Top Skills That Recruiters Look for in Business Developers
A Business Developer identifies the opportunities, builds and maintains the relationships with partners, and has a clear vision about the growth of the organization, keeping competitors in view. The one who is expert in communication to maintain the clients and far more connoisseur to deal with insiders.
Sometimes it’s challenging for a recruiter to hire a business development manager as there are no set of guidelines to do so. The responsibilities of business developers are much higher and affect the growth of a company, one cannot only rely on the educational background of the developer but looking for something unique and yet the best for the organization.
Most recruiters look for employees with hiring experience in business, but they might not turn out as the best candidates as the post requires much more qualities apart from knowledge of business which includes but not limited to leadership, communication, analysis, management, accounting, business planning and the most important consciousness about roles and responsibilities. These qualities are rare to find but yet essential for the growth of the organization. So here are some top skills described in detail for hiring business development managers.
Top 5 Skills – Business Development Managers
1. Skills To Frame Business Development Campaigns
The very first skill recruiter should look into to any business development manager is an acquaintance of business and field. The developer must be aware of current trends and market competitors which is required to frame business development campaigns. Knowing about the business with fundamentals is far more essential for any business developer. Development managers must utilize business development knowledge to establish successful campaigns and target key buyers and influencers. It means the developer should be aware of various strategies to deal with various circumstances. One should also look forward to the statistical knowledge of a developer as updated states are indicators of a developer’s informative skills.
2. Skills To Leverage Business Intelligence For Increasing Revenues
One of the major skills that recruiters look for in a business development manager is business intelligence. The developers should have a better understanding of general strategies of the firm, challenges, and corners of the current era, customer acquisition, and retention tactics. So they should offer your client a solution using the services your firm provides. That is called business intelligence in a single phrase. As the business developers are going to represent the organization to the clients and stakeholders, it requires a strong background of business with good communication skills both verbal and non-verbal. Business intelligence skills don’t only limit communication skills but also have the ability to attract the client. Recruiters should assess the abilities of developers to understand and adapt changes accordingly. You should also look at whether the developer can establish connections and build opportunities for organizations to increase revenues.
3. Strong Analytical Skills To Identify Upselling and Cross Selling Opportunities
The business development manager should be able to research the trends that are running the market, predict future outcomes and decide the present moves to cope up with the competitor market. As a recruiter, you need to look for the abilities of candidates to perform the market research and also make beneficial decisions. Not only research but also analysis is a great skill to look forward to in any business developer. Whether it is about data analysis of a sales team or market analysis at a base level, the candidate should be able to justify his/her role at both the phases to Identify Upselling and Cross Selling Opportunities. One can do nothing with only data in hand hence you require data analysis skills. Data Analysis allows one to plan your new strategies, cope up with present situations and predict future outcomes.
4. Innovation and Creativity – Increasing Customer Acquisition
To find solutions to complex business problems, develop new ideas and increase efficiency, the developer must have creative behavior. A Creative developer has his/her angle to handle the situations and think out of the box which helps in the development of the organization. A creative developer leads to find some new routes to solve the problem, new paths to develop business, innovative ideas to market and grow the firm. A Creative mindset attracts clients and opens new opportunities. Following the creative mindset, business development director recruitment also includes strategic thinking in the list of skills to be looked for. Strategic thinking includes awareness of surroundings and being able to take advantage of situations. Business development managers should be able to research and analyze the data and based on that take advantageous decisions using strategic thinking. Strategic thinking helps to visualize the loop holes while experimenting with new ideas too.
5. Business Account Management Skills
The business development manager has diverse responsibilities as he/she has to maintain balance with clients, stakeholders, and insiders as well. Hence, to manage everything with ease one must possess management skills. As there are many balls to juggle at a time and not every ball has the same speed to fall. Recruiters should look for organizational skills including task management, timelines, and selection of priorities. The business developer deals with many projects at a time. Each project has its timeline, workflow, client demands, and many more, to manage all with ease one must have management skills. To check such abilities, recruiters should start with assessing time management skills and how the candidate structures the day, decide priorities and later on manage the work. It’s important to avoid those candidates who are over optimistic and not conscious about management skills.
