A significant shift has taken place, impacting on how companies acquire new business that effects the knowledge and skills new business directors need to make it happen.
The following are insights from Michael Gass, a leading business development consultant, on the three things a new business director needs for success. His focus is on agencies but we think much of his thinking applies to all business:
1. Digital and Social Media Savvy
The role of the new business director is becoming more complex. People who have done this job well in the past are finding it difficult to find success in the current climate.
Book your free team marketing audit here.
Having a working knowledge of social media isn’t even an option any longer for a new business director. Social media is having a big impact on how you promote your business and how you are found online by your prospective client audiences.
Here are the ways social media is impacting new business:
- A paradigm shift for how new business is acquired. According to a recent CMO survey, 80% of decision makers say they found the vendor, not the other way around.
- SEO is now a critical part of new business strategy. According to Marketing Sherpa, 80-90% of business to business transactions begin with a search on the web.
- A business blog is a necessary component for marketing your company. As necessary as it was for a company to have a website, it is now as relevant for you to have a blog. It becomes the gateway to your business and puts a face to it.
- The growth of new media mandates business’ participation. Social media is now mainstream, your company’s credibility is suspect if it isn’t walking the walk, not just talking the talk.
2. Be Empowered to Lead New Business
There’s an old saying that cobbler’s children have no shoes. It refers to the fact that a busy cobbler will be so busy making shoes for his customers that he has no time to make some for his own children.
It’s time for businesses to give the cobbler’s children some new shoes!
How?
Empower your new business director. Give them the clout and resources to get what they need from the company as if they are the primary contact person for your most important client. Their projects are moved from the back-burner to the front-burner, even when the company is busy.
Instead of your company being treated as your worst client, make it your best client.
Allow your business development director to create and execute a new business plan. Be sure to provide them with the time, resources and realistic expectations for success.
3. Create a Narrower Niche and Appealing Position for Your Company
The foundation of a company’s new business programme is its positioning. Creating the right positioning is a lot like fishing. A successful fisherman fishes for a specific fish, with the right bait and knows where the fish are. They have developed the expertise to land the real trophy.
Book your free team marketing audit here.
Combining social media with your company’s niche can become an appealing and powerful positioning tool. Here is a good example:
- Holland + Holland advertising through the blog She-conomy: A guys guide to marketing to women, Stephanie Holland has become a thought leader in marketing to women. This positioning has built awareness and a strong appeal that has allowed her and Holland + Holland to work with major brands. Stephanie was recently asked to help develop a marketing campaign to reach women for Porsche.
Social media is allowing a growing number of small to midsize companies to solve the problem they’ve had in the past with differentiation. Business owners fear positioning because they assume that it lessens their new business opportunities.
A niche blog that lives apart from the company’s website, lessens their fear factor. It allows them to have a more clearly defined target audience and focus for new business which makes the New Business Director’s job much easier.
Got you thinking?
Source: Michael Gass – http://www.fuelingnewbusiness.com/about/
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with us.