Hi All, This is a new piece I am trying out on trying to explain what is Business Development and what it does. It's

 a bit different from my normal blogs and I am not 100% sure if it adds value to the HIVE community so feedback is very very welcome. 



**Prepare, Prepare, Prepare!**

Before conducting Business Development and devising your *Strategy* you need to know the context you are going to be operating in. You need to know what your organisation is trying to achieve (*the Strategic Plan*) as there is no use in being successful if it runs counter to the organisation ultimate goals! 

You also need to understand how your organisation stacks up (*SWOT*) as this can give your insight in what you can leverage and what you need to watch out for as you move forward. Know your competition (*Competitors Analysis*) is an old mantra and goes hand in hand with the SWOT. 

You need to understand where your business wants to focus, business development is not just a strategic exercise, it’s also an exercise in geographic analysis, you and your organisations footprint can only be so big and you need to understand why and where you should be targeting your efforts. 

The final thing you need to understand is what your targets are, and any additional targets around this, such as marketing or conversion, as this will drive what strategies you pursue and where the focus will may need to be as ultimately this is how you will be judged!  

The great thing about all of the above is usually someone else has already conducted this for you all you have to do is gather them together and ensure you understand, and trust, what they have created.

There are many aspects that should be considered and will provide guidance on, which strategies and activities you wish to pursue. However the focus of this blog is on the planning and conducting Business Development and as to not to distract from this purpose, these aspects will be briefly touched on here and are explored further in the later issues

Ok, that's an intro to what you need to get ready for business development. Depending on how this lands I start expanding on what these crazy terms are!

![sketch1510570699806_1510570842218.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmfFjthmEEqHXmeJ947GuCaA2dmCbpGZWeMASimhVMGH27/sketch1510570699806_1510570842218.png)

my own image



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