Top 10 Skills – Business Development Executives
1. Skills To Understand Customer Buying Patterns
In the present era, customers are more educated than ever before. With the chunks of information available on various platforms, customers make their minds before they contact the vendor. Hence, the business development executive should know how to deal with customers and turn them to establish a profitable relationship. The executive needs to serve as an advisor to the buyer to provide solutions to the challenges. The development executive should be well versed in strategies that will help the customer to build trust. One should hire an executive who understands the consultative selling approach.
2. Business intelligence Skills
The business development executive requires an understanding of one’s own business and the market as a whole. Understanding the business services your firm provides is far more essential but knowing everything about competitors is a skill required to surpass them. The executive must have the ability to research, collect and analyze the data which further helps in designing the campaign, understanding the market trends and competitors as well. The data that benefit a business developer consists of the size of the market, impact of transforming trends, and future visions.
3. Inbound Marketing Skills
The business development executive should be aware of the concept of marketing, inbound marketing, needs of the current business trends, and how to apply different strategies for the growth of the organization. The executive must know the marketing vertices and new marketing funnels which are mostly revolving around educational content, brand building, and non-intrusive reversed sales process. The key concepts the executive should know include web visitors, the buyer, and the target output.
4. Email Marketing Skills
Email marketing has become very significant for business success. Business development executives should be excellent at Email Marketing who is generally responsible for planning, implementing, and maintaining the overall company’s email marketing strategy. Therefore one should be good at email writing and attracting clients.
5. Creative Problem Solving Skills
In a business setting, it is one of the key skills an executive should have as traditional ways may not help in solving every business problem. A creative mind approaches the problem in an imaginative, innovative, and unconventional way which encourages them to find creative ways of thinking to face the issues at hand.
6. Technical Skills (CRM, Sales, Marketing Software)
As technologies are transforming at a very high speed, the executive you hire should be well versed with all current technological trends that are helpful for the growth of the business which includes CRM, sales, and marketing software. The business development executive must be good at basic computer skills including software. CRM helps the organization to gather all the data, techniques, and strategies that are utilized to analyze and decide the future moves and outcomes hence one must be good at this system.
7. Skills to Create Dynamic Sales Presentation
When an executive prepares the sales presentation and pitchbook material, it needs to be dynamic. As dynamic presentations attract the customers and establish their trust in the organization. Highly targeted presentations lead to retaining customer assets. Hence the executive should be the best at these skills of preparing and presenting the dynamic sales presentation.
8. Interpersonal and Collaboration Skills
Interpersonal and collaboration skills are part of effective teamwork. As a business development executive has to deal with all the departments of the organization, he must have collaborative skills for the betterment of the organization. One should keep his/her ego behind for the execution of the task with ease and smoothness. This skill helps in growing the company.
9. Emotional Intelligence
Not limited to talking and listening, a recruiter should also hire a business development executive who is emotionally intelligent who can adapt others emotions’ and communicate accordingly. The skill helps to understand a client’s requirements, problems and present the solutions accordingly. Emotional intelligence helps to build the trust of clients in an organization as well.
10. Sales Judgment Skills
Judgement is one of the super skills an executive should have. The skill separates the business development team from other departments. It’s good to know the technicals, computer basics, and software but without sales judgement skills it’s not possible to establish successful relationships with clients. The executive should be able to combine personal qualities with relevant knowledge and experience to make judgements.
Alliance Recruitment Agency
It’s always challenging to find someone who has all the mentioned skills, as the roles and responsibilities of a business development manager are diverse. Alliance Recruitment Agency helps you to scrutinize the candidate based on their performance in each skill keeping in mind the skills you require the most.
Besides all these qualities and skills, we find the one who is passionate about organization, curious about challenges, humble with answers, ready to get into the field, and have learning behavior, with the assurance that candidates will add a great value to the organization.
In the end, recruitment is the initiation of long and fruitful collaboration. But if a recruiter fails to perform his duty, the organization may lose the best one. So we always make sure we recruit the one who is skilled and passionate for the post of business development.