Are Business Development, Sales & Marketing In Sync? - Episode 15

Business development versus sales versus marketing. That was a kind of loose subject that we thought we'd talk about. There seems to be, anecdotally, empirical evidence suggests there's still a kind of void between the salespeople and the marketing people.

Business development. The clues in the title is about developing a business. Sales is about sales. Marketing is about marketing. There's clearly an interface between them. Obviously, as time's gone by, you know, digital marketing coming on board, you know, um, and developing the way it has, particularly in the last decade and probably the last five years, more so the fact that you don't necessarily need salespeople on the road meeting customers all the time. You know, if you get your digital marketing strategy aligned to your business development strategy, the sales then becomes almost the, it becomes the mechanism to join the two, you know, the marketing generates the enquiries from the areas you want them and the salespeople follow them up. in essence.

Okay, so we're back with the Digital Marketing From The Coalface podcast, and this week I'm talking to Stuart Harrison. Stuart, tell everyone who you are and about your business.

Okay. Um, well, Stuart Harrison, I run a company called Solarflare Services, which is predominantly a management consultancy. Um, but my background prior to doing that was fifteen years as a business development director, predominantly growing engineering companies, um, across the UK, so mainly in the power sector, um, but elsewhere as well. And like most people, you kind of in a job like that I learned on the job. So, um, and the business development portfolio often included marketing. So hence the digital marketing podcast.

Yeah. That's right. And today we're going to be talking about, um, business development versus sales versus marketing and just having a general chat. So we've got the, the digital marketing angle. Um, because that's obviously what we're, you know, the main theme of the podcast, but this will probably, you know, move out into other areas. We'll just see where it goes as we, as we chat away.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. And full disclosure before we start, um, Stuart's actually my cousin, um, so he's from the clever side of the family. So hopefully this podcast will be quite informative and interesting. That's um.

Nice setup.

There actually. And although we're not in the studio together, I mean, Stuart's, I can see Stuart on the video. Um, and I can see he's shaking like a leaf. He's terrified about doing this podcast because, you know, typical former corporate type guy, you know, I mean, he's just got to get this right and we've got to make sure we sell. It's not like that. Stu really isn't like that. I mean, probably most of what we say today will be completely useless and nobody will be interested in it. But as long as it's, uh, as long as we enjoy ourselves, that's all that really matters.

That sounds like a plan.

Okay, so business development versus sales versus marketing, that was a kind of loose subject that we thought we'd talk about. Do you want to just put some meat on the bones and then we'll see where we go with this?

Yeah. I mean, it goes back to and I know I wasn't alone in this, but when I was first appointed as a business development director, I kind of moved from an operational role. And I discovered most of my counterparts and peers in business development were in the same boat. They were either technically good. And, you know, somebody thought they were all right with the customers. So they put them in a business development role. And there was no, as usual, no formal training, no decent introduction to the role. It was go out and get the orders in. And.

And whereabouts was this? Where was this happening?

Well, at the time I had moved into an engineering training company, so delivering apprentice training. And um, as you know, Dave, my background was in the nuclear industry and the biggest client for this company was my old employer. So, um, overnight my former team became my customers, I guess.

Um, yeah. Interesting dynamic.

Yeah, it was, um, but um, but what I realised it was in business development, of course, you go to lots of networking events and and so on and so forth. And I was being given business cards by people who had business development manager in their, um, job title. And I thought, well, you're not a business development manager, you're a sales manager or you're an account manager. And it really got me thinking that particularly in the UK, this title business development is, in my view, completely misleading most of the time, you know, business development, the clues in the title is about developing a business. You know, sales is about sales, marketing is about marketing. And whilst there's clearly an interface between them and the the idea of being a business development manager was really a way of avoiding putting the word sales on the job title, you know, putting.

People because the whole thing about engineers, if they're involved and they've got sales in the job title, it's somewhat demeaning or something is I mean, I mean, what's the what's what's the history there? What's the story?

Well, I think there's a few factors. I think one is, um, having sales in the job title is, is almost seen as a dirty word in the UK, you know, being a salesman, you know, it just conjures up images of dodgy second hand car dealers, you know? Um, so.

And it's funny when we think about salesmen saleswomen even, but certainly salespeople and the first thing that most people think about is dodgy second hand car dealers.

Totally, totally. I mean, in the States, it's a it's a recognised, you know, significant profession. Yeah. Um, but in the UK, yeah. It's a dirty word. So business development sounds a lot kinder I suppose. And it um you know if you're going in front of clients. Oh no I'm not, I'm not a salesperson. I'm here to develop the business and help you solve your problems and all the usual guff that goes with that, you know. Um, but that really got me thinking about my role as a BD director. You know, I was spending ninety five percent of my time on sales, although I had a marketing team. Um, really, I wasn't utilising them to their full potential because I didn't really understand what marketing was and what marketing could do. And, you know, digital marketing at the time was in its infancy. It was more associated with brand than enquiry generation. Um, and, and then I realised that, hang on, there's a BD director, I should be actually focusing on the direction of growth and travel of the business, not just the sales orders. Yeah. Um, yeah. Otherwise there should be the sales director, not a business development director. And, you know, even, um, subsequently when I joined other companies, I pretty much found that the CEO in all the companies I worked for, even though I had business development director in the job title, they saw me as a sales director. It was all about hitting the sales numbers. Yeah.

Mhm.

