Write a business development plan

Now that you’re in the growth stage of your business, set things in motion with a business development plan.

A business development plan sets goals for growth and explains how you will achieve them. It can have a short-term or long-term focus. Review and revise your plan as often as you can. And keep building on it as your business evolves.

How to write a business development plan

Your business development plan is your roadmap to growth, so make it clear, specific and realistic.

What to include in a business development plan

  • Opportunities for growth: Identify where growth will come from – whether it’s in creating new products, adding more services, breaking into new markets, or a combination of these.
  • Funding plan: Determine how you’ll fund your business growth. How much capital do you already have? How much more do you need and how will you get it? Check out our guide on financing your business.
  • Financial goals: Work out what revenue, costs and profits you’ll have if things stay the same. Use those numbers as a basis for setting new, more ambitious financial goals.
  • Operational needs: Identify what things about your business will need to change in order to achieve growth. Will you need extra people, more equipment, or new suppliers?
  • Sales and marketing activities: Figure out what sales and marketing efforts will effectively promote growth and how these efforts will change as the business gets bigger and better. Make sure your sales and marketing plan is sturdy enough to support your growing business.
  • Team needs: You may need people to take on some of the tasks you’ve been doing. Think about what parts of running the business you enjoy most – and you’re good at – and what parts you might want to delegate to others. And give some thought to the culture you want to develop in your business as it grows. Check out our guide on hiring employees.

A sample business development plan

Avoid these common business development mistakes.

  • Thinking short-term instead of long-term
  • Underestimating how much money it will take to grow
  • Not budgeting enough money to cover the costs of growth
  • Focusing on too many growth opportunities: think quality, not quantity

Micro-planning can keep you focused

You may want to create some micro-plans for specific growth projects so their details don’t get overlooked. And you can build in some KPIs to measure your progress and successes. As your business grows, take note of your progress and make periodic adjustments to your business development plan to make sure it’s still relevant.

Support is out there

Remember you’re not the first to go through this. Seek out mentors, advisors or other business owners who can help you with your planning. Your accountant or bookkeeper may also be able to help or point you in the direction of the right people.

Xero does not provide accounting, tax, business or legal advice. This guide has been provided for information purposes only. You should consult your own professional advisors for advice directly relating to your business or before taking action in relation to any of the content provided.

Growing your business

Are you ready to drop the hammer and take your business to the next level? Let’s look at how to grow.

Before you leap into growth, reflect on where you’ve come from. Find out the stage of business growth you’re at.

Understanding your business performance will help you grow. Check out common examples of small business KPIs.

Increasing sales revenue is one obvious way to help grow your business. But how do you sell more?

You can grow your business by selling more things to more people, or fewer things to fewer people. Let’s look at how.

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  • A Game-Changing Business Development Strategy to Achieve Consistent Growth

Joe Pope

Your business development strategy can be key to the success or failure of your firm. In this post, we’ll explore how to create a strategy and associated plan that can propel an individual, a practice or an entire firm to new levels of growth and profitability.

Business Development Defined

Business development (BD) is the process that is used to identify, nurture and acquire new clients and business opportunities to drive growth and profitability. A business development strategy is a document that describes the strategy you will use to accomplish that goal.

The scope of business development can be wide ranging and vary a lot from organization to organization. Consider the model of how professional services organizations get new business shown in Figure 1.

business development funnel

Figure 1: The three stages of the business development funnel

The first two stages of the model, Attracting Prospects and Build Engagement, are traditional marketing functions. The final stage, Turning Opportunities into Clients, is a traditional sales function. In the traditional role, business development would be looking for new channels of distribution or marketing partners.

But roles are changing and naming conventions evolve. In today’s world many firms refer to the entire marketing and sales process as business development. I know, it can be confusing. So let’s sort it out a bit.

Business Development vs. Marketing

Marketing is the process of determining which products and services you will offer to which target audiences, at what price. It also addresses how you will position and promote your firm and it’s offerings in the competitive marketplace. The result of all this activity should be an increasing awareness of your firm among your target audience — and a stronger flow of qualified leads and opportunities.

Download the Business Development Guide

Historically, business development has been a subset of the marketing function that was focused on acquiring new marketing or distribution relationships and channels. While this role still exists in many companies, the business development title has become interchangeable with many marketing and sales functions.  

Business Development vs. Sales

Sales is the task of converting leads or opportunities into new clients. Business development is a broader term that encompasses many activities beyond the sales function. And while there is some overlap, most traditional BD roles are only lightly involved in closing new clients.  

Business development is often confused with sales. This is not too surprising because many people who are clearly in sales have taken to using the title of Business Developer . Presumably this is done because the organization believes that the BD designation avoids some possible stigma associated with sales.

Nowhere is this practice more prevalent than in professional services. Accountants, lawyers and strategy consultants do not want to be seen as “pushy sales people.” This titular bias is firmly rooted despite the fact that developing new business is an important role of most senior members of professional services firms.

Since so many clients want to meet and get to know the professionals they will be working with, the Seller-doer role is well established in many firms. The preference for Seller-doers also tends to discourage firms from fielding a full-time sales force.

As an alternative approach to leveraging fee-earners’ time, some firms have one or more Business Developers on staff. In the professional services context, these folks are often involved in lead generation and qualification, as well as supporting the Seller-doers in their efforts to close new clients. In other organizational contexts, this role might be thought of as a sales support role.

The result of this confusing picture is that many professional services firms call sales “business development” and make it part of every senior professional’s role. They may also include some marketing functions, such as lead generation and lead nurturing, into the professional’s BD responsibilities.

It is this expanded role, where business development encompasses the full range of lead generation, nurturing and sales tasks, which we will concentrate on in this post.

See also: Heller Consulting Case Story

Business Development Examples

To be clear on what this role entails, let’s consider this business development example:

Bethany is the Director of Business Development at a fictional mid-sized architecture firm. She is not an architect herself. Nor is she involved with any aspect of delivering the projects that the firm has signed. Instead, her role is exclusively focused on signing new business for her firm—with either new clients or existing ones. 

For new clients, Bethany spends much of her time responding to RFPs, communicating directly with inbound leads generated by the marketing/sales enablement team, and nurturing potential clients that she met at a recent industry conference. Bethany also collaborates with the marketing team in the development of new materials she needs to sell to new accounts.

When it comes to existing accounts, Bethany also has a role. She meets monthly with delivery teams to understand whether current client projects are on scope or if change orders are needed. Moreover, she maintains a relationship with key stakeholders of her firm’s clients. If another opportunity for more work opens, she knows that her relationship with the client is an important component to that potential deal.

In this example, Bethany is the primary driver of business development but that does not mean she is doing this alone. Imagine she has a colleague Greg who is a lead architect at the firm. While Greg’s first focus is delivering for his clients, business development—and even marketing—should still be a part of his professional life. Perhaps Greg attends an industry conference with Bethany, he as a speaker and expert and her as the primary networker. The business development dynamic should not end with Bethany and should permeate the whole organization.

In this business development example, you can see that the range of roles and responsibilities is wide. This is why it is essential for business development to not be ad hoc, but done strategically. Let’s talk about that now.

Strategic Business Development

Not all business development is of equal impact. In fact a lot of the activities of many professionals are very opportunistic and tactical in nature.This is especially true with many seller-doers. 

Caught between the pressures of client work and an urgent need for new business they cast about for something quick and easy that will produce short term results. Of course this is no real strategy at all.

Strategic business development is the alignment of business development processes and procedures with your firm’s strategic business goals. The role of strategic business development is to acquire ideal clients for your highest priority services using brand promises that you can deliver upon.

 Deciding which targets to pursue and strategies to employ to develop new business is actually a high stakes decision. A good strategy, well implemented, can drive high levels of growth and profitability. A faulty strategy can stymie growth and frustrate valuable talent.

Yet many firms falter at this critical step. They rely on habit, anecdotes and fads — or worse still, “this is how we have always done it.” In a later section we’ll cover how to develop your strategic business development plan. But first we’ll cover some of the strategies that may go into that plan.

Top Business Development Strategies

Let’s look at some of the most common business development strategies and how they stack up with today’s buyers .

Networking is probably the most universally used business development strategy. It’s built on the theory that professional services buying decisions are rooted in relationships, and the best way to develop new relationships is through face-to-face networking.

It certainly is true that many relationships do develop in that way. And if you are networking with your target audience, you can develop new business. But there are limitations. Today’s buyers are very time pressured, and networking is time consuming. It can be very expensive, if you consider travel and time away from the office.

Newer digital networking techniques can help on the cost and time front. But even social media requires an investment of time and attention.

The close relative of networking, referrals are often seen as the mechanism that turns networking and client satisfaction into new business. You establish a relationship, and that person refers new business to you. Satisfied clients do the same.

Clearly, referrals do happen, and many firms get most or all of their business from them. But referrals are passive. They rely on your clients and contacts to identify good prospects for your services and make a referral at the right time.

The problem is referral sources often do not know the full range of how you can help a client. So many referrals are poorly matched to your capabilities. Other well-matched referrals go unmade because your referral source fails to recognize a great prospect when they see one. Finally, many prospects that might be good clients rule out your firm before even talking with you. One recent study puts the number at over 50%.

Importantly, there are new digital strategies that can accelerate referrals. Making your specific expertise more visible is the key. This allows people to make better referrals and increases your referral base beyond clients and a few business contacts.

Learn More: Referral Marketing Course

Sponsorships and Advertising

Can you develop new business directly by sponsoring events and advertising? It would solve a lot of problems if it works. No more trying to get time from fully utilized billable professionals.

Unfortunately, the results on this front are not very encouraging. Studies have shown that traditional advertising is actually associated with slower growth. Only when advertising is combined with other techniques, such as speaking at an event, do these techniques bear fruit.

The most promising advertising strategy seems to be well-targeted digital advertising. This allows firms to get their messages and offers in front of the right people at a lower cost.

Outbound Telephone and Mail

Professional services firms have been using phone calls and mail to directly target potential clients for decades. Target the right firms and roles with a relevant message and you would expect to find new opportunities that can be developed into clients.

There are a couple of key challenges with these strategies. First they are relatively expensive, so they need to be just right to be effective. Second, if you don’t catch the prospect at the right time, your offer may have no appeal relevance — and consequently, no impact on business development.

The key is to have a very appealing offer delivered to a very qualified and responsive list. It’s not easy to get this combination right.

Thought Leadership and Content Marketing

Here, the strategy is to make your expertise visible to potential buyers and referral sources. This is accomplished through writing, speaking or publishing content that demonstrates your expertise and how it can be applied to solve client problems.

Books, articles and speaking engagements have long been staples of professional services business development strategy. Many high visibility experts have built their practices and firms upon this strategy. It often takes a good part of a career to execute this approach.

But changing times and technology have reshaped this strategy. With the onset of digital communication it is now easier and much faster to establish your expertise with a target market. Search engines have leveled the playing field so that relatively unknown individuals and firms can become known even outside their physical region. Webinars have democratized public speaking, and blogs and websites give every firm a 24/7 presence. Add in video and social media and the budding expert can access a vastly expanded marketplace.

But these developments also open firms to much greater competition as well. You may find yourself competing with specialists whom you were never aware of. The impact is to raise the stakes on your business development strategy.

Combined Strategies

It is common to combine different business development strategies. For example, networking and referrals are frequently used together. And on one level, a combined strategy makes perfect sense. The strength of one strategy can shore up the weakness of another.

But there is a hidden danger. For a strategy to perform at its peak, it must be fully implemented. There is a danger that by attempting to execute too many different strategies you will never completely implement any of them.

Good intentions, no matter how ambitious, are of little real business development value. Under-investment, lack of follow through and inconsistent effort are the bane of effective business development.

It is far more effective to fully implement a simple strategy than to dabble in a complex one. Fewer elements, competently implemented, produce better results.

Next, we turn our attention to the tactics used to implement a high-level strategy. But first there is a bit of confusion to clear up.

Business Development Strategy Vs. Tactics

The line between strategy and tactics is not always clear. For example, you can think of networking as an overall business development strategy or as a tactic to enhance the impact of a thought leadership strategy. Confusing to be sure.

From our perspective, the distinction is around focus and intent. If networking is your business development strategy all your focus should be on making the networking more effective and efficient. You will select tactics that are aimed at making networking more powerful or easier. You may try out another marketing technique and drop it if it does not help you implement your networking strategy.

On the other hand, if networking is simply one of many tactics, your decision to use it will depend on whether it supports your larger strategy. Tactics and techniques can be tested and easily changed. Strategy, on the other hand, is a considered choice and does not change from day to day or week to week.

10 Most Effective Business Development Tactics

Which business development tactics are most effective? To find out, we recently conducted a study that looked at over 1000 professional services firms. The research identified those firms that were growing at greater than a 20% compound annual growth rate over a three-year period.

These High Growth firms were compared to firms in the same industry that did not grow over the same time period. We then examined which business development tactics were employed by each group and which provided the most impact.

The result is a list of the ten most impactful tactics employed by the High Growth firms:

  • Outbound sales calls from internal teams
  • Providing assessments and/or consultations
  • Speaking at targeted conferences or events
  • Live product/service demonstrations
  • Presenting in educational webinars
  • Pursuing industry award opportunities
  • Business development materials
  • Email marketing campaigns
  • Conducting and publishing original research
  • Networking at targeted conferences or events

There are a couple of key observations about these growth tactics. First, these techniques can be employed in service of different business development strategies. For example number three on the list, speaking at targeted conferences or events, can easily support a networking or a thought leadership strategy.

The other observation is that the top tactics include a mix of both digital and traditional techniques. As we will see when we develop your plan, having a healthy mix of digital and traditional techniques tends to increase the impact of your strategy.

Business Development Skills

Now that we have identified the key business development strategies and tactics, it is time to consider the business development skills your team will need. Business development skills require a broad range of technical skills but there are some that make a difference.

When the Hinge Research Institute studied marketing and business development skills in our annual High Growth Study , we found that the firms who grow faster have a skill advantage within their marketing and business development teams.

business development growth plan

Let’s dive into the top three skills from this list. 

The number one business development skill high growth firms enjoy are strong project management skills. And for experienced business development specialists, this makes good sense. Staying organized, accurately tracking business development activity, and managing accounts are essential for building and maintaining strong business relationships. Activities like the proposal development see business development team resources manage and produce a strong proposal quickly, including the right stakeholders, and without sacrificing quality.

The next most important skill is simplifying complex concepts. In business development conversations, it is vital that team members are strong communicators of your firm’s service offerings and capabilities. Those who are able to take a comlex scope of work and communicate it in a way that a potential buyer can understand. Speaking in industry jargon or overly complicated charts is a fast way to see a business lead become unresponsive. Therefore, it is no surprise to see that the fastest growing professional services firms have an advantage in communicating complex information in a way that buyers understand.

The third most important business development skill is face-to-face networking. Despite the hiatus of many in-person events, high growth firms still reported that strong networking skills are a top skill enjoyed by their firms. Strong face-to-face networking skills are as much of an art as it is a science. While some can be more charismatic than others, everyone can prepare their teams with the resources and plan they need to succeed in a networking environment.

Review the other business development and marketing skills in the figure above and determine which skills your team should aim to develop. Strategy development for planning your business development plan, research for understanding the competitive landscape and industry trends, and social media prowess all play an important role in business development, too. Developing these skills should be a key priority of your business development team.

How to Create Your Strategic Business Development Plan

A Business Development Plan is a document that outlines how you implement your business development strategy. It can be a plan for an individual, a practice or the firm as a whole. Its scope covers both the marketing and sales functions, as they are so intertwined in most professional services firms.

Here are the key steps to develop and document your plan.

Define your target audience

Who are you trying to attract as new clients? Focus on your “best-fit” clients, not all possible prospects. It is most effective to focus on a narrow target audience. But don’t go so narrow that you can’t achieve your business goals.

Research their issues, buying behavior and your competitors

The more you know about your target audience the better equipped you will be to attract their attention and communicate how you can help them. What are their key business issues? Is your expertise relevant to those issues? Where do they look for advice and inspiration? What is the competitive environment like? How do you stack up?

Identify your competitive advantage

What makes you different? Why is that better for your target client? Are you the most cost-effective alternative, or the industry’s leading expert? This “positioning” as it is often called, needs to be true, provable and relevant to the prospect at the time they are choosing which firm to work with. Be sure to document this positioning, as you will use it over and over again as you develop your messages and marketing tools.

Choose your overall business development strategy

Pick the broad strategy or strategies to reach, engage and convert your prospects. You can start with the list of top strategies provided above. Which strategy fits with the needs and preferences of your target audiences? Which ones best convey your competitive advantage? For example, if you are competing because you have superior industry expertise, a thought leadership/content marketing strategy will likely serve you well.

Click to play video

Choose your business development tactics

A great place to start is the list of the most effective tactics we provided above. Make sure that each technique you select fits your target audience and strategy. Remember, it’s not about your personal preferences or familiarity with a tactic. It’s about what works with the audience.

Also, you will need to balance your choices in two important ways: First, you will need tactics that address each stage of the business development pipeline shown in Figure 1. Some techniques work great for gaining visibility but do not address longer-term nurturing. You need to cover the full funnel.

Second, you need a good balance between digital and traditional techniques (Figure 2). Your research should inform this choice. Be careful about assumptions. Just because you don’t use social media doesn’t mean that a portion of your prospects don’t use it to check you out.

Online and Traditional Marketing

Figure 2. Online and offline marketing techniques

When, how often, which conferences, what topics? Now is the time to settle on the details that turn a broad strategy into a specific plan. Many plans include a content or marketing calendar that lays out the specifics, week by week. If that is too much detail for you, at least document what you will be doing and how often. You will need these details to monitor the implementation of your plan.

Specify how you will monitor implementation and impact

Often overlooked, these important considerations often spell the difference between success and failure. Unimplemented strategies don’t work. Keep track of what you do, and when. This will both motivate action and provide a great starting place as you troubleshoot your strategy. Also monitor and record the impacts you see. The most obvious affect will be how much new business you closed. But you should also monitor new leads or new contacts, at the bare minimum. Finally, don’t neglect important process outcomes such as referrals, new names added to your list and downloads of content that expose prospects and referral sources to your expertise.

If you follow these steps you will end up with a documented business development strategy and a concrete plan to implement and optimize it.

business development growth plan

Free Resource

The Business Development Guide

Lee

How Hinge Can Help

Hinge, a global leader in professional services branding and marketing, helps firms grow faster and become more profitable. Our research-based strategies are designed to be  implemented.  In fact, our groundbreaking  Visible Firm ®  program  combines strategy, implementation, training and more.

Additional Resources

  • For hands-on help developing a high-performance business development plan, register for our  Visible Firm ®  course  through Hinge University.
  • Keep pace with the marketplace, generate leads and build your reputation all at once:  Marketing Planning Guide.
  • Find out how to turn your firm into a high-visibility, high-growth business. Download our free executive guide,  The Visible Firm® , in which we layout a detailed roadmap of this research-based program.
  • For more insights, check out our blog post, How to Develop a Winning Go-to-Market Strategy for Your Firm  

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business development growth plan

Writing a Business Growth Plan

Table of contents.

business development growth plan

When you run a business, it’s easy to get caught in the moment and focus only on the day in front of you. However, to be truly successful, you must look ahead and plan for growth. Many business owners create a business growth plan to map out the next one or two years and pinpoint how and when revenues will increase. 

We’ll explain more about business growth plans and share strategies for writing a business growth plan that can set you on a path to success. 

What is a business growth plan?

A business growth plan outlines where a company sees itself in the next one to two years. Business owners and leaders apply a growth mindset to create plans for expansion and increased revenues.

Business growth plans should be formatted quarterly. At the end of each quarter, the company can review the business goals it achieved and missed during that period. At this point, management can revise the business growth plan to reflect the current market standing.

