Business Development Director: Job Description and Salary

Ever wondered what a business development director or manager does? We took a look at what’s involved in the role.

What Does a Business Development Director Do?

A business development director is responsible for growing a company’s business, increasing its revenue, finding new business opportunities, and building that company’s brand.

A business development director oversees sales and marketing teams, but also looks for new markets, spots new growth opportunities, and works to build the company’s exposure and brand. They will constantly be on the lookout for new opportunities to expand the business, and will be responsible for working within the senior leadership team to develop strategic plans to create new revenue generation opportunities.

What Makes a Good Business Development Director?

A business development director spends a lot of time selling their business to others, and ensuring peak performance from a team of sales staff, so they need excellent communication and interpersonal skills. They need to have the collaboration and negotiation skills to work closely with other members of the senior team, as well as their own sales managers.

They need to be able to manage sizable new sales and business projects. They have to be able to carry out research into developing business trends and create strategy, which also means they need the business intelligence skills to understand their field and their company. And like everyone else, they need excellent technological skills to use the latest software and sales tools fluently.

What Does a Business Development Director Make?

In the US, the median total compensation of a business development director is around $180,000 a year, according to LinkedIn and salary.com. The base salary would be $140,000 while the other $40,000 comes from bonuses. Depending on the cost of living in your area, your salary may be a bit higher or a bit lower.

Let’s dive more into this. Today, we’re pulling back the curtain on the Director of Business Development role, and for that, we talked to Patrick Joyce.

About Patrick Joyce

Company Name: fullcast.io

Title: Business Development Director

Location: Redmond, WA

Quick Pitch: Fullcast.io is a software company that transforms sales operations into growth operations by providing sales-ops-as-a-service, combining the perfect blend of people, process, and cloud platform to accelerate sales organization growth.

ACV: $100,000

Sales Cycle Timeline: 90 days

Number of people reporting to you: 0 currently, growing soon! Connect with me on LinkedIn 😉

We asked him about his routine before, during, and after work. Read on!

Pre-Work Routine

6:00 am: The first step after I wake up is to walk my dog, Charlie. He’s a mutt from Texas.

Then by 7am, I’ll:

• Do 50 pushups and plank for 2 minutes.
• Shower, make a protein smoothie and coffee, and then smooch my wife as she leaves for work.
• Catch up on news, personal email, text messages, Reddit, other random noise.

7:00 am: Check work email & LinkedIn. Think about a post for the day and follow up with any work-related loose ends. Common tasks would be adjusting email sequences, creating internal content, following up with vendors, continued outbound strategy development.

During-Work Routine

Monday

On Monday, I work from home.

8:00 – 9:00 am: I sit down at my computer and log in to Outreach and Salesforce. One of my goals for the day is to get through as many personalized prospecting emails as possible. I go back and forth between LinkedIn and Outreach, sending each person a relevant, concise message that conveys personal interest in both the prospect and their company.

9:00 – 10:00 am: Sales meeting with Sales Director, VP Marketing, and CEO. We talk about deals in the pipeline and how our target audience is responding to our messaging. Each of us reports what we have been working on and how it’s going, then address any logistical or strategic concerns moving forward.

10:00 – 11:00 am: Follow-up block. Here is where I answer emails and call people back. Sometimes there isn’t anything to answer right away, so I will dig for someone who needs re-engagement.

11:00 – 11:15 am: Break! Snack and more coffee.

11:15 – 12:15 pm: Review engagement insights in Outreach and on LinkedIn. Revisit emails from the morning prospecting block, making any halftime adjustments necessary. Engage on LinkedIn.

Lunch usually happens somewhere during this part of the day throughout the week. It may or may not involve a trip to Taqueria Gallo.

12:15 – 2:00 pm: Prospecting/list building

2:00 – 3:00 pm: Engage with external content. This includes reading articles, listening to podcasts, responding to vendors, learning about new tools, and exploring in general.

3:00 – 5:00 pm: Prospecting call/email block

Tuesday – Thursday

These are my in-office days, but sometimes I work from home.

7:00 – 8:00 am: Listen to a sales podcast or audiobook on the drive in.

8:00 – 9:00 am: Prospecting call/email block.

9:00 – 10:00 am: Follow-up block.

10:00 am – 12:00 pm: I use this time to develop our outbound sequences based on continued research and re-evaluation.

The goal is to galvanize a process for effective outbound prospecting. We want to find the companies who are looking for the next step in sales operations, so the outreach has a different flavor to it than a traditional sequence for a product that is well established in the market.

So far, I’ve come to a few conclusions:

• Nobody really cares if the product is cool. They are assuming it is.
• They do care if you can solve a problem for them or save them money.
• Be short and sweet. And polite.

12:15 – 2:15 pm: Prospecting/list building.

2:15 – 3:00 pm: Engage with external content (articles, webinars, new tools, podcasts, vendors).

3:00 – 5:00 pm: Prospecting call/email block.

(sometimes) 5:00 – ?? List building, strategy setting, continued follow-up, random loose ends.

Friday

Friday is almost the same but we have a company-wide product meeting from 9–11am. Bala comes in and shows us any key updates and gives everyone a chance to ask questions. Then we take a break and come back for a roundtable “top-of-mind.” Everyone gets to speak up about whatever has been top-of-mind for them during the week.

Post-Work Routine

On Mondays and Wednesdays, I train in Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) from 5:30–8pm. I’ll get home late and eat a quick dinner over Parks & Rec with Mrs. Anna Joyce.

Tuesdays are open for catching up with friends & taking Charlie to the dog park. It is my only personally “free” night of the week. Sometimes I don’t do anything!

On Thursday, I’m most likely working late and going right to BJJ at 6:30.

Friday nights are for yoga with Anna, dinner, and a movie.

Sometimes, 9–11pm is online gaming with friends throughout the week as well. Lately, I’ve been very sucked into Stardew Valley. It’s basically a complicated version of Farmville from Facebook. Risk of Rain 2 is another game I’ll frequent. I’ve played a decent amount of Starcraft 2. Mostly I like old school games, especially multiplayer.

Inside My Head

What’s the one app you can’t live without and why?

Discord. I don’t use it at work, but I talk to my friends from back home in our private channel and we play games all the time. The group call and laughter are necessary.

Name one unsung hero to your day-to-day and why.

Our Salesforce admin, Christie Diedrick. Keeping integrations synced and sales process tight is absolutely essential to keep the data usable in Salesforce. I’ve seen what it’s like trying to work when this isn’t a tight ship, and it is tough.

Christie is a rockstar. Somehow, she always finds time for my random complaints about having to update the account status manually every time, and things like that.

What is the one thing you can’t do your day without?

Coffee. I am a caffeine addict. A close second would be headphones. Google Music was almost my answer to the app question.

What’s the one piece of advice you wish you had when you were 22?

Take half the money you spend going out with your friends and spend it on Apple stock. I was 22 in 2007. Apple was at $18.

You have one communication channel to sell through that you can use for the rest of your life, and nothing else. What do you pick?

Face-to-face is best, but if I had to choose a tool, it would be the phone. Email is powerful, but you lose so much of your message without tone-of-voice and inflection. There’s a commonly cited (and apparently misused) stat that says 93% of your communication is nonverbal.

If you were starting your career over right now, what would you do to kickstart success?

I would have started buying stocks and real estate much sooner. I wouldn’t trade even the terrible work experiences I’ve had. It all adds up to what I am doing today. But investing sooner would have been a good idea.

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