Being on the front line of any business is challenging for anyone, even if you were ‘born to sell’. Here are six key challenges, whether you are a BDM or selling a product or a service:

1. Planning, Preparation & Prioritisation

These cannot be overstated. With the abundance of information available online and at your fingertips; your prospective clients will not tolerate a lack of preparation. Make no mistake, you will fail.

2. Generating leads

There are a variety of ways to network and it’s not just looking up a Linked In profile. Make yourself visible and known within your specialisation. Attend conferences, breakfasts, corporate-sponsored sporting events, anything to get your name and profile out in the market. Follow up with referrals, you know they may not bear fruit immediately, but keep at it. And the most important, of course, is ‘word of mouth’.

3. BD, BD and more BD

One word sums this up – persistence is the key and quality is crucial to successful and effective business development. You only want to chase the business who actually wants to do business with you.

4. Following through

Say what you do then do what you say, always under promise and over deliver

5. Building relationships and keeping them

There is more to BD than just sales. BD is about building a relationship. Not only must you win them over, but the best business also is a result of long term relationship development, built on trust and transparency.

6. Rejection and ‘getting back on the horse’

No one likes rejection, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s through being rejected that you learn valuable lessons about your approach. You can also glean information, to obtain leads to a future business development win.