What to include in a business growth plan

A business growth plan focuses specifically on expansion and how you’ll achieve it. Creating a useful plan takes time, but keeping your growth efforts on track can pay off substantially.

You should include the following elements in your growth plan:

  • A description of expansion opportunities
  • Financial goals broken down by quarter and year
  • A marketing plan that details how you’ll achieve growth
  • A financial plan to determine what capital is accessible during growth
  • A breakdown of your company’s staffing needs and responsibilities

Your growth plan should also include an assessment of your operating systems and computer networks to determine if they can accommodate profitable growth .

How to write a business growth plan

To successfully write a business growth plan, you must do some forward-thinking and research. Here are some key steps to follow when writing your business growth plan.

1. Think ahead.

The future is always unpredictable. However, if you study your target market, your competition and your company’s past growth, you can plan for future expansion. The Small Business Administration (SBA) features a comprehensive guide to writing a business plan for growth.

2. Study other growth plans.

Before you start writing, review models from successful companies.

3. Discover opportunities for growth.

With some homework, you can determine if your expansion opportunities lie in creating new products , adding more services, targeting a new market, opening new business locations or going global, to name a few examples. Once you’ve identified your best options for growth, include them in your plan.

4. Evaluate your team.

Your plan should include an assessment of your employees and a look at staffing requirements to meet your growth objectives. By assessing your own skills and those of your employees, you can determine how much growth can be accomplished with your present team. You’ll also know when to ramp up the hiring process and what skill sets to look for in those new hires.

5. Find the capital.

Include detailed information on how you will fund expansion. Business.gov offers a guide on how to prepare funding requests and how to connect with SBA lenders.

6. Get the word out.

Growing your business requires a targeted marketing effort. Be sure to outline how you will effectively market your business to encourage growth and how your marketing efforts will evolve as you grow.

7. Ask for help.

Advice from other business owners who have enjoyed successful growth can be the ultimate tool in writing your growth plan.

8. Start writing.

Business plan software has streamlined the process of writing growth plans by providing templates you can fill in with information specific to your company and industry. Most software programs are geared toward general business plans; however, you can easily modify them to create a plan that focuses on growth. 

If you don’t have business plan software, don’t worry. You can create a business growth plan using Microsoft Word, Google Docs or a similar tool. For each growth opportunity, create the following sections: 

  • What is the opportunity? Is your growth opportunity a new geographic expansion, a new product or a new customer segment? How do you know there’s an opportunity? Include your market research to demonstrate the idea’s viability.
  • What factors make this opportunity valuable at this time? For example, your growth opportunity could utilize new technology, take advantage of a strategic partnership or capitalize on a consumer trend.
  • What are the risk factors for this opportunity? Identify factors that may make this growth opportunity challenging to execute. For example, challenges may include the state of the overall economy, intense competition or supply chain distribution issues. What is your plan for dealing with these challenges?
  • What is your marketing and sales plan? Identify the marketing efforts and sales processes that can help you seize this growth opportunity. Detail the marketing channel you’ll use ( social media marketing , print marketing), your message and promising sales ideas. For example, you could hire sales reps for a new geographic area or set up distribution deals with relevant brick-and-mortar or online retailers .
  • What are the costs involved in this growth area? For example, if you add a new product, you may need to buy new manufacturing equipment and raw materials. While marketing costs are a given, remember to include incremental sales costs like commissions. Outline any economies of scale or places where your existing operations make the new growth area less expensive than a stand-alone initiative.
  • How will your income, expenses and cash flow look? Project your income and expenses, and prepare a cash flow statement for the new growth area for the next three to five years. Include a break-even analysis, a sales forecast and all projected expenses to see how much the new initiative will add to the bottom line. Include how the new growth area will positively (or negatively) impact existing sales. For example, if you sell bathing suits and you decide to grow by adding cover-ups and sunglasses, you will likely sell more bathing suits. 

A cash flow statement will indicate if you must secure additional financing, and a break-even analysis will let you know when the growth opportunity will stop being a drain on the company’s financial resources and start turning a profit.

After completing this exercise for each growth opportunity:

  • Create a summary that accounts for all growth areas for the period.
  • Include summarized financial statements to see the entire picture and its impact on the company. 
  • Evaluate the financing you’ll need to implement the plan, and include various options and rates. 

Why are business growth plans important?

These are some of the many reasons why business growth plans are essential:

  • Market share and penetration: If your market share remains constant in a world where costs consistently increase, you’ll inevitably start recording losses instead of profits. Business growth plans help you avoid this scenario.
  • Recouping early losses: Most companies lose far more than they earn in their early years. To recoup these losses, you’ll need to grow your company to a point where it can make enough revenue to pay off your debts.
  • Future risk minimization: Growth plans also matter for established businesses. These companies can always stand to make their sales more efficient and become more liquid. Liquidity can come in handy if you need money to cover unexpected problems.
  • Appealing to investors: For most businesses, a business growth plan’s primary purpose is to find investors . Investors want to outline your company’s plans to build sales in the coming months.
  • Concrete revenue plans: Growth plans are customizable to each business and don’t have to follow a set template. However, all business growth plans must focus heavily on revenue. The plan should answer a simple question: How does your company plan to make money each quarter?

Motivate your employees by sharing your growth plan. When employees see an opportunity for increased responsibility and compensation, they’re more likely to stay with your business.

What factors impact business growth?

Consider the following crucial factors that can impact business growth:

  • Leadership: To achieve your goals, you must know the ins and outs of your business processes and how external forces impact them. Without this knowledge, you can’t direct and train your team to drive your revenue, and you will experience stagnation instead of growth.
  • Management: As a small business owner, you’re innately involved in management – obtaining funding, resources, and physical and digital infrastructure. Ineffective management will impact your ability to perform these duties and could hamstring your growth.
  • Customer loyalty: Acquiring new customers can be five times as expensive as retaining current ones, and a 5 percent boost in customer retention can increase profits by 25 percent to 95 percent. These statistics demonstrate that customer loyalty is fundamental to business growth.

What are the four major growth strategies?

There are countless growth strategies for businesses, but only four primary types. With these growth strategies, you can determine how to build on your brand.

  • Market strategy: A market strategy refers to how you plan to penetrate your target audience . This strategy isn’t intended for entering a new market or creating new products and services to boost your market share; it’s about leveraging your current offerings. For instance, can you adjust your pricing? Should you launch a new marketing campaign?
  • Development strategy: This strategy means looking into ways to break your products and services into a new market. If you can’t find the growth you want in the current market, a goal could be to expand to a new market.
  • Product strategy: Also known as “product development,” this strategy focuses on what new products and services you can target to your current market. How can you grow your business without entering new markets? What are your customers asking for?
  • Diversification strategy: Diversification means expanding both your products and target markets. This strategy is usually best for smaller companies that have the means to be versatile with the products or services they offer and what new markets they attempt to penetrate.

Max Freedman contributed to this article.

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The Ultimate Guide to Business Development and How It Can Help Your Company Grow

Discover the importance of business development and how the process can help your business grow better.

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business development

Updated: 08/19/22

Published: 08/17/21

Imagine working for a company without any employees dedicated to growing and developing the business.

Nobody to challenge you to improve or tell you about new business opportunities, changes in the market, what your competition is up to, or how you can attract your target audience more effectively.

This would make it pretty hard to succeed, don’t you think?

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Business Development

Business Development Reps

BDR Responsibilities

Business Development Ideas

Business development process, business development plan.

Business development is the process of implementing strategies and opportunities across your organization to promote growth and boost revenue.

It involves pursuing opportunities to help your business grow, identifying new prospects, and converting more leads into customers. Business development is closely tied to sales — business development teams and representatives are almost always a part of the greater sales org.

Although business development is closely related to sales, it’s important to note what makes them different.

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Business Development vs. Sales

As mentioned, business development lives on the greater sales team yet it serves a different function than typical sales work and responsibilities.

Business development is a process that helps your company establish and maintain relationships with prospects, learn about your buyer’s personas, increase brand awareness, and seek new opportunities to promote growth.

In contrast, sales teams sell your product or service to customers and work to convert leads into customers. Business development-related work simplifies the work of a salesperson or sales manager.

Let’s take a closer look at what business development representatives — the people responsible for carrying out the various business development tasks — do next.

Business Development Representative

Business development representatives (BDRs) seek out and establish new strategies, tactics, targets, employees, and prospects for your business. The goal of all BDRs is to find ways to grow and provide long-term value for the business.

Possessing the necessary business development skills and experience will help your BDRs achieve all of their day-to-day tasks and responsibilities.

Business Development Representative Responsibilities

Although some BDR responsibilities may change over time and as your business grows, the following list will provide you with a solid understanding of typical BDR tasks.

1. Qualify leads.

BDRs must qualify leads and pinpoint ideal prospects to determine who they'll sell to. Typically, leads are qualified through calls, emails, web forms, and social media.

The key to qualifying leads (leads who are assigned to the BDRs as well as leads BDRs identify themselves) is to consider their needs and then determine whether or not your product or software could be a solution for them.

2. Identify and communicate with prospects.

By qualifying leads and searching for people who fit your buyer personas, BDRs will identify ideal prospects. They can communicate with those prospects directly to learn more about their needs and pain points.

This way, BDRs can determine whether or not the prospect will really benefit from your product or service by becoming a customer. This is important because it increases the potential of improved customer loyalty and retention.

Once the BDRs have identified ideal prospects, those prospects can be passed along to a sales rep on the team (or sales manager, if necessary) who can nurture them into making a deal.

3. Proactively seek new business opportunities.

Proactively seeking new opportunities — whether that’s in terms of the product line, markets, prospects, or brand awareness — is an important part of your business’s success. BDRs work to find new business opportunities through networking, researching your competition, and talking to prospects and current customers.

If a new business opportunity is identified, BDRs should schedule marketing assessments and discovery meetings with the sales reps on the team so they can all assess whether or not there’s potential for a deal.

4. Stay up-to-date on competition and new market trends.

It’s important to stay up-to-date on your competition’s strategies, products, and target audience as well as any new market and industry trends.

This will allow you to more effectively identify ideal prospects. It also helps your business prepare for any shifts in the market that could lead to the need for a new approach to qualifying leads and attracting your target audience.

5. Report to salespeople and development managers.

As we reviewed, at most companies, BDRs report to sales reps and sales managers. BDRS must communicate with these higher-ups for multiple reasons such as discussing lead qualification strategies and how to get prospects in touch with sales reps to nurture them into customers.

BDRs also have to report their findings (such as business opportunities and market trends) to sales reps and managers. Relaying this information and collaborating with sales reps and managers to develop and/or update appropriate strategies for your business and audience is critical to your success as an organization.

6. Promote satisfaction and loyalty.

A BDR's interaction with a prospect might be the very first interaction that prospect ever has with your business. So, creating a great first impression right off the bat is crucial to promote interest early on.

Whether a BDR is working to qualify the lead, learn more about the prospect and their needs, or find the right sales rep to work on a deal with them, their interactions with all of your prospects matter.

Once a BDR researches the prospect or begins interacting with them, ensure they tailor all communication towards the prospect. Customizing all content sent their way shows them they’re being listened to and cared for. These actions are professional and leave a strong impression.

In addition to understanding how BDRs help you grow, business development ideas are another powerful way to engage prospects and identify new business opportunities. Let’s take a look.

  • Innovate the way you network.
  • Offer consultations.
  • Provide sales demos for prospects and leads.
  • Nurture prospects.
  • Provide prospects with several types of content.
  • Communicate with marketing.
  • Invest in your website.
  • Push your employees to expand and refine their skills.

Business development ideas are tactics you can implement to positively impact your company in a multitude of different ways. They can help you identify ideal prospects, network more effectively, improve brand awareness, and uncover new opportunities.

The following tactics are here to get you started — every business and team is different, meaning these ideas may or may not be suited for your specific situation. (So, feel free to modify the list!)

1. Innovate the way you network.

It’s no secret cold calls are less effective than they once were. Instead, innovate the way you network by establishing strong relationships with your prospects. You can do this by meeting with them in person at conferences, trade shows, or events related to your industry.

Browse your online networks including LinkedIn and other social sites for potential customers, too. Reach out to the people who sign up for your email subscription or complete other forms on your site.

2. Offer consultations.

Offer consultations and assessments for prospects. Talking about the ways your product or service applies to their needs will help prospects decide whether or not they’ll convert.

In contrast, consultations and assessments may also bring to light the ways a prospect is not an ideal fit for your product (which is equally as valuable since it prevents you from wasting any time nurturing them or having to deal with an unsatisfied customer down the road).

3. Provide sales demos for prospects and leads.

Provide your prospects and leads with sales demos so they can see how your product or service works in action. Ensure these demos are customized to show a prospect or lead how your product solves their challenge. You can share these demos in person, over email, on your website, or via video chat.

4. Nurture prospects.

Remember to nurture your prospects, whether it’s by phone call, email, meeting, or another mode of communication. The point of lead nurturing is to provide any information needed about your product or service so your prospects can decide whether or not they want to make a purchase.

By nurturing your leads , you’ll be able to tailor the content regarding your brand and product so your leads can better understand how your product will solve their specific pain points. You’ll also be able to show your support for the prospect and ensure they feel heard and understood by your company.

5. Provide prospects with several types of content.

Provide your prospects with different content types such as blogs, videos, and social media posts so they can learn more about your brand and product or service.

It’s best to meet your prospects where they are and provide the content they prefer to read or watch. Ensure all of this content is downloadable and/or shareable so prospects can send it to their team members to show them why your solution is their best option.

6. Communicate with marketing.

Although business development lives in the sales department, that doesn’t mean internal business development work only involves other members of the sales team. Host regular meetings and maintain open lines of communication with the departments at your company that impact your ability to succeed such as marketing and product development.

Think about it this way: Marketing creates content and campaigns for your target audience about how your product or service resolves their challenges. So, why wouldn’t you want to talk to them about the blogs, campaigns, social media posts, and website content they’re creating for the people you’re selling to?

Your reps and BDRs can share any content the marketing team creates directly with prospects to help them convert, as well as inform the marketing team of any content they feel is missing for prospects. If there are projects or campaigns out of your scope, you can opt to hire a marketing agency to help fill the void. But, like your marketing team, they'll need to understand your product and how to connect with your target audience.

7. Invest in your website.

You never get a second chance at a first impression, and in many cases, your website is exactly that — your prospects' first impression of your brand. So, it serves you to make it as accessible, navigable, visible, and helpful as possible.

Taking strides like making your site visually engaging, connecting your social media profiles, optimizing your site for search engines, linking to collateral like sales content , and maintaining an active blog can go a long way when conducting business development.

8. Push your employees to expand and refine their skills and knowledge.

Business development is never stagnant. Strategy, technology, and market conditions are all constantly evolving — so you're best off having your employees stay abreast of these trends.

Anyone involved in your business development should be liable to develop new skills as needed. If your organization adopts any sort of new technology, thoroughly train anyone the change touches on how to use it.

Encourage your employees to learn more about both the nuances of their field and the industries they serve. Is artificial intelligence starting to shift the dynamics of a specific industry? If so, make the BDRs who serve that market learn all they can about how it might change the nature of the companies they interact with.

A business development process is the combination of steps your business takes to grow effectively, boost revenue, improve relationships with leads, and more. These steps are what your business development team will work on every day. It includes everything related to delighting customers along each part of the buyer's journey.

By working through your business development process, your team will have a strong understanding of your organization-wide goals, sales targets, current business situation, who your target audience members are, and more.

How to Do Business Development

  • Conduct extensive market research.
  • Raise visibility and awareness.
  • Promote thought leadership.
  • Conduct outreach.
  • Qualify leads to pass off to sales.
  • Provide exemplary customer service.
  • Develop sales content from success stories.

1. Conduct extensive market research.

Successful business development rests, in large part, on you understanding your market and target personas. If you have no idea who you're trying to sell to and the state of the market they comprise, you can't successfully implement any other point on this list.

Study and survey your current customers to see who tends to buy from you. Look into your competition to get a feel for where you fit into your broader market. And take any other strides to get a better feel for the "who" behind your successful sales — without that intel, you'll never be able to shape the "how" side of your business development.

business development growth plan

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2. Raise visibility and awareness.

Business development, as a broader practice, extends beyond your sales org — your marketing department can also play a central role in the process. You can't source a base of potential customers if no one knows who you are.

Actions like constructing an effective website, investing in paid advertising, leveraging social profiles, participating in co-marketing partnerships with industry peers, and maintaining an active blog can all go a long way in supporting successful business development.

3. Promote thought leadership.

This point is sort of an extension of the one above. Establishing credibility is one of the more important steps you can take when doing business development. You can't just stop with prospects knowing who you are — they need to trust you if you're ever going to earn their business.

Publishing in-depth, industry-specific blog content is one way to get there — if you can show that you have a firm grasp on every aspect of your field, you can frame yourself as a reliable, knowledgeable resource for your customers. That kind of trust often translates to sales, down the line. Other media like webinars, white papers, and video content can also help your case.

4. Conduct outreach.

Actively reaching out to prospects is one of the most crucial, traditional elements of business development. You need to touch base with prospects if you're going to vet them and ultimately convert them to qualified leads.

This step is typically supported by extensive research on individual prospects, paired with contacting warm and cold leads proactively but not aggressively. BDRs typically shoulder this responsibility — and for many people, it's the aspect of the process most closely associated with the term "business development."

5. Qualify leads.

Once your BDRs have connected with leads, they need to qualify them to determine their viability and understand whether they're worth the sales org's time and effort. That generally entails having conversations with leads and asking the right qualifying questions to reveal their fit for your product or service.

This is one of the most pivotal moments in the business development process — in some respects, it could be considered its last step. Successfully executing this point typically means the process, as a whole, has worked.

6. Provide exemplary customer service.

Business development is an ongoing process that involves virtually every side of your business in some capacity — and customer service is no exception. Your service org needs to keep current customers happy to generate positive word of mouth and bolster your company's reputation. That kind of effort offers you credibility and can generate referrals, making business development more straightforward and effective.

7. Develop sales content from success stories.

Another part of business development is translating customer satisfaction into actionable, promotable sales content — pointed, product-specific content that's used to generate sales. While marketing content is used for thought leadership and garnering general interest, sales content is used to appeal to potential buyers, looking into your company specifically.

Sales content can come in a variety of forms, including case studies and testimonials — two mediums that lean heavily on your current customer base. When you use customers' experiences to generate interest in your business, your business development efforts essentially come full circle.

Visual of the 7 business development process/strategy stages

By compiling these elements of business development and sharing them among your team, you create an actionable business development strategy or plan that encourages and promotes success and growth. Let's review the different steps involved in creating your business development plan next.

A business development plan is a strategy your team can refer to while working to achieve growth-related goals. Sales managers typically create the business development plan for BDRs to work on.

The purpose of a business development plan (or strategy) is to set realistic goals and targets that allow your reps to grow the business, close more deals, identify prospects, align members of the sales team (and other teams, company-wide), and convert more leads.

1. Craft an elevator pitch.

You can simplify any initial communication with prospects by having an elevator pitch ready to go. This elevator pitch should explain your company’s mission and how your product or service can solve the needs of your target audience. Your elevator pitch should grab the attention of prospects and leads — and get them excited to learn more about what you offer.

Additionally, you can help your team determine which elevator pitches used by both BDRs and reps are most successful in converting leads and then document it in your greater strategy so everyone has access to it.

2. Set SMART goals.

Set SMART goals for your strategy — meaning, make sure your targets are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. By creating SMART goals for your business development plan, you’ll be able to ensure these goals are aligned with those of your entire company.

For example, if one of your goals is to increase your number of identified qualified leads this quarter by 5% , make the goal specific by determining the type of prospects you’ll focus on and how you’ll identify them.

Then, decide how you’ll measure your success — perhaps by measuring the number of these prospects who then go on to talk with a sales rep to learn more about the product or service.

