Depending on the size and structure of your Middle Market organization, you may have a Business Development team or person. They’re charged with researching, identifying and bringing new business opportunities to the table. Or, you may spread business development across different leadership and teams. Either way, you obviously have to have some form of development and growth unless you plan to remain static.
How A Dedicated BD Budget Helps You Grow
Business Development can be an area that gets pushed to the backburner in some organizations. When you land a big client or a huge order, you’ll throw all efforts into their needs, certainly. However, doing so pushes growth and strategic planning to the side. Then, when your order is completed or perhaps the customer moves on, what’s in your pipeline?
When you dedicate a line item and dollars to Business Development, it can help to make it more tangible and real for your Middle Market organization. It also can help you focus a wide variety of activities that were previously spread across teams and budgets.
Lastly, when you can see the bottom line of what it costs to find, attract and convert leads into customers, you have a starting point to build in improvements and efficiencies.
What To Consider For Budgetary Needs
Work towards a well-rounded view of all costs associated with business development. Include everything, no matter how small or what other areas they blend with.
While this isn’t an exclusive list, you’ll want to look at:
What To Use The Information For
For starters, look at where you could cut costs or create better systems. Is your Business Development primarily done on paper or is it automated? Could you track and revisit leads in a better manner? Are you capturing data that you have no way of referencing later without a lot of legwork?
Next, look at areas of redundancy and weakness. Maybe you have five people attending a yearly trade show when three have the same responsibilities. Or perhaps your Middle Market firm isn’t focusing enough dollars on prospects in other parts of the country, etc.
No matter what, knowing your bottom line gives you information and information gives you the ability to improve.
Using The Data To Grow
Potentially during the evaluation process, you’ll have identified areas your organization is not using Business Development dollars wisely. But, it is just as likely you will see some pretty big gaps in areas that could use a bit more money.
If you start by working on refining areas where you are not getting a good ROI, you can then funnel some of the recouped or saved funds into those areas.
Refining your processes also will likely identify areas where you aren’t using the information you gather wisely. Maybe you spend a lot of time and money identifying leads but aren’t doing a great job of following up with leads in the future.
When your Middle Market company places importance and focus on your Business Development budget, the range of benefits is wide and deep.
So what’s in the Mighty Middle Market for me? — get it right now at www.Go4ROI.com.