It's All About Relationships, Right?

Posted by: J. Gilliam, Exec Dir

When we began the SBDP last year, we had one goal in mind: Create a professional "home" for the enterprise-class sales, business development, channel, alliance, partnering, and relationship management, and strategic accounts professionals. 

Our aim was to bring our colleagues serious value, providing opportunities to enhance their careers, mix and develop new friendships with the "best-of-the-best", and get unparalleled personal and professional support on any number of issues.

Why hadn't this been done before? Are we not a "profession" in our own right? My theory is that until now no one has bothered to separate true BDPs from the everyday transactional salesperson or one-off business developer. Sure there are countless talented salespeople out there, but we BDPs, for the most part, consider ourselves to be a breed apart.

The true BDP is required to understand the highly complex, high-pressure business development and acquisition environments of large organizations. We are subject to long budget cycles, complicated decision-making processes, and the organization peculiarities of major corporations, both at our employers and our clients.

Therefore, a BDP's focus is more on process than personal style. We understand that few major teaming or buying decisions are made by one person; rather they are made over time, via a complex map of people who each have different skillsets, backgrounds and agendas. But we still need relationships, one by one, to move the ball across the goal. After all, people still like to do business with people they like.

Members here don't hear much about "sales training" or "persuasion techniques."  

At our core, we are in a people business, our empathic skills and our innate understanding of human behavior is a key differentiator. But

People skills will get us nowhere if we don't understand the process of complex partnering. However, in the end, it is indeed all about relationships. Who you know, who comes to your life with something to offer and something to be offered.

Our profession is so much more than numbers on a board.

Jonathan Gilliam, Executive Director, sbdp

Members and prospective members, please feel free to contact me directly.