In the highly competitive world, where there are so many options for one product are available for consumers to choose from, merely providing good quality of the product will not get your business. therefore, there are various techniques are required to get the attention of customer towards your product. Due to this, various segments such as marketing, advertising, business development, and sales have been introduced in the business world. in this article, you will learn about the business development and sales segment of the business and key differences between them.
It is a common misconception that business development and sales are similar, but it is not true, there is a significant difference between both of them. The purpose of the business development is to determine the relationship between product and segment of the marketing with potential customers. The business development process focuses on establishing the right product-market fit rather than generating revenue.
On the other hand, the purpose of the sales process is to generate maximum revenue by selling products and services produced by the company. Sales operations are constantly needed to be revised, scaled, and optimized to gain a competitive edge on the market. Rise in the competition and difficulty to reach customers have made it necessary to include business development in the sales process. let’s learn about both processes business development and sales in the article ahead.
Table of Contents
What is Business Development?
The purpose of business development is to build a long-term relationship between customers, company, and market. it creates ideas and initiatives to make business more effective. The focus of business development is not only to generate revenue but to build a strategic relationship with partners who in turn boost sales by selling products to customers in a more effective way. The business development process involves activities to make use of opportunities for business growth individually as well as with other firms.
It incorporates all activities such as enhancing revenue and profit, expanding the business, explore new market segment and providing more benefits to the current customer base. It also deals with taking timely business decisions and altering products and services offered by the company as per the requirement of changing marketing environment. To do this, it collects information about various marketing leads, current trends, key issues, and business strategy to attract more customers.
What is Sales?
Sales is a process of selling products and services offered by the company at a decided price to customers in order to generate maximum revenue in a given period of time. This process involves finding out prospective customers and reaching them and convincing them to accept the proposition offered by the company. It is a sub-part of marketing, which mainly focuses on converting potential customers into buyers and establishing a relationship with them to make more business in the future. Sales process depends on the sales personnel.
A customer interacts with them and they make their opinion about the company on the basis of the interaction they have with the salespeople. Therefore, it is important to hire a skilled salesperson to represent your company efficiently and make sure that they have required knowledge about your company and its products so that they can provide solutions to the problems of the customers and establishing a warm and healthy relationship with them for future business transactions.
Difference Between Business development and Sales
| Business Development | Sales |
|---|---|
| Business Development is a broad segment of the business which concerns with making the use of opportunities such as getting into partnership with another firm or launching new products to explore a new market. | Sales is also a segment of the business which involves selling products and services of a company to the potential customers in exchange of decided price. |
| Business Development is a long-term process. | The sale is a short-term process. |
| Business Development is relational in nature. | Sales are transactional in nature. |
| The main purpose of business development is the expansion of the business. | The main purpose of the sales process is to sell goods and services at maximum profits. |
| The focus of business development is to obtain strategic partners. | The focus of sales is to obtain more customers. |
| Business development is associated with design, assessing and implementing a plan. | Sales is associated with execution of a plan |
| The function of Business development is to sell solutions. | The function of Sales is to Sell Products and services produced by the company. |
| The aim of marketing development is to get into a partnership to enhance sales. | The aim of sales is to interact with customers and induce them to make more purchase |
| It focuses on strategic development between two parties. | It focuses on the transaction that occurs between two parties. |
To conclude, business development is a wider segment of the business which also includes sales. The focus of business development is to invent and implement various strategies to gain maximum business not only by selling products but also by getting into partnership with potential firms, exploring new market segment, introducing a new product. Whereas, sales deal with generating revenue by selling products and services offered by the company at a maximum profit, to the potential customers.
