ARTICLE BY BEN PAUL
PUBLISHED BY ACUITY
A BD plan isn’t static, which is why you can’t simply copy-and-paste last year’s document. Here’s how to get it right – and achieve your goals.
IN BRIEF
BD, client development and marketing plans that are copied-and-pasted from previous years are of no real value.
Every year, fresh one-page plans should be drawn up from scratch.
Choose a small set of goals and identify the actions you must take to achieve them.
If you line up your last decade’s worth of business development (BD), client development or yearly sales and marketing plans, do you struggle to see any tangible differences, apart from the date and occasional logo change?
If so, is it because your plans are so successful there is absolutely no point in updating them? Or, is the reality really that you see no value in these plans and only complete them because you have to?
I suspect in most cases it is the latter.
Changing the date at the top does save you time, but it means your BD planning document is basically worthless.
Instead, if you start with a blank sheet of paper and commit to putting time and thought into your plans, you will see a real uplift in achieving your objectives.