You determine this goal is attainable due to the fact you increased your number of qualified leads last quarter by 3%. 5% isn’t too much of a leap.

Your goal is relevant because you know it’ll help your business grow — it pushes you to make a greater impact on your team by contributing to the sales team’s ability to close more deals and boost revenue. Lastly, it’s timely because you’ve set this goal for the quarter.

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3. Conduct a SWOT analysis.

As mentioned above, part of any role in business development is to stay up-to-date on market and industry trends and understand your competition. This is where SWOT analysis comes in handy — SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats . The key to using SWOT analysis correctly is to have a clear goal in mind first.

For example, if your goal is to determine the best way to handle outreach with prospects , you can begin talking to your BDRs, sales reps, sales managers, and current customers about what works best for them.

Next, think about your strengths — what does your business do well? Maybe you have a large support team that provides helpful onboarding for new customers. Or you have several remote reps who can meet face-to-face with prospects in their desired location.

(You might have multiple strengths that make you stand out, so don’t be afraid to list them all and which ones have the greatest impact on your customers.)

Now, think about your weaknesses . Are your product’s limited offerings requiring some leads to consider your competition’s product in addition to yours? Is the need for your product growing faster than your production, or faster than you’re able to establish a large customer support team to assist your customers?

Onto your business opportunities . Think about where you’re going as a business and what you know you can accomplish. For example, maybe your business has recently partnered with another company that can help you boost brand awareness and attract a much broader base of leads and customers.

Lastly, who are your threats ? Think about your current competition — who’s producing a product or service like yours and is attracting a similar target audience? Who could become your competition in the future — is there a market gap that another company (new or established) could identify the need for and begin selling?

SWOT analysis allows you to identify the ways your company can create opportunities to grow and expand. It also helps how you establish new processes to address any weaknesses or threats such as identifying more qualified leads, efficiently converting prospects into customers, and shortening the sales cycle.

4. Determine how you’ll measure success.

Depending on the SMART goals you created and the SWOT analysis you performed, you’ll also need to decide how you’re going to measure your business development success.

Here are some examples of common business development KPIs that can help you analyze your efforts:

  • Company growth
  • Changes in revenue
  • Lead conversion rate
  • Leads generated per month/ quarter/ predetermined time
  • Prospect and customer satisfaction
  • Pipeline value

5. Set a budget.

Depending on the type of business development goals you set for the team, you may determine you need to set a budget. Consider your resources, the cost of any previous business development strategies you’ve developed, and other important operational line items (what you need, who’s involved, etc.).

Collaborate with the greater team to determine the amount you’re willing to, and need to, spend on business development to get the process started at your company.

6. Always keep your target audience in mind.

Whatever it is you’re working towards, keep your target audience and ideal prospects in mind. Assess their needs and understand exactly how your business and product or service will meet their pain points.

After all, this audience is the group who is most likely to buy your product. Make sure your plan addresses them and their needs so your team can convert more of them and grow your business.

7. Choose an outreach strategy.

As we’ve reviewed above, a major component of business development is finding new prospects and potential customers. To find new prospects, you’ll need to decide how you’ll perform outreach, or connect with these potential customers. Here are some ideas:

  • Use referrals
  • Upsell and cross-sell
  • Sponsorship and advertisement

Also, review any expectations or guardrails related to outreach reps are held to so your business has only professional and on-brand interactions with prospects.

Congrats! You’ve just completed your business development plan — with your strategy and ideas, your business will be growing in no time.

Business Development Resources

1. hubspot sales hub.

Business Development Resources Hubspot

Best for Businesses Interested in a Wide-Reaching, One-Stop Solution

HubSpot Sales Hub includes a suite of resources that enable more focused, effective business development. Features like email templates and email tracking lend themselves to well-targeted, productive prospecting.

Its conversational intelligence capabilities can provide invaluable insight into the "why" behind your BDRs' overall performance — letting you pinpoint the strengths and flaws in key business development elements like your messaging and pain point assessments.

Sales Hub is a dynamic solution that covers a lot of bases for your sales org — including several beyond business development. But that wide range of applications doesn't undermine its utility for BDRs and their managers. If you're looking for a solution that addresses almost every component of successful business development, consider investing in HubSpot Sales Hub.

2. Bloobirds

image_Playbook_Builder

Best for Businesses Interested in Keeping BDRs and Top-of-Funnel Activities on Track

Bloobirds is a sales engagement and playbook platform that guides SDRs and closing reps to convert more prospects into customers. It partners with your existing CRM — sitting on top of it to make it more functional for the sales team.

It eliminates admin tasks, makes selling more intuitive, and makes sure reps follow best plays with the in-app playbook's help. Bloobirds helps sales teams flow through their pipeline — it also collects crucial data and creates competitive insights.

3. Leadfeeder

Business Development Resources leadfeeder

Best for Businesses Struggling to Generate High-Potential Leads

Leadfeeder is a powerful resource for enhancing a central element of any business development efforts — lead generation The platform helps you identify high-potential leads by automatically analyzing your website traffic.

The software removes ISP traffic to pin down visitors' companies and gauge interest. It also lets you create behavioral and demographic filters for better-informed, more productive lead segmentation.

Successful business development often leans, in large part, on your ability to generate high-quality leads — so if you're interested in effectively sourcing those contacts, you'll need to invest in some sort of lead generation software. Leadfeeder is as good a place as any to start.

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4. LinkedIn

Business Development Resources LinkedIn

Best for Businesses Looking for a Free Way to Source Leads

LinkedIn is one of the most prominent, practical, effective resources for certain key elements of the business development process — namely, prospecting. The value behind leveraging social media for top-of-funnel sales activities isn't exactly some well-kept secret.

Plenty of business development professionals already use channels like LinkedIn to source, screen, and connect with potential leads. Strides like scrolling through skill endorsements, using alumni searches, and engaging with users who have looked at your posts are all excellent ways to find interested prospects and enhance your business development efforts.

Business Development Helps You Grow Better

Business development is a crucial part of any successful company. It’s how you determine the best ways to boost revenue, identify your ideal prospects, generate more leads, and close more deals.

Think about how you can make a strong business development plan and ensure you have the right group of business development reps so you can begin growing your business today.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in July, 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Business development plan: A step-by-step approach

Lucia Piseddu

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A good business development plan can set you up for success. Learn how to create your own from scratch with zero experience!

If you’re just starting with business development , chances are that you’re a little confused about how you should do it. I got lost many times during my entrepreneurial journey. One of those moments was when I had to write a business development plan for the first time.

Now, the main problem was that I didn’t have a clue about what a business development plan was to start with. And of course, when I started digging, I got even more confused. I found a lot of information online, but nothing that would tell me how to do it step-by-step.

So after some years of trying and failing, I finally found my way to deal with it and build my own business development plan.

Below I’ll explain how to write a business development plan and what information you should include in practical terms. But first, let’s define what a business development plan is.

What is a business development plan?

A business development plan is a document that helps you implement your business development strategy in a step-by-step method. It involves a lot of research on the market and customers. But also, other aspects such as your competitors and buyer persona.

So, a business development plan is a detailed summary of important steps you’re going to take to grow your business. One key aspect to remember is that a business development plan is a LIVING document. This means that you have to update your plan continuously based on new information about your ecosystem.

This helps you strategize better but also ensures that it’s a document of quality insights.

A business development plan is divided into two main parts:

  • Research: in the research phase, you learn more about your market, customers, and competitors.
  • Action: you use your research and put it into action. Specifically, this translates into creating a value proposition, and content, and experimenting with ideas.

You can download our template for free at this link .

the business development school - the business development plan template

Step 1: Organize your business development plan

I’m a fan of organizing information in a structured, intuitive, and efficient way. Although it may sound basic, the first thing you should think about is to have a proper file you can consult on a daily basis.

It doesn’t have to contain every piece of information. Keep it simple by including only essential and key facts that will help you build an effective business development machine. Your business development plan needs to be easily accessible and quick to consult.

In this sense, you don’t need to get fancy and start looking for the latest software that promises you great time savings. Stick to something basic yet powerful. Google Sheets is your best ally when it comes to your business development plan.

So, the main goal of a business development plan is to keep information structured so that you can spot growth opportunities easier.

You can download our template for free at this link and start your business development plan.

Step 2: Market research

Market research is a stepping stone in a business development plan. It’s an activity to gather more information about customers’ preferences and needs. Many companies overlook this step thinking that their intuition will guide them through their challenges. Intuition can be helpful, but it’s still essential to know your customers better using research and data.

After all, most ideas start off from intuition. However, basing an entire plan on assumptions is never a smart strategy to use in business development. So, do your homework and make sure you always take educated guesses before starting to work on your business development plan.

Market research takes into account 3 variables . These will tell you the realistic size of the market you’re trying to target.

1 – Total Addressable Market or Total Available Market (TAM)

The TAM takes into account the entire market you’re operating in and basically tells you how much annual revenue there is available for your product or service.

Now, finding this information can be the first bummer. To me at least, it sounded quite impossible to find out. Later, I figured that there are many people out there that dedicate their life only to market research.

You can use Google to find out this information. But of course, you first need to know what you’re looking for. The information you need, in this case, is basically knowing how many companies or people would benefit from your product or service.

You also want to know how many companies operate in your exact space both in terms of services and geography. To get relevant market news, try Googling “your industry market trends”, “your market report”, or “your industry report”.

Many big consultancy groups and governmental institutions dedicate a lot of time to this type of research. It’s a good and reliable starting point.

PRO TIP: Choose your sources very carefully. You’ll find a lot of random information, learn to filter out what you’re reading.

2 – Total Served Market (TSM)

Once you know how big your market is, you need to check how much of it is already served by your competitors.

In this case, the information you’re looking for is all about your competition. You should ask yourself first how many of them you have.

Then you need to find out how well they’re doing and start hunting for as much intelligence as possible.

The info you need to look for is how many clients your competitors claim to have, what revenue they generate, and where they are present.

First, Google keywords to identify your competitors. Right after that, you can start digging deeper into their websites and find detailed info.

Bigger competitors will most likely have good press coverage. Read these articles to gather more insight.

Last, don’t overlook the importance of customer review websites. Customers can uncover many relevant details that your competitors don’t want to reveal. And of course, make use of technology to make the most out of your research.

3 – Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM)

The last step in your market research is to quantify how much you can realistically obtain with your business development effort.

Your SOM is your share in the market. So, to put it simply, it’s not possible to have an entire market buy only your products and services. There is a specific customer base that will buy from your company . So, your SOM refers to your market share and the people that can become your customers if they see a benefit from your products or services.

SOM takes into account your brand awareness, market insights, but also competition. It helps you forecast potential earnings and also gain customers. Based on the research, you become aware of what your competitors are offering to the market. Moreover, you will be able to tailor your products and services to meet the needs and preferences of your customers.

the business development school - business development plan market research

Step 3: Competitor analysis

The third step to do when creating your business development plan is to do a competitor analysis . So far, I discussed market research and how it helps you get to know the preferences of your target audience better. But, to grow your business sustainably and profitably, it’s vital that you analyze your competitors as well.

First, figure out who your direct and indirect competitors are. So, in a Google search, we try to identify or find the ID of each company that competes in your market. This can be found in the website’s ‘About us’ section. Then, the aim is to find key personalities such as managers and executives, and so on.

Once you have this information, you can move on to products and services. You can find this on your competitor’s website as well. This specific section defines what the company specializes in. You can use this information to compare your products to those of your competitors and try to find ways to improve them.

Continue by checking their clients, and the pricing they offer for their products and services.

PRO TIP: Read the customer reviews of your competitors to spot their strengths and weaknesses. Use the insights to improve your offer.

the business development school - business development plan competitor research

Step 4: Customer research

After identifying your market share, you can start thinking of what kind of customers within this segment, you are trying to sell your products and services to.

The best way to tackle this is by running proper customer research that will provide you with your Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Persona.

This is the part I like the most because it really helps you understand who you’re talking to. But how do you do it? First, if you already have some customers, start analyzing them. You want to gather more information on who they are, what they do, and their habitual traits.

For example:

  • What job titles do these people have?
  • How old are they?
  • What communication tools do they use?
  • Where do they hang out?
  • What are their personalities like?
  • What are their challenges?
  • What do they do in their daily lives?

You can find all this info by simply checking social media profiles. Really, just by observing their social media platforms, you can get to know them in-depth! Take some time to check a few ones (at least 10) and you’re going to start seeing patterns.

Then, check some job descriptions about the people you’re targeting. This will highlight what are their professional responsibilities and how your product or service can help them. Last, it’s always advisable to run a survey.

Step 5: Build your Buyer Persona

Right after having run your customer research, you can now create your buyer persona.

The buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customers based on data and research,

In your buyer persona, you need to include all the relevant information you found through your customer research. It should look like something below:

the business development school - buyer persona template

Step 6: Value Propositions

The customer research concludes the research part of your business development plan. Now it’s time to put your insights into action and start building your business development strategy .

The first valuable asset you need to build is a value proposition.

A value proposition is the value your customers get should they choose to buy your products and services

The value proposition helps you communicate your value as a company and you can use it on your website, sales calls, social media posts, etc. Having a clear value proposition will help you attract the right audience and persuade potential customers to work with you.

Of course, a good value proposition is based on that, and if you followed all the steps, you should have all the insights you need.

To build a value proposition we will use the Job-To-Be-Done framework. This helps you identify what are the responsibilities of your buyer persona when they’re doing their job.

For example, a typical responsibility for a recruiter is to find the right talent .

the business development school - job-to-be-done framework

Second, consider the pains and gains of your customers. Customers’ emotions are usually the reason behind their buying decisions. They influence their preferences, frequency of buying, and also which companies they buy from.

Especially the challenges are a crucial element in your value proposition because you can immediately link your solution to a concrete pain that your customers are facing.

For example, let’s go back to the example of the recruiter. We know that one main responsibility of a recruiter is to find talent. One major challenge for recruiters is to have enough time to process all the CVs they receive daily.

Now, let’s assume you work for a company that provides recruitment software that can automate CV screening.

A good value proposition, in this case, would sound like this:

Save 70% of your CV screening time using our recruitment software

the business development school - value proposition design template

Step 7: Content plan

Once you have your value proposition, the next step is to share it with your target audience. That’s when having a content plan becomes a must.

A content plan helps you strategize the type of information you want to feed your audience. It also helps you select the channels on which you should build your presence.

For content to be effective, you need to have a clear idea of your target audience when you write posts/emails, or articles. So, always consult your buyer persona before creating content.

Just like the value propositions, effective content revolves around the pain point you identified earlier. Use them to get the attention of your audience and provide valuable information that helps them alleviate these pains.

This will help you establish yourself as a valuable resource and when they will want to solve their issues, you’ll be the first to pop into their minds.

Step 8: Experiments

The last step in your business development plan is all about creativity and finding opportunities. This is the moment in which we create experiments to validate some of our business assumptions. Your experiment should be ideas that you think will bring sustainable growth to your company.

Once you identify some ideas, define some goals and set up the methodology you will follow to run this experiment. For example, if you heard of a new social media and you think your audience might be on it, build an experiment to validate if this is true and if it can bring you results.

Attach a goal to this idea, for example, generating 10 qualified leads on this new channel.

Then decide for how long you will run the experiment – ideally a couple of weeks. Once the experiment is over analyze what happened. If the experiment was successful, you need to scale this activity. If not, take the learnings for further improvements.

The business development plan is a key document that helps you map your ecosystem and strategize your business development efforts .

It consists of a research part and an action part. In the first part, you analyze your market, competitors, and customers. In the second, you use your insights to build value propositions, content plans, and experiments.

The business development plan is a live document, so you have to update it every time you have new insights. Of course, you have to use it in your daily operations to make sure you’re on the right track.

The business development plan is one of the assets you will build during our training. Would you like to shake up your business development career and work in a more structured way? Then join our next cohort .

Last, if you are a company wanting to train your business development team, our custom training solutions are the best way to take your team to the next level.

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How to write a business development plan: a step by step guide.

How to Write a Business Development Plan: A Step By Step Guide

So we’ve already tackled how to write the infamous business plan , but now that you’re in the growth stage of your business – what’s next?

Many business owners will look to write a business development plan with the aim to make their business better. Running a business is never a stationary job, you constantly have to be looking to grow and improve.

But what exactly is a business development plan and how do you write one? Let’s find out.

Here’s What We’ll Cover:

What Is a Business Development Plan?

How to write a business development plan, key takeaways.

A business development plan is a document put together by the business owner with the aim to grow and improve their business. The plan will set goals for growth and explain how you will achieve them.

A business development strategy can have a short-term or long-term focus, or both. They should also be constantly reviewed and revised as things shift and your goals may change.

A health plan is one that builds as your business evolves.

business development growth plan

A standard business development strategy can be split up into 6 different sections, each one with a different aim and purpose. These sections are:

You should always be looking to grow your business. In this section, you will identify where growth will come from. For example, whether it’s new product development, adding different services or breaking into new markets. Your main business development goals should always point towards growth.

According to a U.S. Bank study, 82% of small businesses fail because of poor cash flow management and understanding. That’s why it’s vital that you have a constant eye on your funding and your bottom line.

You need to understand how you’ll fund your business development. So in this section, you should lay out your current capital, and how much more you will need to sustain growth.

3. Financial Goals

You should have a good idea of your current revenue, costs and profits. These numbers can then be used as a starting point for setting new, more ambitious revenue goals. This is for when you have expanded and developed your business.

4. Operational Needs

When growing a business, your operational needs will change. For example, what started out as a two-person job can develop into needing a whole team of people. So in this section, you will need to identify what things about your business will need to change to accommodate and promote growth.

5. Sales and Marketing

No business can succeed without a strong and stable sales team and marketing team. As your business grows, so will your sales and marketing needs. So you will need to take the time to figure out your target market and what sales and marketing efforts will promote growth. You should then put all of your focus on those efforts.

It’s vital that your sales process and marketing strategies are strong and sturdy enough to support a growing business.

business development growth plan

6. Team Needs

Every strong business needs a strong team around it. When you started your business, it’s likely that you shouldered a lot of the jobs and responsibilities. As your business grows, you’ll soon come to realize that you can no longer do this alone.

So as a business developer, you need to think about what jobs and tasks you are best and most effective at. You should then correctly delegate the other responsibilities to the appropriate team members. This is often a good way to figure out if you have the right team around you. If you dread the thought of offloading tasks to your team, you may not have the trust in your team that you should.

Business development plans may seem like a relatively daunting task. But once you figure out the basics then they can almost write themselves.

You need to have an open mindset, a realistic approach and the ability to accept some potential failures.

Expanding and developing a business is hard work, but with the right plan in place, you are giving yourself the best chance possible.

Are you looking for more business advice on everything from starting a new business to new business practices?

Then check out the FreshBooks Resource Hub .

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How to Write a Business Development Plan (2022)

When you need to attract attention to your startup, a business development plan can uncover hidden growth opportunities. Here's how to get started.

Vivienne Chen

Vivienne Chen

Vivienne is a Product Marketer at Bubble. She is a storyteller and is passionate about meaningful ways technology can help foster social solidarity.

More posts by Vivienne Chen.

How to Write a Business Development Plan (2022)

Building a successful company without a business plan is possible, but we wouldn't recommend it. The same could be said about business development.

A business development plan outlines objectives and strategies that will help you grow your business. Like a more general business plan, your business development plan helps keep you on the path to success in a variety of ways. It outlines steps to keep everyone focused on the health or expansion of the business, identifies challenges before they become surprises, and shows potential investors that you've thought about your plan.

Business Development Strategies

Business development (BD) is a broad practice of identifying and converting new clients or customers to drive growth. The strategies in your business development plan might include sales, marketing, and several other types of initiatives. Your BD plan could include any of the following common strategies:

1 – Networking

For many founders, business development through networking is a great place to start. You already have a head start if any of your personal connections fall within your target audience or if you have a good reputation in your field. Another benefit of networking as a BD strategy is that you can often do it for free, especially on digital platforms like LinkedIn. Once you have the time, you can start reaching out to your network whenever you're ready.

