If you think sales generation is expensive, wait till you work with a business development (BD) person.
There is an old saying about BD people. Bus Dev = No Rev.
Bus Dev people from traditional tech companies are almost always the best looking, have great hair and way too often focus on top down deals that seldom generate field level (customer) revenue.
Their deals are almost always top-down. So the street sales rep gets an email noting some bureaucrat at their firm signed a deal with a company nobody heard of.
DELETE key.
Are you aware firms like SAP, VMware and Oracle have over 7,000 partnerships each? Do you think being number 7,001 gets you anything?
Business development is really important but most BD deals generate little if any real revenue. Nor do they focus on early adopter/innovator dynamics.
ContingencySales believes there are better ways for raw startups.
Our opinion is you need to find the partner looking for you. That may not be the partner you think you want. It never is.
What do you want in a partner?
You want the second or third tier player whose sales reps are screaming they do not have what they need to win competitive deals.
That is the partner looking for you and that is the only one you can get without spending a ton of cash and most likely getting only a signature with no revenue behind it.
And if you get a deal, those sales reps will make it work because you are all they have. You are the solution they were looking for. This kind of deal has internal energy—which means stuff happens.
There is an iron-clad rule for successful BD deals:
If the street sales reps are not clamoring for your solution because they need it now to win deals, you have a zero chance of success.