The pri­ma­ry role of the Man­ag­er of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment is to prospect for new clients by net­work­ing, cold call­ing, adver­tis­ing or oth­er means of gen­er­at­ing inter­est from poten­tial clients. They must then plan per­sua­sive approach­es and pitch­es that will con­vince poten­tial clients to do busi­ness with the com­pa­ny. They must devel­op a rap­port with new clients, and set tar­gets for sales and pro­vide sup­port that will con­tin­u­al­ly improve the rela­tion­ship. They are also required to grow and retain exist­ing accounts by pre­sent­ing new solu­tions and ser­vices to clients. Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­agers work with mid and senior lev­el man­age­ment, mar­ket­ing, and tech­ni­cal staff. He/she may man­age the activ­i­ties of oth­ers respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing busi­ness for the com­pa­ny. Strate­gic plan­ning is a key part of this job descrip­tion, since it is the busi­ness manager’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to devel­op the pipeline of new busi­ness com­ing in to the company.

The Role of the Manager of Business Development

A Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er works to improve an organization’s mar­ket posi­tion and achieve finan­cial growth. This per­son defines long-term orga­ni­za­tion­al strate­gic goals, builds key cus­tomer rela­tion­ships, iden­ti­fies busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties, nego­ti­ates and clos­es busi­ness deals and main­tains exten­sive knowl­edge of cur­rent mar­ket con­di­tions. Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­agers work in a senior sales posi­tion with­in the com­pa­ny. It is their job to work with the inter­nal team, mar­ket­ing staff, and oth­er man­agers to increase sales oppor­tu­ni­ties and there­by max­i­mize rev­enue for their orga­ni­za­tion. To achieve this, they need to find poten­tial new cus­tomers, present to them, ulti­mate­ly con­vert them into clients, and con­tin­ue to grow busi­ness in the future. Man­ag­er of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment will also help man­age exist­ing clients and ensure they stay sat­is­fied and pos­i­tive. They call on clients, often being required to make pre­sen­ta­tions on solu­tions and ser­vices that meet or pre­dict their clients’ future needs.