What is a Business Development Specialist | Business Development Specialist Job Description

What is a Business Development Specialist? A business development specialist is a sales professional who sells products or services for a particular company. As a business development specialist, your job duties include making cold calls and email pitches to leads and potential clients, traveling to meet with existing clients or make in-person sales pitches, and providing training sessions or consultations. 

The business development specialist works with sales and marketing to maintain relationships with valued clients, initiate new relationships, negotiate deals, establish strong networks with the industry specialists, and source new clients.

What’s the Salary of a Business Development Specialist?

The starting salary of a Business Development Analyst is $39,140/year in the USA, while the average salary is $55,479, and the higher paid ones make $77,573.

Sample 1: Business Development Specialist Job Description

With this Business Development Specialist job description, you can get a good idea of what employers are looking for when hiring for this position.

Job Summary

We are seeking a Business Development Specialist to help us grow our customer base and increase our sales. In this position, you will be responsible for sourcing new leads, making outbound calls to potential customers, and closing sales. However, this is also a customer relationship management (CRM) position, as you will be responsible for taking inbound calls from existing clients and ensuring their continued satisfaction. Our ideal applicant has a bachelor’s degree in business and several years of sales experience.

Requirements and Qualifications

• Strong communication, customer service, and negotiation skills.

• Computer proficiency. 

• Bachelor’s degree in business.

• Several years of sales experience.

Business Development Specialist Responsibilities and Duties 

• Close deals with new leads.

• Ensure all contracts are in compliance with company standards.

• Identify new leads or avenues for growth. 

• Call leads to offer our products.

• Take calls from clients to maintain the relationship.

Sample 2: Business Development Specialist Job Summary

The Business Development Specialist will have responsibility for driving market share and qualifying leads. The Business Development Specialist will follow up on web inquiries, pre‐qualify leads, and develop to the point of handoff for Sales. In addition to inbound inquiries, the Business Development Specialist will perform prospecting, marketing event outreach and perform general sales development functions to build a pipeline within targeted accounts designated by management.

Business Development Specialist Skill Required

• Skilled in identifying potential areas of growth.

• Competence in various marketing strategies, including digital marketing.

• Exceptional ability to analyze market trends and identify new products.

• Ability to maintain a strong relationship with key clients to ensure a high rate of client retention.

• Ability to regularly meet set targets.

• Bachelor’s degree in business management with specialization in marketing.

• Proven work experience in business development.

Business Development Specialist Responsibilities & Job Duties

• Qualify all sales leads based upon lead qualification criteria definitions.

• Provide baseline research within targeted accounts to identify key contacts and critical account information prior to prospecting call.

• Build and manage lead development pipeline.

• Achieve or exceed goal for qualified leads to Sales on a monthly basis.

• Perform competitor analysis and adjusting the systems, processes, or marketing strategies to be at par with the competitor strategies.

• Develop strategies for strengthening client relationships and customer retention.

• Continuously monitor changing customer and market trends to identify areas of business growth.

• Negotiate new contracts and closing new business deals.

• Conduct customer research to identify new products, which should be developed to respond to changing customer needs, and communicating the information with the production team.

• Identify and develop new markets to introduce the company’s products.

• Analyze and expand the business operations to enhance sustainable growth.

• Monitor streams of revenue to identify areas to increase growth and profitability.

• Design, execute, and evaluate marketing strategies to remain competitive in the market.

• Develop and execute business strategies for discovering new clients and business both locally and internationally.

• Represent the company at trade organizations, committees, and during board meetings.

• Liaise with the sales team, management team, and production team to align the company’s long-term strategies with the daily marketing activities.

• Assess areas of potential joint ventures or acquisition and communicating with the management.

What Does A Business Development Specialist Do?

The main job of a business development specialist is to grow the business by initiating plans, activities, and goals that lead to revenue growth and market share growth. Business development specialists must develop an annual budget based on new clients, portfolio growth rate, client retention rate, and repeat business obtained. The business development specialist must sell the products or services of the company. To sell the products, they must seek ways to attract new clients, create awareness of the product’s existence, counter any resistance, and develop a strong referral network.

How to Become a Business Development Specialist

The qualifications you need for a career as a business development specialist are a bachelor’s degree in marketing or business, and experience with sales and customer service. You need strong communication skills, and you must be persuasive and persistent to turn cold leads into loyal customers.

You need in-depth knowledge about your company’s products or services in order to educate potential and existing clients and answer their questions. Your primary goal as a business development specialist is to increase sales within your assigned territory.

What is a Business Development Specialist | Business Development Specialist Job Description

What are business development responsibilities?

Setting goals and developing plans for business and revenue growth. Researching, planning, and implementing new target market initiatives. Researching prospective accounts in target markets. Pursuing leads and moving them through the sales cycle.

What skills should a BDM have?

Skills Required for a Business Development Manager are: Communication Skills, Flexibility, Time Management, Technical Skills, Negotiation Skills, Project Management, Business Acumen, Analytical and Problem-Solving Skills.

Is business development a stressful job?

There are some disadvantages of working in business development. A high level of pressure and stress is a disadvantage. Because you take important business decisions, there can be times when you feel under stress or pressured.