Who Needs Business Development: The Power of Active Marketing for Maximum ROI

Welcome to episode 201 of the Business Development Podcast.

Today we're tackling the age old question, do I even need business development?

And how the heck do I get it started?

We're tackling active marketing, passive marketing, what strategies you might want to use, what ratios you want to use them at, and six steps to enacting your business development process starting early here in 2025.

Stick with us.

You are not going to want to miss this episode.

The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

And we couldn't agree more.

This is the Business Development Podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development advice, tips and experiences and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs and business development reps.

You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business brought to you by Capital Business Development capitalbd ca.

Let's do it.

Welcome to the Business Development Podcast.

And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Hello.

Welcome to episode 201 of the Business Development Podcast.

My gosh, 201 episodes.

It is an honor and a privilege to be here everyone.

Cannot believe we are here.

Could not have got here without your support.

So thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking with us, for telling your friends and family and for keeping this show going for over 200 episodes.

Super cool and very excited to head into this next phase of the Business Development Podcast with you.

I definitely find that as we go from 100 episodes at a time, it really does feel like like ages or tears or phases of the show.

So it'll be really interesting to see what comes of this phase of the show and I'm very excited about that.

I know we have some absolutely incredible guests coming up guys.

We have already recorded the entire 2025 year for guest recordings and we have some pretty incredible people coming your way.

I think you won't be disappointed.

We have some great experts, some great lessons and some really great episodes in general planned for you guys for 2025.

So if you've been with continue to stick with us.

If you just found us today, give us a follow.

We have some incredible content to help you guys continue to grow your businesses as we head into 2025.

And on that note, happy 2025 everyone.

I hope you all had an absolutely incredible New Year's and January is treating you well so far.

It is January 7th at the moment, but it is my first recorded episode of 2025.

So excited to be here.

I hope you all have some really incredible, ambitious goals for the year.

And if you have, I want to see them.

So come on down to the business development podcast LinkedIn page and you will see a post there showing all of our corporate goals for 2025.

I listed them out.

I put it out to the world.

I know it's scary, but you know what?

If you put them out there, they tend to happen.

So let the universe work in your favor.

Come on down to the business development podcast LinkedIn page, give us a follow and give us a Let us know what your goals are for 2025 and let our Rockstar community help you stay motivated and help you achieve them.

And if you were on that page and you see somebody else's goals that you think you might be able to help them with, let them know DM the person, let them know how you can help them.

And let's see if we can't help our Rockstar listeners achieve all of our goals here in 2025.

We have a great community.

I think something like that could happen for each and every one of us.

All right, we've been doing a bit of a Go Back to the Beginning series.

You know, the last episode that we did was what is business development in 2025?

And today I wanted to kind of retackle the who needs business development in 2025?

I know we have a lot of new listeners and not all of you are necessarily going back to the very beginning and listening forward.

So this year I wanted to spend some time talking about business development fundamentals, talking about who needs business development, what is business development, how can we u it better?

What works and what doesn't?

And today's episode I really wanted to go back to who needs business development, who does it benefit?

And how the heck can you get started?

So we're going to kind of try to delve into some of these things today.

For some of my newer listeners and for some of my business owners who maybe have just launched their businesses or are in growth phases for their already existing businesses and just want to know if they're on track and what they should double down on and how they should maybe allocate some of those business development funds, whether it's going to active or passive marketing strategies.

For any of you that have been with me for a while, you know that the beginning of this asking do you need business development?

Was a total trick question.

Guys, if you have a business with customers, you absolutely need business development and Whether that's a business development company, whether that's an internal business development team, or whether that's simply you as a solopreneur business developing your own company, you absolutely need it.

And it can feel like a daunting task, especially if you are a newer or smaller business looking to gain a foothold.

It is important to remember the business development and hopefully your business are both in it for the long game.

They are long game things, guys.

Do not rush the process.

Work to grow on a weekly basis, commit to taking steps and you will achieve growth over time.

It is no question that the digital age and social media are impacting businesses and brands like never before.

But it is also critical to remember that trust is built by people and relationships are king in long term business.

No matter what you do, real relationships matter, everyone.

And business development is about creating genuine connection, real relationships, real trust and real repeat business opportunities over time.

What are some of the biggest challenges that you and your business are facing?

Okay, no matter who you are, no matter how big of a company you are today, you still face these challenges.

Okay?

There are places that you are unknown.

You have limited budgets.

No matter how big your companies are, there are budgets for marketing and sales.

There are budgets for business development.

At the end of the day, we are all working with limited budgets.

