Busi­ness Devel­op­ment is one of the fastest grow­ing roles in Amer­i­ca.  Today’s busi­ness is high­ly focused on build­ing sales and Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­agers are in high demand.

In Chica­go, the third largest city in Amer­i­ca with close to 3 mil­lion peo­ple, there are over 1,300 Busi­ness Devel­op­ment jobs avail­able now.

What is the Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er Job

The pri­ma­ry role of the Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er 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 Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Manager

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. Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­agers 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.

What Com­pa­nies Hire Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Managers? 

Busi­ness Devel­op­ment roles are in high demand at some of the top com­pa­nies in Chica­go includ­ing Dat­a­log­ics, Pear­son and Razorfish/Publicis.

Dat­a­log­ics, a divi­sion of Adobe, a soft­ware tech­nol­o­gy and ser­vices com­pa­ny was look­ing for a Direc­tor of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment “As the Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Direc­tor, your goal is to cre­ate long-term val­ue for Dat­a­log­ics from cus­tomers, mar­kets, and rela­tion­ships. The Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er will iden­ti­fy and devel­op new busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties in rel­e­vant mar­ket seg­ments with the key aim being to assist the direct sales force in secur­ing prof­itable rev­enue.”

At Pear­son,  an inter­na­tion­al media com­pa­ny with world-lead­ing busi­ness­es in edu­ca­tion, busi­ness infor­ma­tion, and con­sumer pub­lish­ing, they need a Vice Pres­i­dent of Inno­va­tion and Busi­ness Devel­op­ment.  “The *Vice Pres­i­dent of Inno­va­tion and Busi­ness Devel­op­ment* is respon­si­ble for lead­ing efforts to dri­ve new busi­ness growth in new and adja­cent mar­kets. The per­son in this posi­tion will be direct­ly respon­si­ble to be a busi­ness builder for some of the new busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties as well as pro­vide sup­port and input for oth­er new growth initiatives. “

At Razor­fish, a divi­sion of one of the largest Adver­tis­ing Agen­cies in the world, Pub­li­cis, they are look­ing for a Vice Pres­i­dent of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment.   “The role of Vice Pres­i­dent Busi­ness Devel­op­ment is to lead a team that iden­ti­fies and acts on busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties for rev­enue gen­er­a­tion and growth with­in the East­ern region of the Unit­ed States.”

Take a look at the more than 1,300 Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er jobs avail­able in Chica­go now below: