Anyone in business development or sales has probably had someone go cold on them. Everything seems to be going well than the person on the other side stops responding to your emails or calls. Why This Happens Each situation is unique, but I think it all comes back to the same underlying reason: people avoid [...]
Tag Archives | Business Development
Good BD At An Early Stage Startup
How do you if know a business development person is “good” at an early stage startup? I think one mark of a great BD person is that they’re able to get that initial deal with a meaningful party. Generally speaking, they’re able to convince someone worthwhile to take a chance on them. If I’m a [...]
BD 101: What to Avoid While Getting that First Meeting
“Before we hop on a call, mind sending over a deck or one-pager my team can review” I get this all the time. Target partners and customers often want collateral on your offering prior to taking a meeting with you. It’s a filtering mechanism they use to spend their time efficiently. I avoid sending material [...]
BD 101: What Doctors Can Teach Us About Pitching
The first thing a Dr. says when you step into his office usually goes a little something like this: “So tell me what’s a matter?” Only after you answer this question can the Dr. treat you. But what if he didn’t ask this question? Say you injured your ankle playing hoops. After three days [...]
BD: Identifying and Partnering with Arms Dealers
In business development or sales, the biggest fish in your prospect pond are often what I like to call “arms dealers.” Arms dealers provide a related product or service to a group of fragmented targets. By selling to or partnering with an arms dealer, you can reach this group of targets in one fell swoop [...]
How to End A First Pitch and Owning the Sale
Your pitch goes perfect, the guy on the other side is fired up…this one is in the bag! But what unfolds is different than what you expected. Your emails go unreturned. Your calls are ignored. You’re left scratching your noggin at the radio silence. This ever happen to you? It has to me plenty and [...]
My BD Toolkit
I thought it might be useful to highlight some products I use on the reg for BD. Rapportive For those that aren’t familiar, Rapportive is a gmail plugin that populates social profile information attached to an email address in your inbox. It sharpens my BD blade in a variety of ways: Context/Rapport Building – People [...]
Sales: Get to A Resolution
I heard our VP of Sales Adam Liebman say something a few weeks ago, that I think is very important for all Sales/BD people to understand. Sometimes it’s just as important to get to a no than a yes. Why? It’s in your time’s best interest. Every moment you spend on a deal that’s never [...]
BD 101: Don’t Be A Cyborg
Usually within the first 5 seconds of picking up the phone I can tell if its a cold call. A creative mispronunciation of my name followed by monotone script reading typically give it away. The person on the other end could have the greatest offer in the world for me. But it doesn’t matter. For [...]
How I Got into BD – Part 3
The first two parts of this post are good context for the third and final part below. It probably makes sense to read part 1 and part 2 here. Now let’s talk about where BD came into the picture. While I was working on Sfter I got to know Charlie O’Donnell through his softball team [...]
How I Got into BD – Part 2
In the part 1 of this post, I described how I broke and entered the startup scene. This outlines the initial trajectoryof how I ended up in BD. It probably makes sense to read first before continuing. During the denoument of my YouAre.TV days, I secured a product consulting gig for a technology consulting firm. [...]
How I Got into BD – Part 1
A lot of people have been asking me how to get into BD recently. Similar to Venture Capital, I don’t think there is a boilerplate prescription for getting into BD. There are definitely things you can do to put yourself in a favorable position like networking, blogging, and gaining an understanding of what BD actually [...]
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