FM

5 Key Skills To Become A Successful Business Development Manager

March 28, 2023

Sales isn’t for everyone, but for those who can handle the pressure and have a natural knack for building relationships, it can be a highly rewarding field.

As a business development manager in the Facilities Management sector, your primary responsibility will be growth. The company will be looking to you to develop and nurture key relationships with clients, suppliers, and other external stakeholders. You’ll also need to build relationships with your internal stakeholders such as account directors, contract managers, and contract directors. 

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It’s important for you to understand the services you’re selling, so having a close relationship with the operations managers will help you gain the knowledge of how things are done on the ground.

Project management in facilities management is essential, and often you’ll be expected to improve profitability and scalability through strategic planning and innovation or to enhance the operations, services, positioning, or reputation of your company.

Whether you’re part of a larger team or hold the responsibility for all the sales, relationships are going to be key to your success.

what are the top 5 skills needed to become a successful business development manager in the facilities management sector?

1. Communication and interpersonal skills

An effective business development manager must have practical communication skills to build long-standing and successful relationships with key clients. They will also need to adapt and develop solutions to clients’ needs with clear and decisive communication.

2. Negotiation skills

Business development managers will be required to be tactful and diplomatic at all times. As well as holding the knowledge of when to compromise and when to offer firm solutions to persuade prospects, winning their trust and commitment.

3. Research and strategy

To successfully land clients, a business development manager needs to have serious research skills. To begin with, you need to understand the service, needs, and goals of the client, which means researching the organization, their current provider, their pain points, and their growth ambitions. You need to be able to research the latest technology and understand how you can use it to reduce cost/headcount or improve outcomes.

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4. Business intelligence

Alongside knowing your client’s goals, a great business development manager works with their operational team to understand their own business offering. What are the services offered to other, similar clients? What do your competitors offer? How can you create a solution that fits your client’s needs while being cost-effective? This is essential in developing the market offering and its positioning against its competitors within the FM sector.

5. Networking

You will need to be highly comfortable networking as this will help build valuable relationships as well as partnerships with new and existing clients in the Facilities Management sector and broader market and industries.

Some great networking principles to help you with your BDM role might include:

  1. Describing yourself concisely and impressively
  2. Differentiating yourself
  3. Helping and supporting client needs and requirements
  4. Integrity – Trust and Reputation
  5. Planned networking – Network events, meeting, and developing relationships

The role of a business development manager in the facilities management sector is crucial for the growth and success of a company.

Developing the right skills is key to becoming a successful business development manager.

The top 5 skills include communication and interpersonal skills, negotiation skills, research and strategy, business intelligence, and networking.

By honing these skills, a business development manager can build long-lasting relationships with clients, effectively negotiate deals, conduct thorough research, develop a competitive market offering, and build valuable partnerships in the industry.

mansukh singh

mansukh singh

Mansukh is our specialist recruiter for bids and business development manager
positions within the facilities management sector.

Contact Mansukh

If you are a business development professional looking for your next career in the facilities management sector, please check out our latest business development roles.