11 Business Development Strategies (Tips for Startups)

11 Business Development Strategies (Tips for Startups)

Right Business development strategies are mainly responsible for success and growth of your business. But how? It is a confusing term as it covers a lot of things. So what exactly is business development and its strategies? Let’s find out.

Business development definition

Business development definition usually depends upon the nature and approach of your business. Generally, business development is known for the growth of your business. It means adding value to your business, enhancing partnerships, gripping market and finally building relationship with customers. Business development is a long term plan and strategic approach to build business and achieve the business goals.

Business development strategies: established businesses Vs startup

Established businesses have been doing business development since ever and they still do it to grasp more customers. While for startups business development is a long road. Business development is hard for startups, mostly because of inexperience and of course due to instability of startups. It is challenging for startups to develop their business particularly in initial stages.

But what if we tell you that even startups can do exceptional business development using these strategies, these are tried and tested tips business development for successful startups.

1. Fail-the other F word

Remember that opposite of success is not Failure, its learning or blessing in disguise. Real failure is if you didn’t not learn anything. Leaning that you fail is one thing, but distinguished it from what failed you, help you to learn much profound lesson of your life.
Take failure is a part of the learning curve, which can be added to your experience.
As known saying is “Good Judgment Comes with Experience, But Experience Comes from Bad Judgment”

2. Be a solution, not another problem

You should focus on answering needs of your customers. Tap their requirements and cater them. If you focus on becoming a competitor of already established businesses, make sure that your competitive edge is exceptional. Identify what customers aren’t getting from other companies and how you aim to provide that. It is best to come up with something more innovative. Something that isn’t already provided by other companies.

3. Don’t confuse business development with sales

The most common mistake that most startups make is confusing business development with sales. There’s definitely one aspect of business development which focuses on revenues but it is much more than sales. You can refer to the definition given above which clarifies the concept of business development.

4. Choose your team carefully

Choosing the right person at accurate time can save you from a lot of hassle. Human resource is asset to your business if chosen carefully. Sometimes your employees are better than you. Your idea can flourish with the right human resource. Your business development also requires exceptional team which has vision.

5. Reach up the audience

You’ll only be able to find out what customers exactly require when you interact with them. You have to go to your audience in order to find out their needs. Reaching out to customers is also important if you want to communicate what exactly you are providing them. Your customers would be confuse if you just give them the product to buy without explaining what the product is about. Thus reaching up to your audience is important in all cases.

6. Find allies

What can be better than friends in a new place? But make sure you make friends, not partners. When you let everyone be a part of your business, it is likely that the bad influence of any one might hurt your business image. Thus, find supporters who can say good luck. It also helps because you get a lot of things to learn from their mistakes.

7. Go for online marketing

This is the era of digital marketing. Promoting your startup has become much easier. You just need amazing products. Online marketing helps a lot in growth of your business. Almost every business today has online presence more or less. Online marketing helps to connect with customers without physically going to them. There’s a lot more to online marketing, you get to read your good and bad reviews, your pros and cons which ultimately help you reach your full potential.

8. Keep your senses open

Be it sight or hearing. You should use it all to get all the information about what’s happening in your industry. Sometimes only a small sale gets you blindsided and you lose your grip on the industry. You should always know what’s happening in your industry. When you know about the ups and downs of market, you will find the right opportunities to tap and also know when your business needs your extreme attention.

9. Give priority to your clients

It is extremely important. Your clients are your asset and when a startup generates an unhappy client, the news spread fast. Every successful business prioritizes its clients above everything else. Even if you mess up, your extreme customer service and care will make your clients come again to you. There are many examples when services and products failed to satisfy clients but customer service did satisfy clients. Be it client or customers, your target audience should be happy with you.

10. Be flexible

Being adaptive or flexible can take your business to a new level of success. It is thus extremely important that you don’t restrict yourself. When your clients know that you can go out of way for them, they keep coming back to you. It not only gives you happy clients but builds your client base. A lot of marketing strategies can be applied to use happiness of your clients to market your product or services. When clients are happy, they are more than happy to help you in promoting your business.

11. Tap right opportunities

It comes from focusing on your market, what’s happening, what should happen? How to turn these happenings in your favor? When market takes turns, a lot of opportunities arise for different businesses. There should be a framework to identify which opportunities are favorable to your business and how to tap them. When you have a framework which all of your team understands, any of your team member can alert you and even give you a fair idea of how to use such opportunity.