What are the top business development strategies?

Business development is in its essence sales and marketing combined with a greater focus on sales activities. Hence, some of the top strategies in business development are: 1. Relationship sales, 2. Account management 3. Prospecting 4. Consultative selling 5. Networking 6. Referral selling

In the field of trade, specializing in business development includes a number of techniques and responsibilities which aim to gain new customers and penetrate markets in the region. Techniques used include:

Assessment of marketing opportunities and target markets

Intelligence gathering on customers and competitors

Generating leads for possible sales

Providing advice and drafting and imposition on policies and processes Sales

Follow-up sales activity

A formal proposal or management and Write

Rehearsals advertising and display

Design business model

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Fully agree with the answer given by colleague Norildin Islam

There's no such think as best practices in businesses being launched in today's day an age. Business models are changes as is the consumer, hence the basics of Strategy need to be exposed to current and future needs of the consumer.

Business development is the systematic combination of strategic analysis and marketing management based on the core activities of an organisation to explore on the potential market for future businesses. 

In this fact, the making ideal strategic analysis from various strategies based on the type of business or businesses and as per that  strategies make ideal marketing strategies on the basis of line of the businesses. Herein, two factors are important ie. strategic analysis and marketing strategies. 

What follows are some of the lessons McFarland learned from his study of the breakthrough companies and how they can help you create a growth strategy of your own.

Developing a Growth Strategy: Intensive Growth

Part of getting from A to B, then, is to put together a growth strategy that, McFarland says, "brings you the most results from the least amount of risk and effort." Growth strategies resemble a kind of ladder, where lower-level rungs present less risk but maybe less quick-growth impact. The bottom line for small businesses, especially start-ups, is to focus on those strategies that are at the lowest rungs of the ladder and then gradually move your way up as needed. As you go about developing your growth strategy, you should first consider the lower rungs of what are known as Intensive Growth Strategies. Each new rung brings more opportunities for fast growth, but also more risk. They are:

1. Market Penetration. The least risky growth strategy for any business is to simply sell more of its current product to its current customers—a strategy perfected by large consumer goods companies, says McFarland. Think of how you might buy a six-pack of beverages, then a 12-pack, and then a case. "You can't even buy toilet paper in anything less that a 24-roll pack these days," McFarland jokes. Finding new ways for your customers to use your product—like turning baking soda into a deodorizer for your refrigerator—is another form of market penetration.

2. Market Development. The next rung up the ladder is to devise a way to sell more of your current product to an adjacent market—offering your product or service to customers in another city or state, for example. McFarland points out that many of the great fast-growing companies of the past few decades relied on Market Development as their main growth strategy. For example, Express Personnel (now called Express Employment Professionals), a staffing business that began in Oklahoma City quickly opened offices around the country via a franchising model. Eventually, the company offered employment staffing services in some 588 different locations, and the company became the fifth-largest staffing business in the U.S.

3. Alternative Channels. This growth strategy involves pursuing customers in a different way such as, for example, selling your products online. When Apple added its retail division, it was also adopting an Alternative Channel strategy. Using the Internet as a means for your customers to access your products or services in a new way, such as by adopting a rental model or software as a service, is another Alternative Channel strategy.

4. Product Development. A classic strategy, it involves developing new products to sell to your existing customers as well as to new ones. If you have a choice, you would ideally like to sell your new products to existing customers. That's because selling products to your existing customers is far less risky than "having to learn a new product and market at the same time," McFarland says.

5. New Products for New Customers. Sometimes, market conditions dictate that you must create new products for new customers, as Polaris, the recreational vehicle manufacturer in Minneapolis found out. For years, the company produced only snowmobiles. Then, after several mild winters, the company was in dire straits. Fortunately, it developed a wildly-successful series of four-wheel all-terrain vehicles, opening up an entirely new market. Similarly, Apple pulled off this strategy when it introduced the iPod. What made the iPod such a breakthrough product was that it could be sold alone, independent of an Apple computer, but, at the same time, it also helped expose more new customers to the computers Apple offered. McFarland says the iPhone has had a similar impact; once customers began to enjoy the look and feel of the product's interface, they opened themselves up to buying other Apple products.

If you choose to follow one of the Intensive Growth Strategies, you should ideally take only one step up the ladder at a time, since each step brings risk, uncertainty, and effort. The rub is that sometimes, the market forces you to take action as a means of self-preservation, as it did with Polaris. Sometimes, you have no choice but to take more risk, says McFarland.

Dig Deeper: New Product Development on the Cheap

Developing a Growth Strategy: Integrative Growth Strategies

If you've exhausted all steps along the Intensive Growth Strategy path, you can then consider growth through acquisition or Integrative Growth Strategies. The problem is that some 75 percent of all acquisitions fail to deliver on the value or efficiencies that were predicted for them. In some cases, a merger can end in total disaster, as in the case of the AOL-Time Warner deal. Nevertheless, there are three viable alternatives when it comes to an implementing an Integrative Growth Strategy. They are:

1. Horizontal. This growth strategy would involve buying a competing business or businesses. Employing such a strategy not only adds to your company's growth, it also eliminates another barrier standing in your way of future growth—namely, a real or potential competitor. McFarland says that many of breakthrough companies such as Paychex, the payroll processing company, and Intuit, the maker of personal and small business tax and accounting software, acquired key competitors over the years as both a shortcut to product development and as a way to increase their share of the market.

