Business Development Manager
What the work is
Plans, organises, directs, controls and coordinates business development and strategic partnership activities within an organisation and externally. Identifies and generates new business opportunities to further improve market share and awareness by gaining an understanding of customers' needs, and promoting goods and services to these customers. May manage some key customer accounts.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Conceptualises business plans and sales strategies
- Implements market expansion and new market plans for business growth by identifying and mapping business strengths and customer needs
- Drives business growth by developing networks to attract new clients
- Researches new market opportunities, overseeing growth projects, making sales projections and forecasting revenue
- Manages and nurtures relationships with existing customers
- Researches prospects, cold calling potential customers and responding to incoming leads to increase client base
- Writes business proposals for potential customers
- Negotiates, drafts and reviews contracts
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in the marketing and sales team of a fictional regional furniture retailer with six stores. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- A campaign you backed on a hunch fills the stores and the phones start ringing
- A big customer agrees to a deal because you listened to what they actually needed
- A junior team member's idea becomes the best thing in the whole season's catalogue
Hard days
- A launch day when a promotion goes out with a mistake in it
- Sales targets that were set before anyone knew what the market would do
- Choosing which good idea to drop because the budget only stretches so far
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 112132, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.