Mo asks Read Davis: What is your personal definition of business development?
- Being a CEO wasn’t something that Read ever aspired to. He always enjoyed leadership, sales, and being in the field.
- When he took on the role, he put a challenge to all the business development professionals in the organization to make payroll.
- Every salesperson needs to strive to be a leader. They own the revenue and everyone at the organization is relying on them to bring in the business.
- Leaders eat last. They need to take care of everyone in their world and business development professionals are leaders at heart.
- Business development and leadership go hand-in-hand.
- Building a growth-oriented culture means understanding your mission and getting buy-in on the vision from everyone on the team. Having the support of the delivery of the service is crucial to being able to sell successfully.
- Being empathetic is important as well. There are people from both sides of the business that have a vested interest in your success.
- The objective is to put the sales and services team in front of the organization instead of behind the leadership. Read is a firm believer that the best solutions and companies are driven from the bottom up.