If I walked into a new role as a Business Development Manager tomorrow, my first Month wouldn't be spent chasing leads or making cold calls.
It would be spent asking questions and taking notes.
"Mgeni siku ya kwanza, siku ya pili mpe jembe a... moreIf I walked into a new role as a Business Development Manager tomorrow, my first Month wouldn't be spent chasing leads or making cold calls.
It would be spent asking questions and taking notes.
"Mgeni siku ya kwanza, siku ya pili mpe jembe akulimie." Even that hoe-wielding guest needs to first understand the shamba before he starts digging.
You don't cultivate what you haven't studied.
So before touching a single prospect, I'd want to know:
Who keeps coming back to us, and why?
What's the real story behind our current pipeline? Where is it actually coming from?
Which deals are closing, and which ones are dying quietly?
Where exactly are we bleeding opportunities?
Who in our network refers business to us without being asked?
If we drew our ideal customer, what would they look like on paper?
What partnership options are we sitting on but not using? Distributors, SACCOs, chamas, industry associations, county government tie-ups, vendor alliances, even informal referral networks within the local business community?
Are our present customers fully served, or are there opportunities to upsell?
And most importantly, where does leadership actually want this business to go?
Only after that groundwork would I put a plan on the table:
Our target.
Our unique advantage.
How we prospect, deliberately, not randomly.
How we build and protect relationships, because in Kenya, business still runs on trust and connection long before it runs on contracts.
Which partnerships are worth formalizing, whether that's co-selling with a complementary business, joint ventures for bigger tenders, or simple referral agreements that reward the people already sending us clients.
How we manage the pipeline honestly.
How we follow up as we mean it, not the one-call-and-disappear approach.
And how we measure whether any of it is actually working.
We often say: "Haraka haraka haina baraka."
Business development rewarded for activity alone becomes noise. Fifty calls a day means nothing if none of them are with the right person, at the right time, with the right offer, or the right partner standing beside you.
Real business development is about knowing exactly where your time creates value, who you should be building bridges with, and turning the right conversations into deals the business can actually bank on. less
