Building a Culture of Business Development: Part 2: Creating a Process

In our last blog post, we outlined a few of the benefits that come along with a companywide emphasis on business development. Aside from the obvious goal of growing the bottom line, there are many additional advantages that are linked with building a culture of business development within a company. So, how can you actually go about doing so? Here are some basics to leveraging your workforce to fill your pipeline.  

CREATING A PLAN AND SETTING GOALS

An emphasis on business development is important, but you can’t expect to see genuine results without creating a strategy to make it an everyday part of your company. After all, if you don’t know exactly what you are heading for, you will end up nowhere.  When clients approach our team for business development culture planning services, we first start out by collaborating to develop an overall plan that is in line with their company objectives. We then look at specific, obtainable lead generation and training goals that we’d like to achieve through this process.

DEVELOPING THE COMMUNICATION

One of the most important aspects surrounding the development of an ongoing culture of business development is communication. Changing culture takes time and consistent communication with your team.  This communication plan takes place both internally and externally and across multiple mediums.  Internal communication is all about bringing emphasis, urgency and focus to this initiative with your team, and externally when you’re looking to bring on new employees and working with partners. 

REWARDS & RECOGNITION

Another key element to a good plan around a growth culture is the creation of a meaningful rewards and employee recognition program.  We encourage companies to develop monthly, quarterly, and yearly incentives for employees (outside of the sales team) so they have the opportunity to earn additional income. Time off, or other incentives ensure employees are motivated to perform the activity you want them to do.  In addition, we all know that many employees are more motivated by recognition.  Creating a company-wide, high-level recognition program is essential to making this work in the long run. 

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

The final step in ensuring this culture change will be successful is training your team and giving them the resources, encouragement, and support to be successful.  Most people in your organization do not have the basic skill sets to help bring in new relationships. As such, basic (and advanced) training around relationship building, networking, referrals, personal branding and so on are critical to your success. It is your responsibility as a leader in the organization to give your employees the tools they need to succeed. Plus, this opportunity will give employees skills that they can use for the rest of their lives. To some, that can be very impactful. 

TRACKING AND OUTCOMES

Once you’ve executed the steps above, it’s a matter of creating a system or process to track results, hold the team accountable, and keep them motivated. The goal of building a growth culture is to bring in more leads and more relationships to the organization.  Ensuring you have a good grasp on your outcomes and how you will be tracking success is hugely important.   

It takes a certain organization to have the will and determination to change their culture into one that encourages business development and growth at all levels. That commitment includes complete buy-in from upper management, making business development the #1 priority firm-wide, having leadership hold everyone accountable for results and providing the resources, training, communication, and coaching for team members to be successful.  When it’s done right, the results can be a game changer.  

If this sounds like a lot to handle, that’s where we come in! Dinkel Business Development will work with you to ensure we create and execute a strategic plan to develop and motivate your team. We are there 24/7 to answer questions, train, and advise your team on their journey to making business development part of your culture.

BUILD A CULTURE OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT WITH HELP FROM DINKEL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, LLC

DBD can help your business grow by creating a business development culture that engages and educates your team while developing more top-of-the-funnel leads. Let’s start building relationships together today! Please call us at 443.226.0163 or reach us via email at john@dinkelbd.com to get started.