How to Be More Effective with Business Development as a Team

Business development is hard. And the more complex your organization, the harder it gets. Complexity requires deep expertise, and you honed your expertise to make an impact, not to chase deals.

But that leaves a problem. Business development is a distraction instead of the goal.

When you approach growth like a side project, it leads to predictable results: none. And when you don’t get results, you’re less incentivized. This is why so many people don’t make the transformations they want to in their businesses. They use the same old moves in business development that simply don’t work. Nothing changes. And then they quit.

So, what separates top sales teams from the rest? It may surprise you, but it’s not just knowledge or skill. Those matter, sure, but teams that thrive:

1. Have a growth-oriented playbook to scale the entire organization
2. Foster a winning team culture with incremental progress
3. Transform business development from something to dread into something fun

Every Other Important Business Process Has a System – Growth Should Too

Think of it this way: IT uses agile practices. Accounting operates on agreed-upon principles. Manufacturing has Six Sigma. Why the heck wouldn’t your growth use a playbook that scales?

If you want to build a culture where growth is a priority, you need the entire team using the same growth playbook. Beginning with a clear framework aligns your team’s efforts and keeps growth top of mind.

Before worrying about the numbers, processes, or people, focus on alignment. Document the most memorable themes from your leadership objectives and the strategies that reinforce the importance of growth.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. Your growth playbook can start with just a few simple steps:

1. Create a big goal. What is your long-term plan for growth? Document strategic alignment, the potential return on investment, and the next actions to get started.
2. Start small. Large-scale change starts with small, important, and future-aligned actions. Identify one meaningful step each day that moves your initiative forward.
3. Scale up. Build a plan to measure success and quantify the ROI of your growth plan. Determine a strategy and next steps to drive growth across the entire organization.

With clear steps, people know what to do. They get started and keep going because the system provides feedback. Momentum builds because progress is visible – reinforcing the habit and making business development feel less like a chore and more like a natural part of the work.

A Winning Culture Starts with Three Small Actions

A winning team culture isn’t built overnight. It’s built through small, consistent moves every day. When business development feels like an uphill battle, the key is to go at it one step at a time.

Here’s one example of a behavior that’s easy to incorporate and is also a home run every time: MITs.

MIT is an acronym we use to stand for “Most Important Thing.” These are the three most impactful next actions you can take to move opportunities or relationships forward. The beauty of the MIT process is that it only takes about 15 minutes once a week.

MITs are a way of setting growth-oriented priorities for the coming week – focusing your efforts and holding you and your teams accountable.

They are also universally applicable.

This is particularly important for large groups with varying needs. Someone just starting in their BD journey can use MITs. So can your number one rainmaker. That’s because they focus your client-facing roles on consistency – which is the number one thing we see that correlates to growth over the long haul.

MITs get people doing a little bit every week. Like staying in shape, they help you make incremental progress and create a positive feedback loop of momentum. Now your team isn’t just setting goals; they’re stacking wins.

When BD Feels Good, It Gets Done

Business development gets a bad reputation for being a grind instead of a skill. Here’s the truth: Every complex skill is both learned and earned, and BD is no exception. The key is to think through how you can inject a little levity into it.

If you’re stuck here, one simple way to build in fun is to track and share data. Data is a powerful motivator in two ways:

1. Data creates insights across the team, where people with lower scores in one area want to learn more from people with higher scores in another.
2. It creates a self-challenge because you naturally want to beat your prior numbers. And that feeling gets more pronounced knowing everyone else sees your numbers.

From there, the shift begins to happen naturally. Your team goes from avoiding BD to beginning to prioritize it. They have the data to manage and track themselves, so they stay motivated. They think about it when planning their week. They do it first thing in the morning before the day blows up.

In a way, this is gamifying business development. It works for high-performing sports teams with weight reps in the locker room, intervals on the track, and recovery minutes spent. And it works with seller experts too. There’s a sense of competitiveness in high-expertise businesses. You can tap into that by publicly sharing everyone’s data.

And when people feel like they’re winning, business development isn’t just easier; it will be fun.

The More You Do It, the Easier It Gets

BD is hard at first, but, like anything, it gets easier the more you do it. Getting great at growth is where you’ll have the biggest impact on your career and organization. But by picking small behaviors, sharing them with everyone on the team, and sharing them consistently, we can improve the performance of the whole team.

In the end, you’ll grow revenue, create a winning team culture, and ensure that everyone involved has fun doing it.

If you found these insights helpful, you’ll love Give to Grow, a proven system for building relationships and driving growth in a way that feels good.

Mo Bunnell is Founder and CEO of Bunnell Idea Group as well as the best-selling author of Give to Grow and The Snowball System.