Hiring a Business Development (BD) manager is a significant investment, both in terms of time and resources. On average, new employees take around 12 months to become fully productive in their roles, and this timeframe can be even longer for BD managers in scientific companies, where technical expertise can be a slow learning curve. Finding candidates with the necessary scientific and business background also narrows the talent pool, making the hiring process more challenging and time-consuming.
Despite those challenges, it’s quite common for companies struggling with growth to turn to hiring a new BD manager as their first solution. But within a short timeframe, most find themselves facing the same stalling growth—just at a slightly higher revenue plateau. While hiring a BD manager might seem like a logical move, it often fails to address the root causes of stagnation: your marketing.
So, let’s explore why hiring a BD manager alone won’t cut it—and what you could focus on instead.
The flaws in the BD-first approach
The BD manager you want to hire is surely a skilled professional who can generate sales to boost your business, most likely through outbound efforts. However, their individual capacity is limited. Once they reach their maximum output, your growth stalls again, leaving you in the same position as before you hired them.
Beyond this fundamental issue, there are deeper structural problems that hiring a BD won’t fix:
1. Unclear messaging
You might have the best product in the industry, but if potential customers don’t understand how it fits into their workflow, no amount of sales effort will make a difference. Before hiring a new BD, consider running a positioning audit. A third-party consultant (yes, like me) can bring a fresh perspective and pinpoint what’s causing your growth bottleneck.
For instance, in my interview with Marina Hop, founder of the marketing consulting agency Viveo, she shared how she helped a biotech startup resolve a critical positioning issue. The startup had developed an innovative technology that was well received in the market, yet no one was buying it. The problem? Their value proposition emphasized “saving time," while their target customers only wanted "better repeatability." This kind of misalignment means that, even with a dedicated sales team, your messaging will fail to resonate with potential buyers, and sales efforts will be wasted.
2. Unclear Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
If your growth has plateaued, it could be because your company is targeting the wrong type of client. No amount of sales outreach will turn an uninterested or unqualified prospect into a customer. Instead of throwing more resources at outbound sales, refine your customer persona and focus your efforts on the right target group.
3. Lack of vision
A BD manager can help execute a strategy, but they can’t replace your leadership team in setting a clear vision for growth. If your company lacks a well-defined business growth strategy, your marketing team will struggle with unfocused goals, and your BD efforts will be inefficient. Before hiring, ensure your leadership team has a clear vision for the company’s future.
4. Lack of metrics
Hiring a BD manager just because your shareholders want to see more sales won’t work unless you understand where your pipeline is broken. Ask yourself:
- Is your lead funnel healthy? Are conversion rates increasing as leads move down the funnel?
- Are you generating enough leads to meet your revenue targets?
If not, the real solution isn’t hiring another BD—it’s equipping your marketing team with the resources they need to generate and nurture leads effectively.
5. Not upselling enough
Many companies focus on acquiring new customers instead of maximizing revenue from existing ones. The Pareto principle applies here: 80% of your revenue likely comes from 20% of your clients. Upselling and expanding within your existing customer base is often more effective than hunting for new clients—but to do this well, you need clear customer insights, and you need your marketing team to nurture them.
6. Lack of marketing support
A BD manager is much more effective when backed by strong marketing support. This goes beyond just posting on social media. Marketers should be treated as an extension of the sales team, generating qualified leads, developing compelling sales materials, and clarifying messaging. If marketing isn’t functioning as a true growth engine, hiring another BD is like adding fuel to a broken car.
7. Over-reliance on individual BD managers
Putting all your growth efforts in the hands of BD managers is risky. Their job revolves around building relationships—but what happens when they leave? Well, their network goes with them. Instead of relying solely on personal networks, focus on building a scalable lead generation system that belongs to the company, not an individual.
8. Misaligned incentives
BD managers are often incentivized based on sales, regardless of the type of customer. This can lead to a situation where, under pressure to meet targets, they bring in clients who aren’t the right fit for your offering. It’s not a matter of bad intent but rather a natural consequence of outbound sales combined with performance incentives. The result: at best, a more complicated project; at worst, an unhappy customer.
Marketing, on the other hand, operates differently. For it to be effective, it must align with your value proposition. Unlike outbound sales, marketing typically relies on inbound strategies that attract pre-qualified customers, ensuring a better fit from the start.
Ok, by now you should get the idea: the reason you think you should hire a BD is often hiding more complex growth issues, but I don’t want you to walk away thinking, "Does this guy have something against BD managers?" Nope, in fact, I believe BD managers play a key role in growing a business. The point is that timing matters. There’s a right moment to bring a BD on board, and most of the time, it comes after marketing has done its job.