2 – Outbound Sales

People often talk about sales and business development interchangeably, but the sales function has a slightly narrower focus: converting leads into new clients. Modern sales teams typically use email, phone, LinkedIn, and occasionally traditional mail to reach their prospects. You have to close the deal at some point, so sales connects to many other BD strategies. For example, leads from content marketing might go to the sales team for outreach.

3 – Referrals

Referrals are closely related to both sales and networking. Your personal network might refer prospects to you, and the sales team might engage with those referrals. Delighting your current clients and then asking them for referrals is the best way to win new business with this strategy. Still, it often takes time to build a strong enough reputation that you get many referrals.

4 – Content Marketing

Content marketing is a popular choice for businesses with small marketing budgets. That said, there is still some cost associated with creating quality content. If nothing else, you have to put your own time into it. Creating and publishing content can establish thought leadership, increase your visibility in the marketplace, and attract inbound traffic through SEO.

5 – Advertising

If you have the budget for it, advertising is an option. Targeted digital ads are generally the best bet for rapid growth, but there are other opportunities. In traditional media, you might place an ad or a sponsored article in a niche magazine for people in your field. Alternatively, you might pay to sponsor an industry event that will get you in front of your target audience.

6 – Strategic Partnerships

Strategic business opportunities such as partnerships and marketing alliances can connect a company to new clients. That is, another company might help you grow if you can make it mutually beneficial. A strategic partnership might entail a partner selling your product for you on the condition that they get to implement and administer the product. After a large round of funding, there might be an opportunity to enter new markets through acquisitions.

Business Development Tactics

After considering your business development strategy options, you’re ready to develop a written plan. Online resources like this guide from HubSpot offer templates to help you organize your thoughts. As you commit your business development plan to writing, it’s time to get into the tactical details of how you’ll execute your strategies. Tactics like the following are where the rubber meets the road:

  • Consultations, Product Demos, and Assessments – Simply put, show people what your product is all about. You might provide consultations or demos to your network, to new referrals, or as part of the sales process.
  • Webinars – You might not get the personal touch of one-to-one consultation in a webinar, but the reach is much broader. Webinar recordings also make helpful pieces of content to re-share, and you can even use Bubble to create a no-code app for hosting your webinars .
  • PR, Earned Media, and Speaking Engagements – Connections with relevant journalists and event organizers can help you gain exposure and solidify yourself as a thought leader. You're more likely to get some spotlight if you have original research or innovative ideas.
  • Sales Sequences and Nurture Campaigns – Great sales materials can help your team close deals. Provide your sellers and community managers with strong assets to ensure their messaging is effective and on brand .
  • SEO – You can get organic traffic by creating great digital content on an easy-to-build no-code website and social media platforms and by working on the technical side of search engine optimization .
  • Industry Events – Attending relevant events is a great way to build your network and connect with your target audience.
  • Social Media – Building an online following can be cost-effective if you have the time and the know-how. Per HubSpot , most marketers post on social media four to six times a week in an effort to boost engagement.
  • Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads – This advertising model is popular on social media and search engines. Meta, Google, and other companies have extensive marketing data to help you target the right prospects, which is why 65% of SMBs run PPC campaigns .

This list is not exhaustive. Because business development is so broad, you might use any number of tactics to advance your strategies.

Choosing a Course of Action for Your Business Development Plan

Ultimately, the best BD strategies and tactics are the ones that match your business. Selling a niche cybersecurity product for financial organizations differs from promoting an iPhone app for the general public. Revisiting the vision and mission of your business might help you identify business development opportunities.

Audience research is crucial, too, because you have to meet your audience where they are. Additional analysis of your competitors can help you find your unique selling points and position your product. Finally, define which metrics you'll use to measure success. This information will tell you if your BD plan is working or if you need to reconsider your strategies and tactics.

Above all, and once you've written your business development plan, build a great product . Once you do that, business development gets much easier.

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Growth Plan: What is it & How to Create One? (Steps Included)

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“I want to increase sales this quarter. I want to expand my business this year. I want to hire new employees this month. I want to improve the quality of my product by the end of this year. I want to hit a new market target.”

If you run a business, you’ve probably said these things or something similar a thousand times. After all, every business has a list of goals they want to achieve by a particular time.

In a perfect world, we’d set goals, and we’d reach them without much effort. Unfortunately, in the real world, there are a lot of things we need to do after setting goals, like creating a growth plan.

A growth plan isn’t just about the goals and future of your business, but also the strategies you would implement to make sure that your vision comes to life.

Considering the fact that 50% of businesses fail during their first five years and 66% fail during their first ten, creating a solid growth plan is quintessential.

So, in this blog post, we’re going to tell you all about growth plans and how you can create one that works like a charm. So buckle up because you’re in for a ride.

Growth Plan: What Exactly is it? (Definition)

A growth plan is a strategic plan about how every aspect of your business will walk towards attaining the business goals. With a growth plan in hand, you’ll know exactly what to do, how, and when to do it.

Even though a growth plan sounds like the marketing tactics you’d implement to grow your business, it’s a lot more than that. It encompasses an overview of everything you’d be doing to grow your business.

Let’s understand the concept of a growth plan better with an example.

Two employees setting goals for the company

Suppose you’re running a gaming laptop business. Your goal is to increase your sales by 60% over the next five years. To achieve this goal, you might need to carry out a plethora of tasks like:

  • Hiring new, more experienced sales reps.
  • Upgrading the product after conducting market research.
  • Finding investors who’d be willing to invest in the new version of the laptop.
  • Hiring a social media marketer to handle your business’s social media accounts.
  • Creating a TV advertisement that hits the right spot.

Now, you’d be writing all these things in your growth plan, along with other details like timeline, budget, name of the people responsible for carrying out a particular task, and more.

Want to know some other reasons why you need to create a growth plan? Let’s find out!

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Read more:  Growth Marketing: What is it & How to Carry it out for your Business?

3 Reasons Why You Should Create a Growth Plan

1. keeps you focused.

When you’re running a business, you usually try to flap your wings around in different places.

But, when some places don’t give you the results you expected, you get frustrated and realize that you wasted so much of your time and effort that you could’ve invested in other areas.

Well, a growth plan can help you avoid that frustration. With a growth plan, you’d know exactly what areas you should be focusing on and what areas you don’t need to pay attention to.

The result? You won’t be wasting any time and effort on places you won’t get any return from.

Read more:  Business Development Plan: What Is It And How To Create A Perfect One?

2. Helps You When Things Go Sideways

We don’t want to scare you, but the landscape of the market is changing at a rapid pace.

That means things in your business can go haywire at any time. But, you really don’t need to worry about that if you have got a strong growth plan in place.

Like we said above, in a growth plan, you write all the strategies that’d lead you to growth. When things go wrong, you can just pick one of the strategies, modify them according to the current scenario, and you’re good to go!

3. Gives You a Direction

Your business isn’t a road trip. You can’t go rogue and see where the road takes you. You need a roadmap, a direction…and that’s exactly what a growth plan gives you.

A growth plan shows you the way towards achieving your goals. It tells you the route you need to take to reach your goals . Without it, you might end up taking the wrong turn and reach a dead end.

To put it simply, when you have a growth plan with you, you’ll know all about what you need to do to make your business successful.

Considering the importance of a growth plan, creating it is not something you can rush through. There are some steps that you need to follow, and we’re going to tell you all about them.

How to Create a Growth Plan In 5 Easy-Peasy Steps?

Set 1. set goals.

Every plan starts with setting business goals , and a growth plan is no different.

After all, you can’t just say “I want this” and expect something to happen automatically. You need to define what exactly you want to achieve, i.e., you need to set your goals.

Also, always make sure that your goals are not vague but realistic and measurable. For instance, “ Increasing sales ” isn’t a solid goal. “ Increasing sales by 20% over the next 6 months ” is the kind of goal you can measure.

Step 2. Conduct Market Research

You might think that once you’ve decided on your goals, you can just go ahead and start creating strategies. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy.

There’s another important step that you need to follow: carrying out market research. Creating strategies without considering the market is not going to help you achieve your goals.

Examine your target audience, the condition of the market, and your competitors. Evaluate what your audience is looking for, how saturated the market is, and what your competitors are doing.

Step 3. Evaluate Your KPIs

Once you’ve done the market research, it’s time to get back home, aka your business, and do some digging. You need to find out what’s working for your business and what’s not.

The best way to figure that out is by evaluating your KPIs. For those who don’t know, KPIs stand for Key Performance Indicators. They are the metrics that are “key” in determining your business’s success.

By assessing your KPIs, you’ll find out the key areas that are giving you the most fruitful results. You can then target these areas while you’re brainstorming strategies for growth. This brings us to the next step:

Read more: KPI Report: What it is & How to Create a Perfect One?

Step 4. Create Strategies

Okay, so now you know everything about the market and your company, so you’re all set to create strategies that you’d be implementing to achieve your goals.

From hiring new sales reps to upgrading your existing product – your strategies can be anything, as long as they help you achieve your goals.

We don’t need to say this, but make sure that your strategies align with your present and future budget. You don’t want to overspend right now and then be short of money when you execute a future strategy.

Step 5. Execute Your Plan

Brace yourselves because it’s time to get the ball rolling and execute the plan. Start implementing all the strategies according to the timeline you’ve set.

However, there’s something that you need to remember: Your plan isn’t a static piece of document. You need to keep modifying and updating it as you go.

Just follow the old saying, ‘ grow through what you go through .’ A strategy isn’t giving the results you expected? Change it. A strategy is working too well? Increase its timeline. A strategy isn’t in trend anymore? Slash it.

Yay! You’ve now learned how to create a solid growth plan.

Now, all that’s left for you to learn is how to create it the right way . See, your growth plan is a VERY essential document. You can’t just type all the strategies out and think that your growth plan is ready.

Your plan needs to have a proper structure and layout. It needs to be easy on the eyes and easy to comprehend. Most of all, it needs to be written after getting inputs from all the departments in your business.

It seems like a tough and long process, doesn’t it? It’s not, because Bit.ai is a platform where you can do all this and more. Want to know more about Bit.ai? Read on!

Read more:   Growth Hacking: What is it & 21 Tools that can Help!

Bit.ai – The Perfect Tool for Creating Growth Plans & Other Business Documents

Bit.ai: Tool for creating growth plans

Yes, that’s the essence of Bit.ai – a document collaboration platform where you can create, organize, share and manage all company documents and other content.

You do not have to worry about formatting or designing your growth plan at all – just pick a template, and put all your strategies in it. Did you know that Bit gives you the option to choose from over 70 templates ?!

This nifty platform lets you and your team collaborate in real-time by co-editing, making inline comments, chatting via document chat, @mentions, and much more.

Want to make your growth plan more robust and comprehensive? Add rich media into it! Bit lets you add excel sheets, social content, cloud files, charts, surveys/polls, code, presentations, and much more to your documents.

One feature that makes Bit stand out is ‘smart workspaces’. On Bit, you can create infinite workspaces around projects and teams. This will help you in keeping all your documents related to your growth plan organized!

Bit.ai makes creating documents as easy as ABC, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t give it a try.

Wrapping Up

There are some things in business you just can’t avoid, and creating a growth plan is one of them. If you don’t want your business to disappear into thin air, you need to create a proper growth plan.

A growth plan literally has the power to take your business to heights, but only if you create it properly and accurately. It’s not even a gigantic task, considering that you have Bit.ai with you.

So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead, start working on your growth plan and skyrocket the growth of your business. We’re totally rooting for you!

Got any questions or suggestions? Feel free to tweet us @bit_docs. We’d get back to you as soon as possible.

Further reads: 

Financial Plan: What is it & How to Create an Impressive One?

13 Growth Marketing Strategies You Must Know About!

Mitigation Plan: What Is It & How To Create One?

12 Sales KPIs Your Sales Department Should Measure!

Go-To-Market Strategy Guide for Businesses!

Communication Plan: What is it & How to Create it? (Steps included)

How To Develop a Growth Mindset That Will Change Your Future?

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12 Marketing Goals You Must Include In Your Plan!

Performance Report: What is it & How to Create it? (Steps Included)

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Meet any target: business development plan template

business development growth plan

A company’s goals are an integral part of its productivity. When your team understands what targets they need to hit, they have something clear to strive for and feel a sense of pride when they succeed. Setting intentions about where your business is going and how to get there is an important part of the building process.

Gain clarity about what your company’s objectives are with the help of a free business development plan template. We’ll share a fully customizable template with you that you can use on monday.com. But before that, this article looks at the benefits of using such templates and what you should include in a business development plan.

Get the template

What is a business development plan template?

business development growth plan

A business development plan template is a customizable document that outlines the objectives of your business and actionable steps to meet them. These can be your company’s long or short-term goals, amounts needed for start-up costs, or specific milestones, such as hitting a specific monthly sales target, or getting your first repeat client. The plan outlines steps to take to get to those goals and assigns specific tasks to individuals to hold them accountable for meeting the deadlines.

A business development plan template is a pre-formatted tool that describes your business objectives and how you’ll achieve them.

Although you can always write these plans down in a regular, static document, many businesses opt to use a customizable pre-built format to get off to a strong start.

Why use a business development plan template?

As a business owner, creating a custom, agile business development plan helps you gain clarity regarding decision-making on areas, such as investments, resources, and budgeting. Unlike with pen and paper, or even a word doc, a template is dynamic. You can move initiatives around, assign ownership, store all relevant information on the template itself, and customize any aspect of the template from labels, template structure and appearance, automations, and more.

Of course, there are a lot of things to consider when it comes to creating a well-thought-out document. Below, we’ll discuss some of the things you may want to consider and include in your business development plan.

What to include in a business development plan

A business development plan comes into play during the growth stage of your business. By specifying your targets and plans of action, the business development plan becomes a roadmap for achieving growth and success. To ensure you have a strong plan, consider including the elements summarized below.

Financial goals

A business’s growth is largely based on its financial success, so it’s critical to assess your current financial position to set targets for the future. Start by:

  • Looking to your past and current revenue as a baseline for what your business brings in
  • Assessing your overhead costs versus your profits
  • Setting goals for bringing in higher profits and revenue in the coming months and years
  • Getting specific about your timeline, so you can reassess your financial position when you hit those dates

Funding plan

Meeting your financial goals and achieving financial growth requires funding. Use this section of the business development plan to determine the amount of business capital you currently have and what steps you can take to secure more funding in the future within your target market segment.

Opportunities for growth

Look at your business to identify where you have room to grow. This will vary depending on what industry and business you work in. For some, this might mean developing a new line of products or adding additional services that can attract new clients and boost revenue.

Operational needs

Examine operational needs and take a practical look at what needs to change in the daily function of your business to support expansion and further development. This could mean investing in new equipment or hiring additional personnel to oversee specific departments or projects.

Sales and marketing plans

An important part of business growth is how you promote your company to consumers. Determine a marketing strategy to get customers excited about your new products and services or to inform consumers of investments you’re making in equipment upgrades. Your marketing plans are how you’ll communicate your investments and improvements to drive growth through customer interest.

Understand strengths and weaknesses 

Creating a business development plan requires a firm understanding of your company’s strengths and weaknesses. To identify these, consider performing a SWOT analysis . You can use the resulting information to develop a strategic plan to leverage strengths and improve on weak areas across all aspects of your business.

Building your team

For a business to grow successfully, you must also expand your workforce. This means hiring new team members and learning to delegate tasks with a lower priority or difficulty level, so you can focus on matters of high-level priority. Use this part of your plan to assess what tasks you can assign to someone else and how many people you might need to hire to meet the demands of your growing business.

Having a plan to develop your business is a great foundation. But you also need tools to put that plan into action. Starting with a solution that lets you bring people together, communicate priorities, and manage tasks can increase your chances of success.

monday.com supports business development and planning

Your business development plan template is the starting point for your company’s expansion. As you move toward creating targets and future plans for your business, you can make use of the many other features and templates on monday.com to understand where you’re at with your business and what areas are ready to support growth.

monday.com lets you create workflows to plan and track projects and day-to-day processes. Connect off-platform tools necessary for collaboration and communication with team members from around the world, and leverage no-code automation opportunities to streamline repetitive tasks.

You can start with our Business Development Plan Template, customizing the columns to meet your specific needs.  Take notes, mention team members on tasks to get their feedback, or color-code your business development plan to create a visual that’s easy to digest at a glance.

business development growth plan

Once you’re ready to put your business development plan into action, turn to our Template Center for plenty of other tools to help you get started on various tasks.

Related templates 

A business development plan template isn’t the only useful tool for growing your business. Consider some of these other options to help your teams increase efficiency and promote growth.

One-page business plan template

Our easy-to-use One-page Business Plan Template is meant to provide an overview of your objectives and deadlines at a glance. Completing the one-page business plan template creates a reference point for the scope of your business objectives that you can easily return to at any time.

Business executive summary template

Our Business Executive Summary Template is an ideal tool when you’re preparing to pitch your company to investors. It offers a guide for emphasizing the core of your business plan in a way that appeals to the interests of your target audience. You can include sales/marketing plans, staff expenses, and long-term goals to provide prospective stakeholders with a clear picture of where your business stands and where it’s going.

Writing business plans is easier when you start with a template. But knowing what to include and what might be most important can help you make the most of such documents. Check the FAQs below for some more tips.

FAQs about business development plan templates

business development growth plan

What are the main parts of a business plan?

A solid business plan should have four key components. The main parts of a business plan include:

  • An executive summary
  • A marketing plan
  • Key management bios
  • A financial plan that includes cost and pricing information

What is the most important part of a business plan?

The executive summary is the most important part of any business plan. The executive summary acts as the preface to the overall business plan and the hook that gets readers excited about the possibility of investing in your company. The goal of the executive summary is to entice the investor to read the rest of your plan, so aim for the most polished version possible.

Build your company’s future with a business development plan template from monday.com 

Your business development strategy is critical to growing your company and meeting future goals. Using templates from monday.com can help you build your business development plan to drive success.

Having a business plan creates a 30% higher chance of growth for your business compared to businesses that don’t start with written action plans. A customizable, user-friendly business development plan template provides a starting point to realizing your objectives.

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Strategic Business Alignment

Your guide to creating a strategic business development plan.

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The People Strategy Leaders Podcast

business development growth plan

Every business faces the challenge of crafting an effective business development strategy . But what exactly is strategic business development? In simple terms, it’s a vital tool that ensures long-term success by aligning everyone in your organization towards a common objective.

A well-defined strategy outlines what your organization aims to achieve and the necessary steps to get there. It provides a clear roadmap, guiding your transition from broad directions to specific initiatives and ongoing operations. A strategic business development plan plays a crucial role in driving growth and ensuring sustainable success.

Now, let’s explore the strategic plan further, understand its significance, and dive into the art of crafting a winning business development plan.

Strategic Business Development Plan – What Is It?

A business development strategy is crucial for achieving organizational objectives and driving growth. It involves finding and implementing effective business growth strategies. With a well-defined growth strategy, teams can better understand their goals and contribute to organizational objectives. Business development focuses on attracting and retaining new customers to enhance revenue and expand your organization. By developing a clear plan, your business can plan to achieve these goals.

According to a poll conducted by Bridges Business Consultancy, a staggering 48% of organizations and 85% of businesses fail to achieve even half of their strategic goals. This highlights the importance of creating a strategic business development plan. 

Importance of Strategic Business Development Plan

A well-crafted strategic business development plan is the key to unlock long-term success and growth for your organization. By defining clear goals and actionable plans, businesses can thrive and achieve greatness. But why exactly is a strategic business development plan crucial? Let’s dive into a few compelling reasons.

