The Difference Between Business Development and Sales

The Difference Between Business Development and Sales(iamvictorio.us)

35 points by kml 13 years ago | 5 comments

tryitnow 13 years ago |

Someone should send this article to every young person starting out in business, whether they're and entrepreneur or not.

Biz Dev is usually considered more prestigious because partnerships of one sort or another can move a lot of volume quickly or can create new opportunities that radically change fortunes. It also requires understanding business models, strategies, etc.

Sales might require an understanding of the user or might not. The company I work for does enterprise software and I seriously doubt our sales people know a whole lot about the user experience. They do know how to schmooze and most importantly how to be persistent and by persistent I mean continually bothering people. I have found discussions with BD professionals to be interesting and occasionally enlightening. Most conversations with salespeople annoy me - whether those conversations are a sales job or just sitting around chatting.

JVerstry 13 years ago | |

This original post is not fair in its definition and presentation of business development. So let's set the record straight. Managing companies does requires taking business decisions 'you have to make' with other businesses. It is not an option. Saying 'all these benefits are nice to have but are not core to the existing strategy of the the target partner' is misleading. Proper BD is precisely the opposite, your have to take into account the core strategy of the target businesses to make it a success. Saying 'Consequently, BD may be ultimately harder to succeed in since it requires a lot of faith and time' -> BD is not preaching or based on beliefs, it relies on sound financial and strategic analysis. BD serves a very different purpose than sales (long term vs short term revenues) and both are equally important beyond the start-up stage.

fab1an 13 years ago |

I agree with the article but would add that a lot of times sales people are hired under the "business development" umbrella simply to not call them "sales" people - most businesses don't want to be contacted by a sales person (except when you do know that you absolutely must acquire a certain widget). At the same time, this isn't true for most startups: most startups by definition (given they do something new) don't sell existing must-have products but current nice-to-haves with a potential to become future must-haves if their transformative vision pans out.

iamvictorious 13 years ago | |

yeah, that's absolutely true. Some people prefer to get the title of business development so they feel like they are doing something higher level and justify their education/credentials.

I've noticed also some startups don't call people sales people because then at conferences people aren't turned off by meeting a sales person. I'm not opposed to these tactics but just wanted to point out the functional/true differences.

Most startups are actually selling a better/different version of what does exist. Very few startups are truly category defining so as a result they are mostly doing sales. Business development as a result for most startups is really for getting distribution versus getting customers.

dfriedmn 13 years ago |

Education is also a much weaker predictor of sales abilities than of biz dev potential. Sales seems like a more directly learnable skill. Sales also tends to leave highly-educated people with a negative taste (that's absent from biz dev), even though good salespeople can have as big an impact on the bottom line.