I’ve had a few clients who had a revolving door in sales management.  The cycle became predictable – a new, expensive sales expert with a strong resume and bulletproof process comes in, spends money on a new system (technology and people) and then has almost no results, so leaves in about 6 months (or sooner).

For early-stage companies, this is a very predictable process, and it plays out in countless situations.  What I believe is happening is a misunderstanding of where the company is in the product lifecycle, and therefore how they should go about selling – it’s the difference between Sales and Business Development (Biz Dev or BD).

First, some definitions.  Sales is a process – leads go in, activities happen, sales (closed deals) come out.  The process has defined steps and predictable outcomes.  It is, as so many sales people declare, “a numbers game” where they build a “sales machine”.   However, in order to have this type of machine in place, you need a market which is clearly defined, with a well-established need and a clear understanding of how your product meets that need.  This predictable sales process, then, can only be effective after the company has reached Product Market Fit (PMF).

The Sales professional needs to be highly disciplined – not every lead will close, so they must understand quickly which leads will move forward and then drop the losers just as quickly.  They know the common signs of interest in their product, and only work those deals that can close in the predicted timeframe.  This efficiency is critical because, in a defined market with a broadly-accepted need, competition is fierce and, if you don’t close the deal, your competitor will.

Business Development is the opposite side of the coin.  BD reps hunt to find those who have needs that their product can meet; they look for where the money is in the system, and then consider how to match those needs with that money.  While there is still a “numbers game” in play, the outcome is not predictable.  Competitors may be unknown and different in every deal, and the biggest competitor is usually, “status quo”.  

Since they work in a nascent market with little or no consensus on the “need” or the “solution”, the BD professional needs to be flexible and unstructured – exactly the opposite of the successful sales professional.  Much of the process involves education, so success in BD requires a deep knowledge of the product, the market, and how the one fits with the other (and there may be many “fits” to consider).  Leads in BD require nurturing and patience; initially tepid responses can “heat up” as the prospect develops a perception of the need your product fills and comes to realize the benefits, which may not have initially been apparent.  

None of this BD work happens on a timeline.  Initially-promising leads can go cold, and long-dormant opportunities can come alive unexpectedly.  This is both a critical and difficult time for your business; critical because you usually have to go through it, and difficult because of the uncertainty of timing, outcome and required efforts.

The confusion between Sales and BD doesn’t help!  Last time I hired a Biz Dev person, I had over 100 resumes, and maybe 3 were true “biz dev” folks – the rest were primarily sales people.  I found that sales folks will highlight “process” in their resumes and interviews, and BD folks are more likely to talk about the “game” of business development, usually equating it to chess. 

This conflation shows up also in how many mature companies define these two processes.  They will often look at BD as the “lead generation” function of a business, with sales as the “closing” function.  I disagree with this structure; while BD does come first, the BD function exists to close its own deals and partnerships.  The successful BD process leads to the establishment of a defined market for the business, a clear understanding of how to position the product and to which buyers, so that a repeatable sales process can now be established, usually by someone other than the BD team, which moves into a new market.

So, if you’re trying to figure out why that terrific sales person couldn’t sell your product when they had so much success elsewhere, the issue may not be the person – it may be a case of needing a different approach to getting your product to market.  Consider a true Business Development professional for your next go-to-market hire; they are harder to find, but the role is one you have to fill.