Improves transparency

Transparency has become recognized as a critical business trait for both customers and employees. By cultivating transparency, you can enhance your company’s success and reputation. From strengthening your sales team to improving employee retention, transparency has the power to make a significant impact. Implementing a strategic growth strategy ensures that everyone in your organization is aware of the goals and their role in achieving them, thus promoting transparency.

Increases sales

At the heart of business development lies growth. Increasing sales is the ultimate goal, and businesses need a plan to make it happen. A strategic business development plan allows you to identify markets and products with high-profit potential, enabling you to prioritize partnerships and make informed decisions. It also helps you reduce expenses, uncover untapped growth opportunities, and allocate resources efficiently. With a solid business development strategy , your bottom line will thrive.

In today’s competitive landscape, businesses must actively seek growth opportunities. A thoughtfully designed business development strategy enables you to expand your clientele, explore new markets, and offer innovative products or services. By identifying your differentiators and value propositions, you’ll set your organization apart from competitors and take a lead in the market.

Also Read: How To Improve Employee Productivity In 2024?

How to create a strategic business development plan.

Effective strategic management involves identifying an organization’s strengths and acknowledging its weaknesses. It goes beyond mere recognition and outlines a robust business strategy that maximizes the benefits and mitigates the drawbacks. A comprehensive corporate development plan comprises various components, each strategically aligned with distinct goals and objectives. Now, let’s delve into a detailed possess to create a business plan:

Define your purpose

A strategic plan serves as the overarching mission or vision statement for a company. When embarking on the creation of a corporate plan, it proves advantageous to initiate the process by clearly defining the goal of your organization . This entails a meticulous identification of the needs, preferences, and pain points of your ideal customers. By gaining a profound understanding of these factors, your plan can be more effectively tailored to cater to their specific requirements. Initiating the strategic planning process with a well-defined purpose sets the foundation for your company to deliver enhanced value over time.

Perform market research

After identifying your target market, it’s time to delve into comprehending their needs. To effectively persuade them to collaborate with you, you need to address the following inquiries:

  • What are the major challenges they currently face?
  • What specific services pique their interest?
  • How do they approach problem-solving at present?
  • How can your products or services uplift their current situation?

Once you have solid answers to these questions, it’s crucial to thoroughly research your competitors. Identify what makes you stand out from the crowd and emphasize this unique value proposition to potential clients, leveraging it as your competitive advantage.

Consider SWOT analysis

To gain a profound understanding of your company’s current standing, conducting a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) is a paramount strategy. Each element of the SWOT matrix plays a crucial role in shaping and executing an organization’s strategy. Some factors fall under internal control, while others are significantly influenced by external forces. A SWOT analysis provides a comprehensive view of your business from various perspectives. It not only sheds light on internal aspects for improvement and areas of success but also necessitates an evaluation of the external environment. This evaluation helps identify potential threats and business opportunities that can be either mitigated or seized in the future.”

Provide value to stakeholders

Investing in lasting connections with your clients is a worthwhile expense. Repeat customers not only contribute significantly to your business’s revenue but also come at a lower conversion cost. Moreover, returning customers are more open to your sales pitches, providing valuable insights for your company’s growth. However, remember that your suppliers deserve value too – it’s crucial to prioritize delivering value to them alongside your customers. And let’s not forget about the importance of prioritizing employee satisfaction in your business plan. By doing so, you’ll not only enhance employee morale but also improve customer satisfaction in the process.

Identify ways to monitor progress

Effectively monitoring the progress of your business development strategy is crucial for achieving your goals. One key approach is the utilization of key performance indicators (KPIs) tailored to your strategic objectives. Regularly tracking these KPIs provides real-time insights into the performance of various initiatives, allowing for timely adjustments and improvements. Data analytics tools play a vital role in quantifying metrics such as customer acquisition costs, conversion rates, and website traffic. Additionally, seeking feedback from customers, conducting market research, and implementing surveys can offer qualitative insights that complement quantitative data. 

Make use of technology

Embrace tools and platforms designed to enhance the efficiency of your business development activities. Utilize advanced solutions to manage leads, keep track of interactions, and engage with prospects seamlessly. Leverage social networking sites, implement marketing automation software, and integrate CRM systems to streamline your processes. Maintain flexibility and readiness to adapt to evolving consumer demands and market conditions. Regularly assess and enhance your business development approach to stay ahead and remain competitive in a dynamic business landscape.

Monitor and alter your approach

Regularly monitoring the effectiveness of your business development strategy enables you to make necessary adjustments based on valuable information and insights. Keep a close eye on the progress of your objectives and assess the efficiency of your strategy using key performance indicators (KPIs). Stay proactive by consistently evaluating market developments, gathering customer input, and monitoring competitor activities. 

A comprehensive understanding of your target market, specific objectives, and a clearly articulated value proposition are essential for crafting a successful business growth strategy.

Also Read: Modern Performance Appraisal Types that Create a Winning Culture

Summing it up.

Every successful business has its own unique qualities. That’s why it is crucial to tailor these tactics to align with your specific goals, industry, and target audience. Continuously evaluate your business development efforts and make the necessary adjustments to foster growth and triumph. 

With a well-structured strategic management approach, you can not only enjoy this process but also proudly propel your company forward. Remember, implementing a company plan requires dedication, but it is just the beginning of an exciting journey. By embracing the right planning and utilizing the appropriate resources, your organization stands a fair chance of achieving remarkable success. 

Frequently Asked Questions

1. what is the primary purpose of a strategic business development plan.

A strategic business development plan serves as a roadmap for guiding your company’s growth and success. It outlines goals, identifies opportunities, and sets a clear path for achieving sustainable development. By aligning your business activities with a well-thought-out plan, you can enhance decision-making and improve overall efficiency.

2. How often should I update my strategic business development plan?

Regular updates are crucial for keeping your strategic business development plan relevant and effective. Aim to review and, if necessary, revise the plan at least annually. However, more frequent assessments may be required if there are significant changes in your industry, market conditions, or internal factors. Flexibility and adaptability are key in ensuring your plan remains a dynamic tool for success.

3. What are the key components of a successful strategic business development plan?

A comprehensive strategic business development plan typically includes key components such as a clear mission statement, a thorough analysis of the current business environment, defined short-term and long-term goals, identification of target markets, competitive analysis, and a detailed implementation strategy. It should also outline how progress will be measured and what mechanisms are in place for regular evaluation and adjustments.

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Chandler Barr is the VP of Sales at Engagedly and is focused on driving a culture of progress over perfection in a no-fault environment where employees are secure and encouraged to think creatively to solve problems. Chandler is a seasoned leader that has scaled sales teams for SaaS startups and multibillion-dollar publicly traded tech companies, as well as, led Marines to accomplish the mission during hardships overseas.

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7 Growth Plan Templates to Build a Growth Strategy

ClickUp Contributor

October 20, 2023

Ever feel like you’re steering your ship without a compass? You want to grow your business, but the “how” aspect might be unclear. If you feeling lost at sea, a growth plan template could be the guiding star you’re looking for. ⭐ 

A growth plan template is a bit like a business-minded GPS, leading you through the winding roads of market trends, financial forecasts, and strategic planning . A good one will be your go-to guide for turning your big ideas and plans into a concrete roadmap to success. With a plan in place, you’ll reach your growth goals with ease. 

In this guide, we’ll show you what makes a rock-solid growth plan template and how easily it works for business owners and entrepreneurs. We’ll also set you up with growth plan templates so your organization functions more fluidly and effectively. Let’s dive in! 

What are the key components of a growth plan template?

1. clickup growth experiments whiteboard template, 2. clickup 30-60-90 day plan template, 3. clickup ansoff matrix whiteboard template, 4. clickup product development roadmap whiteboard template, 5. clickup development schedule template, 6. clickup process audit and improvement template, 7. clickup employee development plan template, what is a growth plan template.

A growth plan template is a preformatted document that guides businesses in outlining objectives, strategies, and actions aimed at business growth. Think of it like a strategic plan or framework for focusing on different growth elements, such as market expansion, product development, and financial projections. And it applies just as much to startups as it does to established businesses. 🙌

It serves as a roadmap, giving cohesion and clarity to your growth initiatives. Whether scaling or diversifying, a growth plan template offers a structured way to find opportunities and roadblocks. And since it provides dedicated areas for keeping track of metrics and KPIs, measuring progress and adjusting strategies is user-friendly.

Growth plan templates provide a framework for outlining a business’s growth objectives and strategies for achieving them. Here are some critical components of a growth strategy template:

  • Executive summary : An overview of the growth strategy and its goals 
  • Business overview : Details of your organization and its current operations
  • Market analysis : Research on your target market (and the current market) will inform your growth strategy. Know your customer base, know your strategy
  • Growth objectives : Clear, measurable goals tied to a timeline. This could be new customers, revenue growth, a social media strategy, or improving customer retention
  • Strategies and tactics : The actions you’ll take to achieve your growth objectives
  • Financial projections : Estimates of projected revenue and profit if growth objectives are achieved
  • Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) : Metrics and other measurable data demonstrate the success of your growth strategy
  • Resource allocation : A list of resources needed to reach your objectives, like a new marketing strategy, business model, or financial plan
  • Risks and mitigation strategies : Assessing risks that could derail your plans and contingencies for avoiding those circumstances
  • Implementation timeline : A schedule for when milestones will be reached and objectives completed
  • Review and adjustment process : A system for reviewing and adjusting as necessary

7 Growth Plan Templates

If you haven’t turned to various strategic planning templates in your continuous effort to increase revenue, measure success, and identify new growth opportunities, then the time is now.

These pre-built assets are designed to help teams create and execute a unique business plan regardless of your industry or how many employees you’re working with. Bypass the hassle of spreadsheets and emails with a template that makes running experiments a breeze. 🌬

ClickUp makes it easy to find a business growth plan template customized to your needs. Get clarity on metrics and other KPIs vital to mapping out your organization and where you’d like it to be. A thoughtful and strategic business growth plan may be the missing piece you’re looking for. Here are seven growth plan templates to check out!

ClickUp’s Growth Experiments Whiteboard Template is a valuable resource for bringing your team together during brainstorming and growth planning sessions. With the ability to plan and act on your ideas from the same collaborative space, this template has every feature you need to follow through on an effective business growth plan.

You can customize every inch of this business growth plan template template—from the structure itself to the objects that bring it to life. Add sticky notes, Docs, media, or even live websites to your growth plan for additional context regarding your business operations. Then act on your ideas in an instant with the ability to convert any object on your board directly into an actionable task.

Plus, ClickUp Whiteboards are highly visual, meaning you can maintain a high-level view of the entire growth plan from the initial idea through implementation. 

Growth plan template: 30-60-90 Day Plan Template by ClickUp

Each department’s growth plan should align with the strategic objective of the overall company. Suppose you’re aiming to revamp a marketing plan or reach a new target market. In this case, you may need to bring on team members with different skill sets or focus on team expansion. 

ClickUp’s 30-60-90 Day Plan Template provides an actionable framework for onboarding new employees. Quickly set goals, create milestones, and identify the steps needed to integrate smoothly into a new organization. 

Custom features show you how progress is tracked at a glance, like a separate view for onboarding, which helps organize and keep track of all onboarding tasks. Or use Chat view to collaborate with stakeholders and discuss progress deftly. And with References view, store all necessary references for your plans. 

When your organization aims for more growth and diversification, a 30-60-90 plan ensures a coordinated and transparent process where everyone is on the same page. At the same time, you’re enhancing how your team operates. Having the right tool in your corner is indispensable. 

Growth plan template: Ansoff Matrix

Understanding the risks and rewards associated with different business growth strategies is invaluable for sound decision-making. After all, what good is a growth strategy aimed at market penetration if it could potentially compromise your business?

Use ClickUp’s Ansoff Matrix Whiteboard Template to visualize available strategic options in a way that’s simple to understand and enhances collaboration with your team. This template makes it straightforward and intuitive to identify opportunities and risks, understand which strategies are the most appropriate for your business, and compare different plans against each other to find the best fit. 💡

And it easily adapts to your organization’s level. Launching a new product or planning explosive growth in new markets? Use this template for both.

Features like tagging, nested subtasks, multiple assignees, and priority labels make project management precise and extraordinarily efficient. Being able to brainstorm, organize ideas, and create content with team members ensures everyone is working in harmony. Status labels like Open and Complete add to the frictionless workflow.

ClickUp's Product Development Roadmap Whiteboard Template

If your organization is focusing on innovation, developing new products, or entering new markets, you’ll want to align those goals with your overall growth strategy. And all of that requires teamwork, planning, and clear direction. 

When you need a growth plan template that’s easily customizable, ClickUp’s Product Development Roadmap Whiteboard Template is a no-brainer. This template is designed for you to visualize, document, and track product development progress.

Features like custom fields let you manage tasks and visualize a path to product development that’s way more straightforward than a spreadsheet. Identify potential problems long before they become a fire you need to put out. Cross-team dependencies are easy to see, and engaging with stakeholders is seamless.

So whether you’re experimenting with pricing changes, improving existing products, or something in between, the key is having a comprehensive tool that keeps everyone in sync. And the right template can act as a centralized platform to empower team members in executing growth strategies effectively. 

Product Development Schedule and Activities in ClickUp

Unlike a product development roadmap, which offers a high-level view of a growth strategy and its direction, a development schedule digs deep into the nitty-gritty. See it as a more granular and tactical guide for you and your team. 

Recognizing the need for meticulous planning, ClickUp’s Development Schedule Template ensures each step in your organization’s process is completed accurately and precisely. Stay on track, meet deadlines, adjust your schedule as needed, and allocate your resources and budget appropriately.

Update statuses for tasks with labels such as Done, In Progress, Needs Input, Stuck, and To Do to keep your team members informed and your projects on track. And use custom attributes like Stage, Attachment, Estimated Duration Days, Remarks, and Actual Duration Days to visualize progress at a glance.

A well-designed development schedule is much more than a sophisticated to-do list of tasks. It’s a dynamic and adaptable framework that helps you align strategic planning with tangible execution. 

ClickUp's Process Audit and Improvement Template

Most organizations probably have a few processes they would like to improve or streamline in their company. And since those processes influence the scalability of a business, initiatives for expansion into new markets, and product development, it pays to keep tabs on their effectiveness. 

Use ClickUp’s Process Audit and Improvement Template to keep those tabs. The template allows you to execute quick process reviews or dive deep into how every aspect of your system functions. 🛠

Custom statuses like Not Started, In Progress, Complete, and To Do make keeping track of progress a breeze. Open two different views in different ClickUp configurations, such as the Overview and Getting Started Guide, so you and your team will have no problem jumping right into optimizing the processes that need it.

Categorize and arrange tasks to suit your needs—like audit planning, data analysis, and implementation—so you’ll clearly see the path from A to B. And combining this template with goal-tracking apps , teams and individuals will see progress on an even more detailed scale.

By conducting routine audits, you’ll optimize your processes for efficiency and productivity . Improve customer service and satisfaction by leaps and bounds. You’ll be able to create your own roadmap for taking corrective action where you need to and increase the quality of your decision-making. 

ClickUp's Employee Development Plan Template

Employee development is an essential piece of any growth strategy. Your team members are one of your most valuable assets, and as your organization grows, your employees should grow with it. 

An employee development plan shows you which departments or areas need new talent and which ones may need it in the future. These plans play a role in maintaining an engaged and motivated workforce, too. Even better, you’ll improve employee retention rates and create an environment that encourages your current team members to develop into future leaders in your organization. 🌻

With ClickUp’s Employee Development Plan Template , you’ll ensure your team is always aligned on the most critical objectives. 

Start by assessing where your team members stand with their current knowledge and skill levels. Next, establish clear short and long-term goals that are personalized for each team member. Once you’re clear on the resources you need to meet those objectives, use the information you’ve gathered to create an action plan tailored to each member of your team.

The Development Status List view will assist in keeping track of how each employee’s development plan is progressing. Organize your team’s tasks into different statuses, including Done, For Review, and In Progress, so you always know where you are in your growth strategy. Having essential information all in one place also keeps stakeholders well-informed and in the loop.

The same strategy works for departments within your organization, as well. By creating individual and comprehensive development plan templates and tracking progress and performance with measurable goals, you’ll know that you’re building a successful and productive team. 

Choose the Best Growth Plan Template for Your Team

Whether you’re honing in on market share, tweaking your marketing strategy to include SEO, or brainstorming your next big move with vision board templates , a growth plan template can take your organization to new heights. 🦅

It’s not just a tool for executives and leadership in an organization. Team members benefit from a clear roadmap that aligns their day-to-day tasks with the overarching company objectives. The flexibility to customize your template means it’s adaptable, whether you’re a small business dreaming big or an established company looking for incremental improvement. 

If you’re looking for an all-in-one tool that lets you seamlessly move from product development and ideation to process audits to mapping out company growth potential and more, sign up for ClickUp — it’s Free Forever.

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What Is Business Development?

  • Understanding the Basics
  • Areas of Development
  • The Process
  • Creating a Plan
  • Skills Needed

The Bottom Line

  • Small Business
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Business Development: Definition, Strategies, Steps & Skills

Why more and more companies worldwide are embracing this planning process

business development growth plan

In the simplest terms, business development is a process aimed at growing a company and making it more successful. That can include seeking new business opportunities, building and sustaining connections with existing clients, entering strategic partnerships, and devising other plans to boost profits and market share.

Key Takeaways

  • The overarching goal of business development is to make a company more successful.
  • It can involve many objectives, such as sales growth, business expansion, the formation of strategic partnerships, and increased profitability.
  • The business development process can impact every department within a company, including sales, marketing, manufacturing, human resources, accounting, finance, product development, and vendor management.
  • Business development leaders and team members need a wide range of both soft and hard skills.

How Business Development Works Within an Organization

Business development, sometimes abbreviated as BD, strives to increase an organization's capabilities and reach in pursuit of its financial and other goals. In that way, it can impact—and also call upon the specialized skills of—a variety of departments throughout the organization.

As the financial services giant American Express puts it, "When it comes to organizational growth, business development acts as the thread that ties together all of a company's functions or departments, helping a business expand and improve its sales, revenues, product offerings, talent, customer service, and brand awareness."

For example:

Sales and Marketing

Sales personnel frequently focus on a particular market or a particular (set of) client(s), often for a targeted revenue number. A business development team might assess the Brazilian market, for example, and conclude that sales of $1.5 billion can be achieved there in three years. With that as their goal, the sales department targets the customer base in the new market with their sales strategies.

Business development often takes a longer-range perspective in setting goals than many sales departments have in the past. As the Society for Marketing Professional Services puts it, "A traditional view of sales is akin to hunting, but business development is more like farming: it's a longer-term investment of time and energy and not always a quick payoff."

Marketing , which oversees the promotion and advertising of the company's products and services, plays a complementary role to sales in achieving its targets.

A business development leader and their team can help set appropriate budgets based on the opportunities involved. Higher sales and marketing budgets allow for aggressive strategies like cold calling , personal visits, roadshows, and free sample distribution. Lower budgets tend to rely on more passive strategies, such as online, print, and social media ads, as well as billboard advertising.

Legal and Finance

To enter a new market, a business development team must decide whether it will be worth going solo by clearing all the required legal formalities or whether it might be more sensible to form a strategic alliance or partnership with firms already operating in that market. Assisted by legal and finance teams, the business development group weighs the pros and cons of the available options and selects the one that best serves the business.

Finance may also become involved in cost-cutting initiatives. Business development is not just about increasing market reach and sales, but improving the bottom line . An internal assessment revealing high spending on travel , for instance, may lead to travel policy changes, such as hosting video conference calls instead of on-site meetings or opting for less expensive transportation modes. The outsourcing of non-core work, such as billing, technology operations, or customer service, may also be part of the development plan.

