Selling: I’m a Business Development Manager….really?

Rarely is there a job title that so poorly describes what you want from somebody; but here it is. Often given to someone because they don’t want to be tainted by the word ‘sales’ in their title, calling someone a BDM is nonsensical at best.

Let’s start by breaking it into its component parts.. ‘Business Development’ and ‘Manager’. Already, these two elements are contradictory as Business Development infers growing new business and Manage infers maintaining the status quo. So, you want to grow the status quo. That’s clear!

Let’s address the Manager part first. Who are you expected to manage? You don’t have a team reporting to you, and you cannot ‘manage’ an inanimate object or process. So why are you called a Manager?

In a large organization, Business Development is all but interchangeable with Account Management or Marketing; in other words, you are charged with identifying, evaluating and opening access to new sources of revenue, but you are NOT responsible for closing the deal. This is done by Sales. However, this is frequently not the intention.

In a smaller company, developing new sources of revenue is only part of the picture. A BDM will be expected to find and develop the opportunity, make and negotiate a proposal, and then oversee the implementation of the contract amongst all of the others in a geographical location. A more accurate description of this role is simply “Business Manager”. Now you will be managing people directly or indirectly; you will need to take not only revenue but also profit into account, and you will have accountability for the results.

Sometimes there is a lot in a name, and this is a great example of one of them.