Sales revenue depends on strong new business development, so in order to accomplish your organization’s sales goals you need business development people who have solid skills not only in attracting prospects to develop business but in closing sales. Your best sales people have already mastered these skills, but when you are reaching for new sales revenue targets your entire sales team needs to be on board. Coach your business development team on how to turn business development into sales revenue using the following tactics.

Foster Direct Relationships with Prospects 

Buying decisions are often based as much on the people and organizations selling a product as they are on the product. There must be an underlying element of trust for a prospect to buy because the prospect wants to know that the sales person he or she has been working with will still be there after the contract is signed. Cultivating a direct relationship between the business development person and the prospect from the very beginning of the sales cycle when new business is the key focus helps lead to sales revenue by securing that trust. 

With this foundation and enabled to sell to prospects, your business development people can continually add value to the relationship and repeat the cycle as you add new lines of business. Moreover, with each individual responsible for his or her business development and contribution to sales revenue there is less likelihood that prospects will leave the sales cycle before the close. Make sure that your business development team is focusing on creating these direct relationships as well as on the end goal to achieve your sales revenue targets. 

Start Qualifying in the Business Development Stage

The efficiency of your sales and business development activities are a major factor in your achievements. If your business development people are not qualifying prospects in the early stages, significant hours could be being diverted from other opportunities with better potential for returning sales revenue. The sheer amount of information that is available to your business development reps makes it possible for them to begin qualifying prospects earlier than was achievable even ten years ago; an experienced sales person can now determine the likelihood of making a sale to a given prospect even before first contact is made. Encourage your team to qualify early by:

• Reflecting on the prospect’s needs before first contact, supported by prospect research and current issues in that industry
• Strategizing on how those potential needs could be served by your product or service
• Using the first contact as an opportunity to verify the strategy by asking pre-developed questions

Adopt a Consulting Perspective

The best sales people rarely fall back on hard sell tactics. Although most know these tactics well and can use them successfully, they don’t have to. This is because the best sales people act as consultants to prospects and clients; rather than offering a deal, they offer a solution. By starting business development with this perspective, these individuals ensure that prospects will be with them until the close when sales revenue is generated. Organizations who want to increase sales revenue and gain market share in a competitive market should be encouraging all sales staff to develop the consultative approach.

If you work on the communication dynamic so that sales people are offering results driven by solutions rather than features and benefits, your organization will likely see its sales revenues from existing clients drive higher even as well qualified referral rates increase. When your business development people are acting as consultants to reach a sale, prospects and clients who have worked with them in the past will turn to them in the future when they need the next solution, a textbook win-win.