Um, so, you know, there's some tactics required really to, um, produce a good strategy for developing the company and growing the company and then positioning that in front of the CEO when all he was really interested or she was interested in was the sales pipeline. Yeah.

Mhm. Yeah.

Okay. And then obviously, as time has gone by, um, you know, digital marketing coming on board, you know, um, and developing the way it has, particularly in the last decade and probably the last five years, more so the fact that you don't necessarily need salespeople on the road meeting customers all the time. You know, if you get your digital marketing strategy aligned to your business development strategy, you know, um, the sales then becomes almost the, um, how would you describe it? It becomes the mechanism to join the two, you know, the marketing, um, the marketing generates the enquiries from the areas you want them and the salespeople follow them up. In essence.

Yeah. Mhm. Okay. So, so what are we saying that the, the whole idea of business development, sales, marketing, it's just kind of become melded into like one role now or what? What are we actually saying?

Um, I think it's misunderstood by those that don't work in the profession. I think it's seen as one role when actually it's different disciplines, you know, and if I, if I use a crude analogy, it's like saying all engineers are the same. Well, yeah, you put a mechanical engineer in a room with an electrical engineer, and they'll tell you the difference straight away. And for me, a marketing professional is not the same as a sales professional and is not the same as a business development professional. And yeah, and understanding what those differences are and actually learning about the profession is key. I mean, okay, I guess you find this with your customers, Dave, in digital marketing that nine times out of ten, you're having to explain what digital marketing is as the first step. Yeah.

Certainly explaining, you know, what the potential is for digital marketing to help their specific business is definitely the case. Yeah. So, so are we saying now? I mean, can we sort of explore, do you think, like how digital marketing or just digital technologies, I suppose, feed into each of the business development, sales and marketing roles? I mean, do you think. Yeah. Do you think that's got some mileage?

Well, definitely. I mean, pre digital marketing for me, marketing had two functions. One was the market research. So identifying where the customer base was, what the customers wanted, you know, what was unique and that should.

And this came up actually what you're saying there that came up in a previous podcast when Julie and I were talking about this and how the role of marketing isn't just about being told, right, we've got this shiny new product, go out and try and sell it to people. It's about trying to understand what the market's actually looking for, what the market needs.

Totally. And again, I think this is where in organisations that don't understand the marketing professional and the marketing profession, they see marketing as a promotion function only. And it isn't, you know, it's much, much more than that. And I think, you know, with the digital marketing era, um, that research becomes even more important. I mean, as you would understand, if you, if you get into the nuts and bolts of it, things like keyword research, you know, it's a critical tool to understand exactly what people are searching for, what they're looking for. And that can inform your whole strategy about which group you're targeting, which sector, which subsector. Um, you know, and this isn't for online sales. I wasn't just thinking like your Amazon style product sales here. I'm thinking even for services.

Yeah, yeah for sure. Yeah. Agreed. Yep. That's right. So traditionally, well not traditionally like thinking about the BD role. How is digital marketing or the use of tools like customer relationship management systems, etc. is, is that feeding into that BD role? I mean, can I maybe, maybe it's worth defining what like traditionally the BD person would, would or should maybe not was, but should have been responsible for, you know, the business development. I know it's a very descriptive name, but distill that down a bit.

So, um, at the top level, I guess the strategic level, it's all about identifying which markets you want to be in, what your growth strategy is going to be. Is it organic or inorganic, i.e. are you going to, um, develop your products or services to move into adjacent spaces, whether that's geographically, you know, you may be delivering in Aberdeenshire at the moment. So, you know, the next geographical space might be Perthshire. Yeah.

Um, yeah.

Or similarly, um, it could be that you're delivering across the UK. Your next geographical space might be Europe, you know, Brexit allowing. Um. Yeah. And so, you know, again, looking for how people find the services and what the nuances are around those services. Because ultimately there's not much differentiator between a lot of companies these days. Those differentiators have to be very precise. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise everyone's just showing the same catalogue, so to speak.

Mhm. Mhm. That's right.

So so I think with with, you know, on the BD side, you know, as a consultant, for example, again, traditionally, I would have probably got most of my business on word through word of mouth. Yeah.

Um, okay. So I guess then for the tools like LinkedIn are feeding into the BD role now.

Very much so. Yeah. Now. Yeah. Then you get these sort of difference in strategy. How do you deploy that? Do you do the cold calling technique which most salespeople do very badly in my view. Um, or do you, um, do you pursue a pull strategy? So, you know, advertise for the right things that, you know, people are searching for basically. And that's again, where the digital marketing research will feed into your business development strategy or should do.

So this is, that almost sounds a bit like inbound business development as opposed to, like you said, cold calling and stuff. It's about understanding the market and then making sure that you're positioning yourself in, say, LinkedIn, for example, by writing about, um, things that you know, that that marketplace are interested in. I mean, I know it sounds pretty basic, but I guess, I mean, that's kind of what you're saying. Maybe is it?

It is. And whilst you say it sounds basic, the majority of companies I've dealt with both in the past and in my current organisation I don't understand that difference, you know. Yeah. They almost see digital marketing as promote our products and services. And then we'll back that up with cold calls. Well, that's fine, but you need to decide really where do you want your business to come from? Do you want it to come from inbound enquiries or do you want it to come from, you know, cold calling and outbound activities or, you know, where's the balance between the two and go for that deliberately rather than letting it develop ad hoc? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I understand what you mean. So it seems to me that if you're, if you're actually using digital marketing and then doing cold calling on the back of it that you might be doing the digital marketing wrong.

