No, nothing is wrong with your company. All you need is a business development plan to correct that twitch and bring back your glory. When you set up a business, employ staff, and engage everyone to work on a particular target without any form of enhancement or new ideas for the business, how do you think that company will grow? That is why we have an example template that can help you create a strategic business development plan.
In a case where there is no growth and development, a company will not move forward and it will bear “stagnant” as a name until some improvements are made. This is where business development practices come in. It changes normalities while giving room for growth. Let’s take a closer look at it below.
What Is a Business Development Plan?
A development plan is more than a piece of paper because it contains strategies, ideas, activities, and initiatives that help make a firm better. With a business development plan, any company can expand graciously and have increased revenue and profitability.
A business development plan guarantees long-term success because all employees in the company will be working towards a common goal. This business plan encompasses sales, market development & strategy, business partnership, strategic initiatives and a host of others.
Read Also: BUSINESS CONTINGENCY PLAN: Easy How-to-Create Guide
Some business organizations have even taken this to the next level by employing personnel that will work in the niche. Most of them possess job titles like business development executive and manager of business development. This plan can also be used for either a short-term focus or a long-term goal.
7 Basic Components of a Business Development Plan
When crafting a business development plan, you should know that some elements are essential. These components will determine your growth and also help you compose a winning business development plan.
#1. Set Up Goals
You need to define your goals and vision even before you set them up. Every business has goals, and when you hear about goals, you should be looking at high-level goals. Those crucial goals that won’t exceed 5 goals, guarantee focus.
When you discover those goals, you will need to define them, imagine what it feels like to grow, and then understand the steps you need for your business growth. You will also need to map out actionable requirements for attaining those high-level goals because it will enhance the probability of attaining the goals. Revenue goals are a good example.
#2. Discover Market
Do you know your customers or even the buyer personas’ profiles? What about your target market? I bet you don’t. They are very vital to a successful business development plan. When you explore and discover your market and customers, you will then be able to create content that will generate revenues for your company for a long time.
For your strategic business development plan to work, your products and services need to be in line with your target customers and market. When you feel like your business is getting slowed down again, you can revisit them and make sure they still fit in. Develop buyer personas for a better developing experience.
#3. Explore Marketing Strategies
Due to the growing nature of social media, marketing channels have been made easy. Other than social media, other marketing channels are still functional. A corporation can choose to go for online marketing or in-person marketing, or even both.
The most crucial action is to utilise all available resources and know which ones work best for the corporation. Also, consider the budget size and available human resources before signing up for any marketing channel. A company can end up using three to four marketing channels in a year.
#4. Establish KPI’s
A company that keeps up with data has a high probability of spotting problems even before they happen. With key performance indicators (KPI), any corporation can quantify its performance.
Data are crucial to every business if it is been utilised well and to do that, a corporation must be open to checking its progress monthly or quarterly. Focus your resources on strategies that work best and either tweak or abandon the weak ones that may drain the business in future.
#5. Inspect the Customer Service
The essence of a business development plan is to check all leakages that can drain any business in due time. You cannot carry out this function without reliable customer service.
Every corporation has competitions and to control the competition, your business should be unique from the host of others. Good customer service might be the reason why you will have a head over those competitors. To do this, you need to uphold excellent customer service.
#6. Establish Sales Funnel
For your business to be effective, it needs a constant sales strategy. You can discover, attract, and fascinate qualified leads with a sales funnel. The initial stage of this is to snare the attention of interested customers.
When they get into the company and move farther down the funnel, you would then provide more insights on what your corporation is all about and how well they can benefit from it.
#7. Explore Your Resources
You would also need to examine your current resources, which can be in form of human resources or financial resources.
These resources will determine the actions of your corporation. When you analyse your available resources, you will then be competent enough to determine how well they will be used in your business development plan.
Strategy for Business Development Plan
Apart from the components that make up a business development plan for the success of your corporation, some strategies can help you develop a strategic business development plan. It is crucial to note that these features can also help nurture successful business relationships and partnerships. They include:
#1. Referrals
Referrals can go a long way in every firm, but even in their importance, they are still passive. When it comes to referrals, networking has a stronghold on it because when a client is satisfied, they can proceed to either refer someone or a new business, which in turn boosts the growth of your corporation. To accelerate referrals, make your enterprise more visible.
#2. Networking
Networking is a popular strategic business development plan that has yielded results for corporations. It also deals with face-to-face interactions that end up in a relationship between the two parties. In this recent times, it has proven to be time-consuming and expensive, that is where social media comes in, but even at that, you still need to dedicate your time.
#3. Advertisement and Sponsorship
These two strategies are vital for the growth of any business. You can either go for the paid option or the traditional adverts, the most important step is to define your target audience. When you discover who your main targets are, then you can proceed with getting their attention.
#4. Content Marketing
Content marketing has to do with writing, speaking, or putting up unique content that can attract your target audience and show them how to solve their problems. With the advancement of technologies, it has been made much easier to raise awareness through content marketing. Note that this strategy is competitive, but uniqueness and consistency can make a difference.
Example of Business Development Plan
When drafting a business development plan, you can also choose to work with samples or examples that can guide you throughout the planning process. It will help you save time and also give an idea of what you need to do, without taking much of your time.
A business development plan template and a business development plan template word are guides to look out for.
These templates are also made available in a word document format for your convenience. When working with a unique business development plan template or template word, you will discover that most of the work has been done for you. All you need to do is to download, fill in the blanks, and the work is done! A template also helps in crafting a comprehensive and effective plan that can leverage your company.
Here are some free winning templates you can work with:
Conclusion
A business development plan is simply a revamp that every business needs, both a large scale and a small scale business. It puts the business in check, by exposing all of its weaknesses and planning out a tactical way to fix them. It also brings up new ideas that a corporation can follow for its extensive growth.
In summary, a well-composed business development plan can boost any company from its original state to a higher state, no matter how slow or little the growth comes. The main point is that growth must take place.
FAQs
Why is a business development plan important?
It is important because it can help bounce a business back to its feet, for example, a business development plan can evolve industries and keep the economy moving forward.
What should a business development plan include?
A business development plan should include goals and a target market. start-up cost, targeted milestones, customer service and sales strategy.
What is the essence of a business development plan template ?
Having a template is a good strategy to use when creating a business development plan. For example, you won’t need to look at writing guides that can help you construct one. All you need is to fill your information in.
