Business development techniques
Business Development strategies are vital to help you to grow your business. Although some sales strategies might also be business development strategies, business development covers far more than simply closing the deal.
Know Yourself
Before you begin you need to do some critical analysis of your current position. Try to look at your company from an outsider’s point of view. How quickly do you respond to queries? How do you resolve complaints? Are there members of staff who stand out for any reason? Perform a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis.
Know Your Customer
Conduct market research. It can be very useful to subscribe to industry publications, webpages and forums to see what the wider industry is thinking of the market. Build a relationship with your customers by being responsive to their enquiries and dealing with complaints in a timely manner. Follow up on customer contacts without being too pushy. Ask your existing customers what they think of your service and look at ways to improve it.
Know Your Competition
Identify your closest competitors and analyse their business model. How do they differ from you? What do they do better? What do they do worse? Can you copy their successes and avoid their mistakes? If you are new to the market you can even do some mystery shopping to see how they treat their customers.
Be Important – Be Online – Be Visible
In the modern online world, it is imperative that, as a bare minimum, you have a “shop front” webpage. If you really want to grow your business you need to grow your online presence. Customers like to use companies that know their stuff and one of the easiest ways to do this is to have a blog on your webpage. Look at building a social media presence by sharing your blog and inviting discussion of the content. Build it further by using each social network you choose to register with to share promotional videos, customer testimonials, press releases, competitions and promotions.
Branding
Take a look at your promotional materials – for example your leaflets, brochures, webpages, email templates and letterheads. Is the branding consistent across them? Does it invoke the right image of your company? Have they been proofread for accuracy and perfect English? Your brand is the first impression new customers have of your company so you must get this right.
Once you’ve put these strategies into place, you’ll have a strong foothold from which to grow your business.
If you’d like to find out more about call recording or call logging software please don’t hesitate to give us a call; we’d be happy to tell you everything we know – which happens to be rather a lot! Drop us a line on 0333 0022 440, or contact us. We’re here ready to help.