I would think so.

Yeah. Because because if you're doing it right, you're not going to have to do that cold calling piece, are you? You're going to be able to, you know, you would expect that people would be coming to you, whether it's, you know, whether it's through LinkedIn or because you're putting adverts in Google using Google ads, for example, around the, you know, the topics that, you know, people are searching for.

Totally. And I think it then shapes what kind of sales team you need on the back of that. So, you know, I've met a lot of people who call themselves salesmen, but in reality, they're not they're order takers, you know. Yeah.

I hear that a lot.

Yeah. The company's already got an enquiry and the enquiry has been passed on to them, so that's a good lead. You know, you've got a client who wants something, you know that? Yeah. If you can't get an order off the back of that, you're doing something substantially wrong. Yeah. Um, and I think.

Yeah, I get that.

And that's very different from the, the image of, you know, fifteen years ago of the sales rep on the road knocking on doors. Yeah. Um, where they were actually generating the enquiry as well as following up on it. Yeah.

Yeah. So do we, I mean, in the digital era, do we think salespeople need a different approach, a softer approach, like almost an extension of the initial piece of work, which might be around providing useful, entertaining educational content. Do you think that educational approach needs to continue with the sales team, and do you think? Well, first of all, do you think that's the case? And then secondly, do you think like, um, you know, traditional dyed in the wool salespeople struggle with that?

Well, I'll start with the latter first. Yeah. I think traditional salespeople do struggle with that. And I, and I guess it depends what you're selling first and foremost. I mean, we're at risk of generalising everything here. And yeah, if you're, if you're promoting components and instruments, etc., that's very different from selling a consultancy service or marketing a consultancy service. So, um, but I think it does change how the enquiries are generated in the first place. So that used to be a function of sales in many companies I've dealt with, you know, so marketing marketing promoted, but sales actually got the enquiries in the. There would even be a, you know, maybe a I'll call it a call center, but it could be a call desk, you know. Um, and I think now that we're talking about receiving digital enquiries, how you then handle those, I mean, you'll, you'll know this from your own business, Dave, how you handle and follow up and actually pretty an enquiry in the first place to see how real, real it is and how genuine it is. And, and yeah, you know.

Like qualifying it, you mean.

Absolutely. Um, yeah. You know, it's, you know, you can do that by following up with a phone call. Um, great. But sometimes, as you know, you can just look at the enquiry and go, hang on, they've got this completely wrong, you know, let's point them in a different direction. Yeah.

Yeah for sure. Yeah.

So I think I think it's horses for courses obviously, um easy thing to say, but I think unless a business development director is thinking long and hard about how their digital marketing feeds in, not just to promoting the business, but feeds into sales and An enquiry, generation and enquiry handling you and the team that they have available to handle those enquiries, then they're missing a trick. In simple terms. Yeah.

Yeah. And do we I mean, anecdotally, I hear that, you know, businesses that are getting enquiries through digital channels are not always handling them well. So they are kind of getting somebody coming along saying, you know, I'm interested in what you've got in such and such a service or such and such a product and then a old school, if you like digital, uh, sorry, an old school salesperson, then, you know, jumps, jumps into it, you know, armed with a piece of paper to fill in, fill in the gaps and, and get a signature and a P.O. or whatever sort of thing. Whereas clearly that's just, it's just not the way it should be done now.

No, no, I mean, that goes back to my point earlier about, um, salesman versus order takers. And also, you know, the, the whole issue of, um, scripted sales. You know, there is a place for that, clearly. But I think, um, understanding the client's problem or what the client's trying to achieve is critical. Um, and if you go.

If salespeople not always done that, I mean, does it, it seems odd to me. I mean, I don't have a lot of experience in this field, but if salespeople are not always fully understood, both what they're trying to or what they're offering, what they're trying to sell, and the prospect's situation problems, etc., in order to get, you know, to get the sale.

Uh, I think they like to think they have. Okay.

But bit controversial. Stu.

Yeah. Well, I, well, I mean, if you think about the sales calls you receive, I mean, how often do they actually listen to what you're saying and how often? Never. Yeah. And how often are they responding to what they've been asked to say. You know, what their script tells them. And I think, um, there are some, there's some very good trainers, sales trainers in the UK and what they focus on now isn't a script, and it's not about establishing rapport and all of these kind of things. It's about really asking the right questions of your client so you can understand what the client needs and whether you can help them with it. And if you can't walk away, you know, stop, stop trying to force them into buying something they don't need or want. Um, and I mean, it's the whole issue of sales is an interesting one in itself. And I'm quoting from somebody else here, but you know, when you're at school and the teacher says, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? And, you know, people put their hands up and say, doctors, nurses, firemen, astronaut, nobody ever puts their hand up and says they want to be a salesman or saleswoman. No. Um, so often salespeople like to be liked. You know, that's a common.

Yeah, I think, yeah, it's probably a common personality trait in people who choose that line of work, I would imagine.

