I’ve been pondering the roll of business development in agencies for some time now.  Traditionally the role of business development or sales (either in the agency world or in general) has been to convince someone that they needed a specific service or product, though they may or may not actually need it.  This worked well for a long time, where the better you could articulate some wonderful product the better you’d sell.  I think this is where we get the perception of the guy with slicked back hair saying “What’s it gunna take to get you to buy this today, for you I’ll make a good good deal!”  In the end, the role of business development has been taken by people that are generally perceived as soulless and only care about closing a deal.  The money became more important than the reason why we sell.

I say this because agencies tend to have a really poor understanding of business development.  The process goes like this:  We get in contact with a client one way or another, they say they want a new service, we ask them how much they want to spend, then we quote a price that is double their budget because it will fit “best practices.”

People who are charged with agency business development are in need of a bit of a Renaissance.  I’d argue the role of business development is not to simply “sell” a service to clients, but rather three separate parts: 1. Deeply understand their prospect’s business 2. Deeply understand their client’s business issues 3. Objectively determine if their agency’s services can alleviate their business issues with adequate ROI.  If we follow this framework with the above example, we’d need to understand why the prospect needs a new website before we start rattling off pricing.  Is the website outdated?  Does it not convert visitors well?  How much money is the prospect losing by having an inadequate website?  If we rebuild your website, will it actually solve the problems you are facing?

Thus, the role of business development transforms from a “sales” role to one of a chief problem solver.  Our job as business development professionals is to speak both our clients and agency’s language to communicate if there is adequate value for both organizations to form a partnership.  I believe adopting a perspective that we as agencies are in existence to “solve our client’s business issues through the use of marketing services” from the first conversations sets the right tone early, and ultimately allows agencies and their clients to prosper.