Okay?

You need more customers.

No matter how good you are today, no matter how great you are, customers can leave at any time, for any reason.

And we tend to forget that.

We tend to get into this space where it's like it's all good.

We're trucking along, our customers are here, we have contracts.

But remember, customers can leave at any time for any reason and they do.

We always have to be doing business development to find new customers, new opportunities.

And you need to build a reputable brand.

Okay?

You need to build a reputable brand and brand recognition that comes along with that.

So no matter who you are, are, no matter what your company is, no matter Whether it's day one or day 10,001, you are still facing these challenges and we have to take them on every single day.

Companies tend to think that their challenges are different and I see this all the time.

Obviously I've done coaching with a lot of different people, I've spoken with a lot of different businesses, I've worked with a lot of different businesses.

And everybody thinks that they are unique, that they are facing these very unique challenges to them.

But you know what?

Almost every single business is facing the exact same challenges and I see them over and over again.

But the great news, guys, is that almost all of these challenges with regards to business growth, they can be overcome.

Now, in the beginning of this episode, guys, I answered the question that obviously we need business development.

I think most people on some level recognize that something has to be done to grow their business, and it's not going to happen on its own, okay?

But the level of business development that you need, it really does depend on your company goals.

So remember, what is business development supposed to do?

It is supposed to help you achieve your goals.

And this is where I see so many businesses doing it wrong, where you'll hire a business development team because you say, you know what, I want to grow.

So I'm going to hire business development, I'm going to hire an expert, I'm going to start paying for advertising, but they don't know where they are going.

And so in order to understand how much business development we need or what steps to take, we have to know how much new business growth we actually want to achieve.

So to each and every one of you out there, if you were looking to grow your business here in 2025, start with how much you want to grow by and make it a realistic growth goal.

Make it something that your company can actually accomplish logistically.

Okay?

It's one thing to say I want to grow by X, Y, Z, but it's a whole nother thing to logistically be able to achieve that growth.

So make sure whatever new growth goal you set for 2025, you can actually accommodate that growth logistically.

Your machines can keep up, your people can keep up, and you can deliver on that additional work as you secure it, okay?

So make sure that our growth goals are realistic, not just pie in the sky growth goals, guys.

So you have to ask yourself obviously the following questions.

Is my company achieving the growth that I set out to make?

Okay?

So if the answer to this is is no, we're not currently achieving the growth, additional business development can likely help with that.

Are we over capacity?

And what is our capacity?

Obviously, this is going back to what I just said.

Make sure that we are setting growth goals that are not going to put us over capacity, okay?

That are not going to be unachievable even if we get the business development to try to secure that business.

Okay?

We want business development to be a positive thing for our organizations, right?

But if we're out there business developing and we're really successful and we bring a whole bunch of opportunity, it's very bad if suddenly you have to start turning that opportunity away.

So make sure that if we are going to be doing business development, that we are at a capacity stage where we can actually accommodate that growth.

Ask yourself this, if I lost a major client tomorrow, would we be in trouble?

Would we survive?

If the answer is no, you absolutely need to be doing business development to find new opportunity for your business so that when that inevitably happens at some point in time, you are not in major trouble.

Okay?

We have to be doing business development consistently to make sure that we always have new opportunities coming in and that we're building new relationships that can replace those long term relationships as they come to an end of need.

Okay?

Ask yourself, am I consistently finding new customers?

Okay, if the answer is no, we don't have a lot of new customers coming in, we don't have a lot of new leads coming in.

We need business development to rectify this challenge because we have to have new opportunities coming in over time to make sure that we always have consistent revenue coming into our business from not just current sources, but from new sources as well.

And ask yourself, lastly, am I building brand recognition in my market, in my area, in my market, no matter how big, far and wide that is, do customers know who I am?

Do they know what I do?

Do they know my brand name?

Do they know what my company can provide to them?

This is a business development job.

We are like champions of companies.

We shout the names from the rooftops and we spread the message far and wide across industries to make sure that your brand is getting known.

When business development is done efficiently and effectively, it will help you to address many of those challenges.

Unfortunately, much of the advice that you are seeing is focused on passive marketing strategies like social media, ads, tv, radio guys, we're getting bombarded with people telling us that if we spend XYZ on Instagram, if we spend XYZ on LinkedIn, if we buy the latest and greatest billboard, if we get a TV and radio ad, our business is going to grow.

And you know what, if you're in B2C business to customer or end user, that can actually be really, really effective.

Especially if you have low dollar items like clothing or things along those lines.