Yeah. And they've often got the role because they're perceived to be really good with the customers. You know, they might be they might have been an ops person, operations person who's got that role because, you know, they understand the technicalities of what the product or service is. And there seem to be good with the customers. Um, fine. Um, but actually that doesn't help them get to the bottom of what the customer really wants. You know, so in my mind and why there's a link here with digital marketing, what you guys do in digital marketing when you're working with your clients is you get to the, the root of why somebody would buy or want to buy their product or service. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that helps you define things like your keyword searches or, and your SEO strategies, etc.. The salespeople also need to understand that so that they can ask similar questions when they actually do get an enquiry in. Yeah. Mhm. And.

And so do we think that BD salespeople, I keep saying BD and salespeople as if they're one and the same. And but but right, right at the start you said they're not one and the same. They are, they are different. Um, and maybe still struggling a little bit with that, with that, uh, understanding that what the differences really are. So if we concentrate maybe on, on the salespeople, um, do we think that salespeople who I mean, what do salespeople have to do now in the digital era? Because what I'm thinking is that people are coming to an organisation to buy products or services, and they're very much more informed. They're more informed than they've ever been. They're kind of, you know, they actually potentially know the products as well as the salesperson. So what does the salesperson in the digital era need to do to still be relevant and useful?

Right. Well, big topic there, but, um, I think you've hit the nail on the head. I think for most product sales now there isn't a role for the salesman.

It's they are just order takers.

Yeah, at best if there is one at all. You know, I mean in many cases it's an automated service now. Yeah. You find what you want online, you know, and you place your order. Yeah. Um, I mean, if we take a simple example, you and I, uh, both understand this because we both enjoy a bit of fishing. You know, before digital marketing, you would go into a fishing shop and you would be met by a fishing expert, no doubt, who was passionate about his, his or her sport. And, you know, you could ask all sorts of questions and they would refer you to whatever product they felt best suited your needs. And you can still do that. But more often than not, you can find that information online. And then you go to a cheap online tackle shop and you buy the piece of kit you want, and you've watched a few YouTube videos and you know, you've done your research. So that's meant that the fishing tackle shop, to use the analogy, has had to change. It has to offer something that the online retailer doesn't. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Well, interestingly, I mean, last week I went into the Glasgow Angling Centre, which is it's just fantastic. I love it in there. It's like as big as Tesco, but it's just full of fishing stuff. And that's as you say, you and I both enjoy fishing, so it was great fun. Now, I'd done a lot of research. Um, so I kind of knew the budget I was gonna spend, or I was looking for a new rod and a new reel for Caron. Not for me. It's actually just as much fun buying new fishing gear for somebody else as it is buying it for yourself. It's actually because it's still you still get a buzz from it. So I kind of, I sort of narrowed it down a little bit, but I went in there and the plan was to go in and just have a general walk around looking at all the toys, all the fishing stuff, which is great fun, and then find somebody. And as it happens, I was wandering around and I saw Caron talking to a chap. And so we just said to him, right, you know, this is what I've got. This is the kit I use. We want something that's just a little bit lighter. This is the kind of budget that we've got. And, you know, budgets might be something we can talk about because quite often in that sales process that some people are quite coy about budget. But we'd established our budget, you know, we wanted to spend about one hundred and fifty quid on a rod and about one hundred and fifty quid on a reel. As it turned out, the rod was slightly cheaper, so we spent a bit more on the reel, but the budget was around about the three hundred quid mark for the rod and reel, and then we kind of just let them do their thing. And he just talked about the benefits of this and the that and the different, the different reels. And it was it, it was a really good experience. Now that shop their big online, they actually have several brands like fishing Megastore and stuff like that. So they, they do a fantastic amount of business online, but they've still put people who fish in the shop so that when people come in, they can they can talk knowledgeably. Now, I don't know if that's a blueprint for success. I don't know whether it just happens to work in that line of work, or whether the people that they attract to work in the store happen to also be people who fish, I don't know.

But what you've just described, there is a different you use the word experience. Yeah. If you just wanted to buy a rod and reel. You could probably selected one yourself online, you know enough. Yeah. Um, yeah. But what you wanted was to wander around and see and touch all the nice, shiny things that you and maybe get some inspiration for another fishing buy sometime down the line, you know? Yeah. And see what the latest thing is and what have you. So your salesman there is actually about facilitating an experience. You know, if they were just out and out sales, when you told them what your budget was and what your rod and reel requirements were, they'd have just gone. There you go, Dave, take this one. And that would have met your requirement. But it was more than that, wasn't it? It was a conversation. It was, yeah. Share the passion of fishing, etcetera, etcetera.

Yeah, exactly. It really was. And, and I never felt like I was being sold to no, you know, at any point, I mean, because I'd gone in there, I was going to spend money, I was going to come out of there, you know, we were going to come out of there with, with the kit. And yeah, I mean, probably left to our own devices, we, we might have had a, we might have selected different stuff, but because that person was there, he was, um, yeah, he was really knowledgeable and helpful, but he didn't try and sell us anything. He just he did exactly what I think salespeople in the modern era, in the digital era should do. You know, he listened. And then we had various conversations around the pros and cons of different bits of kit.

And to use another analogy, and I'm going to go back to the car salesman and a really good example of a car salesman. Um, so I'm not Swiss.

Tony. You're going to do Swiss. Tony.

Swiss Tony.

Swiss. Tony's come up in a previous previous podcast, actually.

