Business development plan

A business development plan is a written roadmap for how you’ll win customers, expand into new markets, achieve growth, and stay consistent for years to come. It turns the idea of ‘we should grow’ into a real-life development plan.

What is business development?

Business development is the work of creating continuous value through customers and markets. In practice, it’s the way to find new opportunities, test ideas, and find repeatable ways to grow. You might want to think about it across three ‘lanes’:

• Increase sales in your current target audience.
• Entering new markets or taking advantage of new opportunities.
• Creating partnerships that help you scale.

Let’s say you sell surfboards in Australia. Business development might mean planning to expand into New Zealand or Hawaii, or to create a new service line, such as repairs and customised orders.

Why is business development important?

Business development is important for a few simple reasons. Markets move. Competitors copy. Customer needs change. Your costs change. If you don’t develop or adapt, you could drift away from your goals.

But with a solid strategic business development plan, you should be able to address:

1. Your market share (position or ‘share’ in a local, domestic, national or global market)
2. Your competitive advantage within your market (your pricing, brand, or perceived value by customers)
3. Growth opportunities within a market (what your competitors do, or what they don’t do).

After you have identified these areas, look into how to implement your marketing strategy and deliver it with your internal teams.

Business development plan template

If you use a business development plan template to put everything together, keep it tight and user-friendly. An effective business development plan doesn’t need to be huge, just complete. Here’s what to include:

• Business summary and elevator pitch: What you do, for whom, and why you win.
• Target market and target audience: Segments, buyer roles, customer profiles, and where your audience hangs out.
• Market research and market analysis: Competitors, emerging trends, market gaps.
• Growth goals: Financial goals, customer goals, short-term priorities.
• Go-to-market approach: Marketing efforts, content marketing, partnerships, sales.
• Lead generation plan: How you’ll generate demand and convert leads.
• Sales plan: Pipeline stages, pricing, conversions, sales team process.
• Delivery and operational needs: Capacity, systems, services, resourcing.
• Key metrics: How you’ll track them, measure progress, and adjust according to results.
• Budget and resources: Time, tools, people, expected spend.

How to write a strong business development plan

1. Outline your biggest growth goal (and make it time-bound)

“I want us to achieve growth” is a vague statement. “I want us to grow revenue by 15% in six months” is a target. Add one quality goal too, like boosting retention or conversion rates.

2. Get specific about your target market

Pick a segment you know you can dominate. Spell out your target audience in plain English. Include things like industry, size, location, consumer needs, etc. Be aware that this is the part where lots of organisations go wrong. Why? Because they assume what their target audience likes. Avoid assumptions and get to know your audience.

3. Make sure there’s enough demand with market research

Talk to potential customers and see what competitors are offering. Look for market gaps as well. Market data like enquiries, win/loss notes, and website search terms can be extremely valuable.

4. Choose your growth levers

Think higher prices, new services, new markets, new channels, or strategic partnerships. You don’t need a dozen — just pick two or three that fit within your resources.

5. Match marketing with sales

Your marketing plan should feed into lead generation and your sales team should know what to do with those leads. If you don’t spell out the handover in detail, leads will go stale.

6. Build the delivery side into the plan

Driving growth is pointless if operations can’t deliver. Call out operational needs, hiring, onboarding, tools, service capacity, and more.

7. Assign ownership to staff

A plan without ownership becomes just another piece of paper. Give each action a person and a review date. That’s how you stay in control by keeping your team accountable.

How to measure progress and success

If you can’t measure progress, you can’t manage it. Pick a small set of metrics that will help you stay on track with your goals, such as.

What does a business development manager do?

A business development manager (BDM) turns the business development strategy into action. They’re not just doing sales. On the contrary, they coordinate relationships, partnerships and pipeline activity across all your internal teams.

In a mature set-up, the BDM works with the sales team on deals, with marketing on campaigns, with delivery on capability and so forth. They also negotiate strategic partnerships and spot growth opportunities worth testing.

If you don’t have a BDM, the role still exists. It just means the business owner (you) will have to carry it. And that’s fine, so long as you make it explicit in your plan.

Tips for perfecting your strategic business development plan

A strong business development plan is less about big ideas and more about being disciplined with your execution. Here’s what you need to remember:

• A value proposition should clearly state what makes a product or service unique and why customers should choose it over competitors.
• Many organisations confuse business development with sales execution, which neglects long-term strategic goals.
• Using software, such as project management systems, can help your team track and meet key milestones to achieve your goals.
• Have goals that target specifics, like increasing qualified leads by 20% in 12 months. Avoid broad statements that are hard to track.

Even having a simple business development plan that focuses on the basics (target markets and lead generation), you will be able to find new opportunities. Remember that your plan should be a living, breathing tool that you review regularly, not something you write once and forget about entirely.