Since Lingo has become a team of 6, nearly 7 now … the focus on working ‘on’ the business rather than ‘in it’ has become more prominent in my mind.

In fact, it’s the growth (of Lingo Design) that has both allowed it to happen and rightfully forced more attention on it. One of the new terms bouncing around the studio to describe the increased activity has been ‘BDM’, in either Business Development Meetings or as Business Development Management.

Wikipedia has a good take on it, and it’s this excerpt that helps me sum up my thoughts on the topic: ”Business development and its associated tasks and processes are often indiscernible from traditional management and marketing approaches, such as strategic management, marketing management, sales and marketing, and entrepreneurship.”

Yes, they are ‘often indiscernible’ but when actually actively focusing on Business Development, I often find myself mentally shifting into using a different perspective; one that you might describe as being ‘higher up’ or ‘further out’ from the detail of the day-to-day operation. When running about at ground level, marketing and sales management activities are often ‘hands on’, and working on them involves action or activities that result in more immediate change or are ‘feel’ close up to the topics.

Business development, and the very nature of classifying it as such, requires that you ‘step back’ and consider the forward progression of the business as a whole.

In reading up on the power of perspective development, and the repeated practices thereof, I’m finding more and more that the new classification of the term, despite seeming minor, and the resulting mental shift seem to be critical for it’s understanding and therefore success.