The, uh, so when I had proper jobs before I set up my own business, I was driving many, many miles and I had a car on a, you know, PCP. And of course, it comes to the end of the PCP. Do you hand it back or, you know, do you buy it outright or what do you do? Do you trade it in and get a new one? And I decided I wanted to keep my car. Now the salesman rang me up. The guy that had originally sold my car. You know, he used to ring me about once a year just to make sure everything was okay. But we knew he was a salesman. He knew he was a salesman, you know? Yeah. And he asked the question, do you know what you want to do with your car at the end of the PCP? And I said, yes, I want to buy it outright. And he said, no problem, I'll email you the link so you can sort it out. And that was it.

Yeah, yeah.

He didn't try and persuade me to buy a new car. You know, he'd already sent me emails with the by the way, you can trade it up for this one or you can trade it in for that one. But he listened to what I said. So yeah, you just think, great. He's not he's not pushy, pushy, pushy, you know. Yeah. And it was a really good experience. Yeah. So.

Well go on. Sorry.

I was going to say so if at some point I do ever want to change my car, there's a good chance I'm going to go back to him. Yeah.

Yeah. Because he listened to you.

Because he listened to you. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And we went to a number of years ago. We were, we were in a PCP deal with a car. It was a Mercedes. It was due to go back and we decided, yeah, we'll maybe stick with Mercedes. So we went to the Mercedes garage in Cumbria, and all the salesman was trying to do was sell us the car that he had there in a brand new car. They had a really good deal on it and it was completely and utterly not the car we needed, not the car we wanted. And all he wanted to do was sell us that car. Mhm. And every time I said no, he said, well, give me a minute. And he went away and he came back with a slightly better price. But at no point did he actually listen to us. So in the end, we did buy another Mercedes on a PCP deal. Um, and we went to a different actually the same company, the same Mercedes dealer dealership if you like, but a different branch where the guy actually sat and listened to us and then said, well, how about this? And was like, yeah, that sounds great. That's exactly what we want. And he sorted the deal out. So I think you're right. I think there are still salespeople out there who don't listen. And increasingly they're going to find themselves, you know, isolated because, you know, the people are not going to go back because we are so much, you know, we're so much better informed now. And I think that's the key to it. And that's been facilitated because of the web, the internet, because of social media, you name it. All of that's facilitated. People like you and I being better informed about things that maybe in the past we knew a bit about it, but actually now we know quite a lot about it. We know what we want to do. We know we want to buy.

Totally. And I think, you know, if if, you know, there's still a place for the salesperson to explain, you know, for those that don't or haven't done the research or don't understand the research that they've read, and I can imagine that's particularly true in the digital marketing space. Somebody coming to buy a digital marketing service, you know, they've maybe been told they, the website's ten years old. They think digital marketing is just about creating a new website, not about all the messaging, the, you know, the, the blogging, the SEO, the content development, the form a form B testing and all of those things you can do with digital marketing because it's so sophisticated now. If they've got know.

A lot about it.

Well, I've heard this bloke droning on about it for a while.

Oh God. He doesn't have drawn on, doesn't he?

But I mean, joking aside, that's been so useful for me because even as a business development professional, I had no idea of the complexity of modern digital marketing. You know, it's moved on so much. You live, you live, eat and breathe it day in, day out. So you don't necessarily see the evolution. But for me, it's been maybe three years since I was last involved in a digital marketing strategy. And all of a sudden the whole the whole game has changed, you know, in that time. Um, so there's a place then for a digital marketing professional to say, okay, there's an education piece up front. Let's explain to you how it works. And now you can go away and think about your digital marketing strategy and come back when you know what it is you want, you know? Mhm.

Yeah. So, I mean, we spend a lot of time, as you mentioned earlier, we spend a lot of time trying to educate and help people understand it, and we do that. Believe it or not, not because we're just trying to squeeze a sale out of somebody, not because we're trying to, um, you know, um, get a gig. We do it because we do enjoy the whole process of seeing light bulbs going on and seeing people recognise the potential of it all. Um, and I, again, I do worry that traditional salespeople, maybe the killer instinct, you know, the, the need to get that PR signed is overrides that. And that's fine because, you know, businesses need businesses need to sell stuff to survive. But, um, I again, I just think in, in the, in the digital era, in the new era, if you like, if we can call it that, it's not that new. Maybe it just, you can't do that anymore. You've got to, you've got to be like the helpful user. Use the helpful style of selling.

And in some ways it's more. It's more akin to the old model of the account manager. You know, the account manager was almost the customer's, um, independent representative within the business. You know, they would fight for the customer's interests within the business. You know, why is that project not being delivered quick enough? You know, you promised the client you'd have it done by September. We're now in October and it's not finished, you know? Okay. All right. So the client's not being very helpful because they haven't given you the information. I'll go back and see what we can do to free that up. And they become they become the oil in the wheels to make things work. They take the time to explain, you know. Sorry. That bit of kit you ordered no longer made by the manufacturer. We're trying to source a replacement one, you know, whatever it might be, you know. Um, and, you know, they were seen as almost running the interference between the delivery teams and, and the client. But actually, I think in this day and age, that account manager has more and more of a role to help educate the client. You know, the client's busy doing the day job. They don't have necessarily time to look around. Yeah.