Project Management/Business Planning

Does an international business expansion require a new facility in the new market, or will all the products be manufactured in the base country and then imported into the targeted market? Will the latter option require an additional facility in the base country? Such decisions are finalized by the business development team based on their cost- and time-related assessments. Then, the project management /implementation team can swing into action to work toward the desired goal.

Product Management and Manufacturing

Regulatory standards and market requirements can vary across regions and countries. A medicine of a certain composition may be allowed in India but not in the United Kingdom, for example. Does the new market require a customized—or altogether new—version of the product?

These requirements drive the work of product management and manufacturing departments, as determined by the business strategy. Cost considerations, legal approvals, and regulatory adherence are all assessed as a part of the development plan.

Vendor Management

Will the new business need external vendors ? For example, will the shipping of a product require a dedicated courier service? Will the company partner with an established retail chain for retail sales? What are the costs associated with these engagements? The business development team works through these questions with the appropriate internal departments.

10 Potential Areas for Business Development

As noted earlier, business development can require employees throughout an organization to work in tandem to facilitate information, strategically plan future actions, and make smart decisions. Here is a summary list of potential areas that business development may get involved in, depending on the organization.

  • Market research and analysis: This information helps identify new market opportunities and develop effective strategies.
  • Sales and lead generation: This involves prospecting, qualifying leads, and coordinating with the sales team to convert leads into customers.
  • Strategic partnerships and alliances: This includes forming strategic alliances, joint ventures, or collaborations that create mutually beneficial opportunities.
  • Product development and innovation: This involves conducting market research, gathering customer feedback, and collaborating with internal teams to drive innovation.
  • Customer relationship management: This involves customer retention initiatives, loyalty programs, and gathering customer feedback to enhance customer satisfaction and drive repeat business.
  • Strategic planning and business modeling: This includes identifying growth opportunities, setting targets, and implementing strategies to achieve sustainable growth.
  • Mergers and acquisitions: This involves evaluating potential synergies, conducting due diligence , and negotiating and executing deals.
  • Brand management and marketing: This includes creating effective marketing campaigns, managing online and offline channels, and leveraging digital marketing techniques.
  • Financial analysis and funding: This includes exploring funding options, securing investments, or identifying grant opportunities.
  • Innovation and emerging technologies: This involves assessing the potential impact of disruptive technologies and integrating them into the organization's growth strategies.

The Business Development Process in Six Steps

While the specific steps in the business development process will depend on the particular company, its needs and capabilities, its leadership, and its available capital, these are some of the more common ones:

Step 1: Market Research/Analysis

Begin by conducting comprehensive market research to gain insights into market trends, customer needs, and the competitive landscape. Analyze data and gather additional information to identify potential growth opportunities and understand the market dynamics.

Step 2: Establish Clear Goals and Objectives

Leveraging that research, define specific objectives and goals for business development efforts. These goals could include revenue targets, market expansion goals, customer acquisition targets, and product/service development objectives. Setting clear goals provides a focus for the business development process.

Step 3: Generate and Qualify Leads

Use various sources, such as industry databases, networking , referrals, or online platforms to generate a pool of potential leads. Identify individuals or companies that fit the target market criteria and have the potential to become customers. Then, evaluate and qualify leads based on predetermined criteria to determine their suitability and potential value.

Step 4: Build Relationships and Present Solutions

Initiate contact with qualified leads and establish relationships through effective communication and engagement. Utilize networking events, industry conferences, personalized emails, or social media interactions to build trust and credibility. As your relationship forms, develop and present tailored solutions that align with the client's needs. Demonstrate the value proposition of the organization's offerings and highlight key benefits and competitive advantages.

Step 5: Negotiate and Expand

Prepare and deliver proposals that outline the scope of work, pricing, deliverables, and timelines. Upon agreement, coordinate with legal and other relevant internal teams to ensure a smooth contract execution process.

Step 6: Continuously Evaluate

Continuously monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of business development efforts. Analyze performance metrics , gather feedback from clients and internal stakeholders, and identify areas for improvement. Regularly refine strategies and processes to adapt to market changes and optimize outcomes.

While it's common for startup companies to seek outside assistance in developing the business, as a company matures, it should aim to build its business development expertise internally.

How to Create a Business Development Plan

To effectively create and implement a business development plan, the team needs to set clear objectives and goals—ones that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). You can align these objectives with the overall business goals of the company.

Companies often analyze the current state of the organization by evaluating its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats through a SWOT analysis . That can make it easier to identify target markets and customer segments and define their unique value proposition.

A substantial component of a business development plan is the external-facing stages. It should lay out sales and marketing strategies to generate leads and convert them into customers. In addition, it may explore new potential strategic partnerships and alliances to expand your reach, access new markets, or enhance your offerings.

Teams should conduct a financial analysis and do resource planning to determine the resources required for implementing the plan. Once you implement, you should track progress against the key performance indicators (KPIs) you've chosen.

Skills Needed for Business Development Jobs

Business development is a fast-growing field across industries worldwide. It is also one that calls upon a wide range of hard and soft skill sets.

Leaders and other team members benefit from well-honed sales and negotiating skills in order to interact with clients, comprehend their needs, and sway their decisions. They have to be able to establish rapport, cope with challenges, and conclude transactions. They need to be able to communicate clearly, verbally and in writing, to both customers and internal stakeholders.

Business development specialists should have a thorough awareness of the market in which they operate. They should keep up with market dynamics, competition activity, and other industry developments. They should be able to see potential opportunities, make wise judgments, and adjust tactics as necessary. Because many of their decisions will be data-driven, they need good analytical skills.

Internally, business development practitioners need to be able to clarify priorities, establish reasonable deadlines, manage resources wisely, and monitor progress to guarantee timely completion.

Finally, people who work in business development should conduct themselves with the utmost morality and honesty. They must uphold confidentiality, act legally and ethically, and build trust with customers and other stakeholders.

Why Is Business Development Important?

In addition to its benefits to individual companies, business development is important for generating jobs, developing key industries, and keeping the economy moving forward.

What Are the Most Important Skills for Business Development Executives?

Development executives need to have leadership skills, vision, drive, and a willingness to work with a variety of people to get to a common goal.

How Can I Be Successful in Business Development?

Having a vision and putting together a good team are among the factors that help predict success in business development. A successful developer also knows how to write a good business plan, which becomes the blueprint to build from.

What, in Brief, Should a Business Development Plan Include?

A business development plan, or business plan , should describe the organization's objectives and how it intends to achieve them, including financial goals, expected costs, and targeted milestones.

Business development provides a way for companies to rise above their day-to-day challenges and set a course for a successful future. More and more companies, across many different types of industries, are coming to recognize its value and importance.

American Express. " Business Development and Its Importance ."

Society for Marketing Professional Services. " What Is Business Development? "

World Economic Forum. " The Future of Jobs Report 2020 ," Page 30.

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How to Create the Right Business Development Plan

Daniel Brown

Key Highlights

  • A business development plan is a strategic roadmap that outlines the steps and strategies needed to achieve specific business goals, such as identifying new opportunities, expanding into new markets, forging partnerships, and improving overall performance.
  • A well-crafted business development plan provides clear direction, allocates resources efficiently, aligns teams, and allows for tracking progress and measuring success.
  • Key components of a business development plan include setting goals, understanding target audiences, analyzing the competition, creating marketing and sales strategies, and implementing action plans.
  • Startups should focus on high-impact growth opportunities, maximize their marketing budget, build strategic partnerships, and prioritize teamwork. Large organizations should invest in long-term strategic initiatives, diversify their business development efforts, leverage their resources and expertise, and establish talent development programs.

Whether steering a fresh-faced startup or commanding a massive corporate ship, mastering the art of crafting a robust business development plan is your secret weapon for success.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll take you through the process and strategies of creating a robust business development plan. Whether it’s leveraging market research to identify new opportunities or utilizing the power of partnerships to accelerate growth, these strategies will equip you with the tools to navigate the dynamic business landscape confidently.

  • What is a Business Development Plan?

A business development plan is a strategic roadmap that helps a company grow and succeed. It outlines the steps and strategies needed to achieve specific business goals. These goals may include identifying new opportunities, expanding into new markets, forging partnerships, and improving overall performance.

Now, you might be wondering why you need a business development plan. First, it provides a clear direction for your company’s growth, ensuring your efforts are focused and targeted. For example, if your goal is to enter a new market, the plan will outline the necessary research , partnerships, and marketing efforts required to achieve that goal.

But that’s not all. A well-crafted business development plan also helps you allocate resources more efficiently , preventing wasted time and money. By outlining priorities and setting realistic timelines, you can ensure that every aspect of your business gets the attention it deserves.

Moreover, a business development plan can be one of the most powerful tools for team alignment . When everyone on your team understands the company’s objectives and strategies, they are more likely to work together seamlessly, improving overall productivity and efficiency.

A solid plan also allows you to track progress and measure success. By setting specific targets and monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs), you can quickly identify areas that need improvement and adjust your strategies accordingly.

In short, a business development plan is your company’s GPS, guiding you toward growth and success. By creating a comprehensive and actionable plan, you can ensure that your business is always moving forward, ready to seize new opportunities and overcome challenges along the way.

  • Key Components of a Business Development Plan

A comprehensive business development plan should include several key components to guide your organization’s growth efforts. These components provide a structured framework for identifying, evaluating, and pursuing growth opportunities. 

Close up on business plan documents

Here’s a detailed look at each element:

  • Goals : Clearly defined objectives and measurable targets guide your business development efforts. These goals should align with your overall business objectives and include short-term and long-term targets. When setting goals, consider using the SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) to ensure they are clear and actionable.
  • Target audience : A thorough understanding of your ideal customers contributes to crafting a more effective business development plan. This includes identifying their needs, preferences, and behaviors. In addition, understanding your target audience can tailor your marketing and sales strategies to reach and engage them more effectively. To identify your target audience, consider conducting market research through surveys, interviews, and focus groups, analyzing demographic data, and studying your competitors’ customer base.
  • Competition analysis : A detailed examination of your competitors is necessary to identify their strengths and weaknesses and potential opportunities for differentiation. This analysis should include data on market share, product offerings, pricing strategies, marketing tactics, and customer experience. By understanding your competition, you can develop a unique value proposition that sets your organization apart and attracts your target audience.
  • Marketing and sales strategies : A well-integrated strategy to engage your target audience, advertise your products or services, and produce leads significantly contributes to effective business development. Your marketing and sales strategies should be tailored to your target audience’s preferences and behaviors, using the most effective channels and tactics for reaching them. This may include content marketing, social media advertising, email campaigns, events, and other promotional activities.
  • Action plans : A clear, step-by-step guide that lists the tasks, duties, and deadlines needed to reach your business development objectives is valuable for maintaining focus on your progress. This action plan should include short-term tasks, such as launching marketing campaigns or attending networking events, and long-term initiatives, like developing new products or entering new markets. Regularly reviewing and updating your action plan will ensure that your business development efforts remain focused and aligned with your objectives.
  • Business Development Process

The business development process is a series of steps to identify, evaluate, and pursue growth opportunities. While the exact process may vary between organizations, it typically includes the following stages:

  • Market research and analysis: In this stage, you’ll gather information about your target market, including customer demographics, preferences, and pain points. This research will help you identify potential opportunities and understand the competitive landscape better. Techniques for market research include surveys, interviews, focus groups, and analysis of existing data sources. For example, a software company looking to expand its product offerings might conduct surveys to determine which features are most desired by potential customers, helping them tailor their new product to meet market gaps.
  • Identifying potential opportunities: Based on your market research, you’ll identify growth opportunities that align with your organization’s strengths and capabilities. This may include entering new markets, developing new products or services, targeting new customer segments, or forging strategic partnerships. For instance, a small e-commerce business might realize that its products appeal to a specific age group and decide to target this demographic more aggressively with marketing campaigns.
  • Evaluating the feasibility of each opportunity : Once you’ve identified potential growth opportunities, assess their practicality. This involves analyzing the potential benefits, risks, and resources required for each option. You’ll want to consider factors such as market size, competition, barriers to entry, and the potential return on investment (ROI) . For example, a manufacturing company considering expanding its production capacity might delve into specifics such as the costs of acquiring new machinery, hiring and training additional staff, potential supply chain complexities, and the projected increase in revenue from enhanced production capacity.
  • Developing a business development strategy : After evaluating the feasibility of each opportunity, you’ll create a strategic plan to pursue the most promising ones. This plan should outline your objectives, target markets, value proposition, and the specific tactics you’ll use to reach your goals. Your strategy may also include a timeline for implementation and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure progress. For example, a health and wellness company might enter a new market by launching a line of supplements. Its strategy could involve targeted marketing campaigns, influencer partnerships, and social media marketing.
  • Implementing the strategy and measuring results: In this final stage, you’ll implement your business development plan. This involves executing the tactics outlined in your strategy, such as launching marketing campaigns, developing new products, or establishing partnerships. Throughout the implementation process, ensure you monitor your results using the KPIs established earlier. Regularly measuring your progress will help you identify areas for improvement and make any necessary adjustments to your strategy. For instance, a B2B service provider might track the number of new clients acquired, revenue growth, and customer satisfaction scores to gauge the effectiveness of their business development efforts and make data-driven decisions to optimize their approach.
  • Creating a Business Development Plan

Let’s consider a hypothetical example of a software company aiming to expand into the healthcare industry to demonstrate how a business development plan can be created.

Overhead view of business development plan meeting

  • Step 1: Set Clear Goals and Objectives

The company sets a specific goal: “Increase our market share in the healthcare industry by 15% within the next two years.” This goal is SMART, as it is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

  • Step 2: Conduct Market Research and Identify Your Target Audience

The company conducts market research to understand the healthcare industry’s needs, preferences, and pain points. They gather information through surveys, interviews, and focus groups with healthcare professionals and analyze existing data sources such as industry reports, whitepapers, and case studies.

  • Step 3: Analyze Your Competition

The software company identifies its key competitors in the healthcare market, analyzing its product offerings, market share, pricing strategies, marketing tactics, and customer experience to understand its strengths and weaknesses and find potential areas for differentiation.

Step 4: Develop Marketing and Sales Strategies Based on market research and competitor analysis insights, the company tailors its marketing and sales strategies to the healthcare industry. They develop targeted content marketing campaigns, engage healthcare influencers, attend industry events, and create healthcare-specific case studies to showcase their software solutions’ value.

  • Step 5: Create an Action Plan

The company outlines specific steps, responsibilities, and deadlines to expand into the healthcare market. They assign tasks to team members, establish clear communication channels for progress tracking, and ensure everyone is working towards the same objective.

  • Step 6: Monitor and Measure Results

The company tracks the performance of its business development activities using key performance indicators (KPIs), such as the number of healthcare leads generated, conversion rates, and revenue growth in the healthcare sector. They regularly review these results to make informed decisions about adjusting strategies and allocating resources more effectively.

  • How to Customize a Plan for Startups vs. Large Organizations

The development of a business, whether a startup or a large organization, requires a thorough understanding of its unique needs and opportunities. Nonetheless, creating a business development plan might vary between startups and large organizations. Startups often have limited resources and focus on immediate growth opportunities. 

In contrast, large organizations may allocate more resources to long-term strategic initiatives. Regardless of your organization’s size, tailoring your business development plan to meet your unique needs and goals is valuable.

  • For Startups
  • Identify high-impact growth opportunities : When creating an action plan for business development, startups might consider focusing on options that offer quick wins. For example, a startup could target a niche market segment with unmet needs or provide a unique solution to an existing problem. Airbnb, a startup in its early days, tapped into the unmet demand for affordable accommodations by allowing homeowners to rent out their spaces to travelers.
  • Maximize your startup marketing budget : Startups frequently work with restricted budgets, making it necessary to utilize economical business development and marketing channels that deliver the most significant ROI. For instance, content marketing, social media, and email marketing can be powerful tools for startups to build brand awareness and engage with their target audience without breaking the bank. In addition, consider prioritizing essential expenses, seeking strategic partnerships, and exploring innovative ways to reduce costs and increase efficiency throughout your business operations.
  • Build a strong network of strategic partners : Partnerships can help startups access new customers, resources, and expertise. For example, a startup could partner with complementary businesses to offer bundled services, co-host events, or cross-promote products. Dropbox, for instance, partnered with Samsung to provide pre-installed Dropbox storage on Samsung devices , significantly increasing their user base. To connect with larger companies for potential partnerships, attend industry events, conferences, and trade shows, and leverage social media platforms like LinkedIn to identify and engage with key decision-makers. Establishing relationships with industry leaders can open doors for collaboration.
  • Prioritize teamwork and collaboration : Startups often feature smaller teams, so establishing a teamwork-driven atmosphere that bolsters productivity and capitalizes on resource allocation proves beneficial. Encourage open communication, delegate responsibilities, and set clear expectations to ensure your team works efficiently and effectively towards your business development goals.
  • For Large Organizations
  • Invest in long-term strategic initiatives : Large organizations can benefit from focusing on strategic business development initiatives that capitalize on their established market presence and resources. For example, large businesses can diversify their business development activities to mitigate risks and capitalize on growth opportunities. This may involve exploring new customer segments, entering different industries, or adopting new technologies. Google’s diversified portfolio, including investments in artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, and renewable energy, demonstrates this approach.
  • Diversify your business development efforts : Large organizations can explore opportunities in new markets and industries to drive innovation and growth beyond their core business. This can include investing in research and development (R&D) to create innovative products or forming strategic partnerships with companies from other sectors. Amazon’s continuous expansion into new industries, such as healthcare and grocery, exemplifies this approach. By broadening their scope, large organizations can capitalize on emerging trends and stay ahead of the competition.
  • Leverage your organization’s resources and expertise : Large organizations have a wealth of resources and expertise at their disposal. They can develop innovative solutions and strategies to drive business growth by tapping into this knowledge. Take IBM, for example. This tech giant leverages its profound technological know-how and data analysis expertise to develop ground-breaking solutions, like their AI platform, Watson. Watson has revolutionized industries ranging from healthcare, where it aids in diagnosing diseases and suggesting treatments, to finance, where it helps banks in risk assessment and fraud detection. The key here is leveraging what you have to create solutions that drive growth and add value for your clients’ businesses. 
  • Establish robust talent development programs : One unique strength of large organizations is their capacity to develop and nurture talent within their ranks. These businesses can continuously enhance their workforce skills by investing in comprehensive training and development programs, fueling innovation and growth. This approach also helps to retain top performers, reducing turnover and promoting a high-performance culture. For instance, consider the case of General Electric. GE’s renowned leadership development programs have been instrumental in grooming a cadre of leaders who have gone on to hold top positions within GE and other major corporations. Large organizations can foster a culture of excellence, innovation, and continuous improvement by focusing on talent development.
  • Strategies for Generating Creative Business Development Ideas

Don’t be afraid to challenge conventional wisdom and explore alternative business development models that deliver value to your customers. Innovation contributes to business growth and helps maintain a  competitive edge.

