IT Business Development – How Does Sales Fit In?

You’ve probably spent quite a bit of time considering your sales processes whilst defining your IT sales strategies. However, I suspect that most of your focus has been on how to get that first client through the door, while you’ve put very little thought into your IT business development.

There’s some general confusion over what IT business development means. Simply put, it is an amalgamation of your marketing and sales activities, but ones that will help you to build relationships with key players in your marketplace. These may or may not lead to business transactions further down the line.

While IT business development focuses on medium- to long-term goals, you can make a start with some of the following activities:

• Make sure that you spend some time every week environmentally scanning your business’s ecosystem. Keep up-to-date with competitors, new players, new technologies, and new businesses in you niche. Connect with the lead individuals from each business and keep in personal contact with them, where possible.

• Network with the local business community – either set up a group or join an existing one.

• Network online via social media and join some business interest groups, or set up a private network of your own using something like Google groups or a Facebook group.

• Get involved in the local community. Create and give seminars and workshops for local interest groups, schools, colleges, and the business community.

These are all long-term activities that will help you to create new opportunities for your business, and that is of course what IT business development is all about. Some of these tasks may seem a little daunting to you, but taking yourself out of your comfort zone to carry them out will reap massive benefits for your business and your own personal growth.

How do you tackle IT business development outside of your regular marketing and sales activities? We invite you to share your experiences with us in the Comments section.

And to follow-through on the tips introduced in this short article, be sure to download your free copy of the special report on 7 IT Sales Secrets for Attracting High-Lifetime-Value Clients.

Creative Commons Image Source: flickr jhritz