Great corporations don't pay their best Business Developers a penny…
Your best Business Developers are your Customers.
This fact is so fundamental to business success that famed VC, Marc Andreesen, used it to define Product Market Fit in his 2007 blog post.
Product-Market Fit is the point when your business takes off like a rocket ship.
It occurs when customers perceive so much value from a product that they spontaneously promote your product via word of mouth.
Customer referrals are the hottest BD growth hack.
Conversion rates on referrals can be as high as 50%!!!
That’s an amazing conversion rate compared to cold outreach <1%.
Whether you're a tech startup or 100-year-old corporation, referrals work.
Sales = Salespeople convert prospects
BD = Customers convert prospects for you
That’s why the textbook definition of BD is….
“Customer and Community advocacy that creates Corporate growth.”
Sales = Linear growth
BD = Exponential growth
Referrals are exponential when your happy customer tells three friends and then they tell two of their friends, so on and so forth
.....this type of growth forms the shape of fractals found in nature, giving new meaning to Organic Growth.
Some hear what I say and think, “referrals are great, but they don’t scale.”
They say that referrals are random and not predictable.
That’s because they only use Passive Referral Methods.
Passive Referral Methods are random.
ACTIVE Referral Methods are predictable.
Tony Gray, BDP
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Learn more in the “Business Development Body of Knowledge (BD-BOK).”
Get your copy of the BD-BOK on Amazon today!
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Boost your BD career with the Business Development Professional (BDP) certification at the Global Business Development Association (GBDA).
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