Group collaboration meeting

Here are some tips and examples to help you develop innovative business development ideas:

  • Encourage a culture of innovation : Foster an environment where employees feel empowered to share their ideas, experiment, and take risks. Promote open communication and collaboration and recognize and reward innovative thinking. Google’s “20% time” policy, which allows employees to dedicate 20% of their working hours to passion projects, has resulted in successful products like Gmail and Google Maps.
  • Monitor industry trends and technological advancements : Stay informed about the latest developments in your industry and related technology sectors. This can help you identify new opportunities for growth and stay ahead of the competition. For instance, consider the rapidly advancing field of AI in healthcare. Companies like Zebra Medical Vision leverage AI for early disease detection , using sophisticated algorithms to analyze medical imaging data and detect anomalies that could indicate conditions like cancer, liver disease, or cardiovascular issues. This use of AI improves diagnostic accuracy and significantly accelerates the process, potentially saving lives by enabling earlier intervention.
  • Leverage internal expertise and resources : Tap into your organization’s wealth of knowledge and resources to identify innovative solutions to business challenges. For example, Google’s Project Aristotle analyzed data from hundreds of teams within the company to identify the key factors that made teams effective. By leveraging its internal expertise in data analysis and organizational behavior, Google was able to implement new strategies and foster a more collaborative work environment, ultimately driving innovation and growth.
  • Explore strategic partnerships and collaborations : Collaborate with external partners, such as complementary businesses, suppliers, or research institutions, to access new ideas, resources, and expertise. Take the case of the collaboration between Starbucks and Spotify, for instance. This innovative alliance allowed Starbucks employees to influence the music played in stores via Spotify playlists, enhancing the in-store experience for customers. Simultaneously, Spotify users could access these playlists, driving user engagement on their platform. This symbiotic relationship amplified brand exposure for both parties, demonstrating the power of strategic partnerships.
  • Experiment with new business models : Don’t be afraid to challenge conventional wisdom and explore alternative ways of delivering value to your customers. Innovative business models can often lead to significant growth opportunities. For instance, the subscription-based model adopted by companies like Dollar Shave Club and Spotify disrupted traditional sales models in their respective industries.
  • Embrace a problem-solving mindset : Encourage your team to approach business challenges with a problem-solving mindset , focusing on finding creative solutions that deliver value to customers. This mindset can help drive innovation and uncover new business development opportunities. Tesla’s mission to combat climate change led to the development of its innovative electric vehicles and solar energy products.
  • Role of Business Development in Sales

Integrating business development and sales strategies drive growth and revenue generation. Business development activities, such as lead generation , market research, and partnership development, support sales efforts. By identifying and nurturing leads, conducting market research to understand customer needs, and fostering strategic partnerships, business development teams can help sales teams close deals more effectively.

Conversely, insights from sales interactions can inform business development efforts and help refine marketing and sales strategies, contributing to the organization’s longevity.

In addition, when a company continually learns from its sales interactions and applies those insights to improve its offerings, messaging, and customer engagement tactics, it is better positioned to adapt to changing market conditions and customer preferences.

This adaptability ultimately leads to stronger customer relationships, increased customer loyalty, and sustained business growth, all contributing to the organization’s longevity.

Sales associate checking CRM software

Examples of successful sales development plans often include a strong focus on collaboration between business development and sales teams and the use of data-driven insights to optimize lead generation and conversion efforts. For instance, a software company wants to expand its market share in a new industry vertical.

To achieve this, the business development team conducts thorough market research to identify key players, customer pain points, and potential partnerships within the new industry. This information is then shared with the sales team, who uses the insights to tailor their pitches and address clients’ specific needs in the new market.

Simultaneously, the sales team shares feedback from client interactions, allowing the business development team to fine-tune their research and partnership strategies. This continuous learning and adaptation process leads to higher conversion rates and increased revenue and strengthens the company’s ability to thrive in the long term.

  • Case Studies

Examining case studies of successful companies can provide valuable insights into how business development and sales strategies can be effectively integrated to drive growth and achieve long-term success.

  • Amazon: Embracing Customer Obsession

Amazon’s relentless focus on customer satisfaction has driven its innovative business development and sales strategies. By leveraging data analytics and customer feedback, Amazon continually refines its offerings and sales approach to cater to customers’ evolving preferences. This customer-centric mindset has led to innovations such as Prime membership, one-click ordering, and Alexa voice assistant, which have enhanced the customer experience and fueled Amazon’s growth.

  • Salesforce: Revolutionizing CRM through Collaboration

Salesforce, a pioneer in cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, has successfully integrated business development and sales by fostering a collaborative culture . They encourage cross-functional teams to work together to identify new markets and develop innovative solutions. This collaborative approach has enabled Salesforce to remain at the forefront of the CRM market, continuously delivering cutting-edge products and services that meet customer needs.

  • Slack: Transforming Workplace Communication

Slack, a widespread team collaboration platform, demonstrates the power of effectively integrating business development and sales strategies. By conducting extensive market research and user feedback, Slack identified a gap in the market for a user-friendly, intuitive communication tool. This insight led to the development of a platform that streamlined workplace communication, transforming how teams collaborate . Slack’s sales team leverages this value proposition to drive adoption, resulting in rapid growth and widespread industry acclaim.

Creating the right business development plan can significantly benefit any organization seeking growth and success. To maximize your chances of success, focus on understanding your organization’s unique needs, setting clear goals, conducting market research, and developing effective marketing and sales strategies. In addition, emphasize innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement to stay ahead in the competitive business landscape.

As you develop your plan, create actionable steps and regularly monitor progress to ensure continuous growth and identify areas for improvement. By embracing a culture of innovation, teamwork, and continuous learning, your organization will be well-equipped to navigate business development challenges and achieve long-term growth and success.

Financial Advisor Daniel Brown is an experienced and knowledgeable financial advisor at spoolah.com. He has been in this industry since 2008 and has a strong understanding of economic trends, all types of financial planning, ways of creating plans for meeting short-term and long-term financial goals, etc.

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9 steps for writing a strategic business development plan Add Add

9 steps for writing a strategic business development plan.

Updated 04 October 2023 • 7 min read

Developing a business plan can mark the start of an exciting phase, as you start charting future growth. This document serves as the roadmap for your business development strategy as you take your business to new heights.

Creating an effective business development plan can be a tough task. It requires you to think through several aspects of your business that you may not consider on a day-to-day basis.

Don’t worry — we’re here to help. This article will walk you through how to write a business development plan, so you can grow your business in the most effective way possible. 

What is a business development plan?

A business development plan is the growth roadmap for your business. It’s a strategy document that lays out where you want to take your business and how you intend to get there. 

A thorough and carefully crafted business development plan lays out your growth targets, financial projections and the tools and resources your company needs. It may also define your marketing and efforts that support your goals.

A business development plan provides clarity and helps you keep your objectives in focus during the day-to-day grind. It also provides a strong foundation for making business decisions — if you’re not sure whether a move makes sense, you can always consult your plan.

Why do you need a business development plan?

Creating a proper business development strategy can be a lot of work. But it pays dividends by providing clarity and focus. It also helps when trying to secure funding, as it shows you've thought through all the possibilities. 

A business development plan helps you:

Get clarity

A strong business development plan helps you get clear about priorities during the hectic launch phase of your business. It helps you define your goals and objectives, as well as chart out how you’ll reach them. 

Stay focused

As you dive into the day-to-day running of your business, it can be easy to get bogged down in details and lose sight of your larger goals. Your business plan provides an anchor that keeps you in place. And if you’re already in business, it can help you take a step back and refocus on the fundamentals.

Secure funding

A detailed business plan is one of the most effective ways to show investors that you can be trusted. This is especially important when you’re just starting out and have no track record of performance. Your business plan shows that you’ve thought about how your business will fare in the long run, not just in the short term.

Achieve growth

A proper business development plan should include a roadmap. This is your high-level strategy document that serves as the map to your company’s growth. It lays out how you’ll measure success, provides targets to aim for and defines your plans for hitting them.

How to write a business development plan

If you’re convinced that you need to write your own business development plan (or update the one you have), you might be wondering where to start. Let’s walk through the process. 

1. Set clear financial goals

Your business development strategy should include clear financial goals. For example, every business wants to increase sales; however, that’s not a specific goal. Instead, set a target for your sales figures within a certain timeframe, and keep it realistic by using your current numbers as a baseline.

To do this, project your revenue, profit and expenses if business were to stay the same. Then consider what a realistic target might be and include that. This number may be lower than you'd expect, but it’s more important that it’s actually achievable.

2. Refine customer profiles

Detailed customer and audience profiles help your business effectively target its marketing efforts. Your business might already have customer profiles — updating your business plan is a perfect time to update these profiles, as well. And if you don’t have profiles yet, there’s no time like the present.

You can start refining your customer profiles by examining your current customer base. Look at their demographics and habits. Then use a similar strategy to create profiles of your ideal customers.

3. Identify key growth opportunities

Next, identify your key growth opportunities. These could be new products or services, an expansion into a new market, or even a complete rebuild of your current offerings.

Whatever these opportunities are, include them in your business development plan. Articulate how and why these opportunities will help grow the business. 

4. List funding sources

Your plan should include not just the amount of funding you’ll need, but how you plan to get it — loans , equity investors or crowdfunding , for example. Now is the time to come up with an in-depth funding strategy. Doing this legwork on the front end, while developing your plan, makes it easier to focus on execution when stress inevitably creeps in. 

This part of your plan should include the sources you’ve secured, as well as those you’d like to seek funds from. It should also include how much you’ll seek from each source, what form those funds will take, and any obstacles you might encounter.

5. Determine operational needs

You’ve laid out your goals, growth opportunities and potential funding sources. Now, look over these items and determine how to make all this happen. 

Be aware that as your operational needs expand, your business expenses will also increase. For example, you may require additional equipment, a new warehouse to enable expanded logistics, or more employees to help serve customers. Whatever it is, build it into your business development plan.

6. Develop a sales and marketing strategy

Your business development plan is the perfect place to include sales and marketing strategies. Ultimately, these will be some of the key drivers for leveraging your growth opportunities and hitting your financial goals.

As you draft these ideas, run them through this simple test: Will they still hold up if you reach your growth targets, or will you need to rework them? Ideally, you want sales and marketing strategies that can grow along with your business.

7. Create your elevator pitch

Your elevator pitch is the short-and-sweet version of your company’s mission. The premise is simple: If you were to meet someone on an elevator and only had that brief ride to pitch your company, what would you say?

Some people adopt arbitrary rules on their elevator pitch, such as limiting it to a Twitter-length 280 characters. While this limitation isn’t necessary, it should give you a good idea of the brevity of an elevator pitch and the impact you’ll need to make. 

8. Identify your resource needs

You’ve identified your broad operational needs — equipment, facilities and employees. You’ll also want to identify your resource needs. These include how you might manage your technology and team members in a more specific way.

For example, if your marketing plan involves creating video content, you’ll need the proper equipment and software to create it. Your sales strategy might involve retooling your CRM or migrating to a new system. Or, your growth targets might mean that you need to move to a new accounting platform .

9. Determine how you'll measure success

Last, but certainly not least, you’ll need to decide how you’ll measure progress towards your goals. How will you know when you’ve hit that ambitious sales target or grown your business in that new market? 

You need to be able to measure your business performance and progress. Setting targets and KPIs for your employees may be good ways to keep things on track.

Business Development Plan Template

If you need a business development plan example, we’ve put together this template . It’ll help you shape your own business plan and outline the key sections. 

Stay productive and profitable with MYOB

A strong business development plan is a powerful asset for driving growth. It helps you outline your plans and stay on course, even when you’re overwhelmed with day-to-day tasks. 

Achieving your business goals is much easier when you have help — and that doesn’t mean you need to hire more people. MYOB accounting software automates business operations like invoicing, payroll, and tax reporting, so you can spend more time focusing on strategic growth.

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Business Development Plan

Strategize your business growth with a comprehensive plan.

Use this template

What is Business Development Plan Template?

A business development plan is a roadmap that outlines how your business will grow over time. It includes objectives, strategies, tactics, KPIs, timelines, responsibilities, budgets, and status. This template allows you to plan and track your business development activities in a structured and organized manner. With Lark's advanced features, you can customize this template to suit your business needs, collaborate with your team, and monitor your progress in real-time.

Who is this Business Development Plan Template for?

This template is designed for businesses of all sizes and industries. Whether you are a startup looking to scale, a small business aiming to expand, or a large corporation planning to diversify, this template is for you. It is particularly useful for business development teams, marketing teams, product development teams, operations teams, and executive leadership teams. It allows you to:

- Clearly define your business objectives and strategies

- Plan and execute your tactics effectively

- Monitor your KPIs and adjust your strategies as needed

- Keep track of your timelines and responsibilities

- Manage your budget efficiently

- Stay updated on the status of your business development activities

Why use this Business Development Plan Template?

A business development plan is crucial for the growth and success of your business. Here's why you should use this template:

- It provides a structured approach to planning and executing your business development activities

- It allows you to monitor your progress in real-time and make necessary adjustments

- It promotes collaboration and transparency among your team members

- It helps you manage your resources efficiently and stay within your budget

- It enables you to track your KPIs and measure your success

- It saves you time and effort in creating a business development plan from scratch

- It is customizable and easy to use, thanks to Lark's user-friendly interface and advanced features

Get Started with Business Development Plan Template.

Follow these few steps to get started with Lark templates:

1. Click 'Use this template' on the top right corner to sign up for Lark

2. After signing up for Lark, you will be directed to the Business Development Plan Template on Lark Base. Click 'Use This Template' on the top right corner of Lark Base to copy a version of the Business Development Plan Template to your workspace.

3. Change fields of the template to fit your needs

4. Take advantage of the full potential of this Business Development Plan Template.

business development growth plan

Need help with this template?

Contact us to build a customized demo for you, for free!

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24 Hourly Schedule

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30 60 90 Day Plan

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Software Comparison

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Student Progress Tracker

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Travel Itinerary Template Go

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Manage your projects, tasks, and deadlines with ease

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Streamline your project management with a comprehensive workflow

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Business Plan: What It Is + How to Write One

Discover what a business plan includes and how writing one can foster your business’s development.

[Featured image] Woman showing a business plan to a man at a desk.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a written document that defines your business goals and the tactics to achieve those goals. A business plan typically explores the competitive landscape of an industry, analyzes a market and different customer segments within it, describes the products and services, lists business strategies for success, and outlines financial planning.  

In your research into business plans, you may come across different formats, and you might be wondering which kind will work best for your purposes. 

Let’s define two main types of business plans—the traditional business plan and the lean start-up business plan. Both types can serve as the basis for developing a thriving business, as well as exploring a competitive market analysis, brand strategy, and content strategy in more depth. 

There are some significant differences to keep in mind [ 1 ]: 

The traditional business plan is a long document that explores each component in depth. You can build a traditional business plan to secure funding from lenders or investors. 

The lean start-up business plan focuses on the key elements of a business’s development and is shorter than the traditional format. If you don’t plan on seeking funding, the lean start-up plan can serve mainly as a document for making business decisions and carrying out tasks. 

Now that you have a clear business plan definition, continue reading to learn how to start writing a detailed plan that will guide your journey as an entrepreneur.  

How to write a business plan 

In the sections below, you’ll build the following components of your business plan:

Executive summary

Business description 

Products and services 

Competitor analysis 

Marketing plan and sales strategies 

Brand strategy

Financial planning

Explore each section to bring fresh inspiration and reveal new possibilities for developing your business. Depending on which format you're using, you may choose to adapt the sections, skip over some, or go deeper into others. Consider your first draft a foundation for your efforts and one that you can revise, as needed, to account for changes in any business area.

1. Executive summary 

This is a short section that introduces the business plan as a whole to the people who will be reading it, including investors, lenders, or other members of your team. Start with a sentence or two about your business, your goals for developing it, and why it will be successful. If you are seeking funding, summarize the basics of the financial plan. 

2. Business description 

Use this section to provide detailed information about your company and how it will operate in the marketplace.

Mission statement: What drives your desire to start a business? What purpose are you serving? What do you hope to achieve for your business, the team, and customers? 

Revenue streams: From what sources will your business generate revenue? Examples include product sales, service fees, subscriptions, rental fees, license fees, and more. 

Leadership: Describe the leaders in your business, their roles and responsibilities, and your vision for building teams to perform various functions, such as graphic design, product development, or sales.  

Legal structure: Are you operating as a partnership or a corporation? If you’re registering a specific legal structure within your province or territory, include it here and the rationale behind this choice. 

3. Competitor analysis 

This section will include an assessment of potential competitors, their offers, and marketing and sales efforts. For each competitor, explore the following:

Value proposition: What outcome or experience does this brand promise?

Products and services: How does each one solve customer pain points and fulfil desires? What are the price points? 

Marketing: Which channels do competitors use to promote? What kind of content does this brand publish on these channels? What messaging does this brand use to communicate value to customers?  

Sales: What sales process or buyer’s journey does this brand lead customers through?

4. Products and services

Use this section to describe everything your business offers to its target market. For every product and service, list the following: 

The value proposition or promise to customers, in terms of how they will experience it

How the product serves customers, addresses their pain points, satisfies their desires, and improves their lives.

The features or outcomes that make the product better than those of competitors

Your price points and how these compare to competitors

5. Marketing plan and sales strategies 

In this section, you’ll draw from thorough market research to describe your target market and how you will reach it. 

Who are your ideal customers?   

How can you describe this segment according to their demographics (age, ethnicity, income, location, etc.) and psychographics (beliefs, values, aspirations, lifestyle, etc.)? 

What are their daily lives like? 

What problems and challenges do they experience? 

What words, phrases, ideas, and concepts do consumers in your target market use to describe these problems when posting on social media or engaging with your competitors?  

What messaging will present your products as the best on the market? How will you differentiate messaging from competitors? 

On what marketing channels will you position your products and services?

How will you design a customer journey that delivers a positive experience at every touchpoint and leads customers to a purchase decision?

6. Brand strategy 

In this section, you will describe your business’s design, personality, values, voice, and other details that go into delivering a consistent brand experience. 

What are the values that define your brand?

What visual elements give your brand a distinctive look and feel?

How will your marketing messaging reflect a distinctive brand voice, including tone, diction, and sentence-level stylistic choices? 

How will your brand look and sound throughout the customer journey? 

Define your brand positioning statement. What will inspire your audience to choose your brand over others? What experiences and outcomes will your audience associate with your brand? 

7. Financial planning  

In this section, you will explore your business’s financial future. If you are writing a traditional business plan to seek funding, this section is critical for demonstrating to lenders or investors that you have a strategy for turning your business ideas into profit. For a lean start-up business plan, this section can provide a useful exercise for planning how you will invest resources and generate revenue [ 2 ].  

Use any past financials and other sections of this business plan, such as your price points or sales strategies, to begin your financial planning. 

How many individual products or service packages do you plan to sell over a specific time period?

List your business expenses, such as subscribing to software or other services, hiring contractors or employees, purchasing physical supplies or equipment, etc.

What is your break-even point, or the amount you have to sell to cover all expenses?

Create a sales forecast for the next three to five years: (No. of units to sell X price for each unit) – (cost per unit X No. of units) = sales forecast.

Quantify how much capital you have on hand.

When writing a traditional business plan to secure funding, you may choose to append supporting documents, such as licenses, permits, patents, letters of reference, resumes, product blueprints, brand guidelines, the industry awards you’ve received, and media mentions and appearances.

Business plan key takeaways and best practices

Remember: Creating a business plan is crucial when starting a business. You can use this document to guide your decisions and actions and even seek funding from lenders and investors. 

Keep these best practices in mind:

Your business plan should evolve as your business grows. Return to it periodically, such as every quarter or year, to update individual sections or explore new directions your business can take.

Ensure everyone on your team has a copy of the business plan, and welcome their input as they perform their roles. 

Ask fellow entrepreneurs for feedback on your business plan and look for opportunities to strengthen it, from conducting more market and competitor research to implementing new strategies for success. 

Start your business with Coursera 

Ready to start your business? Watch this video on the lean approach from the Entrepreneurship Specialization :

Article sources

BDC. “ Step 2—Prepare a winning business plan , https://www.bdc.ca/en/articles-tools/start-buy-business/start-business/create-effective-business-plan." Accessed November 13, 2022.

CBDC. " NEW fillable CBDC Business Plan ,   https://www.cbdc.ca/en/new-fillable-cbdc-business-plan." Accessed November 13, 2022.

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This content has been made available for informational purposes only. Learners are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that courses and other credentials pursued meet their personal, professional, and financial goals.

WGN-TV Chicago

Mayor Johnson announces $1.25B plan for affordable housing, other development projects

C HICAGO – Mayor Brandon Johnson formally introduced a proposal during a City Council meeting Wednesday, which he said aims to further invest in neighborhoods across the city through affordable housing and economic development projects.