B2C advertising through social media influencers, things like that, it works really, really well.

Where it tends to fall flat on its face is with B2B and high ticket items, okay?

These things do not sell well across social media.

What social media and passive strategies are absolutely incredible for is building brand recognition.

Okay?

And you know what?

No matter what you do in any type of business development, whether you're doing active Marketing or passive marketing?

You absolutely need a little bit of both.

Right?

Active marketing is where we get ahead of the need.

This is like bare bones business development.

This is old school.

But the most effective way to do business development, right?

Because business development is about building genuine connection, human to human interaction.

Which means the tools that we use to do this are human.

Okay, we're picking up the phone and we're making real connections.

We're asking for face to face meetings, we're sending direct emails when we know we have the email to the person we want to speak to.

We're finding the most direct way to connect with this person as possible.

And then we're working to build a genuine relationship ahead of the need.

Okay.

The secret with active marketing is we're building genuine trust and human to human interaction ahead of the need.

Why is this important?

Because you want people to know who you are and what you do ahead of them needing your product and service.

Why?

Because you don't want to be being found at the same time that they're having their challenges.

Why?

Because not only are they finding you, they're finding all of your competitors at the same time.

And they're having to make a choice as to who they use because they don't have a pre existing relationship.

When active marketing is done effectively, you are creating a pre existing relationship, trust and rapport ahead of the need.

And so when XYZ customer has a challenge, who are they going to call?

It's not Ghostbusters, it's you.

Okay?

They're going to call you because you've already built and established that relationship.

How does that contrast with passive marketing?

Passive marketing works with like our social media ads, things like that.

And what we are assuming is they are searching for us at the time of need.

This is not a good thing for B2B brands because they're finding you and all your competitors at the same time.

And it just doesn't work well.

It doesn't work well for the bid process, it doesn't work well for the customer getting what they need in an efficient and timely manner.

The relationship isn't there if something doesn't go to plan.

It just ultimately long term, we want to get ahead of the need.

An effective business development is active marketing.

We're using direct human to human interaction.

We're building rapport ahead, we're booking meetings, we're building rapport, we're negotiating and doing things on behalf of the client to make sure that it's a win win scenario for both players.

Business development really needs to be focused 80% on active marketing and only about 20% on your passive marketing strategies.

I know many of you are spending way too much money on your passive marketing strategies and you're not getting the ROIs you're hoping for.

And I can tell you right now, it's really because passive marketing is all about brand recognition.

But brand recognition does not necessarily translate into dollars and cents.

You need it to work cohesively with an active marketing process.

If you have brand recognition going on and somebody reaching out to these people, it makes it like ten times more effective.

You're that much more likely to that meeting and eventually that business that's going to lead to roi.

But you really need to do it both at the same time.

You need to be doing active marketing about 80% along with a passive marketing strategy.

And when you combine those things, you create success.

Now, I've been talking about active and passive marketing, guys.

I have many shows on active and passive marketing.

You're welcome to go back if you want to dive deep, but I'm going to go quickly into what they are.

Active marketing is direct contact by phone or email, human to human interaction.

It's a highly targeted process instead of a broad spectrum process, okay?

We're making sure that we have the right people at the right organizations and we're getting in direct contact with them with the goal of getting a meeting.

Active marketing is meeting focused, okay?

And it's aimed at building trust, rapport, and human relationship that leads to repeat business over time.

And we're getting ahead of the need.

So we are introducing our company to people who might need the service ahead of them, needing that service, leading to more opportunities coming your way over time.

Passive marketing, on the other hand, is indirect contact.

It's social media strategy.

It's billboards, it's radio, it's TV ads.

It is not human to human interaction.

There is an intermediary, okay?

It builds brand recognition incredibly effectively.

It tends to be expensive and not necessarily deliver roi.

Okay?

And you must get the customer at the time of need.

It's not proactive.

I always say the 8020 rule when it comes down to active and passive marketing.

Guys, we want to do 80% active marketing.

Direct, human to human interaction that leads to meetings, relationships, and repeat business over time.

We want to be 80% active marketing and about 20% passive marketing for our marketing spend.

Guys.

And now I know a lot of you, your wheels are turning and you're like, okay, Kelly, this actually makes a lot of sense.

If I want to do active business Development.

How the heck do we get started?

Now I'm going to give you guys six steps on how we can enact the business development process and what might be important.

Understand this is a pretty brief overview, guys.

If you want to go more in depth.

We have plenty of shows that go into the active marketing process and I would encourage each and every one of you to check them out if you want to learn something that's a little more in depth than what we're going to go over today.

