Partnerships are easy to announce, but they are considerably harder to make useful
I've spent more than two decades working across marketing, sales, business development and consultancy, and one thing has remained remarkably consistent: the strongest commercial relationships work because everybody involved can see the value. Not because somebody arranged a meeting. Not because two organisations have similar audiences. And certainly not because two logos look good next to each other.
For a business development manager, the real opportunity is finding where different objectives overlap, and turning it into something commercially useful
One of the quickest ways to lose someone's interest is to tell them everything you want from them. We'd like access to your customers. We'd like you to promote us. We'd like an introduction. We'd like you to support our campaign. That's not really a partnership proposition. It's a shopping list. My approach to business development has been shaped by working on both sides of that conversation.
As a consultant, I spent more than two decades helping organisations win customers, grow market share and launch new services. That involved developing business development strategies, identifying new sales channels and managing clients, suppliers and multidisciplinary teams from initial strategy through to delivery.
Today, I work in a very different environmet, leading stakeholder engagement across multiple teams and external partners while supporting commercial B2B marketing alongside large-scale public campaigns. Different sectors. A business development manager needs to see the bigger picture. I've spent a significant part of my career helping organisations acquire customers and develop new business.
But business development also means spotting connections.
My career has crossed agencies, B2B, B2C, start-ups, estate agency, hospitality, healthcare, retail, education, public services and community-focused organisations. That breadth matters because opportunities don't always arrive conveniently labelled BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES. Often, somebody has to recognise them.
The best partnerships create shared value
A useful partnership doesn't require both organisations to want the same thing. They simply need objectives that can work together.
Imagine a business wants to reach a particular audience while another organisation wants to increase participation. One brings the audience, another brings the service. Someone else may have the venue, expertise, credibility, technology or distribution. The contributions aren't identical, but the value can still be mutual.
That's the sweet spot
My current work provides a good example of the principle. It involves aligning park teams, wider organisational colleagues and external partners around shared objectives, while campaigns support everything from events and education to venue hire, accessibility, volunteering and visitor engagement. The objective isn't to make everybody want exactly the same thing. It's to find the point where their different objectives support each other.
Relationships are useful. Results matter more
I've always placed considerable value on relationships. My previous consultancy work involved managing clients, suppliers and multidisciplinary projects. My work in education involved collaboration, networking, events, client relationship building and exploring partnership opportunities.
Today, stakeholder engagement remains central to what I do, however there's an important distinction between having a relationship and doing something useful with it. A large network doesn't automatically produce business, twenty meetings don't constitute a strategy, and a partnership that generates plenty of activity but no identifiable benefit to either organisation probably needs questioning.
The value has changed, not the propositon
Good business development means being able to articulate that value differently to different people without losing sight of the overall objective. Kent, London and the South East are interconnected markets, and being based in Kent gives me an interesting perspective on business development across Kent, London and the South East. My own experience reflects that breadth: combining current Kent-based public-service and B2B activity with a much longer commercial background working across multiple sectors and different types of organisation.
My career has increasingly brought those disciplines together rather than treating them as separate functions. And perhaps that's why I think the most useful question for a business development manager is "What are they trying to achieve, what are we trying to achieve — and is there somewhere in the middle where everybody wins?"
