What Are the Differences Between Sales Development and Business Development?

Modern business terminology changes constantly, and some of it can get confusing. Part of the problem is that no matter how hard we try as a society, language sometimes makes it hard to convey a complex idea in a single word. It’s important to know what your colleagues and competitors are talking about, though. At first glance, one might think that business and sales development are basically the same thing. Looking closer, though, it becomes clear that there’s more to both concepts.

Business Development

This term encompasses a wide range of business processes. On a Venn diagram of all business activities, this one would be a very large circle that surrounds almost everything else. If a particular activity is not helping your business grow in some way at all, only then would it fall outside this category. The biggest subcategories that fall into the larger grouping of business development are sales, marketing, partnership formation, and anything else that expands your company’s influence and market.

Sales Development

Within all of these larger categories, there are specializations. The point of specialization is to take advantage of the efficiency that it brings. The more you can focus on one specific task or process, the better you can get at doing it. Traditionally, what we now call sales development was part of the ordinary activities that every salesperson could expect to do. Every salesperson was responsible for meeting their quota of closed deals. They also did all of the cold calling and other forms of outreach that would be necessary beforehand. A few years ago, though, sales teams started learning that they could split the sales process in half. One part of the team could now specialize in the labor-intensive top half of the sales funnel. By focusing only on outreach, they could qualify as many leads as possible, as fast as possible. These Sales Development Representatives, as they are now known, could then pass these qualified warm prospects along to Account Executives. The AEs, in turn, could focus all their time and energy on building established relationships and closing deals. The efficiency advantages were immediately apparent. A number of tech companies that started using this tactic began to experience phenomenal growth. Among them are organizations that are now household names, such as Oracle and Salesforce.

How Boom Demand SDRs Can Help Your Business Grow

Many companies simply split their in-house sales teams to establish the sales development positions they need. There is a more cost-effective way to boost sales, though, and that’s by outsourcing sales development. Boom Demand’s SDR team is made of trained professionals who integrate with our clients’ own in-house sales teams. They work for you, funneling warm prospects right to your account executives. They also do it at a fraction of the cost of doing it yourself. Boom Demand also provides a variety of other related services that help you scale up fast, so contact us today to get started!