Biz Dev 4 Humanz enhances services to California businesses!
We can now offer "full-contact" business services to our clients in Northern California. While we've always been able to provide service to our clients anywhere in the US or abroad, there are time and location issues whenever you are working with someone in another state. Face-to-face meetings take a bit longer to plan, time zones can come into play, etc. Now, with a location midway between Sacramento and the Bay Area, we can alleviate those issues.
For those of you in other states, don't lament. We can still get to you relatively quickly. And, we have established partnerships with other agencies nationwide. Rest assured, wherever you are, we can be there for you.
Mark Hagan of Biz Dev 4 Humanz was quoted in a recent article by Stacie Spring of the East Valley Tribune, based in Tempe, Arizona. The article, entitled, "'Solopreneurship' creates business opportunity for experienced Baby Boomers" speaks of the unique position many Boomers find themselves in: Too much experience and talent. In our current economy employers are ever cautious about hiring new employees and those with years of experience are typically gained at a price. Employees represent part of the fixed costs an employer must deal with. Layoffs aren't pleasant for either employee or employer so it is consider wise to refrain from hiring new employees until you are reasonably sure you can afford to keep them.
So what's a Boomer to do?
"You’re too old or too expensive, is what they say,” said Mark Hagan, a local 'solopreneur' who recently opened his own consulting firm with clients in Gilbert and Chandler. “It’s a lot harder to find that position that we’re used to finding."
Boomers, in particular have been hard hit by layoffs and hiring freezes. They aren't necessarily replaced, and eventually a company may find that they are, again, in need of the talent Boomers possess. The solution is to contract with a consultant. They can provide the experience and talent needed to help move the project and company forward. Staffing to support such projects is not as expensive and the consultant does not represent any fixed expense or long term commitment.
More than a few Boomers have realized this trend and become 'Solopreneurs'. The challenge for many is taking their experience, insuring it is up-to-date, with cross-industry value, and marketing it.
“I speak geek,” Hagan said. “I’ve found that a lot of businesses don’t (speak geek) when it means getting into the newest social media and marketing strategies. So many businesses want to leverage their technology, many businesses are using these tools, but they’re not always using them in an effective way.”
With technology such as conference calling, video calling, email, websites and social media, there are a lot of new tools that have little or no expense, which are available to even small business owners, Hagan said.
Given the high tech tools available and the current trends in business hiring practices this is a great time to be a consultant. Our experience is needed and given that we have up-up-to-date skills our value has never been higher. The East Valley Tribune is distributed in the cities of Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler, Queen Creek, Tempe and Apache Junction, Arizona. "' Solopreneurship' creates business opportunity for experienced Baby Boomers", written by Stacie Spring, was published on June 1, 2012.
Business development is a combination of strategic analysis, marketing, and sales. Business development (or "biz dev") professionals can be involved in everything from the development of products and services, the formation of long term marketing strategies, creation of sales lead pipelines, to negotiating and closing acquisition or partnership deals.
The job of the business development professional is typically to identify new business opportunities, whether that means new markets, new partnerships with other businesses, new ways to reach existing markets, or new product or service offerings to better meet the needs of existing markets and exploit those opportunities to create or sustain revenue streams.
Since the field is a cousin of marketing and sales, when an organization doesn't have a stand-alone business development department, sales and/or marketing personnel are handling business development responsibilities. Unfortunately, business development tilts towards long term planning and execution, whereas, sales and marketing departments are typically focused on goals for the year or even the next few months. These conflicting timelines can make it difficult for department heads and individual contributors to adequately address the requirements of business development.
For companies that are in need of business development expertise, contracting with an outside consultant offers advantages.
- High value. Even though consultants cannot be expected to be as familiar with the organization as the managers, and are generally more expensive in the short than most employees, they can bring a great deal of knowledge and outside resources to bear in a way that an employee cannot.
- An independent viewpoint. Precisely because a consultant is not a member of the organization, he or she brings objectivity and detachment to the problems faced by the organization. Because the consultant is not involved in the internal politics of the informal organization or cliques, the views and opinions of the consultant can be accepted as unbiased.
- Special qualifications. An experienced consultant possesses special knowledge, skills and a variety of personal attributes. Although success cannot be guaranteed for every engagement, the consultant with the most suitable qualifications should have the greatest probability of providing a satisfactory resolution.
- Temporary professional services. Organizations sometimes find themselves short of critical expertise in a given area. Engaging a consultant will probably be less expensive in the long run than hiring new managers or employees.
- Change Agent. Growing businesses must undergo periodic changes to continue to grow long term. Consultants such as Biz Dev 4 Humanz can recommend changes to the organizational structure, analyze internal processes to maximize productivity, and help you implement the changes.
Contracting with a consultant varies from the hiring process in this regard: You are creating a temporary "limited partnership" to the extent that this person or company will have access to proprietary information, but is independent and able to bring outside resources to bear to solve problems or create new opportunities.
Finding a great consultant with whom you can communicate easily and trust in what they may tell you is key to the relationship. If you have any doubts in the beginning they will only be magnified at a some point when the decisions you make are critical to your company's continued success.
What is Business Development? It can be hard to define because biz dev encompasses several disciplines and blurs the traditional barrier between sales, marketing, operations, management, and product development. If you ask 10 different people to define business development you'll likely get 10 different answers. The role of a business developer will vary from company to company too. I've tried to give a concise definition in this video.
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