But number one, we have to start with marketing materials that build interest.

Part one of the business development process has to be do we have marketing materials that will build interest with our ideal clients?

Okay, now there's a lot to this particular one, but you're going to need three materials.

Specifically, you are going to need a 20 story skyscraper website.

What do I mean that?

In 2025, your website is your 20 story New York skyscraper.

Okay?

So make sure that you guys are going through and you're making a really beautiful website.

It's visually appealing, it's current, it goes over all your products and services.

It has video.

Video is huge.

Guys.

We absolutely have to have video in our websites.

It's in 2025 and beyond.

Okay?

But at the end of the day, you want your website to be bold, beautiful, not too wordy and accurate to who you are and what you do in 2025 and beyond.

Make sure that we are reviewing our websites annually and updating them as such.

Number two, we need brochures.

Okay, we have to have same thing, big, bold, beautiful brochures in 2025 and beyond.

We need to make sure that you have a very captivating cover image.

Not too wordy, but once again is accurate to you, speaks to your customer, lets them know what you're gonna do for them, lets you know how you serve their industry.

And once again, you may need to have multiple because you might have multiple industries that you target.

And so if you work in oil and gas, you need to have a brochure that speaks to oil and gas.

If you work in forestry, you need to have one that speaks to forestry.

If you work in manufacturing, well, you guessed it, one that speaks to manufacturing.

And a great way to do this is to create a folder style brochure that's very general, but then have one page inserts that go along with that brochure for each industry so that you can speak to them independently about what their needs are and how your company can fill those needs.

And last but not least, you guys need beautiful Business cards.

Because guess what, you're still having face to face meetings and business cards are still relevant, by the way.

Real brochures are also still relevant and should be brought to every single face to face meeting.

I can't tell you guys how many times I'll be sitting at a face to face meeting, I'll give them a brochure and they will look at me and say, oh, I didn't know you guys did that.

No matter how great you are, there's always something that gets missed.

And a brochure allows talking points to come up during meetings.

Always make sure when we're having the face to face meetings that we are bringing real brochures and real business cards with us.

Guys, we need to identify industries, locations and buying positions.

Okay?

Ideal customer profiling.

We need to identify who buys our products and services, right?

We can't just be marketing to everyone and their dog.

We can't.

Okay?

We don't have marketing budgets that afford us to speak to absolutely everyone.

So if we're going to be effective in this position, we have to make sure that we are identifying who can buy our products and services, what industries we can serve and what locations we can serve.

And guys, no matter where you are, you are most effective where you are at.

I get asked all the time, can I service the whole country?

Can I service the nation?

Whether it's the United States, Canada or the world, the answer is probably.

But you are going to be most competitive where you are at.

So start there and work your way out, okay?

I can't tell you how many people try to bite off more than they can chew and they haven't even found all the opportunity in the locations where they are at.

You are most competitive there.

As you spread out further and further and further, there are going to be local companies that are more competitive than you are.

And so you need to figure out what your advantage is as you get further and further and further from home base.

So start where you are and move out from there.

Identify who can actually buy your products and services, what positions at the companies buy your products and services.

Is it supply chain?

Is it director of operations?

Is it the plant manager?

Is the manufacturing manager?

Is it an HSE director?

Based on whatever your products and services are, you have to identify what are the buying positions at the companies and target those specifically.

And yes, there are probably multiple.

At most of the companies and organizations I've worked with, there are multiple buying positions for that product and service.

And so don't be afraid to try all of Them or as many of them until you can narrow it down to who are the best ones and target those specifically at every single company you want to work with.

And if you guys are getting really like granular like this and you are identifying the right positions, it makes it 10 times easier to book those face to face meetings that lead to real business for your organization.

Number three, we have to utilize LinkedIn to connect with those ideal positions at target companies and focus that time on all of those buying positions.

Okay, we have like the greatest tool known to business developer kind, okay?

It's called LinkedIn.

Literally at this point, guys, almost every single one of your customers is on LinkedIn.

They have their buying positions up there, the company's listed.

It has never, ever in the history of business been easier to connect with the right person at the organizations you want to work with.

Start utilizing LinkedIn heavily, use it to track down those people, use it to do digital introductions and eventually make direct contact with those people.

But trust me, start using LinkedIn.

It is no longer optional and if you aren't using it, you are at an extreme disadvantage.

It is time to be utilizing LinkedIn on a daily basis to grow your businesses and your personal brands over time.

Okay, number four, make direct contact and book face to face meetings.

