Breaking BizDev: Shining a Light on What’s Broken in Business Development
In addition to “Podcasting in Professional Services,” I also co-host another show called Breaking BizDev. For several months now, Mark Wainwright and I have beaten up and broken down various business development topics like prospecting, content marketing, pricing, events, proposals, referrals, and even job descriptions.
Throughout our episodes, we make a point to remind listeners why Breaking BizDev exists: to shine a light on what's broken in business development, and share the various skills, activities, and methods firms can use to create new business today.
Recently, we experimented with a new episode type where we feature short clips from an assortment of guests, guided by our preambles and reactions. This highlight reel of examples from peers and colleagues shines a light on what’s broken in business development today. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or YouTube:
BizDev is broken all along the Marketing-Sales Continuum
Ineffective business development can have many different root causes. Marketing and sales are the usual suspects, but others like branding, resource planning, internal training & development, and research play a role, too.
From time to time, Mark and I use a tool to help us and our fellow business developers keep track of the bits and pieces of BD that we break apart. We call this the Marketing-Sales Continuum, which we use to organize different business development skills and activities into a linear scale from 1 to 5 (illustrated below).
We’re not the only ones who think BizDev is broken
“Business development” is such an all-encompassing term. It’s easy for firm owners and practitioners to group sales, marketing, R&D, operations, and even resource planning into a big, nebulous BD bucket.
A while back, Mark and I had an idea to go out and source clips from friendly peers and colleagues about what they think is broken in business development. Their responses ranged all across the Marketing-Sales Continuum:
Krystn Macomber shared her perspective on the go/no-go process
Florian Heinrichs shared his thoughts on lead generation failures, especially on Fridays
Patrick Johnston highlighted the broken feedback loop between sellers and marketers
Joe Pope pointed out that firms need to allocate limited resources to the right activities
Perryn Olson shared his thoughts on firm websites and when it makes sense to rebrand
Beating up BizDev has fun so far
“A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.” We’ve all likely heard this Chinese proverb at some point in our lives. But what I’ve found is the journey is more fun when you have someone to share it with.
After 8 or 9 months of podcasting together, I asked Mark about his perspective on what it’s like co-hosting a podcast. Here’s what he had to say:
What do you think is broken about business development?
If you’ve been in professional services long enough, you’ve probably seen an example or two of broken business development strategies, processes, or activities. We’d love to hear from you. Fill out the form and your perspective could be featured on a future episode.
