Advanced Business Development

FREE Business Development videos
FREE Doctors' Libraries & Interviews

I have developed a 2½ day training workshop to cover the highlights of business development.

The short video clip on this website is a brief introduction to the 2½ day training workshop.
The video is broken into three segments. Click on the links to the right to view each of them.

Video Part 1
Video Part 2
Video Part 3

The subject of business development encompasses many important subjects with each requiring extensive education, training, and experience.

Business Development has become an expertise of its own with few individuals being professional in it.

This is similar to what has happened with the medical profession where specialists are now required in so many important areas.

To cover just the highlights of business development takes about 2 ½ days under the best training situation and with senior level management people participating in the workshop with senior level knowledge and experience.

The key to affectively train on business development within a 2 ½ day program is to restrict participants to those at mid to senior level business positions with appropriate business skills, experience, training and education.

Keeping in mind that business development expertise requires 4 to 8 years of education and training along with extensive experience and great mentor-ships; a 2 ½ day training workshop is quite aggressive and challenging. It is certainly advanced level training.

There are about 20 - 24 key elements in business development with each subject worthy of several months of extensive training and education.

Universities, colleges, and special training services attempt to fill this need.

The workshop starts out discussing the normal information about breaks, ending/start times, food, refreshments, keep cell phones turned off, breaking into teams, the process of learning, etc.

We go on to have all participants introduce themselves, their job position with responsibilities, company/business that they work for, and what they are hoping to learn from the workshop and why is it important.

The participants' comments about what they want to learn are written on some large pieces of paper and taped to the wall for reviewing at end of the training workshop.

We discuss the training workshop in detail along with their active participation in it and how all of this is used as a training method for how to train affectively and how to develop affective training programs.

Lesson #1

How to train affectively and how to develop an affective training program incorporating fundamental adult learning is an important component of business development.

The workshop continues with posing 8 questions to the entire group and participants.

What is business development?
Who should be trained in business development?
What markets and services is business development important to?
What types of things, tasks, or activities go into business development?
What skills and experience is needed to be an affective business development leader?
What happens if the person who is responsible for business development does not have these skills and experience?
What things can hinder and prevent business development and business growth?
What happens to organizations and companies that are not growing and lack business development?

All comments and inputs to these questions are written down on large pieces of paper and posted on the walls.

After reviewing the comments and inputs of the 8 questions, the training workshop proceeds to explore the details further.

This is accomplished by breaking into smaller teams several times throughout the rest of the workshop program where each team is assigned specific subjects to discuss. After about 20 - 30 minutes, each team presents to the main group what they discussed, uncovered and discovered.

When individual teams are presenting their information, the entire group is led into major discussions with personal experiences of all participants and case studies being used to illustrate each subject and each fine point.

We learn mostly by graphics, pictures, association such as stories in addition to uncovering and discovering information rather than one-sided lecture.

This training workshop is based on these fundamentals.

The following information summarizes typical comments and inputs to the first 8 questions posed.

WHAT IS BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT?

Acquisitions & mergers
Better market communication pieces & better literature
Communicating better with customers & potential customers
Communicating with the market better
Creative merchandising
Creativity
Cultures and the influences on business
(within the USA & internationally)
Customers knowing more about your services & products
Doing more business with current customers
Expanding business geographically, nationally& internationally
Expanding business with referrals from current customers
Expanding distribution network
Expanding international or globally
Expanding number of customers
Expanding strategic alliances
Expanding to new geographic area
Expanding to new markets
Finding possible funding sources for business expansion
Finding, hiring and retaining skilled sales, marketing & customer service staff
Getting all people in the organization contributing to business development
Increasing market share
Increasing profits
Increasing sales
Kitting or repackaging of products and services
More brand recognition
"Out of The Box Thinking"
Penetrating markets
Product & Services development or enhancement
Quality improvement of all types
Up-selling & Cross-selling
Value added selling & marketing

WHO SHOULD BE TRAINED IN BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT?

Account managers
All department managers (accounting, finance, shipping, production, logistics, engineering, research & development, and all others)
All department managers should be active members of a business development team contributing to company business development efforts and find creative ways that there own department can contribute to business development as well
All staff that has any contact with customers!
Business consultants
Business students especially master level and up
Customer service managers & staff
Human resource/personnel managers & staff
Marketing managers & staff
Owner of a business
President & CEO
Sales managers & staff
Teachers & trainers of customer service/sales/marketing
Training staff

WHAT MARKETS, INDUSTRIES & SERVICES IS BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT IMPORTANT TO?

Agriculture
Airlines
Auto dealers
Biomedical
Chemical
Commercial
Computers & software companies & services of all types
Education
Electrical
Electronic
Equipment manufactures and resellers
Events of all types
Food stores
High tech
Home Builders & remodeling
Industrial
Low tech
Manufacturing companies of all types
Medical
Medical products
Medical such as clinics, hospitals, various medical doctors offices
Movie stars
Movie theaters
Museums
Pharmaceutical
Printing services
Professional people such as dentists, doctors, lawyers, realtors
Restaurants
Retail of all types
Services such as dry cleaners, landscapers, plumbers, electricians, etc.
Sport celebrities
Sporting events
Transportation of all types
And More!

ALL BUSINESSES!
ALL EVENTS!
ALL INDUSTRIES!
ALL MANUFACTURING!
ALL MARKETS!
ALL PROFESSIONS!
ALL SERVICES!
ALL SIZES OF BUSINESSES - SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE!

