Welcome to DBD
Welcome to my first blog post and welcome to DBD, LLC. Today is my first official day of operation and I couldn’t be more excited. After a few months of planning and talking to colleagues and friends I decided to start DBD because I felt I could use my experience and training to help local businesses exceed their financial goals. I also felt through many meetings with local executives that there was a big need for the services I will be providing. Business development is very critical to the sales process. Without a good business development plan, you can waste hours and resources doing activities that aren’t targeting your audience.
As many of you know for the past 16 years I’ve been with the Baltimore Business Journal. First, as its advertising sales director and then for the past 11 years as its president and publisher. I learned quite a bit in both roles. As the leading business-to-business news organization in the region, I worked with many clients big and small with their branding and marketing efforts. I found in many cases that these same companies struggled with their business development efforts; meaning building deep relationships with the client base, engaging in activity that put them in front of the right people and showed value to their potential customers. I found myself helping these clients through teaching their staff and leadership about good networking techniques, executing on meaningful content strategies and leveraging their current clients. It helped me build deep relationships in the community.
I am forever grateful to the opportunity I had at the BBJ. It was an important chapter in my life both professionally and personally. Through the BBJ, I was able to sit on some of the most influential and interesting boards in the region, meet amazing people doing amazing things and lead some of the most talented and passionate people in the industry. And that was just the beginning. However, I felt I needed a change. I decided to take all of the knowledge and experience I obtained over the past 25 years and branch out on my own. I recently read an article that featured Jim Cantell, CEO and Co-Founder of Vector Space Systems (Elon Musk’s space technology company) and he talked about the three things that can make you successful. He said, “Success is based on a convergence of three simple things: 1). Do what you’re passionate about. 2). Do something that you are inherently good or talented at. 3). Do something that creates value and can be sold into a market present or future.” I think that’s great advice and it’s something I can live by every day when I’m out there meeting and working with potential clients.
I plan to use this blog post to talk about my ongoing business and also share some best practices and content that I come across that I think is relevant to the subject of business development. I hope that you stay in touch and I look forward to seeing you out there.
