Business Developer

A business developer, also known as a business development manager, seeks new customers and new markets to grow a company's business. They analyse opportunities, select targets and take appropriate commercial action. Depending on the role, their responsibilities may extend from prospecting to negotiating and signing contracts.

The role exists in industry, construction, trade and services, in companies of various sizes. Its scope therefore varies between organisations. A company may task a business developer with winning customers in a particular segment, opening up a territory or developing business for an offering with new contacts. Some roles also include customer retention or partner engagement.

Their work connects market knowledge with the company's capabilities. An opportunity must meet a customer need and involve an offering that the organisation can actually deliver. Sales proposals and negotiations take place within these boundaries. Tracking activity then helps explain progress and the adjustments needed.

Business developer, SDR / BDR and Account Executive: who does what?

• A business developer has a business development objective whose scope depends on the organisation: new customers, markets or partners, with sales responsibilities that need to be specified.
• An SDR / BDR focuses on prospecting, qualifying contacts and booking meetings for sales teams.
• An Account Executive manages sales opportunities from understanding the customer's needs through to signing the contract.

These job titles may cover overlapping activities. To define the role, specify the stages the person will own and those they will hand over to a colleague. Also clarify who they will turn to for decisions, their negotiating authority and any team responsibilities: the title alone does not imply a management role.

The first priority is to focus sales efforts on opportunities that are worth pursuing for the company. A business developer brings together market needs, customer potential and internal capabilities. For a business leader, the question concerns both the targets to pursue and those to set aside.

Connecting activity with sales progress

Tracking activity should make it possible to understand what is moving forward and what is blocked. Contact volumes alone do not show whether conversations involve the right people or uncover needs that the offering can meet. Agree on the information needed to assess the quality of opportunities and decide whether to follow up, make an adjustment or stop pursuing them.

The commitments made also need to be consistent with what the company can deliver. When the role includes negotiation, set the boundaries of the offering and identify decisions that require approval. You can then assess sales against what was promised to the customer and the resources needed to fulfil those commitments.

Fictional example: a services company wants to prospect in a new sector. Before increasing the number of meetings, it asks the business developer to explain the needs being targeted and compare requests with delivery capabilities. The initial conversations help refine targeting and the sales proposal.

• Analyse markets and the company's capabilities to identify areas for business development.
• Prioritise customer segments and accounts to prospect based on their potential and fit with the offering.
• Begin prospecting activities with potential new customers.
• Clarify prospects' needs to adapt the sales pitch and proposal.
• Prepare sales proposals when this responsibility falls within the role's scope.
• Negotiate contracts within the limits agreed with the company, if the role includes closing sales.
• Track the progress of opportunities and report on the results of activities undertaken.
• Adjust the sales action plan based on results and difficulties encountered.

The educational backgrounds described for business developers include commerce, management and engineering. They provide different foundations for analysing a business, understanding an offering and conducting sales activities. There is no single route common to all roles: choose your education criteria according to the responsibilities you intend to assign.

For a role focused on winning customers, look for knowledge and skills in market analysis, sales techniques and negotiation. The person must be able to connect a target with a need, build a sales argument and follow through after a conversation. Commercial training can contribute to these abilities, but the name of the course alone does not indicate the person's level of autonomy.

When the offering has a technical dimension, assess the ability to understand its uses and limitations. An engineering background may be relevant, provided the candidate can also explain the value of the offering to their contacts. Conversely, sales experience should be assessed against the sector knowledge needed for the role.

Relevant experience is best described through the responsibilities exercised: accounts personally selected, prospecting carried out, proposals prepared, negotiations conducted and activity tracked.

To assess a business developer, you can structure discussions around the following steps, adapting them to the scope of the role.

1. Define an assessment framework linked to the need

Choose the decisive criteria: target selection, needs discovery, handling conversations, negotiation where applicable and sales tracking. Specify the level of autonomy expected for each.

Link each criterion to a concrete observation. For targeting, ask the candidate to justify the accounts selected. For tracking, examine how they decide on the next actions. Use the same benchmarks to compare candidates.

Distinguish the skills needed on arrival from knowledge specific to your offering that can be acquired. This will help you avoid confusing familiarity with a sector with mastery of the sales process.

2. Reconstruct a past sale

Ask the candidate to retrace a deal from the first contact. Have them explain where the opportunity came from, whom they met and which decisions they made personally.

Examine the resources available: awareness of the offering, contacts passed on to them, support from a manager or input from a technical expert. Then ask which difficulty required a change of approach.

A precise account makes it possible to connect actions with the reported result. If the person's contribution remains unclear, explore it further. Prioritise detailed explanations and anonymised materials, without requesting confidential commercial documents.

3. Observe their reasoning in a situation relevant to the role

Fictional example: you provide an overview of an offering and a few prospect profiles, with deliberately incomplete information.

Ask the candidate to choose a target and explain what information they are missing. Then role-play a discovery conversation, followed by an objection suited to your sales context.

If the role includes negotiation, introduce a request for a concession. Observe how the candidate clarifies the expectation, defends their proposal and identifies the limits of their decision-making authority.

Look for a clear progression from the questions asked to the proposed response. Explore shortcuts: presenting an offering before understanding the need, treating an assumption as a fact or making a commitment that cannot be justified.

4. Examine adjustments and communication

Return to an approach that did not succeed. Ask what the candidate understood from the rejection, what they changed and what they would need to know today.

Observe their ability to acknowledge a limitation without losing the thread of their analysis. Ask them to summarise the situation for a manager and make a specific request for a decision.

If the role includes management, add a discussion about supporting a salesperson who is struggling. Examine how the candidate distinguishes between a problem with skills, information or priorities.

5. Compare observations before deciding

With the candidate's consent, explore professional references in more detail to establish the responsibilities they actually held and the autonomy observed. Use these references to clarify points that remain uncertain, without allowing them to replace the overall assessment.

Involve the sales manager in interpreting the sales situations. For a technical offering, also involve someone who can assess the commitments proposed to the prospect.

If this expertise is unavailable internally, bring in an assessor familiar with a comparable sales context. Keep a summary for each criterion, recording observations, uncertainties and identified support needs.