For some business development has become a euphemism for sales, especially for those that somehow find sales disdainful.

But business development is far more than sales.  Business development ensures that new markets, new channels, new partners are being developed and cultivated. These are the playing fields that marketing and sales will subsequently develop and identify leads and close new customers.

Within a strategic growth initiative, business development comprised the following components:

• Vision: An understanding of who your company is and where it is headed. Starting with personal goals of the owners, and acknowledging the culture of the organization, the SGI visioning process quickly discerns the underlying purposes which can be achieved with a strategic growth initiative.
• Brand: Brand is the whole story of your company and its product. It is the images, the colors, the history, and the advocates. For SGI, brand is also the relationships that your company has with the customers, vendors, suppliers, industry insiders, and advocates.
• Systems: From personnel to workflow automation; not all systems are technical but all systems have a design and architecture which support their ability to meet the organizational goals. Ensuring that these systems have the capacity and scability to meet the demands of the organizational growth is essential .
• Alignment: Different components of a business work well together. Finding and matching the right components provides for an alignment within a strategic growth initiative. Ensuring sales and marketing alignment is the most critical. Equally important are the alignment of the product and the target markets, the organization and the market type, the leadership and the organizations demands, and the resources and goals.
• Community: In a world of information overload and a global reach, the essential aspect of person to person relationships has never been more critical. Understanding the relationships that build your company – your company’s social capital – can become the primary determinant of success.

For each and every client, SGI builds a comprehensive initiative which incorporates the mindset, skills set, and tool set necessary to address each of these components.