Yeah. I suppose there are, there is that, that um potential even even with the wealth of information that's out there and the way that we can research things on YouTube and LinkedIn and other social platforms. And obviously the web itself, I think there's, there's still those people who are just too busy to do that and do need somebody to guide them. Um, so I'm, I'm trying to kind of understand, you know, where we've gone with this, with this chat because we kind of preface this conversation with, we're going to look at BD versus sales versus marketing. What we've, what we've managed to do is give, uh, old school salespeople a good bashing. Yeah. And maybe that's what they need. Um, the, the BD thing, I still, I'm still, I don't know, maybe I'm still a little bit confused about a very clear definition of in, you know, now, now what that person, he or she is actually doing day to day.

So for me, a business development person is looking at where what's the direction of travel for the business? So let's go back to our fishing tackle example. Yeah. So so our friends at Glasgow Angling Centre could have turned around and said, you know what, we get very little footfall coming through our door. Most people are buying fishing tackle online these days. We're going to we're going to shut the physical shop and just do everything online. Okay. And that would have been a strategic decision informed by what was happening in the market. Yeah. And that's a that's a business development decision.

So and some businesses have done that. Some businesses have shut the doors and gone purely online. I mean, I suppose quite recently, John Lewis have been in the news a lot because they've been shutting a lot of their physical stores, but their online business, I think from what I know, from what I can gather is thriving.

And, you know, it's a bit like the redevelopment. I'm going off piste a bit here, Dave, but it's a bit like the redevelopment of the town centre. You know, twenty years ago that had been a butcher's, a greengrocers, a bakers, etc. and one by one the supermarkets put them out of business. Well, why? Because they were trying to compete or giving the impression they're offering the same products as supermarkets offer, so the supermarkets do it cheaper, so people go to the cheapest place for the same product. Well, what we've seen happening in some areas and, you know, is the emergence of the local butcher again. Well what's different? Well, they can tell you when you're buying your piece of beef, which cow it came from. From which farm? Yeah. Yeah. And all of a sudden the message is different. It's not about buying a steak. To use that example that's pre-packaged. It's buy buy buying a steak that's locally produced with low transport miles on it, etc., etc.. And yes, you're going to pay a premium for that if you can afford it. Yeah. But the reposition their business now, most of them have either done it because they've seen it work somewhere else. But that is actually a business development strategy. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what business development is. How are you going to position your product, your your service in the marketplace? How are you going to evolve it? So are you going to be niche or are you going to be general? Yeah. Um, etc.. And that is nothing to do with sales. You know, the sales come on the back of that. Yeah.

Yeah. It makes sense. I get that now. I get that, but I'm gonna say, do you think it's fair to say that most organisations, when they say business development, they just mean sales? I think they've already said that earlier on in this chat.

That's exactly what I'm saying. I think ninety percent of the people you meet with business development in their job title are not business development. They're sales. Yeah, yeah. Um, okay. Even the business development director, often the, the BD strategy will be given to them by the MD or the CEO because they've got a clear vision of where they want to take the company or not always clear. They've got a vision of where they want to take the company, you know, and, and they're giving it to you go and make it happen, you know, but actually, a BD director should be informing through the market research through what the market information is telling them to, you know, what the trends, where are things going, you know, what's the direction of travel, therefore, how are we going to respond to that? MM.

Mhm. Okay. Got you. But I mean it. Accepting accepting that and I do. Um. Do we have to fix it? Is it is it broken? Do we have to fix it or do we just think, well, it doesn't really matter that people say BD but they actually mean sales.

Well, I don't think we have to fix it. I think it's just a recognition, um, that, you know, somebody's coming to you and they're a BD manager. They're probably not. Yeah. Um, but I think more importantly when you say do we have to fix it? I think for me, companies, especially SMEs, I see it a lot with SMEs. They really don't have a clear business development strategy. And the reason they don't is they're so busy doing the day job, you know, so the sales team are busy trying to get orders in and the ops team are busy trying to fulfill them. Yeah. Um, and, and, you know, every now and again, um, they suddenly kind of look up above the, above the wall and realise the landscape around them is changing. And for me, this is where digital marketing can now play a much more credible role than maybe marketing traditionally has. And in the, you know, you can present data. You know, digital marketing allows the presentation of data. Yeah. Yeah. No point in advertising that service because you will appear on the nineteenth page on Google when anybody searches it. Yeah. Mhm. Okay. So what what can we offer? Yeah. And that shape that shapes your service provision, how you position the service, what the service might actually look like. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Got you. And the third part, you know, BD versus sales versus marketing. Um, I mean, going back to our bashing of salespeople, there seems to be anecdotally, um, empirical evidence suggests there's still a kind of void between the salespeople and the marketing people. There's still they're not, they're not connected in the way that maybe given the way things have changed because of digital marketing, um, that there should be, um. I mean, I'll just throw that to you for a minute because I'm. I'm not exactly clear what I'm trying to say when I'm saying that, but, you know, like I do hear that sales and marketing are, you know, just, you know, hey, marketing, just get us the leads and then leave it to us after that, you know, and you don't have to be in, you don't have to be involved in what we're doing at all. Just get us the leads sort of thing.

Yeah. And I think, I think you're absolutely right. And that continuum, you know, there isn't a fixed boundary between marketing and sales as you and I would both agree, I think. Um, but there is almost in the mentality of a salesperson versus a marketing person. And I use the word versus deliberately there, you know, um, I mean, we've had discussions about can you automate the sales process? Yeah. Mhm. Yeah, yeah. And effectively take the salesperson out of it. Yeah. Mhm. Um, so the enquiry handling and everything to do with it, it's actually all in one function. Now, you know, in many cases, you know, if you're promoting online, you're using digital marketing to generate inbound enquiries and then you respond to those inbound enquiries. That's one process. Yeah. Yeah. And actually, the person who is responding to those enquiries needs to understand what's generating them in the first place. They need to have an understanding of, you know, how the marketing is positioning the service or product that they're responding to the enquiry to. Yeah. Okay.

