The relationship between sales and business development should be very close one. However, the business development function has much more to take into account than sales. Put differently. business development has to make sure today’s sales and tomorrow’s sales are both on track. For that reason, business development has to consider factors such as marketing approach, routes to market and innovation in order to be able to keep the company’s product fresh. The sales team would therefore continue to have something to sell. In my time in business development I have also had to manage the sales function and I gained an appreciation of the differences between business development and sales. A pure sales team can also make decisions that stretch the technical aspects of a product and make the company go into uncharted territory as far as functionality is concerned.

Sales-orientated areas business development that I will consider with you include 

• Market orientation 
• Competitor analysis 
• Grants and support to increase market research
• SEO approaches to lead generation 
• Sales systems and CRM