Between their sales prowess and strategic marketing savvy, business development managers truly cover all the bases in terms of role diversity. When it comes to a daily routine, it’s rare for them to live the same day twice and they often find that perfecting an adaptable schedule is the best way to keep them on track with their goals.
What Does a Business Development Manager Do?
With their clients and teams at the center of all they do, business development managers are in the people industry first. Whether they are prospecting, closing deals, mentoring, researching or pitching, their role involves forming a connection with any person that may need their service or expertise.
Primarily, these connections lay the groundwork for the business to grow revenue, retain clients and provide those clients with the resources they need to succeed.
The easiest way to keep up with the demand is to create a schedule like the following:
Maintain a Morning Routine: The early bird gets the worm which is why business development managers typically like to get a head start on their day. By the time they have their day planned, their inbox has been emptied and the urgent matters have been responded to, others are probably just rolling into the office.
But, without taking a crucial hour, or more, to prepare for both them and their teams, many business development managers find it harder to be productive and efficient with the rest of their time.
Whether it’s reviewing competitor insights, brainstorming new and affective ways to align their goals with the company’s or even going for a morning walk to allow creativity to flow, the way these leaders choose to manage their mornings often ranges depending on their work-life balance.
However, most typically take advantage of the early hours through daily planning and prioritizing as a way of structuring the rest of their day around achieving the company’s long-term goals.
Call, Craft and Close the Opportunity: After creating a game plan for the day, it’s important for business development managers to get started on prospecting both clients and new hires. Maybe an email came through the inbox earlier from an old client or they found something on LinkedIn that generated a few ideas for new hire training. Either way, the later morning hours tend to be the most productive for crafting these opportunities and leads.
Of course, a good prospect should never stay a prospect, and business development managers are responsible for assigning newly converted leads to the account manager that can best solve their needs. To do this, business development managers need to frequently stay aware and involved in their own team’s capacity and talent.
Through regular check-ins, routine training and finding personal ways to invest in their teams, entrusting new clients to their account managers can strengthen the connection with their team while freeing up time for themselves.
Generating new opportunities through calling, emailing or otherwise reaching out to their clients can sometimes take up the majority of the day. However, when business development managers are able to delegate these tasks, their own focus can move up the funnel and toward crafting these opportunities instead.
By the time afternoon rolls around, striking up new business by grabbing coffee with that old client or taking a new team member out to lunch are just a few ways business development managers efficiently manage their time. Often possessing the skills needed to turn a lunch break into a new opportunity, they grow business and achieve goals everywhere they go.
Manage Relationships: Building and maintaining relationships between teams, clients and leadership lies at the heart of a daily routine for a business development manager. As mentioned before, business growth depends heavily on the effort they put into managing their relationships and the strategies they choose to capture, maintain and grow leads.
Providing professional training, mentorship and shadow calls to continuously gauge areas of growth among sales teams is significant for business development managers who seek to develop their people first.
Business development managers invest plenty of time creating tailored touch points for their clients. While researching competitive trends and methods have proven useful, many have already cultivated their own strategies throughout their career and can personalize the way they enjoy reaching out to clients.
On the other hand, carving out time to dig into the areas where competition is noticeably succeeding or struggling to gain business can help business development managers know how to pivot their own strategy. Inevitably, some leads might take longer to onboard than others, meaning it’s not always an easy win and may need more time devoted to that specific activity.
Update and Report: Updating goals and reporting on progress makes up the last part of a business development manager’s day because it allows them to assess and adjust their to-do list. Keeping teammates in the loop about goals, successes and even losses can help create a culture of transparency—another top priority for these team builders.
While reports might get lost in the day-to-day flow of other administrative tasks, it’s integral for business development managers to follow through on reporting at the end of the day. Logging interactions in CRMs or preparing performance reports could be what it takes for their account managers to succeed the next day.
Taking the time to reflect and recognize results is an element of business development that should never be overlooked because it helps with staying on target with the short and long-term goals that get set each morning, month and year.
Ultimately, as business development managers continuously invest in their own development, they inevitably do the same for their company. It is vital that they receive the resources and tools they need to thrive, which is why investing in leadership activities early on in their careers is mutually beneficial for themselves and the company.
At Shamrock, we offer professional training and development programs with the intention of creating leaders that have all they need to accomplish more than just their day-to-day activities.
Interested in joining our team? Check out our open positions or explore the Shamrock blog to learn more about our family of brands!