Auditing your Current Business Development Processes

For every business with an infrastructure for building and managing customer growth, there are 10 that build their marketing system in a disjointed, random manner.

Manufacturers generally focus on investing in lean operations, distributors in inventory control, and doctors and attorneys in practice management. So many marketing systems have been created in response to distinct market factors. Making these systems work together intuitively, and knowing when to re-engineer them for greater efficiency requires a marketing platform audit.

If you don’t already have profiles on customers and research on competitors invest in creating them. Some industries can easily profile and reach their customers, while others may be separated by many degrees from decision makers.

Assessing your competition is an ongoing process. Set up a list of things you need to know about each one of your primary competitors. What developments are changing your industry and how can you position yourself to benefit from these factors?

With a clear understanding of the external factors that impact your company it is time to audit the internal ones. You will want to examine:

1. The brand (not necessarily corporate ID, logo) – Find out what others think of your business. That’s your brand. Is it favorable, do people want to tell others about what you did for, or with them? Building the brand is a top down, full time undertaking. Behaviors exhibited to the staff are passed down to your customers!
2. Improvements to the offering – Determine if your product or service offering is what the world really wants. If it isn’t, look at your customer research and analyze what they are asking for. If you can make you your customers’ vision of the perfect solution you win. Actually you win if they know about it. Refer to 1 and 5.
3. Customer service functions – They may not call it customer service in your company. But, determining how to better serve customers, making them feel special is how you keep customers and get them to say good things about you. Do you have a regular process for defining the protocols for customer/client/patent interface? Is the staff cross trained so others can serve customers when their representative is unavailable? “Assumptive training” lives in higher stress work environments. If you organization operates in a reactive posture consider assistance to correct this corrosive condition.
4. CRM/Database management – From consumer products to local merchants to specialty machine shops, every well-run business needs a fully functional, centrally-based relationship management system today. The requirements are bigger than a spreadsheet now! The need to categorize, maintain history and communicate regularly to different segments with different offers requires a platform with dynamic functionality, especially as the business base expands
5. Digital/Social – When the promotional component of marketing, the part we called advertising was print (or TV and radio), it was conceptualized, produced and scheduled. Now, our communication can be perpetually active, always real-time. Whether you believe social media has any value to your particular business, be assured someone in your industry in profiting from it, and eventually someone else will advance on the first guy. If at all possible operate your social media platform in house. Since a website is the center of business development it must be inviting and informative. Keeping your site up to date and properly optimized is as important as any other selling activity.
6. Direct sales – It’s a minefield, but you must jump in. Most operations-led companies, those concentrating more on internal efficiencies have moderately performing sales functions. Take the bold step and have your sales staff evaluated using one of the sales assessment tools offered by sales trainers or online. Create job descriptions, quarterly reviews, travel with the staff and call clients for their independent feedback. In smaller companies, where there is no formal sales function, like a professional office, an outline should be prepared (in writing) laying out minimum requirements for business development activities by each partner.
7. Internal communications – When the staff is aware of the mission and direction of the organization, employees feel more connected and less concerned for their individual role. This is especially true where policy and reality co-exist. Job descriptions and regular reviews, these are not salary reviews by the way, keep employees informed on their contribution and on the expectations management has for them. Regular meetings, an internal newsletter or company Facebook page is a great way to keep up morale and communicate at all levels.

The learning and steps taken as part of this audit will serve as the foundation for your marketing planning and execution. By the end of the marketing audit, you will have a deeper understanding of your company’s organizational structure, marketing infrastructure, process for achieving growth, and the risks associated with not following through with a marketing plan. Once you implement the activities you will be outlining in the plan, you will have taken the first step towards building a sustainable business development machine for your company.