Modern Business Development: It's All About Relationships
This week, we had the opportunity to partner with 6453 ALUMNI, a Nike global alumni community, in a limited edition Statement Series where we bring thought leadership presentations around consulting to its members.
First up was “Relationship Revolution: Modern Business Development” where we unpacked tangible ways to build relationships in sales and marketing today.
Spoiler alert: it’s not about pushy tactics or cold calling.
The art of the sell-in is a necessity in so many situations – landing a new role, becoming a consultant, leading a startup, getting nonprofit donors, and more.
In fact, we learned from 6453 ALUMNI that a high percentage of Nike employees go on to start businesses. For many, this is a new landscape and skillset competency.
We sought to reframe the perception of hard-core selling to something that feels more approachable, authentic, and modern – building lasting relationships focused on solving problems for real impact.
After we level-set on key components of the business development lifecycle, we brought tangible ideas to be more relationship driven to reframe some outdated tactics into new practices:
Walk into every meeting with solid core beliefs around listening, empathy, and openness.
Invert what you don’t like about selling, into value-aligned selling principles.
Try a more personable approach focused on solving meaningful problems like a good friend.
Build human moments into each step of the business development lifecycle.
Don’t be afraid to be a little silly, playful, or fun – because that’s memorable.
During our open discussion, members asked some great questions such as:
What are you seeing in terms of market trends right now? We’re seeing corporate contraction, startup growth, and investment in AI technologies and adoption strategies. We recommend checking out our recent trend report.
What can I do after a deal stalls due to budget constraints? Focus on the relationship with empathy and engagement beyond the deal or even the role. Layoffs and budget constraints can create a lot of anxiety and frustration for teams. Showing up for them at this time will be remembered.
What are you doing to manage your health and wellness during a challenging time for business development? We keep our network close because while we may be independent, we don’t need to be alone. It’s good for us to gut check out experiences against the pulse of the market.
How do you tactically ensure there’s a value exchange for your services? We treat every conversation in a bespoke way, identifying the business challenges and what may be the best approach, team, and contract type to support the client. So, we have everything from time and materials (T&M) contracts to fixed fee contracts or even partner agreements that show non-monetary exchanges.
Do you think LinkedIn marketing is worth it? It depends on what you’re marketing and where your customer is! For us, we’re targeting leaders having business conversations, which is mostly found on LinkedIn. That said, we get our biggest bang for our effort doing email marketing. We find that this gets our most clicks, interest, and follow ups.
For ongoing learning, we also shared some of our favorite resources:
Nancy Duarte's TED Talk on "The secret Structure of Great Talks,"
The "Relationships 2.0: Become a Better Negotiator" podcast, and
Coming soon: For the full session recap and recording, visit 6453alumni.com, which is available to 6453 ALUMNI members.
We assist clients with workshop facilitation, pitch decks and storytelling, business advisory and coaching, go-to-market strategies, personal and business branding, and transformational change strategies—all underpinned by the principles of relationship-first business. If you’re interested in connecting, reach out to us at hello@statementco.io.