Business Development is the Key to Modern Marketing

What is Business Development?

A lot has changed since the Marketing Funnel was created by E. Lewis in 1898.

That was 35 years before the first Business Developer was ever hired.

Marketers professionalized in the early 1900s when Edward David Jones taught the first marketing course at the University of Michigan in 1902.

Marketers were taught to treat the customer journey as a “purchase funnel”, "sales funnel", or "marketing funnel."

Here's how it worked...

Top of the Funnel (TOFU): Prospects entered during the Awareness Phase of the business development value chain.

Middle of Funnel (MOFU): Prospects demonstrating purchase intent entered this phase and were called “leads.”

Bottom of Funnel (BOFU): Prospects entered this phase when they declared purchase intent.

Once the prospect purchased the product, they converted into a “customer” at the bottom of the funnel.

Mission accomplished!

End of story.

That story changed after the Internet.

During the Industrial Age, life was easier.

Starting in 1836 when the first mass media ad ran in a newspaper in France,  corporations simply produced products, ran an ad, and voila!...customers.

If a customer was unhappy with a product, who would they tell? Their family, their neighbor?...

No big consequences for corporations facing limited competition.

Starting in 1968, when the Internet began, the Customer became empowered.

Now, if a customer is unhappy they tell their entire community of hundreds, thousands, or even millions.

Ralph Nader's 1965 book, "Unsafe at Any Speed," famously brought the US auto industry to it's knees igniting a firestorm of customer empowerment.

A customer can now destroy a corporation or they can generate massive amounts of revenue with referrals that can convert up to 50% of prospects.

That's a lot higher conversion rate than ads often converting less than 1%.

Here's how it works today...

Marketing, BD, and Sales implement the "Business Development Operations Model" throughout ALL stages of the customer journey to build raving customers providing referrals.

The team delivers valuable Purpose, Empathy, and Truth leading to increased customer trust.

Continual Purpose, Empathy, and Truth propels the Brand Trust Flywheel.

Purpose, Empathy, and Truth yield enthusiastic early adopters and corporate partners who advocate for the corporation within the community.

Advocacy FOR the customer begets advocacy FROM the customer.

Tony Gray, BDP

P.S. learn more in the “Business Development Body of Knowledge”
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Boost your BD career with the Business Development Professional (BDP) certification from the Global Business Development Association (GBDA).

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