How to Write a Great Business Development Report: A Step By Step Guide with Examples

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Have you ever written a business development report?

Business development reports can be quite confusing to many people, particularly those within small to medium-sized companies. And business development, in general, is often confused with sales and it’s not rare that it’s overlooked entirely within companies. However, having a business development strategy is critical to long-term success and ensuring that everyone in your company is working toward a common goal.

So without further ado, here is everything you need to know to write a great business development report.

• What Is Business Development?
• What Is a Business Development Report?
• What Should Be Included In a Business Development Report?
• How to Write a Business Development Plan?
• Business Development Strategies
• Business Development Report Examples
• Create Better Business Development Reports with Databox

What Is Business Development?

Business development is about expanding business through various activities such as market research, product development, sales strategies, and others that enhance business growth. Businesses need to implement these business development approaches to widen their markets and establish themselves in the global market. Business development professionals are responsible for initiating, planning, and implementing these activities aimed at increasing the sales and overall performance of a business.

What Is a Business Development Report?

A business development report is basically a document that outlines the future growth of a business. It usually includes information about sales targets, profits, and operations of the business. The main aim of a business development report is to help management in formulating plans for the company’s future growth.

What Should Be Included In a Business Development Report (BDR)?

A BDR can be as simple as a list of all of your potential clients, along with notes about their needs, the status of your sales cycle with them, and what you need to do to close the deal. There are more sophisticated BDRs that use color-coded spreadsheets and complex software tools. The most important aspect of any BDR is its usefulness in helping you predict your future success.

Business development reports vary from company to company, but for the most part, they should include:

• Opening paragraph – Make clear what’s included in the report, and why it’s valuable to them. This also provides an opportunity to build rapport with the reader by addressing them by name if you know it (“Dear Bob…”).

• Calls, emails & social media efforts – Be honest about how many contacts you make in your business development efforts. Don’t just include calls that yielded positive results, include all calls. Include emails, too, as part of your strategy to increase your outbound efforts. If you’re using social media and online groups as part of your outreach program, include those numbers as well.

• Tally the number of inbound inquiries each month – Then compare your performance over time to see if you’re getting more or fewer inquiries. You might also look at a 12-month period as well as a 6-month period to see if there’s a trend in your business.

• Number of closed deals/closures/transactions – By quarter, year to date and since you started tracking deals.

• Qualifications – Qualifying a prospect means making sure that they’re actually interested in buying from you and not just being polite when you call them.

• Open opportunities – That have not yet resulted in closed deals and sources of those opportunities.

• Company names and contact persons who provided the lead – It’s very important to have this information on hand because salespeople are usually motivated by money, not by a sense of duty. If a contact provides you with a great lead, there should be a way for you to receive compensation for it further down the line.

• The date the report was created – This is so you know how up-to-date it is, especially if you need to review it quickly.

• Name of the business development manager who prepared the report – You want to be sure that you are receiving credit for all of your hard work.

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