When hiring a BD does make sense
While hiring a BD manager is often an ineffective quick fix, there are actual situations where it makes sense and can significantly accelerate growth. The key is ensuring that the necessary foundational elements are already in place before bringing in BD support:
1. When you have a well-defined ICP and market demand
If your product is well-positioned, your target audience is well-defined, and your marketing efforts are already generating inbound interest, a BD can help convert those leads into revenue more efficiently.
2. When you need to expand into new markets
If your company is moving into a new market or geographic region, hiring a BD with expertise in that area can be invaluable. They can leverage their network, navigate cultural differences, and establish credibility faster than an internal team that lacks the necessary local insights.
3. When your lead funnel is healthy but needs better conversion
A BD can make a significant impact when marketing is already generating a steady flow of qualified leads, but conversions are not as high as they should be. In this case, a BD can refine the sales process, nurture leads more effectively, and shorten the sales cycle by providing personalized outreach.
4. When you have a scalable sales process
If your company already has a well-documented, scalable sales process, adding a BD manager can act as a growth accelerator. This ensures that new BD hires can integrate quickly, follow a proven sales methodology, and contribute to predictable revenue growth.
5. When relationship-based sales matter
In some specific cases, where trust and face-to-face connections are key, a BD manager with a strong network can help open doors that even inbound strategies can't. This could be the case if you are trying to sell to a very specific target that tends to buy based on personal relationships or is very resistant to change (big pharma, anyone?).
In short, hiring a BD manager makes sense when they serve as a multiplier rather than a problem solver. If your company already has the right foundation, then a BD manager can drive meaningful growth rather than simply delaying deeper strategic issues.
How to set up your BD for success
If you want your BD efforts to succeed, they need the right foundation. Here are a few ways to do that:
1. Put growth in the hands of marketing
Marketing should not be a secondary function that only updates your website and social media. It should be responsible for business growth. If your company has a VP of Sales but no VP of Marketing, that’s a red flag. A well-structured marketing team can drive scalable growth rather than relying on individual BD efforts.
To truly contribute to growth, marketing should:
- Develop a demand generation strategy: This means focusing on long-term brand awareness, education, and lead nurturing rather than just short-term campaigns. Effective demand generation includes inbound marketing, webinars, and targeted outreach.
- Create high-impact content: Whitepapers, case studies, technical blogs, and thought leadership articles help establish authority in your niche. Well-structured content builds trust and attracts leads organically.
- Leverage account-based marketing (ABM): For companies selling complex solutions to a niche audience, ABM ensures that marketing and sales work together to engage specific high-value accounts through personalized campaigns.
- Optimize SEO and paid advertising: Ensuring that your website ranks for relevant keywords and running targeted paid campaigns (Google Ads, LinkedIn) can generate high-quality inbound leads.
- Refine lead nurturing strategies: Marketing should implement automated email sequences, retargeting campaigns, and CRM-driven personalization to move prospects smoothly through the sales funnel.
- Use data and analytics for continuous improvement: Understanding which channels, content, and campaigns drive the most revenue helps optimize efforts for better ROI.
When marketing functions as a true growth engine, BD managers can focus on closing well-qualified leads rather than struggling to generate them from scratch. This shift makes growth more scalable and predictable.
2. Ensure internal alignement
Ideally, marketing should own the top of the funnel, generating Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and passing them as Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) to BD. Marketing should also be responsible for tracking funnel metrics and optimizing lead conversion. Your CRM should be a core marketing tool, not just a sales tracker.
Here are a few things your marketing team can do to help:
- Audit your lead generation strategy: Identify where leads are dropping off. Are you attracting the right audience? Are your campaigns delivering high-quality leads?
- Optimize your conversion path: Analyze each stage of your funnel. Are leads being properly nurtured? Do prospects have the right information at the right time to make a decision?
- Followup: Ensure that sales is following up effectively once they receive an SQL. Create shared goals and metrics to keep both teams accountable.
- Experiment with new channels: If traditional outreach isn’t working, consider other approaches and direct your sales team toward them.
Think long term
Hiring a BD manager might seem like a quick fix for growth, but it won’t address the underlying issues that hold your company back. Instead of relying solely on outbound sales, invest in a strong marketing strategy, refine your positioning, and create a scalable growth engine.
Data should drive your decisions. Measure key sales metrics, analyze what works, and double down on effective marketing strategies. If your conversion rates remain stable as you scale, that’s a strong indicator of sustainable growth.
And if you need a fresh perspective, reach out—I’d be happy to help diagnose the real bottleneck.
