A business development executive is a senior manager tasked with the job of helping his or her business grow and therefore, they are high-level sales professionals.
Their priority is to assist their companies acquire new customers and sell additional products or services to existing ones; this means the role is a crucial one for any business with the ambition to expand or the necessity to diversify its clientele. It also means that effective business development managers are in high demand in nearly every job sector there is, including business-to-business, business-to-customer, and even non-profit organisations.
A business development professional has three primary responsibilities:
When it comes to generating leads, day-to-day duties typically include:
When it comes to the challenge of actually selling, other typical duties include:
To keep healthy relationships with clients, this mostly requires socialisation. So from simple chats on the phone to lunches and events or conferences business development managers must be sure to keep their customers happy. Of course, as with all office jobs, documentation is also a big part of the work. Business development professionals are also obligated to write reports and provide feedback to upper management about what is and is not working.
To be an effective business development executive, an individual must be:
The skills you need to excel in this position include: