Career Path Of A BDM | Advice to Aspiring Business Development Managers

What Is The Career Path Of A Business Development Manager?

• Work as Senior Business Development Manager: If you use a particular paradigm and you are thinking about it from the sales perspective, then it's probably Business Development Manager or Senior Business Development Manager. Those roles tend to be called career roles. In some cases, you may have to stay in that position for quite a time.

• Become People Manager: The next potential logical step could be becoming a people manager. You develop those skills and then manage the team of more junior folks along with taking on little more responsibility globally. You may be doing something in Latin America, North America or the US, but you take on AMIA or global perspective. In larger companies, there are more opportunities in Business Development Manager careers to move laterally and get other experience. For example, you are working on database partners, and there is some bog role working with the startup ecosystem- so getting startups to deploy on the AWS.

• Role as Resellers : There might be a reseller’s role where you have resellers and service providers and SI that are reselling their services on top of AWS. Those are three very different types of jobs that you can have in your Business Development career at one particular company. It is mostly about what interests you. What interests you to work in the company and go up the ladders in your career path? Or, do you want to accumulate knowledge from the larger company and get into a smaller one and have more responsibility? If you go to a smaller organization, you could have a different impact if it is not bigger- like you are in an organization of 125 people as opposed to 750 people in a bigger company.

3 Things To Consider While Selecting Employer For Business Development Roles

Selecting the right employer is important for every career and is not only specific to Business Development career. Everyone has to work and pay the bills. But no matter what career path you are on you must make sure that the company and its culture lines up with what is important to you. An office is one place where most of the time you will spend more time rather than with your family. You must be around like-minded people.

The culture of the company must fit with your interest. Company to company the work culture differentiates. Some places are more confrontational. To get something done, they yell the loudest. Make sure that your needs are met in terms of diversity and these are vital.

• Perceive Your Manager’s Interest: Sometimes you may not get to pick your manager, but you better make sure you understand what interests your manager the most in work. You will be on the same page. You may get to learn from him/her. Ask yourself whether you are learning something new every day in the company. Or Are you feeling excited when to go to your workplace? Those are important things.You may be in a situation where you want a job to pay your bills, but it will go out very quickly.

• Aligns with Your Interest: You should be in a place that aligns with what you want. It will be different for everybody. Some Business Development Manager will feel good with work hard, play hard mantra. Some may not want to socialize in the workplace; they may come in and do his/her work and then leave.

• Flexible Schedule: Most companies are on board with the flexibility of schedule in 2019, but there are others which are not. For Example, You may end up in a company which requires you to stay in your desk physically. Your manager may call for a meeting at 4 o'clock on Friday afternoon. You must know whether you are cool with a flexible schedule.

Success Tips For Aspiring Business Development Managers

• Learn :Always keep on learning. Garner as much information as you can. You can represent that later in your Business Development career.

• Feed Your Soul: If one is doing it for the paycheck, they must be upfront with that. But there are some people whose jobs feed their soul more excellently. They know that they are doing something worthwhile and it is excellent. But that's not the case with everybody in Business Development Manager careers. 

• Find Right Organization: Know what is important to you, the paycheck or feeding your soul with work satisfaction? You should find that organization where you are excited to work in. But ultimately, how you look at your work as Business Development Manager will matter most as well as how you do your job.