At a Glance
COMPANY
Nonprofit that designs and manages energy efficiency programs for utility providers, government organizations and other clients.
OBJECTIVE
Build a high-functioning Business Development (BD) department to grow energy efficiency partnerships and revenue.
OUTCOME
Operationalized a new BD department - including BD, Proposal Development and Market Insights teams - establishing a culture of professionalism, individual accountability, team collaboration and insights-driven decision-making.
Challenge
After two plus decades in business and several years of growth, this regional nonprofit was struggling to win priority proposals and expand its business nationally. The challenges were many: externally, it lacked a presence and relationships in other markets and struggled to differentiate its products from larger organizations; internally, BD efforts were decentralized, disorganized and inconsistent.
This small fish in a big pond lacked a formal BD team and infrastructure which impacted work efficiency, quality and results. Missing were the insights needed to effectively define and guide BD strategy, as well as sales acumen and shared ways of working. A new VP, Business Development was hired to address these challenges, but he needed a partner to manifest his vision operationally.
Solution
Build out a skilled, professional and effective BD department. This effort focused on 4 distinct areas.
Focus 1: Create a Market Research Function
Establish a function that provides market and competitive insights and analysis to guide market and product strategy:
Market landscape and trend analyses
Segmentation to prioritize partners and prospects
Product fit by market, assessed against competitors
Annual planning process & insights-driven annual plan
KPIs and metrics to measure progress to goals
Focus 2: Build out a Sales Operations Infrastructure
Design and build out the roles, processes, tools and communications to create an effective BD department:
Job families, role responsibilities & decision making
BD and client management processes
Proposal development roles and processes
Centralized CRM to manage business
Team meetings, communication & reporting
Focus 3: Align Marketing, BD & Client Management Efforts
Stage and sync multiple teams to distinct but aligned goals:
Cross-team roles, norms and joint processes
Cross-team decision making protocol
Focus 4: Establish a Unified Sales Methodology & Skills
Support sales training selection and implementation:
Plan year-long sales training across all BD-related teams
Support training and tools buildout to enable success
Impact
Business Development community. Established a community of BD-focused team members who trusted, collaborated with and supported each other.
Business Development acumen. BD professionals worked towards shared goals based on a shared sales methodology, set of skills and ways of working.
Improved efficiency and results. Defined tools, templates, standards and processes improved communication, consistency, quality and speed to results.
Greater insight and decision-making. Market research and a robust CRM greatly improved business visibility, allowing for clear prioritization, surfaced opportunities & roadblocks, and better decision making.
Cross-team alignment. The above efforts greatly improved joint effectiveness across BD-focused teams: Corporate Marketing, Product Marketing, Market Research, Regional BD and Client Management and Proposal Development.
Michelle is great at defining strategic objectives and then working with the team to determine what it will take to tactically achieve them. This gives staff a sense of control of their own destinies - very empowering and in service to an environment dedicated to professional development.
She is tireless in her mission to create community and buy-in through consistent, quality communication, frequent and sincere solicitation of input (including feedback loops to show recommendations were implemented) and her ability to draw disparate organizational threads together into a cohesive whole.
Michelle’s contributions have been invaluable in advancing and professionalizing Business Development and related company operations.
Jeremy Litow, Vice President Business Development