What is Prospect Development?...It's the most important part of the customer journey

What is Business Development

If you think Business Development is just Marketing or Sales...you're probably killing your deals.

Prospect Development is one of five BD specialties.

1. Purpose of Prospect Developerment (BD)...

Efficiently and effectively convert Information Qualified Leads (IQL) into Sales Accepted Leads (SAL), shown below.

We typically operate during the Activation Phase of the customer journey.

2. Shocking Fact...Prospect Experience creates more Loyalty than CX

A 2012 Corporate Executive Board (CEB) study found Prospect Experience was most important part of the customer journey.

* 54% of 5,000 buyers rated Prospect Experience as the biggest factor shaping their loyalty!!!

Conversely...

* 19% said Product or Service Delivery Customer Experience (CX) drove loyalty

* 9% stated Price drove loyalty...it was lowest factor

3. Sales Team Too Soon?...can Kill Deals...

Introducing Sales to your prospect during Activation Phase may kill deals.

A recent 6sense study analyzed 900 buyer surveys about their journey through Awareness, Activation, and Conversion phases.

Here are the findings:

- Buyers initiate contact 83% of the time — so sales isn't learning about deals until buyers raise their hand and declare purchase intent.

- Early direct outreach by sales reps made no difference. Buyers didn’t respond until they’d satisfied their independent research needs.

- When Sales Team contact occurs before the Conversion Phase (70% of the customer journey)...the chance of landing the deal goes down, not up!!!!

Here's more evidence...

6sense cited these other studies:

- CEB & Google research shows the average B2B buyer is 57% through the purchase decision before engaging with a sales rep.

- B2B International’s showed B2B buyers typically complete 60% of the purchase process before engaging sales.

- Gartner’s found that 75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free sales.

All of thisesuggests BD plays a critical role in pipeline, PWIN, Win Rate, and Churn Rate.

4. The Mission of Prospect Developers (BD):

- Discover, assess, and nurture prospect perceived intent BEFORE the prospect declares intent.

- Passively and proactively influence the prospect's requirements to maximize PWIN by sharing consultative advice with the community and prospects.

- Most importantly, we build trust via Customer and Community advocacy that creates Corporate growth.

See comments for the 6Sense study.

How do you interpret the data?

Tony Gray, BDP
Author of the Business Development Body of Knowledge