WHAT TYPES OF THINGS, TASKS OR ACTIVITIES GO INTO BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT?

"Outside of the Box Thinking"
Account management
Account relations
Account penetration
Account strategy
Accounts expansion
Acquisitions & mergers
Advertising
All contact with customers
Articles published
Bench marking & knowing your competition
Bring the best out of others & get their cooperation
Capturing knowledge and utilizing it
Creating incentive programs for all employees, not just for sales staff
Creative problem solving
Creative programs
Creative thinking
Customer loyalty
Customer referral programs
Customer relations
Customer satisfaction
Customer service
Database management
Database marketing
Direct marketing
Distribution relations
Ease of doing business
Enrich a company or organization culture ("change master")
Expanding distribution network
Finding, hiring and retaining skilled staff
Funding sources for expansion
Global & international business
Horizontal & vertical marketing
Horizontal & vertical selling
Image & brand recognition
Inbound and outbound customer service/sales & follow-up
Incentive programs for all employees
Influencing others
Inside sales
Integrated marketing
Internal staff relations & taking care of employees
International/global business and culture influences
Interpersonal dynamics
Investigative & creatively searching out
Knowledge of acquisitions & mergers
Leadership qualities
Literature & all communication pieces
Literature development
Looking for more business from customers
Looking for new customers
Looking for new markets
Manage and develop sales & marketing channels
Marketing & marketing management
Marketing Communications
Merchandising
Motivator
Negotiations
Networking
Organized
Outside sales
POS / point of sales materials enhancement
Pricing
Problem solving
Product & services development and enhancements
Project oriented
Promotions of all types & keeping fresh
Quality & market perception of services & product
Quality improvement of all types
Referral programs
Reputation with customers & market
Sales & sales management
Sales/marketing/business development strategies and plans
Searching out continual improvement in all ways
(departments, functions, products, services)
See the future and plan for it
Seek out alternative solutions & approaches
Seek out wastes and use savings to fund business development efforts
Self-driven & self motivated
Simplify
Special discounts & promotions
Staying ahead of competition
Strategic alliances
Strategy development & implementation
Team approach
Team building
Team oriented
Telemarketing
The psychology of marketing and selling
Trade shows
Training & coaching + continual training
Understand others
Understanding of what makes others tick & what motivates
Value added selling & marketing

WHAT SKILLS & EXPERIENCE ARE NEEDED TO BE AN EFFECTIVE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT LEADER?

All of the above!

WHAT HAPPENS IF THE PERSON WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, DOES NOT HAVE THESE SKILLS and EXPERIENCE?

Employee morale & confidence is low
Lack of effective programs
Moneys get wasted
Profits do not increase enough to support better employee benefits &
better wages
Profits do not increase enough to support the cost of improvements that are needed
Programs fail
Sales do not grow
Skilled staff leave & other skilled staff out in the market place not
interested in working for the organization
Staff does not participate in efforts
AND A LOT MORE

BASICALLY, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS FAIL
WHAT THINGS CAN HINDER AND PREVENT BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & BUSINESS GROWTH?

"Peter Principle" which is people having a tendency to advance up until reaching a level of incompetence and proceed to create business problems
"Rule of 10" which is the phenomena of management level staff hiring staff well below their own level to protect their self-ego & position
A few staff being 'Nay Sayers" and being negative that then hinders improvement. Kind of like the old saying of, "A few bad apples in a barrel can spoil all of the apples"
Business development leader lacks power and authority
Company culture
Company culture not conducive to improvements
Company or organization resistant to change and advancement
Competitors well ahead of them
Excessive wastes of all types
High staff turnover rate
Incentive programs that actually are counter productive to business development and actually can prevent business growth
Lack of adequate incentive programs for all staff contributing
Lack of continual improvement culture
Lack of continual training
Lack of financial support
Lack of an effective incentive program that supports the business
development program & efforts
Lack of leadership leading by example
Lack of new products and services
Lack of staff
Lack of staff skill levels
Lack of staff that is willing to work as a team
Lack of strong leadership
Lack of support from leadership
Lack of team effort
Nepotism where family members to the ownership can hinder business development and improvements
Organization has bad reputation
Poor customer & market relations
Poor service or product quality
Poor skill levels at management levels
Products & services are at end of life cycle with low market demand
Staff is stuck in ruts with old ineffective behavior/habits
Staff that unconsciously or consciously do things to sabotage and hinder all efforts because they did not get a promotion or got over looked for a position that they wanted
Staff that hinders because of their own private agenda
The person responsible for business development does not have the
skills and experience
AND A LOT MORE

WHAT HAPPENS TO ORGANIZATIONS AND COMPANIES THAT ARE NOT GROWING & LACK BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT?

Competition is not interested in buying the organization even
Competition may offer a low amount of money to buy them out
Competition takes more of their business
Nothing is driving new products and services that are needed
Operations capabilities decrease to such low levels that they cannot stay in business and there are not enough profits or funding to improve them sufficiently
Profits decrease
Profits get so low that employee wages cannot be afforded so there are employee lay offs and wage levels are so low that well skilled people will not work for the organization
Sales decrease
Skilled staff will not work with such organizations
Staff turnover increases
The organization may "go out of business"
The organization's reputation becomes bad
The owner may close the business and retire
Value of company decreases

Basically, such organizations are in a spiral spin down until they eventually go out of business.

If you are interested in obtaining this workshop for your business or company, just send me a note from my contact page.

Ask the Business Doctor^TM
8621 South Erie Avenue ~ Tulsa, Oklahoma 74137