Top 10 reasons to propel your business with a business development specialist

A major challenge in business development is that the majority of the value-creation activities in an organiza-tion seem to be hidden and thus not fully recognized or valued by management or stakeholders. Business Development Professionals play a key role in the growth of your business.

-DL Harris From Success, Happiness, & Cashflow: 8 Secrets to Strategic Growth & Profitability

“the world is changing much faster than most businesses and organizations can adapt…”

-Robert Kiyosaki Author Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Cashflow Quadrant

85% of executives see complexity, in one form or the other, as the main barrier to seizing business opportunities and being successful in an ever changing world. From Harvard Business Review IdealCast interview with Chris Zook from Bain & Company 2012

“Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.”

-Andrew Grove Chairman and former CEO at Intel Corporation

Understanding and applying the right analytics & growth strategies are not only essential to an organization’s health, but also for developing new solutions that enable growth and economies of scale in a rapidly changing, unpredictable and connected business ecosystem.

“We need to increase our new sales by 12% in order to remain on par with our growth plan.”

-General Manager, Manufacturing Company This Manufacturing firm was planning major expansion and thought they needed to increase sales more rapidly. We helped the management team with an overall business evaluation and what they initially thought to be a cashflow problem simply came down to reorganizing their re-sources and refocusing on eliminating hidden waste. The result was a reduction in costs by 3.2% which was the equivalent of a 9.3% increase in new sales.

Most managers & owners are not trained well-enough to distinguish the difference between a business symptom and a business problem.

“I want an employee productivity plan my team can own and drive”

-Business Owner, Retail Chain Stores The Owner and her management team of a fast-growing chain had ambitions of one day taking their company public. They asked us to do a employee productivity audit and design an effective perform-ance plan. We found that productivity levels to be sub-par and provided a program that increased productivity by 27%.

Unhappy people are unproductive people. Statistics indicate 3 out of 4 people define their work as stressful* and often think about jumping ship.

*Survey Source: http://meettheboss.tv/article/14/Work-Related-Stress-Statistics

Benchmarking is the process of comparing business proc-esses and business metrics against industry standards. It also determines how it is measured and who sets it. Business Development Professionals can play a critical role in developing your benchmarking dashboards and controllers.

“It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.”

- Jim Rohn

To improve profitability & growth opportunities, organizations will need to periodically evaluate, analyze competition and realign their workflow processes, organizational resources and growth strategies based on key principles of strategic growth & business development.

Over 1200 industry & business types hire BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PROFESSIONALS to compete.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of one hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy, for every vic-tory gained, you will suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy, nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

- Sun Tzu, Art of War

Business Development Professionals can help you build great market position by locating, developing, defining, negotiating and closing business relationships.

As a leader of your organization, you need a solid understanding of your market and up-to-date economic conditions. Business Development Professionals provide you with an arsenal tools required to plan for growth and success.

“We’ve built a great little company and now we want to exploit its full potential”

-Business Owner, Transportation Services The CEO of this small transportation firm was looking for way to take his small fleet operation to the next level. The capability of his management team and support staff was seriously being questioned by potential investors. We implemented a process to engage his staff to discover what were the root causes of their questionability as perceived by the investment firm. We were also asked to design and set up a strategic growth plan. Through a three-month training program, we strengthened the capability of the staff and restored enough credibility to the team that the company was able to receive funding. And upon funding, we launched a 3-year strategic growth plan. That implementation led to the relationship with a new Fortune 500 client and two new sales revenue channels.

execution, execution, execution

Business Development Professionals are the driving force in the development of the work ethic, culture and values of the sales and business development group. Through personal examples, they establish the style and approach which will char-acterize an Organization’s dealings with the marketplace.

Experienced Professional 25+ years

Business Owner Business Manager Sales Professional Serial Entrepreneur VP of Business Development Senior Business Strategist

Exceptionally Valuable Savvy Business Developer Trained Gunslinger Sales Pro Trained Business Analyst Trained Financial Modeler Seasoned Operations Manager Corporate & SBE Trainer Author, Moderator & Speaker

Remarkable Results 68.3% close rate* 1200% sales growth* $100,000 consulting deals $225,000 construction deals $750,000 sports marketing deals $25 million in transport contracts $52 million municipal partner deal

Connect with DL Harris today!

********

[email protected] http://linkedin.com/in/dereklharris http://twitter.com/whatDLtweets

Written and Produced by: DL Harris Published by Zagg Media Publishing © Copy written 2012, Zagg Media Properties, LLC IMAGE SOURCES:

PAGE XX: (rocket factory) http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/education/rocket/gallery/saturn/saturn2.html

PAGE XX: (flight crew) http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11_40th.html

PAGE XX:(market position) http://www.indian-nse-bse-sharemarkettips.com/

PAGE XX: (chart course) http://ncfp.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/ncfp-help-chart-our-new-course/