Business Development Essentials You Need to Consider
The global demand for big advisory firms is in decline. But what does that mean for your firm? With less access to business, your firm has to find alternative ways to gain more clients and increase its bottom line. And that’s where business development can help you.
Improving the process of how you do business is required for growth. You will either have to find more business among existing clients or gain new clients from other firms. In both cases, you need to improve the service offer and increase innovation, and here are the essentials you need to consider.
- Nurture lasting relationships
You might think change starts with technology but, in fact, it starts with your existing clients. A firm’s client retention rate is one of the most important metrics you need to follow to achieve growth. It’s the amount of money each client brings in at a weekly, quarterly or annual rate.
The best way to implement this strategy is by listening to your clients and looking for significant pain points, that you might be able to solve. It can lead you to create loyal fans from clients who will spend more because the offer you develop fits their needs.
Marketing expert, Kevin Kelly, says any business can make it in any market, all it takes is 1000 true fans. So, start with your existing clients and look for development opportunities to re-shape your business according to them.
- Know the industry
How well are competitor firms doing? What are they doing right? Is there something in their offer that’s different to the one you have? Answering all of these questions will help you better understand the market, and allow you to evaluate both the up and downsides to your business, as well as any gaps you can readily fill.
Once you conduct market research and find out precisely what other firms are offering, you can use it improve and develop new offers that will make you more competitive. Additionally, you can determine possible failings and fix your channels, proposals and the business process to keep up with client demands and see if it helps your efforts.
- Look at the big picture
In general, firms have a much too narrow focus point when dealing with business development. What many fail to realise is that business development is a holistic approach which relies on making adjustments inside and outside of the firm to increase efficiency and effectiveness across the board.
Internally, the firm should always invest in innovation that benefits performance, operations or resources. When it comes to production and services, one of the best ways is to incorporate automation in resource-consuming areas like administration, bookkeeping or managing record. It frees up time to invest in resources, such as providing training and development programs for employees.
Externally, the firm has to expand its collective knowledge about different markets. The investment mentioned above in staff specialisation helps with this since more understanding among individuals increases the capacities of the entire firm. It opens the firm to innovative thinking and new opportunities in previously unexplored markets.
Improving the business process is a long-term strategy, which might require a complete change in the mindset of everyone involved in the process. The Thought Leadership Initiative specialises in achieving this. We can work with you to create a forward-thinking outlook on the future of your business and help implement strategies that allow you to grow to scale.