Introduction:
The Business Development Professional course focuses on the tools and techniques required to develop new business. Without them, sales will stagnate and profits will drop. The course also addresses ways to maximize the company's profitability by fostering relationships with potential players and key decision-makers in the market. By attending this course, business development professionals will acquire what they need to create and implement promotional drives to spur the company's market prospects and design cost-effective yet innovative options to boost sales
Targeted Groups:
- Sales Professionals
- Sales Supervisors and Managers
- Account Managers
- Commercial Professionals
Course Objectives:
At the end of this course the participants will be able to:
- Define the main functions and best practices in Business Development (BD)
- Recognize the importance of redefining business processes to match the ever-changing market and customer requirements
- Produce clear sales and marketing differentiators to neutralize competition (value-based proposition)
- Design and use financial ratios and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure their operations' effectiveness
- Use leadership, negotiation and power proposals to leverage their business and lead the key account team
Targeted Competencies:
- Account qualification
- Customer relationship management
- Re-engineering of commercial processes
- Customer service
- Marketing of products and services
- Business planning
- Lead generation
- Writing business proposals
Course Content:
Unit 1: Business Development:
- Overview and best practices
- Definition and scope
- Account analysis and qualification
- The new landscape of account management and BD
- Understanding the buy-sell ladder model
- Client classification: building an ideal client profile
- Understanding and working the customer loyalty ladder
Unit 2: The Business Planning Process:
- Using the STAR business planning process:
- Strategic analysis
- Targets and goals
- Activities
- Reality check
- Conducting customer surveys to identify important service criteria
- Preparing an account development plan
- Building client chemistry with F.O.R.M.
Unit 3: Re-Defining Your Processes for Breakthrough Results:
- Reviewing the selling process
- The selling process
- Functional product/service/company knowledge
- Unique and distinctive selling points
- The sales competitors analysis form
- Re-engineering your team selling process to avoid mistaking motion for action
- The value-added selling process
- A simple framework for developing new business
- Create and deploy weapons
- Your best friend: the phone
- Creating a client-centered code of conduct (DART model)
- Designing and implementing key performance indicators
- Creating a balanced scorecard (business performance audit)
Unit 4: Effective Negotiation Skills:
- The definition of negotiation
- Some negotiation philosophies
- The difference between persuading and negotiating
- The five stages of the negotiation process
- The critical rules of negotiation
- The phases of the purchasing decision
- Establishing relative importance of differentiators
- Influencing decision criteria
- Vulnerability analysis
- Completing your negotiation plan
Unit 5: Building and Leading the Business Development Team:
- Stages in team formation
- Building a high-performance team
- Defining team roles
- The team motivation mix
- Management versus leadership
- Practices of exemplary leaders
Unit 6: Writing Business Proposals That Sell:
- Writing a typical business proposal
- Formatting tips and tricks for winning proposals
- The process of developing successful project proposals
- Creating your own project proposal
