While sales and business development strive for the same end goal, that is, revenue generation, they have different approaches to achieve it. Let's understand this in detail.

Sales and business development: clarifying the roles

‍Sales focuses on grabbing opportunities that have potential to yield immediate income by converting qualified leads into paying customers and working with existing demand. They engage directly with prospects and clients, guide them through the sales process and close deals. 

Business development, on the other hand, works toward a long-term vision by identifying markets, discovering potential partners, and client acquisition. They might negotiate alliances, explore emerging segments, or pilot new business models. 

Here’s a short table listing the differences between sales and business development. 

Why integrating sales, business development and technology is important

Let’s look at it from a problem -> solution -> outcome perspective.

🚨 Problem

Misaligned sales and business development teams create costly revenue gaps. If BD generates a lead, and the handoff to sales is not clear, those prospects fall through the cracks. If sales department is not kept in loop about BDs partnerships, there’s a chance they might overlook lucrative sales channels. 

For example, one department might pitch a prospect who was already engaged by the other, causing customer confusion.

Industry research also confirms that fragmented processes undermine growth. Bain & Company conducted a survey of over 1200 companies across 18 industries and found that 70% of the organizations fail to integrate their sales process into their CRM. This results in only 20% of the lot who fully understand the value of integrating opportunities with technology. The rest are honestly just missing out on revenue on the table. 

✅ Solution

• When sales and business development come together, internal communications are better, and the sales processes are also carried out more efficiently.
• Both teams can share with each other customer insights, reducing wasted effort. When goals unify, all team members pull in the same direction.
• More qualified leads fall into the pipeline, which translates into higher conversion rates, which again means increased revenue generation. 
• Since incoming leads are vetted to be sales qualified, sales cycles are shorter compared to those who have just shown “interest” and chasing dead-end signals. 

In fact, Bain & Company also highlights that companies that “harmonize their strategic sales play approach” with technology and cross-team collaboration are “best positioned for accelerated revenue growth” 

📈 Outcome: 

• Combined efforts capture more business and wider market coverage. When BD strategically builds a pipeline and the sales execute by converting quickly, your company will see higher win rates and faster deal cycles. 
• Aligning sales and BD smooth the customer journey as well. From contact to negotiation to renewal, the customer sees one cohesive team rather than disjointed handoffs. Internally, this leads to higher conversion rates with a better upsell/cross sale opportunity. 
• Combining efforts means less overhead costs. Shared intelligence can significantly reduce redundant research. Integrating technology into your system, like use of CRM, and automation systems helps speed the process and save time for more valuable activities like closing deals.

Key strategies for integration of sales and business development

⚙️ Share a unified CRM and track leads together

A CRM can be a life saver for both sales and business development. Shared CRM access gives both teams visibility into the customer journey. This enables teams to identify bottlenecks, prioritize high-potential accounts, and align decision-making.

For example, imagine a BD rep at a SaaS company initiating a conversation with a large enterprise prospect. They log this in the CRM. The sales rep can then follow up on that same thread once the lead shows interest - no miscommunication, no duplicated efforts.

🫸🫷Set joint goals, like increasing deal size or market penetration

Joint goals for both teams can look like targeting to increase qualified leads by X%, a jump in deal size, and exploring new markets that fit the company’s ICP.

This is great for accountability and prevents blame game for e.g. BD blaming sales for not closing, and sales team blaming BD for weak leads. 

👨‍👨‍👧‍👦 Meet regularly to discuss lead quality and conversion

Hold weekly or bi-weekly sales meetings. This session can be to discuss status updates, sales strategy and check-ins. When both teams are informed, and aligned with goals, the sales process is much smoother.

👀 Understand where BD ends and sales begins - and collaborate in the overlap

If you run a business, make sure to standardize a handoff protocol of qualified leads. This includes clear criteria (e.g. lead scoring thresholds), documentation of all prior interactions, and timely notifications to the sales team. 

Set up a formal Service Level Agreement (SLA) between BD and sales which can help establish what is “sales-ready”. This way, valuable prospects won’t get lost. 

Technology is key to a collaborative success of both sales and business development. CRMs, shared dashboards, and collaboration platforms (Slack, Teams) make it easier to coordinate across departments and even across geographic regions. 

🤖 Focus on automation and AI

Automation and AI can play a transformative role in aligning sales and BD:

• AI-powered lead scoring: AI tools can rank leads based on their likelihood to convert, ensuring that BD passes only high-quality opportunities to sales.
• Workflow automation: Automate repetitive tasks like follow-ups and meeting scheduling, freeing up teams to focus on strategic activities.
• Predictive analytics: Use AI to identify emerging market trends, enabling BD to explore new opportunities while sales prepares targeted pitches.

According to Mckinsey, AI can automate 70% of that work, giving reps more time to do what actually matters: selling.

To conclude, if you are still treating your sales and business development as separate, your strategy is outdated and needs some revamping. Conduct cross-departmental workshops, unify CRMs and any measure you think will help both work together. Start now to see results in 3-6 months!