Johnson’s administration laid out its plan to borrow $1.25 billion to fund projects for housing, business, innovation and job growth, and cultural and community assets.

According to a presentation that laid out the Housing and Economic Development Bond, over a five-year span, $625 million will go toward community development grants, investing in small businesses, and into creating more jobs. The other half, also over a five-year span, will go toward affordable housing investments, including rental housing, homeownership, and addressing homelessness.

“We are going to invest. It is going to be incremental,” said Johnson. “These are funds that our area residents and community deserve. I made a promise and I’m going to keep it.”

The plan would also move the city away from how it typically funds development projects – through the use of tax increment financing districts – or TIFS – to pay off debt. Instead, it will use the money from expiring TIFS to pay off the debt from this bond over time.

Another major development came out of City Hall Wednesday, when an ordinance that faced weekslong delays, was approved in a 42-7 vote.

Nearly 150 dollar stores across the city will face new restrictions under the so-called “Small-Box Retailer” ordinance — a measure met with pushback by some in the community and on City Council.

19 th Ward Alderman Matt O’Shea said the way stores are maintained differs across the city, with far more issues in areas of lower income.

The ordinance puts in place several restrictions. It will require dollar stores to place a placard on the outside of their building so that residents in the community can call to report any problems or concerns. It also imposes a rule that no new dollar store can open within a mile of another owned by the same company.

According to O’Shea, over a six-year span, dollar stores across the city racked up more than 3,300 code violations and more than $600,000 in fines.

“Those violations include, but were not limited to, the sale of baby formula that was six months past its expiration date, medicine more than a year past its expiration date. Those stores have also been charged with overtaxing and overcharging their customers,” O’Shea said.

Even still, many fines and violations later, O’Shea said the issues haven’t been resolved.

“Drive past any one of those 149 stores today and you’ll likely see overflowing dumpsters, broken fences, broken exterior lights,” said O’Shea.

He said he believes the issues at hand are adding to an already great task of combatting food deserts in lower-income areas.

20 th Ward Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor said not only has she witnessed problems with these stores, but her own daughters have also had firsthand experience.

She told councilmembers one daughter was asked to bring her gun, which she has a concealed carry license for, to work for protection. Meanwhile, her other daughter, she said, was robbed at gunpoint

“Imagine what it was like to get a call that my daughter was in the back with her carry conceal while my other daughter was at the front getting robbed,” Taylor said. “Our community needs this store, but not to the point where we are compromising who we are and accepting less.”

Taylor also said a man was shot and killed at a dollar store near her house, but no support was given to staff there. She supported O’Shea in his push to get a vote on the ordinance rather than dealing with yet another delay.

“This incident had nothing to do with the store, so tell me how I’m supposed to give you another month. My daughter probably wouldn’t have had another month,” Taylor said.

38 th Ward Alderman Nick Sposato showed his support for the ordinance, however, he said he did get results when he spoke with the representatives from the dollar store in his ward and encouraged others to do the same. Some said, they have tried, and failed to get answers and results.

Several organizations, including the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, shared a joint statement with WGN News on the Small Box Retailer Ordinance.

“Today, the City of Chicago wrote another chapter in its ongoing narrative of hostility to retailers, passing a misguided proposal that will address a problem in one ward while depriving residents of many other wards convenient access to affordable necessities. This sets a dangerous precedent for future job growth in Chicago. This was all avoidable and will severely limit opportunities for new economic development in communities where those investments are needed most.”

At the City Council meeting Wednesday, several staff appointments were confirmed, including Lissette Castañeda as the Department of Housing commissioner.

“I’m excited about this appointment, I’m excited about all the work and the relationships that you are going to be able to bring to this great city, but more importantly, make sure housing is a right in the third largest city in the country, and not a privilege,” said 25 th Ward Alderwoman Jessica Fuentes.

Councilmembers also confirmed Alfonzo “Randy” Conner Jr. as commissioner of the Department of Water Management, a move met with great praise and support by alders.

“I think we need more folks like you, particularly given the challenges that our city is facing. I know you have no small task ahead of you, but I know you’re ready for it,” said 22 nd Ward Alderman Mike Rodriguez.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV.

Mayor Johnson announces $1.25B plan for affordable housing, other development projects

Business Journal Daily | The Youngstown Publishing Company

business development growth plan

Dearing Puts in Motion Long-term Plan

By Becky Wall CEO, Dearing Compressor & Pump Co.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – As Dearing Compressor & Pump Company has evolved over the years, the company vision to operate as a family enterprise rooted and connected to the community has remained constant.

In 2023, the Dearing team worked hard to deliver positive financial results in a business climate complicated by labor and materials shortages, rising interest rates and high inflation. We are proud to report we came out on top. After being trampled from the post-pandemic world, we were sold to capacity for the first time since 2019.

The long-term plan for the next wave of business was put in motion and the company made major investments in technology, manufacturing equipment, vehicles for our field service business and, most important, our workforce.

NetSuite ERP, a cloud-based business management solution, was implemented to operate more effectively by automating core processes and providing real-time visibility into operational and financial performance.

The new oil and gas equipment sold in the last decade in the Marcellus and Utica shales is aging and requires comprehensive maintenance. To support this expanding aftermarket, a mechanics service crane truck was purchased.

After the multiyear supply chain issue that plagued the automotive industry, inventory started to improve in 2023 and we were able to obtain vehicles for our field service fleet. 

Going forward, there are immediate plans to expand our footprint at the Boardman campus by replacing third-party services with a dedicated in-house team to better meet the needs of our clients in terms of quality and reliability.

We are living in turbulent times in 2024.  Dearing will continue our recovery and growth by staying focused on advancing technologies, attracting talent, retaining great workers and increasing safety and sustainability.

Pictured at top: Employees gave $10,000 Jan. 10 to Youngstown Blue Coats, a nonprofit that helps the homeless. The money was raised from a raffle at the company’s holiday party.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.

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CTW Keeps Expanding Westford Community

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Moran Family Expands with Gutter Division

BOARDMAN, Ohio – Window World and the Moran family continued to increase their seven-location footprint in 2023, with 2024 looking to be another record year with the launch of a new product offering – gutter systems. “We’ve always done gutters…

business development growth plan

The Paradise That Wasn’t; Pause at Eastern Gateway

From The Business Journal’s Growth Report 2 issue, Dan O’Brien, managing editor, journeyed back to the mid-19th century to explore a little-known story of the Mahoning Valley – the Trumbull Phalanx Corporation, a communal experiment established in 1844 in northwestern…

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GrowthSpotter

Real Estate | Richland Communities preps next phase of…

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Real Estate

Real estate | richland communities preps next phase of sugarloaf mountain in minneola.

After selling the two sections of Sugarloaf Mountain on both sides of Del Webb at Minneola Hills, now Richland Communities has begun platting two new subdivisions outlined in blue, which are north of the retirement community. (Master plan by Heidt Design)

After selling the first two residential pods in the Sugarloaf Mountain PUD to Lennar last year, Richland Communities has begun prepping for the next phase of the Minneola master-planned community.

Lennar paid a whopping $77.2 million in June 2023 for two pods with approved preliminary plats for 812 residential lots. It was a record-breaking price for land that had only cleared its first permitting hurdle. The deal encompassed homesites in Pods 7 and 8, which abut the Del Webb Minneola community to the east and west.

Pod 7 is dubbed Lookout Ridge and the preliminary plat allows 325 front-loaded homes on a mix of lot sizes, 45-, 55- and 65-foot lots. Lennar has filed a final subdivision plan for Pod 8, dubbed Sugarloaf Ridge, which will have 487 lots with the same mix of lot sizes. This section is divided into the three development phases and includes the extension of N. Hancock Road to Sugarloaf Mountain Road.

Sugarloaf Ridge is divided into three development phases, with phase 1 colored blue, and includes the extension of Hancock Road north from the Del Webb community to Sugarloaf Mountain Road. (Appian Engineering)

That’s where the next phase picks up in Parcel B, which includes 165 existing lots branching off from Mountain Club Drive that were developed but never sold. Richland is working with engineering firm Poulos & Bennett on the preliminary plats for two new subdivisions on both sides on Mountain Club Drive, west of the Hancock Road extension, which eventually intersects with C.R. 455. Both subdivisions use open space and buffers to provide separation between the existing, estate-sized lots and the new development.

Pine Ridge at Sugarloaf Mountain would rise just north of Del Web Minneola and would contain 178 single family home lots. Pine Ridge includes a total of 15.87 acres of open space, including a neighborhood park, storm water ponds and a water treatment plant on Sugarloaf Mountain Road.

Just across Mountain Club Drive, Whispering Winds at Sugarloaf Mountain would rise on 54.7 acres and would contain 206 homesites. This subdivision would have 12.28 acres of open space and also would have a neighborhood park near the entrance.

Preliminary plats were submitted in Dec. and revised Feb. 7 for two new subdivisions in Sugarloaf Mountain PUD. Both are located west of Hancock Road and north of the Del Webb at Minneola Hills retirement community. (Poulos & Bennett)

Both neighborhoods have one intersection with N. Hancock Road and a second access from Mountain Club Drive.

Richland Vice President Matt Young told GrowthSpotter the end users will determine which amenities to offer. “Amenity pads are located within each pod community o whether we have one purchaser or multiple, they will have the opportunity to create their own unique space for residents.”

Richland acquired the 1,420-acre Sugarloaf Mountain project in 2015 and then won approval for a Planned Unit Development (PUD) that divides the community into three phases, with construction starting from the south and working its way north. The development program allows 2,434 homes and 120,000 square feet of commercial uses. It also requires the owner to reserve at least 15 acres for a future school site and provide land for a future fire station, or build a fire station in exchange for impact fee credits.

The Sugarloaf Mountain PUD allows for 985 homes in Phase 2. With the existing and proposed lots, the PUD still has entitlements available for 424 homes on the property east of Hancock.

Young said Richland anticipates an uptick in builder interest for the existing large lots once the roads are completed and the new development fills in around them. The Hancock Road extension is a major component of the vision.

“Hancock Road was designed in a single phase which has been approved by the County,” Young said. “We anticipate breaking ground on this extension, north of where Del Webb terminates, to 455 in the near term.”

The northernmost last phase is entitled for 755 homes, which includes 125 multifamily units  — the only multifamily units in the community. The commercial center, school and fire station are also slated for development in phase 3.

Richland filed the preliminary plats in December 2023, while the company was awaiting final approval for another mixed-use development development called Minneola Ridge . The Minneola City Council approved the development agreement in January after Richland reduced the residential density in the project by 32% from the initial concept plan and drastically reduced the size of a planned business park.

The concept plan for Minneola Ridge designates specific area for single family homes (198 acres), townhomes (30 acres), multifamily housing (58 acres) and a commerce park (113 acres). The bubble plan also reserves 20 acres for a future park around Teardrop Lake and another 19.5 acre nature preserve.(Conceptual plan by RVi Planning + Landscape Architecture)

The revised plan reduced the number of single-family detached lots from 1,188 to 693, going from 6 homes per acre density to 3.5 homes per acre. The proposed number of townhomes was reduced slightly, from 238 to 224 units, and all are located on a 30-acre parcel next to the Hills of Minneola’s Del Webb community. The number of multifamily units dropped  from1,163 to 841 units.

The plan sets aside 113 acres for a future commerce park, but Richland reduced the maximum square footage of the park by 75% to 1.23 million square feet. Young said the intent is to create employment opportunities within Minneola Ridge, and that the park would not be a logistics center. There won’t be any cross-dock warehouses like those found in the Christopher C. Ford Commerce Park in Groveland. Young said the topography is too hilly for that size of warehouse.

“We are excited about the opportunity to work with the City on this successful re-envisioning of Minneola Ridge and are in the early stages of site engineering,” Young said. He said construction could start in 2025.

No decision has been made yet regarding whether the single family, multifamily or commercial would be developed first. “That’s going to be a market-driven decision,” Young said.

Richland tapped the same team of consultants for both Minneola projects. They include RVi Planning + Landscape Architecture, Appian Engineering & Poulos and Bennett, Traffic Mobility Consultants, Bio-Tech Consulting and Andreyev Engineering.

Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at  [email protected] or (407) 420-6261. Follow GrowthSpotter on  Facebook and  LinkedIn .

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  2. What is Business Development

  3. Personal Growth And Business Development

  4. FHS 2023

  5. How infrastructure development leading to economic growth of that region?

  6. How we measure The Good Growth Plan

COMMENTS

  1. Business Development Plan

    A business development plan sets goals for growth and explains how you will achieve them. It can have a short-term or long-term focus, and it should be clear, specific and realistic. Learn what to include in a business development plan, such as opportunities, funding, financial goals, operational needs, sales and marketing activities, and team needs. See a sample plan and avoid common mistakes.

  2. How to Develop a Strategic Plan for Business Development [Free Template]

    Published: May 01, 2023 Business development is usually confused with sales, often overlooked, and only sometimes given the strategic focus it deserves. Having a business development strategy, however, is crucial to long-term success. It ensures that everyone in your company is working toward a common goal.

  3. Company Growth Strategy: 7 Key Steps for Business Growth & Expansion

    Published: April 17, 2023 A concrete growth strategy is more than a marketing strategy, it's a crucial cog in your business machine. Without one, you're at the mercy of a fickle consumer base and market fluctuations. So, how do you plan to grow? If you're unsure about the steps needed to craft an effective growth strategy, we've got you covered.

  4. A Game-Changing Business Development Strategy to Achieve Consistent Growth

    Business development (BD) is the process that is used to identify, nurture and acquire new clients and business opportunities to drive growth and profitability. A business development strategy is a document that describes the strategy you will use to accomplish that goal.

  5. How to Write a Business Growth Plan

    1. Think ahead. The future is always unpredictable. However, if you study your target market, your competition and your company's past growth, you can plan for future expansion. The Small Business Administration (SBA) features a comprehensive guide to writing a business plan for growth. 2. Study other growth plans.

  6. The Ultimate Guide to Business Development and How It Can Help Your

    BDR Responsibilities Business Development Ideas Business Development Process Business Development Plan Business Development Business development is the process of implementing strategies and opportunities across your organization to promote growth and boost revenue.

  7. Business development plan: A step-by-step approach

    The business development plan is a key document that helps you map your ecosystem and strategize your business development efforts. It consists of a research part and an action part. In the first part, you analyze your market, competitors, and customers. In the second, you use your insights to build value propositions, content plans, and ...

  8. How to Create a Business Growth Plan for 2022

    Similar to a business plan, a growth plan is a one to two-year roadmap that describes your overall growth goals, benchmarks, and how you'll measure your success. Within your growth plan, you'll outline your growth strategy, which is the method you'll use to reach your goals.

  9. How to Write a Business Development Plan: A Step By Step Guide

    A business development plan is a document put together by the business owner with the aim to grow and improve their business. The plan will set goals for growth and explain how you will achieve them. A business development strategy can have a short-term or long-term focus, or both.

  10. How to Write a Business Development Plan (2022)

    Business Development Strategies. Business development (BD) is a broad practice of identifying and converting new clients or customers to drive growth. The strategies in your business development plan might include sales, marketing, and several other types of initiatives. Your BD plan could include any of the following common strategies: 1 ...

  11. 16 Best Tips For Crafting A Successful Growth Strategy Plan

    Jun 21, 2021,08:10am EDT Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Getty getty Growing a business that will last for the long term requires recognizing that growth fluctuates....

  12. Growth Plan: What is it & How to Create One? (Steps Included)

    A growth plan is a strategic plan about how every aspect of your business will walk towards attaining the business goals. With a growth plan in hand, you'll know exactly what to do, how, and when to do it. Even though a growth plan sounds like the marketing tactics you'd implement to grow your business, it's a lot more than that.

  13. Free Business Development Plan Template To Meet Targets

    A business development plan comes into play during the growth stage of your business. By specifying your targets and plans of action, the business development plan becomes a roadmap for achieving growth and success. To ensure you have a strong plan, consider including the elements summarized below. Financial goals

  14. What is business development? Strategy, plan, and skills

    Business development definition and variations. Business development (BD) is a strategy used to find new prospects and nurture them to help drive business growth. According to Forbes, business development is "the creation of long-term value for an organization from customers, markets, and relationships.". That's a simplified definition ...

  15. Your Guide to Creating a Strategic Business Development Plan

    A strategic business development plan allows you to identify markets and products with high-profit potential, enabling you to prioritize partnerships and make informed decisions. It also helps you reduce expenses, uncover untapped growth opportunities, and allocate resources efficiently.

  16. Business Development: How to Set Goals that Drive Growth

    Increase the value of a client. Increase the frequency of purchase. How your professional service organisation decides to accomplish one or more of these growth opportunities defines its business development strategy.

  17. 7 Growth Plan Templates to Build a Growth Strategy

    A growth plan template is a preformatted document that guides businesses in outlining objectives, strategies, and actions aimed at business growth. Think of it like a strategic plan or framework for focusing on different growth elements, such as market expansion, product development, and financial projections.

  18. Business Development: Definition, Strategies, Steps & Skills

    As the financial services giant American Express puts it, "When it comes to organizational growth, business development acts as the thread that ties together all of a company's functions or...

  19. What Is Business Growth? (Definition, Strategies and Steps)

    Updated May 26, 2023 Developing a business growth plan can help you identify and implement strategies to boost revenue, expand your customer base or create new products. Knowing what a business growth plan is and the best practices for creating one can help you successfully grow a company.

  20. How to Create the Right Business Development Plan

    In short, a business development plan is your company's GPS, guiding you toward growth and success. By creating a comprehensive and actionable plan, you can ensure that your business is always moving forward, ready to seize new opportunities and overcome challenges along the way. Key Components of a Business Development Plan

  21. 9 steps for writing a strategic business development plan

    Achieve growth A proper business development plan should include a roadmap. This is your high-level strategy document that serves as the map to your company's growth. It lays out how you'll measure success, provides targets to aim for and defines your plans for hitting them. How to write a business development plan

  22. Business Development Plan Template

    A business development plan is a roadmap that outlines how your business will grow over time. It includes objectives, strategies, tactics, KPIs, timelines, responsibilities, budgets, and status. This template allows you to plan and track your business development activities in a structured and organized manner.

  23. 15 Business Development Tips To Impact Company Growth

    Joint team meetings and idea sessions can fuel business development plans and help create initiatives that lead to long-term growth. 11. Keep expectations realistic. Successful business development often comes from years of purposeful initiatives and growth plans.

  24. Business Plan: What It Is + How to Write One

    The traditional business plan is a long document that explores each component in depth. You can build a traditional business plan to secure funding from lenders or investors. The lean start-up business plan focuses on the key elements of a business's development and is shorter than the traditional format.

  25. Mayor Johnson announces $1.25B plan for affordable housing, other ...

    Johnson's administration laid out its plan to borrow $1.25 billion to fund projects for housing, business, innovation and job growth, and cultural and community assets.

  26. Dearing Puts in Motion Long-term Plan

    The long-term plan for the next wave of business was put in motion and the company made major investments in technology, manufacturing equipment, vehicles for our field service business and, most important, our workforce. ... CANFIELD, Ohio - CTW Development Corp., Canfield, expects 2024 to bustle with new construction projects, hotel stays ...

  27. Downtown Cary growth fuels plan for 300-space parking deck

    Gussenhoven declined to disclose the development cost. Construction will take about 12 months with demolition starting in March, according to Gussenhoven. Two single-story commercial buildings are ...

  28. Richland Communities preps next phase of Sugarloaf Mountain in Minneola

    The Minneola City Council approved the development agreement in January after Richland reduced the residential density in the project by 32% from the initial concept plan and drastically reduced the size of a planned business park. The concept plan for Minneola Ridge designates specific area for single family homes (198 acres), townhomes (30 ...