SIX COMPONENETS OF A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS: DOES YOUR COMPANY KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM?
Business Development and Sales; Marketing and Advertising; Communications and Public Relations.
All six of these areas MUST be addressed when building a successful business. However, many business leaders do not understand the differences, and sadly, their hiring reflects that - marketing is combined with sales and public relations, and those hired may not have the knowledge or experience to perform two of these jobs, much less three or more!
To help provide some clarification on these areas, a brief synopsis of each is provided below. This is not meant to be all encompassing, but to share basic information for those who may not be aware that none of these are interchangeable, but they are all compatible.
Let’s begin with Business Development. BD is integral to introducing your company or organization to possible clients. I liken it to being a Yenta – a matchmaker. You want to find the perfect client for your company. It is about doing research; finding areas of interest, as well as collaboration. It is NOT sales! Let me repeat that: IT IS NOT SALES! If you are selling a product, then sales is an additional component. Business development is what companies utilize to identify a lead to potentially turn it into a prospect and ultimately a client.
What goes into business development? It certainly isn’t submitting a proposal or creating a flyer or other leave-behind. Business development takes time and initiative. It involves honing your research and networking skills. It is identifying the target; researching for all the answers and possible questions; it is ensuring that the company is presented in its best light at the onset. It is face-to-face and then follow-up. It is keeping up with the outcome; analyzing and evaluating what went well and what didn’t, and why.
Sales is determined by the success and supply and demand of the product. It is a “touch and feel” experience many times, and its success or failure is measured in units, not necessarily emotions. The business development connection is with the sales operative who made contact with the vendor and opened up the opportunity to place the product in a decision maker’s hands where quality, reliability, and value are assessed. In professional services, the product IS the person, and it is their quality, reliability and value that will determine whether or not a “sale” will be made.
Marketing. There are multiple components that are currently encapsulated in the term “marketing.” Initially, marketing was considered a back-office component of a business - analytics; identifying demographics; review of ROI; production of proposals. Today, marketing is taking on the role of advertising and is becoming less about what marketing actually is.
Advertising is creating a visual representation to sell a product or service. It involves the graphic design and tag line creation of flyers, print ads, broadcast commercials, paid advertorials. Marketing also eases its way into social and digital media through websites and sponsored placements. The marketing component should be the review and evaluation of the analytics of page views, click-thrus, organic versus paid growth as a result of the actual ads and posts.
Communications: Once again, there are several areas of this field that have somehow become combined into one area. There is internal communications and external communications. Internal communication involves anything that addresses messaging to your employees: newsletters, intranets, company events. External communications is outside the company, and it usually involves a public relations component that can include news releases, interviews in print or broadcast media, and public-speaking opportunities. Other external communications components are external newsletters, events for clients, vendor booths, and vlog and blog creation.
Marketing and communications should work in tandem with one enhancing the other; but make no mistake - just as business development and sales are similar, yet different, so it goes with marketing and communications. One cannot replace the other.
When reviewing your business model, look at all six of these important components. Do you have all of them? Are they working as effectively as they can? If not, why? When these are all adequately addressed, then growth is sure to come.