By nature, technical professionals are driven to solve problems. So, it’s not surprising that many Business Development Professionals focus their efforts on uncovering technical problems. Technical problems are, however, typically just intellectual concerns unless they are converted to more basic, first-person, personal pains. To be most effective, you must translate these technical problems into how they affect the business, how they affect the financials, and more critically, how they concern the individuals involved. Unless these second and third-degree situations are addressed in your discussions, the purely technical issues you’ve uncovered have limited value.
Business Development Professionals know and understand the technical solutions and capabilities their products and services provide from a technical solution perspective. Translating these technical features and benefits into first-person, personal pain as they relate to people, business and money problems as well as learning how to focus on those issues, is key to success in Business Development.
The 4 Cornerstones of Business Development are Technical, Business, Money and People Knowledge. But, knowledge alone is of limited value. It is the application of knowledge that is valuable. Our challenge as Business Development Professionals is to understand what problems we solve from the prospect’s perspective and how those problems affect them in more than purely technical ways.