top of funnel, but always remember to focus on the bottom of the funnel too.
- These are the opportunities most likely to close. Don't be a busy idiot!
Be ruthless with your time.
- Work in sprints but more importantly, gamify them.
- Set targets for all outbound activities. You'll get more done this way.
Bring value to your Prospects.
- Can you send valuable information that could help them or other areas of their business?
- Bringing value to your prospects always goes a long way (even if you do not get anything out of it in the short term).
Relationship Building.
- I cannot state how important this is.
- Become a specialist in your niche. Get to know as many candidates & clients in your niche as possible - and when an opportunity arises make sure you pounce on it.
- Time kills deals, act fast.
Bonus Tip.
- Multi-touch outreach is super important.
- Be creative and think of other ways to stand out.
BD has got A LOT tougher this year.
If you are struggling in the current market, the below tips are for you:
Things that worked in the past aren't working anymore.
With fewer companies are hiring, there is a lot more competition from other recruiters. My clients are getting ten emails a day – plus ten calls on average.
How are you going to stand out?
Only the top 1% of recruiters are winning right now and here are a few things they're doing:
Their cadences are game changing. They include things like tasks to follow up about prospect's vacation, or nurture campaigns to add value to closed lost deals.
They’re putting upfront contracts in place with clients & candidates to get intros to their network.
They are religious in following cadences, no overdue or missed steps.
They’re continually sharpening their tools, getting 1% better every day. They are massively focused on personal development.
They're focusing on quality over quantity.
They’re building long lasting relationships - always adding value & helping prospects where they can (even if they're not getting anything in return, short term).
Get creative, stand out, continually sharpen your tools & strive to be that 1%.
Looking to optimise and improve your outreach generally?
The below tips are for you:
A / B test everything.
It's where most recruiters fail, as they don't make data-driven decisions.
My advice would be:
Trial three different call openers. Decide on the best one after 50 connects for each.
Track opened email, as well as positive & negative responses (monthly and quarterly) and make changes where necessary.
If your cadence isn't yielding the results, you are looking for - only change 1 - 2 things at time (bi-weekly or monthly). If you change too much, too often you will never work out what truly works. Always, continue to track the data to see how the new steps are performing versus the old.
Never start a new cadence from scratch because your open or response rate is dropping. From my experience it's probably only a few steps in the process that needs changing, not the entire cadence.
Remember that if you can't measure something, you can't control it.
If you can't understand it, you can't control it.
If you can't control it, you can't improve it.
I’m always happy to help those looking for advice – reach out to me if you want to arrange a call or visit our other blogs for more insights.
Dan Gorrod
Senior Business Development Manager & Team Lead