Guys, this is what it's all about.

It's about generating real relationships, real trust, real rapport ahead of the buying need.

Okay, make sure that we are taking the time, not just quitting at the digital introduction stage, not just quitting at the emails, but taking this to a face to face meeting.

And keep in mind, by face to face, I'm talking 20, 25.

This can be virtual.

This can be a virtual face to face meeting.

Trust and relationship can be built via a screen, but you have to have a virtual meeting face to face and hopefully eventually lead that to a face to face lunch meeting or something in person where real relationship can be gained.

That is where the advantage is long term.

Guys, you have to be able to build real genuine relationships with your potential customers so that you can alleviate their fears and build trust and rapport that leads to repeat business and relationship over time.

Number five, always make sure that when we have the face to face meetings that we are identifying the five magic words.

The five magic words, guys, are what are the next steps?

A meeting doesn't matter if it goes nowhere.

Understand that no matter how great that meeting is, no matter what happens from it, if it goes nowhere and that's the end, you're dead in the water.

Always ask at the End of any meeting, Internal company meetings, External company meetings, Face to face client meetings.

This was a great meeting.

What are the next steps?

Make sure that you clarify with the client.

What do they need from you?

Is there a pre qualification coming?

Is there a potential RFP coming?

Is there an order coming?

What are the next steps?

And make sure that you're following up on it and you're acting on them to always keep that relationship moving forward to an opportunity for both you and your customer.

And last but not least, guys, repeat weekly.

Business development is an ongoing process.

It never ends.

It never ends.

It does not sleep.

It does not take breaks.

You have to be consistent with it.

If you guys make a commitment to sending, let's call it 50 digital introductions a week and let's call it 20 follow up calls a week.

Do this every single week.

Set your time, set your calendars and make sure that you're consistently dedicating X amount of hours to business development and over time you will see success.

It does not happen overnight.

It is not an overnight fix.

It is a long game.

It is an investment.

It genuinely is an investment in your company's future and your future.

Make sure, just like going to the gym or whatever else you guys are doing on a consistent basis, that you are dedicating a certain amount of time every single week, scheduling that time and working on growing your businesses.

You can't just work in your businesses, guys, you have to work on them.

It is a process.

But if you stop doing business development, eventually your clients will dry up and you will find yourself in trouble.

So make sure every single week, whether it's you or someone else at your organization, that you are dedicating time to do digital introductions, to make your calls, and to book face to face meetings.

This will exponentially grow your business over time.

Whether you are a solopreneur, a founder, a president, a business developer, a marketer, or somewhere in between, implementing effective business development processes that focus on active marketing will lead to consistent opportunities for both you and your business.

Measure success in meetings and relationships and revenue will inevitably follow.

That takes us to the end of our show today.

Guys.

It was an absolute pleasure.

I hope that you all have a fairly good idea of what the active marketing process is and why business development is important.

Important for your business.

If you enjoyed this show today or you know someone else who might benefit from it, please do send this link.

Share it with someone you care about.

Share it with friends, family, co workers, and let's hopefully get everybody on the same page on how they can be more successful here in 2025 and beyond.

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We appreciate it greatly.

You know podcasts grow on numbers so if we can up those numbers in any way possible, it helps us.

It's a free way to help us and we appreciate it immensely.

And if you just found this show and you might be looking for some more help, I do have a one on one three month business Development Mastery coaching program that I can work with you guys on.

Shoot me a DM or hop on over to CapitalBusinessDevelopment CA and you guys can hop on over to my coaching side and book a free discovery call and I would be happy and privileged to work with each and every one of you.

Shoutouts this Week Tash Jeffries, Lauren Graff, Jason Chakalakal, Steve Austin, Gary Noseworthy, Rajesh Kumar, Nate Simpson, Stuart Morowski, John Pelly, Carmen LaBelle, James Stewart, Ricken Bavzar, Jason Michad, Daniel Sonnenberg, Rudy A.

Zacharias Vaijayan Swaminathan, Corey Seller, Irina Horiacheva, Yan Hinata, Jamar Jones, Zayl Moransky, Tatiana Zamedalina, Mindy K.

McRae Broadbent, Ken G.

Sanesh, Ashok, Ann Marie May, Tyson Hunt, Colin Harms, Nathan Plum, Lou Kamenye, Lewis Matthews and Susan Paseka.

Until next time, this has been episode 201 of the Business Development Podcast and we will catch you on the flip side.

This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists.

For more we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca.

see you next time on the Business Development Podcast.