How To Overcome The Biggest Challenges In Business

How To Overcome The Biggest Challenges In Business

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With supply chains backlogged, inflation growing and the “Great Resignation” looming, leading business development professionals across the globe still have to keep the deals moving. To cope, some are restructuring their marketing approach to form alliances with new clients, while others are honing in on how to boost internal morale across their team, as a whole, from a virtual distance.

That’s why a  panel of experts from Forbes Business Development Council below wanted to share their own experiences of the obstacles they’ve faced and advice on how you, too, can overcome any challenge. 

1. Hire People With Positive Attitudes

One of the biggest challenges for me is hiring the right people, especially in these fast-paced, ever-changing times when the skills required to create value are also constantly evolving. This makes it even more important to hire for attitude instead of just competency. Competence can be acquired, but the right attitude is priceless. – Onyinye Ikenna-Emeka, MTN NIGERIA COMM PLC

2. Experiment Before Investment

One of the biggest challenges is prioritizing where to invest to achieve maximum ROI, which is ultimately measured in revenue growth. I try to overcome this by running many different small experiments. If an experiment is successful, I double down and reinvest creating a flywheel effect. The prioritization then happens naturally based on success building upon success. – Kerry Hew, Zycada Networks, Inc.

3. Rethink Your Marketing Strategies

These last few years, during the Covid-19 pandemic, have disrupted not only supply chains, but also how business owners maintain partnering relationships as well. As each company adapts to new customer expectations, it must change its business models and go-to-marketing strategies. Business partners had to reconsider everything from revenue sharing arrangements to changing joint go-to-marketing strategies in an effort to keep the customer experience the same or better. – Tamas Hevizi, Automation Anywhere

4. Find Balance In Product Development 

One of the challenges I’ve faced is building momentum around a new market category while also developing our product. Early on, we had to balance our current customers, brand and resources while communicating a new and compelling vision for the future. Category creation isn’t something to just check off your to-do list, so we’re continuing to learn and build out our product offerings in tandem. – Tamara Grominsky, Unbounce

5. Create A Stronger Team

We have rectified so many challenges within our business by correcting our employment and retention. We are fearless when approaching issues as a business with the right staff. Communication, culture, common sense and loyalty are difficult traits to find in applicants. When you have a team overflowing with potential and enthusiasm, anything the world can throw at you fades to the background. – Peter Schravemade, The Home Market

6. Make Virtual Events More Personal

There is a necessity to adjust common business development practices, such as in-person meetings, networking and personal introductions. In many industries, networking is key to successful business development. Over the past few years, virtual trade shows and networking events have become the norm, but they don’t give the same personalization needed to create a positive relationship. Navigating and adjusting to these methods is key. – Richard Lindhorn, VivoAquatics Inc.


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7. Communicate Your Short- And Long-Term Objectives

Don’t forget to explain how the short-term objectives fit into the longer-term strategy to your team. Resentment can build and loyalty can be tested when the team doesn’t understand the “why” behind the tactical minutiae. Treat employees like investors, providing consistent and thoughtful communication with a holistic lens that helps them understand the bigger picture. – Dan Swift, Empire Selling

8. Collaborate With Your Team

Trying to bring vision, strategic roadmaps and execution into multiple departments is a challenge for business development leaders, but great teams overcome these obstacles to establish a secure business foundation through communication. Collaborating with product, development and a core business team can allow clear objectives to be created for scale and purpose. – Tyler Mizenko, Prendio, LLC

9. Have Fun

Motivating my global team of early-career talent in a remote setting has been one of the challenges in 2021. As we focused on humanizing outreach to prospects by using a phone-only approach, we hosted a number of fun virtual events, for example, “Power Pipeline days,” where everyone dressed up as their favorite movie character. This brought in a lot of fun, making it enjoyable and generating results. – Pradeepa Kolli, Meta Platforms, Inc. (formerly Facebook)

10. Take A Multi-Faceted Approach

With customer outreach mostly limited to phone and video, getting sales teams to embrace alternative methods of client interaction, such as text, chat and social media platforms have been challenging. Success has to include a multi-faceted approach that includes leading by example, gaining corporate support, providing access to the platforms, training and publicly celebrating examples of success. – Christopher Brunetti, Lumen Technologies

11. Lean On Peers For Assistance

As a business developer, you are faced with highly optimistic goals and you need to plan the execution strategy to achieve these metrics early on. The challenges that are faced most of the time rely heavily on collaboration. You must ask for help and guidance from your peers when needed as this is critical to accomplishing every individual goal. – Carlos Jimenez, Firstbase.io

12. Question Alignment On Every Pursuit

Covid for all of its miseries has also enabled access to previously unreachable markets, thanks to virtual selling. This means it’s easy to get distracted by shiny balls like new markets, new customer types and new product offerings. For every new sales pursuit, we ask ourselves if the deal falls within our sweet spot and fits our ideal customer profile. This enables continued focus on long-term growth. – Ash Didwania, Resilia

13. Find Opportunities To Boost (Virtual) Morale

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is managing remote teams. It can be difficult to create a sense of community and camaraderie when team members are dispersed across different states or countries. But fortunately, there are things that you can do to help bridge the gap. Create opportunities for team bonding, such as monthly video chats or team lunches. Also, celebrate successes together. – Don Markland, Accountability Now

14. Build A Better Rapport With Job Candidates

Hiring talent continues to be a challenge, even more so in light of the Great Resignation. Every candidate you interview may be in the process of considering three to four alternative options, and when you do identify a strong talent you can never be 100% sure how they will work out. For me, attitude is everything, so I try to build a strong rapport to really get to know who I’m interviewing and so they also get to know me. – Ben Elder, Meta Platforms, Inc. (formerly Facebook)

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