From Daunting to Doable: Streamlining Your BD Process

How to Effectively Operationalize Your Business Development Efforts   

In one of our last blogs, we addressed how the most successful companies don’t rely on their sales team.  

While hitting those BD targets may seem daunting, one of the key drivers in seeing results is having a strong foundational process to track your progress that’s followed by EVERYONE (clear emphasis on everyone). While having a strong sales team is important for building your network and actively pursuing leads, we argue that having and following all teams operating BD process that drives those efforts is equally as critical. At the end of the day, if you don’t have a way to consistently track and monitor your work, how will you know if what you’re doing is truly effective, and that you’re focusing on the right things? 

We’re big believers in building (and sticking to) core processes to keep your day-to-day efforts on time and on track, while keeping an eye on the bigger picture. Here are some of our best tips for operationalizing your BD process: 

1. Understand and Map Your BD Funnel 

Start by identifying the main sources of your revenue and understand what that revenue mix looks like to help you achieve your revenue targets. For each source, determine the stages and likelihood of conversion across each stage of the sales funnel that you’ll need to achieve your target. For example, if a non-profit requires five grant approvals to meet one of their revenue drivers but recognizes a 50% chance of submission approval, their team may need to apply to as many as 10 grants to realize that goal.  

2. Have a Strong BD Plan in Place 

Once you understand the efforts needed to drive your revenue sources, determine how you’re going to achieve those activities and what the measures of success might look like. Working back from your goals, map out the key strategies and specific tactics you’ll need to undertake, and assign ownership to each of those tactics. We recommend a simple plan on a page to capture your most important priorities. 

3. Build a Scorecard – and Commit to Reviewing it Regularly 

Identify the measurable inputs and outputs you’ll need to track across each stage of your funnel, whether it’s outreaches, follow ups, and of course - wins and losses – and enter them into a weekly scorecard or dashboard. Translating your BD activities into actual figures can help you spot when you’re behind target and gather important data to understand what’s working and what isn’t. In particular for new teams, that initial sales funnel you built may have been speculative, but gathering real intel will help you better understand what your true sales funnel should look like over time and inform the lead time you may need to close an opportunity.  

4. Invest in a CRM Tool 

Leveraging a Customer Relationship Management tool can be invaluable for translating your sales funnel into a digital tool that houses and tracks your business development efforts. CRMs track communication with prospective customers, automatically organize customer data, and send reminders to follow up with leads. They can also improve customer data accuracy, centralize your sales efforts, and create a single source of truth across your team. And while these tools can have a cost attached to them, several platforms like Hubspot offer a free edition that may be already suitable for smaller teams just starting this journey.  

5. Establish a Quarterly Review & Reset 

Finally, set aside opportunities with your team to reflect on your efforts and re-focus your BD priorities. Looking back at the plan you’ve established, how on track are you to achieving that plan? What’s been working and not working?  A 90-day planning cycle can be a helpful way to turn your goals into quarterly initiatives and make those efforts feel a bit less daunting. Use the scorecard data to inform what worked and what didn’t in your BD efforts, and use the opportunity to reflect on your learnings and spot opportunities for the next quarter ahead. 

Get the BD engine going 

By following these steps, you’ll be well on your way to operationalizing your BD process, ensuring that your efforts are focused, measurable, and effective. Anticipate that there’ll be bumps along the way to learning what works for your BD and what doesn’t, but keeping a disciplined process, establishing clear goals and tactics, and allowing for a bit of trial and error along the way will allow you to build a strong BD engine among your team.  

Ready to transform your business development strategy? We’re here to help!