Viktoria Gusyeva is Vue storefront.
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What business development trends should we focus on in 2023?
Over the past few years, businesses have faced enormous challenges and undergone enormous changes. Contributing factors include the final fallout of the global pandemic, conflict in Ukraine, concerns about inflation, and accelerating technological developments affecting the entire global business landscape, to name a few.
Here are five trends leaders need to prepare for as they address new demands as they plan their business growth strategies for 2023.
1. Increased complexity of the BDR role
We’ve seen that the current roles of Business Development Representatives (BDRs) and Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) are becoming increasingly complex and technical.
Especially given that the pandemic seems to have changed the game forever, it’s no longer enough to just grab a database and start calling. Successful BDRs use, on average, 10 or more tools to achieve pipeline goals—and that number is growing.
In addition to the usual tools for calling, video, and social probing, outbound teams can be empowered by leveraging AI and intent to help them identify sales signals early on. It is no longer acceptable to ignore the ways in which artificial intelligence and other modern technologies may affect your business development strategy.
The key to critical growth in 2023 will be giving your outbound teams the right tech stack so they can experiment with thoughtful tool sets and run games that emerge from the chaos.
2. Connect the dots between marketing and sales
It’s time to move away from the “oil and water” perspective of sales and marketing. I’ve seen businesses where the business development function was in sales, and I managed it as part of marketing. But what will help move your business forward in 2023 is improving alignment between these departments and eliminating silos. In fact, there is a lot of value in having them as allies rather than competitors.
Modern account-based marketing is all about looking at prospects through a common lens, so teams must work together to define assumptions, formulate ICPs, and shape the right messaging for prospects. Marketing and sales also need to collaborate to deliver social teaching — not social selling.
I’ve seen many success stories where sales help marketing craft the outbound message, and marketing assists sales by warming up existing leads in the pipeline – so, in the end, it’s a win-win for the entire business.
By connecting the dots between sales and marketing, your business will be more effective and aligned with customer needs. In 2023, streamlined business development processes will be more important than ever.
3. Propose value instead of direct selling
What will significantly affect the change in pipeline health in 2023?
92% of buyers today expect to hear a value proposition early in the sales cycle. More than ever, companies need to find ways to educate, engage, and motivate across all channels—especially for businesses with long sales cycles.
While some business development strategies are very focused on the product itself, these strategies often fail to educate potential customers about their own business challenges, which is critical to organically revealing the sustainable and unique benefits of their solutions.
Finding unrecognized customer needs for value-based prospecting can have a significant impact on how potential customers perceive your business development attempts. By 2023, leaders must establish business development systems that play a critical role in demonstrating value in overcoming clients’ business challenges and integrate this with social teaching.
4. Go local and go global
In 2023, many businesses will continue to accelerate growth by entering new markets. To do this successfully and comprehensively, your business development strategy should be country-specific.
Bringing in local talent and partnerships in your respective regions will accelerate your understanding of linguistic and regional nuances. Country-specific plans must be implemented, taking into account language, cultural and legal differences, as well as different competitive landscapes.
Thoughtful testing of localization approaches can enhance any strategy. Additionally, top performers can be further cross-pollinated to other markets, which can help expand your global presence more effectively.
5. Focus on systems, not channels
Most successful companies not only leverage a variety of tools, strategies, and channels, but also focus on building predictable growth systems—such as creating powerful growth engines from inbound and outbound channels.
When companies struggle trying to build inbound or outbound, they end up spending most of their time trying to capitalize on lukewarm prospects or hot leads. That could be a catastrophic blow to momentum. Growth momentum is best accelerated by leveraging holistic systems.
Once they start viewing the channel as a complementary part of a larger system and put more effort into balancing its growth, businesses are better able to multiply their pipeline goals.
Keep up with business trends
In a rapidly changing economy, it is critical for savvy business development professionals to ensure they monitor current trends to ensure the success of their company. I hope this post offers some valuable takeaways for leaders looking to leverage the best strategies to succeed in the coming year.
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