I'm just scribbling some notes down there. So. Okay. So what we're saying is that where BD is concerned, the digital technology is digital. The data that we get back about what our business is, uh, is appearing for in search and, and, and other things that data can help inform the business development process by saying, look, people are very interested in this or, and even even silly things like, well, we call it this, but actually the market calls it something else. And we know that because we can look at the data. Exactly. That kind of that's a simple. So that is a that's the way that digital is impacting on the BD role, the true BD role and then the sales role, which is what some people call BD, but it isn't it's sales. Um, they need to adapt because people are coming to them. We're more, we're better informed than they ever were. So they can't just respond in the same way they used to because they might actually come unstuck. They might even find that prospects are coming to them, and they're even better informed than, than they are about the subject and the products or solutions. And then, and then like the marketing piece. Um, well, you know, this podcast, we talk about digital marketing a lot and we, you know, the way that marketing has evolved with the use of digital technology is pretty obvious to most people. So, you know, we can see how that's all interconnected and how it's kind of needing to change based on.

I think.

What's been happening for the last ten years.

And I think, um, if I can use a real example to show that evolution and it's one of your clients, so you might have to edit this out, but, um, they, they, you know, a company that sold irrigation systems? Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. You know, traditionally they'd have had a catalog of irrigation before digital. They'd have had a catalog of irrigation systems with the pros and cons of each bit, you know, and then the door knock and drop them off and all the rest of it. But what you discovered was there was a client group who was searching for replacement or upgrades or whatever you want to call them to irrigation systems. And these were client groups who were taking over ownership of a facility. So there were tenants, for example. Yeah, yeah. That's right. Now they don't really care whether it's a five hundred liter a minute pump or a seven hundred liter a minute pump. They're not engineers. Yeah, yeah. Their issue was how can I minimise the risk and my insurance bill and my replacement costs and get some longevity out of this and reduce my maintenance bills. So all of a sudden you've got your market research tells you that's what they're looking for. You then position your marketing material to attract them, you know, digitally for those kind of people. Well, when that enquiry comes through, that's not the same as somebody saying, can you do you do a seven hundred liter a minute pump?

That's yeah. That's right.

Somebody's saying, how can you help me reduce my maintenance costs? You know, so so the person handling that enquiry has to understand what the company's been offering and promoting so that when that enquiry comes in, they can understand or have a better understanding of the potential motivation of the person who's raised the enquiry. Yeah.

Yeah.

So does that make sense?

I mean, haven't yeah it does, but haven't people always been more interested in the result? By the way, your chair is really squeaky. I don't know if you know that. I think we should see if we can get some. I'll get some WD forty. I'll get on Amazon after this chat and I'll send you a can of WD.

I've got somebody keeps me awake.

So so haven't we always haven't salespeople always understood that it's the result of the product or the service that people are interested in, not necessarily the product or the service in and of itself.

Um all right. Okay. Good question. The answer to that is it depends. You know, okay, if the client's ringing up and saying.

Good question, bad answer.

Yeah. Um, I, it depends what the client's been ringing up for, you know, and I, I'm, I'm thinking of a young salesman that used to work for me and he works for a company now that provides, um, cabinets, control cabinets to put kit in, you know, and he's what I would call an order taker because the client's been online. They know they want twenty seven cabinets made of stainless steel. They want three carbon ones and they want two plastic ones. And some have to go outdoors in a salty environment and some don't, and so on. So when he goes along to see them, all he's really showing them is here's some new products coming along and it's order taking sales. You know, he's not really interested in how they're using them or what the value of them, you know, because that that value check has already been done by the client. That's why they've asked him to come along and talk about them. Yeah. Mhm. Whereas um, their enquiry on their main website might be I'm about to upgrade a whole facility. It's in a saltwater environment. How can you help me? you know? So the person responding to the digital enquiry is not responding to the same kind of enquiry. He does that. He gets passed on. Does that make any sense?

It does. Yeah it does. And if I was a salesperson, I'd be concerned thinking it's only a matter of time before there's order taking software will make my job, you know, redundant. Make me redundant. There's there's no need. I'm not actually adding any value to the acquisition, if you like, of that piece of work other than, you know, putting numbers on a form and sending it through for processing.

Totally, totally. And I think that that, again, you know, and Covid has shown us this. I mean, I had this experience in Covid that pre-COVID, many of my clients wanted an initial meeting face to face, you know, because they didn't use Zoom, they didn't use teams, you know, they didn't use that technology. Whereas now they're more than happy to have an initial call over over a screen. Yeah.

Now almost prefer it.

Almost prefer it. Yeah. Yeah. Great for me because I'm, it's cut down the amount of travelling which is dead time for me. I don't earn money when I'm doing it. Yeah. Um, so more and more and forced in some cases by the pandemic, people are getting comfortable with buying things online. You know, we all know the Amazon experience. So I think you're absolutely right. I think the role of the order taker is going to become more and more automated. There'll always be exceptions, you know, highly technical or highly complex. Um, you know, you know, you're not going to place an order for a kitchen online. You know, if you want a designer kitchen, you're going to have a designer come in and measure up and give you some designs, you know, um, however, even some of that's automated now because you can go online and choose your cabinets and put in your dimensions of your kitchen and get almost a 3D CAD model of what your kitchen might look like, you know, and.