2. Backward. A backward integrative growth strategy would involve buying one of your suppliers as a way to better control your supply chain. Doing so could help you to develop new products faster and potentially more cheaply. For instance, Fastenal, a company based in Winona, Minnesota that sells nuts and bolts (among other things), made the decision to acquire several tool and die makers as a way to introduce custom-part manufacturing capabilities to its larger clients.

3. Forward. Acquisitions can also be focused on buying component companies that are part of your distribution chain. For instance, if you were a garment manufacturer like Chicos, which is based in Fort Myers, Florida, you could begin buying up retail stores as a means to pushing your product at the expense of your competition.

Dig Deeper: Advice on Growth Through Acquisition

Developing a Growth Strategy: Diversification

Another category of growth strategies that was popular in the 1950s and 1960s and is used far less often today is something called diversification where you grow your company by buying another company that is completely unrelated to your business. Massive conglomerates such as General Electric are essentially holding companies for a diverse range of businesses based solely on their financial performance. That's how GE could have a nuclear power division, a railcar manufacturing division and a financial services division all under the letterhead of a single company. This kind of growth strategy tends to be fraught with risk and problems, says McFarland, and is rarely considered viable these days.

Dig Deeper: The Power of Diversification

Developing a Growth Strategy: How Will You Grow?

Growth strategies are never pursued in a vacuum, and being willing to change course in response to feedback from the market is as important as implementing a strategy in a single-minded way. Too often, companies take a year to develop a strategy and, by the time they're ready to implement it, the market has changed on them, says McFarland. That's why, when putting together a growth strategy, he advises companies to think in just 90 chunks, a process he calls Rapid Enterprise Design. Sometimes the best approach is to take it one rung at a time.

Perform research about the industry you are in, the geographical area you cover and the market segment you are targeting. There are many ready made reports about the industry, market, country over the Internet sphere that you can find useful, they inform you about market trends and value, you can then calculate your market share out of the total market value

Products are tangible. You can see them, feel them and usually sample or test drive them before you buy. Services, on the other hand, are not. It's only after a service has been performed for you that you know if you like it, can see how it works, and you're able to decide if it will solve your problem or produce the results you're looking for. There is an old saying in marketing, 'People do business with people they know, like and trust.' With this in mind, here are my top 10 business development strategies for professional service providers:

1. Be Inspiring: How you come across and relate to a prospective client will often be the difference between an enquiry and a sale. When you're genuine, positive and enthusiastic, and have confidence and belief in yourself and what you have to offer, prospective clients will find you inspiring and an attractive person to do business with.

2. Maximise your online opportunities: Having an online presence not only gives you credibility as a business, but it reduces your need to personally address frequently asked questions, over and over again. Although people often still rely on recommendations from family, friends and colleagues when choosing a service provider, a 'Google' or other online search is the most popular way people do their own research to help them choose among service providers. 

3. Encourage referrals and word-of-mouth business: Regularly ask for referrals from your existing clients and actively refer your clients to others whenever possible. This will help grow your network and encourage the people you've referred business to, to look out for business to refer to you.

4. Form strategic alliances: Create relationships with other business owners with a similar target market and ask them to refer their clients to your business when they notice an opportunity and offer to do the same for them.

5. Become an expert in something: When you're an expert in something, even people within your industry will refer business to you when their clients need assistance that's outside their area of expertise. Another benefit is that the media will often seek out your comments for news items. 

6. Use PR/Media: Press releases are an effective way to get word out and educate the marketplace about your services or areas of expertise.  

7. Speak at conferences, events or teach a class: Sharing your expertise with others through speaking is another way to be more visible and to demonstrate your credibility to potential clients. People are more likely to remember who you are once they've seen you speak at an event.

8. Network with your target market or potential business referrers: Choose networking events where you'll either have an opportunity to meet your target clients or potential strategic alliance partners or referral sources and actively connect people whenever you see an opportunity to do so.

9. Get published: Write articles,an e-zine or newsletter, a column or even a book! Any of these will increase your credibility and encourage clients to want to do business with you.

10.Follow up effectively: After meeting a potential client or referral source, ensure that you follow up by arranging a meeting, lunch or coffee. Stay in contact by inviting them to join your e-zine or newsletter mailing list or ask them to be your guest at an upcoming event.  

As a Business development person, we need to follow the below details.

1) Market Research - To understand the current position and where we are leading to.

2) Competitive Analysis - To understand where we stand against competitor

3) Current client relations - To understand the perception of the clients

4) Reach out to new clients - To identify and create system to establish new clients

5) Networking Events - Participating in these events will not only improve our connections but also a learning opportunity for new things about market and competition

Agree with expert answers given here. Thank you 

Thanks first

Fully agree with the answer given by colleague Georgei assi, & Mr nuridin