Developing BD muscle: Is your technical background holding you back?
When my mum went to university as a mature age student in the Nineties, she brought a public policy background and decades of parenting my four siblings and me to her undergraduate marketing studies.
Having honed the art of using few words to convey a message with intent, we children were never in doubt about what she meant. University was a long held ambition and a final year project saw her complete award winning research on behalf of the university's Engineering faculty. The task? With student engineer numbers dwindling, the faculty heads, engineers themselves, were perplexed and wondered what could be done. They were striving to come to terms with why students didn't just naturally gravitate to engineering studies because they were told how great engineering is.
That research, which laid the foundation for a successful consulting business, revealed a common issue I see among engineers, technical specialists, and firms owned by the same. Namely, that while these professionals are smart - they must be to qualify - to be really successful in business, they must not only deliver on the technical, but also on marketing, BD, finance, management, and strategy.
Are you underestimating the value of BD?
What is so frequently overlooked by this cohort - I theorise as a function of thinking there is only one kind of smart (theirs) - is the value brought to the table by other people who are as clever in these other important areas.
Significantly, the research showed that when marketing, business development, finance, and strategic management are engaged early in any go-to-market approach, there is a liberating adjustment of expectations in these professionals. They learn to think differently and see that with other 'smarts', more and better is achieved.
Put simply, smart people have smart people around them. Indeed, it is only by engaging all these complementary functions that the output - the product or services offering - most closely matches the needs of the market. Ultimately, this enhances the financial viability of the company, or as in this case, the university's Engineering faculty, which tuned into their market more effectively. They wisely adopted a marketing and BD approach that resulted in growth in key areas, including the attraction of female students to their degree courses.
It would be easy to say, that was the Nineties, things have moved on, the research is dated, we've evolved. I would counter that with: the needle has barely moved and the research is as relevant today as it was thirty years ago.
In construction and heavy industry where we operate, it’s common to meet owners, engineers, and other technical specialists who are dismissive of business development and marketing, viewing these core functions as painful, necessary, and lightweight. While that shortsighted perspective is maintained, two things happen.
Is there are risk to undervaluing BD?
First, you continue to approach the market through your own narrow lens, a filter spruiking only capability, that is, talking about what's important to you, how great your product/service is. In doing so, you break the BD/marketing covenant of listening more than you talk. It follows that you then fail to understand your market anywhere nearly as well as you could, and come up short on effectively communicate your value, which is best explained as articulating what's important to you in ways that make sense to your audience (what's important to them). Things are quite literally 'lost in translation'.
Despite what is generally believed, there is comparable skill, expertise, and know how required to do this so well it leads to the kind of business you want. When overlooked for the value provided, the results show up as:
Reactive silver bullet BD solutions that last as long as a dopamine hit
Generic, vanilla marketing with no purpose or connection
Vagueness about how to explain the problems you solve and solutions you provide to people you want to work with
Pricing everything because you're too afraid to say no to what's not right
Wonder at the wasted money and resources.
For the majority of contractors, the harder foundational work of defining what problems they solve and what matters most to their ideal clients, and articulating this in ways that make sense to them is never done. The result is a continued cycle of frustration and disappointment.
The wrap up
Consequently, as key business functions, BD and marketing can never perform to their fullest potential, only reinforcing the perception these functions are lightweight, painful, and just cost too much. More content, posting, and a flashy website don’t fix that perception. But a well thought out business development strategy, sharpened approach to BD, and tailored marketing and communication do.
Quality go-to-market BD activity and marketing starts well before anything is written and both functions are pivotal cogs in an effective BD machine. Undervalue them and you're leaving opportunities, money, and growth on the table.