You.

Haven't, you haven't stepped foot in a showroom. Mhm, mhm. So I personally, I think the role of the salesperson, the sales and marketing interface is becoming more and more blurred, in my view, and therefore the sales and marketing professional needs to almost become one rather than two distinct functions. Yeah.

Yeah. I think you're right. And I think I think that whole role is now based around listening and helping people, um, almost make a decision themselves as opposed to the kind of older, more pushy kind of sign here approach. Um, I guess I don't know, maybe, maybe that's, I mean, I'm, I'm not, I'm not from a sales and marketing background specifically. I mean, it's for me, it's my marketing, uh, expertise, if you like, is purely around digital marketing. So it is more about the attraction of potential customers. Um, and, um, you know, delivering, delivering them to a sales team. And I guess I am concerned about sales not functioning properly because it doesn't matter how effective we are as digital marketers, if we're handing that over to somebody who's.

Just pushing a script.

Just, just pushing a script, then then that's not going to work. No, I totally agree. Okay. Have we done this to death, do you think?

I think so. I think so. What we're saying is we don't really know what the future is, but it's certainly not going to be the same as the past, is it?

Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay. I'm sure we'll get to you. You know, we'll have you back on and we'll talk about some specific aspects of growing businesses and everything. But I think it was good. Um, as a, as a first, um, chat to, to talk about the BD sales marketing this, the whole big piece because you've come right through, um, the root of traditional BD sales and involvement in marketing. And I think from that point of view, you had some good insights on, on how things have changed.

Um, I mean, my one, my one encouragement to any of my peers who are in sort of that business development space, stroke commercial, whatever you want to call it is take some time to properly understand what modern digital marketing is because it is not the same as it was. Yeah, it's a very, very different animal now. And and if you don't understand it, how can you take advantage of it and use it to the benefit of growing your business? Yeah.

Yeah. That's right. It's not something to be frightened of, is it? And I think there's an element of, uh, old school people, whether it's BD or sales. And to a certain extent marketing, they're kind of frightened of it because it, it feels like it might be way too complicated for them to understand and it really isn't. Well, I do you think that's fair to say? It's not it's it's if you apply yourself, it's pretty obvious. A lot of it.

I think I think when somebody explains it to you, once it's explained to you, if you've got, you know anything about you, you can get the concepts, you know, um, I think unfortunately, like most professions as a jargon associated with them and until somebody lifts the, the bonnet on that and explains what the jargon really means in plain English, in simple terms, you know, then um, then it can be, it can seem a bit of a mystery I suppose. Yeah, yeah. Um, I mean, I was amazed if I just use a very, very simple example. I was amazed when you showed me that you can see with the right software, you can see where people click on a website. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And what colors they might click on versus what colors they don't click on. Yeah. Yeah. And therefore, when you design a web page for whether it's a product or a service, you can, you can design two versions of it to test which one's most effective. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Now, if somebody doesn't understand that and they're in a senior marketing or business development role, how the hell can they come up with a growth strategy that takes advantage of digital marketing? Yeah.

Well, that's a really good point. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Because the BD is all about trying to grow the business and develop the business. And if you don't, if you're not sure what tools are at your disposal. Correct. Then you're not going to do that effectively. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's a very simple point you make, but it's a very, a, very, a very sound and valid point.

But it also then goes to, well, how much should I invest in my marketing strategy, my digital marketing strategy? Well, actually it is a science now. It's no longer just an art, you know, and, you know, as you mentioned very early on, there's data now, you know, you can present facts and figures around this stuff and therefore to take advantage of it because it is a science, not an art. To do it properly requires an investment. You know, you're not going to get a good digital marketing strategy for five hundred quid a month. Yeah.

No, that's right, I agree. And the thing is as well, and we've mentioned this in one of the previous previous podcasts is you can actually analyse and we could analyse our potential customers, um, uh, competition and take a pretty good guess at how much money they're spending based on, you know, a calculation of their ad spend, looking at the kind of kind of website content that they're producing. And we can say, you know, well, it looks to us like these guys are spending, you know, whatever it is, three grand a month, five grand a month, whatever. Um, and so I know initially you were thinking, um, you know, uh, will two hundred quid do it sort of thing. But like, we can very quickly show you why that wouldn't be a good a good investment, because it wouldn't have any sort of impact whatsoever.

Correct, correct. So, you know, full circle, if you're in that BD sales marketing space, unless you understand what modern digital marketing is, what it can do for you, how can you decide where to best put your efforts and what to invest, you know, for the growth of your company? Yeah. And to understand what, as you just use an example there, what your competition's doing. Mhm. Yeah.

That's good. We fairly bashed them today. We fairly bashed those poor salespeople, didn't we.

Well we bashed them all really, Dave. But then we bashed each other as well, so that's all right. Doesn't help me catch any more fish, does it?

Did I tell you about all the bass we caught at the weekend? I did mention.

It. Yeah. You did, you did? Yeah. You can go away now.

Okay. It's been a pleasure. Thanks to you. And, uh, we'll speak again soon.

My pleasure, as always, Dave. And, uh, stay safe.