

The Difference Between Business Development and Sales - kml
http://iamvictorio.us/post/26979018144/difference-between-business-development-and-sales?f4093320

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tryitnow
Someone should send this article to every young person starting out in
business, whether they're and entrepreneur or not.

Biz Dev is usually considered more prestigious because partnerships of one
sort or another can move a lot of volume quickly or can create new
opportunities that radically change fortunes. It also requires understanding
business models, strategies, etc.

Sales might require an understanding of the user or might not. The company I
work for does enterprise software and I seriously doubt our sales people know
a whole lot about the user experience. They do know how to schmooze and most
importantly how to be persistent and by persistent I mean continually
bothering people. I have found discussions with BD professionals to be
interesting and occasionally enlightening. Most conversations with salespeople
annoy me - whether those conversations are a sales job or just sitting around
chatting.

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JVerstry
This original post is not fair in its definition and presentation of business
development. So let's set the record straight. Managing companies does
requires taking business decisions 'you have to make' with other businesses.
It is not an option. Saying 'all these benefits are nice to have but are not
core to the existing strategy of the the target partner' is misleading. Proper
BD is precisely the opposite, your have to take into account the core strategy
of the target businesses to make it a success. Saying 'Consequently, BD may be
ultimately harder to succeed in since it requires a lot of faith and time' ->
BD is not preaching or based on beliefs, it relies on sound financial and
strategic analysis. BD serves a very different purpose than sales (long term
vs short term revenues) and both are equally important beyond the start-up
stage.

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fab1an
I agree with the article but would add that a lot of times sales people are
hired under the "business development" umbrella simply to not call them
"sales" people - most businesses don't want to be contacted by _a sales
person_ (except when you do know that you absolutely _must_ acquire a certain
widget). At the same time, this isn't true for most startups: most startups by
definition (given they do something new) don't sell existing must-have
products but current nice-to-haves with a potential to become future must-
haves if their transformative vision pans out.

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iamvictorious
yeah, that's absolutely true. Some people prefer to get the title of business
development so they feel like they are doing something higher level and
justify their education/credentials.

I've noticed also some startups don't call people sales people because then at
conferences people aren't turned off by meeting a sales person. I'm not
opposed to these tactics but just wanted to point out the functional/true
differences.

Most startups are actually selling a better/different version of what does
exist. Very few startups are truly category defining so as a result they are
mostly doing sales. Business development as a result for most startups is
really for getting distribution versus getting customers.

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dfriedmn
Education is also a much weaker predictor of sales abilities than of biz dev
potential. Sales seems like a more directly learnable skill. Sales also tends
to leave highly-educated people with a negative taste (that's absent from biz
dev), even though good salespeople can have as big an impact on the bottom
line.

