How to measure business development effectiveness

What types of information and data to collect for BD effectiveness?

The ultimate information that people want to understand is where more business is coming from so that they can continue to do what works.

However, when it comes to business development, there are different types of information that you need to collect and analyse. It’s not just about how a client found you.

Data and information related to business development needs careful thought and detailed planning. However, to keep it simple in this article, I’ll outline the key areas to have in mind, what they’re about, why they matter, and how to collect and store them. The three key categories of data and information to collect are People, Progress and Performance: who you are building relationships with, what is happening as a result of your BD activity, and how individuals are contributing.

1. People – this is likely to include not only prospective clients but also introducers and other valuable contacts, for example, those linked to conferences you might speak at or for whose publications you might write.
2. Progress – metrics related to your business development strategy and plan. Whilst recording how a client heard about you is essential, there are many building blocks in between that help you assess whether your business development activity is working.
3. Performance – keeping track of the contribution individuals have made to business development, which is important to appraise and review at performance review time if your firm is serious about business development.

How do I collect and store BD data and information?

1. People – Who are we building relationships with?

What this is: This is everything related to individuals, which is likely to include:

• Relevant contact and professional details
• How they first engaged with your firm e.g. website contact form, downloaded a resource, at a networking event
• How they heard about your firm, as this may be different to the previous field
• Who their main contact is at your firm, if relevant
• Important details to remember if you’ve engaged with them individually, particularly around work they’ve done with you and potential future opportunities
• Mechanism to log the type of relationship e.g., client, prospective client, introducer and interactions with your firm/individuals there

Why it matters: To have a clear picture of the important contacts your firm has and who needs to be included in your contact strategy, which needs to be owned by teams and individuals in your business development activity plan. It helps with the ultimate metric too: what is driving new clients, as you can look at people tagged as clients and how they became clients – e.g. through SEO, networking or referral by an introducer.

How to collect it: Some of this may come in via pure marketing (see my later point on this) or from business development activities such as speaking – via website forms. However, there will need to be some individual work when these contacts come from individuals building relationships in the market as part of the business development activity plan. It can be helpful to map where information will come from and who/what technology is responsible for storing it.

Where to collect it: The ideal is a CRM system. I am not a CRM expert and regularly recommend my clients speak to some contacts I have. However, my biggest piece of advice would be to get your business development strategy and plan in place, then design the system to work with that. A CRM alone will never make business development happen. So many firms install a shiny system without focusing on the changed human behaviours and actions that need to happen first.

Saying that, if you have a system already, it’s vital to do the strategy and plan, but when you have the choice, those should come first.

That means that often when I work with clients, there is a period of manually storing information until they are ready to commission a CRM, but that’s not an issue, and I can advise how to do that.

Business development activity happening is more important than a shiny system that doesn’t get used.

2. Progress – What BD activity are we doing, and is it progressing?

What this is: This is monitoring progress regarding the business development activity plan. It’s so that data and information can be reviewed within a specific review framework (designated review points) to understand what progress has been made and ultimately evolve the business development activity plan and see where there are gaps either in process/activity or skills.  Metrics should reflect inputs and outputs.

A simple example would be:

Business development activity: network to build relationships with accountants

Example input metric: number of events attended.

Example output metrics: number of follow-up meetings/conversations with accountants.

Why it matters: Whilst it is important to ultimately decide if a business development activity is working or not, it’s too simplistic to simply review if there has been new work as a result of a specific activity, because:

• Business development is a marathon, not a sprint, and opportunities can take time to come through due to the time needed for relationship building and the need for what you offer not being there immediately.
• It may be that an activity is ultimately an appropriate one. However, it’s potentially not being implemented well, e.g., not frequently enough, not with the right skills/supporting actions such as follow-up and ongoing contact strategy, so by logging other metrics this can be corrected, and the real potential of the activity understood. In the above example, there may have been no new work from accountants met at networking events, but before writing that activity off, it’s important to review: How many networking events have been attended? Has there been sufficient follow-up activity? If the answers to those questions are “Not many/not as many as we planned” and “No or limited,” then that is what needs changing first before the activity is struck off the plan.

How to collect it: This relies on people engaged in implementing business development outcomes logging them. This may seem tedious, but when set up well, it is a quick task and keeps individuals aligned with the business development approach and aware of what is happening and being achieved. When I work with a firm to put the business development strategy and plan in place, we establish how to record this information quickly and simply.

Where to collect it: Not all of this data needs to be stored in a CRM. A simple spreadsheet is often the best option when a team is just starting to adopt a structured approach to business development with a strategy and plan. Once a team/firm is into a rhythm, it may be prudent to integrate this into a business information system.

3. Performance – Who is contributing, and are individuals being accountable?

What this is: The business development activity plan is about individual accountability within a team for different actions. However, it is important that the leadership of the firm is focused on creating a business development culture, and an important part of this is demonstrating it’s an expected part of people’s roles (what is expected will vary by seniority and role) and incentivising people to take action. It’s an important complement to people knowing why, what, and how.

Why it matters: Ultimately, unless there is a personal benefit (“What’s In It For Me? (WIIFM)), people rarely take action. Therefore, it’s important to assess and acknowledge individual contribution to business development in appraisals and mid-year reviews.

How to collect it: The business development activity plan is a good starting point to check that individuals have remained accountable for what they committed to. However, if you manage people, then it is important to also keep track of individual progress in business development as you would in any other area of development or required focus. Also, encourage individuals to keep track of key contributions they have made to business development.

Where to collect it: The business development activity plan is a record of what has been done, but ultimately this information will go into appraisal documentation, which is likely to involve technology.

What do you need to do next to measure BD effectiveness?

Measuring business development effectiveness doesn’t have to be complicated. This should give you a framework for how to think about the business development data and information, so you keep measuring business development effectiveness. This not only makes sure you know what works (and importantly what doesn’t), but the Progress & Performance aspects help to keep people motivated when they see positive outcomes.

There will be lots of nuances for you and your firm. One other factor to have in mind is the crossover with marketing, and any CRM needs to be considered in light of the marketing plan as well.

My closing reminder is that a system can be important, but individual behaviour change is the most important factor. Get that right first when you can, then develop the technology to support it, measure it, and ultimately make business development more successful at your firm. Technology alone won’t solve the issue of engaging more people in business development as part of their role to grow your firm.

Need help?

If you know business development needs to be a bigger priority, or it’s already a priority but not delivering the results you need, an external perspective and practical support can make a real difference.

I work with firms and individuals across professional services in the UK and beyond, helping them develop more effective approaches to business development through facilitation, training, consultancy and coaching. Please get in touch to arrange a 30-minute conversation.