Sales and Business development are two different portfolios achieving the same goal i.e maximizing your Revenues and Gross Margins. In my opinion, they are two halves of the same coin, if working in tandem will get you the best possible outcome. Every organization has different ways in achieving their respective goals that may be in the form of greater profits, lead conversion rates, or having a steady growth in scaled and repetitive customers.
To put it bluntly, remote business development rep ( Bdr’s) and Sales development Reps ( Sdr’s) have a lot on their plates, when it comes to organizations assigning them specific roles, It depends how the company wants them utilized. Bdr’s may be used for purely identifying Leads that don’t have proper customer credentials mentioned or have incomplete information. Most organizations big or small use them in this Job description. While Sdr’s can take up the second stage, in which they qualify and ascertain leads by calling the customer, and making sure that this lead can be transferred to a Sales Rep.I will explain the nitty-gritty of what these two roles are all about
Business Development
Business development is basically all the activities and effort designed for your organization to tap new markets and demographics.for e.g You get a new reseller on board, you and your company also resell but they don’t have enough resources covering let’s say Texas so you bring in company S to maximize your product allocation to this company and they will do the business development for you. In a nutshell, it’s a win-win for both companies. How? You end up having a presence in Texas with good sales being registered through company S, and at the same time Company, S now has a bigger Product portfolio in providing its customers in minimal time frames and cost-effective business solutions to their local market. In summary Company, S has developed that business your company dearly needed in the most cost-effective manner. Wow.
In dictionary terms, Business development for me is an art of identifying, capturing and expanding your current pipeline in maximizing your current business goals and outcomes.
From a vantage point, folks and business professionals doing all the above are Business Development Representatives or BDR’s.
Sales Development
Sales development can have both Sales development and business development Reps in a respective organization, mainly starting level designations, moving forward can either find a path in account management, Sales or Customer success management.
Both BDR and SDR’s are given the task of identifying, qualifying and prospecting the Leads, working on them and finally transferring them to the Sales Team to eventually close and produce sales depending on the quality of Leads and the organization targeted. So business professionals providing a quality lead to the Sales team are Sales Development Representative or SDR’s.
In other words, SDR’s main job is a prerequisite for a Sales function, meaning giving as much ammo to your Sales team so that they have an identifiable Pipeline, that they can work on and finally closing the deal. Now let’s define Sales so that we put all the blocks right up there for better understanding:-
Sales
Sales are all about closing the deal at the end of the day. All the hard work of SDR and BDR has no value if the Sales Rep cant closes the deal. Sales Rep main job is to ascertain what the customer/client is looking for in Hardware and Software, and then coming up with the best possible solution to mitigate their need presently, and then taking care and problem solving for all their customers moving forward.
The above-listed credentials when accomplished makes a Salesman.
Sales Development Vs Business development
As we already know by now, these business functions and personalities work in tandem with each other. If one team is not doing what is expected of them, the other Team won’t be able to close the deal. So when I say business function working in Tandem, I mean and own it completely.
According to one study, the faster you try to contact inbound leads (from the moment they initiate) the better your chances of actually getting a hold of someone are. You’re 3000 times less likely to do so if you wait more than five hours.
How? Every organization’s structure is different, but most that divide the selling process between sales development and salespeople see an increase in conversions. When TOPO, a sales marketing research and advisory firm, looked at its clients over a six-year period, it found those that employed a sales development team converted leads at an exponentially higher rate than those that had just salespeople. In one industry, companies with sales development teams converted 40% of leads while those with just quota-carrying reps converted 5% of leads.
Bryan Gonzalez a sales development analyst at TOPO, explains that why Sales has been divided into two business functions mainly Sales development and Sales is the increasing difficulty in reaching out to prospective buyers and specialization in conversion rates.
“Perhaps the biggest difference between SDRs and BDRs is the way they engage with leads”
Bdr and Sdr should be knowing all these three things before hopping on a call:
a.) Are we talking to the right decision-maker? If you are not, then you are just beating about the bush.
b.) Are we offering the right product or services to your potential buyer/customer? Services may be in the form of Hardware and Software.
c.) Budget and Timelines also are two very important factors when closing the deal. If you are late on a potential request from a customer, then no point in offering your product and services because your competitor has already won it, secondly budget is a very important factor and must be known before because if the client wants to buy in 3 months, then focus more attention to clients who have shorter timelines.
Lastly does your company carry professionals in both roles
We should know it by now, The usefulness of both the roles. The question is whether my company is focussing on attaining both the roles ? as it’s paramount to understand their functions and outcomes detailed above.
Both when done correctly, can lead to the type of growth that makes startups look scaled up organizations and also breaks the barriers of getting into the door of Big fishes in the market.!!!
Author Bio
The author is a Sales and Marketing professional with over 14 years of Solid Direct and Indirect sales experience. He has handled different portfolios of Sales in Manufacturing, Fast-moving consumer goods, and most importantly IT. His passion includes serving his clients well, listening to them and then providing the best possible solution to their requests.
