What is Business Development? Business Development is about making connections. It’s building upon the brand that you have established through marketing efforts to connect your audience to your products and services. It’s prospecting (networking), qualifying leads, and then converting those leads into clients. Business development is all about creating relationships!

Where do Marketing and Business Development overlap? The sales cycle for most professional services is longer than ever. Once you have identified a qualified lead, your marketing efforts can’t stop. Nurturing leads over a long period of time is critical for retaining top-of-mind awareness. The Marketing side of lead nurturing may include sharing branded content and educational opportunities through email marketing, event marketing and social media outreach. Marketing should also provide Business Development with the sales tools they need to convert a warm lead into a client (proposal language, presentation training/support, slide decks, printed collateral and even branded thank you notes and gifts). The true Business Development side may include personal emails, follow-up phone calls, one-on-one meetings/lunches or golfing (among other events/activities) together.