Know What Your Business Development Strategy Is Yet?

Guest Post by Jessica Ciller :: What are your goals for your company in 2013? Have a business development strategy all mapped out yet?

Neither do I.

I’ve heard countless times that a business development strategy is in order when you’re running a business. Establish your goals. Figure out who makes up your market. Suss out what times of day people like your Facebook posts, read your tweets, and comment on your blog posts. But how are you supposed to carve one up if you don’t know these things, let alone know how to test for these things?

Over coffee with an entrepreneur recently, it dawned on me. The secret of putting together a big, overwhelming business development strategy?  Don’t do it all at once. Treat it as a work in progress. A startup CEO doesn’t have the time or the means to come up with a thorough plan right off the bat. And those who tell you that it’s a necessity at the start? They clearly haven’t launched a startup before. There are more important things to focus on: Getting a business off the ground–practically, not on paper–and keeping it running.

Since my discovery, I’ve relaxed a bit about my business development strategy. For one, I keep it in my Evernote app. It feels a lot less serious tweaking it in there (and often, on the go.) If I’m evaluating or re-evaluating the costs of the products and services I offer, I hop in to the Evernote document and tweak it. If I discover new information about a competitor’s product that I didn’t know before, in it goes. If I’m on a fantastic Facebook streak where everyone seems to be engaged on a particular post, in it goes. It becomes a work in progress, which reaffirms the fact that my entire business is a work in progress, too.

Writing up a business development strategy has become a lot easier, and a lot less stressful, since my revelation. If you’re the planning type (I sure am,) don’t be swayed by business advice that demands a complete and thorough master plan. Like everything else in business, it takes time.

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